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[scriver]

this is a state that had an official eugenics board up until the 1970's

If it makes you feel better, Alabama didn't get antimiscegenation laws off the books until 2000.

I don't think that eugenics thing is particularly far beyond the rest if the western world. I don't know off-hand when Sweden lost it's eugenics/racial health board equivalent, but if I remember correctly there wasn't a particularly big push to get for of the eugenics-based legislature until the 60's and early 70's, and some laws still remained after that - like the law requiring transexuals who wanted to change sex to get stirilised that was changed just the other year. Iirc that law had it's basis in the old "prevent the mentally afflicted from having children" eugenics tradition.

[MDFification]

She was effectively crowned in 2008 too, as memory serves. Funny things happen in politics...


As much as people have been saying "The Republican Party is going to self-destruct and be cast out of power for 40 years, wandering like Moses in the desert" for the last eight years (and yes, people started saying that after the 2006 midterms)....I just don't see it happening. There is no "marketplace of ideas" anymore. Even if the Republican platform is to give every man, woman and child in America a steaming shit sandwich, there are still a good 30-40% of the population who will proudly vote for that shit sandwich because God, freedom, bald eagles, something something. And then blame the Democrats for the shit sandwich.

There are regions of the country where Republicans could openly kill someone, steal their money, and piss on the corpse and STILL get elected. At this point, I'm just trying to figure out how in holy fuck the Republicans still have their power firmly entrenched in our state legislature, after six years of the most pants-on-head 'tardburger legislative sessions in the history of North Carolina (and mind you, this is a state that had an official eugenics board up until the 1970's). Where they have been BLATANTLY crooked and power-grabbing and trying to change all the rules now that they're in power, to prevent ever losing power again. And still, a terrifying number of people support them because "least they ain't Democrats".

Polarization and the reduction of political allegiance to tribalism is a more potent force than most people give credit to.

I agree, really. Gerrymandering and legislation that makes it almost impossible for a third party to compete (and by almost impossible I mean actually impossible unless the third party is based solely around a single popular person rather than an ideology that suits a large portion of the population) mean that America is stuck with its current two parties bar the Republican Party officially endorsing the practice of killing and eating children or the Democratic Party selecting half of a dead cat as the next speaker for the house. America's democracy is structurally flawed.

Essentially, our democracies were never intended solely to be about public opinion. That's why we have constitutions and supermajority clauses; some structural things were not meant to be within the power of democracy to change willy-nilly, because democracies are not fundamentally opposes to undermining themselves seeing as humans aren't bloody omniscient. That's basically what's happened to America. Your 4th Amendment Rights don't apply for the vast majority of you, did you know? You probably didn't. The rights and freedoms of the American citizen being overwritten without changing the constitution on the justification of scary brown people with guns on another continent is something that can happen in the modern political climate, because only a tiny fraction of the population actually matters for deciding who comes into power next election now. Did you know the only demographic whose opinions are matched in policy is the top 10% earners and special interest group memebers? Essentially, these minority interests dictate what your country does, not genuine self-interest of the other 90% of the population.

Apologies if I sound like I'm just a bitter anti-American. I sound like that because I am. I renounced my citizenship last month after the US government decided they had the right to tax my income (working for a non-American company outside America) and property owned in another nation despite the fact that I received no benefits from my American citizenship (having never actually lived in the United States). And this is after they decided to change the price of renouncing your citizenship up to 3k - so I had to shell out money for the right of not being robbed by a country to which I owe nothing. Seriously, 1/10 Canadians has dual citizenship, and the US government has decided they have the right to bully Canadian banks into disclosing their information so they can tax them despite them not living in America or receiving any assistance from the American government. So yeah, if I'm a bitter anti-American its because the American government is blatantly trampling over me and my countrymen's rights so they can pay for special interest groups pet projects while the American people themselves slide farther and farther into debt.

[dragonshardz]

Polarization and the reduction of political allegiance to tribalism is a more potent force than most people give credit to.

/thread

[FearfulJesuit]

Polarization and the reduction of political allegiance to tribalism is a more potent force than most people give credit to.

If we didn't see party loyalty regardless of circumstances in a two party system, something would be very wrong.  I think the problem (beyond the first past the post system) is that no one is going to win with a primary challenge over this stuff.

Except when the dividing line between the parties moves so far to one side that a huge swath of the electorate is no longer accurately represented by them. You have people who still vote Republican who are nowhere near as right-wing as the party is, and who may well be to the left of conservative Democrats. My ex-father-in-law is one of those classic "New York Republicans" that is horrified by the NC GOP, but still votes Republican at the national level (and some state level races) just because....well, his family has always been Republican.

Time to reboot the Rockefeller Republicans.

[mainiac]

... says the democrat.

[FearfulJesuit]

... says the democrat.

Only since 1980.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

... says the democrat.

Only since 1980.

The Rockefeller Republicans: "I told you so!"

[FearfulJesuit]

House to vote on bill to fully fund DHS.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Bibi's overtly warmongering speech and the support for it disturbed me greatly, as a Jewish person, seeing people so hateful and vehement in the thought that 'Iran needs to be punished' that they support Bibi pushing us into bombing them? I'm terrified, he got standing ovations for statements I've seen Israeli intelligence refute. Are people this blind that we'll let Bibi lead us into bombing Iran for no reason and becoming their scapegoats?

Besides, even if Iran did get a nuclear weapon, I highly doubt they'd just up and nuke Israel. The best use for nuclear weaponry is a deterrent. I somehow doubt Iran would just go alright fuck it, we're starting WW3 and end civilization as we know it to stick it to the Jews. Maybe I've been getting crazy in my age, but I really don't blame Iran for wanting that kind of a deterrent, looking at the Caucasus region and Americas inability to do any power brokering in the middle east, what the hell kind of stability do they have to look forward to? It's not like they're wealthy enough to field an actual actively maintained arsenal anyways, it'd be a handful of operational weapons, if that.

[Rez]

I can't stand watching or listening to speeches with pauses for applause, so I read a (really bad) transcript of Netanyahu's speech.  It was decent and contained a much needed history lesson, but I doubt it changed anybodies' minds.  Lots of sucking up to the US and Pres. Obama, but that's only to be expected given how determined to be outraged Democrats are and how really abysmal our relations with Israel are right now.

Don't use WaPo's transcript.  The scribe and his/her editors think "whet appetite" is 'wet appetite'.  Sasuga wapo.  I'm sure there are other errors.

I wonder if we're going to get a leak from the military about the truth of the story that the US threatened to shoot down Israeli jets on their way to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities.  If that's true, it indicates a near total reversal in our policy toward Iran and Israel.

snip

I'd think the rise of ISIS might act as a reminder of what ideologues, specifically religious ones, are capable of.  As the saying goes, beliefs have real effect on the world, because their holders act as if their beliefs are real truths.  The reality and logic of a zealot are different from the reality and logic of a moderate.

Like I said, people have already decided that Netanyahu is lying foully or repeating obvious truths.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

I'd think the rise of ISIS might act as a reminder of what ideologues, specifically religious ones, are capable of.  As the saying goes, beliefs have real effect on the world, because their holders act as if their beliefs are real truths.  The reality and logic of a zealot are different from the reality and logic of a moderate.

Like I said, people have already decided that Netanyahu is lying foully or repeating obvious truths.

ISIS has been condemned by the leadership of Iran, especially since they're challenging Hezbollah. I wouldn't go so far as to say Iran is an extremist country in it's current iteration. They're too isolated and strapped for money that power projection isn't their strategy anymore. The vapid antisemitism of Mahmoud's presidency is gone, if you haven't noticed. The current leadership has been capitulatory to a point, especially since aforementioned Mahmoud is gone and no longer poisoning the well in public [much like other leaders are]. But I do understand the reasoning behind wanting such a deterrent with Benjamin saying the Israelis will never be friends with the Iranian people, no matter what the outcome of these negotiations are. That's the kind of attitude I don't like, and I don't differentiate between leaders who espouse those kinds of viewpoints, as they are toxic to the process and stability in general. Bibi doesn't seem interested in a solution, only permanent states of conflict.

[nenjin]

I'm all for supporting Israel if they come under attack. But I resent the attempt to try and drum up support for an American War on Iran by anyone but our own crazy right wing war hawks, by saying "nothing else will work." I thought we learned our lesson on pre-emptive aggression back in Iraq.
 
That and I believe Iran has the right both to Nuclear Power and to the deterrents the rest of the world enjoys. Although I can't blame Israel for wanting a permanent solution, when Iran bangs its own war drum and talks about annihilating Israel to stir up its own base.

Really, we just need to create a box the size of a small European nation, and put the right wingers in there together with plastic butter knives and salt. Let them cut each other and make each other feel the pain, so the rest of us can get on with our lives.

[Angle]

... I support this plan. Is there something I can sign?

[Rez]

Thank you for attacking the strawman I knew someone would: I never said and never implied that ISIS and the IRI, Syria, and Hezballah were allies.  To make the point again, you will not see the way ideologues act as logical unless you understand their ideologies and accord them due importance.  Didn't nearly the whole of the West completely misunderstand what was happening in the Arab Spring?  We just assumed they were following the 'historical progression' to secular democracy.  We do not understand the motivations and conditions of these social movements and societies.

ed: Except with very simple things like "fundamentalists run into heretics", of course. 

No reason exists to be surprised that Shia Iran opposes the rise of a fundamentalist, expansionist Sunni Caliphate (within their client state, no less).  Seriously, if a pundit or politician is surprised about this, it's a good time to disregard them completely.  How many years decades centuries of sectarian violence do we need to acknowledge that radical Islam despises heretics worse than heathens?

I thought we learned our lesson on pre-emptive aggression back in Iraq.

I hope we learned our lesson about trying to nation-build in places that have no national identity and all kinds of civil strife kept under wraps by an oppressive government.  Preemptive aggression has gone pretty well, unsurprisingly, considering our training, technical, and logistic advantages.  I think Netanyahu and war hawks are arguing for gunboat diplomacy, not nation-building or condescending colonialism.

I, like many others, don't trust a nation that saber-rattles with threats of genocide to have the real capability to do it.  Mass murder is a thing nuclear weapons are good at.  If we start supporting Israel when it gets nuked, I don't think there will be many Israelis who appreciate that support.

The election of Rouhani does not signify change until Khamenei is no longer Supreme Leader.  Khamenei commands the military and the intelligence services.  Khamenei is a common thread over the past 34 years of Iranian politics and he is the most senior religious figure in that theocracy.  He said that Israeli leaders aren't human and suggested that the Holocaust never happened... last year.  Iran is liberalizing, but why do I have to tell people that young, liberal movements don't necessarily control their government's policies and secret goals?

[SalmonGod]

The ideology argument works both ways.  The primary reason the religious right wants to defend Israel is for the sake of their prophecies.