Rex Kickass

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Sep 15, 2010 -> 10:01 AM) Kinda like the liberal viewpoint that all groups are equal, discrimination is bad, yadda yadda.....unless you're 1) a tea party member, 2) rich, 3) religious (christian specifically), etc. No policy view is 100%. There are always exceptions. I think protecting the state from terrorism and from illegal immigrants is a job for the federal government. And I have yet to hear how providing proof of citizenship is in anyway different than me having to provide a drivers license and proof of insurance. Oh the humanity for having to come up with those two pieces of paper. Again, you don't hear tea partiers crying foul over that either. So you feel that you should be asked to carry around your birth certificate and/or passport at all times? Because that's essentially what SB 1070 asks of you, IIRC. It's not just about a traffic stop. It's about being in any public place in Arizona, at any time. Personally, I think that's fairly unreasonable. What happens when your documents are stolen from you, or lost, or destroyed in the laundry, etc. - and you get stopped and can't prove your citizenship. Do you feel you should be detained until such time that your citizenship can be proven?

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Sep 15, 2010 -> 09:57 AM) Bulls***. The conservative party is just as diverse, but you all like to define conservatives as one crazy religious racist homophobic rich (though sometimes hillbilly) group. Again, you have fiscal conservatives, libertarians, tea partiers, the hardcore right, etc - all different groups with diverse viewpoints. And while "liberals" might be more diverse, I dunno that it's THAT much more. I'll defer to Balta to find a study on that. But either way, it's not like Republicans are 99.9% white males over 40. I never said that conservatives are crazy, religious, racist, homophobic, rich or hillbilly. I did say that conservatives and the Republican party tends to attract a more homogenous audience (in this case, primarily white male) and that there's a bit more ideological rigidity there. Most exit polling from election after election shows that women tend to lean left over right. African Americans consistently vote Democrat, the Latino community tends to vote Democrat in much stronger numbers than Republican, so does the GLBT community, as do Jewish voters, etc.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Sep 15, 2010 -> 09:48 AM) You don't think there's a difference between government action to combat illegal acts and needless government action mandating how Americans should live their lives (and how to spend their money)? I haven't heard the Tea Partiers claiming that we don't need police departments either, but that doesn't make their message of limited government interference invalid. I think an argument can be made here that a bill like SB 1070 in Arizona changes the prism of the government from presumed innocent until found guilty to the other way around.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 15, 2010 -> 09:20 AM) I don't think that is true at all. The centrist repubs are the ones who wanted limited interference in all aspects of their lives. They are excited by this movement because it not only focuses on taxes, but also spending and rules. The real center of the party is much more hands-off. The Democrats are threatened by this which is why they have mobilized so quickly to label the entire movement as racist and uneducated, which you are seeing on this very board. They are painting a vocal minority as much more than it really is. It would be akin to painting guys like Al Sharpton and the guy who took Discovery hostage as the center of the Democratic party. I think anytime a force comes in to excite the party and make it more apt to bring growth to a party, its a good thing for that party. This doesn't always translate into near term success. I think what the Tea Party movement has accomplished in 18 months, whatever its origins, is pretty astonishing. Whether it ultimately leads to Reagan type electoral success, or Goldwater type wandering in the woods remains to be seen.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Sep 14, 2010 -> 11:32 PM) And there's 5 conservative pundits for every one of Maddow because, again, the message sells. They're the same people with different opinions. If those opinions resonated with the public, they'd be popular (see, the daily show, colbert report). I'd consider Obama's campaign "liberal," and he caught the attention of a lot of people, including moderates and republicans. Just because liberals haven't created a Reilly (who's really more moderate that people think) or Beck (who is creepy, no lie), doesn't mean that anyone who follows those guys are just morons like Rex thinks. Way to put words in my mouth. I don't think that "conservative" listeners are morons. In fact, as an unapologetic Democrat, I honestly wish that we had a stronger echo chamber similar to what the Republicans have. It would make for a much stronger position this November, because the party's message might actually get some traction in pundit land. But the demographics of the "liberal"audience are different, because the "liberal" audience is frankly more diverse. I don't have the numbers, but I'd wager that the average Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, random Conservative pundit audience is pretty much the same - white and primarily male. Not making a judgment call on what that means, that's just what the audience appears to me to be. On the other hand a "liberal" audience is more female than male, and is more likely to consist of multiple minority communities, each of whom have their own narrative. "Liberal"audiences don't maintain the kind of ideological purity that "conservative" audiences tends to have, because so many communities come from completely different places. And that audience doesn't tend to be attracted to political talk radio - at least partially because its not marketed to those people, partially because its not created with those people in mind, and partially because they aren't inclined to that kind of format. I think this is the point I was trying to make earlier.

Tea Party candidate Christine O'Donnell defeats GOP Establishment candidate Mike Castle in the Delaware primary. It's also not looking good for Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire against a tea party insurgent. Good news for tea partiers, not so good news for the Republican party. According to Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight, if both win their primaries tonight, GOP chances of taking the Senate are roughly halved.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 14, 2010 -> 07:15 PM) well, let's be honest here. Of the five you cite among liberals, only two are actual news sources (NYT, NPR), and both have a liberal slant at one level or another. That's one more news source than the conservatives have in their top five. And the New York Times and NPR hardly paint the shrill voice that Limbaugh, Hannity or Bill "f*** it, we'll do it live" O'Reilly have.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Sep 14, 2010 -> 02:40 PM) You sir, are a freakin' delight to read. This is what I thought of while reading that sentence: How's it smell? Nice. But I'm not saying anything that ratings and surveys don't already play out. Pew Research did a survey on people's media habits when it came to where people get their news and news type programming from. The top five news and opinion sources for the average NRA supporter are - 1. Rush Limbaugh, 2. Sean Hannity, 3. Glenn Beck, 4. Bill O'Reilly, 5. Fox News The top five news and opinion sources for the average gay rights supporter are - 1. The New York Times, 2. Colbert Report, 3. NPR, 4. Daily Show, 5. Keith Olbermann You can call me smug all you want, but I think there is a reason why Fox News is so popular with conservatives - and its because their flagship programs (Hannity, O'Reilly, Beck) all focus on opinion making rather than news reporting. http://people-press.org/report/652/

QUOTE (jasonxctf @ Sep 14, 2010 -> 11:51 AM) I feel it was also orchastrated to the point where, no matter what action the Administration chose (stim spending or no stim spending) they would be out protesting no matter what. It was either... stop govt spending/takeovers or create more jobs. It would be interesting to ask these people, if they would have preferred no stimilus spending and a 13% unemployment rate instead? I think that the last ten years, this political echo chamber that we've created has forced a situation where someone has to be constantly angry and protesting about something. The lack of civility in discourse has led to an abandonment of any moderation. I would say that this is primarily true on the Republican side, and I know that others disagree, but I feel that on the right wing that there has been a sustained lack of respect for the legitimacy of anyone holding political power than themselves. This is something that we saw rear its head sometime around 1993, and we're seeing it again now. Some people will argue that these things happened in 2001 as well, and they may be correct - but the level of disrespect and unwillingness to cooperate and work together in 2001 did not reach the highest levels of the Democratic party - certainly not like they did in 2009 or in the Clinton years. There was no serious, sustained and lasting effort to impeach Bush Jr that had any legitimacy with the Democratic leadership. There were and still are polemics on both sides and there was and still is disrespect on both sides, but the difference in how that disrespect is handled on either side is fairly telling.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 13, 2010 -> 10:46 PM) Nice answer. Thanks. I asked the question, because there's even a local morning radio show here where the host is like a mini-Limbaugh. I happened to have it on in the car for some reason. It's all conservative. He had a guest from NY who wrote a book on how bad Obama is. This author basically said Obama is not intelligent and on and on. Then I turned on Limbaugh and it was all Obama, all the time. Obama being awful of course. Man, those Bill O'Reilly videos on youtube are awesome when he fights with people like Phil Donahue. Some amazing screaming. And isn't that Glenn Beck guy conservative as well? Like you said though, the media is considered liberal in general. You'd just think they'd have the national talk show voice. With all the liberals out there, you'd think it'd be tough for these shows to get advertising, but no prollem for Limbaugh, et. all. There was a "liberal talk radio" moment, but it kinda fell apart because the people behind it were pretty shady and had some really questionable financial backing. There was a crop of radio stars that I thought could have actually had some staying power and created a really counterpunch to right wing talk radio, and been fairly successful at it. But one became a Senator (Al Franken), one became a TV star (Rachel Maddow), and one went bat s*** crazy (Randi Rhodes). Part of the other problem is that "liberal" audiences tend to like more in depth reporting than they like opinions and rants. So there's NPR for that. And the NPR audience is huge. Rush gets about 12 million listeners weekly, Morning Edition is on the magnitude of 20 million listeners weekly. Are they all liberal? Of course not. But a big chunk of that potential audience is right there.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Sep 9, 2010 -> 06:39 PM) I just don't see it. It's the largest and most powerful grassroots movement currently operating in the US. They are so big that it is inevitable that it would get the interest of certain money groups. Most of the groups listed in the Wiki page aren't even in the US. The one that is listed is completely irrelevant. So, if by your standards a grassroots movement must have no influence or voter base, then the Tea Party is not grassroots. What I do see is that a certain people just refuse to admit that many voters have legitimate concerns with the government and it's elected officials. I do think that there is a large popular tangent to this, absolutely. But a grassroots movement implies that it started from nothing - and the truth seems to be that there was some big money behind it from the start. It may have a grassroots feel to it now, but with the help of things like FreedomWorks and Fox News behind it from the start, this was astroturf that took root. There feels very little that's organic about it to me.

QUOTE (knightni @ Sep 14, 2010 -> 09:39 AM) So, you're saying then that people who get into politics should understand that they are required to be corrupt in order to do their jobs? If it's a requirement, then why should anyone care or be surprised when a politician gets caught being dishonest? I guess it depends on the dishonesty we're talking about. All of us are dishonest to a certain degree, to expect complete honesty from anyone is a bit much. And the truth is, if someone was totally honest, I don't think they would get more than a handful of votes. But I guess, what I think most people see as being "corrupt" has more to do with someone getting settled into a role they did not have before. These things change people, but it doesn't make them corrupted - but they may not be the same fresh face someone elected ten, six or even two years ago. And its rare that someone who doesn't change stays in office.

QUOTE (knightni @ Sep 10, 2010 -> 09:47 PM) You have to "promise" stuff to get people to vote for you, and when you're in office, you realize how many of those promises are impossible or unlikely without corrupting yourself, so... politics can be a slippery slope. That's not being dishonest though, that's just being naive. It's naive to think that someone won't be affected by the trappings of the prize they sought is. The vast majority of elected officials, by and large, believe that they are doing what they are doing in service to their country. And generally, those intentions are good. However, its easy to lose the balance between doing what's right and doing what's easy. Especially if what's right and what's popular are two completely different things.

QUOTE (knightni @ Sep 12, 2010 -> 09:47 AM) What I don't like is that, once I move files from iTunes to my iPod, I can't move them back. Only delete them. Actually, purchased files from iTunes can be moved back on from an iPod to a computer, as long as the computer is registered with the same iTunes account. However, there's an app called iDump that will let you put everything from your iPod on your computer again.

QUOTE (G&T @ Sep 9, 2010 -> 08:53 AM) I am officially married. Awesome wedding in Bar Harbor, Maine. Congrats, love the Maine coast in September too!

QUOTE (Iwritecode @ Sep 10, 2010 -> 10:15 AM) Obviously you don't remember the old AOL chatrooms. IF YOU LIKE METALLICA TYPE 11 I'm 33.

QUOTE (BigEdWalsh @ Sep 9, 2010 -> 11:37 PM) That'd work on me, were I a voting trustee. Wish I needed that much to be swayed, I'd have accepted a month's worth of Lingonberries and a wool sweater.

Single and accepting applications.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Sep 10, 2010 -> 08:05 AM) http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010...itutional-.html You now have Obama fighting Republicans to keep gays out of the military. Awesome. Sort of a double edged sword. His job is to defend existing laws, even when he works to have them repealed.

- US District Judge Virginia Phillips A federal judge threw out Don't Ask Don't Tell yesterday, in a suit brought by the Log Cabin Republicans! no less.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 9, 2010 -> 10:35 PM) not. Well, I like them, but I don't think I like them like them. See ya in study hall!

At this point, we are going to move the discussion away from other poster's posting styles, if you don't mind. The topic is The Democrats, love em or not! (I prefer you love em, personally) The topic is not: anyone on this board currently. (Unless you are a public political figure.)

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 9, 2010 -> 11:10 AM) Wait, so military spending doesn't count? Well to be fair, I think it STARTED grass roots, then was co-opted later. Actually it seems more Astro Turf that grew roots IIRC.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 9, 2010 -> 11:05 AM) Until she said "much like building a mosque at ground zero", which is both inacurrate and a laughable comparison. But at least she did say something about it being wrong, I'm glad to see that part. This is true, she must have read my post here! I have to say the radio silence from the anti Burlington Coat Factory Community Center that she represents was getting pretty deafening until this week.

Just a quick reminder: To post in the Filibuster - you agreed to the following guidelines here: We keep a particularly wide berth here for posters, because politics gets heated and because, frankly, its more fun in here that way. But there's just been too much trolling, and too much baiting in here - and frankly, its damaging some of the actual discussion that we've had here. Remember, you agreed to these rules to post here - and if you can't follow them, you won't be allowed to post here.