US Politics, February 2018: Our country was founded by geniuses, but it’s being run by idiots

That just seems so stupid and impossible. It would be like, I don't know, outlawing raccoons. What are they going to do, just give a million teachers and coaches guns?

Serenity now, insanity later

thats the thing thats so insane to me about this stuff about immigrants killing random people and school shootings. like the response to indiscriminate violence is a deportation of all illegals, a massive totalitarian police state with citizens armed to the teeth? so we can never have any accidents/crimes ever again?

it's obviously fucking insane to arm teachers
it's obviously fucking insane to build a border wall
it's obviously fucking insane to ban Muslims
it's obviously fucking insane to launch a pre-emptive strike on North Korea

Yes, exactly! What do you think you're saying?
what is this disease on the left where we can't resist jacking off over the piddling impracticalities of the Right's every fever dream? In the 30's even "reasonable, anti-nazi" germans let themselves get drawn into the argument of how best to address the "jewish problem", because they let the fucking Right define the terms, and endlessly ratchet the window rightward

I'm saying that it's not OBVIOUS to far too many people, and one of them is president of the fucking country. What is it with this disease on the left that we waste so much time & energy to criticize each other on how we respond to the Right?

I'm saying that simply going "well that's obviously fucking insane, I'm not going to engage your side" does fuck all to stop them from carrying out their obviously fucking insane ideas.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) compared the Democrats to know-it-all cartoon character Lisa Simpson in a Thursday appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

“The Democrats are the party of Lisa Simpson and Republicans are happily the party of Homer, Bart, Maggie and Marge,” Cruz said, referring to the other Simpson family member on long-running cartoon show “The Simpsons.”

no one ever lost votes identifying with dumb animated people

It's only not OBVIOUS because too many people deigned to pretend that it (any of it, "the wall", teachers with guns, lizard people) was a serious suggestion in the first place! And no, you absolutely shouldn't engage with any of it by arguing debate-club style, you have to "message" against it, which absolutely should consist of repeatedly finding convincing ways to hammer home the idea that these "ideas" are fucking crazy and evil and not worth seriously entertaining! christ

you're full of shit

the idea that politics is a debate club where we must engage with each of each other's points is so self-defeating

this is a message board

lmao Homer Simpson is the biggest idiot in television history, nice one Ted

which absolutely should consist of repeatedly finding convincing ways to hammer home the idea that these "ideas" are fucking crazy and evil and not worth seriously entertaining! christ

and you do this how? just keep saying how crazy they are? fuck it man thanks for your viewpoint, have a good one

they're the party of mr burns tbh

No man, you attack the motives and character of the people who voiced the crazy ideas. you don't engage with the ideas themselves. have you never met someone with a personality disorder before?

yep that really worked, and that's why Trump wasn't elected Prez. We all realized it was ridiculous to even take him serious as a candidate, we didn't engate with his ideas, we just attacked his motives and character and poof he disappeared.

like, "never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and the pig likes it" is absolutely fucking true

Yep that was Hilary's strategy

I assure you, pointing out that the wall became "ten feet higher" so many times that it would have to be a thousand feet tall by now, and a thousand foot wall would be impossible to build also did very little to prevent trump from becoming president, if that is really your one and only go-to move here.

it's almost like trump is president no matter what you type into this forum! odd

Blaming people arguing against shitty ideas for the shitty ideas being taken seriously is bullshit. Trump and ALL HIS ideas are mocked, ridiculed. It hasn't stopped them from being taken seriously by a good portion of this country, cause there's a lot of dumb people not because smart people gave them too much credence.

Like, you don't think there were idiots who engaged with republican psycho bullshit at face value during the campaign too? I don't blame you, because they were so ineffectual they might as well have been invisible.

thanks for your viewpoint

But when Trump convinces half the country that Mexicans have gills, I look forward to your detailed scientifically-accurate explanation of why that is impossible, because mexicans are mammals, and have lungs.

excellent analogy

No, the only argument is that it is obviously fucking insane to even entertain the idea of teachers having guns--only a crazy person (one must hold) would even have this idea cross their mind, and only an evil person would voice it. That is the kind of drum beat that works, not "oh teachers are terrible shots" or "oh teachers don't get paid enough to add gun-toting to their responsibilities" or similarly letting-them-define-the-terms dumbshittedness

― Dan I., Thursday, February 22, 2018 8:13 PM (thirty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Dan is right that rejecting and reframing is among the fastest ways to move public opinion through Talking Head discourse. Some pretentious people call it "prefigurative intervention."

Proposing "build a wall" as an answer to immigration reform is precisely this maneuver: reject typical reforms & offer a visionary alternative so that the debate naturally becomes about feasibility & details rather than the . "Medicare for All" is the same. "Give the teachers guns" to solve for gun control is the same.

I know how to do this. I don't really know how best to combat it.

For most issues, I'd say propose an equally visionary alternative that can successfully intervene. Don't know if that's possible with guns in America, though.

A straight up repeal of the Second Amendment sounds plenty visionary to me. It's enduring legacy should be the racist militias who's rampages ended Reconstruction anyway.

Visionary, yes. Palatable?

Probably as palatable as M4A, in all honesty.

I doubt a second amendment repeal would poll at 60%+ popular support.

We should accustom the American palate to amendment repeal. Let's start with the dusty old Third Amendment.

(I would LOVE to be wrong about this.) xp

I saw the best .M4A files of my generation destroyed by madness,
Starving hysterical naked

Amendement repeal sounds really good.

Take 'em all down.

I doubt M4A will poll at 60% popular support once the discussion begins in earnest. For instance, it should obviously include federally paid abortion for everyone.

the language of the 2nd amendment seems quite clear to me and it doesn't seem like to much of a stretch to call the modern SC interpretation a radically "non-originalist" bastardisation

this fuckin fascinates me

top line here being "control gun ownership"

https://i.imgur.com/se09GCz.png

http://www.people-press.org/2017/06/22/public-views-about-guns/#all

The Future Competent Trump and his Congress will set about repealing the entire Bill of Rights

probably easier as the waters rise

HOOS, am I reading that right: they're basically at 50/50 now?

thanks Obama

yep

everything will be 50/50.

even policies that are massively popular will ultimately end up being 50/50. bc this is how Things Are Now.

i'd be happy w 50/50 on the death penalty tbh

Meanwhile...

BREAKING: A grand jury in Virginia has returned a new indictment against Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, per new filing from the special counsel's office. Status report: https://t.co/Ho2JqXZ5co Indictment: https://t.co/lMEk8dQHvc pic.twitter.com/Y5aa8QP0x5

— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) February 22, 2018

WaPo on same

New charges were filed Thursday against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his business partner, ratcheting up the legal pressure on them as they prepare for a trial later this year.

A new indictment has long been expected in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s prosecution of Manafort and his right-hand man, Rick Gates, on fraud and money laundering charges. Manafort served as President Trump’s campaign chairman from June to August 2016. Gates also served as a top official on Trump’s campaign. The new indictment contains 32 counts, including tax charges.

The filing Thursday comes at a time of significant uncertainty in the case about when a trial might happen, or even who the defense lawyers will be. Last week, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson criticized both sides for what she called “unacceptable delays” in a case which still doesn’t have a trial date set.

what she called “unacceptable delays”

The judge may be impatient, but I bet both sides are fine with delaying a trial atm.