The Watering Hole, 1/18/2017

As soon as Hillary Clinton cinched the Democratic Party’s nomination her supporters began deriding Sander’s supporters in earnest, in an effort to shame or fear-monger them into voting for The Chosen One. As a Sanders supporter, their efforts further turned this author off from Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.

In two days, Donald Trump will become the President of the United States. Ever since the election, those on the left have called Trump voters all kinds of names, all of which were anything but kind. This divisive name-calling is counterproductive. It only serves to drive Trump supporters further away, as the natural tendency when one is attacked is to become defensive.

To change the course of this Nation, it will be necessary for the common man on the left and on the right to work together, to join forces against the ruling oligarchy. Up until now, the oligarchy has been content to control our government from behind the scenes. But with Trump, and his likely choices to fill his Cabinet, they are up front, running the show from the highest seat of power.

So, how do we, the people, bridge the divisive gap between the left and the right? It must start with overtures from the left. It must start with recognizing that not everyone who voted for Trump is racist. Not everyone who voted for Trump hates women. Like Sanders supporters, many, many Trump supporters voted for change. Trump was going to drain the swamp, and drain the swamp he will. He’s going to Make America Great Again by putting the interests of the 1% above all else. The common man and woman who voted for Trump will soon be left out in the cold.

As they see their health insurance disappear, or skyrocket out of reach, as States budgets buckle under the crushing weight of an unfunded mandate to provide health care for those who no longer have coverage while the taxes on the 1% are cut and cut again; as they realize that Right to Work laws mean the end of unions, union wages and benefits; and when it dawns on them that Trump is not bringing their factory jobs back, many, many Trump supporters will feel they’ve been conned. The last thing they’ll want to hear is an “I told you so” from the left.

Trump supporters will need to hear facts, objectively stated. They’ll need to hear solutions, short of taking up arms. They’ll need to know that those on the left will have their back and will stand with them, side by side, through the long, arduous task of wresting control of our government from the moneyed elite sitting on both sides of the aisle.

Trump supporters have been conditioned to see liberals as the enemy. Liberals have been trained to see conservatives as the enemy. Both views have been fostered by the ruling class so that liberals and conservatives alike do not see them as the enemy.

We need to mend fences where we can. The first side to stop using hate speech will ultimately control the dialogue.

OPEN THREAD – OPEN THE DIALOGUE

The Watering Hole, Saturday, May 14, 2016: The Man Who Would Be Last

Last night’s closing segment of “Real Time” had Bill Maher addressing the accusation that Donald Trump’s popularity is the fault of Liberals. Like so many things Conservatives say, this is the exact opposite of the Truth. But as we all know, in political debate in America, facts don’t matter. They don’t. Regardless of political leanings, when people are confronted with facts that contradict something they believe, they will simply refuse to accept that they are wrong. Most of what Conservatives believe to be true is not, while a substantially lower percentage of what Liberals believe is false. Studies have shown that even Liberals normally willing to be persuaded by new evidence will still cling to about ten percent of their belief system against evidence to the contrary. By comparison, Conservatives are persuaded by almost nothing that contradicts their beliefs, even personal experience. To Conservatives, facts are just somebody’s opinion about Reality. What matters is what you believe to be true. Even when it isn’t. Here’s how Bill Maher responded:

One small but important clarification about something Maher said, the Boston Tea Party (the historical event after which the modern political Tea Party takes its name) was a revolt against a tax cut. King George cut taxes on British tea going to the colonies, thus making them cheaper to sell and harder for the colonists to compete. It was not, as many in the Tea Party movement believe, a tax increase being protested. But Maher is correct that these people have had their taxes lowered since Obama took office. And the problem isn’t that we’re taxed too much, it’s that we’re taxed too little, especially the wealthiest Americans. Taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilized society, and a necessity if we want our government to do the things we actually want it to do. Conservative Republicans often complain about our national debt being too high, but it’s their own fault and something else for which they refuse to accept responsibility. They believed something demonstrably untrue, cut taxes because of it, but continued to increase spending while lying about its effect on the national debt. They constantly claimed that tax cuts for the rich would pay for themselves by bringing in more revenue. It was a position that defied logic and the facts, but they went ahead and kept saying, not only that it was true, but that it was good for America. Then they turned around and tried to say that money spent on social welfare programs and national infrastructure was unjustifiable when our national debt was so high. Yes, they actually tried to make that argument. They still do. No amount of spending on our military is too high to them, but try to find a couple of billion dollars to make poorer people’s lives better and it’s, “Sorry. No can do. There’s a war on.” Except that war is not being financed by a single penny of tax revenue, it’s being funded by deficit spending, the thing Conservative Republicans claim they hate so much. There’s a lot of hypocrisy and flat out denial of the truth when it comes to right wing thinking, so it should surprise no one that Donald Trump will be the Republican Party’s nominee to be POTUS. He’s completely unfit to hold public office, has no grasp of factual reality, and is completely clueless about the nature and purpose of being a public servant.

Donald Trump is incapable of being a public servant because Donald Trump serves one person, and one person only – Donald Trump. His policies are based on either pure fantasy or rampant racism and bigotry. He has no understanding about how diplomacy works, nor why it’s a good thing. He seems to think the POTUS personally negotiates trade deals and treaties with other countries, and that he can do better than all previous presidents have done. The man is not simply a narcissist. Anyone who thinks he or she is capable of being POTUS has to have a big ego to begin with or else they would become overwhelmed by the responsibilities. It’s true of President Obama, Vice President Biden, Secretary Clinton, Senator Sanders, Senator McCain, Governor Romney, Humanoid Dick “the Bruce” Cheney, and everyone else who has thrown his or her hat in the ring. But Trump’s narcissism is in a category of its own. He talks as if he’s never failed at anything in his life when Ivana and Marla could tell you otherwise. So can the several bankruptcies he’s filed for businesses that could not be called “successes.” And the lawsuit he’s facing for his sham of a school that made promises he had no intention of keeping. Yet he’s so thin-skinned that he constantly threatens to sue anyone who tells the truth about him. He even said he wants to limit the freedom of the press and make it easier to sue them for defamation when they say things about him he doesn’t like (such as truthful things, and things that really happened.) His campaign rhetoric has been so atrocious and despicable, that many white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and KKK groups have publicly endorsed him for POTUS. Even David Duke thinks he’d be a good choice for Trump’s running mate.

#TrumpDuke2016 It'd be Trump's best LIFE INSURANCE.The Zio NeoCon Mossad boys would not dare touch him if I was heartbeat from Presidency.

— David Duke (@DrDavidDuke) May 12, 2016

Apparently Mr. Duke hasn’t thought this out very far at all. I mean, is there any reason why Duke couldn’t be taken out first, then Trump, to prevent exactly what Duke threatened? A David Duke presidency? No, it would be much, much worse than any of that if Trump were to become POTUS. It would mean the end of America. It would mean an end to the greatest experiment in governance in the history of Civilization. Thanks to the Republican lack of support and outright disdain for Education dating back to the Reagan Administration, most Americans are unaware of just how unique this country is. For starters, in just about every other country on the planet, there is an official religion and it’s usually whatever religion the head of the country practices. The USA under our Constitution was the first country to say that would never happen here, and that people would be free to follow any religion they wished free of government interference. Christian Conservatives very much want to change that and make some unspecified version of Christianity our nation’s “official religion.” A President Trump would also bring an end to the rest of the First Amendment, too. Journalists would not be free to publish articles critical of Trump, and people would not be free to peaceably assemble to demonstrate against his inhumane, ill-conceived, and illegal policies. And do you really think the rest of the world will stand behind President Trump when he starts a war with China? No, if Donald Trump were to somehow win the election this November (and I can’t imagine how that could happen without massive Republican cheating and voter suppression of likely Democratic voters), he would be the last person to hold that office. This great country would cease to exist, and something truly evil would take its place. And someone like Ted Cruz and his dad could be in charge of it.

Daily. Open. Thread.

The Watering Hole, Saturday, April 19, 2014: The Myth of the Never-Changing Parties

Recently I got into a Twitter argument with a Conservative who actually called the observation that the Republicans have not always been Conservative and the Democrats have not always been Liberal a “bullshit liberal lie.” Then he called the Democrats “the party of the KKK.” Then he said I was the one who was historically ignorant. Okay, so he’s hurling around “KKK” like it’s an epithet (which it is), but apparently he doesn’t know that neo-confederates in the South consider Nathan Bedford Forrest a hero and the work of the Ku Klux Klan to be “social justice.” (Not everyone agrees. I side with the SPLC on this one.) So is being a member and early leader of the KKK a bad thing to Conservatives or not? If the KKK was a good thing, then why throw out the connection between Democrats and the Klan as a bad thing? If you’re proud of the work of the Klan, then you should be proud of Democrats, not contemptuous of everything any Democrat has ever done. Cognitive dissonance has never been seen as a bad thing by Conservatives. They don’t know the meaning of the word “hypocrisy.” (Seriously, they can’t possibly know given how steeped in hypocrisy they are.)

How do you debate political issues with someone who is obviously so historically ignorant about Politics in America? How do you discuss where America ought to go as a nation with people who think that because they were Republicans, that Lincoln (used Big Government to put down a rebellion) and Eisenhower (used Big Government to build the Interstate Highway System) were staunch Conservatives, or that Nixon (started the Environmental Protection Agency) or Reagan (raised taxes seven times; granted amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants) could ever get the Republican nomination today? To today’s Republican party, the word “Liberal” is the worst thing you cold call someone. Yet accuse a Republican from today of being against every social advancement and you hear them defend their party by pointing out all the things Liberal Republicans did for the country, back in the time when Liberals were welcome in the Republican Party.

Marsh Blackburn is one of the latest examples. From the article:

As we mentioned above, she wants to be clear that the GOP has led the charge for women’s equality. Let’s hear the whole quote:

“I find this war on women rhetoric almost silly,” Blackburn said Sunday, when asked on CBS’ “Face the Nation” if Republicans were against equal pay for women. “It is Republicans that have led the fight for women’s equality. Go back through history — and look at who was the first woman to vote, to get elected to office, to go to Congress, four out of five governors.”

Okay, let’s do that. because when you’re trying to make a point, one would think (if one did think) that facts would matter. And remember, she’s touting the achievements of Republicans in the past as evidence that Republicans of today are not waging a war on women.

Go back through history — and look at who was the first woman to vote,
Woman were allowed to vote in some parts of this country long before the 19th Amendment was ratified. Women in New Jersey had the right to vote from 1776-1807. But while they did record that women voted, they never recorded the time of day each person voted, so it is impossible to know with what political party the first woman to vote was registered. But since the Republican Party was founded in 1854, it wasn’t them. The first woman to vote under the 19th Amendment was from a family of Democrats.

to get elected to office,
The first woman elected to any political office in the United States was Susanna M. Salter. She was elected Mayor of Argonia, Kansas, from 1887-1888, and she was a member of the Prohibition Party. And while the remnants of today’s Prohibition Party are very conservative, back in Salter’s time it was more progressive. (Prohibition was a movement by progressives. Ironically, if it weren’t for Conservatives, I could probably get by without needing a drink.) So, again, not a Republican.

to go to Congress,
Yes on this one. Jeannette Rankin was, indeed, the first woman elected to Congress and a Republican. Her first term was in 1917, before passage of the 19th Amendment. And regardless of her political views then, when she was re-elected to Congress in 1940, she was more liberal in her views, and very pacifist. She voted against US entry into both World Wars. So Blackburn is 1 out of 3 so far on Republicanism, but not as good on Conservatism.

four out of five governors.
Okay, this one is hilariously wrong. The first Republican woman elected Governor of a US State was Kay Orr, who served from 1987-1991. She was also the ninth woman to serve as governor. And she was a Conservative, which is not surprising considering the year. (Specifically, that it was after passage of the Civil Rights Act, a significant point in the ideological history of the Republican Party.)

So to prove the point that Republicans are not waging a war on women, Rep Blackburn cites a list of non-related non-facts. Which is what Republicans do when you try to point out how Republicans of Today are out of touch with Americans of Today. You get to hear all about how Republicans passed the 13th Amendment ending Slavery, without hearing how opposition to it came from Conservatives. And that’s what really matters – Ideology, not party affiliation. The Republican achievements of which today’s Republicans are most proud, are the achievements of Republicans who would not be welcome in today’s Republican Party. Lincoln was not a Conservative, and the Democrats who fought against him at that time were not Liberals.

When the Democratic Party was founded, it “favored republicanism, a weak federal government, states’ rights, agrarian interests (especially Southern planters) and strict adherence to the Constitution; it opposed a national bank, close ties to Great Britain, and business and banking interests.” Sounds more like today’s Republican Party than it does today’s Democratic Party. And when LBJ got the Civil Rights Act passed, he knew that Conservative Democrats would leave the party and join the Republicans, and many of them did. The Democratic Party became more Liberal (how could it not when the Conservatives were jumping ship?) and the Republican Party be came less Liberal (on account of all those ship-jumping Conservatives) until, eventually, there were no more Liberals in the Republican Party. When Republicans proudly boast about their party’s achievements on social issues, they almost ALWAYS point to the things Liberal Republicans of the past did, not Conservative Republicans of today. In fact, the only Conservative Republican achievement of which I ever hear them brag is the Hyde Amendment, named after Mr. Edward Hyde Sen. Henry Hyde, which banned federal spending for abortion. Ironically, the same person I mentioned in the beginning of this, who thought the idea that the two major political parties had switched ideologies over time was bullshit, also refused to believe the Hyde Amendment existed, or understand what it did. And that’s who we’re dealing with. People who refuse to debate the issues based on actual verifiable facts, which proved that things did or did not happen.

In Classical Logic, a false premise can imply anything because a statement of the form If p, then q is False only when p is True and q is False. Otherwise it is True. Today is Saturday, so the statement “If today is Thursday, then I am the King of Norway” is True because it is false that it is Thursday. So it doesn’t matter what the rest says. Until Thursday rolls around and I am revealed not to be the duly recognized King of Norway, it is a True statement. So when Conservatives trot out their False premises for their “logic,” they’re often, technically, making True statements. And you can’t prove they’re making False statements until the premises upon which their arguments are made are True, and the conclusions they drew were False. Yet even when they’re proved quite wrong, it doesn’t seem to stop them from making the same claims. For example, Conservatives like to claim that tax cuts for the rich stimulate the economy and create jobs. And this was their justification for cutting taxes in the first few years of the Bush Administration, despite the fact that we had just gone to war before the second round of cuts. No country in the History of Civilization had ever cut taxes in a time of war, until the United States did in 2003. And despite all the money the folks at the top were keeping for themselves, they didn’t use it to create jobs, and the unemployment rate was on its way up by the time they left office. Doesn’t stop them from arguing that tax cuts for the rich create jobs. Sadly, people like the Conservative I debated on the Twitter believe them.

This is our daily open thread. Have fun with it.

The Watering Hole, Monday, August 5, 2013: Of Two Minds

Over the past seven years there have been at least sixteen studies done on the differences, if any, between the brains of self-described conservatives and those of self-described liberals. The results show many substantial differences, not simply in physiology but in the framework within which we view things. The studies began with a Sept 2006 report which showed

The Watering Hole Saturday, July 7, 2012 – A Day in the Lives of Two Joes

What follows began as a post on my original blog. That version was posted Oct 27, 2007. I kept much of the original, but I admit I did not test every link left in there from the original. Oh, and at the time, California was battling wildfires believed to be the result of arson. Today, my heart goes out to the people of Colorado, who are battling their own destructive wildfires. Amazing how little of that I had to change to ‘update” it.

Someone sent me the great piece below, called “A Day in the Life of Joe Republican.” I thought it was a great example of the hypocrisy that many conservatives live when they denounce things they rely on every day of their lives as being liberal. Here is that piece first, and then we’ll continue from there. I have no idea to whom I should give credit for the first part, as it was one of those things sent through the tubes of the Internets. As to the follow-up response to it that I’ll discuss afterwards, I’ll do the guy a favor and not mention his name (since I don’t know it) on the off-chance that this was supposed to be satire, or humorously-intended. It just seems too much like how a conservative would “re-invent” Joe Republican, that I didn’t think it was facetious. So, in case it was serious, I decided to counter it.

“A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JOE REPUBLICAN”

Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised.

All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer’s medical plan because some liberal

The Cowardice of Conservatives

News Hounds has uncovered a gem. If you want to know what today’s Conservatives are like, just listen to the people who claim to speak for them. Now, I have a hard time understanding how Conservatives think (which inspired me to write “Conservative” below), and I just can’t reconcile the nonsense I hear out of people like Sean Hannity and Mark Levin, and the philosophy of Conservatism I heard preached by conservative giants like Barry Goldwater. One thing Goldwater always said Conservatism was about was

CNN: Sanchez schools a Conservative over “Anti-Semitic”

Rick Sanchez’s question: Is Jeremiah Wright Anti-Semitic? He had a conservative talk show host Ben Ferguson on his show. Ben Ferguson was making the assertion that Barack Obama associates with people who are “Anti-Semitic.” To Sanchez’s credit, he remains very calm and methodical throughout. You don’t see a lot of this on cable news. Plus, he was REALLY prepared. For every single claim Ben claim up with, Sanchez had all the exact words used in newsletters & speeches. The end is beautiful, you have to watch the whole thing – he nails him good with a factual source. I can’t give it away.

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