How deep into madness is the conservative agenda?
The new platform would call for:
- Requiring Texas students “to learn about the humanity of the preborn child,” including teaching that life begins at fertilization and requiring students to listen to live ultrasounds of gestating fetuses.
- Amending the Texas Constitution to remove the Legislature’s power “to regulate the wearing of arms, with a view to prevent crime.”
- Treating homosexuality as “an abnormal lifestyle choice,” language that was not included in the 2018 or 2020 party platforms.
- Deeming gender identity disorder “a genuine and extremely rare mental health condition,” requiring official documents to adhere to “biological gender,” and allowing civil penalties and monetary compensation to “de-transitioners” who have received gender-affirming surgery, which the platform calls a form of medical malpractice.
- Changing the U.S. Constitution to cement the number of Supreme Court justices at nine and repeal the 16th Amendment of 1913, which created the federal income tax.
- Ensuring “freedom to travel” by opposing Biden’s Clean Energy Plan and “California-style, anti-driver policies,” including efforts to turn traffic lanes over for use by pedestrians, cyclists and mass transit.
- Declaring “all businesses and jobs as essential and a fundamental right,” a response to COVID-19 mandates by Texas cities that required customers to wear masks and limited business hours.
- Abolishing the Federal Reserve, the nation’s central bank, and guaranteeing the right to use alternatives to cash, including cryptocurrencies.
Don’t forget this!
My idiosyncratic criterion for how bad is getting that years ago, I was focused on the creationist perspective they were always pushing. They still are! The traditional (for creationists) “strengths and weaknesses” language is still being promoted in the official Texas GOP platform.
Scientific Theories: We support objective teaching of scientific theories, such as life origins and climate change. These shall be taught as challengeable scientific theories subject to change as new data is produced. Teachers and students shall discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these theories openly, without fear of retribution or discrimination of any kind.
The thing is, now they’ve got so much more and so much worse evil advocacy in their platform that no one is bothering to mention the old stupidities. I’m actually kind of impressed at their restraint. They’re happy to come right out and say homosexuality is bad and they want to end gay marriage, the income tax, and that they oppose transgender normalizing curriculum and pronoun use,
but they can’t quite summon the courage to openly push for a seven day, young earth creation…even though that’s what they want.
I wonder if they consider the fact that creationism is contradicted by mountains of evidence a weakness.
( sigh) The Wedge Strategy . Science literates and scientists saw this coming years ago.
Matt , sadly they don’t . God can do anything doncha know ! That includes changing the basic fabric of the universe to do miracles
They’re leaning into the whole “work is freedom” thing, aren’t they.
I’m surprised that they didn’t also try to legislate the value of pi being exactly 3. The religionists were trying to legislate that some years ago.
@kome, just to warm up for FREEDOM IS SLAVERY…
For the GOP, nineteen eighty four isn’t a warning, it’s an instruction manual.
++++++++
Intelligence Trap: why clever people (Einstein / Arthur Conan Doyle) make bigger mistakes
Mar 15, 2021
On the Edge With Andrew Gold Podcast
Science writer David Robson talks about why clever people like Einstein
and Arthur Conan Doyle make bigger mistakes, and his book, The Intelligence Trap
on On the Edge with Andrew Gold podcast. It’s a brilliantly written and
researched book about how the cleverest people in the world…are often the
ones who make the biggest mistakes. . .
[0:14]
Robson: When I became a science journalist I was interviewing loads
of brilliant scientists and writing about them. But you would often
find these stories around their lives that were quite surprising and
didn’t really seem to match with their discoveries and what you
knew about their academic career. So one example was this poor
physicist called Paul Frampton. So he was in the running for a Nobel
prize for all of his work setting up the experiments in CERN. He
came up with all these huge theories of physics that were being
tested at CERN. But then he started on-line dating, started chatting
to this woman who seemed like a supermodel — well, who was
claiming to be a supermodel — and ended up arranging to meet her
in Bolivia. She didn’t turn up, but asked him to carry her suitcase
over the border to Argentina. Which he did, and then he was
arrested for carrying two kilograms of cocaine. So, you know — that
could be explained really easily as just a lack of common sense,
maybe he just had his head in the clouds. . . But he had actually
been warned of this possibility by multiple people. And he just
ignored all of their arguments. It seemed to me like a really clear
example of this idea of motivated reasoning, where you’re applying
your brain power to just support your argument, like, what you really
want to be true. And he really wanted to believe that this
beautiful woman was in love with him. I was at New Scientist at
the time, and there was a lot of talk about that case in the newsroom,
and that just got me thinking more broadly about what we mean when
we say someone is “intelligent”, and what skills does that definition
miss that would be really important in life in general. . .
++++
“Look down on your lessers” transformed into a complete political platform, lest too many people start looking up instead…
They are outlawing Trans people here.
These are the same people who endlessly go on about all their freedoms and how important they are.
They then spend all their time trying to limit the freedoms of everyone for every reason.
It’s a fascist thing.
Don’t mess with Texas, it’s messed up enough already.
Reportedly, they’ve started openly attacking Log Cabin Republicans.
Which honestly, the Log Cabins should have seen coming years ago.
@8 raven:
“These are the same people who endlessly go on about all their freedoms and how important they are.
They then spend all their time trying to limit the freedoms of everyone for every reason.”
It’s easy raven: if MY right to swing MY arms ends where your nose begins, then your nose is limiting MY rights, and must be removed by any means necessary. Nothing personal, it’s just logic!
(Emphasis added.)
Well, they timed that rotten plank of their toxic, stinking, bad fungi infected, termite ridden, splintery, unsupportive platform well didn’t they? Not.
Also, they think folks ain’t already using credit cards, cheques and, er, bartering?
@10 mcroraptor
The LCRs have been acting like idiots for nigh on to half a century. This supports my thesis that Conservatism should be classified as a mental illness.
@ ^ moarscienceplz : yeah, ’bout that? Can you not?
Wilful ignorance, ugly malice, bigotry and prejudice and tehresult of urdoch’es barin-washing, absolutely.
Actually not being neurotypical or intellectaully challenged – not so much.
^ Fix for clarity, sorry : the result of Murdoch’es brain-washing, absolutely.
Re my #13
Should have typed (and seen in my preview) “microraptor”.
@ 3 God can do anything doncha know ! That includes changing the basic fabric of the universe to do miracles
Yeah, your milage may vary on that one. Try having a Cristian to explain to you why you shouldn’t pray to god to have your severed arm grow back. Apparently there are some things god could do but won’t, because reasons.
Wow, no more oil subsidies?
That will save us taxpayers quite a few billion a year, I wonder if they really mean it.
@14 StevoR
“Actually not being neurotypical or intellectaully challenged – not so much.”
I am not a neuroscientist, but my impression is that things like autism or Down’s syndrome are no longer classified as “mental illnesses”. If some hoi polloi still do, that’s on them, but my comment was not in any way meant to lump in neuroatypical people with people who don’t see reality when it is right in front of their faces.
I haven’t seen a finer testament to the average Southern mentality since I was a kid in Florida. What’s surprising is what isn’t on their list, at least not explicitly. Social Security has clearly been in their sights for years. ACA also has to go. Erasing the gains, such as they are, in racial/ethnic equality by overturning numerous SCOTUS decisions that ended a lot of open segregation. For example, overturning Love vs State of Virginia…wonder if Thomas would recuse himself on that one.
According to Heather Cox Richardson there are some other jewels in this crown of stupid:
• rejecting the Equal Rights Amendment
• returning Christianity to schools and government
• abolishing the Department of Education
• arming teachers
• requiring colleges to teach “free-market liberty principles” – whatever that is
• defending capital punishment
• dictating the ways in which the events at the Alamo are remembered
• protecting Confederate monuments
• withdrawing from the United Nations and the World Health Organization
• calling for a vote “for the people of Texas to determine whether or not the State of Texas should reassert its status as an independent nation.”
I particularly like the one about the Alamo, that most hallowed of sacred sites for Texans. Here a bunch of money grabbing land speculators exploiting the expansion of slavery (Filibusterers) were killed while revolting against the constitutional authority of a Mexico which had abolished slavery some years before.
The Texas GOP Platform has been bringing the crazy for decades. They were one of the first official platforms to condemn “Agenda 21” as a Trojan horse as part of the insane New World Order conspiracy theory.
When the democrats get massacred in 2024, I hope Kamala Harris refuses to certify the results. That’s the way it’s done righteously, yes?
PS – give Texas back to Mexico. And let Florida seceede. Guaranteed no more red-state majority ever again! So much self-own, fascists!
@19 robro
“Social Security has clearly been in their sights for years.”
Hoo doggie! I would LOVE to them assholes wrestle that tar-baby!
That would peel off so much of their aged base of support that they could be arrested for indecent exposure!
@22 Marcus Ranum
I have long felt that the WORST thing the USA did was to win the Civil War. OTOH, do we really want another decaying oligarchy at our borders?
“When the democrats get massacred in 2024, I hope Kamala Harris refuses to certify the results. That’s the way it’s done righteously, yes?”
Nope, the magic only works when white (very white) people do it.
Translation:
Freedom is (wage) slavery, ignorance is strength.
Incidentally Ur-douche does sum Murdoch up pretty well ..
We’ll do it the South American Way.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/18/world/americas/jan-6-hearing-constitution-democracy.html
++++++++
In Constitutional Crises, Democracies Aren’t Always Democratic
When political leaders face a constitutional crisis, like that of Jan. 6,
the process of collectively deciding how to respond can be messy, arbitrary,
and sometimes change the nature of the system itself.
By Max Fisher
June 18, 2022
If you look for international parallels to the moment last year when
Vice President Mike Pence refused to bow to pressure from President Donald J. Trump
to help overturn their election defeat, something quickly becomes clear.
Such crises, with democracy’s fate left to a handful of officials, rarely
resolve purely on legal or constitutional principles, even if those might later
be cited as justification.
Rather, their outcome is usually determined by whichever political elites happen
to form a quick critical mass in favor of one result. And those officials are left
to follow whatever motivation — principle, partisan antipathy, self-interest — happens
to move them.
Taken together, the history of modern constitutional crises underscores some hard
truths about democracy. Supposedly bedrock norms, like free elections or rule of law,
though portrayed as irreversibly cemented into the national foundation, are in truth
only as solid as the commitment of those in power. And while a crisis can be an
opportunity for leaders to reinforce democratic norms, it can also be an opportunity
to revise or outright revoke them. . .
Americans may see more in common with Peru. There, President Alberto Fujimori
in 1992 dissolved the opposition-held Congress, which had been moving to impeach him.
Lawmakers across the spectrum quickly voted to replace Mr. Fujimori with his
own vice president, who had opposed the presidential power grab.
Both sides claimed to be defending democracy from the other. Both appealed to Peru’s
military, which had traditionally played a role of ultimate arbiter, almost akin
to that of a supreme court. The public, deeply polarized, split. The military was
also split.
At the critical moment, enough political and military elites signaled support for
Mr. Fujimori that he prevailed. They came together informally, each reacting to events
individually, and many appealing to different ends, such as Mr. Fujimori’s economic agenda,
notions of stability, or a chance for their party to prevail under the new order.
Peru fell into quasi-authoritarianism, with political rights curtailed and elections
still held but under terms that favored Mr. Fujimori, until he was removed from office
in 2000. . .
Modern Latin America has repeatedly faced such crises. This is due less to any shared
cultural traits, many scholars argue, than to a history of Cold War meddling that
weakened democratic norms. It also stems from American-style presidential systems,
and deep social polarization that paves the way for extreme political combat.
Presidential democracies, by dividing power among competing branches, create more
opportunities for rival offices to clash, even to the point of usurping one another’s
powers. Such systems also blur questions of who is in charge, forcing their branches
to resolve disputes informally, on the fly and at times by force. . .
While other systems can fall into major crisis, it is often because, as in a
presidential democracy, competing power centers clash to the point of trying to
overrun one another.
Still, some scholars argue that Americans hoping to understand their country’s trajectory
should look not to Europe but to Latin America. . .
The phrase “political elites” can conjure images of cigar-chomping power-brokers,
meeting in secret to pull society’s strings. In reality, scholars use the term to
describe lawmakers, judges, bureaucrats, police and military officers, local officials,
business chiefs and cultural figures, most of whom will never coordinate directly,
much less agree on what is best for the country.
Still, it is those elites who collectively uphold democracy day-to-day. Much as
paper money only has value because we all treat it as valuable, elections and laws
only have power because elites wake up every morning and treat them as paramount.
It is a kind of compact, in which the powerful voluntarily bind themselves to a
system that also constrains them.
“A well-functioning, orderly democracy does not require us to actively think about
what sustains it,” Tom Pepinsky, a Cornell University political scientist, told me
shortly after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. “It’s an equilibrium; everybody is
incentivized to participate as if it will continue.”
But in a major constitutional crisis, when the norms and rules meant to guide
democracy come under doubt, or fall by the wayside entirely, those elites suddenly
face the question of how — or whether — to keep up their democratic compact.
They will not always agree on what course is best for democracy, or for the country,
or for themselves. Sometimes, the shock of seeing democracy’s vulnerability will
lead them to redouble their commitment to it, and sometimes to jettison that system
in part or whole.
The result is often a scramble of elites pressuring one another directly, as many
senior Republicans and White House aides did throughout Jan. 6, or through public
statements aimed at the thousands of officials operating the machinery of government.
Scholars call this a “coordination game,” with all those actors trying to understand
and influence how the others will respond until a minimally viable consensus emerges.
It can resemble less a well-defined plot than a herd of startled animals, which is
why the outcome can be hard to predict.
Before Jan. 6, there had been little reason to wonder over lawmakers’ commitment to
democracy. “It had not been a question of whether or not they supported democracy
in a real internal sense — that had never been the stakes,” Dr. Pepinsky said.
Now, a crisis had forced them to decide whether to overturn the election, demonstrating
that not all of those lawmakers, if given that choice, would vote to uphold democracy.
“I’ve been floored by how much of this really does depend on 535 people,” Dr. Pepinsky
said, referring to the number of lawmakers in Congress.
++++
Wonder what they’ll be teaching in high-school civics classes in 2030.
This was pointed out to Trump’s lawyer, John Eastman, but he just didn’t care:
Oh, that must be the Jordan Peterson Principle for getting
postmodern neo-Marxism outta American universities.
youtube dot com/watch?v=YYdfVA5JURE
[the account has since been terminated]
++++++++
Google Memo: Aftermath
Jordan Peterson and Stefan Molyneux
Published on Aug 14, 2017
24:10/1:18:08
Jordan Peterson: OK, so by the 1960s Marxism was pretty much discredited,
certainly by the mid-70s when Solzhenitsyn wrote The Gulag Archipelago,
which should be required reading for every citizen in North America —
in fact, in the world. So what happened then, as far as I can tell, is
the French intellectuals, who were sort of at the forefront of the Marxist
movement, and also the most recalcitrant with regards to apologizing
for the excesses of Communism, performed an intellectual sleight-of-hand
and slapped Marxism with a postmodern facade to hide from those who
were justly criticizing it its transmutation, and it’s progressed apace
through the universities ever since. And so, we see now the absolute
domination of the humanities and much of the social sciences by this
unholy alliance — unholy and incoherent alliance — between postmodernism,
which claims there are no reliable grand narratives, and neo-Marxism,
which is a grand narrative of exactly the kind the postmodernists object
to. So it’s not even intellectually coherent. So now we have the domination
of the universities by what are essentially unrepentant Marxists producing
social activists of the type, for example, that were hired as VP of diversity
and human resources for Google. And they’re the fifth column within these
capitalist organizations. The damn capitalists don’t seem to have enough
sense to push back against the people who are really their mortal enemies.
It’s a remarkable spectacle, actually.
So, as far as I’m concerned, the universities need to be, um — what would
you say? — the state of the universities needs to be addressed and
repaired. And we have one tactic in mind for that, so I’m going to release
a Web site here in about two weeks that will enable students to upload
course descriptions, along with the professor’s name, the discipline
and the university, and it’s got an AI engine inside it, and it will tell
the student whether or not the course is postmodern neo-Marxist
indoctrination cult material. And then leave it up to the student whether
or not they want to take that course. And so what I’m hoping is that
the right way to address the pathological and powerful remnants of this
Marxist idiocy — murderous idiocy — is to stanch the flow of new minds
into their indoctrination camps, and I think the best way to do that is
through information. So I’m going to make a video detailing some of the
things we’re talking about and introduce this Web site. So, you know, that’s
one possible strategy for cleaning this mess up. . .
++++
Cf. Sinclair Lewis’s Georgie Babbitt:
++++++++
But the way of the righteous is not all roses. Before I close
I must call your attention to a problem we have to face, this coming
year. The worst menace to sound government is not the
avowed socialists but a lot of cowards who work under cover — the
long-haired gentry who call themselves “liberals” and “radicals”
and “non-partisan” and “intelligentsia” and God only knows how
many other trick names! Irresponsible teachers and professors
constitute the worst of this whole gang, and I am ashamed to say
that several of them are on the faculty of our great State
University! The U. is my own Alma Mater, and I am proud to be
known as an alumni, but there are certain instructors there who
seem to think we ought to turn the conduct of the nation over to
hoboes and roustabouts.
Those profs are the snakes to be scotched — they and all their
milk-and-water ilk! The American business man is generous to a
fault, but one thing he does demand of all teachers and lecturers
and journalists: if we’re going to pay them our good money,
they’ve got to help us by selling efficiency and whooping it up for
rational prosperity! And when it comes to these blab-mouth, fault-
finding, pessimistic, cynical University teachers, let me tell you
that during this golden coming year it’s just as much our duty to
bring influence to have those cusses fired as it is to sell all the real
estate and gather in all the good shekels we can.
Not till that is done will our sons and daughters see that the
ideal of American manhood and culture isn’t a lot of cranks sitting
around chewing the rag about their Rights and their Wrongs, but a
God-fearing, hustling, successful, two-fisted Regular Guy, who
belongs to some church with pep and piety to it, who belongs to the
Boosters or the Rotarians or the Kiwanis, to the Elks or Moose or Red
Men or Knights of Columbus or any one of a score of organizations
of good, jolly, kidding, laughing, sweating, upstanding, lend-a-handing
Royal Good Fellows, who plays hard and works hard, and whose
answer to his critics is a square-toed boot that’ll teach the grouches
and smart alecks to respect the He-man and get out and root for Uncle
Samuel, U.S.A.!”
— Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt , 1922
++++
;->
“all businesses and jobs as essential and a fundamental right”
This is an interesting way for the GOP to declare that sex work is essential and a right, but I’ll take the silver lining.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/18/us/firearm-gun-sales.html
++++++++
Gun Sellers’ Message to Americans: Man Up
The number of firearms in the U.S. is outpacing the country’s population,
as an emboldened gun industry and its allies target buyers with rhetoric of fear,
machismo and defiance.
By Mike McIntire, Glenn Thrush and Eric Lipton
June 18, 2022
Last November, hours after a jury acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse of two shooting
deaths during antiracism protests in 2020, a Florida gun dealer created an image
of him brandishing an assault rifle, with the slogan: “BE A MAN AMONG MEN.”
Mr. Rittenhouse was not yet a man when he killed two people and wounded another in
Kenosha, Wis. — he was 17 — but he aspired to be like one. And the firearms industry,
backed by years of research and focus groups, knows that other Americans do, too.
Gun companies have spent the last two decades scrutinizing their market and
refocusing their message away from hunting toward selling handguns for personal safety,
as well as military-style weapons attractive to mostly young men. The sales pitch — rooted
in self-defense, machismo and an overarching sense of fear — has been remarkably successful.
Firearm sales have skyrocketed. . .
Using Madison Avenue methods, the firearms industry has sliced and diced consumer attributes
to find pressure points — self-esteem, lack of trust in others, fear of losing control — useful
in selling more guns.
In a paradigm-setting 2012 ad in Maxim magazine, Bushmaster — which manufactured the rifle
used in the racist massacre in Buffalo in May — declared, “Consider your man card reissued.”
At the National Rifle Association convention in Houston last month, a Missouri-based gun
maker, Black Rain Ordnance, featured a line of “BRO” semiautomatics punning on the company’s
acronym: AR-15-style guns with names like BRO-Tyrant and BRO-Predator. Dozens of other
vendors had similar messages. . .
Since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School a decade ago, gun sales have almost
always risen sharply in the aftermath of major shootings, as buyers snap up firearms they
worry will disappear from stores. . .
[H]unting accounted for a majority of advertisements in Guns magazine from the 1960s
to the late 1990s. . .
“[T]he core emphasis” shifted in the 2000s to “armed self-defense,” and. . .
the percentage of hunting-related ads had dropped to about 10 percent by 2019.
This transition was accompanied by a surge in popularity of the Glock semiautomatic
handgun and AR-15-type rifle, first widely used by law enforcement and in the military,
in its fully automatic version. That provided a built-in market among veterans and
former police officers, but also kicked off an effort to woo millions of men who
liked to buy gear that made them feel like soldiers and the police.
In 2009, a marketing firm hired by Remington to push its Bushmaster AR-15s settled
on an ad campaign targeting civilians who “aspired” to be part of law enforcement.
The first draft of the new pitch, later obtained by lawyers representing parents of
children killed at Sandy Hook, exhorted buyers to use their new rifles to
“Clear the Crack House,” “Ice the Perp” and “Save the Hostage.” . . .
“If you look back, it hasn’t just revolved around mass shootings. They tailored
their marketing to Katrina, Y2K, 9/11, pretty much everything. . . Their goal
is basically to induce a Pavlovian response: ‘If there’s a crisis, you must go
get a gun.’” . . .
Along with the rise in gun sales has been an intensifying effort by the industry
to understand — and influence — the American consumer. In 2016, the trade association
commissioned its first “consumer segmentation” study that developed profiles of
potential gun buyers with labels like “Unarmed Aaron” and “Weaponless Wendy,” who
presumably could succumb to the right sales pitch. . .
The aggressive messaging around fear has also helped define a newer crop of gun rights
groups that increasingly overshadow the more deep-pocketed, but troubled, N.R.A. . .
The Firearms Policy Coalition, which has launched numerous court challenges to
gun laws around the country, used to sell T-shirts and bumper stickers with anodyne
pro-gun mottos such as “Shall Not Be Infringed.”
But today, its online store has gear emblazoned with barbs like – “Abolish the ATF”
and “Go and Print It,” a reference to using 3-D printers at home to make untraceable
ghost guns. On social media, the coalition whips up members with warnings of an
“impending GUNPOCALYPSE” wrought by weak or corrupt Washington politicians. . .
++++
++++++++
From Dusk Till Dawn – Sex Machine’s Crotch Gun
Jul 7, 2019
Don’t mess with Sex Machine 😉
++++
moarscienceplz #25 — You might be surprised how many recipients of Social Security would vote to kill the benefit. It is “evil Socialism” after all. In fact, many older people vote for Republicans knowing full well that their agenda includes ending the “Welfare State” with Social Security a part of that.
@8
well, of course they want to limit yours, mine, and everyone else’s freedoms. There are just so many freedomz to go around, donchaknow?
Abolishing the Federal Reserve, the nation’s central bank, and guaranteeing the right to use alternatives to cash, including cryptocurrencies.
The rest of the list is garbage, but this is fresh garbage. That’s a recipe for hyperinflation if I’ve ever seen one. Are they trying to make 2029 look like 1929? I’m not keen on spending my twilight years in a second Great Depression. Tell you what, how about we trial this in Texas first. See how well it works. When 80% of the banks and credit unions close and ,ove out of state, maybe they’ll realize they just fucked up.
@robro #34
“You might be surprised how many recipients of Social Security would vote to kill the benefit.”
Well, there’s bar talk and there’s paying the bills at the end of the month. This gets back to my claim that Conservativism blinds one to reality.
The most common age to apply for SSI benefits is age 62, which is the youngest possible age. Yet, applying that early reduces your benefits permanently, AND it was a shock to me to see how paltry one’s lifetime benefits are when applying at 62, yet I reiterate it is the earliest possible age to apply. This tells me that many people are desperate for ANY social benefit they can get.
25 26 moar
Yes Texans certainly will allow a vote against SS benefits. They voted against death taxes and voted against death panels. Even though the folks who benefited from keeping their generational wealth are keeping them poor and desperate and their feet on their elderly necks (after all Paxson up and said it’s the duty of the elderly to die of COVID), and even though private insurers have death panels that aren’t even staffed by medical personnel and are staffed by minimum-wage employees.
And the winning of the Civil War wasn’t the problem, the irredentist racism that didn’t allow the forty acres and a mule to proceed, and the ending of the occupation until such society as they had time to economically change was the problem. The war was insufficiently prosecuted.
Ray Ceeya @ #36 — “…how about we trial this in Texas first.” Unfortunately the Texas economy isn’t isolated from the US or the world economy. We’re all in this thing together.
moarscienceplz @ #37 — I’ve never seen a person that couldn’t make choices against their own self interest. By the way, there’s an actuarial gamble in waiting until full retirement age. Namely, if you wait to start drawing social security until you get the maximum, and then only live a year or two, you’ve lost some money although it might benefit survivors. Still the difference in payments between early retirement and full retirement are not that great as I recall when I looked at many years ago. I waited.
seachange #38
“The war was insufficiently prosecuted.”
Yes. I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek there, and of course, ignoring the plight of the enslaved people when I said we should have given up on the Civil War.
Robro #39
“I’ve never seen a person that couldn’t make choices against their own self interest.”
Absolutely. But that just makes my claim that conservatives are mentally ill. People with Down’s syndrome or autism would not tend to vote this way, they are cognizant beings. Only insane people would do that.
The platform has one big omission.
They neglected to bring back the Bellamy salute (look it up).
Follow-up to my #41 comment:
I have no children and yet I always vote in favor of school bond proposals in my district. Partially, this is self-interest: I might have one of these kids as my doctor someday. Mostly, this is future-interest: I want the future USA to have better policies than I had a chance to vote for.
@ moarscienceplz, #41
Oh fuck off with that ableist garbage. They are not insane, they are not mentally ill, they’re just plain fucking evil. Their primary interest is harming the Other. They will vote to kill Social Security not because they are unable to recognize that they’re harming themselves, but because they believe it will harm the Other more than it will hurt them. They are correct in that belief, which makes it an entirely rational belief to hold.
Conservatives are clearly not in contact with reality in any meaningful way, putting them firmly in the “mentally ill” category.
Further, due to their complete detachment from reality, they are a danger to themselves and, most importantly, a danger to others.
They are not just garden-variety Gran’s-gone-a-little-off mentally ill, they are dangerously psychotic, and need to be put into proper care facilities.
++++++++
#American #Documentary #1994 (1:11:49)
[LG] Coming Out Under Fire
Jun 11, 2022
xsakurax
Documentary: Coming Out Under Fire (1994)
A historical account of military policy regarding homosexuals
during World War II. The documentary includes interviews with
several gay WWII veterans.
6:26 (/1:11:49)
Psychiatric casualties had been a major problem in World War I,
and still overwhelmed veterans’ hospitals. The military wanted
to prevent this from happening again. Psychiatrists claimed they
could help by screening out the mentally ill
before they entered the service, and advised policy-makers that
homosexuals were among the mentally ill. The new screening
guidelines classified homosexuals as unfit to serve, and instructed
examiners to ask all men and women entering the armed forces
if they were homosexual. This questioning forced homosexual
recruits into a double-bind: pass as heterosexual, or be sent
back home officially labelled as a “sex pervert”.
“Dual psychiatric examination of applicants for voluntary
enlistment and selectees for induction! The surgeon general
desires that medical officers be especially alert to detect
all persons with constitutional psychopathy, and other persons
who later may disrupt discipline and morale. In this general
group are to be grotesque and pathological liars, vagabonds,
petty offenders, swindlers, kleptomaniacs, pyromaniacs,
alcoholic persons, and homosexual persons.” . . .
++++
I think we can probably all agree about the pyromaniacs. As for the
rest — as always, YMMV.
;->
@ 36
The right has been howling about the federal reserve and “fiat currency” since the 30s. It used to be they wanted to drag us back to the gold standard, but it seems that cryptocurrency has replaced it.
Paper money is somehow “worthless” but a digital currency is supposed to be worth something?
@44 vucodlak
I think we are actually in agreement, and it is merely terminology that separates us.
“Paper money is somehow “worthless” but a digital currency is supposed to be worth something?”
Heh!
What people don’t get is that the US Dollar is based on the BEST basis for a currency: taxes. If you need to pay USA taxes, you must get USA dollars to pay them. THAT (plus our big honkin’ economy) is what guarantees the good ol’ American greenback will be desired worldwide for the forseeable future.
moarscienceplz ^
Don’t forget the US$ is the reserve currency used many nations to purchase oil, which makes it valuable for almost all international trade. As such the USA can maintain its economic power while being essentailly bankrupt.
That is as good a reason as ‘china’ or ‘russia’ or ‘iran’ or ‘communists’ or (while we are at it) ‘trans and gays’ , ‘UFOs’ or any ${enemy} for the military-industrial complex. Some gets the stick, some gets the carrot.
The GOP is, to all appearances, morally bankrupt, so no surprises in this raft of proposed txn ‘legislation’. It all sounds a bit like a cowards version of a secession manifesto though.
moarscienceplz @ #48:
I think you’re right. The problem with your terminology is that, while it conveys the sentiment, the fact that mental health terms are used this way is harmful to people with actual mental illnesses, for a number of reasons. I’m sure you wouldn’t do it on purpose if you understood and agreed with that point of view. Even if you don’t fully agree, or haven’t given it enough thought to form an opinion yet, it only takes a small effort to avoid using mental health terms casually, and people here (and elsewhere) will appreciate you for it.
I don’t like the Texas Tribune’s way of wording this “… efforts to turn traffic lanes over for use by pedestrians, cyclists and mass transit”
So only motorized private transport is “traffic”? Walking, cycling, or taking the bus/tram/train isn’t? Still a car centered view of the world.
I mean, i detest the Texas Republicans for actively trying to make climate change worse, and everything else on the list, but the TTribune isn’t really helping, much, either.
There is so much here, but today what amuses me most today is the continuing campaign against the Federal Reserve. I know there are complex issues and that the Fed is not exactly a progressive institution, but I suspect these clowns have no idea how the thing came into existence. Essentially, under the free market and hard money system circa 1900, all the cash was migrating to financial centers, especially NYC, leaving a currency shortage in all those places that are now deep red. A main purpose of the Federal Reserve was to give small town banks access to short term credit and currency so they and the customers would not have to resort to token systems and barter.
On a related note, several have already pointed out the irony of railing against fiat currency while promoting cryptocurrency, but can anyone explain to me why gold is any less an arbitrary standard? I know it has a market price, but it has no objective value independent of the use to which it will be put. If the use is merely to back a currency, it is just as arbitrary as any government fiat, and if the purpose some industrial application, then the price will vary with supply and demand the same as any other commodity. The hard money fetish has mystified me for decades.
I saw on CNN that:
What’s going on with them and Crenshaw? And by that I mean wasn’t Crenshaw a total lunatic and crazy ass nutjob? What’s their problem then?
Joe Biden Has Advocated Cutting Social Security for 40 Years
Also Medicare, in addition to … well … “everything” (but not the military). While we’re on the subject of Medicare, see here and here for some of his more recent deranged corporatism related to it.
Waiting for “texas republican” to be added to DSM-5.
lotharloo; the Right worships veterans, as long as they’re not trying to talk.
@39 robro
Texas is the only state that at one point in time, was it’s own separate nation, and with our help, it can be again.
FREE TEXAS.
I used to print bumper stickers that said that during the Bush years. My logick being that if GWB wasn’t born in the United States, he couldn’t be president any more. So, we just make where he was born NOT the USA any more.
As far as I’m concerned, cut them loose and let them do what they will. Follow all these policies and they will be a third world nation inside of a year. All it will take is one hurricane season to make them realize how badly they fucked up.
Black Baptist Minister Calls Fellow Pastors ‘Political Whores’ for Trump at Their Own Convention
Ray Ceeya @36: “When 80% of the banks and credit unions close and ,[m]ove out of state, maybe they’ll realize they just fucked up.”
I doubt it. Did you not see the MAGAts stating that they wanted to keep the government out of Social Security? They totally lack any self awareness and they are also far too stupid to recognize how stupid they are.