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Blue Moonlight posted:Super-short answer: he helped cover up his administration’s participation in a break in and wiretapping of the DNC headquarters. wait oh my god right watergate exists. It's so.... tame. Like a non-scandal.
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Sep 2, 2020 23:16
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StrixNebulosa posted:My lack of American history is showing but I genuinely cannot remember what he did, he's almost interchangeable with Reagan. Two white Republicans who killed a lot of citizens. Also, started the War on I came from a "non-political" family and church. Which is to say, we didn't go out and actively protest/act/lobby, but we held all the Right opinions. (Political action was limited to passive-agressively praying against certain "sins" in the nation, mostly.) Consequently, arguing against them is an exercise in
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Sep 2, 2020 23:17
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nixons record on vietnam is Real Bad, although thats not what he was impeached for
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Sep 2, 2020 23:24
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Long story, but it should not be forgotten that Nixon hosed with the peace process in Vietnam specifically so he could take credit for ending it once he was President, then once he was President escalated the conflict.
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Sep 2, 2020 23:57
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Right, and they know all those things. I think they tolerate Nixon because he seemed shady and evil so they don't feel like there was any kind of national delusion. My mother on the other hand hates Reagan so much she won't fly into Ronald Reagan airport.
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Sep 3, 2020 00:23
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letthereberock posted:Long story, but it should not be forgotten that Nixon hosed with the peace process in Vietnam specifically so he could take credit for ending it once he was President, then once he was President escalated the conflict. Recently (within the past 10 years or something, idk what is time anymore anyway) declassified documents pretty much confirm that the secret service knew he was actively sabotaging the peace talks, which is literally treasonous activity, and they helped cover it up to "protect the election process." Just imagine a world where, instead, we had established the precedent that literal traitors aren't allowed to be president.
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Sep 3, 2020 00:29
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HungryMedusa posted:
I love how this person’s thought process is “It’s unfair to make me pay for other people’s supplies, so I’ll make other people pay for my supplies.” Selfishness and greed, all the way down.
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Sep 3, 2020 00:49
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It doesn't say in the bible "even as you bought pencils unto the least of my followers so you bought them unto me" does it?
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Sep 3, 2020 00:56
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HungryMedusa posted:One of my lovely relatives posted on Facebook complaining that they have to buy school supplies that are shared communally in the classroom. A lot of places do this, the school district my kid goes to does. They have us all buy enough to pool resources, so no kid has to admit they couldn't afford scissors or whatever. That... I almost feel the same way but in the other direction? I went to schools in Texas where we all had to bring a box of kleenex or similar to the school to join a stockpile and I have forever wondered why the actual gently caress they didn't have the money to just buy them
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Sep 3, 2020 04:04
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Shugojin posted:That... I almost feel the same way but in the other direction? I went to schools in Texas where we all had to bring a box of kleenex or similar to the school to join a stockpile and I have forever wondered why the actual gently caress they didn't have the money to just buy them Shugojin posted:I went to schools in Texas Shugojin posted:Texas As a teacher in Texas, it's because school funding ranks in importance slightly behind funding documentaries that lie about the Alamo.
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Sep 3, 2020 04:10
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I see it both ways - yeah, I wish our schools could outright buy supplies so parents would not have to worry about it, but the olds would never go for that tax wise. So I don't mind buying extra supplies so that the kid sitting at the desk next to my kid doesn't feel like poo poo. Imagine if we all paid a state $1 per paycheck "school supply" tax. My relatives and a bunch of my older neighbors would burst a vein. One of the other things this relative is pissed about is that the supply list asks for specific color folders. They are mad their kid can't have Transformers/Care Bears/Ghostbusters folders. The folders have to be red, yellow, and blue, and that is even MORE socialist! Even if the rationale is hey, bring your yellow folder today because yellow means math. That is socialist!!
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Sep 3, 2020 04:28
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Maybe it's me, but divorced from his crimes, Nixon is oddly sympathetic in that he was his own worst enemy. He got stamped into history with a giant black mark in a way that Reagan has mostly (?) avoided because of stuff he did because the nattering in his head would simply never, ever stop.
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Sep 3, 2020 04:49
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HungryMedusa posted:I see it both ways - yeah, I wish our schools could outright buy supplies so parents would not have to worry about it, but the olds would never go for that tax wise. So I don't mind buying extra supplies so that the kid sitting at the desk next to my kid doesn't feel like poo poo. Imagine if we all paid a state $1 per paycheck "school supply" tax. My relatives and a bunch of my older neighbors would burst a vein. My wife loves school supply shopping, so we practically outfit an entire classroom by ourselves after she chases down $.10 24-count crayons and the like. There’s a reason she gets along with the teachers so well, hah. Where supply lists do get frustrating, in my opinion, is when specific brands are requested or verboten. Like, I get why you might want Crayola crayons or not want RoseArt crayons, but there’s a point that you’re just asking for someone to lose their poo poo over socialism.
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Sep 3, 2020 06:11
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Pick posted:Right, and they know all those things. I think they tolerate Nixon because he seemed shady and evil so they don't feel like there was any kind of national delusion. My mother on the other hand hates Reagan so much she won't fly into Ronald Reagan airport. If there’s ever a Trump airport, I will refuse to fly there.
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Sep 3, 2020 09:07
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Ralph Hurley posted:If there’s ever a Trump airport, I will refuse to fly there. It’s called LaGuardia
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Sep 3, 2020 09:29
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This all happened about a year ago: My mom ran away from home to be with her on-line cult. This happened shortly after I cut ties with her. She watches youtube "pastors" that she sends money to. I think she also sent one of her laptops to them. My mom doesn't work. She "retired" several years ago. I put it in quotes because she never had a career. She was a stay at home mom well past the age that my brother and I needed a mom at home and worked part time jobs on and off after that. My parents had to file for bankruptcy several years before because of my mom's incredible credit card debt she secretly racked up. My dad had gotten a settlement where he'd have to pay so much a month for a certain amount of time and then they'd be done with it. I'd like to add that my mom ran away to her cult the month of the last bankruptcy payment my dad made that she never paid a dime on. It's hard to tell if these pastors are true believers or just grifters (or both). I couldn't make it through their youtube videos. They post a videos that are a couple hours long a couple times a week about how the world is ending and how everything is Satan. One of them was about a dress the guy saw at Walmart that had a tie-dye pattern on it and he was ranting about how it had a giant vagina on the front of it in the pattern and that was evidence of Satan or something. The main guy takes a lot of monetary donations. One of the things he was doing with this was making a shipping container that was also an art piece that had mirrors in it and other things because some sort of last supper feast when Jesus came back was going to happen in there? I'm sorry. I don't remember all of the details. It was just bananas stuff. He brought his shipping container to Colorado last summer so they could have a gathering of other believers and look at this shipping container. My mom really wanted to go. She was furious that my dad wouldn't let her. They didn't have money for her to fly across the country and stay at hotels. (Remember, bankruptcy) She was threatening to take the car and go on her own and stay at other people's houses that are in this cult. She has medical issues and can't drive at night on her own. My dad also needed the car so he could go to work. All of us were stressed out that she'd run away to go to this stupid gathering and who knows what would happen to her. I think the end of the world was supposed to happen too. The end of the world has been coming every couple months for a year now. The weekend came and went and she didn't run off. It was about a month later that I cut ties with her. A couple weeks later my dad informs me my mom is gone and he doesn't know where she is. She didn't tell anyone where she was going. I start having panic attacks. I don't want her showing up at my house. We live several states away. My dad started checking the fast pass in the car and based on the toll roads she used she was headed in my direction. The main guy has a significant amount of youtube followers all over the country. I found out my mom had been in direct contact with him over the phone. Between her wanting to run off to Colorado for the gathering and now my dad had been trying to get her mental health through emergency meetings with mental health professionals and lawyers. My mom would lie to them and she would call cult people on the phone during interventions with mental health people and they would coach her what to say. They got her to crack one time and she started saying crazy stuff, but they couldn't prove she was a danger to herself or others so nothing came of it. During that time and right when she ran away for good, the main cult leader started posting vague, slightly threatening videos that you could tell were directed at my family if you knew the situation. My dad needs to maintain Top Secret clearance with the government in order to do his job. During this time he made a trip to the regional FBI office to talk to them about all of this so they'd be aware of whats going on so there's probably a record somewhere of my crazy mom. Doing a little more digging into his videos we learned a little more about this shipping container. It was meant to hold children during the coming apocalypse that would lead the new world. It had all the information inside of it that the children would need to learn about god. So, my mom is out of her mind and ran away with the help of this cult that has members everywhere and is heading my way and I have 2 young children. I pretty much had a panic attack every time I saw a car that looked like hers. I called the school and daycare and made sure they were aware of the situation and updated the who can take my child list. I didn't know what she had planned, but I would feel like poo poo if I didn't take precautions and something happened. Another day passes and the toll roads look like she entered into my state. I also find out that the stress of the past few months has caused an autoimmune issue I thought was going into remission to flare up again. Finally, my mom's sister gets a hold of her. She's staying with a fellow cult member in the state I'm in, but the next large city over. She plans to live there and will start to look for her own apartment soon. She doesn't want to work though and wants my dad to send her money so she can get an apartment. tl/dr the next few months. What turned into her only staying with the cult members for a few weeks, turned into a few months in a tiny 900 sq/ft house in a really crappy part of town. Its hard to get an apartment on your own when you have a bankruptcy and no income. She ended up driving back to the state she's from and living with her sister for a couple months. She still doesn't understand why I don't want to talk to her.
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Sep 3, 2020 11:16
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Pick posted:He wasn't senile and was present for some legislation packages like the clean water act that were happening with or without him. I just think they hate the friendly-seeming Republican presidents more. That's my actual theory. uh, more than that. nixon was in some respects very competent (decisions about taping aside), unlike a lot of modern republicans, and while he was a crook that should have gone to jail, he also gave us the epa - can’t really see a present-day gopper doing that.
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Sep 3, 2020 12:59
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Even as an adult I’d never be able to handle the slightest iota of that, and with my father I kind of have. Good lord gently caress how you don’t hunt down the cult leader and knock him off this solar system is beyond me. mediaphage posted:uh, more than that. nixon was in some respects very competent (decisions about taping aside), unlike a lot of modern republicans, and while he was a crook that should have gone to jail, he also gave us the epa - can’t really see a present-day gopper doing that. “Nixon will be remembered as a classic case of a smart man making GBS threads in his own nest. But he also poo poo in our nests, and that was the crime that history will burn on his memory like a brand. By disgracing and degrading the Presidency of the United States, by fleeing the White House like a diseased cur, Richard Nixon broke the heart of the American Dream.” - Hunter S. Thompson I truly believe that if HST made it to today he wouldn’t. He’d just explode on impact
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Sep 3, 2020 13:53
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Do any of y’all have good relations with your more conservative family members? It’s sad that both sides can’t put it aside when it gets too heated. Having families break up over this makes about as much sense as breaking up because someone likes the Yankees instead of the Red Sox.
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Sep 3, 2020 15:28
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I think perhaps politics, especially the politics described ITT, might be slightly more significant than sports team preferences, or were you not reading?
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Sep 3, 2020 15:30
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Crazy Mike posted:Do any of y’all have good relations with your more conservative family members? It’s sad that both sides can’t put it aside when it gets too heated. Having families break up over this makes about as much sense as breaking up because someone likes the Yankees instead of the Red Sox. we talk on the phone perhaps 10x a year. honestly coronavirus has put a damper on my dad's "PRO TRUMP 24/7" bullshit, because, uh, 180k dead. its tough because its not just cutting him off, but other extended family who do not share his political views.
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Sep 3, 2020 15:33
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Crazy Mike posted:Do any of y’all have good relations with your more conservative family members? It’s sad that both sides can’t put it aside when it gets too heated. Having families break up over this makes about as much sense as breaking up because someone likes the Yankees instead of the Red Sox. When their viewpoints actively affect my and my sisters life, safety and well being, perhaps it is difficult, yes.
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Sep 3, 2020 15:37
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Crazy Mike posted:Do any of y’all have good relations with your more conservative family members? It’s sad that both sides can’t put it aside when it gets too heated. Having families break up over this makes about as much sense as breaking up because someone likes the Yankees instead of the Red Sox. As a queer disabled woman: no. I don't put up with people who want me dead.
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Sep 3, 2020 15:37
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It depends on the family members. My aunts and uncles I've grown up knowing my entire life? I can put their political views aside, because I have many happy memories of time spent with them. I won't necessarily go out of my way to visit or engage with them now, knowing that they don't see things the way I do, but I'm also not going to go out of my way to feud with them about it. We have enough of a history that, like Crazy Mike suggested, I can see past their politics. My in-laws who only recently became a part of my social circle? I've got considerably less patience for them. I've interacted with them in person for about 15 minutes of total face-to-face time, most of which was literally at my wedding, and suddenly they're posting multi-paragraph attempted take-downs of my Black Lives Matter posts. I'm likely never going to willingly interact with them face-to-face again. It's extra frustrating when my response to their posting is met with "well, I guess you just don't want to hear something from the 'other side.' I guess you aren't truly open minded at all!" --and yet if I bring up any of their hot-button issues, like abortion, suddenly their attitude switches to "We're not talking about that. Please don't bring that up." It's complete hypocrisy and extremely disheartening. I don't have it nearly as bad as many of the posters in this thread, and I recognize my privilege; I'm grateful for this thread to give us a chance to share our stories.
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Sep 3, 2020 16:04
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Crazy Mike posted:Do any of y’all have good relations with your more conservative family members? It’s sad that both sides can’t put it aside when it gets too heated. Having families break up over this makes about as much sense as breaking up because someone likes the Yankees instead of the Red Sox. Yes, I have good relationships with several conservative family members. It tends to be that we just don't talk about that aspect, or if we do, we just segue it into something else.
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Sep 3, 2020 16:10
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Crazy Mike posted:Do any of y’all have good relations with your more conservative family members? It’s sad that both sides can’t put it aside when it gets too heated. Having families break up over this makes about as much sense as breaking up because someone likes the Yankees instead of the Red Sox. For a lot of people, politics has way more impact on their lives than sporting events. Your analogy would only make sense if the Yankees were funding death squads in Rhode Island in order to destabilize Massachusetts. That said, I have a pretty good relationship with my parents, because their one political Achilles heel is and always will be that they are Small Business Owners, and thus only have political loyalty to whoever will cut taxes. Other than that, they're very open minded and empathetic people who know that they grew up in rural Texas and have a lot of blind spots about other people and other cultures that they want to learn about. They can be kind of dumb about LGBT folks from time to time, but they listen when people tell them why the things they think are wrong or hosed up and make changes accordingly.
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Sep 3, 2020 16:45
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My dad is a low-key conservative. After Trump's election, he said something about how Trump was a good businessman but he wished someone would "take his phone away from him". I'm not entirely sure what his politics are, I think he's smart enough to keep it all a little bit obfuscated so as not to destroy our relationship, which I appreciate. He's a lot like Hank Hill - open minded in a lot of respects, but the way that he socializes and the overall systems of his life are conservative. I do remember at one point he was a 9/11 truther, which was kind of terrifying, but I think he pulled out of the Fox News vortex just in time. His white wife (my step-mom) has a black son from an earlier relationship who is a hardcore Trump supporter and married the most terrifyingly Stepford-blonde crazy-eyes Christian woman. That's a whole thing I just straight up avoid because jesus christ what Crazy Mike posted:Do any of y’all have good relations with your more conservative family members? It’s sad that both sides can’t put it aside when it gets too heated. Having families break up over this makes about as much sense as breaking up because someone likes the Yankees instead of the Red Sox. I mean, if the Yankees were an organization devoted to not only tearing down every aspect of my home country that made it worth living in while also convincing its fans that white straight Christians are a superior race and also directly harming the lives of not only myself but my family members and many of my friends, then yes, it makes about as much sense.
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Sep 3, 2020 17:36
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My dad was a talk radio Republican for most of my life. Grandchildren softened him a ton, and then the naked racism coming out of the party in the lead up to '08 sealed the deal. He was basically disowned from his family for marrying my non-white mom, so it hit him real hard. We were all real surprised at his retirement party to find out that his coworkers considered him the granola hippie of the office because he started riding a bicycle to work and was the only guy at his level who didn't vote for Trump.
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Sep 3, 2020 17:43
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This is totally bonkers. I'm so sorry to hear about this, I have no idea what I would do in a similar situation.
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Sep 3, 2020 17:51
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The “he’s a good businessman” defense of trump makes no sense until you consider the only thing the man has ever been good at is convincing people who don’t know any better that he is a good businessman.
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Sep 3, 2020 18:29
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That story was kind of like the apex of what happened. There is a lot of other crazy crap regarding my mom. Like I said before, I cut contact with her about a year and a month ago so its been a lot quieter on my end. The last time she visited, she hid a "book" in my bookshelf. I put it in quotes because it was obviously printed at a Staples and has a report binder on it. I kept it, but put it in my attic. I might fish it out and take some pictures at some point. My older son had about 6 years of his life where he had a relationship with her. Even though we lived far away they used to Skype almost once a week. As the craziness ramped up, we made sure the Skype calls became less and less. He still tells me about how he misses her, but that's been sort of dying down. My youngest son will probably not have any memory of her since he only met her twice before his 1st birthday. When it first started, we told my oldest son that grandma is sick so she can't visit us or talk to us on skype and since grandma was sick she went to live with her sister. That has sort of worked. He's a little older now and especially with corona going around he's asked if grandma has corona. I mostly kept the book so that when he's older we can have a conversation about what went down but that probably won't be until he's an adult. If it makes people feel any better, my parent's are separated now. Not divorced yet. I wish they had divorced when I was in high school. My dad is one of the kindest people you'd ever meet and my mom just sucked the soul out of him. He stuck around for so long with her because he was worried she wouldn't be able to take care of herself. I think he's paying for her apartment in the city she grew up in / where her family is while he still lives back in my childhood home. He's been SIGNIFICANTLY happier since she left. The first couple weeks were rough, but then he realized he could be his own person again without a burden on him. He started being more social, went out and did things, and he has a new girlfriend now who seems really awesome. His current project has been to turn the formal living room into his own music studio. My mom always hated him "making too much noise." He came down for a visit last Christmas by himself and it was a lot of fun without having to have my mom there.
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Sep 3, 2020 19:04
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Cut contact with my brother ten years ago and have stopped talking to my dad for about seven. They're both awful people who I want nothing to do with. I didn't and still don't need that kind of hate in my life anymore. My younger brother lucked into a very well paying mechanic job right out of high school because his shop teacher knew a guy who owned an exotic car dealership. Ever since then he's fallen down the rabbit hole of extreme conservatism and just world bullshit to the point where I am convinced he is a sociopath. He has absolutely no empathy for anyone other than himself, is openly racist, believes that the only morality is law (to the point where slavery would be fine if it were legal), and that minorities constantly want to rob him. He will not hire anyone of color at his work because they're just not smart enough to learn how to fix a car right and thought it was the height of comedy to bring a person of color in on an interview only to deny them the job. To him, there is not such thing as rape because deep down all women want to be hosed. Once during a family get-together he brought his new pet. It was a pretty shy dog that seemed cautious of everything and was just resting on the floor watching us. He explained that he put shock collars on all of his dogs and then just laid into the shock button. The dog started yelping and throwing itself around the room trying to get this collar off while my brother just stood there laughing, exclaiming, "Look at Bullet (his dog) fuckin' dance!" He then revealed that this is a nearly daily occurrence for him after we managed to get him to stop and he did it to all of his dogs. I have always been opposed to shock collars as I think they're cruel and had been thinking of cutting off contact with him for a while, but watching that dog roll around in pain while my brother looked on with absolute glee was the straw that broke the camels back. Dad on the other hand seemed fairly centrist if slightly left leaning when growing up, but looking back on it the seeds of his slide into conservatism were already planted. I was about twelve back when gay pride and rights were becoming more mainstream in the years leading up to the Massachusetts marriage decision, and one day my dad came home from the Unitarian church he had been attending for years and complained that it was becoming the "gay church" because they were displaying pride flags and preaching tolerance. At the time I didn't think much of it because I was in my dumb, online atheist phase, but now I just kind of wonder what he was expecting going to a Unitarian church? It was the first time I remember him ever espousing something like that. As the years went on he slowly got worse in his views, where he also started to hate the poor and said that he didn't care if the poor couldn't afford food as long as the company made a profit. Of course, this was also at a time where I was working minimum wage and having trouble paying bills and keeping myself fed. When we would go out for walks my dad would make snide little comments about the people that passed us, stuff like "Look how fat that woman is," or "What was up with that person's face? They're so ugly." It segued into this really terrible "debate" tactic where he would stop engaging your points and make fun of your physical appearance until you shut up. When you called him out on it, he would get this shocked look on his face and loudly say that he just wanted to have a civil conversation. As soon as he started talking about how America is a Christian nation founded by white Christians was when I had enough. Honestly, good riddance to both of them. Edit: Clarifying Chip McFuck fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Sep 3, 2020 |
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Sep 3, 2020 19:55
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Alterian posted:He's been SIGNIFICANTLY happier since she left. The first couple weeks were rough, but then he realized he could be his own person again without a burden on him. He started being more social, went out and did things, and he has a new girlfriend now who seems really awesome. His current project has been to turn the formal living room into his own music studio. My mom always hated him "making too much noise." He came down for a visit last Christmas by himself and it was a lot of fun without having to have my mom there.  
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Sep 3, 2020 20:14
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OwlFancier posted:I think perhaps politics, especially the politics described ITT, might be slightly more significant than sports team preferences, or were you not reading? I’ve got some of that white privileged life so that I miss most of the worst effects of government decisions and can treat politics like a sport. I’m also susceptible to believing the just world fallacy. StrixNebulosa posted:As a queer disabled woman: no. I don't put up with people who want me dead. Do they really want YOU dead? Because if I was bothered by queer disabled women I would make an exception for you and be indifferent to all the other queer disabled women. There could be room for change just like the Republican congressman who fought against gay marriage until his son came out as gay. Anyone remember which congressman that was?
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Sep 3, 2020 21:47
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If someone has to be repeatedly reminded not to kill you by your participation in their life they probably aren't somebody you want to be around.
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Sep 3, 2020 22:06
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Crazy Mike posted:I’ve got some of that white privileged life so that I miss most of the worst effects of government decisions and can treat politics like a sport. I’m also susceptible to believing the just world fallacy. I am completely out of patience with trying to find the one good republican who might be able to realize that everyone deserve to live in comfort, health, and safety.
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Sep 3, 2020 22:36
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StrixNebulosa posted:I am completely out of patience with trying to find the one good republican who might be able to realize that everyone deserve to live in comfort, health, and safety. For the most part, any Republican in the US that possesses empathy became a Democrat. They're still conservative and often lovely but that was the persuadable ones.
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Sep 3, 2020 22:39
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Crazy Mike posted:I’ve got some of that white privileged life so that I miss most of the worst effects of government decisions and can treat politics like a sport. I’m also susceptible to believing the just world fallacy. "Look, I don't want you dead, I just want everyone like you dead. That's better, right?" It isn't.
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Sep 3, 2020 23:48
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Would anyone sever ties or distance themselves from their current/future child if they joined the JROTC or College Republicans? Would you separate from your spouse if they wanted to do the opposite?
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Sep 4, 2020 01:46
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KingNastidon posted:Would anyone sever ties or distance themselves from their current/future child if they joined the JROTC or College Republicans? Would you separate from your spouse if they wanted to do the opposite? I'd hope that my relationship with my child or spouse was solid enough that I could see warning signs and potentially talk them out of the first one. What did you mean by the second one?
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Sep 4, 2020 01:51
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