Author Topic: Vote(d) 2012 ... can't mediate the Ho Ho's  (Read 128700 times)

Offline Libertad

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Re: Vote 2012 ... Take It To The Convention edition.
« Reply #380 on: August 21, 2012, 04:12:50 PM »
Some Republican asshole running for Senate made the claim that women's reproductive systems shut down when they're being raped, and that pregnancy as the result of rape is extremely rare.

The good news is that even other Republicans (such as Romney) are saying that the comment's inexcusable.

It's amazing how all these conservatives are making laws regulating women's bodies and sex lives when they themselves don't know how womens' bodies work!

Offline sirpercival

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Re: Vote 2012 ... Take It To The Convention edition.
« Reply #381 on: August 21, 2012, 04:22:44 PM »
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Offline bhu

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Re: Vote 2012 ... Take It To The Convention edition.
« Reply #382 on: August 21, 2012, 06:41:49 PM »
Some Republican asshole running for Senate made the claim that women's reproductive systems shut down when they're being raped, and that pregnancy as the result of rape is extremely rare.

The good news is that even other Republicans (such as Romney) are saying that the comment's inexcusable.

It's amazing how all these conservatives are making laws regulating women's bodies and sex lives when they themselves don't know how womens' bodies work!

They're asking him to step down because they don't want the public reminded of certain legislation limiting rape to 'forcible rape' introduced a while back that was abandoned due to a similar shitstorm.  The same or similar language has been part of the party platform for what? 30 years? More?

Offline Libertad

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Re: Vote 2012 ... Take It To The Convention edition.
« Reply #383 on: August 21, 2012, 07:05:41 PM »
I think it's safe to say that there's a Republican War on Women now.

Offline RobbyPants

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Re: Vote 2012 ... Take It To The Convention edition.
« Reply #384 on: August 22, 2012, 07:37:53 AM »
Some Republican asshole running for Senate made the claim that women's reproductive systems shut down when they're being raped, and that pregnancy as the result of rape is extremely rare.
I'm not sure what's more creepy. Akin's retarded understanding of reproduction, or the creepy, creepy rape apologists that come out in his defense:

Missouri Republican official calls children from rape "a blessing"


I think it's safe to say that there's a Republican War on Women now.
I think it's been pretty well understood for a while. It's just, they don't usually like to be that up-front about it.
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Offline darqueseid

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Re: Vote 2012 ... Take It To The Convention edition.
« Reply #385 on: August 22, 2012, 10:43:42 AM »
its not enough to say that women who were raped actually wanted it, now we're saying that they're blessed with the rapists child so they should never abort it? 

The republican party is so f-ed up, I don't understand how anyone votes for them anymore.   :banghead

Offline darqueseid

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Re: Vote 2012 ... Take It To The Convention edition.
« Reply #386 on: August 22, 2012, 11:30:27 AM »
Could you please stop using the terms "smarter" and "stupider"?  It's not an intelligence thing, there's no learning involved.  It's about our ability to process choices.  We process one at a time and have a hard time deciding between more than three choices, and it's even easier to decide between two.  That's just how we are.  If you have more than this number of choices, you will pare it down until you only have this number of choices.  In the US, this has manifested as a nation-wide two-party mentality which extends beyond just politics.  This is a result of our culture.  In other places (but not every other place), it has distilled in a different way, but the mentality is still present subconsciously.  It's the "with us or against us" mentality, by the way.  It is ingrained into our DNA, so every person has this.  The number of political parties has no bearing on it.  When a country has more than two political parties, this is an indication that they have more than one, not that the people are smarter or have better brains or anything.  They still distill their individual choice to two or three.  And no, this is not contrary to my argument.  Again, I have always supported having more than two parties.  I have always said that more parties generally equals good.  This is an explanation as to why we have two parties, and why breaking it will be hard.  And as for the supposed contradiction: When you decide between 500 things, all of reasonable worth, and whittle it down to two or three and then make a final decision, you are not deciding between 500 things.  You are deciding between a successive 2-3 things that when added together equal 500.  Each decision is still made between two things, it's just a way of getting around that limitation.  Even the people who decide between multiple things at once are still doing this, it's just quieter, and sometimes faster and sloppier.  Does that make sense?  Continue with this and you can have more than two parties in politics, because some parties won't count as the decision for some people, and others for others.

I have not once said "I want a two party system".  I think that would be bad.  I did say that I want a multi-party system where the parties don't all suck.  The issue I took with your remark is that it was absolutist.  You claimed that simply adding parties to the system would help.  I've been trying to point out that the type and quality of the party matters.  If you add a ton of terrible parties that no one will vote for to the system, they aren't really doing anything to alleviate the issues of the two party system.  The thing that needs to happen is that people VOTE for other parties.  Simply existing will (and does, since there are a ton of parties right now) do nothing.
Well, I never said stupider, since that's not really a thing, but your implication is that those in countries with more parties are better at making choices than Americans. 

As to your overall assertion that people ALWAYS distill things into two choices, you are actually wrong.  Most of the time people actually make decisions unconsciously.  People simply decide without thinking much about the decision making process at all; mainly because it takes too much effort to go through the process for every choice.  So people really aren't distilling to two, they are just picking the best option that's available for them and running with it without thinking about it much.  This feeds a two party system in that they can vie to be the only candidate on the ballot and most people aren't interested enough to find out why they only have two choices. 
but even when talking about people who do go through the decision making process, distilling to two choices is only one technique among many:
-Elimination by Aspects is the formal psychological name for the distilling down technique you describe
-Pros and Cons: decision-making based on listing the advantages and disadvantages.
-Simple Prioritization: Listing the choices and ordering them based on utility
-Satisficing: examining all the alternatives until a viable option is found
-Acquiescence: Submitting to the decision of a person in authority
-Rebelling: taking the opposite course advised by establishment or authority
-Flipism: just flipping a coin or randomly choosing
-Prayer, tarot cards, astrology or other forms of divination
-Opportunity cost analysis: the benefit of one choice weighted against the cost of not choosing the second best choice
-Bureaucratic: choosing a criteria upon which to make automatic decisions
-Political: negotiate choices among interest groups and choose the compromise

These are just the major techniques people use to make decisions.  You may only be able to make choices by distilling to black and white(or maybe just black),  but its only 1 out of 11 of the major decision making processes used.

Of course type and quality of parties matter, my point is, if you have two power-broker parties that crush or absorb all newcomers, you crush the good with the bad.  I'm not happy with any other person(or group of people) making the decision for me as to what party(s) I can choose.  Sure I'd hope that all new parties were viable and awesome, but we don't live in a perfect world here, and some are gonna be bad. You don't get to pick for me, nor do I get to pick for anyone else which parties are the good ones and the bad ones; we just have to let them live and grow on their own merit. 

Right now if a new party is good it gets marginalized, if bad, it gets marginalized,  and that is the wrong answer.



Offline dman11235

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Re: Vote 2012 ... Take It To The Convention edition.
« Reply #387 on: August 22, 2012, 11:54:07 AM »
Those specific words, you did not use, but you used the base words associated with them  And that's not my implication, and I'd very much appreciate it if you would stop claiming that I meant that.

You don't sit there and consciously weigh the benefits and drawbacks of every choice you make, no.  You do this process subconsciously.  But you still do the process.  Other things you do without realizing: judge people by their smell (and I don't mean people who don't bathe or wear certain perfumes), move your limbs, and form memories.

And, wait, so you understand that people only make decisions between a couple things at a time?  Then why have you been arguing against it?  And you don't think that literally every party should be given power?  And you don't believe that every idea should be tried out?

Look, I have have not once said that ideas should be squashed.  I have only been saying that not all ideas are good, and when our system works the bad ideas won't get any recognition while the good ideas are the ones that actually get decided between.
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Offline veekie

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Re: Vote 2012 ... Take It To The Convention edition.
« Reply #388 on: August 22, 2012, 01:30:11 PM »
^^
However, it doesn't work that way, because it just means early lead ideas stick around forever. Any upstart idea has an impossible slope to climb, unless it piggybacks on a popular idea, regardless of if the idea it winds up linked with is good, bad or even opposed. Two party systems preserve first mover advantage for a very very long time. A century or three later, you can expect the same two parties, with the same motivations, to continue their dominance.

Multitudes means yes, bad ideas get their day in the limelight as well, but ideas must stay relevant to the electorate to survive competition, or be pushed off the table by new and fresher ideas. While any individual might be making simple binary choices, the collective is making hundreds of non-overlapping choices, which preserves the diversity. Everyone sees things from a slightly different perspective. Many choices means more perspectives are preserved into high level decision making. It of course, reduces legislative efficiency, everything on the stakes are in for a major round of horse-trading and bargaining to gain a clear majority and pass, unlike the two party system, where the dominant party would generally just shove whatever they like through(with variable levels of resistance depending on how big a margin they have).
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Offline bhu

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Offline JohnnyMayHymn

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Re: Vote 2012 ... Take It To The Convention edition.
« Reply #390 on: August 23, 2012, 09:19:18 PM »
A call to hipsters everywhere: vote ironically, vote Romney.
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Offline radionausea

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Re: Vote 2012 ... Take It To The Convention edition.
« Reply #391 on: August 23, 2012, 09:36:14 PM »
A call to hipsters everywhere: Stop drinking PBR, grow a spine, stop being individual instances of everyone I WILL flense; you'll be alright
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Offline darqueseid

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Re: Vote 2012 ... Take It To The Convention edition.
« Reply #392 on: August 24, 2012, 08:27:09 AM »
Gods angry at the republicans:

http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/08/23/storm-isaac-idINL6E8JN1DQ20120823

Aren't they supposed to be the "pro god party?"  maybe god really is a woman after all.

Offline bhu

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Re: Vote 2012 ... Take It To The Convention edition.
« Reply #393 on: August 24, 2012, 12:39:39 PM »
Between that and Ron Paul Mitt's moved up the nomination process to Monday night where it won't be televised.

Offline awaken_D_M_golem

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Re: Vote 2012 ... Repub Convo vs. Hurricane Isaac (?!)
« Reply #394 on: August 24, 2012, 03:59:58 PM »
Heh ... I go on ~vacation and all (adj-)politics breaks loose.

Retitled thread again.  Ron Paul's gonna play nice nice.

Romney went off message , and hinted toward the birthers.
http://nation.foxnews.com/mitt-romney/2012/08/24/romney-no-one-has-ever-asked-see-my-birth-certificate

Dude  :pout
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Offline Libertad

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Re: Vote 2012 ... Repub Convo vs. Hurricane Isaac (?!)
« Reply #395 on: August 24, 2012, 04:16:47 PM »
Did you check out the YouTube comments in that video?  The White Supremacists are coming out to play, calling Obama "boy" and "negro."

And this is where Todd Akin got his ideas about rape: a respected "doctor" within the GOP and "pro-life" community.

Offline darqueseid

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Re: Vote 2012 ... Repub Convo vs. Hurricane Isaac (?!)
« Reply #396 on: August 27, 2012, 12:54:59 PM »
Heh ... I go on ~vacation and all (adj-)politics breaks loose.

Retitled thread again.  Ron Paul's gonna play nice nice.

Romney went off message , and hinted toward the birthers.
http://nation.foxnews.com/mitt-romney/2012/08/24/romney-no-one-has-ever-asked-see-my-birth-certificate

Dude  :pout

Why is it that the poll says the comment is "inspiring"??   :banghead

Do we really have to go there YET again??? 

Either Romney is too much of a coward to stand up to the birthers and tell them they're wrong, or he's so stupid he actually believes them. 

This is just a bunch of racist bullshit, and yet another reason I can't support the republicans (as if I needed another).

Yes, Governer Romney, no-ones asked you for your birth certificate, and don't you think there is a problem with that?  I'm not sure I like a country where, if your white, everyone automatically assumes your native, but if your anything else, you better make sure you can prove you deserve to be here. 

What a jackass.



« Last Edit: August 27, 2012, 12:57:49 PM by darqueseid »

Offline dman11235

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Re: Vote 2012 ... Repub Convo vs. Hurricane Isaac (?!)
« Reply #397 on: August 27, 2012, 01:26:32 PM »
That reminds me of a Daily Show sketch where Jason Jones goes to Arizona to report on the new ID law for immigrants that they passed.  At the end he admits that he's an illegal immigrant from Canada, but doesn't get asked for his card because he's white.
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Offline darqueseid

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Re: Vote 2012 ... Repub Convo vs. Hurricane Isaac (?!)
« Reply #398 on: August 27, 2012, 04:02:05 PM »
Nice

Offline awaken_D_M_golem

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Re: Vote 2012 ... Repub Convo vs. Hurricane Isaac (?!)
« Reply #399 on: August 27, 2012, 07:25:09 PM »
Trump went birther again, yesterday.


It seems to be a concerted effort.
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