quote:

So...authoritarians are people who are afraid and desire to be PLACED INTO a structure and order? By this reasoning, essentially all people (especially children) are authoritarians. Seems a little too broad of a definition.

I think authoritarians are the people who use fear and desire to place others into structure and order.

...as opposed to the people who desire to be within a system of structure. For example, you like the structure of society and fear its dissolution - for example, pure libertarian anarchism is something you're terrified from. Yet you aren't flocking to someone like Trump, even though you fear some forms of change and are highly desirous of social structure and order.

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To look at it another way:

Totalitarians are Lawful Evil, people that desire social structure also include Lawful Neutral and Lawful Good, who this is categorizing as authoritarian. And all three groups tend to have issues with anarchists (Chaotic Neutral), libertarians (Chaotic Good), and the abject villainous who thrive on disorder to their own advancement (Chaotic Evil).

Not all people who are lawful are authoritarian. You yourself fit into something like Lawful Neutral, do you not?

quote:

Representative democratic socialism without fear of the other doesn't exist.

The closest thing to representative democratic socialism is Europe, and unless you haven't been reading any news articles for the last 12 months, you'd see that "fear of the other" is not only alive and well there, it is on the rise, to the point it may start breaking up the EU starting with the UK this summer (at the very least, they're holding an election on Brexit, and the polls are too close to call - and a large portion of that is connected with the immigration crisis and the pre-immigration crisis from a few summers ago in Britain and France.)

France is seeing the potential rise of Le Pen, Hungary is talking about different political groupings being advantageous besides NATO and the EU, and half the countries in eastern Europe are building walls and seeing a rise in anti-immigrant xenophobia. Even the bastion of liberal idealism that is Sweden has seen roving bands of native Swedes terrorizing immigrants who they blame for raping their women and leaching off of their social services.

Tell me, where is this "reality" where that's happening?

Europe has talked down the "fear of the other" for decades because they haven't had to deal with it. Now that "the other" is on their doorstep and in their countries, they are showing that fear burns hotter than even in the US.

The Germans (and others) are seeing resurgences in actual Neo-Nazis, for Cripe's sake! While people are calling Trump Hitler and saying there's some huge KKK wave on the march in the US that is - somehow - invisible to the naked eye, they're having ACTUAL Neo-Nazi political groups, DECLARED as Neo-Nazis, rising in countries around Europe.

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Your "in reality though" is just as much "if it can be proved" as libertarian utopias are. It doesn't exist. It only exists - like any strategy - until the first punch to the nose. It's easy to talk down racism when your country is 99% ethnically homogeneous. This is why Europeans are disappointing now so badly in that department.

"We know this from studies" yet it seems to not be true in reality.

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The reality, like anything else, is that the best solution is a mix of a lot of other solutions. Free markets fail, but so do command and control economies. Socialism fails, but so does pure and unbridled capitalism. Democratic socialism has lasted a shorter time, and with a far rockier history, than that of the Constitutional representative democratic republic - which itself is a hybrid of no less than three systems.

The ideal of each system fails in reality. The most realistic ideal solution is a hybrid of many. Taking the best of a cross section of ideas will produce a better system than going all in on one or two.

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Though all this gets us off the initial OP, I suppose...but it's all good.

quote:

The problem with progressivism, and why it can't be a unifying, comforting message to people, is that it has gone too far out from traditional America. It isn't familiar or recognizable. It also doesn't have a place for everyone - for example, a middle-class white person just trying to save some money for their kids to go to college doesn't really have a place in the Democrat party that rejects them unless they submit to white privilege self-hate, support more visas to increase competition for their jobs, and support higher taxes and minimum wages that will cut into their real wage. Likewise, poor whites and union workers have no place in a party that tells them they're advantaged enough and minorities are the ones that need the help - oh - and their factory, manufacturing, oil, and coal jobs are killing the environment and so need to be done away with for the good of all of us.

The progressive message, as held by the Democrat party of today, is an exclusive club that immediately kicks out half of the population due to the color of their skin.

This is before you get into all of the social changes that progressives champion. Not saying that these things are bad - gay marriage, immigration - particularly from non-Westerners, globalization, anti-religion - but they are a big change from what people are used to, and the pace of this change has been relatively quick by historical standards.

It shakes up the social order and the sense of comfort that people have had in their society when they wake up one day and feel that their entire nation has changed out from under them.

Fear is a powerful motivator, but not something to browbeat people with. People who are afraid need comfort and to be treated with gentleness - like you would trying to approach a cornered, injured animal.

Instead, the progressive movement calls them names - they're racists, xenophobes, homophobes, misogynists, fascists - and tries to write them out of the political system as backwards stupid hicks that shouldn't even have the right to vote.

Then these people come out of the woodwork to show up in numbers for someone who seems to be saying things OTHER THAN that they shouldn't be proud of their nation, ancestry, history, or views...and they get called all those names double-time.

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It's no wonder, and it shouldn't be confusing to anyone. Yet it is.

It's people that feel that the economy has been stagnant, our leaders - Dem and Rep - have banded together for the sake of big banks and Wall Street fatcats (Wall Street got a bailout, where is Main Street's bailout? Can't Wall Street afford to bail THEMSELVES out with all their money?)

The nationalism is more of a result of the pro-global format that our leaders have had than it is some anti-brown people stance. It's tied into all of these other things, not some self-standing, virulent racism.

quote:

Anyway, my point is just that the Democrat party is in no position to unify the American people due to its previous stances and writing off of a good 30-40% of the electorate.

Part of the reason Romney lost is because he wrote off - famously - 47% of the population.

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Don't mistake me, though - the Republican party is in no better place to unify people. And certainly not Trump. While he captures the populist plight of the "common person", his rhetoric has sliced and diced people as much as the Democrat rhetoric has, leaving minorities out in the cold.

There really is no unifying figure right now. Cruz is too televangelist (GOD wants him to win? Really??), while Rubio and Kasich are too in with the power elites and their globalism - Rubio was part of the Gang of Eight for amnesty, and Kasich has already said in his first 100 days he wants to promote amnesty.

Clinton, on the other hand, is too in bed with Wall Street and the big moneyed interests, and almost as divisive as Trump - at one of the early Democrat debates, she claimed the "enemy she was most proud of" ...well, she listed half of the population in one way or another between gun rights activists, "values voter" Americans, economics voters, and all Republicans - people she will have to be able to work with if she were to get elected if she plans to do anything.

And finally we have Sanders, who only seems to appeal to upscale white people and college students (also mostly white) who are big on white guilt and socialism, which just don't appeal to the majority.

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We really have no good choice right now.

THIS is the election, of any election, for some strong third party candidate to jump in...yet none seem to be doing so. The election of our lifetimes where people want a third choice and no one is stepping up to be that third choice.

Twelve by Pies posted:

Right after the Sandy Hook shooting, Wayne LaPierre gave a speech about how those dang violent video games like Bulletstorm and Mortal Kombat were to blame, not guns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glwggRUAQBk (at 3:36 he specifically calls out particular video game titles)

Twelve by Pies posted:

Right after the Sandy Hook shooting, Wayne LaPierre gave a speech about how those dang violent video games like Bulletstorm and Mortal Kombat were to blame, not guns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glwggRUAQBk (at 3:36 he specifically calls out particular video game titles)

Twelve by Pies posted:

Right after the Sandy Hook shooting, Wayne LaPierre gave a speech about how those dang violent video games like Bulletstorm and Mortal Kombat were to blame, not guns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glwggRUAQBk (at 3:36 he specifically calls out particular video game titles)

A Fancy 400 lbs posted:

Got my first Trump supporter threatening on Facebook to beat me up for disagreeing with him. That means I should be proud now, right?

Defenestration posted:

Well why the gently caress aren't the last $6 people on foodstamps? That might help them...
Also since when are strawberries a luxury?

Ron Jeremy posted:

I grew up on food stamps and yes, fresh strawberries were a luxury. Really fresh anything other than maybe bananas.

moist turtleneck posted:

Subjunctive posted:

No apples? Apples were the reliable fresh fruit for us, in Canada, because they kept really well.

moist turtleneck posted:

Defenestration posted:

Look I really don't think they put amputees back on combat duty.

Sebadoh Gigante posted:

Ironically Donald "My I.Q. is one of the highest" Trump supporters have a below average labor participation rate. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/13/upshot/the-geography-of-trumpism.html?_r=0

Sebadoh Gigante posted:

Sebadoh Gigante posted:

fallingdownjoe posted:

I've seen this one a couple of times and responded with something along the lines of "actually, they're picketing so they both get $15/hour, as it'd be a new minimum wage. And they're doing it on their time so the medic can rest. What good people they are!"

It's not gone down well from the sort of people who've posted the image.

Radish posted:

Also it's ALWAYS AN EMT. It has to be on whatever cheat sheet these guys get from the conservative think tank that disseminates the talking points but they could at least be a little creative in these dumbass macros and pick a different "noble" yet underpaid profession.

gradenko_2000 posted:

Sometimes its soldiers. Because of course.

Armyman25 posted:

The thing is, I got a job making $12.65 an hour working for Blue Cross/Blue Shield doing data entry in 1996.

How is it that wages have stagnated so badly?

Fulchrum posted:

At that point I wonder why they would stick to reality at all. Say they only make $2.50 a week or some poo poo

moist turtleneck posted:

Radish posted:

I'm curious about the nature of the responses. If I had to guess it would be something like "if everyone earned $15 my hamburgers would cost $5 each!!" but it would almost be refreshing if they admitted that they didn't want an EMT and a fast food worker earning the same about even if the EMT gets paid more as a result.

BROCK LESBIAN posted:

It's a good thing we pay EMTs so little. Otherwise ambulance rides would cost over a thousand dollars!

Defenestration posted:

Look I really don't think they put amputees back on combat duty.

seiferguy posted:

Why won't people tolerate Trump's hate

seiferguy posted:

Sports fans tend to lean conservative - how about after their team loses the championship in a hearbreaking fashion?

Defenestration posted:

EPORW continues


No it is, and also we should do better

ewiley posted:

I thought that looked familiar

http://www.snopes.com/mexico-guatemala-border/