Let's impeach Trump and that reporter.

I don't see how this would be true, please explain.

This is really only true in the most literal sense. Like, sure, all things being equal if the GOP Congress had the ability to decide whether some random poor person lives or dies I'm sure they'd pick "live" but that doesn't change the fact that they are basically okay with letting people die in order to get rid of the Obamacare taxes.

Lol.

aflametotheground, yes, there exist people with radical left views. What is your point???

It's the old make a rock you can't lift argument. Is such a being powerful enough to create something that it doesn't know about? You can't both be powerful enough to create something you don't know exists and have knowledge of everything that exists. Logically you can be nearly all knowing and nearly all powerful but never fully all.

"Did I get him? Is this all over"

Ok you are entitles to your view. We know there is no god, we agree there. I think there is more behind the scenes of human nature than just "logic". Its evident that people have a very hard time putting their religion away, i wonder why logic doesnt help them. There are also other ways that humans defy rationality. For example we have built in biases that hinders us in looking for truth, in many cases human nature actively wants us to not find or search for truth. Also we know that humans like you and me tell themselves all kinds of lies and made up stories every day that is clearly false and easy to discredit, but still we dont. And when it comes to "god" i dont think the god even matters that much, i think their morals foundations are underlying and that it leads some people to believe in god, but the belief in god itself wouldnt change their moral behaviour as long as the moral foundations was the same. But thats something that you might not understand unless you have been through the same material as i have, so just view this as my position and you can have your position. I dont really feel like going into depths about it. But i would ask myself why intelligent honest people are religious and cant seem to put away their religion, maybe its not so easy as to say that they dont grasp logic. But whatever buddy.

Whoa, easy now. As one of the most anti-religion posters, I can tell you that most atheists don't hold this position. Only the hardest atheists do.

I'm sure you're familiar with Yglesias's piece about how American constitutional arrangements are simply unsuitable for the world of weak parties and ideologically disciplined voters we live in. The main idea is that the system has too many veto points and that parties who are unable to broker compromise result in prolonged, unresolvable stalemates.

One thing to consider is that government stalemate (like political violence) is not an ideologically unbiased weapon. The GOP basically wants taxes to be cut as low as possible, but that's not exactly a ticking time bomb. Taxes are pretty low now, could be lower, but it's fine to sit around and wait until an opportunity for further cuts presents itself. It's certainly not likely that the tax "problem" will spontaneously get worse. The left, on the other hand, has lots of pressing problems. Global warming is passing over into irreversibility. Obamacare is unravelling. There's a widespread (albeit only vaguely recognized) crisis in the cost and quality of almost all government services. All of these problems need to be solved, almost as preconditions to grander progressive ambitions, and it's very hard to imagine how they will be.

I mean, it would certainly be very helpful if Democrats and their voters would get their **** together and start winning elections at all levels of government. Even if that happens though, there are fundamental problems at the constitutional level that are going to make it very hard for progressives going forward.

aflame,

I'm not really super interested in religion my point was that the two sides aren't equivalent when one of the sides make a habit of denying reality. I good faith discussion would be democrats saying lives are more important that tax reduction and republicans saying tax reduction is more important than lives but the republicans are saying you can have tax reductions and make things better for everyone without risking additional lives even though that's clearly not true and there's no way they truly believe it. It's not an equivalent situation.

Well im mostly interrested in what leads people to become conservative, liberal or far right wing. I think i have tried to provide some answers to that, and some theories as to why they will have views that doesnt make sense to us. Do i have all the answers or theories for every single thing they want or do? No and i probably wont have.

I dont have anything to offer besides that, and just like you and others i am also baffled by the right wing.

Yeah sort of like running on a platform of we will insure everyone, no preexisting conditions and will reduce every ones premiums by $2,500.00 per year.

So, Mueller just added a Muslim Woman, again from the Eastern District of NY, who is considered one of the nation's most prominent counter-terrorism experts. She's only 37.

Trump is going to love her bigly.



A Righteous Case: Zainab Ahmad’s mission to show that criminal prosecution is the best counterterrorism strategy.

"...And it turns out that there are 17 intelligence agencies."

Therefore, what? Empathize?

It just shows that we have different brains and different moral foundations. We liberals have alot of empathy and we hate proportionality, but the more right wing you get the story is the opposite. This means that its extremely hard to understand the other side. In the election i think most ppl at this forum recognized that a person like Ted Cruz was very different from what we are.

Im exaggerating wrt the proportionality, the results are just deviations from average. Everyone of us value proportionality (as well as the other moral foundations). For example most people would agree that the workers that are devoted and interrested should be given a pay raise once in a while while compared to those who dont care about the work or are lazy. The thing is that we on the left value it in moderations whereas on the right wing they value it to a far bigger extent. Its a perfectly fine moral foundation, its just a question of how far you stretch it.

Empathy is obvious the trait we like on the left, we score low on everything else. We care for the oppressed and the weak in every policy we make.

Conservatives like empathy too, but they have a number of other foundations that will be given a equal saying, so their policies will seldom contain the amount of empathy that we want on the left and they will look cold and unforgiving to us.

Now this explains general politics, but in the US there is xenophobia going on that probably distorts the political landscape and recruits more far right wing politicians than what would normally be the case, and this might cause alot of the polarization and diminishes the middle ground etc. So we should keep that in mind when talking about the US and i accept that its hard to be tolerant for everything the gop is going.

Like what?

I SAID GOOD DAY SIR

Blame Trump. He does not hold press conferences, so opportunity is rare to ask him important questions. Regular press conferences would allow good reporters to focus on more event-specific questions.

If Trump would explicitly acknowledge it, it would send a clear message to his ardent followers. The message is important because it is a serious threat to our democracy. When he hems and haws and deflects in his response, the question is effective in that it raises the further questions about why a POTUS would respond that way.

Yeah, that sort of behavior is child-like for any adult and unbecoming of a President.

eyebooger: Have a look at the chart. Authority, Sanctity, Proportionality, Loyalty.

Karma potential++. God speed.

English obv isn't your first language aflame, so I'll rephrase.

aflame: "Therefore, I'd prefer it if liberals ________."

(Fill in the blank.)

anyone else catch the blatant white nationalist note trump was sounding in poland with his reference to western culture?

very strange how that's the exact thing you'd expect from a #WhiteGenocide twitter nut

Well noted racist Stephen Miller wrote the speech so there's that

Bret Stephens so close!

"Conservatives" still longing for the days when blatant racist and bigot William F. Buckley proposed the same dog**** policies but sounded kind of smart!

Don't know what "scoring low" on authority even means.

Not sure about different brains, but the arguments are different. That's because the right is objectively wrong so much more often. We know this is true because of the absurd frequency of ignoring facts, science, and data when the right is defending policies. All logical fallacies and misdirection tactics exist more often for Republican positions, and even more so (including bold faced lies) for the GOP, worse yet for Trump.