Dear democrats, we're angry for a reason!

So...a lot of democrats still don't get it. Every time I see a discussion about the problems with the democratic party, I see two camps emerge. There's the camp that the party is a bunch of wishy washy centrists who don't support real solutions and tried to strongarm us into settling for a lesser of two evils...and then there's the camp that thinks that the first camp is a bunch of whiny ingrates who put their "purity tests" ahead of country and how we would've won if only we fell in line. As you guys know, I'm firmly in the first camp, and do not believe that the democrats really have a good economic platform. I'm sorry, but Obamacare and other wishy washy solutions aren't good enough. Our economic system is fundamentally broken and needs to be fixed, and the dems have run so far to the right since Reagan that they're now occupying a similar ideological slot as the pre Reagan republican party.

Many of us want significant change, real change. We don't think the Obama years were great. A lot of centrists are now telling me how awesome the Obama years were....you mean those years where unemployment was sky high and came down because of a 4 point drop in labor force participation? Those years where you can graduate college and have trouble finding a job at McDonalds? Those years? Obama did some decent things, but let's not romanticize the guy or act like he did the best that anyone can do. He was a competent leader, but competence is a BASELINE for governance, not a feature. The dems seem to think merely having someone competent is good enough because the republicans are so far off the rails that they can't elect anyone who isn't either an ideologue with terrible policies or an idiot. That's what we're being told about Clinton now too, that at least if we didn't have Clinton we would have competent leadership, yeah, but again, competence is a baseline. It should be a minimum requirement for the job, not a freaking feature. How much does our political system sucks merely being competent becomes the key reason we should support someone?

As for purity tests...we "Bernie Bros" did not become this alienated and pissed off with the democrats overnight. Unlike what people are saying, we actually aren't throwing a tantrum because we couldn't get everything we wanted. I mean, even Bernie is a compromise for me, he isn't for basic income and crap. But you know what? He's a step in the right direction and I'll support him for that. Clinton? Again, the key problem is it seems like the dems tried to ensure no one else but Clinton could be the nominee, and then they tried to do damage control to force the hold outs to vote for her. As I've echoed since this blog started, I felt like we were being bullied and strong armed. And under such circumstances, the only move we have left IS to refuse to support her. Her election depends on us playing along with being bullied? Fine, we'll throw the election on her to teach the dems not to pull this crap on us again. And it worked. Trump is in office. I don't like Trump at all, but I don't regret him being there as it was a necessary evil. The point is, the dems pissed us off so bad, that we left the dems, stayed home or voted for Stein....and now we got an orange oompa loompa. Not thrilled with that, but given what the dems tried to do, it's an acceptable outcome to me.

Now, the onus is on the dems to understand why we got that pissed off and rectify the problem. We didn't do this in a vacuum. We're not being childish. We just resent being bullied and strong armed into supporting a crappy candidate. I didn't vote for Trump. I went third party. I signaled to the democrats that I don't like Trump either...if I did, I would support thim. Instead, I supported their closest ideological alternative that is more in line with my politics, basically telling them they need to change.

If the dems want to win elections, they need to stop bullying their voters. They need to stop taking us for granted, talking down to us, condescending to us, and telling us we better get with the program or we get something worse. We called you on that, and now we got the oompa loompa. Now do we wanna work on fixing our problems and getting back to winning and having good progressive policies or what? No more centrist crap, no more lesser of two evils. Don't run an explicit lesser of two evils campaign. Evil is still evil. At least try to appeal to us. We don't have to get everything we want right away, but we need to be assured that you will TRY. There is a huge difference between single payer and obamacare. True free college and hillary's original plan with income limits and work requirements. Basic income and welfare. One solution is universal and fixes systemic issues we face once and for all. The other is a band aid. And I'm sick of mediocre band aids.  I respect candidates who try and fail more than ones who don't try at all. I'd rather see Bernie try to pass single payer and fail than Clinton just do nothing and kill the debate for good.

That said, dems...take a good, hard look at yourselves. We didn't get so pissed off at you we effectively left the party and supported a third party or stayed home because we were being spoiled brats. We did it because you effectively cornered us with ultimatums and threats and we called you on it. And now we're all living with the consequences. If you want to avoid a repeat, learn to appeal to your voter base rather than alienating them. We don't owe you a vote. You need to earn it. Kay. Thanks. Bye.

The republicans never fail to disappoint

So...Obamacare repeal. Big issue right now. Republicans are trying to mount their second assault against Obamacare, and as of posting this bill has passed the house, meaning unless senate democrats get it shut down or a few moderate republicans turn against it, we're screwed.

The logic behind this bill comes off as pure selfish sociopathy. The republicans don't want healthcare system in which the sick can afford healthcare. They want a system in which only those who can afford healthcare can get it. Everyone pays for themselves, and if you are sick and can't afford it, screw you. They don't even hide it, Alabama republican Mo Brooks basically pretty much said that, and also implied people who get sick do so for not leading good lives. I really don't have much to say about this than screw these people. The kinds of sociopathy required to be a republican these days, the idea that we should save tax payers a few bucks by leaving them to die, is so outrageous to me I don't know how this is acceptable in the modern political spectrum. This is lunacy. These people are sociopathic nutjobs.

The ACA may not have been perfect, I complain about it a lot. But the idea that it makes healthy people help subsidize sick people is a feature, not a bug. Sick people NEED healthcare the most, and under free market economics get royally screwed when trying to acquire it. ACA didn't go far enough but it took significant measures to improve that. And you know what? Guess what healthy people, you get sick too sometimes. And you will get sick as you get older. Everyone does. Has anyone seen anyone in their 80s and 90s who don't have medical issues? Heck, anyone hear of anyone in their 50s and 60s without one? The republicans are the real death panels here. Get sick? Screw off and die. That's their motto.

Trump voters, I hope you understand what you brought forth on this country. You brought forth extremist sociopaths who more or less don't care if people die as long as it lowers their taxes. These people are deplorable, and I hate to use the Hillary word, but if you still support these guys knowing this, you're deplorable too. And if you are morally outraged by this and voted for Trump, lesson learned, don't vote republican. Wish you would've learned this sooner, but just as I needed a rude awakening to realize these people are sociopathic crooks, so may you, and I won't judge you for it. Anyway,if that's you, welcome to liberalism, home of sensible public policy that helps people and doesn't leave them to die. We're happy to have you. Don't support the republicans again. You don't have to like the democrats even. I don't. Just make sure you never vote republican again. This is their true colors. Don't forget it.

Dillahunty Syndrome and Me

So, I kind of am reluctant to post this, but it kind of explains why there has been so little content since the election. Long story short, I'm exhausted. I've been hyped up over the election for the last 2 years, I've discussed politics for much longer, and quite frankly, it gets old after a while. I think my problem is I've come down with a really bad case of Dillahunty Syndrome lately.

For those who don't know what Dillahunty Snydrome is, it's named after Matt Dillahunty, a host of the Atheist Experience. Long story short, debating the same thing over and over tends to wear you out after a while. You can explain a concept once, even twice, and it will be intellectually satisfying. But by the time you have to explain it for the 100th time, it gets old. You lack the energy to do it any more. You run out of craps to give. And when you do try you do it half ***ed and tend to get angry at the thought of having to do it again. It becomes like climbing a mountain, just to get some of the most basic thoughts out.

I've been spending a lot of time focusing on other stuff since the election, and I still likely will for the foreseeable future. I'm not really improving on this matter. It's not that I don't care. I care a lot. I just lack the energy to keep revisiting the same topics and debating with people and I have quite frankly run out of things to talk about at this current time. I might return to these topics in the future, but long story short, expect a further hiatus on this subject. I may shift focus here and there and focus on other things to talk about, but even then, I don't really have much energy right now. This is natural for me. I go through phases in which I'm fired up and can't stop talking, and then I go through phases at which the idea of discussing these subjects again gets old. I could focus on other stuff, related to, idk, PC hardware and gaming or whatever (another interest of mine that's getting much more of my attention lately, as I have recently upgraded my computer), but that's not really what this blog is about, so I really don't discuss it here.

Anyway, I just wanted to stop in and say a few things and let people know I'm still alive. I'm here. I'm just...not motivated right now.

Clintonites give "identity politics" a bad name

So...identity politics. I rip on it a lot. I get a lot of flak for doing it too. It's one of those things that tries to elevate people and causes beyond question. If you don't agree with the person who wields such politics, expect to be called a bigot, a sexist, a racist, etc.

But identity politics in and of itself isn't a bad thing. There are real issues that women face, that racial and religious minorities face. That non straight white males of a protestant faith face. And you know what? The toxic identity politics of which I speak takes away from these very legitimate issues.

Hillary Clinton has recently blamed her electoral defeat on sexism. This is about 5% truth, and 95% BS. Sure, there was some sexist people in this country, but many people who didn't like her, especially on the left, didn't like her because she was a corrupt scumbag who stole the primary and arrogantly talked down and browbeat voters into submission.But hey, someone with that mentality isn't going to actually admit that they did something wrong, so they hide behind identity politics. It wasn't that she's a bad candidate, it's all those darned sexists who say bad things about her. And if you dare say anything bad about her, you are apparently a sexist. This is how scum like this protect themselves. They can't admit they did wrong. So they blame everyone else, and you know what? Doing this is a slap in the face to real women everywhere, who face real discrimination.

Many people are going to be turned off from identity politics completely because these obnoxious people abuse it to further their own political careers. It's sickening. This is how we get the right screaming about the left seeing themselves as victims. Because when identity politics is abused to actually make someone who did something wrong or pissed people off for other reasons appear to be innocent and a victim of sexism, it kind of makes everyone who points out legitimate sexism and crap into whiners too. It's sickening and needs to stop.

Another example of this identity politics being abused recently comes in the form of Trevor Noah's comments on Obama taking $400,000 to give a Wall Street Speech. He said something along the lines that apparently the first black president must also be the first one to not take money after all the white people did so. Seriously dude? Clinton came under fire for wall street money and the DNC sponsored media claimed sexism...now it's racism because we go after Obama for doing the same thing? Are we only allowed to criticize straight white male protestants now? That seems to be the game these people play. Only straight white male protestants can be criticized, any criticism of anyone else must fall into some form of "ism" or "phobia". Once again, it's sickening, and it detracts from the real issues that people face. Real women who struggle with the glass ceiling see their cause degraded because just about the most privileged woman in the country is throwing a hissy fit over not winning the election. Every black person who faces legitimate discrimination and double standards sees their cause degraded by these jokers running to Obama's defense for taking Wall Street money. Screw these people.

Dear republicans: regret Trump yet?

Yes, I'm still alive, I've just been burnt out on politics and don't really have much to say these days I haven't said many times before. I could rail against Trump, but I find that boring and the equivalent of blogging about how water is wet. And the democrats are as clueless and hardheaded as they always are. They still don't get it, and I don't think they want to get it either.

But what is probably worth writing about is the regret people are getting for voting for Trump. I could say, see I told you so, but once again, it's something that goes without saying. Trump may have made promises to make America great again, but he has no real clue of how to do this and his first few months in office are rocky and uneventful. He couldn't get the ACA repealed because, surprise, healthcare is complicated and just repealing Obamacare would've led to all kinds of harm done. I have to say I'm pleased with that falling through.

What has gotten through though is this bill to expose peoples' internet history to the public. Now, from what I heard it's nowhere near as bad as some are saying, you can't just ask to buy X person's history, you get a bunch of anonymized data that you might be able to piece together if you really try and match with a name, but this is likely going to be difficult. It's concerning nevertheless, but it's not the end of the world from what I've seen. Regardless, a lot of republicans are having regret voting for Trump. Some people are a certain kind of special and love their ACA but hate their Obamacare, and others feel taken advantage of by having the republicans pass this bill that threatens their internet privacy.

Once again, I could say see I told you so, but it's too easy. Anyway, at this point, you shouldn't be surprised. After all, the republicans don't care about you, they don't even care about their principles. They care about the interests if the donor class. They were never gonna make America great again, that was just what they said to sell their ideas that serve the donor class to you. And because your alternative was Hillary Clinton, who also is corrupt and hypocritical, you actually believed Trump and gave him support. Way to go.

This is why I didn't go for Trump. I might have my grievances with the democrats being corrupt hypocritical scumbags, but you wanna know who the real master of being a corrupt, hypocritical scumbag is? The republican party.

If you're a republican, if you're a conservative....just support the democrats and their policies at this point. Just support people like Hillary, please. Hillary and the democrats these days are basically conservatives with brains. Sometimes that "pragmatic" crap they sell comes in handy, because their views are way more pragmatic and doable in practice than the republicans' ideas ever are. It turns out, hey, Obamacare is good for something if you're not a single payer pushing progressive like myself. It actually does do a lot of good. And it is better than literally nothing. Wanna know why that is? It was a republican plan in the first place! Obamacare is what happens when right wingers apply themselves to actually fix the problems we have. It isn't the best plan in the world, and it isn't in line with my philosophical outlook on the world, but hey, at least it's something, right? And it turns out repealing it is actually a bad idea that could do all kinds of screwed up things and hurt people. I guess politics is more complicated than abstract promises to reduce the size of government. Also, the democrats didn't want to sell your personal browsing history to corporations, so how about that?

With democrats, you basically get pro free market, "small government", American civil religion supporting incremental change. You get people trying to solve problems, without really trying to do much to fix them. As a former conservative, let me just say that even if I still had conservative principles, I would still find the democratic party to be a much more attractive option than the republican party. The republican party is run by thieving rich people and lunatics. The democratic party is run by more moderate and rational thieving rich people and policy wonks who push what used to be conservative policies but are rebranded as liberal because the republican party has gone so insane that it doesn't have a semblance of good policy any more.

So...that's what I'm encouraging. I'm encouraging the republicans to start starting more like the democrats, and then we liberals, we can move left, get actual progressive ideas in politics to counter the more moderate right wing plans pushed by the current democrats, and we are all happy. Except for the lunatics on the right who can't be trusted with a city council position, let alone high ranking positions in the federal government.

Maybe if republicans start sounding more like democrats and the democrats move to the left we can actually get crap done again. We will actually get some decent leadership and be able to debate issues like adults, and not have to deal with the travesty of people like Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan running things. I may have disagreements with the modern democratic party, but I still find their views at least substantive and worth discussing. They're not as far left as I would support, but sometimes you need a more right wing conservative party with more moderate ideas to rein in the excesses of the left and stop them from going full on communist or something. The modern republican party? No. They don't do anything good for anyone. Except maybe killing the TPP. Everything else has been a travesty so far.

There's a difference between criticizing a religion and xenophobia

So, I was debating a right winger about how the left should react to Islam, and there was considerable difficulty getting my point across, so I think this is something warranting discussion here. Long story short, there is a HUGE difference between criticizing a religion and engaging in right wing xenophobia toward members of certain religions. Some people on the right make massive strawmen and claim the left thinks can't criticize religions like Islam because it goes against our concept of tolerance. This is basically a strawman.

Yes, we can criticize Islam, and we should criticize Islam. We should criticize all religions. I'm very critical of religion. Before I wrote here I used to write under a different pseudonym on an atheist site criticizing religion. And I often enjoy the likes of the scathing atheist in criticizing religion. In short, for me, the more sacrilegious, the better. It breaks down mental barriers put in place by this idea of sanctity or an idea being off limits and only approached with respect.

But that's not what the right does with religion. In short, the problem with the right is falling into a sort of pit of "hating the sinner" so to speak, when we should "hate the sinner, not the sin." There's a huge difference between paranoia the right exhibits, which I believe is harmful, and intelligent criticism of religion. Here are the differences.

1) The right seems to base its views often on paranoia, fear of the other/unknown, and misconceptions about religion. The right fears Islam for the wrong reasons. They fear outside cultures and religion and see them as a threat to our own. They believe if we allow Muslims into the country we will be overrun by them and they won't assimilate, and they will try to take us over from within. It's the same argument racists make about non white people threatening "white culture" and racial purity and crap. These guys are culture warriors who see Islam as a threat. In reality, the biggest problem we have in this case is Christianity. Christians make up a majority of the population and one party explicitly tries to force religion down out throats, and the other tends to use religious undertones way too often. The right also fears Muslims will engage in terrorist attacks against us, even though only a very small minority will, and even though, guess what, Christians, who these guys have no problem with, do the same thing. This fear of Islam threatening our culture is largely unfounded. I'm sorry, it is.

2) There is a difference between criticizing ideas and attacking PEOPLE for holding them. I tried to make this differentiation with the whole punching Nazis thing. It's the same thing here. Religion, including Islam, is very much fair game for criticism. Trying to deny people rights, which the right is trying to do with their travel bans and discrimination, isn't. I want to remind people that regarding religion, there are two clauses to our constitution. The establishment clause and the free exercise clause. The establishment clause tries to stop the government from establishing religion in government. Under current supreme court interpretations, it's essentially a dedication to having a secular state as the only real way the government can be neutral toward religion. This protects peoples' rights, and stops a religious majority from imposing its will on a minority. The second clause is the free exercise clause, which minimizes the government's ability to restrict people or discriminate against them on the basis of their religion. Once again, intended to protect their freedom. In this society, I have freedom to criticize ideas. I also have freedom to have my own ideas. They can be criticized too. But you know what? We can't be persecuted for our views, and the state cannot and should not take action against us simply for holding views.

As such, the real liberal position, in my opinion, on Islam, is that it's okay to criticize it, but it's not okay to persecute people or deny them their rights because they hold such views. Period.

I don't like Islam. I don't like it at all. I think it's a primitive barbaric religion with a lot of harmful teachings. But I will defend your right to believe in it insofar as you obey our laws and respect the rights of others yourself. Same with Christianity. Same with any religion.

3) A lot of the criticisms the right makes are unfounded. The right likes to cherrypick teachings from the Quran or whatever, take them GROSSLY out of context, and then use them to fear monger against Islam. They take words that are clearly meant for a much different cultural and political context and claim the Muslims are trying to attack us and crap. You can't really understand a holy book or its teachings unless you understand the context within which they were written. This doesn't always absolve the religion of criticism since quite frankly, some lessons are bad regardless of context, but it helps a lot in clearing up misinformation. The same applies to the Bible. Try reading it some time, right wing Christians, especially the old testament. All kinds of horrid crap in there too. Especially the old testament. But...context, right? It has a context right that diminishes its harmfulness right? No crap, so does the Quran. So stop spreading misinformation.

That being said, there is a huge difference between being critical of religion and being a xenophobe. Criticizing Islam is a okay. Even more, I think it's something that should be encouraged. I do believe religions should be HARSHLY criticized, and I believe that the ideas within many of them are false and harmful. But once again, just like was the case with defending Nazis from being punched, we live in a civil society in which we have freedom of speech and freedom of religion. And it's wrong to discriminate against and fear monger about religious groups, often out of fear and ignorance.

The healthcare debate between Sanders and Cruz

So, a week or so ago, there was a debate between Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders on healthcare and the ACA. And I just felt the need to talk about some of the things Cruz said. I'll preface this by saying I largely agree with Sanders on healthcare and support ACA insofar that we don't replace it with something better, like universal healthcare. As such my position is largely identical to Sanders on the debate. That said I'm going to respond to some of Cruz's arguments.

1) Rationing. Cruz's key argument against universal healthcare seems to be that there's rationing of care. I agree with Sanders here...we have rationing here in America too. It's called poor people not getting the treatment they need. America's healthcare is top notch, and arguably better than what is provided in the rest of the world...but only if you can afford it. And it's not affordable. We spend 17% of our GDP on healthcare whereas other advanced countries spend far less. Around 9-12%. I don't know about you, but I'd rather have the entire population get 90% of the care free of charge at point of service for everyone, than to have some people getting 100%, others getting 90%, and others getting 50% (basic emergency room services and nothing more). I'd rather live in a world where everyone has affordable healthcare that's good than one where some have slightly better care and others get bottom tier care.

2) Wait times. Republicans love to bring up horror stories of people waiting for surgeries or hours to get treatment in the emergency room. What they don't tell you is this happens in the US all the time. When I was 19 I had periorbital cellulitis. It's basically an infection that makes the eyelid blow up like a balloon. I went to the emergency room with insurance...and was there for 6 hours. I wasn't given fast care at all. Seems to be common in emergency room visits in my experience. Then there's wait times for surgeries. My dad needed emergency surgery at one point and it took 2 months to get an appointment for it. He had to fight with insurance companies and their stupid in network out of network BS and all that crap just to get an appointment. The surgery went well, but don't get me wrong, you have to wait in the US too.

It seems when talking with people from other countries, a lot of wait times are often for less than necessary surgeries. People might have to wait 6 months for a knee replacement or something. Of course, you can live without one, and considering how healthcare priority is given to those who need it most, they might figure it's better to wait on a knee replacement while someone who needs emergency heart surgery gets it. I've also seen people claim to get stuff like heart surgery less, but I've also seen evidence there's little affect on outcome and we might just be surgery happy in the US. So it's not even clear that more care leads to better outcomes and our system might simply be inefficient. This might seem better for some people, but it's like a placebo in some cases. Immediate care might not impact mortality rates 5-10 years down the road for less than necessary surgeries.

3) Most of Cruz's arguments apply specifically to Obamacare. Obamacare is a flawed program. Yes, it may have had an impact on full time employment and hurt some businesses from growing. That happens when you don't have a government program independent of the employment system for most people. Yes, middle class families might pay more. Before Obamacare, people who were sick simply couldn't afford healthcare because of preexisting conditions. Here's the thing about market based healthcare....profits are the primary concern, not health. Insurance companies don't care if you die. They just want to make money off of you. And if they can't make money off of sick people and have to treat them like everyone else, other peoples' rates go up. It's a flaw with the for profit insurance system. Should've went with universal healthcare.

Another argument Cruz made was to allow people to buy insurance across state lines to lower prices. This might help the middle class who kinda got the short end of the stick with Obamacare and its high rates, but it absolutely won't help the poor or most vulnerable populations who need care most.

4)  Government being the problem. In Cruz's mind, government is the problem. He's a typical conservative, and seems to believe if government got out of healthcare it would be more affordable. While there is certainly a lot wrong with how our government approaches healthcare (quite frankly medicare is a typical overly complicated mess that likely inflates prices since it combines the worst of both government and market based healthcare) , government acts to respond to market failures. The default approach to any good or service in our capitalist society is to have it run by the market. When that fails, we use government. Government responds to market failures and does things the market doesn't do a good job of themselves. Every government program is a response to a market failure. Medicare was a response to older people not being able to afford care. Medicaid was basically the welfare form of medicare. The ACA was intended to fix a lot of problems aimed at people who were poor or had preexisting conditions and couldn't afford care. It had some bad side effects, but that's because it didn't go far enough and still keeps the underlying market system. Cruz mentioned a Saturday Night Live skit about how the answer to everything for some people was "more cowbell." The cowbell was what was making the song in the analogy bad, but the answer was always to add more to it. The lesson was intended to be a stab at government. That the more government tries to run healthcare, the more it will mess it up. I see the problem as the opposite. The more market based we make healthcare, the more messed up it is, because let's be honest, businesses are there to make a profit and don't give a darn how affordable their care is. They'll take you for everything you got, and because you can't say no, you're left paying exorbitant rates for something you need to continue living. It's screwed up and immoral, period.

Healthcare should be a human right, and the market should at best play a peripheral function in the system. Rather than the government responding to market failures, the healthcare system should be based on government care, with the market possibly offering extra services the government doesn't provide (this happens in some countries). The problem isn't too much government, it's not enough, with the government implementing band aids rather than full scale systemic solutions. The problem with ACA isn't that it went too far, it's that it didn't go far enough. So MOAR COWBELL I SAY, Mr. Cruz.

And yeah, that's my opinion on the debate and Cruz's positions in it. I don't agree with republicans on healthcare, and believe that while their ideas might be better for the middle class relative to ACA, it would be a raw deal for the most vulnerable populations in society who need help most. Repealing Obamacare would reintroduce the problems Obamacare was intended to solve and leave many people worse off. As a supporter of diminishing marginal utility being a deciding factor in who bears the costs of things in society, those who need stuff the most and are most unable to afford it should get it, and those who can afford it should pay a little extra. It's only fair and just in my opinion. And while ACA isn't perfect, I'll only settle for removing it if we're going to be serious about implementing REAL universal care.

Hey guess what, I do care about the free speech rights of people on the left too

So, it was in the news recently that a member of the antifa organization was assaulted by a neo nazi. And with that, the perpetual outrage of the SJWs leaped into action and I suddenly find myself confronted by people because I previously defended neonazis from being assaulted by members of antifa. WHERE ARE YOU NOW PLATO? WHY AREN'T YOU SPEAKING OUT AGAINST THIS OUTRAGE?!

Um...because I have people on the left who do that for me. I don't play the virtue signalling game, I don't engage in the perpetual outrage the left is swept up in recently, and I don't like to blog about things I don't have a lot to say about. It's boring if I just post "I agree" over and over again on facebook or reddit or here. I don't blog about water being wet, because everyone knows water is wet. I don't blog about the republicans or Trump being stupid because everyone knows they're stupid (at least I hope we do). I don't talk about neonazis committing hate crimes, because they're clearly hate crimes and clearly wrong. The act of assaulting another is the problem I have, it doesn't matter who the parties are. The reason I come down harder on the left is because these people are supposed to be on my side and represent my views, and they're not. I'm harder on the left and the dems because I actually expect them to be on my side. To represent my views. I don't talk about the right as much because we know what to expect from them.

It's kinda like having two kids and critiquing the the A student who got the B because you know they can do better, but then you just expect Cs and Ds out of the other kid. One is reaching their potential, the other is not. And I care more about my side meeting their potential, because it's the only way, long term, we can actually beat the other side. In order for the left to beat the right, they need to clean up their act. It's not that I condone the right, or condone neonazis, their downfall will come in due time. I'm more interested in keeping my side's nose clean, in making it responsible, in allowing the public to come to their own conclusions about the right's ineptitude, which won't happen as long as the left is acting scummy too.

Lefties, we need to be better than the right. And that's why I push the left so hard. We all know what the right is capable of. What we need is for the PEOPLE to understand that. And if you act all aggressive and combative out of the gate and make our side look bad, people will continue to defend the right...against us. And that's not good for anyone.

That said, of course neonazis assaulting members of antifa who aren't assaulting others is bad. It's wrong to throw the first punch most of the time. And I don't care what party is aggressing against what on this matter. I shouldn't have to make a post clarifying my position here, because to me this is settled debate. Water is wet, hate crimes are bad. Can we move on now?

I'm tired of drama between SJWs and the alt right

So, sorry for not posting more often, I've been kind of lacking motivation lately and I've just been sitting back and watching things unfold. Trump is still an idiot, and democrats are still clueless. The headlines change but the basic thesis remains the same. Anyway I might be doing a few shortish posts today on stuff to express some thoughts on some issues and the first I want to tackle is this whole spat between the alt right and SJWs.

Now, as you guys know, I'm not a fan of this drama, but I talk about it constantly. Mainly because this seems to be the state of our politics in 2017. It's been going downhill since 2015 with the beginning of the 2016 election season, and it's just getting worse.

Quite frankly, it's stupid. It's really stupid. It's distracting from the real issues. The alt right acts like a bunch of edge lords that say offensive things for the sake of pissing people off intentionally, and the SJWs eat it up and get offended and freaked out at EVERYTHING. That's basically it. The alt right has the strength of keeping their cool and pretending to debate like adults while throwing in inflammatory comments with a straight face every five seconds, and the SJWs are like "ZOMG DID YOU HEAR THAT? DID YOU HEAR THAT!? THIS GUY IS A NAZI! HE MUST BE STOPPED! REEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!"

SJWs, let's be honest, you guys are more correct on issues of race and gender and tolerance than the alt right is. But you guys are such obnoxious insufferable ***holes in expressing themselves. You're so smug, condescending, holier than thou, while at the same time being so easy to troll and manipulate. You eat it right up. The alt right sets out bait for you, and you eat it up and get whipped up in a frenzy of perpetual outrage. Even if you're right on the order of 80-90% of the time, you get so hyperbolic and irrational and hyped up in your stupid little virtue signalling groupthink sessions that you piss off rational people who don't care about the drama. You actually turn people against you. People who otherwise would be allies if only you would cool your jets and stop acting like jerks. Stop taking the bait, stop feeding the trolls, stop giving these people air time. Let's focus on the REAL issues.

And to the alt right. You guys might be cool and rational and all, and you might come off like the mature adults relative to the SJWs all flinging their crap everywhere, but let's be honest. You're trolls. You just are. Your views are abhorrent, you say offensive, wrong things. You're not "race realists", you're racists. You're not taking the "red pill" or "going your own way", you're sexists. Your views are awful, and while I don't go around losing my crap because I am a mature adult, let's call a spade a spade here. You guys are the racist, bigoted underbelly of the republican party that's been kept under wraps since Nixon and you only have the air time you do because the left GIVES you that air time. The world would be better off if we all just ignored and marginalized you like we have for the last 40 years.

Seriously. Can we stop dealing with this BS? Donald Trump never would have been elected if we had not fed the troll. The alt right would not have a platform had we not fed the troll. These guys live and feed on the outrage and tears of SJWs. If we did not have to deal with the alt right vs the SJWs, this election would have ended much differently, and we might've actually had a productive discussion on the issues. Instead everyone is flinging their crap around like a bunch of chimpanzees and it's really getting old.

The left and the politics of fear

So, hopefully this will be one of my last posts on this subject, since I've discussed this before, but I really want to summarize what the democrats' game plan is here. All of this hype and hysteria and hyperbole about Donald Trump is, in my opinion, designed to unify the left against a common enemy to make them more tolerant of democrats' bullcrap.

As we've seen post election, there has been little to no efforts by democrats to change or reform themselves. They elected the same leaders to the house, the leaders are towing the party line, and none of them seem to have any awareness that they need to change. They're good enough as they are, in their eyes, they don't want to change, they're unwilling to change. And when half the democratic party is trying to push them to change, their response is to go LOOK DONALD TRUMP.

This is all about control. The democrats are using Trump as a lightning rod to rally the troops and make them forget all about their internal differences. It's the politics of fear. Make the base so hyped up and afraid, they forget all about their issues. Instead, they're focused on Trump. And around 2019 or so, when we start gearing up for the presidential election cycle, mark my words, they are going to push a flawed, Hillary like candidate on us, and they are going to use Trump to get them through. The democratic base won't be focused on universal healthcare and free education and economic progressivism by that point. They'll be pushing removing Trump, and the only way to do that is to vote democrat, any democrat. As long as it's the democrat that is being pushed. Anyone who dissents will be labelled as a fake liberal or in league with Trump. We're already seeing it today.

The leftists who have lost their minds, who are so focused on Trump and act like he's Hitler, they already don't care about who replaces him. I've talked to some of them. They just want a democrat in charge. They don't care if they're a good democrat, as long as they're better than Trump.

Folks, this is what they want. This is what the democrats want. They want you to be so riled up and in fear of the republicans and Trump that you will do whatever they want. And then they're gonna try to pull a fast one on you in 2020, and by 2028 when the next candidate is selected, they'll try to pull the same crap that they did in 2016.

Look, Trump isn't our only concern. He deserves about 90% of the criticism he gets. Don't get me wrong. But the democrats need to be focused on too. They are a problem too. Don't forget that. Rational minds prevail over fear mongering. Give in to fear, and you're not thinking rationally, you're thinking with your base lizard brain. And this is what they want.

We need to organized, not just to defeat Trump, but also to defeat the establishment democrats. They're a problem too. They don't want to introspect about their failures, they don't want to change. They want you to stop resisting them so that they can just get away with all their BS. They are intentionally a lesser evil, and not a greater good. And the only way we can beat them, as well as Trump, is if we don't buy their BS.

In 2019, we're going to see the start of the next democratic primary season. And they're gonna try the same crap they tried in 2015-2016. They're gonna push a flawed moderate, push the idea that they're electable, that a leftist cant be elected, blah blah blah. Don't buy it. Be prepared for it. Fight them. And they're going to poise them as the only thing standing between you and Trump. And if you're so in fear of Trump that you are willing to support any democrat, guess what, you're letting them win.

So please, don't buy into this fear mongering and hyperbole. Oppose Trump, sure, but just remember the democrats are also a problem and they want to manipulate you for their own benefit too. Don't buy into their crap. The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend. Keep that in mind going forward. 

Dear fellow leftists, STOP ACTING LIKE TERRORISTS!

Okay, I already got into the whole "is it okay to punch a Nazi" thing and came to the answer that no, no it's not. But with the violent riots as a Milo event last night, I can't help but once again urge people to knock it off, and also strengthen my stance on this issue.

So, the logic I seem to be seeing from other leftists on this issue is that it's okay to act violently against people like Nazis, white supremacists, the alt right, because their views represent a threat to peoples' safety and security. Fair point so far, I can kind of see where they're coming from in terms of the threat the views hold, but once again, our country values free speech as a new absolute as a safeguard against censorship or any slippery slope scenarios that could develop from that. But let's continue. The logic here is that because these views are so dangerous and abhorrent, it's okay to use violence against these people to dissuade them from holding these views. People who hold these views should be scared to express them publicly out of fear for their own safety, with the goal of dissuading people from holding or spreading these views in public. So...they're basically advocating for...terrorizing Nazis. Terrorize...terrorism....Wow. Are these people advocating for terrorism?

Okay, so here's the definition of terrorism from google:

the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.

What these leftists are supporting fits this definition perfectly. They're using violence and intimidation, against other civilians, unlawfully, for political reasons. That's terrorism. BY DEFINITION. Not even hate speech in itself necessarily leads to that because you can argue that without corresponding action that the speech is abstract enough to not pose a direct threat to people. But when you actually advocate for violence against people, even if they're nazis, you're literally advocating for terrorism. Just so you know what you're doing. 

So please, knock it off. Not only are these acts terroristic acts, but they solve nothing. When you start screwing crap up at a Milo rally, do you think that an alt righter is going to suddenly say, oh gee, that's reasonable, I'm gonna change my mind? No, they're going to talk about how ridiculous this is, how the left doesn't respect free speech, how they have to use violence against those they disagree with to shut them up, and how they act like animals. You are not just not helping your own cause by doing this, you're HURTING it. You really are. You're changing no one's minds and actually making them oppose you more vigorously. I used to be a right winger, I know how they think on these issues. You're solving nothing.

Look, it's good to be against the alt right. It's good to oppose nazism, it's good to oppose Trump. In fact I'd even go so far to say it's a prerequisite to being a decent human being in respect to literal Nazism (I think Trump and the alt right are more moderate and don't represent as large of a threat in reality). But please, keep it peaceful. Seriously.

Trump's idea to publish immigrant crimes is stupid and fascist

So...Trump had the brilliant (sarcasm) idea of publishing the crimes committing by immigrants to inflame anti immigrant sentiment in the United States. This is....wow. I can't believe we're actually having this discussion. I hate to play the Nazi card since it's so overplayed with Trump, but this idea really is reminiscent of the Nazis publishing crimes of the Jews, as others have pointed out.

But don't worry, I don't plan on just calling this idea fascist and leaving it at that. I want to dissect why this is a stupid idea. So, say we publish a list of crimes committed by illegals every week. There are 11 million or so illegal immigrants in the US right now. Say 1% of these guys commit crimes over the course of a year, that's 110,000. That means if there were a weekly newsletter detailing their crimes, each news letter would contain a list of 2115 crimes a week. That seems like a lot of crime, and taking it in all at once, the reader of these newsletters who are already skeptical of illegal immigrants will confirm their bias that illegal immigrants are horrible people who should be deported. They'll talk about how X person murdered so many people, or how Y person broke into their house. They would point to the victims of these crimes and talk about how if we had decent immigration policy we wouldn't have had all these problems. The message of the newsletter will paint illegal immigrants, and arguably immigrants in general in a bad light, and stoke xenophobia in the masses.

But here's the problem with that. If 1% of illegal immigrants committed crime in the United States, that's really not that bad. Translated to crime rates, it would be 1,000 people per 100,000 people. Meanwhile the most recent statistics put violent crime at 373/100k people, and property crime at 2487/100k people. Combined, that means that a little less than 3% of people commit crimes or so. Which would make immigrants in this hypothetical scenario more peaceful than your average American.

Before going into what the actual illegal immigrant crime rate is, I'm going to point out that I'm trying to demonstrate just how irrational it is to post a newsletter full of names and the crimes they committed. It paints this horrible picture of immigrants that just is not necessarily true when looked at statistically. It's very misleading and plays on peoples' emotions. For all we know, sure, illegal immigrants might commit more crime, but they might also commit less, or they might commit the same amount, and if they're not committing significantly more then it's kind of stupid to blame a whole group over crimes when the overwhelming majority of people who are illegal immigrants are peaceful and harming no one. Even worse, to actually get into the real rates, they actually do commit less than native born residents. Oh crap.

This is the faulty logic of xenophobia, so many of their arguments just aren't based on statistics. They base their views on emotions and anecdotes, often with incomplete information, and this can present a misleading picture. It only takes one nut like the San Bernardino shooter to argue that migrants from Muslim countries are bad. That one guy will put an image in peoples' heads and get them scared, and it doesn't matter if there are tens of thousands of good examples for every bad one, people will focus on the bad one and base their entire argument on that. Same with welfare. I already did an article on that. I always hear how illegals are sucking up our welfare, but once again, such an argument is not necessarily based on data. These people don't care about data, or statistics, or facts. They're making their decisions based on fear and emotion. And that's exactly what this proposed newsletter would accomplish too. It would stoke peoples' fears of immigrants, ignoring the fact that the overwhelming majority of them are law abiding, and even though they actually commit fewer crimes than people born in the US.

That said, this is a stupid, dangerous, harmful idea that will fan the flames of xenophobia unnecessarily. Not only is this idea that illegal immigrants commit these crimes based on anecdotes and emotions, but it does not paint a good picture of what's going on with crime within the illegal immigrant population statistically. All the person will see is a list of crimes and the kneejerk reaction to that will be "how horrible, we must be something". In reality, illegal immigrants seem to commit less crime than native born residents, and policies implemented to publish their crimes will create a false image of the problems with illegal immigrant crime in our country. This is some scary stuff.

The democrats have gone off the deep end

So, I've been criticizing the democrats for a while. I go after them more than Trump all things considered. But it's necessary being a leftist who is pretty independent in my thinking and whose views are separate from the democrats.

I've been echoing a lot of the sentiments I'm going to discuss here for a long time, but never really in this exact way. Quite frankly, the way a lot of people who follow the democrats and the mainstream media closely are starting to scare me, with Trump taking office. They're scaring me just as much as Trump all things considered, because this is what the opposition to Trump is shaping up to be.

The democrats are whipping people up into a frenzy over Trump. I mean, some of them are really going all out. They're more polarized than I've ever seen, more group thinky than I've seen, and many of them are LITERALLY defending violence. I try to engage in dialogue with some of these people and am called a so called "nazi sympathizer" simply for disagreeing with them or being part of their little hive mind of a cult. They're so buying into this idea that Trump is the apocalypse, that Trump is like Hitler, that Trump is an existential threat to them, that they're behaving more and more radically.

One way in which they do this is political correctness and that whole BS. Once again, let me restate my views, so we are clear. I'm not necessarily opposed to the goals of political correctness. Heck, I'm quite supportive of treating people with respect and like human beings, but the way people are using it is a way to control people. If you aren't giving these particular liberals and their pet causes all of the attention they are, or expressing the proper amount of outrage, or posting as many tweets and facebook statuses about how evil Trump and the alt right are, you're with them or something, apparently. If you think it's bad to hit a nazi because you believe society should act civilly in its debates, you're in league with them. If you're not with them, 100%, you are with the enemy. And they treat you as such. This is NUTS. Look, I shouldn't have to perpetually be in a state of outrage and tweet incessantly about how Joe NeoNazi thinks black people are bad. I really shouldn't. Just like I don't constantly talk about how water is wet. I work with that assumption implicitly, and quite frankly, it's insulting for people to insinuate I support them just because I don't make meaningless symbolic acts of opposition against them. Same with hitting nazis. I don't advocate for that because I'm generally against violence. I oppose the means of revolutionary socialists who want riots to seize the means of production, and I'm against people who think it's okay to hit people for having differing views, no matter how horrible they are. But hey, screw saying this right? Apparently it makes me privileged (yes, actually been called that), apparently it makes me a Nazi sympathizer (been called that too).

This is what pisses me off about the PC movement. It's well meaning, I support the same goals, but this kind of hive mind is quite frankly, dangerous. These people have given up their critical faculties to this mess of emotion, passion, and constant outrage. They're so against Trump, and so against the alt right, and so carried away by passions, that they're attacking people who would otherwise agree with them for not being extreme enough. Geez, and they say we "Bernie Bros" are bad. Look, I just got done bashing Trump and saying everything he's done so far outside of killing the TPP is bad. Okay? That's a pretty strong statement there. I don't approve of Trump or the alt right, or the republicans, I dislike them just as much as the rest of the left does. The difference? I still have my wits about me. I'm not so passionately out of control I start advocating for violence to achieve my goals and say anyone who doesn't think exactly like I do, even if they agree with me 90% of the time, are the bad guys.

The worst thing about this is I get the impression that this is what the democratic establishment wants. Keep in mind guys, the republicans aren't the only problem. The democratic establishment is too. And I get the impression they're pulling the strings here. They don't want people to think critically, they don't want people to have their own agendas, they want people to accept theirs. So what they do is whip everyone up into a frenzy, act like Trump is an existential threat, and get people so riled up in their passions they freaking forget that the democrats are a problem too. Which is what this is really about. The democrats don't want people to focus on them. They don't want people to focus on the bad crap they do. They don't want people to focus on the loss and demand better of them. They just want people to attack Trump, without really having an alternative people can get behind. They're counting on people to be so pissed and outraged against Trump they forget all about the divisions within the party. It's the same crap Clinton tried in the election all over again.

And the worst part is this is costing the left supporters as well and leaving people pissed off and disillusioned with them. Some people, like me, become resentful of both sides. Others (and I've actually seen people do this) get so fed up with the perpetual manufactured outrage and with us or against us mentality that they go on a crusade against these people and join the alt right themselves.

Look, I'm not saying we shouldn't oppose Trump or the alt right. I just condemned Trump's presidency literally 20 minutes ago. I can't stand Trump. He's shaping up to be the worst president in modern American history (I can't say the worst ever, as we had some really bad ones in the 1800s, but likely the worst in our lifetimes). But we need to act peacefully, and we need to act rationally. We need to keep a clear sight on our goals, and not get whipped up by manufactured outrage and the corresponding passions. The democrats are morphing into this angry mob of pure hate and outrage right now, and it's scaring the crap out of me. This outrage has no good end. And when you come down from this high, you will regret how you're acting. This is the same kind of anger and outrage that led to the formation of the tea party and how awful the modern GOP is. It's the same kind of outrage that made the public so receptive to invading Iraq without evidence. This level of anger and outrage is also responsible for many violent revolutions that ended very badly, with the people just as bad off as, if not worse off than they were before.

That being said, people need to calm the fudge down, take a chill pill, and look at this situation rationally. We need an opposition of Trump that's worth fighting for. But the democrats suffering from what some call "Trump derangement syndrome" isn't it. As Caitlin Johnstone said (read the above article I posted), until the democrats cobble together an actual alternative to Trump, they're not really a "resistance", they're just complaining. We need to stand for something different, something better, and we need to push for it thoughtfully, rationally, and peacefully. As I said in my last article, I believe we are witnessing the self destruction of the GOP. But unless we can put forward some solid progressive goals, what comes next won't be much better. Even if rational, we'll go back to the same old oligarchic democratic party...after all, they're the ones getting you so pumped up to begin with. They're trying to keep politics partisan and keep you as focused on "the other" as possible. We need change, not more of the same. Please, look at the big picture. Think this though. Don't act out of radical passion. I feel like the left is going to the "dark side" so to speak when it needs to be the voice of the light, the voice of reason.

So...my opinion on Trump so far

This isn't going to be long. If I went into every single thing Trump did that I don't like, I'd never shut up, and I don't have the energy to do so. If you want to look for compilations, you will find some good articles on the mainstream liberal media about it, and you will also find some good stuff on this guy's facebook page, he seems to make daily images listing everything this guy has done so far that's bad.

Quite frankly, my opinion is very one sided. He's horrible. The only good thing he's done so far is kill the TPP, and that's because I actually align with him somewhat on trade issues. Other than that, it's all bad, between moving to repeal Obamacare, to silencing federal agencies from talking about science, to making his own inauguration day some sort of despotic patriotic holiday, to assaulting womens' rights, Trump's presidency so far sounds a bit like a cartoon villain. He is like, the epitome of everything wrong with America right now, and I honestly don't think the country will tolerate him for long. His approval rating is already historically low entering office, and I would be shocked and would lose all faith in humanity if it actually went up from here given his current policy agenda.

I may occasionally pick apart an individual policy or two, but I've concluded there's just too much to cover in terms of Trump's escapades, and there is no way I can realistically cover all of it. He just does so much bad stuff. All I can do is hope the public realizes what's going on and is outraged by this presidency, and that this kills conservatism as we know it in America. I don't expect the GOP to go away completely, but much like the GOP of the 30s and 40s and the democrats of the 80s, I expect them to have to take a good hard look at themselves and reform themselves dramatically in the face of a new political paradigm. We really are reaching the Hoover/Carter stage of party realignments it seems. I just hope this is worth it and we get a FDR/Reagan out of it, rather than another lukewarm Clinton or Booker like candidate.

This is a necessary evil, I guess. I still believe that. If Clinton had won, the republicans would continue to obstruct, the democrats would continue to twiddle their thumbs, and we would face this situation in 4-8 years anyway. And if someone else won, say, Cruz, or Rubio, or Kasich, or Jeb Bush, then we  might be facing someone with a similar agenda hostile to the American public, but who would be more masterful in spinning it to their benefit. At least now we get to see the GOP self destruct in its full glory, with a president too stupid and too into himself to even try to hide what he's doing. It's all out in the open, all the corruption, all the nepotism, the ignorance of science, the radical agenda. And with the dems in the weakest state since 1928, whatever comes next will be squarely on the GOP. The republicans won't be able to shift blame, or attack the democrats any more, this is all on them. This is their show and they're screwing up hard. Let them have their fun, they're digging themselves into a hole with the American public, and I doubt it will be something we forget any time soon.

A brief discussion on condemning violence and advocating for nonviolent ways of protest

So...Trump is officially our president. I don't like it. Its gonna be a long four years, but the time is now to resist him and his agenda. And resist him we shall. Any bad legislation trump or the republicans out forward should be vigorously opposed. And we need protests in a mass scale like we've been seeing to voice opposition against him. Make no mistake, I support using every legitimate means possible to oppose a trump agenda.

But...we need to have a talk about something first. Some people seem to think violence is the answer. The amount of people I see supporting and advocating for violence against a Trump administration and supporters is too darned high. Learn from the women's march yesterday. Millions of people protesting and you know what? They did it peacefully. And they outnumbered the amount of people to support Trump at his inauguration. That is great. That is what a real show of force from a peaceful perspective looks like and everyone who participated should be proud.

What isn't okay though is the use of violence. I watched some of the protests against Trump get violent where people did things like threw stuff through Starbucks' windows and set cars and trash cans on fire. And I've also seen people assaulting white supremacists as well.

This is not okay. Keeping our discourse civil and respecting people's right to their views is important for the future of freedom of speech in this country. There can be no freedom of speech if people are afraid to speak up for fear of being assaulted. It is fundamentally dangerous for an angry mob to start burning things in response to an election outcome they don't like. The rule of law is an important part of our society and without it we are just bands of raving lunatics who need to live in fear of one another. The first imperative for society is to push for an environment in which people are safe. If we don't have that, we have nothing. And when you advocate and support political violence against other human beings, you are disrupting that first imperative of civil society.

You are not moral if you supporting "bashing the fash" or breaking things. You are threatening the order of society and bringing it dangerously close to a full scale breakdown. And not in a good way. As Bruce Willis once pointed out in Die Hard 4, the "system" is people, and bringing it down means bringing down the people.

I have a lot of grievances against our society. And people who oppose the alt right and other similar movements have their hearts in the right place. And you know what? We deserve to air these grievances. We have a right to protest, make our voices heard, and try to change the system in a peaceful way. There is a lot to oppose to a Trump presidency on all fronts. Socially, economically, morally.

Socialists, social democrats, etc. Our views are outside of the political spectrum. People fear us. They do. How would you like it if the alt right started beating us up for holding the views we do? Well, by beating them up, you're confirming that we are something to be feared, something that threatens the order and fabric of civil society. And people will fear us,and people will fight us. The American public does not have a stomach for violent protests. They don't sympathise with the causes of the agents acting violently. And they just make things harder for the rest of us, who want to change the system from within. Who respect law and order and civil society. Because now we have to deal with the idea that we are violent extremists.

Even worse...the critics of violence are correct. Since most of this violence takes place on the left, let me remind people what happens when the militant left gets its way. Russia, China, Cuba, north Korea. What do they all have in common? They were all born of left wing revolution. The people rose up, acting as a mob, overturned the system, killed the dissidents, the people in charge formed dictatorships, and became repressive toward the people. When I see the far left advocating for violence, I see the seeds of a violent communist revolution that only will end in violence and repression. This is not the path I wish for society to take. We must make our change a peacefully, incrementally, in the stability of a civil society. And we must never act violently against those who disagree with, as repulsive as they may be. Those who live by the sword die by the sword. Those who live by the law generally live long peaceful lives. Our system is flawed, but its not so unbelievably tyrannical and broken it warrants violence to correct. The risks and costs simply outweigh the benefits.

As such, protest, oppose trump, oppose the alt right as you feel is right. You have a right to do it. Call them out on their bs. Protest by the hundreds of thousands. Filibuster them, organize against them, run for office. But don't advocate for violence. Violence is bad. Violence is a threat to the very fabric our society is built on. It is sometimes a necessary evil, but this is not one of those times.

A brief analysis of RT

So, after my last post, I decided to take a look and watch some RT myself. After all I got a Roku now and RT is available to watch on it. So I sat down and watched it like I used to watch CNN and MSNBC when I still trusted them as media outlets.

So, first the good. They have a lot of progressive outlets on RT. I already knew about Lee Camp and Thom Hartmann who I sometimes listen to in terms of podcasts and the like on YouTube, but I also got to watch Ed Schultz, who I used to watch on MSNBC. So a lot of progressives on there, left wing bias on domestic politics.

However, watching Ed Schultz really told me all I need to know about the network from a bias perspective. Ed Schultz, who used to toe the democratic party line on MSNBC, is now pushing the narrative of attacking the democratic attacks on "fake news." Seeing how I watched Lee Camp going on for a half hour about the same thing before that, it is quite clear that RT was pushing a narrative. I got similar vibes from RT that I got from MSNBC or CNN. That there was a bias, a slant, a narrative, and it was pushing propaganda.

Even though I at least in part agree with RT on the whole fake news thing and do agree its an attempt to censor outlets like RT, this doesn't excuse the fact that it was a narrative nevertheless. It is quite clear RT wishes to deflect from the possibility of Russian interference in the election and even if they say similar stuff that me and other Sanders supporters have been saying a lot, we need to remember that like corporate media, this is an outlet owned by certain interests and will not be willing to cross those interests. Seeing Ed Schultz go from dancing for the democratic party and MSNBC's owners to RT's owners and the Russian government really shows how much a narrative and being in someone's service can change a man.

Still, regardless, the similarities are there. And considering the outcry RT gets,how its called a propaganda outlet relentlessly, this is worth discussing. RT is clearly biased, and its words should be taken with a grain of salt and its interests in mind. But its no worse than corporate media outlets, and if RT is sooo bad, and is fake news, and propaganda, and blah blah blah, where does that leave CNN and MSNBC, let alone fox news? Aren't they propaganda outlets? Don't they have narratives? Or should we turn a blind eye to it where its only bad when the dirty evil Russians do it because hooray, tribalism? That's what it is. When other countries push narratives and propaganda, we act like they're so evil and manipulative, but then when powerful American interests do it, it's suddenly okay? If RT is fake news and propaganda, then mainstream outlets are too. And they should be approached with the same skepticism and criticism. Let's do away with double standards and allow both kinds if outlets to thrive in a country based in free speech, while criticizing the biases of both.

Because honestly, RT and mainstream corporate media are two sides of the same coin. They both have narratives, owners, biases, and things they they can't discuss in an objective way. And they should be treated similarly. What the mainstream media fears from a foreign media network in terms of brainwashing and indoctrination is constantly done by our own American media outlets, and people don't even bat an eye. What people see in RT is what I see when I watch CNN, for example. It's ALL propaganda to me. Yes, RT deserves its share of criticism. But it does not deserve censorship. Likewise, mainstream media deserves similar criticism for brainwashing the American public.

The fake news witch hunt and censorship: Facebook blocks Russia Times

So, as we know, there's a huge outcry against "fake news" in response to the whole Pizzagate thing. And while there are concerns with fake news sources misleading people, I can't help but feel that this push is really about censorship of other perspectives. Case in point, Facebook is now blocking RT (Russia Times) from its website.

On the surface, this sounds like a logical extension to the crackdown on fake news. The democrats are worried about Russia influencing people, so they go after a network that is essentially owned by Russia. But honestly, I can't help but feel that this was either done out of ignorance, or done out of some nefariousness.

Look, it's pretty clear that RT is going to be biased at times. It probably can't be trusted in dealing with issues related to Russia. I mean, going to Russia times for objective coverage on Russia's involvement in the world is like going to CNN to hear objective coverage about the democratic primary.

....which is kind of my point. Where's the outcry against CNN being "fake news"? Trump made the argument but then the left freaks out about it and goes on about how this is an attack on the press by the alt right. But honestly, I don't trust CNN as far as I can throw them. Doesn't mean I'd censor them in particular unless we just full on brought back the fairness doctrine and applied it to everyone. Hopefully all the people on the left freaking out about Trump going after CNN is why I'm freaked out about going after RT.

And honestly, I can't say I watch RT often, but from the small clips here and there I've seen, RT seems to mostly be home to a lot of progressives and people who can't make it on corporate news networks for not pushing their narrative. I see a lot of good stuff from people like Lee Camp and Thom Hartmann. People like Larry King, Ed Schultz, and Jesse Ventura are also on RT. So....perhaps RT isn't as bad as we think it is and that calling it "fake news" is just a blatant attempt at censorship of viewpoints outside of the mainstream?

Again, I'm not claiming RT is perfect. It probably isn't. But no news network is. They're all biased in different ways. And honestly, unless they are so egregiously over the top with falsehoods that are leading to real tangible harm in the real world (say, hate speech or something), I don't see why we should be banning specific viewpoints off of certain sites at the top level. Individual debate groups or subreddits  in Reddit's case, fine. But on a site wide level? Unless there is a compelling reason to ban something that can be defended and is acceptable to a good proportion of reasonable people, I don't see why we should allow social media to be manipulated like this. It's just flat out censorship to do so. We should want a greater scope of media in America. The "mainstream" networks are all owned and bought and paid for by a small minority of corporations and as such, censoring other networks as fake news in order to prop up these networks seems like a blatant attempt to give these guys an oligopoly over the accessibility of the press in America. This is scary. This is how freedom dies in this country. This attempt to muzzle the media should be resisted by the public and supporters of more independent media.

Oh hey, look! Rick Perry realizes the government does things!

So, it looks like Rick Perry has made a realization that is, at this point, an assumption in my left wing "statist" worldview. He now realizes that the government does things...important things critical for the proper functioning of society, and that we would be worse off if we start mindlessly cutting agencies without looking at their core functions.

Rick Perry has once said he wanted to cut the department of energy in his quest for smaller government. This was appealing to his anti government right wing base, but it lacked any understanding of what the department of energy does, and why it is important for society. Since Perry was named head of the department, he has gotten an intimate understanding of its functions very quickly, and now regrets saying he wants to cut it, citing he didn't understand what it did.

My response? No crap, Shirlock. I mean...this is how I perceive the right in general. And this is how I was when I was a member of the right when I was younger. The right doesn't understand just how important government functions are. They complain and moan about all their hard earned tax dollars being stolen from them to fund these departments they don't understand, but then when they start learning what these departments do and why they're necessary, they suddenly realize that their existence is actually very reasonable. This was really the first step I took in abandoning conservatism. I realized that the government did things, important things, that many people don't understand the workings of, and push for abolishing out of sheer ignorance.

Here's the thing. The right hates "government." I use quotes because honestly, it's more of an ideal than a practical perspective. They hate the idea of government. So they try to cut it out of principle. They want to reduce its functions, and its scope, and they want to lower taxes. The less government, the better. Government is a dragon, and it must be slayed. It is a Leviathan, and it was the founding fathers' intentions to keep it as limited as possible. So they go on this crusade to just cut "government" without learning to understand what exactly government is.

But let's be real here. The government, when done correctly, is us. It's an entity that does things that cannot be entrusted to individuals to do properly otherwise. And we are all better off for it. I'm not going to say there can't be debate over the scope of government and what its functions should be, I think that that particular issue is still a dividing line between the right and the left, but the right wing perspective of hating government just because is so stupid. It really is. And the sad thing is, so many people on the right have this idea that if you aren't one of them, you are for "big government" and want it to run everything, as if the opposing view is the exact opposite of their extremism. But it's not. Government agencies and functions come about normally as a form of problem solving. The people find problems developing from a lack of regulations or whatever, so they make rules to solve problems. Murder is a problem for a society, we so ban it. Same with theft. And then we get into more nuanced issues. We deal with land usage and whether some dude who lives up river has a right to dump toxic waste into said river, poisoning everyone else. We deal with whether the government should step in to regulate exchanges in the free market to protect the exploitation of workers, or making dangerous products that hurt people. The government is a TOOL. The opposite of being anti government isn't being mindlessly pro government. It's just being for using the government to solve problems in society. And often times when we start talking about repealing stuff without replacing it properly, people get hurt, and people can even die. Because we're re-introducing problems that were supposed to have been solved.

This is why, for example, a lot of people on the right are starting to have an "oh crap" moment when they realize that Obamacare and ACA are the same freaking thing (really guys? you didn't know that?) and that if the republicans repeal it without replacing it, as they're trying to do right now, that oh crap, they might lack health insurance, oh crap, they might get sick, oh crap, they might even die. No crap shirlock. We could've told you this before the election and heck the last 6 years in general but no one listened.

This is why I think the republicans are going to not last long in Washington, and that we might be one republican controlled government away from a complete paradigm shift. Because honestly, the right should look like the democrats do, because they actually believe in the government performing core functions of society, and the left should be to their left. Our problems in society exist because half the country doesn't even believe in the freaking government they rely on to live a decent life, and the other half seems to believe government should perform some core functions necessary in society but is afraid to push forward and is pretty conservative in their outlooks. Believe it or not, the way I see it, the democrats are conservative, as in, they want to conserve the system largely as it is and make mild changes at best, and the right is regressive, as in, they want to undo the system to return to a mythical simpler past time that never was that great to begin with.

And this is why this paradigm sucks. The democrats introduce band aids that kind of fix the problems, and the right just ignores the problems exist and tries to undo legislation done over the years by democrats, which in turn re-introduces past problems and sends our society backwards. I really hope over the next four years right wingers start to realize that government actually does things, and that these things are good for society. Even if they fail to support my progressive vision for America, I hope that they at least move toward where the democrats are so we as a society can all be on the same freaking page about the uses of government. In an advanced society, we shouldnt even have to debate whether the government is actually useful at solving problems. It definitely is. The real debate should be over what problems we want to solve and how. And there is, admittedly, room for disagreement there. But it would be a huge step over a radical right that doesn't believe in the very concept of government.

So way to go Rick Perry, a bit late to the party, but hey, you're learning, just like I did. I hope you and the rest of the right half of America expand their education on this subject over the next few years. We might actually be able to get crap done for once if you do.

Discussion of an MLK quote on MLK day

So...today's MLK day. I have a lot of respect and admiration for the man. He saw wrong in society and he strove to fix it. He told it was it was and pushed for change against two parties unwilling to budge, and he will be remembered I think as one of America's greatest heroes. Hats off to you Martin Luther King Jr., you were awesome.

Now, I have a lot I could say about him. I could discuss his criticisms of capitalism and support for the basic income (yeah, he was for that and saw a lot of the same problems with capitalism that I talk about frequently), but in my current mood railing against the democrats, I have a better quote to discuss:

First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."

Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection." 

 Source

If you wonder why I spend so much time railing against the democrats when we're dealing with a radical republican party who is a much more blatant and greater threat, my logic is very similar to this quote. We know where the republicans stand. We know they're against our cause. We know they are an opponent and that they must be defeated. But more nefarious than that is the moderate who will try to sympathize with you and pretend to be on your side...before selling you out and stabbing you in the back. The democrats are the moderates here. They do exactly what MLK described. And you know what? They're a greater obstacle to change than the GOP. We know where the GOP stands, we know what they're capable of. They're the enemy we know. But the democrats are the ones we don't know. They take up our cause only to sell us out and dash our dreams in the eleventh hour. And when their betrayal, our cause is lost. Real economic and social justice cannot be achieved until we bring the democratic party into line or until we can replace it. If they refuse to stand for anything, no one will.

The democrats' feet must be held to the fire. They must support the progressive cause without wavering (outside of legitimate pragmatic objections) and not sell out to the right. There can be no waiting. No voting people into office with the promise that they'll maybe address our issues at some distant future date. No "incremental change." No ignoring us. They must stand for our cause, or they must be voted out and replaced with those who do.

Who needs the republicans with democrats like these?

So....as we all know, The republicans are already moving to repeal Obamacare. I don't have much to say here that you can't get in a million other places, but let's be honest, if you didn't think the republicans would try, I don't know what planet you've been living on for the last 6 years. They are radicals, and they must be stopped.

Unfortunately, the only force in the current two party system that can stop the republicans are the democrats, and the democrats are almost as bad as the republicans. Another vote recently was a vote on Bernie Sanders' proposal to import drugs cheaper from Canada to bring healthcare costs down. Several DEMOCRATS opposed it. You know, it's bad enough when the republicans are why we can't have nice things, but when the DEMOCRATS obstruct good legislation too, that's a freaking problem. This is the same mentality that got us Obamacare too, fyi. Obamacare could have been more progressive, but the more moderate democrats watered it down or threatened to torpedo the whole thing. So, republicans aren't the only obstacle to fixing healthcare, centrist dems are too.

And one of the big democrats mentioned who voted against this was none other than an early favorite to run in 2020, Cory Booker. To be fair, Booker CLAIMS that he voted against it because he did not trust Canada's safety standards, but honestly, my faith and good will toward these guys is nonexistent.They have obstructed the progressives too many times, on too many issues. After all, it's not like they couldn't just ensure only drugs otherwise available in the US could be imported or something.

I don't want to hear another darned word from Hillbots who say that Sanders never accomplishes anything. Maybe if the centrists would get the heck out of his way, he would. Kind of hard to do anything when the ideological sell outs on the democratic side stop things from getting done. Seriously though, who needs the republicans when these guys stop us from getting crap done too? And dems wonder why people think both parties are the same...

Well, there goes my interest in the Nintendo Switch...

So....for once I'm going to talk about gaming. I'm a big gamer, but this blog is primarily about politics and philosophy, so why am I discussing gaming here? Well, because in this case, gaming is POLITICAL. There's a whole politics to gaming, within the market economy and peoples' behaviors to certain business practices, and the concerns mirror many of my concerns relative to the labor market and capitalism in general.

So, today, I'm going to focus on the Nintendo Switch announcement. I'm not gonna lie, while I'm a huge gamer, I dislike consoles (glorious PC gaming master race for the win). And I've lost a lot of interest in Nintendo over the direction it went under the DS and the Wii, and how they seemed to put gimmicks like motion controls and touch screens over quality. But here comes the Nintendo Switch, a game console that also doubles as a handheld, and is much more powerful than most handhelds to date. It can run skyrim, that's impressive. And honestly, being able to take a handheld capable of running, say, 360/PS3/5 year old PC games is something that is appealing to me. So I actually was gonna be open minded to this one....well...until now.

You see, Nintendo announced yesterday that the Switch was gonna have paid online gaming, joining the ranks of Microsoft and Sony in this respect. Me, being an opponent of the increasing monetization of games (I miss the days I go to the store, buy a $50 CD or a $60 cartridge, go home, and get the full experience, no strings attached), am completely turned off by this.

Look, I despise the monetization of gaming. I despise paying more for less. I despise people having to pay for services that used to be free. I despise anything that is against my interest as a consumer. And quite frankly, reader, you should too. It's the same philosophy I have with work. Why should we want to work harder for less money? Why should we pay more for less? Why do we let businesses get away with this crap? The gaming industry is a good example of the "creeping normality" found in capitalism in general. If these changes were made all at once, people would oppose them, and fight against them, but because these changes are being made incrementally, people don't notice that the environment is changed until it's too late to do anything about it. This happens in the gaming industry a lot, with things like DLC and paid online services.

With paid online services, Microsoft was the first to pioneer this idea. On PC, online gaming was both high quality and free since the 1990s. Nintendo and Sony didn't have developed online services, but when they developed them, they were generally free. Yet, people still bought xboxes, they bought them to play halo, to play call of duty, etc. And people gladly forked over their money for something you can get elsewhere for free. And you know what? In 2013, when Sony announced the PS4, they did the same thing, paid service, comparable to Xbox Live. And now Nintendo, the last console holdout, is joining the trend with the Switch.

While 10 years ago, people had the dignity to at least oppose these ideas in principle, today, they don't blink an eye at them. Heck, people who still oppose these ideas are considered the weird ones. People who complain on reddit are being told about how this is now an "industry wide standard" and that it's expected to have to pay for a service that's...quite frankly, always been free on my platform of choice, the PC. And beyond that, people are defending the console makers' right to make money, and blah blah blah. It's a shame people have more empathy for the game companies than for the consumers. As consumers, with our own interests, we should be outraged by this idea and oppose it vigorously. But again, people are complacent, because they've been trained over the years to accept this as the dominant business model and if you don't, you're weird or entitled or something. Well screw it, I'm weird, I'm entitled, and no, I won't be buying the Nintendo Switch, and I'll even make the case that neither should you, if you care at all about this stuff.

It's the same crap that happened with DLCs. 10 years ago, people were freaking out over Oblivion adding horse armor to the game. But now, it's expected to fork over $60 for a game, and another $50 for a "season pass" to have access to all the extra content. DLC isn't something that's done to make the game better, it's something done to extract maximum profits from the consumers and make games worse. Multiplayer games have split player bases and sometimes premium players get advantages in game for paying more. And the microtransactions on the mobile market, forget it. So many games are crap on mobile because they're made to extract maximum profits from you. And people actually buy this stuff, that's the real problem, people actually buy this stuff. And ultimately, it doesn't make the gaming experience better, it makes it worse, as pursuit of profit trumps all other concerns.

Listen, it is important for us consumers to oppose business practices we don't like. I won't say I never ever get DLC these days, but it's rare. Outside of Battlefield premium a couple of times, far cry 3 blood dragon (a standalone game that's "DLC" and a few other examples, I almost never buy DLC. I do it on principle. I want people to include content in the base price of the game, not withhold it to get more money from me. I refuse to pay for online services when free alternatives on PC like Steam exist.The only way we can put a stop to these practices is if we vote with our feet. Think of it like striking. You need to have collective action by all members of a party to withhold your labor, or in this case, your money, to force a business to stop doing crappy things. If even a few people do it, like is the case with paid online and DLC, it is validated, and then it becomes industry standard, where you're seen as weird if you don't do it. If you buy a nintendo switch, you are validating the end of free online on consoles, which is a major blow for gaming as a whole. This is the equivalent, using the striking example, of being a scab. You go out, do what the business wants, and stop it from folding and buckling to the majority in the name of the greater good. And unlike work, which is unfortunately involuntary to a degree in our society, gaming is a luxury, you don't need it. And even more, free alternatives DO exist on PC.  Steam is free, and you can play many of the games coming to switch like skyrim and rocket league on cheapish laptops, let alone desktop PCs. Heck, there's even handheld PCs now like the GPD Win if you want something with the switch's form factor (let's be honest the switch is a glorified nvidia shield tablet). You have no excuse.

I can't stop you from getting a nintendo switch, it is your choice to get one. But, I can at the very least argue why it's a bad idea, and why the choice to do so validates certain bad business practices that should be opposed and avoided. I really hope I convince at least someone to think it over if they were going to get one, and understand how doing so validates the creeping normality that is screwing over consumers in the gaming market. If you let them do it, you validate paid online gameplay for all time. With Nintendo going to the dark side, free paid online on console is effectively dead and will only be a thing on PC. Think about it.

The republicans are hypocrites

You know, as someone who has been against the GOP for a good 5 years now, this should be blatantly obvious, but since I don't talk about them a lot and have been focusing more on the democrats, I figured it was time to throw some fire the GOP's way.

The GOP are hypocrites. They are completely unprincipled political opportunists who say one thing and do another. They have no principles, except looking out for their rich cronies and screwing over everyone else. Whatever grievances I may have with the democrats, the republicans are far, far worse. And it's time we discuss some of the crap they're doing.

For the last year, they've been stonewalling Obama's supreme court nominees. They wouldn't even have hearings on Merrick Garland, even though his nomination was more or less selling the progressives out in pushing a center right supreme court nominee, and they've been saying that congress has every right to not hold hearings and any attempt by Obama to force it through would be some sort of tyrannical executive action against the constitution.

Now that the republicans are coming to power, they're about facing on that. All of the sudden, Mitch McConnell, the turd who more or less masterminded this extreme obstruction of Obama, is all of the sudden saying the public won't tolerate obstructing the republicans in nominating their own justice. Hey, Mitch, I got two words for you:

SCREW YOU

After the 6 years of hell this guy has put the democrats through, no, I hope the democrats obstruct this to the very end. Unless the GOP is willing to nominate Garland themselves, or someone to the left of him, the democrats should do everything in their power to stop their plans. Maybe with future justices we can make a legitimate case that yeah, those are legitimately there for president Trump to nominate, but as far as Scalia's replacement goes, this nomination was essentially STOLEN from Obama, and the democrats should shut down the entire procedure with filabusters until they're willing to push for a justice that would be in line with Obama's tastes.

I don't necessarily support the democrats opposing something SIMPLY because the republicans are for it, but insofar as the GOP is trying to push an agenda not in line with the best interests of the American public, the democrats should use a scorched earth strategy against them. And on the topic of supreme court nominees, it's only fair and just for them to pretty much stonewall any nomination not in line with the left's interests as hard as humanly possible under the constraints of the institution.

Now, with that out of the way, time to cover the other story in which the GOP is hypocritical. Apparently it turns out that repealing Obamacare, something the GOP is insistent on doing right away without really replacing it with anything better like, you know, single payer will actually COST us money and add to the federal debt.This shouldn't come as any surprise. The GOP uses debt reduction rhetoric to further their ideological goals and nothing more. They don't really care about the debt, they just use it as a weapon against the democrats in order to tell them we can't afford anything. But honestly? Reagan tripled the debt. Bush Jr. doubled it with tax cuts and going into Iraq. In 2011, when the tea party took charge did they care about the debt? NO! They didn't. They waved it around to force spending cuts, but then they tried to give tax breaks to millionaires, which would...surprise, surprise, raise the debt! And this is what the republicans will do here. Those tea party republicans are about to expose their true colors and raise the debt significantly during their term. They will do it by cutting taxes, getting involved in unnecessary military conflicts, and do stupid things like repeal republican lite healthcare programs (because let's face it, Obamacare is rebranded Romneycare) that save money. All in order to push for this grand ideal of theirs of "smaller government." They're ideologues. They don't care about the people. They care about their ideas. This is a well known political strategy known as "starving the beast" intended to restrict what democrats can do in office by claiming we can't afford stuff, while lowering taxes and sabotaging social programs. The end goal is to go to some form of minarchist libertarian government because we can't afford to do any more because our debt balloons to levels where funding programs is impractical. The GOP is sabotaging our government intentionally, they're sabotaging the American people, in order to push abstract ideas out of touch with the people, and even more pertinent, give the rich a better deal. We all know what will happen in libertarian type societies, I've railed against this enough on this blog. About how wealth will concentrate to the top, the poor become de facto slaves, and people will struggle just to survive in perpetuity.

These ideas MUST BE STOPPED. I wish the democrats were more trustworthy in taking up the fight against the GOP here, and I hope they grow some cajones in the next 4 years, because we need a strong, unapologetic democratic party that stands up for liberal and progressive values to stop this. Unfortunately, the democrats seem to be part of the problem and seem to play along with the GOP. They run to the center to appease them, they try to compromise with them, and they sell out their values in the process. They're like Neville Chamberlain in trying to appease Hitler, when we need a Churchill to actually TAKE THEM ON. It's not enough to be the lesser evil, because that only feeds them in the long term, they need to be the greater good. I hope in the next 4 years people turn away from the republican party for good and embrace much more left wing values. Because these republicans are hypocritical ideologues who will stop at nothing to achieve their goals, and we need to be just as firm in the other direction if we want to stop them. We  need them to say, "NO, we won't let you nominate far right supreme court justices who died on the democrats' watch, NO, we won't let you repeal Obamacare these ideas are counter to the interests of the American people and the greater good, and we will not only oppose you, we will present even better ideas for you to implement." We need to not only oppose the GOP, we need to stand for something better than them, and be willing to fight for it, which is where the democrats have lost their way. It's not good enough to be a sell out opposition party, you need to stand for something and be willing to achieve it. And you need to take the fight to the GOP. I wish Obama would have done this, especially in his second term, and I hope the democrats learn from their defeat and do this now. The GOP is like the terminator. It can't be bargained with, it can't be reasoned with, and it won't stop until it achieves its goals. The democrats have to be willing to stand up to them if we have any hope of ever defeating them.