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Liar.
Well, mistaken. I'm not sure it helps further discussion when we automatically view someone's commentary in the worst possible light. We should probably start from the standpoint that the poster is not delusional, moronic, or evil and interpret the words accordingly.
Unfamiliar with Sam "The Neck-Stabber" Hutcheson, huh?
I had a lot of hope that the Catholic church would modernize when they picked a new pope. Selecting Ratzinger, a guy who defended priests while they were raping little boys, shows that the institution is mangled beyond belief. And that's before we even get to their continued embrace of Dark Ages views on human sexuality and gender roles. I grew up Catholic, and I've watched the church push every member of my family away from it by its refusal to modernize.
But in any case, it's not your political views I'm criticizing, it's your inability to organize them into coherently-articulated thoughts and arguments.
My position couldn't be clearer: Obama flip-flopped on gay marriage in an election year to score points with liberal elites, fully confident that he'd suffer no repercussions from his black supporters for doing so. And he was correct: Not only did blacks not abandon Obama, but ~20 percent of them suddenly "evolved" on the issue of gay marriage themselves.
Sam does schtick, but when you actually show him an interest in engaging him in a more substantive way, he delivers every time.
Here is the VP of the USA and in an election year and all he did was pass the buck with the standard "state issue" cop out. Did he campaign for it in his homestate? Did he ever go on record as saying that he urged George Bush to come out in favor of same sex marriage? When he was in power did he ever try to do anything to try to make it so that freedom means freedom for everyone?
In fact he said he didn't speak up because it would have probably cost George Bush the election in 2000.
So, the Church hasn't changed its positions, but its the one doing the pushing?
A religion that "modernizes" to meet the tastes of its members isn't worth anything. The only reason for a religion to exist is to show its members and the world what is the right way to live, and please God. Things don't cease to be sinful b/c a lot of people want to do them.
So when a right-wing VP broke from his party just two months from Election Day 2004, it was no big deal. But when Obama half-heartedly took the same position — not only eight years later, but as the standard-bearer of the Democrat party — he was a "leader" and a champion of gay rights. Comical.
It must have been a great disappointment to you when they admitted that the Earth revolves around the sun, rather than the other way around.
The guy who actually leads is the one who gets credit for being a leader, Joe. Obama's administration has done a lot of things to advance the rights of GLBT people, and Cheney's didn't.
Wait, so where's the "pathetic" come in? And again, why is it not similarly pathetic when whites change their position on the issue (which they have, in huge numbers), in large part because of a whole bunch of changes in the way that what it means to be "gay" was intentionally rebranded by those within the movement. but this is a level of nuance I'm not expecting you to think with.
And I think that phrase "liberal elites" does not mean what you think it does. You might not like it, but a lot of young people are voting on gay marriage in this election, because it's one of the only issue that they see as directly affecting them and those around them. It's one of the major injustices of their day, because they've had uncloseted gay friends for most of their lives, and this issue is denying those people rights they themselves have.
Who the #### has said this, the liberals in your head?
Who is calling Obama a leader on this issue?
When was the last time the Church burned someone at the stake for heresy? Or imprisoned a scientist? Or engaged in an Inquisition? Were they wrong then or are they wrong now?
A large number of jobs these days don't pay enough to keep a family fed. Fortunately, there's a government program that keeps low-income workers from starving.
Maybe if we raised the minimum wage, that'd help. How 'bout it?
LOL. Flip-flopping only after a "sea change" removes the possibility of political repercussions is the exact opposite of "leadership."
A religion that "modernizes" to meet the tastes of its members isn't worth anything. The only reason for a religion to exist is to show its members and the world what is the right way to live, and please God. Things don't cease to be sinful b/c a lot of people want to do them.
Religion such as Christianity has changed a lot over the years, often due to popular opinion. To pretend otherwise, or to insist that the church hierarchy is the only source of truth and how to live is just silly.
Yes.
The church embraced the Enlightenment separation of church and state only after it was forced to. The church stopped killing people for exploring dangerous ideas only after it was prohibited from doing so. The church stopped letting its priests rape little boys only once it was forced to confront the problem by outside pressures. I don't expect you to understand this, because it's inconceivable to you that for most of its history, the church has worked actively to suppress free thinking. But that's how it is.
Did ~20 percent of whites change their position overnight because Cheney or Limbaugh switched their position? No.
This whole business about "nuance" is just a silly attempt to explain away a shameless overnight flip-flop on the part of millions of blacks. They might be on the right side of the issue now, but they didn't cover themselves in glory getting there. "I'm in favor of gay marriage because Barack Obama is in favor of gay marriage" isn't much of a principled position.
don't know, never saw one coming, I always said it was 50/50, so go ask the ones who foresaw/see a blowout
No shortage of apologists for Sam Hutcheson's violent, eliminationist rhetoric.
Yes, a leader must never change his mind. If you are against equality then you must always be against equality. Worked for George Bush should work for everyone else.
Most of us limit the support to violence against umpires, child molestors and people who talk at the theatre.
Don't forget the seat recliners.
This whole business about "nuance" is just a silly attempt to explain away a shameless overnight flip-flop on the part of millions of blacks. They might be on the right side of the issue now, but they didn't cover themselves in glory getting there. "I'm in favor of gay marriage because Barack Obama is in favor of gay marriage" isn't much of a principled position.
Who gives an eff? This is pretty shameless distraction crap throwing here.
no one likes Dick Cheney, except oddly enough the guy he shot :-)
Cheney did as much as he could to not publicize his position-- to the point where you have to read tea leaves to figure out what it was. When Rand Paul says he believes it's a states' rights issue, you know he means "I have no way of reconciling my minimalist position on government with my anti-gay religious beliefs". When Cheney says it, it means something different.
And this is where your thinking fails. The fact that they switched so easily should show you just how precisely calculated Obama's timing was. You're dismissing nuance solely because it's inconvenient for your reductive, partisan narrative. It's not "because Obama said so"-- it's "plus Obama said so". Obama may have been the tipping point, but he wasn't the reason. Remember when they used to use GWRBI as a stat? This is like that.
yes, yes he did, I admit that was like;y one of his reasons
I suspect he was pretty confident
Yes, he was right, burns you up doesn't it?
I love Dick Cheney.
"every time"
let's not exaggerate here, he can and has engaged in substantive discussions, but he'll go off the reservation even when someone else isn't trolling
personally I find him to be entertaining, but then I also thought Kevin was entertaining (most of the time... I drew the line at R. Base, he was just meanspirited and offensive).
When you try to build a dam across a constantly flowing river, the dam is the thing doing the "pushing" yes.
Don't forget the childish references to my sack.
Yeah, breaking from the administration's position two months from Election Day 2004 while at a heavily covered town-hall event was the height of secrecy.
Can't go deep unless you swing for the fences.
I'm totally Adam Dunn.
In a non-lavender kind of way I presume?
Any snow up there yet, I don't mean to scare you, but I used to live in Buffalo, and you know what people in Buffalo say about Syracuse?
"They get more snow than us."
I'll concede the point, though I think even in the trolling there's usually a substantive point being made even if it happens to be the exact opposite of what's being stated.
Frankly, the best trolls are pretty good at advancing discussion -- or would be if people took them both more and less seriously. You can't really be an effective troll without having a point to make.
Please find me another article about Cheney making clear his position on gay marriage that isn't about that one single interview.
Not yet, but it feels like it could happen any minute now. I'm hoping to hightail it back to Mexico before the snow flies.
I liked Dick Cheney when he was my boss. Not so much as Veep.
Speaking of which, I think Captain Kirk could totally beat up Mel Reynolds from Firefly.
I'm not a Cheney fan, but Cheney did come "out" before the 20045 election, and it received a decent measure of publicity- and it was contrary to the bulk of his own party, and he's the Veep, someone who is really really really supposed to toe the party line.
Obama OTOH looked to me like he was maneuvered into his switch rather than running with the ball himself.
winning that fight the way he did at the end of the movie was totally bogus, the only way he beats the Operative is with help...
Geez, I think we all knew Cheney was an evil bastard but I don't think most us knew he was an immortal.
Clearly. That was poorly done on Joss's part. The proper end to the Operative in that sequence if for Jayne or Zoe to put a hole in him from distance. Mal doesn't fight fair, because Mal knows there's no such thing as a fair fight.
He's actually Apophis.
Agreed, but that already happened in the series. And I guess it would be too cliche for River to do it.
I was thinking Sokor
Did his support for gay marriage win him any votes? I think most gay-friendly Obama voters for whom marriage rights are an issue were giving him a pass anyway, particularly since any conceivable Republican alternative was going to be 1000 times worse. So as far as pandering to his base, the "flip-flop" was politics as usual: asserting support for a position that most of his consituency agrees with. Film at eleven, etc.
The timing, though, was hardly panderous. It came on the heels of the NC vote, and expressed support for the position that had lost miserably. That's a strange kind of pandering; it's like throwing rocks at the wheels of a bandwagon that's picking up speed. But by placing himself as an underdog in the debate, Obama seized the kind of issue that few incumbent Presidents get to seize: contested, and in doubt. Would it have been braver to do it before the NC vote? Yes, but it's not craven to do it afterwards.
And then the famous flip-flop by 20% African-Americans or whatever. What is this, one poll conducted the day after he changed the position, or something? Popular, yes, leader, expresses an opinion, and his constituency says, I like the guy and his position? Who on earth knows what the millions of African-Americans think about gay marriage on an ongoing, everyday basis. I reckon their opinions are diverse, personally inflected, and, well, nuanced.
I was thinking they could have had a Reaver bust in and start chowing down on him- and have Mal save him... or something, the trouble was that the film pretty well established that Mal was simply not a match one on one versus that guy.
Or hell, they could have let that guy WIN, incapacitate Mal, and then watch the video to see what was on it...
My 7-year-old daughter told me she was going to get a perfect score on her spelling test last week. She made sure to study, but she still missed one. It occurred to me when I saw the test was that someone on BBTF would have called her a liar.
Mal should have just outsmarted him once again. Outsmarting foes is what he always did and would be a fitting way to end it.
But yes it does annoy me also. I reserve the use of the word for the rare person who deserves it.
According to Google, it's only been used by one Primate against another about six times in the last 115 pages of OT: Politics discussion (Sept. and Oct.), and it was used jokingly one or two of those times.
That's a nice summary, but I think undersells Obama's concern over support from people who ID gay. This is going from memory, but a lot of the issues I recall weren't so much around people who ID gay as a voting block, but more about their financial support and capacity to mobilize and be active for Obama.
Bill Clinton campaigned on and fought for the rights of gays to serve openly in the military at a time when a majority of the country--including many in his own party--and the military opposed it. He compromised only after Congress threatened to pass a bill completely banning gays from service. Obama campaigned for and signed--I don't think 'fought for' really applies--repeal of DADT at a time when 75% of the country supported repeal.
I don't see how Obama gets more cred on LGBT service than Clinton.
Clearly, you've forgotten your SG-1 because he's so obviously Anubis.
I completely disagree. The Operative was all kinds of arrogant and loved his little move. I thought it was perfectly fitting and clever to have him smacked down like that in a fight he was shown to be winning.
It is true enough that the Democratic Party as an institution has not excoriated blacks and/or Hispanics as a group for opposing marriage equality despite the fact that, particularly if one limits one's sample to Democratic voters, the rates of marriage equality are far lower among those two groups than among whites. There are a lot of reasons for this, the most obvious one being that it's not fair to the many blacks and Hispanics who do support marriage equality to paint two huge groups of people with that broad a brush.
However, as the gay community's special envoy to BTF*, I can tell you that after Prop 8 in particular there were a lot of very angry message board posts by gay rights supporters directed specifically at those two populations on gay-oriented and general left-liberal websites. One could choose not to count this as "Democrats looking within their party" but would have be defining "Democrats" to mean the party as an institution, which is a narrower definition than is generally talked about.
* Yes, I'm kidding.
We love you, Answer Guy. But have you cleared this with Sam M.?
I'm not sure why you think having an important person make a statement (like Obama's) couldn't influence people without it being some "flip-flop" or strictly a racial following.
Sometimes people don't want to break away from the herd unless they see an example (or a statement) that changes their point of view.
A large portion of the American public's point of view about HIV/AIDS was immediately transformed when Magic Johnson announced he had contracted HIV.
Before then, to most people, it was a disease that happened only to gay/drug-using/unlucky-blood-recipient people.
After his announcement, I'm betting a LOT of people took it much more seriously.
Side note: Holy crap, that was 21 years ago next month. Excuse me while I go lay my old bones down before they snap.
Okay.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/debatereferee/debate_1005.html
http://www.debates.org/index.php?page=october-5-2000-debate-transcript
I admit it, this made me like Cheney a little.
It felt weird, sure, but I can't deny it happened.
I felt it a tiny bit to, but my main reaction was that was one of the last debates I actually watched. Pretty good debate I thought. generally the VP debates seem to be more entertaining than the Presidential ones. Not sure why.
And 2866 is a lovely little slice of crazy, but hey its a free world. I maintain that Obama is a left center pragmatic and technocratic president who gives good speeches and has a great biography, but is on many levels kind of boring. But people see what they see I guess.
Thanks Perros. Its almost as if he's from Northeastern China or something (no, I'm not saying he's literally been programmed). His image is completely manufactured, which is easy to see when he doesn't have his teleprompter. His 2008 campaign was a complete fairy tale.
***Conspiracy alert***
If you Google - Ulsterman Report White House Insider - you will find a series of interviews that have been conducted and posted over the past couple of years, with a man purportedly a long-time Democrat campaign worker and part of Obama's White House staff. I've been following them for awhile, and many of the topics discussed eventually either come to light or come to pass. Some of course do not. It is clear that this alleged Obama staffer shares Perros's sentiments.
Not all of us are blessed with your remarkable ability to discern a man's true character and inner thoughts simply by watching him on TV.
If true, who cares.
IMO, he did some of the things he said he would do, and some things that have helped. That is what matters. Bush was see no evil. Clinton could wax on about any topic, but how much did he really care? Reagan lived in homily land, Nixon was driven by his own demons. Carter cared, and look how that worked out.
Mitt Romney, very authentic persona, by the way. I can't think of a single thing Team Romney says or hints the would do that I would like. Do you know how hard that is, to be wrong on every issue of substance?
In many respects the job favors detachment.
Isn't that the whole premise of the Green Party?
You sound like my friend who sends me links on HAARP rings and weather control.
Me too. Also, remember the time he shot his friend in the face? Those '00s were a crazy time, huh?
I don't believe all I've read about HAARP, but weather control is not any kind of fringe belief. The Chinese implemented measures to control the weather for the Beijing Olympics, it is very well documented. Yes, even in the mainstream media. They employ 37,000 people to seed clouds with silver iodide.
My first google search came up with this (funny, my Chrome doesn't recognize "google" as a word)
I know I saw it. An interesting article in Slate last week concluded that Obama is an introvert which causes him difficulting in some aspects of the political arena. I think I agree. From what I can see, it is work for him to do certain political acts (working a room, glad handing, etc.). Those activities don't energize him, like they seem to do for other politicians. Not sure that disqualifies him for the presidency, but YMMV.
Which seems like the best reason not to like him, because if you do, you start talking to him. And if you start talking to him, you become his friend. When you become his friend, he invites you to go hunting. When he invites you do go hunting, you get shot in the face. Don't get shot in the face. Don't like Dick Cheney.
The U.S. did this sort of thing post-war through into the 70s. Cloud seeding != HAARP causing tornados and earthquakes.
You'll quickly question the IQ level of anyone who would actually cite that as anything other than a Limbaugh Dittohead with too much time on his hands.
Did some cool research on HAARP rings though. I keep a weather eye out (pun intended) for good crazy theories to use as plot devices in RPG games. You can't go wrong with crazy conspiracy theories.
I realize this is a tremendous waste of time, but the prose is even poor. I have no idea what lies are contradicted by Obama's term. It's really vague, terrible writing that is only meant to be read by people who already agree with you.
"Obama's just like every other politician; he's terrible!"
"Obama's not like other politicians; he's terrible!"
You might, but I don't. Not that it means much, but I'm comfortably above the 95th percentile in intelligence, so if you think a low IQ is a prerequisite for "falling for" conspiracy theories, you'll have to go back to the drawing board.
What I find amazing is that so many people immediately jump to the conclusion that anything not reported by the MSM must be a complete and total fabrication from the wildest reaches of someone's imagination. What's in it for them? Do you really think hundreds of people just sit around and one day decide "Gee, I'm going to start a website and make up a bunch of complete BS, post it online, and hope people stumble upon it"?
Do you have any faith in Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists, or do they just make stuff up too? Chris Hedges (former correspondent of your beloved NY Times) filed and won a lawsuit against the Obama administration against portions of the NDAA. The decision of Judge Katherine B. Forrest was later stayed by a higher court and is now awaiting appeal. Nary a word from the national mainstream media. Does that mean that this case never existed Andy? Did Reuters just make it up?
"Obama's not like other politicians; he's terrible!"
I don't think it makes him a terrible politician, just that it is a weakness (or at least not a strength).
I found it well written from an emotional and lyrical standpoint. The word flow is nice and structure is pretty clean and direct. Informationally it is a train wreck.
This is a feature and not a bug in a good rant. You want to hit emotional buttons, but leave it vague enough so that the reader can fill in the blanks with their preconceptions. So if the reader (for example) feels Obama has not followed through on Gay Rights or healing the Partisan Rift or whatever they can know that is what the author is talking about and nod in agreement. Calling out specific instances and examples runs the risk of the reader not agreeing or referencing actual facts.
I am not saying it is a great rant, but I thought it pretty good. Of course on the substance I agree with you 100% and it does read much better by those that already agree.
Here's a video piece put together by the guy who thinks The Shining reveals the truth about faked moon landings
Many things not reported by the MSM are real. The MSM is driven by ratings and narrative. Anything that is not reported by the MSM which could drive ratings and has a great narrative is automatically suspect (though some things do slip through the cracks - international MSM with different biases can be your friend here).
Things not reported by the MSM which are uninteresting and/or have a terrible narrative and not likely to drive ratings are neither credible nor incredible, and require further research.
And yes, there are hundreds of people sitting around that launch into spewing bizarre crap from the wildest reaches of their feverish imagination. The crazy and attention whores are two common categories of people who do this, but I am sure there are others.
You think a massively contoversial section of a massively controversial piece of legislation like the NDAA being overturned by a US court because it was ruled unconstitutional is not interesting or likely to drive ratings? If you think its not, then that is an admission that your country really is ###### beyond belief.
Second. My favorite part which seems to fit the politics thread, for obvious reasons.
You'll quickly question the IQ level of anyone who would actually cite that as anything other than a Limbaugh Dittohead with too much time on his hands.
You might, but I don't.
Really? Please tell me what there is about the "Ulsterman Report White House Insider" that you find credible, considering that they've been shown to have invented stories from beginning to end and tried to pass them off as genuine.
Not that it means much, but I'm comfortably above the 95th percentile in intelligence, so if you think a low IQ is a prerequisite for "falling for" conspiracy theories, you'll have to go back to the drawing board.
That much I'll concede, but being a sucker for wacko conspiracy theories and bogus websites isn't exactly proof of a 95th percentile IQ.
What I find amazing is that so many people immediately jump to the conclusion that anything not reported by the MSM must be a complete and total fabrication from the wildest reaches of someone's imagination. What's in it for them? Do you really think hundreds of people just sit around and one day decide "Gee, I'm going to start a website and make up a bunch of complete BS, post it online, and hope people stumble upon it"?
That's a three card monte argument. Of course there are countless cases of stories not reported by the MSM that should have been. There are also many more cases of stories that originated outside the MSM that eventually get picked up by them. My old boss Izzy Stone was perhaps the gold standard in digging for stories like this, but he was hardly the only one, and there are many people today animated by the same vision, from all parts of the political spectrum.
But to steal the old Lloyd Bentsen line, I knew Izzy Stone, and "Ulsterman Report White House Insider", you're no Izzy Stone. "Ulsterman Report White House Insider" is about as credible as this.
Do you have any faith in Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists, or do they just make stuff up too? Chris Hedges (former correspondent of your beloved NY Times) filed and won a lawsuit against the Obama administration against portions of the NDAA. The decision of Judge Katherine B. Forrest was later stayed by a higher court and is now awaiting appeal. Nary a word from the national mainstream media. Does that mean that this case never existed Andy? Did Reuters just make it up?
I made a comment about a specific nutjob website that's been exposed as a fraud, and you somehow infer from this that I believe everything I read in the MSM, and discount everything that contradicts it. I'm not sure where you're getting that from.
I was making a general statement about the MSM, in response to your general statement. I was giving my rules of thumb in evaluating stories vis-a-vis the MSM. I know nothing about the specific example you seem to be talking about. Seriously nothing. The reason I wrote in general terms is because I have no basis of assigning attributes to the "story" you are talking about other than what I read in this thread.
But hey feel free to assign to me stuff I never said.
Indeed, his description of Obama is remarkably similar to what I suspect about Romney, except I don't print or broadcast it because unlike Perros I realize that such long distance opining on someone else's character without any connection to reality other than what is going on iside one's own skull is self indulgent and fatuous.
Maybe he doesn't.
Think of it, don't virtually all Presidents seemingly age more years than actually pass while in office, it's like they are travelling at reverse relativistic speeds. To steal/paraphrase someone else's quote: except fro Nixon, he was getting younger until Watergate hit, he thrived on power like a vampire on blood.
I am not sure there is a difference other than outcome based. If, after everything is done, a productive outcome or advancement happens it was productive obsession, else it was insane obsession. Many sceintific breakthroughs have come from insane obsession that ended up productive.
It is a very good question though. I am not completely happy with my answer and think there should be a way to distinguish them up front.
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