A face made for radio, a voice made for print, and spelling made for youtube comments.
Has his writing gotten less punchable at V-x? Because there had been times I couldn't believe he was sincere because he was so annoying.
I've never really found him as objectionable as many do here. I would say he's maybe better than he was though?
He still comes across to me as glib and jejune, but Christ, compared to how much awful political writing there's been in this election year he's so much better by comparison so I feel less giving him less haterade.
I fucking hate democracy in the age of social media and the internet. It turns out I absolutely do not want to hear political opinions from 99.9% of the people I know (or people I don't know) even when I substantively agree with them. God I miss the days when you might get some water-cooler chatter or cable news but basically people would mostly just shut up and vote or only spout off on politics to people they knew reasonably well.
I think (not for the first time) that Tigre needs some better friends on social media. Or even just to hide more of them.
I just have a very low tolerance for this stuff. I mean I don't know a single Trump supporter. But still. Do I need to know your views on Joe Biden v Bill Clinton's speech performance last night, random Mom from one kid's music class? Fuck no I do not, keep that shit to yourself.
I'm so glad that, since I don't have kids, I don't have to friend the parents of my kids' friends on facebook.
Maybe you, third tier acquaintance from high school, will finally achieve your goal of developing a perfect epigram summing up tonight's Hillary Clinton speech. Why not try!
My cousin has a daughter than I've never met and yesterday she had a post about how having now heard Trump talk (she was at the convention), she's very reassured about his ability to run America. This is what happens to normal families when they let their kids move to Georgia.
To quote Time or Newsweek from a long time ago "Feminaut explores the gender universe. Greatest woman in history?"
I can't stand political memes mostly. I don't mind if people take the time to write out what's on their minds, though.
6, 8: You should hide all those people (at least temporarily) and only follow Unfogged people until the election.
I just uninstalled Twitter until after the election.
12: Oh hell no, and this sort of thing is a big part of why.
I mostly use twitter to interact with former unfogged commenter JL.
I've learned a lot through Twitter about how catty, petty, and frankly daft a lot of the DC punditry is. Made two pretty good personal friends there, too. I've seen pretty well known pundits pretty much asking economists questions on there and then summarizing what they say into an article later that day. My first instinct is to think it's gross, but maybe it's not that bad.
My takeaway from Hillary's convention speech: it sounds a bit exhausting to be a Wesleyan Methodist. Go Hillz!
I really have a hard time liking her. I was pretty excited about a lot of Bernie's policies and don't like her foreign policy. I'm going to vote for her, of course, but I don't feel enthusiastic about it. I wish I could be excited about the possibility of a woman president. I feel like I'm being a bad feminist.
I have always liked Hillary, and have always been puzzled by the idea that she is unlikable.
I'm with Bostoniangirl.
I do want to see her win overwhelmingly because I think it's important to see Trump and Trumpism utterly rebuked.
Oh shut up you morons. Did you like Obama? Yes you did. Well guess what fuckfaces you're getting exactly the same stuff. Would you have said "well I just don't like him because blah" when he was the first black person getting the nomination, even though you didn't FULLY agree with his policy agenda? Of course not. So contemplate the fact that your resentment may be because you are actually pretty fucking sexist.
I agree, Bostoniangirl and Just Plain Jane are extremely sexist.
It's not enough to vote for her and work for her election but we have to like her and all of our policies or we're sexist morons. OK dude.
Oh good, I was worried that with the primary over we had run out of things to have stupid arguments about.
Just don't hate on Terence Malick and we'll be fine.
I can't believe I've been up since 4 am (it's almost 8 am now).
Read what I wrote above, dumbass. Would you have acted like this in 2008 or 2012 for someone with exactly the same policies? Or for that matter Joe Biden? Of course not. But I'm sure its just a pure matter of leftist principle.
I'm watching a really stupid movie with my in-laws! The first non-kid movie I've seen in months!
However, you should be very careful not to like Clinton any more than you like Obama, otherwise you might as well join the Klan.
In 2008 Obama opposed the Iraq war. I'll let you fill in the rest.
… yes? And you can't point to how anyone actually acted in 2008, since Obama, who hadn't had a lot of public service, was the object of a lot of projection. You might recall that people had reservations about Clinton then, too. You might also recall that a lot of people, even here, actually don't like a lot of Obama's actions.
But do we really need to know your opinions about whether there are any legitimate grounds for not being balls-out enthusiastic about Clinton? Fuck no, keep that shit to yourself.
I mean dude, HRC just accepted the nomination of the Democratic party. We're all totally on board with the overwhelming importance of her winning the election in November. And you're still about to throw a fit about it. Chill.
I guess if someone wants to take me to task for "balls-out" there, I would acknowledge the justice there.
Jesus, halford, get a grip already. All of those complaints you have about politics in the age of social media: you embody them. I can't even begin to figure out what's caused you to lose your mind about this election. I mean, yeah, it's all horrifying and grim and depressing as fuck. But that doesn't mean you have to keep making things worse.
Purges in Halfordismo will involve being baited into getting into political arguments as a pretext for being trampled under the hooves of the strategically reserved bison.
Lots of totally sincere enthusiasm for HRC in my FB feed right now, FWIW.
I said I'm watching a really boring movie. Is this thing on?
33 - there is NO WAY that peiple like Barry would have had responses like this in 2012, when Clinton's foreign policy was literally Obama's. Of course there are reasons to not be balls out in favor of HRC (or Obama for that matter). But let's recognize the "I just don't like her" for what it is.
I can't even begin to figure out what's caused you to lose your mind about this election.
I stand by 5.
You should watch Demolition Man which is also super dumb but also super fun. Plus the three sea shells.
42 In 2012 I had a lot to say and complain about Obama's policies, especially foreign policy so I'm not sure what your point is.
It's about some people who have gotten numb from being in the ratrace and then they act out in meth-reminiscent robotic ways as they realize the human experience is like super fake. It's called Demolition because that's a metaphor for how he likes to destroy things like houses.
I'm not sure what your point is.
Something about peiple. Which is to say, he's probably pretty drunk again.
I have a couple people on Facebook who are like RT and can think of no response to political victory but gloating and vicious mockery of their beaten foes, but yes, almost all sincere enthusiasm.
But let's recognize the "I just don't like her" for what it is.
Well, tbh, I don't really care about "I just don't like her", and, JPJ and BG to the side, I don't think much of the unenthusiasm I've seen expressed has boiled down to that or been expressed in those terms, because, basically, who gives a shit about whether you just do/don't "like" her in some palsy-walsy sense.
I've seen Demolition Man. Let's go do some crimes. Maybe I haven't, actually.
It's about Wesley Snipes who's an arch criminal and Sylvester Stallone, a super cop sworn to pursue him who are cryogenically frozen and then thawed out 40 years later in some futuristic dystopian Los Angeles.
That was Repossession Man. Starring Linda Blair and Leslie Nielsen.
Maybe I just don't like movies much. Because I'm sexist?
I'm on board with 51. Also not drunk just driving. Also not gloating. It's the "I like mainstream Democrats, but only selectively when they happen to not be Hillary Clinton" that's been driving me nuts all primary season. Somehow we're all supposed to pretend that this isn't at all about women in public life.
It's the "I like mainstream Democrats, but only selectively when they happen to not be Hillary Clinton" that's been driving me nuts all primary season.
I really think this group is heavily overrepresented in your social circles, and thus your social media. I've basically never seen it myself in mine, and I can't think of any regular commenters here that fit that description either.
My facebook feed is pretty stoked about Clinton.
That is, I'm pretty sure the regular commenters who are lukewarm-to-cold on HRC feel roughly the same way about all mainstream Dems despite being willing to support them.
62 isn't my impression, certainly as to Obama himself or Biden. Which is to say that people are varying degrees of critical of Obama but there's a fundamentally different overall tone towards him than towards HRC here and in similar places. But I admit I haven't done a study or anything and maybe this is overrepresented on Facebook and IRL.
65: Well, I haven't done a study either, so I could well be the one who's wrong. But I definitely am seeing little to none of this sort of thing in my own FB feed, which was heavily pro-Sanders during the primaries and is just as heavily pro-Clinton now. Not that that's necessarily representative, of course.
Biden is certainly outsizedly-beloved in a way that would be totally inaccessible to Clinton.
Yeah, I don't think people even really think of Biden as a politician at this point.
I found it super weird when he was dragging his feet on whether or not to run, last fall, for that exact reason. That whole hemming and hawing bit irritated me.
I think the Onion had a lot to do with that.
I think Biden is a special case in that he would be much less popular if it were not for Onion-Biden.
Personally, I like Obama and Warren and everyone else can go to hell.
THE ONION IS A COMMUNIST CIA PLOT SPAWNED BY SATAN TO DISTRACT US FROM WHEN OBAMA DECLARES MARTIAL LAW
https://mobile.twitter.com/Mobute/status/758902468642164741
It occurred to me earlier that this week that a lot of the rancor over intra-party disputes in the nominating season might not be so bad if we had honest-to-god national referenda or a procedure for setting them up. One of the best arguments I heard against getting worked up over the Sanders candidacy was that Presidential campaigns are a bad vehicle for long-term political organizing. But in a system with no national referenda and incredibly rigged district-drawing, I don't really see a better way for the public to demonstrate broad support for a certain kind of agenda.
And the outlooks for organizing are grim, to say the least. It's worse in red states where it's arguably most needed. In my state, I believe that I could theoretically be fired for being affiliated with the Democratic party if discovered. Shockingly few states have protections for even affiliation with a major party. The ACLU and SPLC are probably worse and something like the Democratic Socialists of America is truly beyond the pale here. So it feels like any sort of participation in the democratic process beyond voting and posting anonymously (or behind a tightly controlled social media account) online is severely restricted in a way that forces all of this energy into really caring about things like Sanders's campaign because there's so little else open to so many of us.
we had honest-to-god national referenda or a procedure for setting them up.
Holy shit, do you fuckholes want me to actually start committing crimes? Because that one takes me one step from busting out the machete and making sure there aren't too many heads still attached to bodies.
God no. Referenda are a terrible idea. Look at California. Look at Brexit. No fucking way.
Maybe a better voting system than FPP but not referenda.
Gotta agree with Tigre and Barry on this one. State referenda are bad enough; national ones would be a disaster. And not even a theoretical one: look at Brexit for a very real example. I'm sorry that Texas appears to be a repressive one-party autocracy, but the way for the public to demonstrate broad support for an agenda is for activists to do the work to get it accepted as part of the platform of one of the major parties and I don't see any reason to change that.
(Pwned, but I went to the trouble to write this out so I'm still posting it.)
I mean, I also live in a very red state, and I work for a quasi-public state corporation that has until very recently been run by Republican political operatives, but I've never felt any inhibition about attending Democratic Party events or donating to Dem candidates, and I have in fact done both.
Also there's tons of lefty shit in Texas, including in Dallas, so buck up.
OK, maybe I'm a little bit drunk now.
Donating to Dem candidates (and other progressive organizations) I do. I'm considering getting out to some Democratic Party events, but that's a very limited scope for the space of possible activism. I'm beginning to accumulate some savings now, so soon I'll be a better position to deal with any kinds of fallout. I'm also working on getting into a position with a bit more security where I can be more of a rank-and-file person so I can feel like I'm under less scrutiny.
I'm considering getting out to some Democratic Party events, but that's a very limited scope for the space of possible activism.
No way, man. Events like that open up lots of scope for activism. The Young Dems do a ton of stuff here, and I'm sure it's the same in every state.
State legislative races are a good venue for helping out in a context where you really can make a difference personally. Those may or may not be competitive in your area, and whether or not the primary has already happened makes a difference, but definitely look into it.
I will. If there are any big voter registration drives left I want to work on those, too.
I'm sure there are, especially with the recent Supreme Court ruling.
No one would ever have said "get disappointed by someone new" about Obama in 2008.
For the record, I still harbor resentment toward Biden for she parsing through that godawful bankruptcy bill. I don't like him at all.
And I think that Obama is a wonderful orator, but I'm angry that he didn't push for a greater stimulus in 08, and I didn't feel excited by him in 2012. Didn't like the fact that he was modeling healthcare reform on Massachusetts.
I do like HRC, and I'm happy to finally see a woman get the nomination.
91 was supposed to say "sheparding".
Parsing the bill in a feminine manner would have been admirably progressive of him.
I see that there are a lot of open seats for Dallas precinct chairs, for example. One of the questions posed at the link is "Is it Fun?" Answer: Yes.
I feel like I may have mentioned this somewhere here SO MUCH lefty stuff in Texas, including voter registration drives focusing on the enormous numbers of potential Latino and Muslim voters. Battleground Texas organizes a bunch, as a place to start. I'd come down and do it but can't do explicitly political stuff with my job.
Royal consort is such a delicate position.
I don't really see a better way for the public to demonstrate broad support for a certain kind of agenda.
I suppose you've been given sufficient grief about the referendum thing, but I wanted to add that there is a largely illusory idea on the left that if only the system were run a little differently, we'd clean up.
And sure, there are systemic issues, but the public can demonstrate broad support for a certain kind of agenda by voting for it. The US has many of the attributes of a democracy.
And the Democratic Party represents the leftward half of that democracy. If you can't get more than half of a party that is a plurality of the electorate, then that's your problem - not a lack of opportunities.
" But in a system with no national referenda and incredibly rigged district-drawing, I don't really see a better way for the public to demonstrate broad support for a certain kind of agenda."
The conservative half of the public has demonstrated its support for the nutball agenda under the name of 'teaparty' quite easily.
Trump and Sanders each showed in their own way just how easy it is for outsiders to seize control of both our political parties. Sanders couldn't quite manage it, but that's only because he faced a truly unique incumbent-like opponent. Were the seat actually open -- as it would have been if Clinton and Biden both declined -- he's have cleaned up.
Obviously, things operate a bit differently at the state level, but I'd expect the systems to generally be just as porous.
Maybe the factor that most holds the extremes in check are their own self-marginalizing tendencies, whether its nominating Christine O'Donnell or going Bernie or Bust Jill.
I actually find Clinton quite compelling and likable on a personal level, but then I am also grouchy and pedantic so that affinity isn't surprising. My big issue is disengaging from the War on the Greater Middle East, and she's not given me much to hope for on that front, but American foreign policy has been unrelentingly shitty for my entire life and I have essentially given up on it improving absent a Soviet-style government collapse.
I said at the other place that the "I don't trust her" sentiment is just baffling to me. I completely trust that she will be great on social issues, frustratingly middle-of-the-road/split-the-difference on economic ones, and terrible on foreign policy. In other words, a Democrat. That's good enough to win my vote.
I'm not sure Sanders would have beaten Generic Moderate Dem (Corey Booker? Kaine?). He had a weird coalition of lefty Dem (and lefter-than-Dem) and notHillary voters.
The only specific issue where I don't trust Clinton (and wouldn't trust any moderate/establishment Dem) is on trade deals.
Sanders didn't beat Hillary, either.
104 - 102 was in response to 100.1
101.2 seems about right.
It's possible that there are factors other than policy and sexism that cause people to dislike her, though. She's does not give a good speech, for instance. It turns out, people like good speeches.
101 -- Disengaging from the war is a pretty complicated process, and I totally share your cynicism on HRC's natural instincts there. I don't think it's a motivating factor for her seeking office, though, so if she can be convinced that there actually is political advantage, for her other priorities, in having less war, I think she'll go for it. My read on Hillary the warmonger is essentially the same as LBJ the warmonger: they have no objection to making war inasmuch as it creates* political space for their domestic agenda, but, unlike, say, W, they don't think it's the point of being president.
Unlike LBJ, though, HRC faces an adversary that wants to have a war, and wants us to bring the full force of our military to bear. They'll keep trying to goad us into doing stuff, and are happy to prey on maladjusted lone wolf types to get there. We absolutely could have avoided a whole lot of Middle East war with a few changes in the 00s (stronger push on I/P; law enforcement response to 9/11 -- both of which needed Gore rather than Bush), but where we are right now, I think we're fated to be stuck in it for a good while longer.
It's on us to create the political space to disengage further. I think it's doable, but we have to be realistic about the incremental nature of the effort. That is, we have to actually create the political space, rather than drawing blood and then complaining that our leadership is anemic.
* Or, more correctly, doesn't eliminate space for a domestic agenda.
I agree Hillary seems hawkish. But shouldn't her time as Secretary of State be caveated? Isn't State always more wanting to use the military than Defense?
"I don't trust her" sentiment is just baffling to me
Come on now, longtime associations with shady people like Mark Penn and Rahm Emmanuel, the hawkishness, the bankruptcy bill vote, putting an email server in her house in an end run around FOIA, talking smack on for profit colleges after Bill's pulled in 16 mil from Laureate Intl, etc.
I'll still pull the D lever same as the rest of you but the Clintons have earned themselves some side eye fair and square.
I agree with 101 and 107. I am also psyched that my "woman card" and my "I believe that she will win" pin* came in the mail, and can't wait to show them off.
Fwiw, the hardcore female leftists under 30 on my social media feeds seemed to be feeling pissed off last night. Those of us over 30 were gleeful to finally see a woman, however problematic, accept the nomination.
*Allusion to the US Women's National Soccer Team.
108 - The problem with the caveats is that she was Obama's Secretary of State, specifically. And (making Halford's little tantrum more hilarious) foreign policy is (possible the) one place where Obama and Clinton have publicly disagreed about things, with Clinton on the hawkish side of things. So if anything I'd say it would go the other way: her tenure as SoS would understate her generally hawk instincts.
101: the "I don't trust her" sentiment is just baffling to me. I completely trust that she will be great on social issues, frustratingly middle-of-the-road/split-the-difference on economic ones
That last is a problem, not a baffling source of mistrust at all. Splitting the difference on, say, 'reforming' Social Security through chained CPI -- something Obama has apparently toyed with -- is troubling to say the least. I don't especially trust Clinton in that regard. But I do acknowledge I haven't read her specific comments about it, so I could be talking out of my ass.
And if we're going to fight with people on the left-leaning end of the spectrum, we could be fighting with Jill Stein supporters. I had occasion to see an interview with a Bernie-or-buster who declared that there was no difference between Clinton and Trump. Jill Stein herself appears to feel somewhat the same.
She's apparently going to be interviewed on the Diane Rehm show Monday at 11 a.m. (Eastern).
Beating on Stein supporters here seems 1000% pointless since there aren't any (that I know of). Just go post that Noam-Chomsky-on-lesser-evil-voting link at people if you happen to run into any of them in the wild.
115: True enough, but when you run in them in real life, they never want to go read an article on the internet. Nonetheless I know the argument and can probably recapitulate it, y'know, verbally.
116: There's not point in trying to argue with them. They are just seeking attention. Hug them and tell them you love them anyway, and maybe eventually they'll come around.
tell them you love them anyway
Would that that were true.
Would that it WERE so simple.
119: I need more gay tap-dancing Communist sailors in my life.
I can't remember if I've said this here before, but as a barely nineteen-year-old pacifist and anti-corporate globalization activist, I bought into Nader's critique of "the system" to the point that I didn't vote at all. (Of course, given my home county, who knows if my vote would have counted anyway?). To be fair to my younger self, Clinton (and by extension, Gore) really was putting a lot of effort into DLC-type efforts to drag the Democratic Party to the right. In the wake of welfare reform, NAFTA and other trade policies, DOMA, DADT, and continuing military interventions abroad, it's easy to see why I would have been susceptible to arguments that the two parties were hard to differentiate from one another. Then there's the fact that Gore was running with motherf*cking Joe Lieberman on the ticket.
I very rarely attend protests anymore, in large part due to having lost my nerve after seeing police violence up close and personal during the 2000 IMF/World Bank/WTO protests. My pacifism has also turned into a recognition that violence is sometimes necessary in this world, even if it's something I still strongly oppose in most circumstances. The biggest difference in my politics, though, has been the recognition (thanks, in small part, to reading Max Weber) that ethical purity in politics is bullshit. No one in politics has clean hands. I just wish I had a better way of communicating that to younger voters in the same position as I used to be without sounding like I just got old(er) and sold out.
You did get older and sell out. :)
I don't understand why people act like their vote is supposed to have magic powers. It is really about the tiniest possible say in things, you shouldn't expect to be able to instal utopia with it but people do.
109:I forgot about Mark Penn and Rahm Emmanuel. Mark Penn is worse.
I can't blame Hillary for this, but Bill's decision to execute Ricky Ray Rector always troubled me.
Rector deserved the needle and then some. You don't get to claim the retard exemption when it's from you fucking up the suicide attempt after the cop murder.
123: fuck that, dude. If he was alive but incapable of culpability, it is absolutely problematic to execute him.
Christ, "Bill flew home to personally oversee a handicapped man's execution" is one of the weakest fucking liberal objections to capital punishment in recorded history. I don't like defending that jackass but no, it wasn't Bill's decision to execute, he just didn't stop it. And the case to stop it was weak as hell.
123: I do disagree with that, but having spent upwards of fifteen minutes at the Wikipedia School of Law, I think this was a function of the time. When he was executed, the relevant Supreme Court case, Penry v. Lynaugh, said that executing the mentally retarded was not cruel or unusual. Atkins v. Virginia (2002) shows norms had changed and it was no longer acceptable, clearly based on the degree of mental inability at the time of execution. Hall v. Florida (2014) gives a clear test. And I think it's clear that if we think having a low IQ matters, it should matter regardless of how despicable the event was that brought it about.
There's this pretty amazingly awful bit on Atkins that clearly shows that the determining time is at the time of execution:
Although Atkins's case and ruling may have saved other mentally handicapped inmates from the death penalty, a jury in Virginia decided in July 2005 that Atkins was intelligent enough to be executed on the basis that the constant contact he had with his lawyers provided intellectual stimulation and raised his IQ above 70, making him competent to be put to death under Virginia law.
We are a bloodthirsty people.
To clarify, I know you know that isn't the actual rule and were stating what you felt; I had no idea what the state of case law was then or now and figured that since upwards of 30% of Unfoggetarians are not lawyers, it might be useful to someone else.
I'm torn. I'm going to start by killing somebody smart and then keep killing less and less intelligent people until I feel bad.
128: My understanding is that's what they did to produce the test for Hall. You do not want to meet Justice Kagan in a dark alley.
You can't become a Supreme Court Justice without killing someone with an IQ of at least 120. Little-known fact.
I remember finding out about 123 after years of having the impression that Rector had committed his crime while being mentally disabled. It definitely reduced my outrage level.
100: It seems to me that beating the machine - at least for state reps and senators is very hard. The executive branch, on the other hand, is almost always outsiders.
That probably depends on the state.
131 echoes my experience. I'm not a fan of the death penalty in most cases, but if it's going to be applied you shouldn't be able to get out of it by failing at suicide.