The party of personal responsibility

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hodad

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 4, 2004
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This is popping up all over the internet at the moment, but I'll give it a shot here.  Where has the GOP, the "party of personal responsibility," gone?  There is an attack on Congress that was inarguably ginned up by Trump and his minions, quite possibly facilitated by malign mismanagement by Trump's toadies in the DOD, and the first thing we hear is,  "Antifa did it!"  This of course is demonstrably false, an obvious and weak attempt to deflect blame and responsibility.  So we move past that (some of us do, anyway), and as calls for impeachment or the use of the 25th Amendment grow, GOP lawmakers decide that such a thing would be too "inflammatory."  Now wait a second.  A bunch of Trump-backed crazies just attacked Congress and you're worried about "inflammatory?" 

Seriously? 

But of course they're not.  These politicians just want to avoid personal responsibility.  They don't want to take heat from the Trumpian fringe groups they've fed off of, they don't want to admit error, and they don't want to face a reckoning for their reckless decisions. 
And they need to take responsibility for their role in not impeaching Trump the first time.  There were no surprises in Trump's actions since the Senate failed to remove him, and they used the horribly weak line, "Let the voters decide in November."  At the impeachment trial, Jerrold Nadler said:  “President Trump has made clear in word and deed that he will persist in such conduct if he is not removed from power. He poses a continuing threat to our nation, to the integrity of our elections and to our democratic order. He must not remain in power one moment longer.”

Nadler called it, and so did millions of others.  And let's face it:  those Republican Senators knew.  They made a choice to stand with a corrupt, criminal wannabe dictator.  And now they need to admit they were wrong to let Trump slide, they knew they were wrong, and they did it anyway.  And they need to face the consequences--whether that be censure, resignation, or getting voted out in their next election. 

And let's be honest:  a vast number of the regular Republican joes who fought against impeachment knew Trump was guilty, knew that he would continue with election tampering, and they knew their choice was not right but was purely self-serving.  At the very least, it's time for folks like this to admit they were wrong and short-sighted to continue supporting Trump, and to acknowledge that impeachment or resignation is warranted, whether or not  they full-throatedly support it. 

This is not a time for deflection, whataboutism, or "Whoops--my bad."  The "party of personal responsibility" has been on this "not-responsible" trajectory since long before Trump, and for the good of the country it needs to stop.  You'd think that "I made a mistake" was the hardest sentence in the English language.  You'd think that a party that chants "Lock her up" would be a little less weasely when it comes to facing the consequences of their own actions. 

I think folks would find that discourse would become more civil--here, in Washington, and at dinner tables across the country--if people on the right would take that whole "personal responsibility" thing more seriously.  And maybe admit to their mistakes and grow from them, instead of doubling down on the awfulness as we've seen with Trump. 

Believe it or don't, fly into a rage because I dare suggest Republicans might be wrong or irresponsible--whatever.  I think this is one of those moments in history where we can start working to fix things that have been festering and getting worse.  In this particular case, one side is very obviously very much in the wrong.  It's not time for two sides to "meet in the middle," it's time for Republicans to step away from the ledge and see if they can find their way back to normalcy.
 
I fully agree, but I think it's going to be a very difficult road no matter what.  A large segment of the population has gotten on board with the whole belief that the election was "stolen", that Trump is being unfairly persecuted, etc.  Personal resentment on steroids.
 
Hodad, you have nailed it for me. Very well written.

Things have gone too far.  It's time to reflect about what’s really, truly important… what it’s really all about?  We can’t give up on the idea that some people must surely want a path back from the fringes where MAGA has taken them.

Let me present a few scattered ideas about why I think we’re here and why this is going to be a difficult passage back to the middle.

Being informed is hard work.  Keeping an open mind, I mean really open, ain't easy.  It certainly isn't convenient when facts don't support your world view. But we are lazy creatures, and well, we just choose to go along with what we already think, regardless of the facts.  I mean jeeze, no need to get mean and nasty with all that fact talking.  I'm in my comfort zone for chrissakes.

People are ego driven, especially here in the USA, where we have been told for decades, "we're #1" with little regard to the facts....
This "convenient fact" peddling has its roots deep in party politics.  If you don't blindly believe "we're #1" they call you "unamerican" or you're not a "true patriot".  We have been coddled to blindly accept the idea that we are superior in the world at large.  We have been lied to, over and over and over. 

And add to that, people intrinsically resist change.  They long for the good old days.  MAGA.  Which is code for people of color knew their place.  Homo's stayed in the closet where they belong.  White men ran the country.  Women did laundry, raised a kid or two, kept a nice house, and didn't talk back to their husbands.

And higher education?  A breeding ground for liberal ideas, brainwashing our children that there is a whole world out there that may challenge our core beliefs or threaten our way of life... make us question what we thought we knew to be "true".

So let me wrap this up!

Being a productive, tolerant member of society means you have to question your belief system when uncomfortable ideas come knocking.  Too many of us don’t want to go there, or can't even begin to understand why it's important.  To many, we're just lib-tards making their lives more difficult. I mean, what gives you the right to tell me how to think?

For many of us libs, it’s where we live, all the time.  It’s not easy living in the middle!  But it’s where we need to be if we are going to live peacefully with one another and not drag the country off the edges.
 
"There will be blood in the streets."
-Loretta Lynch

"Who says protests have to be peaceful?"
-Chris Cuomo

"There needs to be unrest in the streets." -Ayanna Pressley

"Protesters should not let up."
-Kamala Harris

"I just don't know why there aren't uprisings all over this country. Maybe there should be."
-Nancy Pelosi

"You get out and create a crowd and you push back on them and you tell them they are not welcome anymore, anywhere."
-Maxine Waters

"Go home with love and in peace. Remember this day forever!"
- President Trump

Only one of these statements was considered violent and hateful.

Which one is sedition and treason? Point me to the one thats not.
 
living sounds said:
What does "context" mean nothing to you?

The same it means to you. I find it funny  You give others a pass but don’t give the people on Tuesday a pass. I don’t give anyone a pass because both actions were wrong.  The best part was you interpretation of what I wrote. I my opinion can change as data rolls in. Asking things like if blm being there was true, what does that say, you assume it says I am firm believer they were there in the Capitol. Except what I was saying is that am open to it a possibility until proven otherwise. It was dropped the moment it was.  But best was me saying things how the blm argument is false, The data is there for why the blm argument is bogus. Things like ois(officer involved shootings) are well documented.  But in the end it won’t mater. You have your beliefs and I have mine, beliefs are harder to change in a person. Luckily mine are rooted in actual data from lapd and the fbi.  I don’t wish to argue anymore it’s pointless. Nothing will change other then giving me the agita. It’s a new year so let’s try something else for a change.  Be well be safe.
 
pucho812 said:
Asking things like if blm being there was true what does that say, in way says I am firm believer they were there in the Capitol but am open to it a possibility until proven otherwise.
Thank you for posting something that was right on the cusp of being utterly incomprehensible.  I think I got the gist, though.  You're going to stay on Team Trump. 
 
hodad said:
Thank you for posting something that was right on the cusp of being utterly incomprehensible.  I think I got the gist, though.  You're going to stay on Team Trump.
I don’t think you do. I corrected my typos. But at the end of it all, it doesn’t matter.  You have your beliefs and I have mine. They differ, it happens.
trump has been the 2nd time a potus has been on tv and I change the channel. Obama was the first. But it’s not about people on tv, it’s about policies which ultimately under trump were better for me and others.
 
pucho812 said:
Obama was the first. But it’s not about people on tv, it’s about policies which ultimately under trump were better for me and others.
But with Trump especially, it is about the person on tv.  Trump the tv personality (and live rally personality) helped get 2 cops killed on Wednesday.  Separating Trump the politician from Trump the policy-maker is virtually impossible (remember, he started his 2020 campaign virtually the same day he took office), and regardless of why you support him, you are still supporting the man who inspired people to punch persons of color at his rallies, to menace and attack reporters, and to kill a cop while threatening the safety of the Vice President and hundreds of congresspeople (and staffers and others.) 
It's a package deal.  If you support Trump for whatever reason, you're also propping up the fascist, wannabe dictator side of him.  It's not like an a la carte menu--you get the full meal deal. 


*As something of an aside:  I still don't understand why certain people found Obama unwatchable.  He was like the anti-Trump--every single word carefully considered, and non-inflammatory in style and substance.  There were times I found him a little boring, and there were times I wished he would go after his critics a bit more forcefully, but I never found him outrageous.  I sometimes wonder if people who reacted so vehemently actually listened to what he said. 
 
hodad said:
But with Trump especially, it is about the person on tv.  Trump the tv personality (and live rally personality) helped get 2 cops killed on Wednesday.  Separating Trump the politician from Trump the policy-maker is virtually impossible (remember, he started his 2020 campaign virtually the same day he took office), and regardless of why you support him, you are still supporting the man who inspired people to punch persons of color at his rallies, to menace and attack reporters, and to kill 2 cops while threatening the safety of the Vice President and hundreds of congresspeople (and staffers and others.) 
It's a package deal.  If you support Trump for whatever reason, you're also propping up the fascist, wannabe dictator side of him.  It's not like an a la carte menu--you get the full meal deal. 


*As something of an aside:  I still don't understand why certain people found Obama unwatchable.  He was like the anti-Trump--every single word carefully considered, and non-inflammatory in style and substance.  There were times I found him a little boring, and there were times I wished he would go after his critics a bit more forcefully, but I never found him outrageous.  I sometimes wonder if people who reacted so vehemently actually listened to what he said.

Nothing about trump screams dictator no matter how many times you say it.  You also can ala cart policy vs person because at the end of the day, actions are always what counts.

I never understood how people fawned over obama. He was a typical Chicago politician full of hot air.  But then again for people and Obama it was more the person and less the policy.
 
But it’s not about people on tv, it’s about policies which ultimately under trump were better for me and others.

I kind of like this.

Cos, if discussions want to venture into more constructive waters (beyond this thread), this is worth considering in more detail -- from and on both 'team' sides. What is it exactly on a personal level that is/was better?

Detached utterly from 'team' and 'heads'. After all, individual politicians are not that important, they come and go.

US politics must sure be about more than two groups fighting each other... it's just that it has looked like that for quite a while now.

But as I said: not my country.

 
pucho812 said:
Nothing about trump screams dictator no matter how many times you say it.  You also can ala cart policy vs person because at the end of the day, actions are always what counts.

Everything about Trump screams fascist wannabe dictator, no matter how many times you deny it.  Maybe you should stop flipping the channel long enough that you can figure this out for yourself.  And no, you can't separate the two.  "Hitler did wonders for the economy," or "Mussolini made the trains run on time" doesn't justify support for either. 

 
File under "You might be a fascist wannbe dictator if...."
Trump threatens SNL with federal investigation for mocking him

That's the one that just popped up while I was reading about something else.  I can add more as I come across them. 
 
hodad said:
File under "You might be a fascist wannbe dictator if...."
Trump threatens SNL with federal investigation for mocking him

That's the one that just popped up while I was reading about something else.  I can add more as I come across them.
You mean the guy you shouldn’t take seriously because he wasn’t you president you now want to take seriously.  I can’t stop laughing. 
 
I hate posting in these types of threads and I'll probably regret it, but if you remove all context from a quote, you can make it sound like whatever you want.

pucho812 said:
"There will be blood in the streets."
-Loretta Lynch

This is extraordinarily out of context. I'm actually impressed by the lengths someone went to even find the quote so they could use it to mislead people, because it's 10 years old and isn't even remotely related to anything that's happened in 2020. I mean, seriously, like, holy !$#%.

Full paragraph this quote is taken from (page H1881, https://www.congress.gov/111/crec/2010/03/21/CREC-2010-03-21-pt1-PgH1854-2.pdf):

Mr.  Speaker,  through  all  the  debate,  name-  calling,  threats,  and  fear-mongering,  we  will  once  again  be  on  the  right  side  of  history  and  put  the  American  people  first.  In  the  midst  of  it all, some of my colleagues have been called derogatory  names,  including  racial  epitjets;  have  been  spat  on  and  have  been  threatened  that  there  will  be  blood  in  the  streets.  But  there is something that I must say to my fellow Americans as we stand on the threshold of the door that opens up to access to quality and af-fordable  care  and,  in  turn,  a  better  quality  of  life  for  all  Americans.  Heeding  one  of  this  country’s greatest leaders in history, Dr, Martin Luther  King,  Jr.,  I  urge  us  to  remember  that  ‘‘in  the  process  of  gaining  [life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit of life], we must not be guilty of wrong-ful  deeds.  Let  us  not  seek  to  satisfy  our  thirst  for  freedom  by  drinking  from  the  cup  of  bitter-ness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle  on  the  high  plane  of  dignity  and  dis-cipline  .  .  .  we  must  rise  to  the  majestic  heights  of  meeting  physical  force  with  soul  force.

The speech is about the Affordable Care Act.

Whoever fed you this quote had a massive agenda to lie to and mislead you.

I honestly sat here and thought about this a little longer before posting it. I can't even imagine the process by which this quote was pulled. Did someone happen to remember the line from a random 10-year-old speech? Was it pulled out of context 10 years ago and filed away by some spin doctors in the hopes that someday there would be dueling political protests? Did someone dig through every major speech by every dem member of congress looking for something to use for the meme you copy and pasted? I guess I should be worried that these quotes have become copypasta and it works that people aren't willing to spend the time to discover the context, but in this case it was actually hard to find the original quote because it's so far removed from the alleged context.

This is a deep, deep, deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep pull for propaganda purposes.

-----

A couple other quotes actually brought up a fact checking site, so I'll just link to that because I'm tired of digging through instances of people copying and pasting the same thing you did (I think this addresses some other quotes):
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jan/07/facebook-posts/quotes-4-democrats-twisted-make-it-look-they-endor/

I don't feel like addressing Trump's tone deaf tweet or what happened last week because I'm still trying to process that it actually happened. I mostly just wanted to comment on the Loretta Lynch quote because I found it so amazing that someone even found it to use for this purpose. Seriously impressed by the boldness of that propaganda.
 
Thanks, Jon.

But remember, it's not considered polite to fact-check stuff like quotes brought forward as arguments - you're not supposed to do it.

Playing by the rules means that we need to always trust each other to not lie or unduly extend truth - this is the only way we can expect to build consensus on any subject.

Jakob E.
 
pucho812 said:
You mean the guy you shouldn’t take seriously because he wasn’t you president you now want to take seriously.  I can’t stop laughing.

In the words of Travis Bickle, "You talking to me?"  This comment seems to be about some straw man you've constructed and not at all about me personally.  When that straw man shows up, go ahead and have a good yuck at how stupid he is. 

It's probable I did not take him as seriously as I should have in the early days, but that quickly changed.  If you chose to dig back through recent threads you'd find me arguing against JR's position that we shouldn't take Trump's words so literally.  So while Trump may be a buffoon, and even a laughing stock, that doesn't mean he shouldn't be taken seriously. 

I can put words in my own mouth, thank you.  I don't need you trying to do it for me. 

EDIT:  Unrelated, but this is an interesting interview with freshman Republican rep Peter Meijer. 
https://reason.com/2021/01/08/amash-successor-peter-meijer-trumps-deceptions-are-rankly-unfit/
 
Someone compiled a great list of many of the deplorable public acts of Trump starting in 2012.

www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-complete-listing-so-far-atrocities-1-1-046

Already knew most of these things but many Trump supporters get their news from places that pushed most of these things under the rug or painted them in a biased light.
 
Yes, thanks John for looking that up!

Pucho812 did the same thing in another thread some time ago with a fake list of Obama's supposed failings.

At this point it is clear that the modus operandi is fully inductive (= I don't like the Left/Obama etc. so let's find stuff to confirm my point) instead of deductive (let's look at all the facts and draw conclusions from them).

Someone who appears to be incapable of deductive reasoning where it matters to their ideology/identity is called a "true beliver", and there is no point engaging with them. Thus I vow to really stop it this time.  ;D
 
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