When you ignore that fact and say "a pox on both big money parties -- it doesn't make a difference," you just kill your credibility. NOT a good game plan if you want to persuade people. That kind of simplistic thinking does not become you, Dawg.

That's basically what CW told him... and nicely peppered it with terms like [paraphrasing here] 'reality based and not some purity fantasyland where unicorns fart rainbows and pixies frolic in the meadow.' It was an epic takedown of the Harris Bullshit Mountain that generally echoes and is a direct ripoff of whatever routine Jimmy Dore has recently posted on YouTube. Don's shit isn't even original... merely regurgitated Dore spewage. :)

Don Harris wrote,

Both parties played politics with covid which covers your first two.

No, there's no way a President Hillary (or basically any Dem or Repugs candidate besides Trump) would have botched our Covid response.

When you ignore that fact and say "a pox on both big money parties -- it doesn't make a difference," you just kill your credibility. NOT a good game plan if you want to persuade people. That kind of simplistic thinking does not become you, Dawg.

Trump was elected because the Deathocrats have consistently failed to deliver after elected and offered lame big money false alternatives like Hillary and Biden.

Had it not been for covid for the Deathocrats to use for political advantage Trump could have easily won again.

How could I disagree with that?

In summary --
We AGREE on the problem of big money dominating American politics.
We DISAGREE on OD being the solution.

CRS, 4500ft definitely qualifies you as a Mountain Man. I'm curious -- what state?

Also, congrats on your longevity. You seem to be the token Conservative here in Weigantia, and I appreciate your comments in this space.

nypoet22 wrote,

@caddy,

;)
JL

Um, what are you talking about? I like making rules as much as the next guy, but I'd need to know what the subject matter is. Please revert.

Not quite. It goes,

Watch out where the huskies go,
And don't you eat that yellow snow

I came of age listening to Frank Zappa, and Apostrophe was my first Zappa album.

OMG, Don, you effing crack me up! Again, you're waaay better at humor (and that's not a bad blues tune in YouTube, said the bass guitarist) than you are at advocating OD. Just sayin'

Definitely a "Mountain Man", but not at 7000ft, only 4500ft, altho I've spent a lot of time at 7000ft in my younger days.

Definitely "Senior Weigantian", dob 12-12-35, (closin' in on 86).

if you don't like it, why don't you ordain and establish some rules?

;)
JL

Yes, but that was before they started making a concerted effort to expel competent conservative politicians from their ranks. However, as more and more republican officeholders are replaced with right wing crackpots and conspiracy theorist "outsiders" who have minimal understanding of political processes and no desire to learn, their ability to function as a cohesive political entity has dropped off dramatically. With their ability to shape arguments and create messages collapsing in recent years, it has left them little more than the brute force of their votes to push their agenda, such as it is.

And even that power they retain almost exclusively due to various undemocratic means, such as the imbalanced representation in the House and Senate, and as a result, the electoral college. If congress were to actually represent the voters, the House would be split 224-211 in favor of Democrats (instead of 222-213) and the Senate would roughly be split 55-45 in favor of Democrats (instead of 50-50).

JFK sums it up wonderfully, "The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of bold projects and new ideas. Rather, it will belong to those who can blend passion, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the great enterprises and ideals of American society."

Hopefully the Biden team can leverage the times now to take us back to a space where we were all a little bit more united in pursuing a common goal... It is just unfortunate that our common goal is making our infrastructure first world again.

I also understand that you may be the Senior Weigantian, so to speak. You are if you were born before me, November 1958. Is it true? (I'm at the age where is prefer to not be the oldest cat in the conversation.)

...we could always go with the slightly less popular 'secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity' - i've heard it was all the rage in your time ;)
Phweeet! Penalty...15 yards...unnecessary snarkiness.

Yo, I read the column, lifted a quote and proceeded to post before I read the comments. Sorry for the redundancy, Amigo, and I'm glad I'm not the only one thinking this way.

Ah, but if you're a Repug and/or a Trumpanzie you get your "reality" from the Fox Cinematic Universe. The alternative reality where "woke/cancel culture" and another seasonal surge of immigrants at the border are the grave crises facing America.

Recovering from Covid? 500,00 dead 'Muricans? Cleaning up our Democracy after Trump? Repugs won't talk about any of that.

I know that I keep harping on this, but anytime you find yourself shaking your head at the latest outrageous Repug comment, remember that they aren't talking to all of us. They are speaking only to their base that, say, lives in an alternative reality where Trump won reelection.

Very nice!

that's not bad! i'm sure the original welfare programs were supposed to mean that too, but like you say, the original constitutional meaning was lost to the worst aspects of the government programs.

we could always go with the slightly less popular 'secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity' - i've heard it was all the rage in your time ;)

JL

Call Biden's plan 'The plan to promote the general welfare.!!

I was actually kind of surprised, because even the casual attention I'd paid to the bill's specifics up to that point told me that the bill was, maybe, 50% "infrastructure", meaning physical construction projects. The rest of it was public investment in important aspects of government services, planning, and private sector coordination.

I asked my friend to explain where he was coming from, and I don't believe I got an answer - rather, he changed the subject and we moved on. Now I know, thanks to your report: he got his information about the bill from whatever conservative news outlet he follows. Being a nice guy but a fairly uncritical consumer of right-wing dogma, he went with what he was told was a dead-on unanswerable objection to any praise of the infrastructure bill as such.

I really was kind of puzzled how anyone could read up on the bill and complain that only 5% was 'roads and bridges' so it's not 'infrastructure'.

So - I guess - my point here is that when you say Americans don't pay attention to stuff like that, so why are Republicans even trying to take this approach, the answer is: because they're talking to their base, and only to their base.

One suspects that Republican politicians are now so convinced that their party faithful will punish them for any deviation from the party line, that that's their only priority now in public discourse. Don't try to come up with original legislative programs; don't try to oppose Democratic legislation with effective arguments that would split the Dems or open them to discussions about a compromise; don't try to find new electoral majorities in the country built around new electoral strategies that play on conservatism's strengths and natural attractions. Just say what has to be said to avoid being drummed out of the party for the apostasy of thinking in the real world.

If your impression is right about the Sunday shows' hosts stupidly parroting the 'roads and bridges' angle, it's more than too bad that the media is even now trying to report on Republican positioning as if it was the product of rational and intelligent political thinking. I wonder when, if ever, the media will simply stop accepting lies and misstatements as serious political discourse just because it comes from an elected politician?