US Elections 2012 Part II: The Conventions, Debates and Election results

[DonQuigleone]

Conservatism is a mindset, not a set of policies.

Modern Republicans are geared around a particular set of policies, and do not have a "conservative" mindset. In fact, they're downright Radical, they want to completely change the order of America to something that has before now not existed.

In fact, "Radicals" are the opposite of "Conservative", to be a "Radical Conservative" is an oxymoron.

America has it's definitions all messed up.

If you want to see actual conservative look at the British Conservative party, or the German Christian Democrats.

I'd actually call the Republicans radical liberals infused with a side of Reactionaries and Christianists (like Islamists, but Christian!).

[Ithekro]

Just out of curiosity, how is "The Oregonian" as a news source (in political leaning and such)?

[Vexx]

Well, a long string of "rape cultist GOPers" did go down, so to speak.

http://andrewvachss.tumblr.com/post/...-child-because

Akin, Mourdock, Rivard, Walsh, Smith, Koster, Ryan --- down in flames. A step in the other direction from the radical "Christianist" (heh.... there many who call them Dominionists but whatever)

New Jersey Gov. Christie (R) slices and dices Romney aides as "know-nothings" and "disgruntled"
http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-...es-148645.html

Republican strategist says its time to dump the loonies (my words):
http://www.politico.com/news/stories...54.html?hp=r10

Opinion on the Oregonian: Mostly Worthless. Its a shell of its former self and most goes with the "good old boy" sentiments of the area. If I actually want *investigative* journalism - I do better with the Willamette Weekly or even the Portland Tribune.

[ganbaru]

Originally Posted by Mr. DJ

figured I'd share this from a friend, though some disagreements are to be had, it's more or less on point about the Republicans.

Spoiler for long post:

One fact ought to be obvious to Republicans on Nov. 7, 2012. The anti-abortion cult cost us the Senate.

Todd Akins's stupid remarks about "legitimate rape" and Richard Mourdock's pithering that rape babies represent "the will of God" lost their races for them. In doing so, of course, they deprived the Republican Party of its fiftieth and fifty-first seats. If obstructing Obama at every turn is the chief purpose of the Republican party (and it shouldn't be), these two made it much harder.

We have a problem. As a lifelong Republican, I want the Republican party to become a majority party that wins elections. We do, in fact, need to seriously address the issue of the Federal deficit and the expansion of entitlements. Running against a less than popular President, we ought to have had a fighting chance. But frankly, noisy elements of the Party are scaring voters away.

The Republican party needs to move way back towards the center. It especially needs to reduce the public profile of cultists and cranks, and hopefully, reduce their impact on our selection of candidates. We need to stop making ourselves repugnant to educated and intelligent people.

1. Conservatism

I consider myself a conservative with libertarian leanings that don't quite go all the way to full-fledged Libertarianism. But while I see plenty of right-wing politics in the contemporary Republican Party, I see damned little conservatism.

Conservatism, to me, is a social philosophy, not an ideology or doctrine, that favors the retention of traditional institutions and social structures. If they change, and they inevitably will, that change should ideally be organic and spontaneous, not forced. More than anything else, it means always having an eye towards the downside, a skepticism about all forms of abstract doctrine, moral crusades, and plans from a book, and having the iron law of unintended consequences always in view.

It follows from this that real conservatives like the American people pretty much as they are. Real conservatism, by definition, excludes people who think that Americans are marching down the highway to hell, or that God will send plagues upon our heads for re-electing Obama. If you think that, you aren't a conservative: you're just a kook, and you probably belong to a cult as well.

It also follows from this that real conservatives like the American government pretty much as it is. At minimum, you acknowledge that the government we now have, and as it has now developed, is in fact the government established by the U. S. constitution. It has changed greatly from 1789, of course, responding to such crises as the Civil War, the Great Depression, and World War II. But it has changed organically and naturally, through the legal procedures the Founders established. Conservatives wish to strengthen and preserve its institutions, from the U.S. military to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The U.S. Constitution is not a scripture of any sort, and cannot be interpreted in a fundamentalist manner. Doing so, again, is not conservative: it puts doctrine before experience, the one thing conservatives do not do. The framers may have been wiser than our contemporaries, but they were no cleverer. They were politicians, not prophets; and canny but compromising politicians as well. The features of the government they established, from the infamous clause that holds that a slave is 3/5 of a man, to the baroque feature of the Electoral College, were shot through with a spirit of compromise. They compromised because it was the only way to get things done.

Doctrinaire readings of the Constitution that would wreak radical change on the shape of our current institutions are not conservative, even if they are founded on arguments from the text coupled with a sense that they represent the way things ought to be. It's easy to see that the enactment of such doctrines would mess things up in unforeseen ways, even as the adoption of the gold standard would bring entirely foreseeable chaos.

Real conservatives also acknowledge that the Constitution must be interpreted through the lens of history. Arguments about state nullification of Federal law and proposals to secede from the union were settled in some minor unpleasantness about 150 years ago. These arguments are dead and gone; when Lee surrendered at Appomatox, he surrendered them on your behalf. Reviving them would not even occur to real conservatives.

Real conservatives sound like moderates, in other words, because moderation and the exclusion of zealotry is the essence of conservatism. The Republican In Name Only nonsense is anti-conservative to the core. Conservatism by definition is lack of allegiance to an ideology, a doctrine, or a program.

II. The anti-abortion cranks

The abstract doctrine that 'life begins at conception' began as a public relations ploy. Those who wanted legal abortion were for Freedom, so abortion opponents were for Life. Unfortunately, ideas have consequences.

What we have here now is a right-wing version of PETA, bawling for its lost darlings. And this nonsense just cost us two Senate seats. Two otherwise respectable candidates stood up before the people and declared that they believed that life begins at conception so sincerely that they'd be happy to force rape victims to carry children conceived in the crime to term. They placed that high a value on the 'sacred lives' of pwecious widdle rape babies. This hogwash repelled enough voters to cost them elections in solidly Republican states.

The doctrine that life begins at conception is the foreign ideology of Europe's last fancy-dress dictatorship. I really do not care a fig about pwecious widdle darlings lost to abortion, and am happy that there are that many fewer welfare checks to write. Every abortion today is a prison cell we won't have to pay for twenty years from now, and that makes the abstract argument about the beginning of life moot. Do you really want hundreds of thousands more welfare babies and future criminals?

Moreover, my impression of the anti-abortion agitation underlines the fact that these are people that no conservative should want to empower. The animal rightsers are our second worst group of domestic terrorists; the anti-abortion cranks are the worst. They routinely commit murder and arson. They're the sort of people who want to regale folks with dead fetuses in prime time. You don't want them at your dinner party.

Because of this, the organic wisdom of our institutions is confirmed in Roe v.Wade. I know that the constitutional claims of the case are improvised. Again, I just don't care. The Supreme Court was wise to take the question out of politics. That should be upheld.

I don't think that the issue will become less divisive if turned back over to the legislatures; we have enough meritless proposals from fanatics already, and we certainly do not want to give them free rein to convert hundreds of your neighbors into criminals, much less the "murderers" the crackpots say they are. We don't need another law that will be very widely disregarded, especially when there are moralistic mouth-breathers out there bawling for the blood of offenders.

If you think that life begins at conception, get a life.

III. Curse Israel. They deserve it.

More than 30 million Americans apparently imagine that we are living in the 'end times' of Biblical prophecy. They are, of course, wrong in this; and of course this is the sort of nonsense no real conservative would take seriously for a moment. Real conservatives don't think the world is coming to an end.

These beliefs are heresy, for various complicated theological reasons I won't go into in great detail. (The Apostles' Creed teaches one Second Coming, one Last Judgment, and most importantly, one communion of believers in which there is "neither Jew nor Christian"; for in fact, in traditional Christian theology, the Church is God's new Israel. Most end-times prophecy systems get one or more of these points wrong.) More importantly, they are not only wrong, but crazy wrong: an invitation to look at contemporary history through the paranoia of a mass psychosis.

Because we aren't living in the end times, the existence of a Jewish state of Israel has no cosmic significance. This is where end times belief turns from the hobby of occult kooks and into a threat to the welfare of the nation. For, the cultists maintain, the United States can win at Armageddon: but only if we 'bless Israel'. And by that, they mean endorsing all of the military and territorial ambitions of the Israeli government.

We're in enough trouble for blessing Israel. It's true that Israel has been a relatively reliable ally, though they do spy on us more than I'm comfortable with. The Iraq war was based on misleading intelligence and answered Israel's dearest wish to be rid of Saddam Hussain. We can blame the current federal deficit on our wish to 'bless Israel'.

A real conservative approaches foreign policy from a pragmatic standpoint, rather than an idealistic one, and certainly not an apocalyptic one. I frankly question what benefits we the people of the United States are deriving from our close relationship with Israel. Their treatment of the Palestinians makes living a normal life in the occupied territories impossible. Whether or not it's a great human rights cause, Israeli policy towards the West Bank and Gaza is guaranteed to produce a large body of idle young men with a deep sense of grievance and too much time on their hands. This is not wise.

The End Times are merely psychotic ravings from cultists. Jesus has not let anybody off the hook on the 'peacemaker' business. We need there to be more light between the United States and Israel. We cannot go to war with Iran because they might get a bomb that threatens Israel. We cannot afford it. We don't need to in any case.

IV. Evolution is fact. Get used to it.

Evolution denial, like end times belief, is a social problem in itself. Evolution is fact; there is no debate. Evolution is the foundational truth at the core of biology. Evolution deniers are either too unrooted in reality or simply too stupid to hold public office.

Among the developed nations, the performance of American science education ranks poor to middling. According to Harvard, Americans fall far behind Latvia, Chile and Brazil, who learn three times the science American pupils do; Portugal, Hong Kong, Germany, Poland, Liechtenstein, Slovenia, Colombia and Lithuania are also improving much faster. 'Researchers estimate that gains made by students in those 11 countries equate to about two years of learning."

(http://www.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/PDF/Pap ... hingUp.pdf)

This is unacceptable, people. I would support the addition of a strong biology component focused on evolution to the No Child Left Behind test program, and strongly downgrade school programs who leave their students with an inadequate grounding in fact-based science. Especially, test the damned homeschoolers too. Let it be known that evolution deniers don't go to college. Impose nationally improved textbooks vetted by experts, and take the matter out of local school boards that have a potential for cultist capture. We cannot be held behind by the forces of militant ignorance.

Evolution denial is just as lunatic as Holocaust denial, just as evil too, and an even worse social problem here in the USA. Evolution denial in education is child abuse. It has no place in the Republican Party.

V. Conclusion

We really need to bring the Republican Party back towards the center. Doing so will require that we take deliberate steps to exclude cultists and cranks.

Look at the crop of clowns that were the ones who were willing to participate in the last season's Republican primaries. Do you seriously imagine that the rest of the country would ever consider Donald Trump a serious contender for the highest office in the nation? Herman Cain? Michelle Bachmann? Rick Santorum? Sarah Palin?

I didn't see a conservative among that lot. I saw a pack of social radicals who seem to think that most of their neighbors ain't living right. Now, the left wing sort of social radicals at least have goals that sorta-kinda make sense, stuff like health care or environmental protection. These social radicals have goals that are based entirely on occult gibberish.

We have serious statesmen we could have called on, respected people like Colin Powell, or even my own state's Richard Lugar or Mitch Daniels. I hope to see a saner crop come next season. The Republican party can be a majority party that actually unites Americans and governs prudently and pragmatically, one that even people with degrees can vote for without holding their noses. Or we can continue to rely on a dwindling base of excitable rustics and unregenerate segregationists.

What we can't do is repeat the 2012 election.

To be honest, while I agree with his points, some of his arguments aren't that good.

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by ArchmageXin

The problem is, once he shave us all those kooks and cultists, you end up with 3 voters, Jon Huntsman, and the three or four people who voted for him in Ohio.

Well, the problem is that the "moderate" conservatives are now all part of the Democratic Party. To be fair, you could argue that besides maybe FDR through Johnson, the Democratic Party has actually been more the "conservative" party, while the Republicans were the liberal party. After FDR, the Democrats expanded to include social liberals. Currently the moderate conservatives and social liberals are uneasy bedfellows while the opposition is dominated by radicals.

If the Republican party were to bite the dust, I could easily see the Democratic party splintering into conservative and social liberal halves. You could already see the fractures in the party when it was more powerful from 2008-2010.

Originally Posted by Vexx

A step in the other direction from the radical "Christianist" (heh.... there many who call them Dominionists but whatever)

Now I know the right word!

[GundamFan0083]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

Conservatism is a mindset, not a set of policies.

Modern Republicans are geared around a particular set of policies, and do not have a "conservative" mindset. In fact, they're downright Radical, they want to completely change the order of America to something that has before now not existed.

In fact, "Radicals" are the opposite of "Conservative", to be a "Radical Conservative" is an oxymoron.

America has it's definitions all messed up.

If you want to see actual conservative look at the British Conservative party, or the German Christian Democrats.

I'd actually call the Republicans radical liberals infused with a side of Reactionaries and Christianists (like Islamists, but Christian!).

I agree DQ.
Many of the so called "conservatives" aren't really conservative in the literal definition of the word any more than so called "liberals" are actually Liberal.

I call them corporatists because what they preach reminds me a great deal of what Benito wrote about back in the 1930s.

[GDB]

Originally Posted by Chiibi

Where in ANY of my posts did I state "I refuse to give respect to ____"?

I freaking hate when people put words in my mouth!

You said you agreed with Victoria Jackson or whatever her name is. She said that Evil won and America is dead. By your own words, you agreed with that. Therefore, you don't respect our choices. Why should we respect yours?

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

If the Republican party were to bite the dust, I could easily see the Democratic party splintering into conservative and social liberal halves. You could already see the fractures in the party when it was more powerful from 2008-2010.

I wouldn't call it a splintering, per se. It's more likely the who kit and caboodle would reshuffle.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by GundamFan0083

I agree DQ.
Many of the so called "conservatives" aren't really conservative in the literal definition of the word any more than so called "liberals" are actually Liberal.

I call them corporatists because what they preach reminds me a great deal of what Benito wrote about back in the 1930s.

Heh, sometimes I argue the Nolan chart should have three axes, adding one for something we could call 'corporatism'?, 'trans-nationals'? -- a power structure of unelected power cabals running things.

I drag out Mussolini as the sidestep of the Godwin rule, especially since he actually defined much of what the US is dealing with now.

[Ithekro]

Opinion on the Oregonian: Mostly Worthless. Its a shell of its former self and most goes with the "good old boy" sentiments of the area. If I actually want *investigative* journalism - I do better with the Willamette Weekly or even the Portland Tribune

Oh good, that the local Republicans wouldn't label it as a Obama supporting rag or something like that.

(I was using it for voting numbers in the state of Oregan to clarify things)



I was told that there was some voter fraud issues in Oregan with a claim that was reporting 5 million people voted when the state barely has 2 million registered voters.

In fact I'm getting a lot of claims of voters fraud over the voting machines being rigged to vote for Obama, and other claims of dead people voting Obama and the like.

Added to this are calls people to have to show ID to vote, and the question of "Why not have that, you have to have a ID by law anyway. If you say you don't, what are you suppose to say to the cop if he asks you for it?"

My responce was that it is considered illegal as long as you have to pay for a State ID as it is considered a poll tax.

The responce was to amend the Constitution to require ID to vote (The worry is that people are voting twice or the dead are voting....old Chicago tricks).

My response was that it would be simpiler if they just made State ID free in all the states, than it can't be considered a poll tax.

[Xion Valkyrie]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Republican strategist says its time to dump the loonies (my words):
http://www.politico.com/news/stories...54.html?hp=r10

Look at some of the comments on that article. People think they lost the election because their platform is too 'moderate' and Romney is a RINO. They think that they can actually get more voters if they move even more to the right.

As long as a significant number of Republicans think, people like Limbaugh will still be leading the GOP.

[Kizoku Keenan]

and y'all were worried....

[GDB]

Originally Posted by Kizoku Keenan

and y'all were worried....

He looks like he has a black eye.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

I was told that there was some voter fraud issues in Oregan with a claim that was reporting 5 million people voted when the state barely has 2 million registered voters.

The only "fraud" so far with any validity is an election office worker in one of our counties (in the metro area) who was "finishing" voter ballots with her own marks. She's fired, the DoJ is investigating and the whole office is under suspicion, and the officer isn't willing to meet with the county officials.

In fact I'm getting a lot of claims of voters fraud over the voting machines being rigged to vote for Obama, and other claims of dead people voting Obama and the like.

In Oregon, we vote by mail. Is this somewhere else? We don't have polling stations or voting booths.

My responce was that it is considered illegal as long as you have to pay for a State ID as it is considered a poll tax.

Good answer because that is the fact. Even the judges who are striking them down say that. Make the IDs free (i.e. paid out of the tax revenues and raise the taxation ), then we'll talk.


Here's a pretty good list of reasons why Romney actually lost (according to "the Internet" anyway).

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-d...b_2087989.html

1. Personal extremism
2. Party extremism
3. His backers
4. Corporate interests
5. The 47%
6. The tax returns
7. Paul Ryan
8. Flip-flops and lies
9. Foreign Flubs
10. Fox News
11. Minorities
12. Women
13. Jobs
14. Health care
15. Gay marriage and rights

Explanations in the article

[kyp275]

Originally Posted by Xion Valkyrie

Look at some of the comments on that article. People think they lost the election because their platform is too 'moderate' and Romney is a RINO. They think that they can actually get more voters if they move even more to the right.

As long as a significant number of Republicans think, people like Limbaugh will still be leading the GOP.

If that turn out to be the case, then so be it. GOP will only condemn itself into perpetual irrelevancy, and someone else will end up take its place.

Parties have come and gone before, the GOP is no exception.

[GundamFan0083]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Heh, sometimes I argue the Nolan chart should have three axes, adding one for something we could call 'corporatism'?, 'trans-nationals'? -- a power structure of unelected power cabals running things.

Agreed.

I drag out Mussolini as the sidestep of the Godwin rule, especially since he actually defined much of what the US is dealing with now.

Kinda scary isn't it.

[Dr. Casey]

Question. Since the elections are over now, can this awful, awful, hideously awful cesspool of a thread be locked? The election is over, so the thread's served its purpose, right? Then this thread can fade into memory, the darkest hour of an already rather shitty message board.

[james0246]

Originally Posted by GDB

You said you agreed with Victoria Jackson or whatever her name is. She said that Evil won and America is dead. By your own words, you agreed with that. Therefore, you don't respect our choices. Why should we respect yours?

Can we stop with this pointless discussion? It is ridiculously uninteresting and mind-numbingly boring with little to do with anything of import let alone the actual purpose of this thread (it's also getting needlessly aggressive).

Originally Posted by Dr. Casey

Question. Since the elections are over now, can this awful, awful, hideously awful cesspool of a thread be locked? The election is over, so the thread's served its purpose, right? Then this thread can fade into memory, the darkest hour of an already rather shitty message board.

Thank you for the response, the thread will now stay open until the Inauguration and then I will make an Obama 2nd Term thread and a 113th United States Congress thread. (And just for shits and giggles, I will make sure to reference you in all future political threads on this forum.)

[GundamFan0083]

Latino groups to Obama: You owe Latinos the election, now pass immigration reform
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/l...-election.html

[Dr. Casey]

Originally Posted by james0246

Can we stop with this pointless discussion? It is ridiculously uninteresting and mind-numbingly boring with little to do with anything of import let alone the actual purpose of this thread (it's also getting needlessly aggressive).

Hey now, GDB's just upholding the most sacred purpose of this thread: to dogpile anyone with a divergent opinion and try to browbeat them into changing their mind.

Originally Posted by james0246

Thank you for the response, the thread will now stay open until the Inauguration and then I will make an Obama 2nd Term thread and a 113th United States Congress thread. (And just for shits and giggles, I will make sure to reference you in all future political threads on this forum.)

Sounds good James, make sure to officially add a new rule to AnimeSuki while you're at it making it a bannable offense to ever mention Mitt Romney in a positive light.

[GundamFan0083]

That's why you have to become a pillar of stubborn indignation like me.