Prozac

Dude, that’s an awful lot of three second clips with zero context whatsoever. I could post dozens of similar montages that make the right seem unhinged as there’s plenty of the same garbage being passed around by lefties. I won’t because that kind of thing is garbage regardless of where it comes from and is disseminated with the sole purpose of fomenting anger and division. Again, not saying you’re necessarily wrong. We all have blind spots and I’m open to the prospect that I’ve missed Democratic leaders and pundits actually calling for violence. But the montage you posted is far from a smoking gun.

I’ve not seen this (the notable exception being Kathy Griffin tastelessly parading around with Trump’s severed head a while back). Not necessarily disputing your analysis but can you provide some examples?

Not commenting on the merits or lack there of of any of these issues. Just highlighting that one party/segment of the population forcing its will on another is not the exclusive domain of liberals.

That sentiment goes both ways (sts). The majority of our population lives in metro areas and the majority of that group has decided that, even with all of the flaws so frequently noted by conservative commentators, Democrats are still preferable to Republican candidates. Why, you ask? They feel that the rural minority often gets to dictate to them what goes on in their communities. I.e. abortion bans, unencumbered gun rights, anti legal immigration, the electoral college, anti-gay rights, religious proselytizing, etc, are just a few of the issues that the urban population (you know, the majority of Americans) feel are being jammed down their throats by conservatives.

I agree 100%. When do we start?

Wow, zinger bro.

I understand your concern. What I’m confused about is the course of action you’re advocating for right now, today. Was the ball dropped with Hillary? Maybe. I don’t know. Does that mean DJT should not be prosecuted or held accountable? Do we give him a pass too in the interest of fairness? Or do we go back and re-litigate Hillary’s emails?

I don’t know. Maybe she should’ve been. Maybe she played the game and cooperated just enough with investigators to avoid prosecution. Maybe she cooperated fully and was truly repentant. Are you suggesting that everyone who breaks the law from here on out should be given a pass because Hillary was let go with a slap on the wrist?

I disagree. I think most of us have had the experience in life that most things we do, good or bad, along with their consequences, are proportional. Maybe you haven’t? Do really bad things, expect really bad consequences. Do less bad things, expect less severe repercussions. Stumble onto an active runway with out clearance? Bad. Expect a long conversation with the FAA and some extra sim time. Willfully disregard ATC, enter an active runway & do donuts while taking selfies, then tell tower to go fuck themselves? That’s willful disregard and will get you arrested and grounded for life. That kind of activity will rightly make people question whether you should be anywhere near an airport or aircraft. So many of Trump’s actions have been absolutely full of willful disregard for the rule of law and are objectively worse than the others’ in this case. No, this does not appear unfair at all to me.

Not defending mishandling classified but in the others’ cases, they at least went through the motions of cooperating with investigators. In Pence and Biden’s cases there is a plausible explanation that the mishandling was accidental; the documents were swept up with unclassified docs when moving out of their respective offices. Again, not saying it’s ok, but there is a significant difference in that Trump was literally waiving classified documents in people’s faces and refusing to cooperate when investigators tell him to return said material. If he had been cooperative and made a statement to the effect of “we made a mistake. We are cooperating with investigators and will return all classified material in a timely manner” I’d agree with you. But he didn’t. When you see police lights in your rear view mirror, if you promptly pull over and speak to the officer politely, you at least have a chance of being let off with a warning. If you floor it, give the cop the bird, and tell him where he can shove it when he finally catches you, guess what? You’re gonna get that ticket & a whole lot more.

Might want to look into enrolling in some continuing education:

On flight simulator? In your mom’s basement? 😂

Correlation does not equal causation. Crime rates have always been higher in large cities, regardless of who was in charge. Look, I won’t argue with you that some ultra liberal policies have had negative consequences (homeless encampments, open drug use, etc). I share many of those sentiments and would like to see change (and I am seeing some positive movement in certain areas). But your statement above is pure fallacy.

Naaah. I really don’t see much value in going any more rounds with you. Imma go hang out bin the drindls & beer thread for a bit. 🍻

You bring up a fair point but that’s not really what I was getting at. The mentality that the other side of the aisle is my/the nation’s enemy is a much more common conservative talking point than it is liberal one, evidenced by the fact that you constantly hear about things like civil war from conservative media. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the left leaning sources bring that kind of thing up except to point out the sentiment on the right. That thought process is scarily destructive to our country IMO. Your point that conservative voices and ideas are suppressed by the “mainstream” media has some merit. I think there was a pretty strong argument for that for many years. It eventually led to conservative talk radio programs with folks like Rush Limbaugh, and ultimately, to networks like Fox News. These outlets like to harp on the idea that they’re the underdogs who tell you the things the mainstream won’t, but the reality is that they’ve become mainstream in their own right. Fox News commands the biggest audience on television and has recently spent a not insignificant time in court admitting they lie to their viewers to keep them tuning in. Not saying that’s necessarily different from any other network, but the idea that anyone has the power to suppress stories in this day and age is misleading at best. Conservative media suppresses the stories its users don’t want to hear & vice versa with liberal outlets. The problem isn’t the media, it’s us. These networks are giving the American people exactly what they want, whether that’s the constant drumbeat of Trump indictments, or painting every place with a Democrat in charge to look like an apocalyptic wasteland. We, the American public eat that shit up. Not sure what the answer is but I’m pretty sure it starts with us becoming more savvy consumers of media and recognizing the difference between information and entertainment.

Stop being childish. You should know by now that's not my style. If I issue a threat it's direct and usually rash...and usually retracted. Threats on the internet are stupid. Most people I've encountered start tearing up the first time they feel how bad a punch hurts their own knuckles. I know I did. I'd be willing to bet that the majority of the guys here are doughy dudes who've never actually been in a real fight. Hopefully your cute online insults serve you well in the real world. I asked a legit question based on legit science. If the body is in shit shape, the brain isn't going to work as it should. I still haven't gotten an answer from prozac. If you are unacquainted with the association of physical and mental health, you should be. If not, don't feel bad. It's a common problem in American society. Oddly enough, a lot of the rest of the world clearly understands it and almost takes it for granted. For example, the Japanese have culturally inculcated physical activity as a daily requirement for their salaryman class. They've even got walking tracks on the roofs of their skyscraper office buildings. Yet Americans think someone is being a meathead bully if they ask someone else if they exercise or physically train. It's rather weak minded...which is rather appropriate, all things considered. If you haven't noticed, I don't imply questions. I ask them directly. Sometimes I get drunk and ALL the filters get bypassed, but my core belief remain the same. I have yet to have one person answer me directly as to why they believe that the current agenda is good for our country. I've heard lots of what. Very little Why. For clarity: My one and only core belief is that I am broken and need a savior, which was provided by God in Jesus. He lived, died, and rose again specifically for the purpose of reconciling me to God. Nothing that I did, nothing that I am. Who he is, and what he's done saves me. My relationship with Him is the ONLY thing in this life that's worth anything. I was built to relate to him. I am highly imperfect. But it's worth the work to try and be better. Politics, religion, money, relationships, family, morality...all of those things are subservient and I poorly understand them. So when I ask pointed questions, it's because I want pointed answers. Living a coherent and intellectually honest life in view of origin, destination, morality, and meaning is the best I can try for. Which is why I ask direct questions. So. Soft on China. Transitioning of children without parental approval. Active celebration of non-straight sexuality. Advocacy of teaching sexual agendas to kids in school. Mandates of politicized public health agendas. Legalization of drugs. Incentivizing fathers to leave the home in low income families. Celebration of biological men oppressing of biological women. Not being able to clearly define what a woman is. Suppression of freelance workers in the economy (go look up the Pro Act and the 70 MILLION freelance workers it would crush). Egregious excessive spending the likes of which you would NEVER approve in your own person budget. Suppression and elimination of the cleanest energy sources human kind has ever created. Enforcement of a 'green' agenda that is not only disastrous for ecosystem, our economy, and our country's defense, but is literally physically impossible. Should I keep going? Claiming that our country's and community's stances on these issues to be sound is intellectually dishonest. All those agenda items are not only endorsed, but ACTIVELY ENFORCED by our current American leadership. Yet you insist that voting for the current version of the democrat party that endorses ALL of the above is sound because they are the party that represents your values. Values which you and your liberal peers refuse to explain. I'm not asking you to change. I'm asking you to explain why you believe what you believe. All I asked prozac, and now I'll ask you again: Why do you believe what you believe. I used to vote democrat. I'm an independent now. I am a parent who has a world that I'm going to leave to my kids. I know what it's like to have a world dumped on and passed on to me by my parent generation. I'm not going to do that to my kids. That means WE ALL need to work to preserve our community and get back to it's foundational principles. If we've gone down the wrong path, progress has to look like backing up and returning to the right path. It seems clear to me that our country is going down the wrong path. We need to back some things up. I guess that makes me conservative. You know what's never happened? A liberal supporter asking me what I believe, not to mention why I believe it. TLDR: Please question your premises about being a "Democrat" or "Republican" because the Democrat or Republican party represents your values. You might find that it actually doesn't. I'm not asking you to vote for my guy. I'm asking you to stop supporting causes that are bad for our community and our country. If you can't see the bad impacts, please get out of the echo chamber and actually inspect our country. Those bad causes have started to impact our personal lives, and more personally our kids. That I'll defend. That’s a lot of words. I am choosing tot to engage because I don’t usually have the time or energy & I feel like when you and I have engaged in the past it turns into a circular argument. I’ve been on this forum a long time & I think that most who know me here have a pretty good idea where I stand on most issues. Feel free to check out my post history if you’re really curious. I’ll throw you a few cliff’s notes here though: I believe that the US is, and should remain the most prosperous and powerful country in the world and that we are full of opportunities for everyone here. We’re far from perfect and should endeavor to remain the world leader in all of those metrics. To me, that means we should have things like the best education system in the world, the best healthcare system, the best infrastructure, etc. Not just in rich areas of New York, or California, but in rural Mississippi and Arkansas, and Kentucky. It’s unacceptable to me that gun violence has become the biggest killer of children, or that creationism is being taught to American children, or that certain segments of our population have been, and continue to be shut out of the best parts of our economy. In my eyes, the reforms needed are on a national level and are of a nature that only an empowered federal government can tackle. These are just a few of the reasons that I tend to support a larger role for central government as well as tax policies that allow for raising the revenue to prosecute those aims. I am aware there are many pitfalls in this strategy. But there are just as many pitfalls in conservative strategy (more, in fact, IMO). I fully allow that there are many good arguments for a more conservative mindset. I used to subscribe to many of them. I eventually came to the overall conclusion that despite claiming otherwise, conservatives weren’t realists. The argument that we are better off leaving people to their own devices assumes they are generally good and rational. While that may be true on a mostly individual basis, most people simply don’t act in good or rational ways often enough to solve our issues. For instance, expecting local churches to solve poverty, hunger, and homelessness is an exercise in futility. Some problems are simply to big to be left at the local level, yet many conservatives continue to insist that is the way forward. I disagree. Here’s the bottom line. I 100% believe that at the end of the day, despite our differences on how to get there, you and I want to see the same thing: A better United States. You know what worries me more than any of the issues I detailed above? The fact that once upon a time, most of us understood that. That our differences in opinion did not mean we were enemies. Now, it’s different. If you don’t agree with me, you must be trying to destroy my country. While that sentiment certainly exists on both sides, the cacophony from the right seems much louder & is yet another reason I have gravitated to Democrats in recent years. This concern is what sparked my original comment about Hailey and my appreciation for her generally well reasoned positions. To me, it’s far more important for us (Americans in general, not necessarily you and I) to stop thinking of one another as enemies than it is to pledge allegiance to any particular political ideology.

Values? Hookers and blow brother. That’s why I’m hoping Hunter will be appointed as his dad’s successor by the Pentaverate when old Joe inevitably dies in a couple years. 🤣 🍻

This kind of thought process blows my mind. I can say that someone is capable and qualified to do a job, particularly a political job, while also understanding that they don’t necessarily represent my values as well as another candidate might. You’ve taken this position before & seem to be unable to understand that people may not be willing to vote for a candidate that doesn’t represent their values no matter how “good” they may be. Here’s why I personally like Haley and wish there were more candidates like her: She will force Democratic candidates to be better. They will have to debate on policy rather than on the emotion stirred up on both sides by petty culture war tropes. Good candidates beget better candidates on both sides. Another reason I like her is because candidates like this tend to be far less divisive when they take office. Like nsplayr, I find it difficult to see myself voting for her in a general election. If she were to be elected though, I (and I think most on the left side of the spectrum) would have a much easier time generally supporting her than someone like Donald Trump.

Thought Nikki Haley presented herself well in CNN’s town hall tonight. I certainly don’t agree with all of her points, but so far, she is the most presentable, well spoken candidate in the race. IMO, it will be hard for Trump, DeSantis, or Joe Biden to debate her. This is the type of candidate both parties should be putting forward.

It’s also living in their own reality for decades. It’s easy to start thinking that the way we get to live is normal. The trick is to be able to recognize when you are being an arrogant ass in public. Just like I ask my fellow crewmembers to point out my fuck ups in the jet, I’ll also tell guys to just kick me if I start talking about money/lifestyle in front of the wrong crowd.

🤦‍♂️ Dude…

Yeah, the ironically funny part of my post was that I was agreeing with you and cranking your sentiments to 11.

Support or don’t support whomever you like. Some of you guys give way too much credit to the “woke mob” or whatever the latest boogeyman is. Here’s the thing: Iran and the Taliban can both get fucked. It really isn’t that hard to figure out who the (admittedly flawed) good guys are in the Ukraine conflict though.

I’ll be the first to acknowledge that everyone’s situation is different and passing judgement on others is futile at best. That said, if you can’t live comfortably on guarantee, even with some extenuating circumstances, you’re probably doing it wrong. Ask your friends at brown and purple. The gravy train has abruptly ended for us and while the sky is certainly not falling, there are plenty of folks who had gotten used to it and are now struggling. I’m all for making hay while the sun shines. I’ve just found it’s best to understand that storm clouds tend to roll in suddenly and to plan for that eventuality.