GOP Will Shit Itself

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Blossom
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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Blossom » Sat Oct 28, 2017 9:49 pm

The idea that these are the responsibilities of different people - the cockamamie leftists who come up with all this crazy new shit and the sensible staid conservatives who protect traditional values and sift through all the mess to find what little new stuff has value - is fundamentally idiotic. He's presupposing that if you aren't a conservative, you're incapable of valuing something that already exists. This isn't a new argument - I've been hearing for decades how conservatives are necessary to protect the status quo and make sure that change doesn't happen "too fast", and oddly enough, no leftists ever say it. It's always conservatives who are benefiting massively and unjustly from the status quo who insist that we don't move away from it too quick.

This is even setting aside whether any of those social structures he's all het up about defending have ever "served well" in the first place.
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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby François » Sat Oct 28, 2017 10:16 pm

Right: "The left wants to throw out stuff that works!"
Left: "Uh, yeah, no, we actually only want to change things that don't work."
Right: "But you keep talking about changing this thing that works perfectly!"
Left: "It doesn't seem to work for women, or colored people, or..."
Right: "I meant it works perfectly for me."
Left: "Really now."
Right: "Yeah, don't touch that. We're keeping it. Anyway, I'm cutting food stamps and rolling women's rights back sixty years. Ta-ta!"
Right: *flies off in jetpack powered by the blood of war orphans*
Right: "The free press is a failed experimeeeeeeeeent!"

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Mongrel
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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Mongrel » Sun Oct 29, 2017 12:09 am

It's not going to work if a person is being straight-up dishonest, no. But there's not a lot of other systems which work with a pile of blatantly dishonest people in charge either.

I mean, do you think that there is no role for anyone in society to question or test a new idea?

I'm not talking about liars who just want to entrench privilege, I'm talking about the people who in a functioning society would be the testers. To use a scientific analogy, the leftists propose and design experiments, and the rightists check the data, make sure the control groups are valid, weigh outcomes versus current outcomes, run duplication experiments to verify results, raise objections or criticisms where they apply, and so on. Neither of those roles is "Bad" unless one party is acting in bad faith to begin with.

I also think it's wrong to assign purely binary labels here as if people could only be pure red or pure blue rather than the purple blend almost everyone is in practise. People can be for preserving something and not others and there's no reason that everything is necessarily the responsibility of people in two rigidly defined camps. But people do have natural left or right leaning on various subjects; ideally you can play to those strengths.

François wrote:Right: *flies off in jetpack powered by the blood of war orphans*
Right: "The free press is a failed experimeeeeeeeeent!"


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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Blossom » Sun Oct 29, 2017 3:48 am

Mongrel wrote:I mean, do you think that there is no role for anyone in society to question or test a new idea?


I believe there is absolutely no role in society for the class of people who have decided that they, as the Guardians of what is Good and Works, are to stand in judgment over all social progress to see if it meets the Standards.

Mongrel wrote:I'm not talking about liars who just want to entrench privilege, I'm talking about the people who in a functioning society would be the testers. To use a scientific analogy, the leftists propose and design experiments, and the rightists check the data, make sure the control groups are valid, weigh outcomes versus current outcomes, run duplication experiments to verify results, raise objections or criticisms where they apply, and so on. Neither of those roles is "Bad" unless one party is acting in bad faith to begin with.

I also think it's wrong to assign purely binary labels here as if people could only be pure red or pure blue rather than the purple blend almost everyone is in practise. People can be for preserving something and not others and there's no reason that everything is necessarily the responsibility of people in two rigidly defined camps. But people do have natural left or right leaning on various subjects; ideally you can play to those strengths.


Why accept the premise that, in your analogy, these should be two different roles in the first place? Why are the leftists incapable of checking the data of their own experiments, of validating their control groups? Why should all of this be placed in the hands of a group of people who are categorically disinterested in offering answers? What's the actual point of that mentality? It's a bullshit idea, saying that you need solid, grounded conservativism to reign in leftist flights of fancy until they stumble onto the one good idea they'll get, and I for one reject it at the outset.
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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Mothra » Sun Oct 29, 2017 12:55 pm

100% agree with TA

Also:
Hansen wrote:When you’re giving people the freedom to try new ideas, the vast majority of which are bad, you’re going to wind up blowing up parts of society.

I love love love how he takes a quick aside to just casually say that 'the vast majority of new ideas are bad.'

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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Thad » Sun Oct 29, 2017 1:36 pm

I'd argue that values we generally associate with conservatism -- suspicion of government, fiscal responsibility, individualism -- are good values.

But it's disingenuous to suggest that (1) modern conservative movements actually value any of those things or (2) you can't value those things if you're a liberal/leftist/etc.

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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Mongrel » Sun Oct 29, 2017 1:42 pm

TA wrote:Why accept the premise that, in your analogy, these should be two different roles in the first place? Why are the leftists incapable of checking the data of their own experiments, of validating their control groups? Why should all of this be placed in the hands of a group of people who are categorically disinterested in offering answers? What's the actual point of that mentality? It's a bullshit idea, saying that you need solid, grounded conservativism to reign in leftist flights of fancy until they stumble onto the one good idea they'll get, and I for one reject it at the outset.

Look, maybe you guys misunderstand. I'm absolutely not advocating for something absurd like some kind of caste system. That's stupid and in no way should this notion be enshrined as a formal social structure of any kind. That would be dumb.

People have natural biases and likes and dislikes. They also form tribes and groups entirely on their own. I'm simply saying that this is one way you can work with those natural tendencies, rather than against them.

Mothra wrote:'the vast majority of new ideas are bad.'

I don't know about a vast majority, but a majority, yeah, I DO agree. People of all political stripes are constantly coming up with all kinds of ideas all the time, very few of which are actually viable as the basis to form or run a society on.

I DO think that some people are flighty pie-in-the-sky types and others are stodgy sticks in the mud, but the idea is you can get the two to work together instead of fighting.
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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Mothra » Sun Oct 29, 2017 1:51 pm

Well it's been a hell of a long time since I've heard a compelling conservative idea for how to lead this country fairly and justly. If they're gunning for keeping things as they are, or for returning things to how they were, and aren't interested in coming up with new ideas on how to fix any of our problems, they can kindly shut the fuck up while progressives keep doing the actual work.

Conservative thinkers are really great at sitting on their ass and running any and all mental acrobatics necessary to justify keeping shit exactly the way it is.

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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Mongrel » Sun Oct 29, 2017 1:56 pm

Thad wrote:I'd argue that values we generally associate with conservatism -- suspicion of government, fiscal responsibility, individualism -- are good values.

But it's disingenuous to suggest that (1) modern conservative movements actually value any of those things or (2) you can't value those things if you're a liberal/leftist/etc.

Right and I'm not saying something so black and white either. I mean, I'm an example right here. I agree with a majority of the changes progressives are currently pushing for, but I still value suspicion of government and the excess regulation and control it might try to exercise, as well as a few other nominally conservative values. For instance I usually agree with Grath when he posts about guns and gun control (although while he's definitely right wing on that issue by Bronto standards he's technically leftist as compared to, say, the whackadoo gun nuts who are actually writing laws).

I just think people do have inclinations and talents that make them stronger in some areas than others.
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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Mongrel » Sun Oct 29, 2017 1:59 pm

Mothra wrote:Well it's been a hell of a long time since I've heard a compelling conservative idea for how to lead this country fairly and justly. If they're gunning for keeping things as they are, or for returning things to how they were, and aren't interested in coming up with new ideas on how to fix any of our problems, they can kindly shut the fuck up while progressives keep doing the actual work.

Conservative thinkers are really great at sitting on their ass and running any and all mental acrobatics necessary to justify keeping shit exactly the way it is.

Well the point was that the thieves, lunatics, and assholes currently running the show in the US aren't "conservatives" in any real sense of the word just because they call themselves that. The biggest difference being honestly considering "for the good of everyone" rather than "for the good of me" as your basis for thought, which (I think) is neither conservative nor liberal.

Now, maybe the labels themselves will change over time based on current usage - liberal used to mean conservative after all! but that's a language thing, not a political beliefs thing. If we need to come up with new words, well, that happens naturally all the time.
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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Blossom » Sun Oct 29, 2017 2:49 pm

Mothra wrote:Well it's been a hell of a long time since I've heard a compelling conservative idea for how to lead this country fairly and justly. If they're gunning for keeping things as they are, or for returning things to how they were, and aren't interested in coming up with new ideas on how to fix any of our problems, they can kindly shut the fuck up while progressives keep doing the actual work.

Conservative thinkers are really great at sitting on their ass and running any and all mental acrobatics necessary to justify keeping shit exactly the way it is.


And according to this philosophy of progress, that's exactly how it should be. Conservatives shouldn't be coming up with new ideas, they should be shitting on the ideas that other people come up with.
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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Mongrel » Sun Oct 29, 2017 3:11 pm

TA wrote:
Mothra wrote:Well it's been a hell of a long time since I've heard a compelling conservative idea for how to lead this country fairly and justly. If they're gunning for keeping things as they are, or for returning things to how they were, and aren't interested in coming up with new ideas on how to fix any of our problems, they can kindly shut the fuck up while progressives keep doing the actual work.

Conservative thinkers are really great at sitting on their ass and running any and all mental acrobatics necessary to justify keeping shit exactly the way it is.


And according to this philosophy of progress, that's exactly how it should be. Conservatives shouldn't be coming up with new ideas, they should be shitting on the ideas that other people come up with.

It's not about what people should do, it's about what they're inclined to do anyway.

Nor does it have to be shitting on someone's ideas to argue they won't work or to try and better reconcile new ideas with existing structures. There's no reason you shouldn't be working with mutual respect if you're acting in good faith.

Every time you guys go at this you're presuming malicious selfishness on the part of conservatives. To be fair, I can't blame you for that because we have a number of malicious selfish assholes calling themselves "conservatives" running things, so sure, it's understandable to conflate the two. But IMO if someone is an asshole, they're an asshole; that doesn't make them either conservative or liberal.

------------

Anyway, look, this isn't really the hill I'm looking to die on. I obviously have different opinions about people's natural leanings towards biases and forming tribes and how to leverage that. I don't think "being an asshole" correlates with one political bent or another, and I mostly agree with you guys about actual progressive politics and the need for massive changes right now (and the differences are relatively minor), so let's leave it at that.
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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Mongrel » Thu Nov 09, 2017 6:43 pm

I like how Roy Moore can straight up admit to being a pedophile, but this doesn't hurt him because *jazz hands* Alabama.

EDIT: And, as a judge, tried to defend pedophiles on several occasions on the grounds that the blatantly abusive cases involved "may have been romantic".

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee
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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Mongrel » Thu Nov 09, 2017 8:40 pm

Of course:

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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Thad » Thu Nov 09, 2017 8:48 pm

Mongrel wrote:I like how Roy Moore can straight up admit to being a pedophile, but this doesn't hurt him because *jazz hands* Alabama.

Technically Moore is denying it. It's his surrogates (the Alabama GOP, Hannity) who are saying "OK it happened but it was actually consensual!"

Frankly I'm surprised Fox News is acknowledging it at all instead of just talking about Louis CK.

(It should go without saying, but fuck that guy too. I would not vote for Louis CK for senator either, if given the opportunity.)

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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Mongrel » Thu Nov 09, 2017 9:45 pm

Ever since it was clear that Feinstein had triggered a wave of victims coming forward against celebrities of all sorts, I've been anticipating Louis CK's being next up against the wall. Not only were his "activities" rumoured about quite publicly for years, but his is one of the few cases where his victims had already made public statements, so he's actually been well beyond the realm of rumour for some time.
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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby IGNORE ME » Thu Nov 09, 2017 11:06 pm

I thought the flipping of public opinion of Cosby was rapid. How little I knew.

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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Mongrel » Thu Nov 09, 2017 11:12 pm

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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Thad » Fri Nov 10, 2017 12:49 am

Brentai wrote:I thought the flipping of public opinion of Cosby was rapid. How little I knew.

The first lawsuit against Cosby was in 2004, and we (and I include myself in this) brushed it off for about a decade until he racked up dozens of accusers.

Like Mongrel says, there have been rumors about Louis for years. But until today, no accusers had come forward publicly and on record; Jen Kirkman had told a story that a lot of people inferred was about him, but later said that it wasn't. (In light of the Times article, it's reasonable to speculate that she was talking about him but his agent pressured her to say she wasn't. Though it's entirely possible she really was talking about an entirely different creep. This seems to be a depressingly common MO.)

Yesterday, I was willing to accept that maybe it was just a rumor. Today, there are multiple women on record describing similar events, who have been interviewed separately, and have shared e-mails with the press where CK alluded to what had happened. There's no reasonable conclusion to draw but that they're telling the truth.

Something has changed since Cosby, and even moreso since Weinstein. It feels different this time, like the dam has burst and there's no going back to the way things were before. At least, I hope not.

The Cosby allegations (eventually) made it clear that no matter how rich, famous, powerful, and beloved you are, you can't hide forever. And after Weinstein, there's a sense that there's strength and safety in numbers. An unsourced rumor or an isolated accusation can be dismissed, but when there are multiple accusations, they become a lot harder to ignore.

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Re: GOP Will Shit Itself

Postby Mongrel » Fri Nov 10, 2017 1:47 am

Well, it's technically more than just rumours. There have been several comedians who have spoken out publicly, but most (not all) were persuaded to stop. Since no charges were laid (many involved weren't even sure if what Louis CK had been doing was technically illegal). As per the NYT article, the history of this has been rather a mess.

Also, I didn't know he had a movie coming out, but the content alluded to by the article sounds super fucking creepy.
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