The Political Discussion Thread

[Falcon Horus]

IF Sgalisa's beliefs are accurate, you might lose that....

Lose it how?
I'm not following.

[Annoyed]

Lose it how?
I'm not following.

If in fact there is a God, and there is a final reckoning, heralded by the return of Jesus Christ, you're gonna lose that holy war.

[Falcon Horus]

If in fact there is a God, and there is a final reckoning, heralded by the return of Jesus Christ, you're gonna lose that holy war.

That would be the day.

But since I don't believe in all that -- I'm not too worried.

[jelgate]

Convert to Baconism or burn in the bacon grease

[SoulReaver]

Oh, I meant that given the view of "socialism" in the US, having Bernie step in now might totally torpedo the Democrats, not so much the systems themselves dude

so much the better: modest & middle class voters don't trust the Democrats & some of them are so disgruntled they even vote Trump because they think he's "outside the system" (and that he's no a conventional Republican)
Sanders could do same: distance himself from the Democrats, be another candidate who's (maybe this time for real) "outside the system" & thus win back the votes of the Trump electors



all wishful thinking of course cause we know Hillary will remain in the race & have Trump elected

[thekillman]

If in fact there is a God, and there is a final reckoning, heralded by the return of Jesus Christ, you're gonna lose that holy war.

I'm pretty sure Jesus will be horribly disappointed in all of humanity, especially his most devout followers.

[Ian-S]

He'd nuke us from orbit Anubis style, he wouldn't even bother saying hi.

[pookey]

If he came back they would still kill him

[aretood2]

Or they simply had bad email etiquette.

From: Guy
To: Other guy
CC: president

ad infinitum. Ad nauseam

I doubt the president is the only person who fields his email. Take into account that he has to do negotiations, briefings, state functions, and research stuff. It's hundreds of emails per hour that accumulate. There's no way the president reads through them all, or even through a majority. If anything shady is done, he's not the only one who would be doing it, or he may not be in on it either. And of course, I am sure a lot of emails are worthy only of being deleted for the reason you mentioned, which is why I don't give much stock into this "issue" of Bush deleting 22 million emails. Everyday I get 8-20 useless emails that require deletion.

I would like people to try and understand each other more, and be nicer and all that. But there's gotta be a limit in there or else we're busier trying to be nice than that we're actually conveying information. So, for me, a big part of racism and sexism is intent and awareness, IE why you say it. Trump's being a bull in a china shop (the proverbial one) because it's real-life clickbait. Although people can be insensitive even when they try to be nice. The thing is, we know we can be offensive but we don't know what IS offensive. It's strange that when a white man says "nigga" it's offensive but then i hear a song on the radio called "niggas in paris", which is sung by a black man so it's OK.

The problem is that we have people reacting to it like a deer in headlights (Aka the people you refer to), which isn't very productive. Open discussion will achieve more. What i've seen referred to as "Safe spaces" are simply talk groups, IE alcoholics anonymous. You can take offense at me equating something like, oh i don't know a sexuality/gender talk group with substance abusers (deer in headlights type) or you can realize it's the most commonly known talk group so it's logical i'd pick that. Something like "jews anonymous" would have far more problematic associations.


History doesn't repeat itself literally. We figure things out and discover that there are new avenues we didn't see before. Look at the past few big events: WWI was nothing like WWII (and fought for very different reasons). The Cold War, the current middle-east situation, the syrian proxy-war.

Unlike what a popular game likes to say, war most definitely changes, and our perception and ideas change too.

Humanity isn't weak in the strictest sense -compared to the other life on earth's we're gods- but rather we're still intelligent animals, and our animalistic behaviour doesn't work very well when we're with 7 billion on a planet.


That's just because history makes things seem to go nice and smooth. History's messy, full with advances and regressions. Right now, we're in an era of social change. We're not becoming less (or more) social. When someone's on their phone they can be very social with people all around the world. They're just not being very social with the people around them. We are having discussions more on the internet, and next elections a (presidential) twitter debate may be a real thing.

Nobody has real answers to many things (e.g. cyberbullying). It's easy to look at the past and say "they didn't have problems with it" but in the past, people would more often pretend it simply didn't exist. In many cases old problems return, as Facebook makes us return to the age-old "keeping up appearances", and in many cases new problems are created.

Sexism and racism is a discussion now because when Annoyed was a kid, you could be racist all day and all night and you'd be unlucky if someone actually overheard it. You could offend somebody as much as you could now, but it's unlikely you ever heard of it as they'd probably vent their rage elsewhere. Except with the internet, whatever we write or post can be viewed by everyone and whenever we vent that anger, everyone can see it. So in many ways we're more social than we're really capable of handling.

How to figure all this out? No clue. I guess we have to just learn as we go.

Wow, I only wish historians were that optimistic. Sometimes reading what they say makes you a bit...sad. A major component of the study of history is looking into continuity and change. Continuity is where you get "history repeats itself". Yeah sure, there are differences in the details of the world wars, but one and two might as well be the same one. We as a species have not changed, as we were once 5,000 years ago we are still today. So same basic motivations, same basic psychology, same basic social needs, and same biology. Chances are, we have made the same mistake multiple times. Sure, not xerox copies, but close enough that that old axiom of history repeating itself holds true.

You will note that I reversed the order of the paragraphs I quoted.

As far as I can tell, "Safe Spaces" are talk groups where you aren't allowed to say anything that might offend anyone. mandatory political correctness zones, if you will.

How can you have people try and understand each other if you won't allow people to say what's on their minds?

I'm not advocating bigotry or anything of the sort. But if you want to have a discussion that leads to people understanding each other better, ALL ideas must be given a fair hearing, even if it does risk offending someone. The audience or group can decide for itself whether an idea is worthy or not.

Trying to have a discussion in an environment such a safe zone or other such nonsense phrase that means the same thing simply means "We want to hear our opinions and views, and you folks that disagree had best just go along with what we say, we don't want to even hear your view"

Thanks, I'll pass on that.

Personally I find it distasteful to read that minorities "need" safe spaces. No, I do not need any hand holding simply because I am not white. It's not an addiction, or an affliction to not be white so yes. The comparison to AA is a bit...a lot...off. Singling people out is much worse than having to deal with some annoying idiot say stupid racist things.

Too many disagreements eventually led to the Belgian's independence. Better to let the stew in their own country.

Now, we disagree with each other instead. The north vs the south.

I am familiar with such sectional conflict *Burns confederate flags* Down with the traitors and up with the star!!!! *Burns Annoyed's confederate flag*.

Convert to Baconism or burn in the bacon grease

Bacon is a lie. The Force is my ally, and a powerful ally it is.

I'm pretty sure Jesus will be horribly disappointed in all of humanity, especially his most devout followers.

Really depends on what you call "devout followers" if you ask me.

[Annoyed]

Ok, just started rewatching S1 of "Supergirl"
S1E2 is titled "Stronger Together"
Please don't tell me Hillary is that delusional.

[aretood2]

Ok, just started rewatching S1 of "Supergirl"
S1E2 is titled "Stronger Together"
Please don't tell me Hillary is that delusional.

Elaborate?

[Ian-S]

That's a similar ethos our 'Dave' used to justify austerity, "we're all in this together, we'll all share the pain" he said...

Right before reducing taxes for the mega rich, further expanding the already gigantic gap between the rich and working stiffs...

To think he and his buddy Osbourne could never understand why they were unpopular....

[Annoyed]

Elaborate?

Isn't one of Hillary's advertising slogans "Stronger Together" ?

[SoulReaver]

"Stronger Together"

...smacks of Patriotism™

[jelgate]

Have to agree with this one. A lot of the reasons the government is messed up is because of the bickering between Republicans and Democrats. I don't expect either candidate to work with the other side.