Gas Bandit's Political Thread V: The Vampire Likes Bats

Eriol

Eriol

Sure there's consequences to certain views, and some are very VERY harmful to others, or society at large (depending on the viewpoint), but there's also this:


Basically, stamp "your political side" on anything, and people's brains shut off.
 
strawman

strawman

Not a big fan of political divisiveness in any case.

The "Us vs the Monster" mentality that politicians exploit in order to increase and solidify their base by dehumanizing their opposition spilling over into other parts of our society can't be good for us in the long run.

I'm not saying that the right to do so should be taken from them, nor that it's even immoral or unethical.

It's sad.

That's all.
 
strawman

strawman

DarkAudit said:
it really is us vs the monster
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The sheer terror you feel is manufactured. I'm sorry you're subject to it, and it's sad that you can't see anything past it, and I truly, truly wish I could say something - anything - that would break the spell or dig you out of the emotional well you've fallen into, and which others are manipulating.

I can't think of a single thing I could say that would alleviate even a small amount of your fear, though. I guess what I'd suggest is that you stop consuming the worst of the content (video, articles, websites, etc) which live in your fear bubble. Regardless of the outcome of the election I believe soaking in the worst that either side has to offer is damaging - mentally, emotionally, and socially.

You aren't acting much different than the old Charlie on this subject, and it's not putting your arguments in a positive light.
 
Denbrought

Denbrought

Just try to remember that Obama drone strikes weddings and assassinates your citizens abroad, and there's no reason to believe Clinton will not stay on that path. With Trump, at least there's a chance your country will collapse inwards instead of outwards :)

In all seriousness, I really do hope the idea of election reform does finally permeate your electorate's mind this cycle. I'm guessing parties will be blamed for hijacking the election and promptly forget any lesson they might have learnt, though. But I hope.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
I don't think it's manufactured, either. I think what a Trump presidential run has done was to pull back the velvet curtain to the real America underneath. You know the one - the one that professes tolerance while actually being pretty fucking intolerant. The one that professes to be superior to all other countries while acting like the bully that has severe self-esteem issues so they lash out at others while pounding their chest. You know - the type that hits the books out of the hands of "nerds" while secretly wishing they were that smart.

Yes, I love my country, but damn do we have some issues. And instead of addressing them, we're too busy arguing about Hillary's health, or Trump's wife, or the Kardashians, or whether Kaepernick is kneeling. Meanwhile we have companies raising prices of life-saving drugs past where people that need them can pay, black men are being killed by an increasingly militarized police force, privatized prisons and the war on drugs has decimated generations of our poorest or minority population.

To paraphrase the great movie, "Dave": "We have so many problems we don't know where to start."

We're a great country but we could be so much better. Electing Clinton is not a step in the right direction. Electing Trump is a large step backwards.
 
blotsfan

blotsfan

stienman said:
The sheer terror you feel is manufactured. I'm sorry you're subject to it, and it's sad that you can't see anything past it, and I truly, truly wish I could say something - anything - that would break the spell or dig you out of the emotional well you've fallen into, and which others are manipulating.

I can't think of a single thing I could say that would alleviate even a small amount of your fear, though. I guess what I'd suggest is that you stop consuming the worst of the content (video, articles, websites, etc) which live in your fear bubble. Regardless of the outcome of the election I believe soaking in the worst that either side has to offer is damaging - mentally, emotionally, and socially.

You aren't acting much different than the old Charlie on this subject, and it's not putting your arguments in a positive light.
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Could we do a massive compilation of your posts where you advocate treating some people as second-class citizens?
 
strawman

strawman

DarkAudit said:
Manufactured? The only reply I have to that is to tell that to the people who have already been physically attacked by Trump supporters. Tell them right to their face that the beating they received was just a construct of the media, and it didn't really happen.

:facepalm:
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I'm not sure what logical leap you must have taken to draw that conclusion, but I think I'm going to go back to not directly responding to your political frothing at the mouth ravings. Hopefully 1) life will get better for you after the election and 2) you won't let all this rage and unhappiness permanently alter your life.[DOUBLEPOST=1474897913,1474897831][/DOUBLEPOST]
blotsfan said:
Could we do a massive compilation of your posts where you advocate treating some people as second-class citizens?
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I suppose I need this explained to me.
 
blotsfan

blotsfan

Your countless comments you've made about black people, women, sexual, and gender minorities. I realize a lot of them might be gone from your mass-deletions, but that's why your side are the "monsters." Because in a world ruled by you, life is shit for tons of people for no good reason.
 
Eriol

Eriol

Dave said:
Electing Clinton is not a step in the right direction. Electing Trump is a large step backwards.
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I agree, but I have this question to you all: If this election atrocity is not enough for a LOT of people to vote 3rd party and/or write-in, what is? How much worse will it have to get to get you to break the 2-party logjam? You have a multi-time BAD criminal on one side, and crazy Trump on the other. Just how much worse will it have to get for you to abandon both parties?
 
Denbrought

Denbrought

Eriol said:
I agree, but I have this question to you all: If this election atrocity is not enough for a LOT of people to vote 3rd party and/or write-in, what is? How much worse will it have to get to get you to break the 2-party logjam? You have a multi-time BAD criminal on one side, and crazy Trump on the other. Just how much worse will it have to get for you to abandon both parties?
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It's perceived as a prisoner's dilemma involving their entire electorate. Unless a critical mass of people from both sides defect, the 'other' side gets a very easy win. Removing the dilemma-like conditions (e.g. state-level FPTP) would go a long way to fixing this perception.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
Eriol said:
I agree, but I have this question to you all: If this election atrocity is not enough for a LOT of people to vote 3rd party and/or write-in, what is? How much worse will it have to get to get you to break the 2-party logjam? You have a multi-time BAD criminal on one side, and crazy Trump on the other. Just how much worse will it have to get for you to abandon both parties?
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Again, if it were anyone but Trump I would happily agree with you. Hell, if Romney were running against Clinton it would be a landslide in his favor.

But at this time, in this election cycle, a vote for any third party candidate is a vote for Trump.
 
Tress

Tress

The other problem is that I don't like Johnson or Stein. Even the 3rd Party options suck, in my opinion.

I'm seriously considering leaving the presidential portion of the ballot blank.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Dave said:
But at this time, in this election cycle, a vote for any third party candidate is a vote for Trump.
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Funny, Hannity's on the radio every afternoon screaming how a vote for any third party candidate is a vote for Hillary.

And for the record, I've never seen these racist/sexist posts Steinman is accused of making, but I've seen just as many anti-trump protesters causing violence at trump rallies as vice versa. Anti-trump protesters in San Jose, for example. Also, at a trump event, someone attempted to steal a police officer's gun with the intent to kill Trump. I've not heard of any attempts on Clinton's life, other than the snipers she fabricated in Iraq.
 
Covar

Covar

Tress said:
The other problem is that I don't like Johnson or Stein. Even the 3rd Party options suck, in my opinion.

I'm seriously considering leaving the presidential portion of the ballot blank.
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As long as you show up! Staying home just sends the message that you don't care.
 
strawman

strawman

blotsfan said:
Your countless comments you've made about black people, women, sexual, and gender minorities. I realize a lot of them might be gone from your mass-deletions, but that's why your side are the "monsters." Because in a world ruled by you, life is shit for tons of people for no good reason.
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Hmm. Well I don't see things the same way you do, but the only way I'm going to understand where I've gone off the rails is if you point it out. I don't want to make this thread about me, but it seems to drama-y to make a new thread asking for examples where I seek the oppression of minorities.

How shall we proceed? Should this be a PM, or group chat so others can contribute? Should I make a thread about it in the Health and Advice section? Do you just want to go through my post history and click "You're doing that thing again" on those posts you find most oppressive?

I hope you don't think I'm making light of this. This is important to me, so please help me see what you're seeing.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
The truth is, it's incredibly unlikely that a third party candidate will win this time... however, the larger the amount of votes they draw off (and it doesn't matter which third party candidate it is), the more seriously the Rs and Ds will have to take things next election - meaning they'll work harder to court back the people they pissed off in 2016.[DOUBLEPOST=1474903390,1474903330][/DOUBLEPOST]I also want to point out that the attacks on stienman are little more than ad hominem, and should be beneath everyone here.
 
strawman

strawman

Chad Sexington said:
Evan McMullin!
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Honestly I'm surprised his name is becoming well known. I'd heard about his start from my Utah based friends, but now you can apparently vote for him in over half the states, and I'm hearing about him from co workers.

A snowball's chance, but I'm guessing that this is a way to get on the ticket in another 4 or 8 years. The long game may be more important for McMullin, and it's also a way for conservative voters to show their unhappiness with Trump without throwing their vote directly toward Clinton.
 
Null

Null



So there's that. Then there's this:

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Thursday reiterated his call for expanded use of the controversial stop-and-frisk practice from law enforcement, adding that police should also take people’s guns away in the process.
Basically, they will, if they see — you know, they are proactive and if they see a person possibly with a gun or they think may have a gun, they will see the person, and they will look, and they will take the gun away,” Trump said in an interview with "Fox and Friends."
“They will stop, they will frisk, and they will take the gun away, and they don’t have anything to shoot with.”

As a reminder, federal judges ruled stop-and-frisk unconstitutional in 2013, the practice is widely shown (as in the Boston study) to have an enormous racial bias, and in a state that permits open or concealed carry, this policy would be depriving people of their property without due process.
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

stienman said:
Hmm. Well I don't see things the same way you do, but the only way I'm going to understand where I've gone off the rails is if you point it out. I don't want to make this thread about me, but it seems to drama-y to make a new thread asking for examples where I seek the oppression of minorities.

How shall we proceed? Should this be a PM, or group chat so others can contribute? Should I make a thread about it in the Health and Advice section? Do you just want to go through my post history and click "You're doing that thing again" on those posts you find most oppressive?

I hope you don't think I'm making light of this. This is important to me, so please help me see what you're seeing.
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For what it's worth, you and I differ on most contentious topics, but I don't think you're a monster.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Eriol said:
I agree, but I have this question to you all: If this election atrocity is not enough for a LOT of people to vote 3rd party and/or write-in, what is? How much worse will it have to get to get you to break the 2-party logjam? You have a multi-time BAD criminal on one side, and crazy Trump on the other. Just how much worse will it have to get for you to abandon both parties?
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That is the question, isn't it?
A better one might be, "Just how much worse will it have to get for the electorate to actually start caring and get involved?"

--Patrick
 
Chad Sexington

Chad Sexington

Dave said:
https://www.evanmcmullin.com/issues

There is nothing here I remotely agree with. It's like you take the worst of everything the right has and make it the platform.

Good lord is there anyone worth voting for anywhere that isn't batshit insane?
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To be sure, I was being tongue-in-cheek commenting about him, but neither he nor his platform strike me as 'batshit insane.' And while I disagree with the whole 'the Left created Trump' argument, this is where I really see where that comes from: you just throw around dishonest insults because you like Obamacare, and he doesn't, therefore he's crazy.
 
MindDetective

MindDetective

DarkAudit said:
Trump says the debate is "rigged" because the moderator, Lester Holt, is "a registered Democrat." He's actually a registered REPUBLICAN.

Trump mouthpiece says he wasn't lying because "a lie would mean he knew the man's party registration."

This is all on tape, directly out of the mouths of the Trump people. So tell me, where is the "manufactured" part? Is it not really Trump and his campaign, but some incredibly well crafted CGI? Is the fact checking some sort of false flag operation?

Oh, one more thing. It's quite stunning to see people (and there's far more than one) who claim to be of such high moral fiber back a man who in any other case would be completely anathema to everything they stand for.

It's sad. Excuse me while I wipe away the foam. I appear to have run out of napkins at my desk.
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What does that have to do with being a dangerous lunatic who is going to destroy the world with nukes? There is no question that Trump says whatever comes into his tiny brain, but the hyperbole tossed around about him sets expectations far too high, IMO.
 
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