Danny Dravot

If you can’t see that accusing him of causing tens of thousands of deaths is hyperbole, then I don’t know what to tell you. Have a nice night.

Joe Biden, a moderate, won by six million votes (3%). 72 million people voted for Trump. How many of Joe’s 78 million were also moderates or Never Trump conservatives? The incumbent was historically unpopular and there was a world changing pandemic that was horribly handled by said incumbent. And yet, the Senate, whose map also favored Ds, is very likely to stay in R hands (at best, it’s a tie to be broken by a VP who’s in power because of aforementioned shitty incumbent). That’s all the evidence I need. Have fun waiting anxiously for policies that aren’t coming.

With all due respect, I’m done arguing this one. I have a pretty solid basis for half the country NOT wanting those policies, but you are free to disagree. Edit: it’s also weird to change the label of an ideology based on whether or not you think people agree with it.

This is probably the worst post in this thread. Mitch McConnell disagrees with you. He disagrees with me on some things, too. That doesn’t mean he wants to destroy the economy and oppress brown people to get his way. A true white supremacist? GMAB. You, and pettie, and Badger and other people in this thread have a very different vision of how this country works than I do, and I will argue until my last breath against that vision, but that doesn’t mean you all want to destroy the country and make people suffer. Seriously, your hyperbolic idea of what goes on inside Mitch McConnell’s head does little more than discredit your own views. There’s no point listening to anything you say when it boils down to, “DURR REPUBLICANS BAD”. Ok, got it, cool story bro.

M4A, GND, free college and debt forgiveness, housing for all, internet for all, and so on.

@The Beast he should deny progressive action. People can argue until they’re blue in the face, but if America wanted progressive policy, Americans would have given Ds the Senate, especially considering how favorable the map was this year. McConnell should, however, work on bipartisan issues. This idea that things can’t happen unless one party has all the branches on lock down is anathema. Balance of power is supposed to encourage compromise, consensus and moderation; it’s not a trick to halt everything until one side develops monolithic power.

Once?! I hit 132 as a passenger when I was a teenager. I’ve driven as high as 115. Hit a pothole at 104 once. That was heart stopping. But 100? You can’t even drive on the highway in my state without someone hitting it. Heck, I’ve gotten in convoys doing 100 more than once. I used the adaptive cruise control in my new car to accelerate to 100 just last week.

Look, as a guy who still holds moderately conservative views and generally favors Republicans, I fully support this guy attacking Republicans and doing whatever he can to distance himself from us.

https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1327407964404260870 This is unhinged.

I agree with this. One big thing I've always thought about Trump is that he's not particularly conservative. It's why his attempts at making conservative arguments are terrible, as I've pointed out. Whether you like the ideology or not, there is a base philosophy to it. Trump isn't familiar with it and doesn't speak it, so he usually comes off looking like an idiot (it doesn't help matters that he is an idiot). Additionally, he's rounded up a lot of voters for himself who are also not particularly conservative. There'll be lots of talk about how to retain Trump's base in 2024. Personally, with my theories about centrism, I'd prefer we go with a Hogan/Romney/Sasse type and those fringes will just be forced once again to play "lesser of two evils", but I don't think a Cotton or Pompeo or Cruz will automatically pick up the Trump vote. Because they are NOT Trump. A lot of people hate Trump's character, but a sizeable chunk actively LIKE it. My friend from college's dad is a FB friend of mine, and he recently posted a link about Pam Bondi declaring massive voter fraud and the election being illegitimate, with his comment being, "Best news yet!" I've been over to his house a lot, I know him decently well, but is he really a conservative? Nah. He's an obnoxious Jersey loudmouth, he'd sit in his rocking chair in the living room while drinking beer and screaming at his wife to retrieve things from around the house for him, and he enjoyed telling crude stories about how he and buddies threw firecrackers at Dave Winfield at Yankee Stadium back in the day, but if you asked him the difference between a paleocon and a neocon, or what positive rights are and why they are wrong, he wouldn't know where to start. They like Trump's "manliness". He's impolite, politically incorrect, vulgar, and so on. He's TOUGH! He FIGHTS! And I don't understand that at all. He dodged Vietnam, he inherited hundreds of millions of dollars and got shittier results out of it than if he merely dumped it in an index fund and forgot about it, he's failed at two marriages because of rampant indiscretions, and he mostly seems tough because he had scripted role on a TV show where he fired people in a blunt way (by all accounts, he doesn't even like firing people in person). I'm proud to be a man, and the breadwinner for and protector of my family, I will be married to one woman in my life and my kids will only ever know one father, I've stood up constantly for what I believe to be right (at risk of my own life), and nothing about Trump strikes me as truly manly at all.

Hey now, I'm still down to hear how I'm too linear.

OK, I am actually curious- I hear this all the time about red states receiving more federal funding than blue states. What does that refer to? You joke about hurricane response, but is that it? Asking because I don't know the nuances behind this argument. I do strongly adhere to the idea of positive rights versus negative rights. My right to free speech doesn't affect you, but my right to housing does (if you're a home builder). But like you say, the dividing line's not perfect. There are times where we provide goods and subsidize that labor because it makes sense. I'm probably more supportive of charter schools than you are, but I still don't disagree with the idea that the state provides education. Government paid workers should build and maintain roads, and whatever we think of policing, it shouldn't be privatized, nor should fire and park rangers and so on. I'm a vet, so obviously, defense is a big thing that the government should cover, IMO. I'm strongly against actual socialism and I think it's detrimental when certain parties overindulge themselves in fears of socialism. Republicans will come along and say, "A public option is socialism!" And liberals will respond, "Derr, are roads socialism, you uneducated bumpkin?!" No. Neither is. Socialism is out there (think Venezuela), it sucks, but it's not here.

That wasn't my goal. @pettie4sox if I insulted you personally at all, I apologize.

Hi.

I live in one of those shithole southern red states. So thanks. Actually, I agree with your point about what level of "socialism" (I assume you used quotes because roads, parks, cops and even Britain's NHS isn't ACTUAL socialism). I would set the divider a little closer to "not socialism" than you, as seen in this discussion, but like you said, YMMV.

Fair enough. @pettie4sox, you're more than welcome to PM me.

Why, because I made a quip about vacations and nice cars? I want a public option. I want people who cannot afford healthcare to be covered by the state until such point that they can afford healthcare. I want the state to control the cost of vital drugs, and whether it's private or public, insurance should have some form of catastrophic cap. I still remember seeing a donation jar at a gas station when I was a teenager for one of their coworkers who owed $60,000 for the treatment of their deceased child. That shouldn't happen. But these subsidies should not cover me nor you. I can afford it and you've said in the past that you can too. If you added up my healthcare costs and took them off my plate (and somehow didn't raise my taxes a similar amount), that'd pay for my wife and I stay at the Four Seasons in Paris for a week. So, in my perception, we are discussing a provision not of necessity (which I support) but of luxury (which I do not).

I suspect we’ll always disagree because I am certain we have fundamental differences on what the purpose of this country actually is. But I’m still willing to talk about it. You’re more than welcome to point out my straw men just like you’re more than welcome to point out how I’m misremembering our earlier debate about the Electoral College. If you just want to complain about it in vague terms, then, sincerely, have a nice day.

The military is a collective good and one of the few legitimate purposes of the federal government. Helping you save money on healthcare so you can take a vacation and drive a nicer car is not.

I totally agree with this. I’m not thrilled about Biden but I did vote for him and his likely SecDef, Michele Flournoy, is like ideological viagra for me. I despise Trump’s character more than his policies (for the most part). If I had a rooting interest in this election, it was a Biden win with a Republican Senate, so I’m sitting pretty right now.

That’s fair. I think those are “quality of life” things as well, which is why it should be an individual responsibility and not a collective one. After all, driving a nice car is a quality of life thing, so should you help me achieve that? No way. Subsidize the life threatening stuff, keep drug prices low, let people figure out the QOL stuff on their own time and dime.

Check my privilege? Get outta here. My wife wants a boob reduction, eventually. So it does affect me, and no, you shouldn’t pay for it. I picked some medical procedure that I saw as useless and went with it. It wasn’t some misogynistic thing where I just wanted to pick on women. Since you want to level the playing field and pick on men too, no, Viagra should not be covered. It’s very simple. You shouldn’t die because you get cancer and can’t afford chemo (or insurance that includes chemo). You shouldn’t die of any disease because you can’t afford it. We should subsidize many things in healthcare (still not a human right but that’s neither here nor there). We shouldn’t subsidize quality of life things like many forms of plastic surgery or Viagra, and we shouldn’t subsidize them for people who can otherwise afford them.

I agree with all of that. Completely. I maintain that Trump would have crushed Sanders (personally, I voted for Biden but I would have sat out a Trump-Sanders contest).

What if I like my private insurance that I pay for? Can I keep it, or am I deprived of that choice? Are there limits on procedures covered by M4A? Are we going to pay for people to get boob jobs, for instance? Genuine questions.

Uh huh. That’s why Mayor Frey walked into a several thousand plus crowd in Minneapolis, got asked by one of its leaders if he would commit to defunding the police, who then added, “We don’t want no more police! Is that clear?”, which received a massive cheer from the crowd, and then Frey did a walk of shame through a booing crowd when he said it was more nuanced than that. Is there a prominent progressive politician that wants it that way? Probably not. Joe Biden? Definitely not. But there is absolutely an ACAB crowd out there that wants that.