2016 US Presidential Election Thread - VII

[mikal]

Originally Posted by BigMacPhisto

So, it's more heroic to be for something you were previously against when it was unpopular than to take a stand decades prior?


That would fit in with the new fiction of Hillary Clinton = Prominently Important Gay Rights Activist For Decades.

Does it matter though? I have a ton of respect for someone willing to flip flop on an issue after researching it further. I don't really care how they got there as long as I agree with their standpoints.

Great example, my dad grew up in a very racist portion of northern Wisconsin. It wasn't until he joined the military and met people from other races that he realized that racism was complete BS. Does that make my dad any less of a person?

[PhilsFan]

Originally Posted by womanfish

Wow. I've never once heard that. Having been a bernie guy for months and switching to HRC, and being active on FB and Twitter, I've seen both sides, AND have been actively hit from both sides.
I can attest to the fact that Bernie people seem to just spew piles of vileness compared to most HRC people.
99% of Hillary people will admit that HRC isn't perfect, and would vote for Bernie if he's the nom.
I'd say a good 30% of Bernie posts i see are a long list of GOP smears against Clinton followed by, I will never vote for the corporate shill, Killary!!

Ugh.. I'm not sure where you are frequenting on social media, but thank god you are shielded from the onslaught that i see.

I'm at a Twitter crossroads between sports fans and humorous people who are also liberals. It's a mixture of Clinton and Sanders supporters but I would say as a whole they tend to lean Sanders. A lot of them are troubled by Clinton's foreign policy, her views on income inequality, and her utter inability to recognize and understand where the people to her left are coming from. So I'm not going to pretend I'm getting 100 percent objectivity here. These are Sanders supporters who are flummoxed by the Clinton campaign and thus are having it out with the prominent voices defending Clinton and attacked Sanders. Peter Daou, Tom Watson, Sady Doyle, Michael Cohen, those types. I don't know how familiar everyone here is with names like those, but they've been particularly vocal Clinton supporters and their defenses/attacks on Sanders have ranged from bizarre, to hilariously outlandish, to flat out lies. I'm at work and don't have time to go through it all, but that's where I'm coming from.

[Diemen]

Originally Posted by Irvine511

last time i checked, Diemen, the globe was still warming at an alarming rate, children were still being shot to death on the streets of Chicago, and we don't have a global basic income to lift millions of Africans out of poverty.

a real progressive would have accomplished all these things.

The rise of the left wing "compromise is weakness" counterpart to the tea party is truly a wonder to behold.

[Irvine511]

Originally Posted by BigMacPhisto

You're either supportive of something on day one or you are detrimental to the cause.

yeah, see, this is exactly what's wrong with our politics. ossification and an unreasonable demand for purity used to be only for those on the right.

as a homosexual (i love saying that), i totally understood that Obama couldn't take a pro-SSM position because, shock, it would have, at the time, meant that he would be in danger of losing votes that he needed to win the election. i knew, instinctively, that he was pro-SSM, and would one day be pro-SSM, and that if i were patient, and voted for the right people, and continued to make the argument, and if he continued to make incremental change (like DADT), that eventually the time would come. i'm not a child, so i didn't demand to be catered to or that my own individual concerns were so important that they were more important than other concerns, nor do i think that my vote is something rare and precious that must be courted and won, like some maiden's virginity. politics is a zero sum game, and it's a long game, and it's more important to assemble a coalition and run a national party that works together for achievable common goals than to be so sure of our rightness and so intolerant of other viewpoints and ways of life and the fact that, gosh, change *is* hard for some people, that we sacrifice the good for our own self-absorbed ideas of perfection.

[PhilsFan]

Also, Bill Clinton had a very bad day in Philadelphia.

[BVS]

Originally Posted by BigMacPhisto

You're either supportive of something on day one or you are detrimental to the cause. By Obama not coming out immediately in support of gay rights, it led to the passage of a lot of discriminatory legislation, some of which was voter approved like Prop 8 in California. So, he helped set back the movement before giving them a shove in the right direction years after the fact.

Prop 8 happened before he took office.


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[mikal]

Originally Posted by Irvine511

yeah, see, this is exactly what's wrong with our politics. ossification and an unreasonable demand for purity used to be only for those on the right.

as a homosexual (i love saying that), i totally understood that Obama couldn't take a pro-SSM position because, shock, it would have, at the time, meant that he would be in danger of losing votes that he needed to win the election. i knew, instinctively, that he was pro-SSM, and would one day be pro-SSM, and that if i were patient, and voted for the right people, and continued to make the argument, and if he continued to make incremental change (like DADT), that eventually the time would come. i'm not a child, so i didn't demand to be catered to or that my own individual concerns were so important that they were more important than other concerns, nor do i think that my vote is something rare and precious that must be courted and won, like some maiden's virginity. politics is a zero sum game, and it's a long game, and it's more important to assemble a coalition and run a national party that works together for achievable common goals than to be so sure of our rightness and so intolerant of other viewpoints and ways of life and the fact that, gosh, change *is* hard for some people, that we sacrifice the good for our own self-absorbed ideas of perfection.

[BEAL]

Originally Posted by Irvine511

i feel as if we've all gotten a good glimpse of what we were talking about earlier.

This x100000

It's like debating with the Extreme Right.

NO COMPROMISE!!!! HILLARY EVIL!!!! BERNIE SAVES


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[BVS]

It's a good thing Bernie is 74 and the Messiah, this probably means his evolving is over and there's no more changing stances.


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[deep]

I'm glad the left finally woke up and realizes who the enemy is.

[LuckyNumber7]

Originally Posted by mikal

I think it's more heroic when someone is able to change or evolve their stance because they realize it's the right thing to do.

Oh come on. That's not the story at all. She either changed her views on stuff like gay marriage because she previously took the favored political stance that she personally disagreed with, or because she took he favored political stance that she didn't agree with when it became popular.

She didn't "heroically" evolve. If anything, she never really cared.

[mikal]

Originally Posted by LuckyNumber7

Oh come on. That's not the story at all. She either changed her views on stuff like gay marriage because she previously took the favored political stance that she personally disagreed with, or because she took he favored political stance that she didn't agree with when it became popular.

She didn't "heroically" evolve. If anything, she never really cared.

Proof?

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[LuckyNumber7]

Originally Posted by Irvine511

yeah, see, this is exactly what's wrong with our politics. ossification and an unreasonable demand for purity used to be only for those on the right.

I agree. While I don't admire Clinton's "evolution," I do think it's a bit ridiculous that it would disqualify her. It's not what she stands for now, and that's what matters. It definitely speaks to her character... or rather better put... it speaks to Senator Sanders' character.

But character isn't everything. People should focus more on now and tomorrow. I've been critical of Clinton on stuff like this, but I'll totally still vote for her on the grounds that she does represent a fair portion of what I want.

If you can produce damning evidence that suggests that she routinely says one thing and then does another, that's a problem. But I have no crazy imagination that Clinton would go out and reenact DOMA just because 20 years ago she was in favor of it.

[Mack_Again]

this argument is so futile because we can't get into Hillary's head.

[Mack_Again]

Originally Posted by mikal

Proof?

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I want to prove but to complete the proof I need to complete studying about hyperbolic space.

[LuckyNumber7]

I will say though... the Iraq War is a special case where I do think that flip flopping is important to be criticized heavily. That's because it's an assessment of judgement, not just character.

[LuckyNumber7]

Originally Posted by Mack_Again

this argument is so futile because we can't get into Hillary's head.

Well that's my point. She's definitely not "heroic" for changing. That's drinking the Clinton kool aid. But it's not an adequate judgement of her ability to do what she says she'll do. I'm sure she will, no doubt about that.

[Mack_Again]

I feel like Hillary's "compromise and what we think of compromise is pretty different.

[DaveC]

Well, this thread certainly isn't doing either side any favors

[BVS]

Originally Posted by deep

I'm glad the left finally woke up and realizes who the enemy is.

Tribute bands are the enemy of art, and compromise is the tribute band of politics.


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