Disclaimer:
I was
dreamingdrinking when I wrote this,Forgive me if it goes astray
But when I woke up this morning
I could have sworn it was
judgmentelection day.-apologies to Prince and his song
1999
“THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION EVER!” (said nearly every election)
Various get out the vote campaigns are in action. My wife and kids have been bombarded with mail explaining that this is the most important election ever. The NFL has an obnoxious (in my opinion) get out the vote commercial. MTV has their quadrennial “Rock the Vote” campaign. The Internet is besot with people claiming that you should vote in “the most important election ever”. Even my favorite radio station exhorts me to get out and vote.
My thinking on voting has evolved over time:
Eight stages of voting
(shamelessly stolen from bitjuggler )
1. You believe in the story you’ve been fed about the system; you enthusiastically research the candidates’ positions; you discuss and debate those positions with friends and relatives; then you vote for whom you decide is the best candidate to fill the position.
2. You see that government is “not working” and blame the people currently holding positions in it. You look over the electoral options available and vote for the non- incumbents you determine are best suited to fill the position. A follow-on iteration to this is that you search for the non-incumbent candidates who have never held office.
3. You say to yourself, “if only a wise and benevolent individual of high moral fiber and character could be convinced to run for office”; and you eventually recognize “the one we’ve all been waiting for”;(cough, Ron Paul) and you contribute to, and campaign for this individual as though he or she were the physical manifestation of all that could be considered “the way”.
4. You come to the conclusion that the two party system is only half as bad as a one party system like communism – and you strike a blow for liberty by casting a ballot for a third party.
5. You return to the two party fold – realizing that the only way change can be invoked will be by working within that existing system. In this stage you’ve actually convinced yourself that there is only one party that stands a chance of being converted to good.
6. You’re not happy with any of the available candidates; but go to the polls to cast a ballot for the lesser of the two evils that are likely to win.
7. You submit an empty ballot – hoping that others will join you and that, somehow, someone will notice.
8. You stay home on election day and do something worthwhile with your time.
Reasons not to vote:
1) Your vote doesn’t matter
Mathematically, your vote is meaningless and becomes more so when more people vote. No presidential election has ever been decided by a single vote. Very, very few congressional elections have been decided by a single vote. If an electoral race is close, the winner is most likely going to be decided by the courts, not your measly little vote.
2) Giant Douche or Turd Sandwich
The choices are horrible! This is the best and brightest you have to offer? A game show host/real estate investor or a career politician (hasn’t held an honest job in 47 years)? Both are disagreeable. Neither are qualified to make decisions about your life. Hell, they can’t even run their own lives. I’ll be damned if they run mine.
3) The game is rigged!
- Gerrymandering
- Suppression of third party candidates
- Dead people voting.
- People voting twice.
- Televised Debate access (3rd parties regularly dismissed)
- Polls (3rd parties regularly dismissed)
- Who counts the votes?
- Ballots miraculously found in a ditch or the back of a van
- Easy hack-ability of voting machines
- Outright fraud
4) Democracy itself is flawed
It has been said that “Democracy” is three wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner. Democracy is antithetical to your personal freedom. You should view it suspiciously. Voting is implicitly a coercive act. By voting, you are saying that your way is better than anyone else’s way. Your vote is an attempt to impose your will over others through the use of the state.
5) Voting cedes your personal autonomy
There are aspects of your life that government just should not be involved in. What you ingest, inject, smoke, drink or eat is none of the government’s damned business. The money you earn should be none of the government’s business.
Voting is actively diving into the cesspool of politics then clinging to the most popular floating turd. Don’t be surprised when some of the stink clings to you.
“Truth does not depend upon a majority vote. Two plus two equals four regardless of how many people vote that it equals five.” -Carl Watner*
6) Voting only encourages them
If a fella wins by 51%, he says he has a mandate to tell the other 49% how they should live their lives. Nothing is further from the truth. If anything he or she should realize what a tenuous situation he is really in. Sadly, humility doesn’t sell well. Voting increases government legitimacy. Participating in the charade gives the charade legitimacy.
7) Politicians don’t give a damn about you
You are nothing but tax cattle to them. Give up 30%–40%! of your income so they can profit from their wars and insider trading. Do you ever wonder why several of the laws they write specifically exclude themselves?
Criticisms of not voting
“If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”
-from the song “Free Will” by the band Rush
Not voting is indistinguishable from apathy
True. See point number 1 above. Your vote/non-vote is meaningless. It is also indistinguishable from all the noise created by those millions of other votes.
If you don’t vote, you have no right to complain.
Those who play the game must accept the outcome, those who refuse to play the game have every right to complain. I complain vigorously about lots of things I haven’t voted on (the weather, the state, the Chinese government, the roads on my way to work, blue laws, the price of land, other drivers, kids these days…)
Voting is a right and a duty
A right implies the right to ignore said right. Lots of people ignore their 2nd amendment rights.
And a “duty”, A DUTY? Well, f**k off, slaver. I’ll determine what duties I have.
Don’t vote!
Instead do something productive with your time. Like washing your luxurious goatee, or plucking your eyebrows, or cleaning the grit from under your fingernails. Or partying like it’s 1999.
“A man is no less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.”
-Lysander Spooner
This song seems appropriate.
*My 2nd favorite IT guy at work has “2+2+5” tattooed on his wrist. He’s a little…weird.
But what if the wrong lizzard wins?
Then you get processed for food pellets sooner.
For those unfamiliar:
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/162557-it-comes-from-a-very-ancient-democracy-you-see-you
“Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happened to them. They’re completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone’s got to say it.”
I haven’t voted yet. My wife and I tore up the “mail-in” ballots New Jersey sent us. I will show up on Tuesday at our usual polling place and attempt to vote in person, partly to protest the mail-in nonsense. Maybe they’ll let me vote, maybe not. Not like my vote in NJ actually matters.
Isn’t that crazy that in-person denial of voting isn’t seen as suppression from the Doomers
My crazy, tin-foil hat moment: They don’t claim it is suppression because they think it benefits them.
The last time I voted was when Jesse “The Body” Ventura ran for governor of Minnesota. I voted for him because I was pissed off at the other two bastards. Bastard 1 wanted a new venue for the symphony. Bastard 2 wanted a new stadium for the baseball team.
A few years later and both of those expensive things happened anyway.
I heard he was actually pretty good in office.
He was, but my point is that the good didn’t last.
Oh, sorry. At least you had a brief respite?
I remember hearing a lot about him in the 90s but it must have seemed very regional before the internet.
I moved through pistoffnick’s 8 stages and have been at stage 8 for a decades now.
However, since NJ crammed a ballot down my throat and my wife was going to vote anyhow I decided to vote straight Red here hoping that Team Blue might get the idea that doing this wasn’t a good idea.
That said – I doubt it.
Well said Pist.
Agreed. Good read.
But who is he voting for?
I vote with my dollars and (maybe someday) with my feet.
Come to Romania
I would love to. The furthest east I have been (not counting China) is Budapest.
They had babushkas as bathroom attendants. It turns out I am poop shy around ladies, even old grizzled ladies.
Miért akarna még keletebbre menni? Mindent láttál, ami jó volt.
I’m sorry, I don’t speak Vampire Cat.
As an idea, I would love to. But I have come to realize that I am just not very adventurous. I have ZERO curiosity about other places even though I am middlingly well traveled. I’d rather stay at home and write and do my hobbies.
Very rarely do I actually want to Go Somewhere Else, and when I do, I can’t think of Anywhere Else that I can afford to go.
Maybe lack of money is the problem.
Maybe lack of money is the problem. – have you considered winning the lottery?
It’s easier to do that if you buy a ticket, which…we don’t.
I look at it this way Mo, I have pretty much the same odds to win as the ones who do buy tickets.
LOL yes.
I have often said that my odds are slightly BETTER if I don’t buy a ticket.
Now, with regard to Mr. Mojeaux’s propensity to win everything under the sun (2 trips [that was just while we were married; he won one trip when he was single], a car, and a Kitchenaid stand mixer are nothing to sneeze at), I can no longer scoff at the possibility that he could, in fact, win the lottery.
He has won a few thousand dollars on the lottery here and there throughout the years. The diamond on my hand was bought with lottery winnings.
I very much try to do this.
Some dank memes PON
Danke!
My wife is voting for the first time in her life this year. Even as non-political as she is, she feels that it is time. +1 Suburban Woman in Trumps column.
Nearly all her customers out here in Vegas are truly afraid of how the Dems and the media are acting.
Oh and I always supported her decision to not vote, as I see that as voting.
Her fellow woman friends on the other hand are vicious towards her for not.
I get rid of “friends” who are vicious toward me.
She has steadily done that over the past 5 years. Our circle of friends is very small.
Qui nos opprimere velint, illos libenter devoramus.
Usually, people like that aren’t worth the trouble you go to to devour them. Ghosting is efficient and almost painless for everybody.
I dunno, I’ve ghosted people by accident. Didn’t mean the silence to be so loud.
I would say that being incommunicado because of time and distance is not a ghosting, but a natural process of life.
Facebook has made me realize I’d have rather let time and distance do its thing.
Wife is voting for first time in a US election. Both of us are voting for the Bad Orange Trumpnado.
Someone needs to remind your wife that she’s an immigrant so she can’t vote for Trump.
*ahem* She is a naturalized citizen.
I know. I was riffing off of that Commedian who told Ice Cube since he’s a black man he can’t vote for Trump.
Biden is a comedian?
I laugh every time he opens his piehole so yes?
He invented Corn Pop didn’t he?
He was on Maria Bartiromi this morning.
*roMO
It did occur to me you were kidding, but couldn’t quite decide.
Various get out the vote campaigns are in action. – the vote in general or the vote for the right person?
Democracy itself is flawed – The mask is off! libertarians are fashy
Your vote is an attempt to impose your will over others through the use of the state – the best use of the state is no use of the state in 9 out of 10 cases. so my view is better
. Give up 30%–40%! – pfff I wish
Mathematically, your vote is meaningless and becomes more so when more people vote.
I have a sense that there is a fallacy in here somewhere. Something about snowflakes and avalanches?
I don’t think there’s much question that voting collectively makes (some) difference. There are lots of things that, in monadic isolation, seem meaningless, but in total have an impact. Just to use the obsession of the day, having a single SARS-2 virus is meaningless; having billions is fatal. Sending a single soldier into battle is pointless; sending a million is very much not pointless.
Your vote is an attempt to impose your will over others through the use of the state.
Or perhaps its an attempt to impose some degree of accountability on the state (assuming a reasonably functional democratic republic, of course). Consider the alternative – the only way to truly swap out the leaders is to shoot them out.
“…a reasonably functional democratic republic…”
https://tenor.com/view/this-guy-this-guy-gif-8301568
I didn’t throw that qualifier in by accident.
I think the problem is that the average voter holds the government accountable not for its own actions but for the state of the world. There is a pervasive conflation of government with society, and increasingly nature itself as well, which messes up the entire incentive structure.
This is true. “Modern” man hasn’t really gotten past the idea of the God King that was popular over 4,000 year ago. It’s even popular among those who supposed love science. SMH
If anything, the IFLS types are leading the anti-empirical and anti-intellectual charge. Government run by good feelings is apparently quite appealing to atheists and “rationalists” provided that it’s their good feelings that are being prioritized.
Watching “modern” people behave has given me a greater appreciation for the ancients. We really aren’t any different from them after all.
Every single one of the old fashioned cliches and aphorisms about civic virtue, responsibility, independance, liberty, honesty, probity and the corrupting effect of power came from those ancients personal experiences with tyranny, demogoguery, slavery etc. Human nature does not change.
^^^ This. It’s not that they were smarter than us. It’s that they were just like us, and are trying to teach us not to fall into their same mistakes.
Eloquent screed but you omitted “Registering will draft you for jury duty”. In some states a mere driver’s license will do this.
Yeah, but to me this is really a potential reason TO vote, or at least to register. Being a juror affords a direct (rare) opportunity to thwart the will of the state if you think its actions are unconstitutional or unjust.
God’s ears. If only I could get out of bed just for the sorts of cases I was interested in. If arguments were a podcast I’d speed them up 1.5x.
Yeah. You’re all very welcome, by the way, for the Magna Carta on which your constitutional provisions for jurisprudence are ultimately based, via English common law.
Shades of 8th grade history class. “Magna Carta 1215” is about all I remember.
Yeah but what happened since?
Need one of those “how it started|how its going” memes.
Dude, it’s only been like 40 minutes.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u_uDduXCaZA
Forgive foreign language at end, and I hope you weren’t personally addressing me.
Oh yes, within a few months of moving back to AZ they sent me a summons.
Forgive me father, for I have voted.
If it made you feel good, do it. I’m not your
supervisorgod.Honorable mentioned for purple hair lady “libertarian” snappy video on voting [TRIGGER WARNING: TOS].
I’d make a small wager she’s already mailed in her vote for Harris/Biden, but perhaps I am being too cynical.
We can’t get the kink if you don’t post the link.
In these trying times I don’t think it’s possible to be too cynical.
I voted because i’m a hopeless optomist, political junkie and in particular there was a local issue i felt very strongly about, so i filled in most of the rest of the ballot.
Assuming votes are counted within whichever margin of error* you find worth bothering for, I like seeing my digit in the stats, whatever the outcome. I helped the candidate get to 50,367 from 50,366? Cool!
*That Marge Inovera has been a pain from the start. We never should have hired her.
there was a local issue i felt very strongly about – legalizing public masturbation?
#MeToobin, what happened to him was wrong! We should all be free to whip it!
Nice try.
I’m still voting.
Trump 2020.
?
I was going to reply to the article, but you just said what I would have said.
Of course, if anyone chooses not to, that’s their choice, and I’m fine with them making up their own mind. But I’m voting.
I regret being more apathetic to it in my younger days.
gay
??️?
Add this suburban woman to the tally too.
I have no doubt that CA will go for Biden-Harris, but there are lots of state propositions that I hope to help vote down. Might as well tick the Trump box while I’m at it.
Deadlock > democrat majority in house, senate, and executive.
“Nice try.
I’m still voting.”
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ElT3lLoXYAAj6yn?format=jpg&name=900×900
Reason #8 – You get to be smug about not voting and thus being better than other people, like not even owning a TV or a microwave.
You just know those “I don’t own a TV” bitches are watching My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding on their iPhones.
I have a large 4k wall mounted monitor that could display TV signals, but there aren’t any that go to it. I’ve never seen My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, but I did watch a gypsy wedding on Suburra.
The bride was not remotely fat. But she might have been underage.
Many good reasons. I often wonder what would happen if there was a “StopTheVote” campaign, wherein you tried to convince everyone to just not vote. If nobody voted what would they do?
Of course that’s not a stable strategy because the fewer the people who vote, the more valuable your vote is.
If nobody voted what would they do?
The candidates, their families, and staff would vote no matter what. The election would still be held. There would still be a winner.
Yeah, but if you had an election with only 100K votes cast… Would that be tenable?
It would be legal. The winner would take office.
Somebody (Churchill?) said something like “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” There’s plenty of utterly deplorable governments that qualify as democracies. But for the real psycho shit, you go to no elections at all, or sham elections (neither of which counts, in my book).
So, if no voting, then no elections, then what is the alternative? I don’t see any going back to the days of a monarchy mostly concerned with preserving its position, and thus uninclined to go authoritarian/totalitarian. That cat is out of the bottle.
I have no beef with people who don’t vote – you do you, I say.
Privately owned countries you voluntarily choose to join based on their static system of laws.
I’m guessing all children born in these privately owned countries need to make a choice upon reaching adulthood whether to leave or provide active consent to the static system of laws. Although, then you fall into the argument about whether the consent was genuine or coerced.
Die Kinder brauchen ein Rumspringa.
RUMSPRINGA!
http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/attachments/image-jpg.1287/
In my fantasy land immigration to another country would be as easy as moving to another state. When you hit age of majority, of you don’t like the country of Florida move to whichever country’s laws you like.
But what if you don’t like/consent to the laws of the country you grow up, but still choose to remain there because your birth country still remains preferable, despite its downsides, to all other countries?
That’s the same issue we have now. Some citizens in the United States do not consent to the laws but do no want to participate in the designated method for changing them nor move to a different country.
I’m in agreement with RC that you do you (to anyone in that camp), but I don’t see how a private country presents an alternative to the above.
RUMSPRINGA!
Nice!
Aside from Switzerland (I keed, I keed) – what examples of such countries can you name?
Ein Katzenkolben kommt hoch
apropos of nothing Google does not seem to offer English to Romansh
static system of laws
I think that’s already been tried, “Laws of the Medes and the Persians, which cannot be changed” according to an old book. Didn’t last.
A better campaign than “StopTheVote” would be “None of the Above”. That seriously needs to be an option, with real teeth.
Stossel recently had an article up on TOS with the gist that the worthwhile and important things in life (“Love, friendship, family, raising children, building businesses, worship, charity work”) lie outside politics. Generally, I agree with the sentiment completely. The problem is that one party (not Libertarian or Republican) believes that politics should subsume those things. It wasn’t always the case (hell, my first wife, God rest her soul, was a dyed-in-the-wool liberal). But, it is the world we live in today. That fact is pretty much the major reason I’m inclined to vote.
I don’t look down on people who do or don’t vote. Just as voting doesn’t make you free, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t rational to at least try to influence the outcome of the election for your freedom.
This. “Outside politics” is a nice sentiment, and I think they should be. But that’s not where we are.
You may not be interested in the culture war, but the culture war is interested in you.
Sort of. Outside politics is a pretty normal state of affairs for everyone not part of the modern progressive movement. Normal, healthy, people don’t fight, or at least start, culture wars. There’s just a political movement that has captured a large part of the public that is neither normal nor healthy.
Most normies pretend the culture war isn’t happening because (as you said), you shouldn’t start one.
But that’s like conflating self-defense with aggression. And just as wrong.
I have many people I like personally who’s politics make me want to spill their blood.
I hope, fervently, that it doesn’t come down to that.
Well of course. “Fighting the culture war” mostly (at the moment) means resisting the intrusion and hostility of the state into the private spheres. And refusing to go along with pop/political culture. And being very well-armed. And making sure your kids know that the state is their enemy, and that its whole plan for everything it does is to rob them. And that most of their friends believe lies. Etc.
Most normies don’t know a culture war is happening because most normies don’t really pay all that much attention. They hear the ads and the media telling them that going along with the woke bullshit is just being kind and respectful and, at this point, it doesn’t do much to hinder their lives. So they just assume it’s being kind and respectful.
Oh they know. They just wish it weren’t, and (being normal) are confusing their wishes with reality.
To analogize via literature (and unfortunate movies): They’re the not-quite-so-hosed-anymore Theoden sitting on his throne in flyover country insisting that he won’t risk open war with Mordor, despite all the signs that are already happening around him.
“Most normies”
That includes democrat voters. I know three of them I work with, and they know little or nothing about politics or political. issues, or much care. I know more than 3, but I’ll just use those three as an example.
They simply vote democrat.
One because grrrrrlll power and she loves to signal. But she doesn’t believe any of the woke bullshit, is not PC at all, and her actual views fit more with libertarian or conservative.
One, she’s a SanFran hippy from the 60s. Nicest person you would ever meet. She still believes the democrats are the same as they were when some of them, like her, were actual liberals, and she watches MSNBC all the time, so she believes all the bad orange man stuff.
One, he’s a product of being in academia for 30 years. Nothing can fix that, but he doesn’t really believe all the wok shit either, he just believes it will never affect him personally and he also loves the signaling.
The actual far left wokester true believers are not more than 15% of the population. That is probably stretching it.
As with any movement, a minority are militant, and a vast majority nod sympathetically while doing those little things that aid and abet the militants.
Basically, they believe this is the USA, a country with the right to be a first world county with first world problems, forever, and no matter what they do, that cannot change.
Most people are very ignorant of history and do not consider it an important or even relevant topic.
one party (not Libertarian or Republican) believes that politics should subsume those things
Indeed, although there are times I’m not so sure about the Repubs.
So, how do I oppose this? Given my employment position, going to the public square is not an option. I am unwilling to engage in illegal activities that would damage this party. That leaves very little other than voting.
needs a prefix
“So far” work for you?
I’ve actually had a lot of success ignoring politics in my adult life. Rarely did any of their nonsense affect me in severe or disturbing ways (ACA fucked up my insurance premiums and there’s a million tiny irritants, but whatever I’ll live). Then 2020 happened and they finally scratched their itch and made most of the things I enjoy doing illegal, and permanently strapped a mask to face for good measure.
Not real fond of that sort of thing…
Thinking back over the past 12 years, the things that have personally impacted me have been
1)cash for clunkers raising the used car prices
2) o-care fucked my family to the tune of thousands of dollars when we were at our most financially strapped
3) heavy handed government action has forced me into a risky market-heavy allocation of retirement assets, has caused real estate prices to go crazy (to both my benefit and detriment) , and has made college ridiculously expensive
4) Trump’s tax cuts put hundreds of dollars per month in my pocket
5) this woke stuff has infiltrated nearly every aspect of my professional life
6) covid
7) VA’s gun grabbing expedited our exodus to TX
Some of those are in the “irritants” category, but many have cost us lots of money and/or quality of life.
I can still ignore the politics of the day to day news cycle. “Such and so said this and that! Outrage ensued!” It’s easy to ignore. I don’t watch much TV, I don’t do social media, and I don’t click Twitter links very often. I’m much more engrossed in the macro issues these days. They impact me more acutely than ever before.
^ I don’t understand who’s daily life is not impacted in a major way by politics unless if you live out in the woods as a hermit needing nothing. The recent examples of the wallet hit due to the ACA, wallet fill due to tax cuts, and 2nd A decimation are spot on.
Other less recent examples that hit me hard are the inability to buy any drug I want OTC, inflated school costs due to the easy availability of federal student loans, and the police that have set up checkpoints on a fairly regular basis to terrorize my neighbors.
I think it’s the tradeoff: focusing on politics all the time makes me unhappier and in turn makes my life worse. I know the effects are different on different people, but I’m speaking purely from my own standpoint: the ACA cost me roughly $1,500 a year. Pisses me off, but whether I ignore politics or not, it’s unlikely there was anything I could do about it, and $1,500 is not crippling.
But when I can’t go to concert, sporting events, bars or the gym? When another country similar to ours bans casual sex? When I can’t go anywhere without a mask on my face? That’s an amount of disruption to my life that goes well beyond anything I’ve dealt with as an adult.
I got you. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but ACA mandates cost me closer to $1,500 a month just in increased costs. I remember the total annual cost for my family plan being around $26k/year after the new mandates were included. It crippled my budget when i was in between jobs and my wife’s employer barely subsidized the cost.
I might be mixing up my timeline here… this was some time ago. When ACA initially hit, I think it ate 1/4 of our household income after my wife employer subsidized what they could. Then my wife joined a startup practice and it took some time to get benefits or a steady paycheck. I was working as a “long-term full-time payroll temp” at the time and wasn’t eligible for a subsidy because the temp agency offered a compliant plan.
I calculated the minimum compliant plan would cost me literally half my after-tax paycheck. I told my real employer (not the payroll temp agency) they could either hire me on and give me benefits or I quit. They hired me and their subsidy helped a lot, although insurance still remained our biggest expense (double the amount of our mortgage payment) until very recently.
thought provoking. I hover in the 6-8 area most elections.
I hope my article (that I still need to finish) makes for a worthy counterpoint
obligatory geroge carlin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxsQ7jJJcEA
tsk tsk Someone didn’t click all the links
well there’s 50 of em
Voting adjacent.
QI… Will some court rid us of this meddlesome travesty of ‘law’?
Considering the courts made it up whole clothe, probably not. The legislature could attempt to remedy it, but the chances of them doing so in a way that is actually effective and not simply ignored by the courts with zero consequence are effectively zero.
Yes, I’ve thought about the legislative side of things. Maybe some state governments could do something, but the problem i have with it is that our Judiciary is thoroughly activist, and act as legislators decreeing parts of law void at their own whim. QI itself was made up by the courts just so they could get around section 1984 in the first place.
As a Pennsylvanian, I’ve come to the conclusion that as long as the PA Supreme Court is as brazenly partisan and unconstrained in their activism, no other branch of the government is in any way useful. The assembly has been rendered a gaggle of preening eunuchs and the only reason the governor has any authority is that he has the correct letter after his name.
Pretty much. It would fail, but it would be interesting if someone from PA brought a suit in Federal Court citing that they have usurped the Constitutionally guaranteed republican form of government.
John Roberts says “Hi!”
He’s particularly squishy about over-ruling a state SC. They did uphold the federal court challenge. Choose your venue (and rationale) wisely.
I do wonder when people will finally look at the activist courts and say “you have made your decision, now see if you can enforce it”. They only have the power that is ceded to them.
I haven’t voted in a decade.
I’m voting this year and I’m voting for Trump. And it is purely a “Fuck you!” so if anyone asks I can say I did. Nothing more, nothing less.
And it is purely a “Fuck you!”
My sentiment when I voted for him in 2016. He is still the “fuck you” candidate.
The links are amusing.
I’m starting to go through them. “1999” is a good song.
On the Who song. Excellent selection of links.
I detest “get out the vote!” Campaigns because they encourage participation by all, even if you never read the news or think about politics.
The fact that voter turnout campaigns are pushed mainly by democrat candidates shows that they know which party benefits from Effects of feel-good activism of voting.
If what was keeping you apathetic at home was the lack of a snappy advertisement for voting, I’d really rather have you not vote, thanks.
it’s really bad this year. Big corporations think that it’s their job to get out the (left leaning apathetic) vote this year. Definitely has nothing to do with being partisan, nosiree
It’s a right, not a duty. I thought the duty was to be an educated voter. I hope all this predated Rock the Vote in ’92.
This is one of my favourite South Park clips ever
Oh man, how did I miss that one?!?
“I detest “get out the vote!” Campaigns…”
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ElSRyoGX0AsWkR_?format=jpg&name=large
LOL.
Nice.
Ballot initiatives. Prop this and Prop that and voting yes when you want something NOT to happen, voting no when you want something TO happen. It’s all very confusing and I feel like a dunce.
Fortunately, SP enacted my labor for me on the AZ ballot props.
My poor mother thinks I understand this shit and she texts me: Prop 3, no or yes?
Whatever, Mom, lemme research it.
Now I haz confuze.
I only vote for amendments, bonds, and other ballot initiatives. Since Virginia went from purple to blue, IDGAF about candidates. My vote doesn’t count. But for the amendments in particular, sometimes Dems vote the right way (like a few elections ago when we had an amendment that made it much harder for the govt to use eminent domain, which the Dem Party opposed, but which was overwhelmingly passed)
Well, f**k off, slaver. I’ll determine what duties I have.
Sure, and Trump is your amplified middle finger to the establishment.
Duties aren’t necessarily something someone can coercively hold you to. That doesn’t mean there are no duties in a society. This is one of those occasions where libertarian cynicism does not play well with an audience that might otherwise be receptive. It comes off as childish churlishness – and I say that as a cynic that takes no shit from anyone.
The Founders laid down the need for at least a segment of the populace to be engaged in the political process. If you can’t be that, then you are proving how wrong they were. If I going to be cynical, it is that the expansion of the franchise, and the subsequent dilution to where any idiot can vote is the problem – not that voting is, in and of itself, wrong and useless.
Vigilance is a duty of everyman who would protect their liberty. I agree, just because i don’t think i could coercively hold you to it (as i have duty to be peaceful), i still think there are moral duties. A man has a duty to be faithful to his wife (and vice-versa) and a duty to not abandon his children, i can think of many duties that i believe in but those are the first i can think of.
Yeah, you’re born with duties.
Ain’t saying voting is one of them.
And sometimes you MAY get to a point in your life where you’ve discharged them all. Or you may not.
The results of an election that covers my domicile, will have a direct impact on my quality of life, one way or the other. Given that, if I have the chance to budge the needle in my direction, even the tiniest bit, I’m gonna take it. Even if it is futile in the long run.
Yup.
I’m voting. Trump lost NH by margin of fraud in 2016, so I’ll kick a vote his way to try and beat that margin. That, and Harris must lose.
I’m also voting for NHLA and Reopen NH endorsed candidates.
I’ll throw a vote to the LP candidate for governor, despite the LPNH being a joke, in an attempt to help the LP get ballot access.
Something I should add: I might vote Republican for Federal office. The NH Firearms Coalition sends out surveys to candidates, and sends them certified only to candidates for Federal and select state offices. So, for those offices the NH Firearms Coalition knows the candidates received the surveys. For US Senate, the LP candidate received the survey and never returned it, so automatic F rating. The LP US House candidate for the district I live in received the survey, filled it out, returned it, and received an F rating.
The LP candidates for NH Governor and the other US House district both returned the survey. Both received an A- based on their survey answers.
That’s a right kick in the nuts, that’s what that is. If you can’t depend upon the LP to be a uncompromising defender of , at the very least, enumerated rights, what good are they?
I agree, pistoffnick.
I have never voted, but seriously considered it this time. As horrible as Biden/Harris are , I can’t bring myself to vote for someone who made our deficit bigger.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ElYmaOMXIAEY9Lf?format=jpg&name=900×900
Real nutpunch there.
I vote because I can. Whether or not my voice makes a difference, I don’t know and ultimately, I don’t care.
I’m by nature nationalistic, e.g., I’m easily moved by displays of patriotism (hello, 4th of July parades, the national anthem [is it dusty in here?], and American flags everywhere), but lately I’ve come to realize that it is not patriotism for what the USA is, but the IDEA of the USA actually being worthy of the 4th of July parades, crying while singing the national anthems, and flying the flag everywhere.
It is not. And I deeply resent the left for hating the IDEA of it so much that they have to destroy what’s left of what IS.
Yep. I don’t celebrate for patriotism, I celebrate the insane ideas in thr DoI and USC
Yep. I pledge allegiance to the republic. Gone, but not forgotten.
Thank you for putting it in words, Mojo.
I too am a patriot and love parades, anthem, flags, and other symbols of the American experiment. Yes I’m a cynic about politics, and yes I know that America often comes up short of its lofty goals.
But we should keep those original goals and it’s ok to admire the admirable parts of history while not endorsing the less admirable bits.
I am hopelessly romantic and treacly and it’s time I came out to you all. My patriotism for the symbols of the IDEA is just part and parcel of it.
Nostalgia for something that never was.
My stance on politics is now thus:
Go vote against statism and statists at every opportunity and then go live your life politics free, except shitposing against statism.
The most fundamental shift in my political thinking was from traditional Dem vs GOP or “liberal” vs “conservative”, and instead to see the spectrum as Statist vs Individual Freedom.
And with that, I kissed the official GOP goodbye and kicked it in the ass on the way out the door.
Wife and I are both now registered ‘unaffiliated’, which is what MD calls independent.
I was registered LP, but then MD threw us out and now have only Green and 2 parties no one has eve heard of as minor parties. One of them is Bread and Roses, lol, which identify as a ‘socialist’ party. So it’s unaffiliated, GOP, or your choice of 4 commie parties.
I wasn’t a member of the LP anyway. I threw my card in the garbage after the GayJay Weld abomination.
The most fundamental shift in my political thinking was from traditional Dem vs GOP or “liberal” vs “conservative”, and instead to see the spectrum as Statist vs Individual Freedom.
Apropos from Heinlein:
The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism.
I’m disappointed that MadDog isn’t on the ballot. I mean, how many years have I been hearing “MadDog 2020”?
*sensible chuckle*
As punishment, I think UCS needs to taste all the flavors of MD 2020.
It can all be mixed into one glass, it may make it better.
Please tell me they made a ghost-pepper version.
They do not, that doesn’t really appeal to the teenage female drinking target that I think is their market.
Write in James Mattis!
Or Deez Nuts
Exact same effect.
I can say this much, the commies will vote and many times vote early and often. And when they’ve voted in all the evil commie fucks they want, without opposition, they will proceed to make your life a living hell.
And yet there must be hours and hours of well made history documentaries about how Hitler came to power, and they include steps that are unfolding all around us. Including gun “buy back”.
But show that to lefties and they will see an ominous warning against OrangeManDictatorship.
Voting is the only way I can contribute to defeating the Demomarxist machine.
So I will vote because Democrats are insane authoritarians that cannot be allowed to have power.
I will say, yesterday i went for my run around the local park, and generally felt good. Not thinking about politics and seeing my neighbors out there and being genial just made me feel how good it is to live in a place where people aren’t at each others throats. People who spend all their time focused on politics generally lead very sad and unhappy lives, and are missing out on the general goodness that there is to be enjoyed in humanity.
^^
The most liberating thing I’ve felt recently was walking into a church sans mask and enjoying worship that was (mostly) back to normal.
Now, if ammo prices can come back down out of the stratosphere, I can start shooting regularly again… another liberating thing.
From your lips to Enkidu’s ears.
And ya know, this ties back in to voting somewhat. I obviously love shooting. Being able to go out to the range and compete in matches, without having to be all surreptitious about it, is amazingly good for my mental health.
But if a certain party manages to coat-tail in a majority, all of that goes away. Politics can really hurt people, and if swallowing hard and casting a ballot might prevent that, then guess what…
I think the lack of being able to see each other’s smiles/frowns/facial expressions has been the biggest aspect of why people are so grumpy with each other. Cut somebody off in the aisle at the grocery store? You can’t see a pained grimace that silently says, “Sorry, didn’t mean to do that.”
I’m finding myself getting really charged up lately when someone (almost always entirely alone and still wearing a mask I might add) crosses the street just to avoid walking past me on the sidewalk. Even more so than usual.
What pisses me off is the runners/walkers who walk in the street where I’m driving to distance themselves from someone on the sidewalk. That’s a legit driving hazard and they don’t care.
well it makes sense. Getting hit by a car isn’t as deadly as catching Covid.
Cause of death: COVID.
(Mo: not Chas. James evidently. mid-C American male designer. I will have to get back to you as my Encyclopedia of Fashion (Abrams, ed. O’Hara) is stuck together from water damage.)
Oh, and Nelly Don was sort of a local (to you) Claire McCardell? How had I never heard of her before the other day?
You don’t want to drive in my neighborhood. (((they))), mostly young couples with 2 baby strollers the size of school buses, walk right down the middle of the street. No one on the sidewalks except we Goyim.
“Shiksa On the Sidewalk” sounds like a hit song to me 😉
Eh, I cross the street in case the other person has a problem.
I mean, I obviously understand this course of action. But at this point honestly it would feel like I was also validating their assumed fears (which may not even exist/be present) if I did that every time.
Fair enough.
For me, I spent a bunch of my young adult life being a dick. So I tend to overcompensate the other way these days.
Now, is some of the “fault” for my anger my own for making assumptions about their reasons for avoiding me? Possibly/probably so. 😉
@Nephilium, if you remember our discussion of Job, and the Heinlein book you offered to gift me, I remembered (but did not have the chance to say) that I did begin reading that book. It was cringe (as in, I couldn’t stand it that all these things were happening to him and I saw it all coming) and I can’t deal with cringe at the moment. Hits too close to home. I’m bingeing Hallmark stuff, for cryin’ out loud.
I will read it when I am less beleaguered.
No worries at all. I understand, I’ve gotten tired of the light stuff and have been going to darker things (I’m almost done with a rewatch of the Magicians).
Nice article, Pistoff Nick. A lot to think about here.
For Stage 5:
5. You return to the two party fold – realizing that the only way change can be invoked will be by working within that existing system. In this stage you’ve actually convinced yourself that there is only one party that stands a chance of being converted to good.
I think this is an incredibly major blind spot for libertarians. Rigid adherence to perfectionist ideal prevents any sort of compromise towards actual progress. Take our opposites… the progressives/Marxists. They have successfully infiltrated and changed the course of the Democrat party. It’s a great example of working within the existing system and converting one of the parties to “good” (“good” in the eyes of the Marxist).
Libertarians have a stereotype that is not all wrong:
“Well, ackshually…”
and
“Technically right is the best kind of right.”
This stems from just missing the target as to human nature and social cues, i.e., when I say “X”, normies know what I’m saying and non-normies may or may not get it, but will quibble until it’s all meaningless and everybody’s pissed off.
Well, ackshually, technically right *IS* the best kind of right…
/Goes and stands in corner
I think there’s a good deal of this (and I’m not innocent of it, hardly) but I also think that it is only half (at most) of the problem. Convincing people that free shit is ultimately bad for them and for the country at large is rarely about settling on terminology or semantics. It is appealing; it feels good, it sells well. Both doing it and not doing it is easy to explain, the discussion requires no idiosyncratic harumphing, etc. But the average person will fall on the side of “why not?” rather than “why?” regardless of how you talk about it.
This.
I used to participate in an IndyCar forum, and the questions about catering popularity were posed as product v. promotion. Was the product unpopular, or was the lack of promotion hiding this gem from public view?
Same issue with libertarianism. I come down on the product side. Libertarianism is a hugely unpopular set of principles when measured by revealed preferences.
Pretty much, yeah. It was a very depressing conclusion to draw, but one that is glaringly obvious – most people truly do desire to be ruled.
Humans are lazy and I don’t mean that as an insult. It was a good strategy when we were scraping for every calorie to survive. However it makes us inclined to dump our problems on someone else to deal with. Think of all the people that wish that they had their dog’s life or cat’s or were children again or back in HS.
most people truly do desire to be
ruledsafeI think it’s rooted in fear for most people. They want the boogeyman to go away. The Trump ad targeting blacks with Biden stumping for his anti-crime bill is an obvious example. “I don’t want them in my neighborhood. near my family. near my children. They should be removed from society.”
Most people operate on the level of “scary thing bad. make scary thing go away.” If that involves a bunch of good or neutral things being taken away, so be it. At least they promise to make the scary thing disappear.
No matter how competant you are there is simply no way that you can directly control even a large minority of the things that a modern life relies on. You can’t, for example, provide your own gasoline, build or repair a car from raw materials,or build a cell phone and make it connect to a network. Even if you have the knowledge to do these things, you simply would never have the time. This means you must rely on other people for almost everything. You have two choices. You can rely on persuasion and exchange, counting on their self interest to keep enough of them working properly to allow you to live as you choose. Or, you can count on a ‘leader’ to make them. The problem with option one is that you have no control and those people may decide to do things you disapprove of, instead of providing you with free range tofu powered cell service they may divert needed resources into extended car warranty telemarketing schemes. Thus option 2 appeals. Unfortunately, in option 2 you get what the leader wants, and you get it good and hard.
cratering*
At the local level, my one vote actually might make a difference — and being able to vote against the “we’ll keep putting it on the ballot until you approve it” school bond increase is enough for me. Direct financial impact and all.
^^^ we have a school bond, i’m sure will pass, but they keep saying “Your tax won’t go up because we promise that we are going to offset this by paying off our other bonds”.
How bout you pay off those other bonds first.
Enthusiasm.
Next Tuesday we’ll find out if we should believe the polls or our lying eyes.
No we won’t. Unless Biden wins in a landslide.
Otherwise, we’ll be waiting for weeks to find out the results. Dems have already indicated that they will litigate furiously if they do not win. They have also indicated an intention to steal the election after the fact with various ballot-stuffing schemes. North Carolina will have the right to count ballots for a week and a half after the election. (but at least they require a postmark)
And remember, they said that even if Trump appears to have a landslide victory on election night, they will not be conceding… and when all the mail-in ballots and litigation is complete, it definitely will be a Biden landslide.
I mean if Trump is up 100,000 votes on the morning after in both PA and FL…..that’s a lot of votes to manufacture.
People are a little bit woke now. If Biden is trailing by 100k in both those states, and each state turns up 110k that break 10:1 for Biden…..people will absolutely smell a rat.
To properly fake via mail in, you need to have a somewhat plausible split. If Trump is only up 20k, you can manufacture 42k ballots that break 27k for Biden and people will accept it.
I don’t really see a path for Biden that doesn’t include both PA and FL. FL looks to be breaking Trump, and I (foolishly perhaps) still believe that people in PA aren’t dumb enough to vote for fracking ban Biden.
The guys on the radio here in South Florida were talking about that rally at Raymond James Stadium this morning. In a stroke of genius, it is directly adjacent to an early polling place. So they can send a bunch of supporters directly over to go cast their ballots.
I just voted!
For the first time in my entire life, I voted for a Republican for president.
I was reluctant to vote early, because here in Florida they can begin counting the votes now…. which means that the Democrats will know exactly how many ballots they need to harvest in order to squeak out a win. But I didn’t want to get caught up in something election day and miss the voting this time – I have to cancel out the wife’s anti-Trump vote.
Plus, we have some whoppers on the ballot initiatives. $15 minimum wage. State wide! That would crush a huge chunk of the state. But the biggie is the push to make a ballot initiative something that has to win twice to go into effect. I wasn’t too sure about the language, but it sounded like you have to win consecutive elections for it to take effect. Seems like the party apparatchiks want to keep control.
I was an angry voter. I went straight ticket on the few races that republicans are contesting here in Broward. And I voted no on every “shall this judge be retained?”. Screw them. I don’t even know who they are or what their judicial philosophy is.. but I’m in a mood, so you get a “no” vote. I voted no on everything except the extension of the homestead transfer to 3 years – violating my own rule of always voting no on ballot initiatives unless you fully understand all the implications. I own a house. So screw it…. Give me 1 more year to transfer.
As an aside… I was the singular white face in the crowd at the polling place. Everyone was extremely nice. Some were even clean and articulate and good looking. They had one young guy volunteering… sporting short dreadlocks, an 80’s rapper motif with a very expensive looking multicolored jersey-shirt with raised lettering sewn on, multiple gold chains and medallions, and straight-from-the-80’s kicks. I almost asked him for a picture… his look was fantastic. He could have come to Purdy’s on Franklin Street with us in `1984 and fit right in. Dude kinda looked like a tall, athletic version of Theo from the Cosby show in that getup.
There were at least a half dozen Biden tents with workers surrounding the polling place. There were zero Trump anythings.
Thus concludeth my report.
In case it isn’t clear from my history, team D may have lost any chance of ever getting a vote from me with this election. I don’t care how wonderful your candidate is, or how much I agree with some of her policies, after this last go-around, you guys are never getting your hands on any power again if I can help it. Republicans are a “mostly no” for me, but democrats are now in the “Holy crap, what could possibly make you support that?” bucket.
^^ this.
I was never going to vote Democrat because of abortion and economics, but I can’t say that I saw them as a clear and present danger in 2016 or before. Now? Im looking over the edge of the grand canyon, and they’re the idiot telling me they don’t see any hole in the ground while flooring it toward the edge of the cliff. The only two ways I can imagine people voting D this year are through gross ignorance or through moral turpitude. I cant understand anybody who is informed voting D in good faith.
It is getting hard to ignore them calling a perfectly constitutional appointment to the Supreme Court “illegitimate”, constantly repeating lies about the President’s response to Charlottesville, blaming the President for COVID deaths, etc. They keep sowing the wind, but we’ll all reap the whirlwind. They are somehow managing to overcome my overwhelming dissatisfaction with the Republicans in general and Trump in particular to such a degree that I might cast a vote anyway.
Sound like we voted similarly. I voted for one democrat, the sheriff because he did a good job with the protest. I skipped all the soil & water people, voted against all the judges, no on min wage, no on having to win twice and yes on adding a year to transfer your homestead exemption.
It is almost as if libertarians have an ideology or something
I abstained from voting during the previous Most Important Election of our Lifetime® and the two before it, but I’m not so sure I’ll be sitting this one out. I live in one of the bluest regions, and there are quite a few local elected fuckwits that have used the year of COVID as a stage to put their utter incompetence on display and need to be handed their walking papers, pronto. May as well use the opportunity to flip the bird to some of the national fuckwits as well.
‘The Joe Rogan Experience,’ a podcast that has sparked outrage, is a huge hit for Spotify
First line: Spotify (SPOT) is reaping the financial rewards of betting on podcasts. But the audio streaming platform is also paying the price for the spread of misinformation.
Fuck you CNN.
All that really matters is the + sign on the balance sheet.
Yeah, this is just jealousy. Rogan might be popular or not in 10 years time but it’s unlikely CNN will stumble into such success.
What price is CNN paying for being an organ of propaganda?
Have you seen their ratings? CNN, too, is “paying the price for the spread of misinformation”.
Wonder what would happen if they looked inward.
Related…these number can’t be right?
Rasmusseen Poll 31% Black Voting for Trump
And polls are not a real indicator I know. Just seems…high
No way that’s right. I have little doubt he’ll do better than the last several Rep presidents but 31%? Highly doubtful.
If he does it’ll be over very early on election night.
And some “safe” Dem states will swing to Trump in a big way. That would make for some hilarious tears.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/10/28/watch-democrat-vice-president-of-flint-michigan-city-council-endorses-trump/
People like this guy will bring people with him.
Vintage.
I agree but imagine the thrashing and ouright racism/bigotry from the Left if exit polls reflect that…
If that were true, it would be a scathing indictment of the dishonesty of TMITE and a shining example of how they still have power to drive the narrative in this country.
1/3 of blacks voting Trump instead of the VP they voted for with 90+% of the vote two elections ago? In a remotely healthy media environment, that would be a leading segment for weeks.
Kardasian/Kanye/Cube and briefly soon to be 20 Cent have paved the path on the cultural war for them to see at least a different view than what TMITE is presenting.
I totally believe it’s 31%, or even higher. Have been saying it all along. Maybe it’s just my small Southern town population, and other regions don’t feel the same. But it’s way bigger than people think.
Well, down there in the South where there is still slavery, y’all just force your negros to vote republican. So that doesn’t count.
I’m with you. Trump got 8% of the black vote in 2016. I could see him getting to 15 or _maybe_ 20%, but we’ll see.
I don’t believe 31%…but even 20% will have Biden soiling his Depends very early on Election Day.
Biden will have no idea what is happening on election night, regardless of how the vote counts go.
Sure, that’s correct, and Biden is up by 17 points. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that math is all sorts of fucked up.
I can see Trump getting 17-18% of Blacks. I think the bigger deal is the level of Latino support he is going to get.
And as for the poll numbers, I’d wager that Trump is up around +7 in the swing states right now.
In a normal year I’d absolutely call bullshit on that, but this is not a normal year by any stretch of the imagination.
I have it on high authority the black vote is intentionally suppressed by Trump and his minions in the GOP, therefore an increase in turnout for Trump should be negligible.
Well, blacks are incapable of getting ID and even if they could, the red hat thugs at all the polling places will not let them vote. The Proud Boys alone have shut the polls down nationally. They are our biggest threat these days, even more than global warming, especially since they cause global warming.
Oh, a big break for Trump from blacks will so complicate the narrative. I really, really want to see them twist that. The racism will be off the scale – you dumb coons can’t leave us – we own you.
If blacks vote 30% GOP, that only proves racism. They will have no problem at all coming up with that truth.
Great. We need them to espouse the most impossible to believe things. That kind of stupidity has a limited appeal – so the more of it, the better.
The Brits are heading into more super-strict never-ending covid lockdowns. But… nobody seems to be able to find all the sick people, or even people being tested. It’s a scam and both British political parties are in on it. Here in the U.S. only half the Republicans support the scam.
Ohhh, where are all the poorly people? ?
Oh, and re RP / step 3: I had nothing to do with my present avatar, it just appeared in my alley for a week or so this month. Seems to be originally from 12, not 08 or 88.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077975/mediaviewer/rm2164542976
“Niedermeyer? DEAD!”
In 2008, someone along one of the roads in PA I’d drive on to get back to NH from visiting my relatives posted a RON PAUL 2008 sign in his/her front yard.
The sign stood until about two or three years ago.
There is a defunct gas station outside of Yermo California alongvthe 15 that still has the Ron Paul Revolution sign painted on it and looks like it is maintained and not weathered.
Rt. 113 ?
663. Upper Hanover Township.
My bad. Yeah. 663, i knew it ended in a 3. I blame the pandemic.
Would see it on the way to the outlets.
I was saddened when the sign came down. There goes the libertarian moment.
https://whyy.org/episodes/philly-could-ban-using-tear-gas-rubber-bullets-on-protesters/
Philly is so hardcore they throw rats at you.
That will pretty much guarantee a massacre at some point.
Not sure if anyone else has observed this, but it seems the biggest trend now in left wing trolling is the amount of cut and paste talking points that I see, something like this:
75% of the country has already voted! And Biden is way ahead! Even if everyone voted for Trump from this point on, it’s a Biden landslide! Don’t bother, you’ll just be spreading the virus more!
Pathetic, really.
Over at DU, they are going hysterical that Trump voters are going to go to polling places to vote and spread the commie cooties. We’re all doomed.
Okay Doomer has become my response now.
NV is reporting dem party has more mailin ballots in but repubs lead in early voting.
The fact we even know that puts elections in question.
The one thing that worries me is these drop boxes. If that’s not an invitation for voter fraud, I don’t know what is.
I’m with you on that one.
Allowing election officials to take interim totals all the way through the election, and allowing ballots to come in after the election without any sort of validation, how could you possibly trust that?
For those who have not followed this issue, the point of knowing these numbers is so that you know exactly how many votes you need to cook up. It is a huge advantage if you know that you need to come up with 23,000 votes. Then you can just target your vote gathering teams and in a couple of days you have 25,000 votes to swing the election.
Not even with your ballot.
This cunte.
Cuomo said, “I’m holding you-know-who responsible for every death in this country. First, Whoopi, because he lied about it. He lied about it from day one. They had that memo in January from a person named Peter Navarro saying millions are going to die. They lied about it, and they knew that millions were going to get infected and that hundreds of thousands were going to die. That’s the first reason. The Old Book says, don’t lie, right?”
Moar.
“If you look at how many people died in New York nursing homes, New York is number 46 out of 50 states in the percentage of deaths in nursing homes. The way the law works is no nursing home in New York can accept a patient if they don’t believe they can care for that patient adequately, and if they can do it within the safety of their facility.”
He added, “So the conspiracy they’re trying to spread just has no factual basis. But yes, people in nursing homes died, and they’re playing politics with the issue, which I think is especially cruel because people who lost loved ones in a nursing home, they’re dealing with it, and now they also have to deal with the confusion or the pain of maybe government did this.”
But Millions didn’t die. So it was Peter Navarro who lied. And you Cuomo.
It is amazing how Cuomo’s actions are not political, but those of anyone who disagrees with him are.
you’ve noticed that too? I thought it was just me.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ElDD2DXWkAAD-sp?format=jpg&name=900×900
*snicker*
This explains everything you need to know about voting: IRRESPONSIBILITY
No single vote matters.
In aggregate, they matter a lot.
Tucker found his papers. UPS “found them”.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ups-says-found-lost-cache-171022779.html
That is very strange. Not “the package”, but its “contents”. If someone intercepted it, they would have kept the contents (possibly put the package back in line to make it hard to tell where and when it was intercepted).
I guess my working assumption is that the package was torn open? opened by someone? Seems likely it was damaged and dumped the contents. If so, it seems unlikely that they recovered all the document, since I doubt they fell out in a neat pile.
Or, it was intercepted and tampered with somehow? Regardless, this breaks the chain of custody and impairs the evidentiary value of the documents.
That would be the goal. I believe the words are “plausible deniability.”
And, assuming they were tampered with, it creates a problem with authenticating both the copies (different than the originals) and the originals (different than the copies). I think that may actually be the smartest play; like the old saying, a man with two watches never knows what time it is.
So, if it was intercepted, somebody from a very short list at Fox tipped off the DemOps, and a DemOp made specific request for that package to get it out of the massive and complex logistics flow at UPS. Shouldn’t be hard to solve this one, if anyone cares to. Or, if it wasn’t the FBI in the first place.
It would be a bunch of brownshirts helping to elect Trump.
*golf ? clap ? *
LOL nice
ahem, that’s BROWNshirts
/woke
“Find and replace” is exactly the same as “finding them” right?
They were replaced with the correct version, comrade.
How funny, nay, delicious, would it be if Tucker had the originals and they didn’t match what was “found” and returned?
Why weren’t they scanned and emailed. Is tucker a Luddite?
I’ve heard they kept a copy, so they should be able to tell if it was tampered with. If you were going to tamper with the documents, rather than just destroy them, wouldn’t you put them back in the package so they can be delivered without suspicion.
I had the same question as Florida Man. Originals have evidentiary value, but a news organization doesn’t care about that.
It’s ridiculous that they had to ship anything and that there was not any copies made first.
I thought Tucker said he had copies?
I’m not sure he said there were no other copies of the docs, only that the shipment of docs went missing.
The referenced Business Insider article is from October 14th and raises the issues of the legitimacy of the emails and the chain of custody, which were relevant questions prior to them being answered over the last two weeks.
I truly despise the media.
“I object to recent revelations!”
Why?
“It’s devastating to my narrative!”
+1 The Pen is Blue
Nick, I took the 8 Step withdrawal but I started in 1980 after I voted for Reagan, somehow believing he was telling the truth. Fool me once…
Now, like Dick Cheney, I have better things to do, besides voting. Usually elections are during deer hunting season, I’m a no compromise guy. Next week I’ll wake up on Wednesday, with the same prez everyone else has, will my life be better? No. Will it be worse? Yep. This year, though, deer season is a few days after the election.
A vote from me would be a conflict of interest, I don’t feel I have a right to tell another person what to do, how do I know my candidate would be better? If anyone thinks my judgement should be trusted let me remind you that I am a divorced old guy, I learned a little before the second time, or maybe not.
Higher taxes/less freedom, always. It’s been the one constant in my political memory, going back to Ike, 1952.
Unfortunately, freedom isn’t fashionable anymore.
Hey KK, a few notes regarding the KGL
– It was an administrative organisation, not a tactical one – KGL cavalry regiments, infantry battalions and artillery batteries were asssigned to British brigades as necessary. (And senior KGL officers commanded British brigades and even divisions.) The situation at Waterloo was somewhat different, because the Legion was being integrated into the revived Hanoverian Army when Napoleon returned.
– organisations and uniforms were essentially British. There were significant differences, but they were essentially cultural – KGL discipline was much more humane, for example, and its light cavalry was highly prized by Wellington because it fought hard without being brainlessly aggressive.
– I believe that at this time German armies used “feldwebel” for the senior NCO in a company. The duties of top sergeants have been pretty much the same since ancient Sumeria – any of the vets around here can give you chapter and verse on *that* subject.
Thanks!! This is great info!
So military folx – tell me about senior NCOs. What do they do? What are their daily tasks? My interpretation of “feldwebel” has generally been Sergeant Major, but not sure if that’s correct or what it means as far as what someone’s job is.
I think feldwebel is just sergeant.
Now, it’s E-6 or so, but then it was closer to E-8. Armies of that period had many fewer NCOs than you might expect – around 10 privates : 1 corporal/sergeant. So the ranks don’t quite translate (in particular, the higher NCO grades mostly didn’t exist yet.)
My experience is only modern military, but it mostly carries on from tradition.
Senior NCO’s serve as enlisted Advisors to their Officer counterparts. So for example a Platoon will have a Lieutenant who is the Officer and leader for the platoon, but is advised by the Senior NCO (his Platoon Sergeant). The NCO gives the depth of experience that the Officer will lack. Likewise at the Company level, the Captain has his First Sergeant who serves as the senior enlisted advisor. Their duties will vary but the main duty is to ensure that the soldiers acomplish their training and execute the commanders plan. Apart from that the First sergeant is responsible for “Beans and bullets” i.e making sure the soldiers have what they need and are fed. Often he will be the one in charge of executing resupply operations (the executive officer, if a unit has one, generally does the coordination for this).
Thanks!
What would be their responsibility during actual combat? We’re talking light infantry here.
I don’t have experience with infantry, nor that of the olden days, but generally the first sergeant would be responsible to advise the commander on his plans, coordinate defensive perimeters, work on establishing the company trains (resupply), and basically doing whatever it is the commander needs done.
Platoon Sergeants serve as second in command to the Platoon Leader and basically have similar functions as the First Sergeant, but on a smaller scale, and that Platoons don’t operate independently very often, and so they aren’t having to coordinate resupply. Their job would consist of inspecting the troops (make sure weapons are clean, they have equipment needed to complete the task. etc.
To get an idea of the structure of what i’m talking about you will have a Sergeant in charge of “Squads” or “Sections” and they each are in charge of their section, consisting of 8-10 soldiers depending on the type of unit. There are 4 squads in a platoon and 3-4 platoons in a Company. Once you get past the Squad level, a sergeant is no longer in the chain of command, and is why they serve as advisors to the Officers who are in the chain.
Thanks!!
The British equivalent of the period was Colour Sergeant. Perhaps poke around for a soldier’s memoir from the period? Plenty were written, and a Brit serving in the Peninsula would have direct experience of the KGL.
I’d help but the only things I know about period armies and warfare I learned from Total War and The Patriot. ///jk
I know some things about tactics and army composition and weapons but not in the detail others can provide or the particulars of what you are actually seeking.
I have a reasonable expectation that my vote in the HOA counts. I have had an email conversation with the county commissioner for my district (although I won’t vote for him). Above a certain level my vote is meaningless. My state rep, state senator, federal rep and federal senator are going to be won by the Ds regardless if I vote or not. NM’s 5 EC votes will be going to Biden.
That said, I’ll probably throw a vote for OMB just to get his popular vote numbers up and there is some running for a low-level position from the LP so I’ll vote for him for ballot access.
WANTED
First comment nukes it from orbit.
Not surprising. The pictures are of college aged kids. State College borough police really like coming down on college aged kids.
Poor Joe.
Brutal.
Quid-Pro-Joe
The media should be ashamed, but they feel none.
Lol.
I’m gonna take on these rapists Mexicans.*
Some are rapists, and some, I assume, are good people.
*Of course this is not even close to what was said and the sentiment behind it. But Lyin’ Biden also premised his campaign on the lie that Trump praised white supremes and nazis, so I guess he has to stick with the lies.
Damn. I can’t believe Joe stopped and let him say that. Brave dude. Telling the Emperor he has no clothes and calling him out on a lie.
Great job, Nick!
I am voting, but mainly for the close-in scumbags. My vote definitely counts in some areas that have a profound effect on my day-to-day. School board, state house and senate, mayor, city council, etc..
For instance, if the shithead GOP somehow manages to take the house, we finally have a chance to neuter Timmy the tyrant. That chance is worth my time.
But yes, the further you travel from home, the less important it is.
The MN GOP response to winning the state House and Senate was what put me off the GOP finally.
MNGOP ran in 2010 on fiscal responsibility and jobs. Then the second they took power, they tried to ban gay marriage and abortion, something they knew couldn’t pass a referendum, and which about 2 dozen people wanted.
Then The married Senate Majority leader had an affair with a political blogger/ party insider. Note to politicians: if you want to legislate morality, be perfect yourself first.
So thanks to MNGOP wanting more of the usual fighting instead of what voters elected them for, MN is permanently Blue.
Before that, we had a GOP governor (Pawlenty) and US Senator (Coleman) in the 21st century. It will never happen again.
They are complete shitheads, but there are a lot of pissed off people here right now.
We shall see.
You notice how deeply buried the notion of the peaceful riots is these days.
Greenwald’s a good man and the world’s going to hell.
Absolutely. Greenwald is honest, and for that reason alone, there is no room for him in the modern left.
He and I would disagree on a great many things, but there would at least be common ground on the established truth.
Look at the comments on the Twitter thread. It is like a religion…
There is a dedicated faction of Twitter trolls that have hounded Greenwald ever since he dissented on the Russian collusion bullshit.
They are deranged.
Holy shit!
Principles? What the hell is this world coming to?
The “russian disinformation” shtick is frightening. It’s like brainwashing shit the way they just repeat it ad nauseum.
Literally anyone who criticizes the left is a Nazi
Great Journalism because i like being lied to. No wonder we always have shit candidates to vote for.
Speaking of voting: I don’t know if y’all have picked through the annual “How are We Going to Vote?” piece over at TOS (came out a couple of weeks ago), but here it is:
https://reason.com/2020/10/12/how-will-reason-staffers-vote-in-2020/
By the numbers:
Jorgensen: 11
Biden: 5
Trump: 1
Not voting: 6
Well, at least Shika is consistent.
5 for Biden? Hmm, I’d have expected more, that is only sort of bad not downright lefty pretending to be libertarian.
Look, Biden is just an empty suit for far left radicals to push through every commie wet dream. Trump said mean things. You have to side with decency here.
I honestly don’t get some of the TDS there. Overall Trump does not seem to me, as an outsider, any worse than most recent US presidents. Not that better either, as some seem to view him. But it does seem, despite the fact the ladies doth protest to much methinks, that a bunch of reason are so called “left libertarians”. I don’t see how a libertarian would see trump as a more existential threat than biden, who pledges to massive increases in any and all aspects of government. But then again I am but a simple Romanian
Politically speaking, Trump is closer to 1990’s Bill Clinton than any other president.
He even shares Bill’s taste for extramarital affairs, except that Trump’s all seem to be consensual and well-compensated.
Trump is closer to 1990’s Bill Clinton than any other president. – except the massive deficits
Ha! Had Democrats controlled Congress, I can guarantee Billy would have gone hog wild.
Clinton was a political pragmatist, so when he felt the winds shifting, he went with them.
still the debt grew less.
1994 happened. lol how does Clinton get credit for that
Clinton was the most destructive to liberty and the constitution president in my lifetime. No one is even close, not even Obama.
how cum?
Brady Bill, 1994 Crime Bill, assault weapon ban, I could go on and on. And he managed that with a GOP Congress. Dude is a massive piece of shit. Him, Hillary, Biden, Pelosi, Feinstein, Schumer, all the same people, statist scumbags.
What you have done has been seen.
Glenn Greenwald resigned from the intercept because the editors insisted that he remove all criticism of Joe Biden from his articles.
https://mobile.twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1321869908154765312
Read the replies. The left is really scary these days. They actively work at believing any little thing they are told to believe.
People like to smell their own farts /news@11
If the left is OK with censoring one of their own like this just think what they’d do to us.
We already know what they do.
They ban you from all social media.
they come after the banks and payment processors so that nobody can pay you.
They come after anyone who advertises with you.
They come after internet service providers who connect to your servers.
They come after hosting companies that host your websites.
In short, they will use any tool they can to silence their opposition. Whether that opposition is internal or external is irrelevant.
I have not yet seen them target the ISPs, but I definitely wouldn’t put it past them. I also wouldn’t put any faith in Comcast or Verizon (or any other major company) to hold out against them, if they tried.
My guess if the hosting sites would have had balls their next step would be the ISP. So far hosters are all to happy to shut you down if the mob cries hard enough.
I swear I thought of somebody who was deplatformed by the ISPs. Maybe Alex Jones?
The nutty fringe of the alt-right created their own version of twitter and youtube for the alt-right….. and got chased off of a handful of hosting services and ISPs.
I think they eventually settled in with a version. Never been there, I lived through the usenet days of racist trolls, no need to go visit again.
I mean, Glenn Greenwald! I would think his lefty bonafides are impeccable. Yet all he has to do is refuse to carry water for Joe Biden and he gets run off.
Forgot to add – run off from HIS OWN PUBLICATION
They always start with the most objectionable targets but they never stop there. Greenwald is no McInnes but they’re both heretics.
Biden now has three campaign stops for tomorrow.
Think they’re getting nervous?
Is one of the stops the landing halfway up from the basement?
Lol
Don’t be ridiculous, they’re going with the triple ply depends when planning a campaign stop.
I think everyone gets a little nervous about performing on the big day.
Trump forced his hand with the “white flag” comment.
He’s heading to Minnesota. Which seems a mite desperate – been quite a while since a Dem has felt the need to visit Minnesota a few days before the election
He and Obama went on stage together in Michigan for the first time since they left their previous offices.
Interesting read. I’ve definitely been in most of those stages at some point. I would still encourage you to vote (even if you send in a blank ballot or just write in Peter Pan) because one way people get away with fraud is by having operatives voting in place of people that never cast ballots. We need voter ID real bad, it’s sad that third world countries have more election protections than the US but it makes sense doesn’t it? The levers of government power are a pretty prize, and this is especially true in the US. It makes sense that we would experience the most sinister attempts to hijack it.
one way people get away with fraud is by having operatives voting in place of people that never cast ballots
Good point. Just because you don’t cast your ballot, doesn’t mean nobody will.
I’m coming to a theorem of electoral systems (a la “good, cheap, fast; pick 2” and the CAP theorem), which is that you have (at most) 2 of the following desirable characteristics: voluntary, secret, secure.
We have a voluntary system with secret ballots and that unfortunately makes securing non-ballots a difficult problem.
Not sure that works. You can have all three. I don’t see trade-offs between the three.
The only trade-off is between security and convenience. We have sacrificed the former for the latter. My preferred system:
Two days of in person voting, with photo ID.
No mailing of ballots to any voters.
Absentee ballots picked up in person, with photo ID.
Absentee ballots may be dropped off at designated locations or mailed back. Of course, they would have to be received by the time the in-person polls close.
That squeezes the fraud down to corrupted precincts and corrupted counting, I think. And those are a (separate) problem with any electoral process.
You cannot have all three to the fullest degree, though can have all of them to at least some degree. It’s a pithy maxim not a commandment.
If the ballot is secret, then you lose traceability to the voter. That opens a wide door to various forms of fraud, but we (generally) accept the tradeoff for the benefit that people can’t be as easily coerced into, or punished for, voting a certain way. Many of those avenues to fraud are closed off by making voting compulsory (e.g., a suspicious precinct count is a lot harder to justify when you know exactly how many actual voters there are supposed to be; destroying ballots is a lot harder when it causes an automatic investigation into why somebody didn’t vote; etc.)
Of course, this is not to say that once 2 of the characteristics have been picked the third should be discarded entirely. Australia has compulsory voting, yes, but the penalty is not that stiff. As you note, there are ways to improve the security of U.S. elections, even though we prioritize secret and voluntary over secure. And a hypothetical system that prioritized being voluntary and secure over being secret could still frustrate attempts to expose individual voters’ ballots.
To wit, you could excise the corrupted precincts and corrupted counting as factors with the application of fancy mathematics. There are cryptographically secure ways to ensure that the result of an election is provably down to exactly the wishes of the voters who cast their ballots. The requisite knowledge to verify the proof would be a bit above the average voter’s head, but it is possible.
However, to do this you would have to assign every voter a traceable identity, even if pseudonymous, that gets attached to the record of their ballot. Someone with sufficient time, knowledge, and resources to verify the election result would also be able to figure out exactly how anyone voted.
My Aussie coworker has dual citizenship. He is required by law to vote in the Australian election.
They’ve made voting a duty. And now they have no guns, and in the state of Victoria, cops are treading all over the rights of citizens in the name of COVID19.
Mandatory voting seems distasteful. YOU WILL MARK YOUR BALLOT UND YOU VILL ENJOY IT.
in commie Romania voting was all but mandatory. Fee and fair elections are important for a Socialist Republic.
1980 and 1985 Romanian Presidential ballotBallot
[ ] Nicolae Ceaușescu
[ ] Ceaușescu, Nicolae
[ ] N. Ceaușescu
[ ] Aș vrea să fiu împușcat
look 99,9% turout 4 elections in a row. Your American elections don’t come even close.
Also you did not choose a person you chose a party who chose a person.
How badly did Google butcher the translation in 4?
not at all
that is if you wanted to say “I want to be shot”
Not only that but i think they do “Preference Voting” wherein you have to rank every party in order of preference. So in the end you always end up voting for the party you really hate.
Preference voting, in theory, gives smaller parties a chance.
It’s not that i’m opposed to preference voting, its that in no way do i ever want to be forced to say a prefer a party i don’t. For example there is no way that i will ever vote for a Dem until the party kicks its support of Rioters and addiction to communist provocateurs
It actually helps to avoid that if you get more parties. Most of the time I remember have 8 or 9 choices on a ballot. In those days I voted Labour and so would put the Liberals right near the bottom of my preference (Labour wanted me to put the Liberals last but I wouldn’t put them behind the Fascists and Socialists).
While I disagree and will offer a short rebuttal, I respect your position, as I’m in the “voting is a right, not a duty” category, so it is entirely your right to throw it away (whether to someone who has no chance or whether to no one at all) if that will make you happier.
To your points:
It does, even though it won’t change the outcome on its own. I think sometimes libertarians can be blind to the effectiveness of collective action. Sure, one vote doesn’t do much, neither does one customer, one worker, or one soldier. There are many instances where a small individual contribution doesn’t do much on its own but does a ton when combined with the similar effort of like-minded or like-goaled individuals.
No rebuttal here. This is perhaps your strongest point.
Another strong point. I see this as more of a reason to push for better election security, but I can see it convincing people not to even bother.
True, but as Churchill observed, “democracy is the worst form of government, except all the others that have been tried”. As power abhors a vacuum, government is inevitable, and a government that is restrained is of course the best government, and having elections can indeed serve as a restraint on those who govern.
Strongly disagree. Those who govern will come for your autonomy whether you vote for them or not, so may as well vote for those who will do the least damage. And merely voting for someone in no way means that you cede your autonomy to them – you can reserve the right to fire them, or hang them if need be.
Has any government chose not to govern just because it didn’t have popular support? Whether it is the minority governments that predominate in parliamentary systems or the autocrats who couldn’t care less that their opposition boycotted the election, not participating in no way discourages them. In fact, I think it is the opposite: not voting encourages them, as they view the non-voter as apathetic, someone who can be ignored or trampled upon at whim.
This is true. Elections would work better if more people realized this.
“7) Politicians don’t give a damn about you
This is true. Elections would work better if more people realized this.”
Take away their salary, no pensions, make it a part time job, and make a rule that no one can be elected to any public office for more than one term in their lifetime. That will stop most of the problem. Otherwise, it’s politics as usual.
I’m fine with their salary. Take away their security details or make them pay for it out of their personal non-tax-deductible funds..
I think sometimes libertarians can be blind to the effectiveness of collective action.
No, really?
*fights urge to disagree*
Subscribe to my news letter and I will provide similar such insights, like “water is wet” and “the sky is (usually) blue”.
Gadfly revealed as a more thoughtful R C Dean. Your first and fourth points were pretty much what I tried to say way up there, only better.
Thanks. That’s high praise.
Thank you for the response.
“Sure, one vote doesn’t do much, neither does one customer, one worker, or one soldier. There are many instances where a small individual contribution doesn’t do much on its own but does a ton when combined with the similar effort of like-minded or like-goaled individuals.”
So donate your time, money, skills directly towards making the world a better place rather nominating someone else to do it for you. Start a charity, start a mutual aid society, donate to a food drive… Direct action with your dollars, your sweat, or your feet seem (to me) to be more effective and more efficient.
I can do that (and do) and vote. The opportunity cost of the hour it takes me to vote is negligible.
^This^
Pistoffnick is right that directly making the world a better place is the better course of action, but like R C Dean I think it’s best to do both. Many of the charities I support do things I wouldn’t want the government doing.
I think its funny that the left hates JoeRogan (seeing some hate on the glenn greenwald twitter thread), precisely because he is someone with a large following that doesn’t toe their lion. No other thought but lefty thought must be adhered to.
*tow their lion
Don’t Kink Shame the left.
No other thought but lefty thought must be adhered to.
And acceptable/good-think is always changing.
They’re the Borg. Any form of independent thought is not only frowned upon, but a sentence into exile as a non-person. Or should I say non-Borg?
I pulled up the Trump rally on C-SPAN to see how many people showed up. Theyhave avoided any wide shots or any aerial shots, but it is clear that this is a huge rally in a giant field.
It will be interesting to see if there is any coverage in the media other than a mention that Trump had a rally and nobody wore a mask.
I will note that there are quite a few black faces in the crowd. One guy is sitting directly behind the teleprompter, so he is in every shot. He is clearly a huge Trump fan, because he joined in on several of the applause lines, like he is at the Rocky horror picture show or something.
Holy crap! This guy is the ultimate troll.
His walk-off song is YMCA by the village people!
Lol!
Didn’t the guy who wrote the YMCA say that he’s fine with it as long as Trump dances along. Seems like a genuinely chill dude.
Yep.
Yes.
Why a politician cares when some band objects to using a song, I have never been able to figure out. The campaign certainly has an agreement with the big copyright operations and acquired the right to play it.
End. Of. Story.
Trumpaloos have been having YMCA dance parties at their gatherings for weeks now. It’s awesomely trollish.
I’d love to read the NYT coverage of one of those.
https://twitter.com/DanScavino/status/1321878688024154113
Nary a ground circle to be seen.
Regardless of my coming out of the closet as a Hallmark-and-Kinkade-loving patriot of the first water who cries while singing the national anthem at football and baseball games, if I never hear “God Bless the USA” again, it’ll be too soon.
This applies to most Toby Keith songs as well for me.
Toby Keith suffers from my having worn out a few of CDs until I was sick of him. I still dig “I Wanna Talk about Me” though.
I dig “Red Solo Cup”, “A Little too Late”, and “I Love This Bar”
I really dislike “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue”
Here you go.
I thought you were going to give me Sousa, not Offenbach.
I cannot stand Sousa
Here’s a pair that get me every time.
I’ll see your “comes home” and raise you gone for a soldier”.
…and… oh my goodness gracious.
Don’t forget ye goode olde Battle Hymn of the Republic and the 1812 Overture (and I don’t even like Tchaikovsky that much).
I normally like to listen to the Jim Ladd show on Deep Tracks in the afternoon but lately he’s been playing this song by Willie Nelson called “Vote ’em Out!”. Just torques my jaws: What they *%$^# do you think I’ve been trying to do for the last 50 years???
Vote harder!!
vote with your feet by kicking the bastards?
I like the way you think!
Vote
harderharvest!**but no, don’t do that.
Yeah Ladd is a CA leftist that thinks he’s still young because his politics are the same as when he was 22. His show is intolerable at this point. And “theme sets” don;t really require much in the way of intelligence anyway. You could write software to do the same thing.
“What they *%$^# do you think I’ve been trying to do for the last 50 years?”
What is the definition of insanity….?
Which is why I hover around step 8.
OMG, my wife has the ugliest sweater she loves to wear around the house when it’s chilly like today. It’s full of holes and just ugly. I told her I’m throwing it away and she gets really mad, lol.
sounds hot if the holes are in the right places
Dude, that sweater is freaking ugly, there isn’t anything can fix that. But it’s like its some sort of security blanket for her. Maybe it belonged to her mom, I don’t know.
Maybe the chickadees here can explain it, I don’t get it.
Don’t fuck around with a woman’s comfort clothes, d00d. Just. Don’t.
I already figured that part out.
I want you to screw with the sweater just so we get a “Today I fucked up” story.
I’m greedy that way.
Just realize that our very own Pie has more information about US candidates than 90% of the populace that will be voting.
(I wanted to say Americans, not populace, but that is apt to be incorrect.)
Well i think Pie can name the 3 branches of the US Government, so i think that puts him ahead of 90% of the country off the bat.
Sadly, this is true.
Pine_Tree
Oh they know. They just wish it weren’t, and (being normal) are confusing their wishes with reality.
Really? How many hours a day do you spend researching, thinking about the issues, or communicating with other engaged people? An hour? Two? Imagine what your understanding would be if you spent all of fifteen, twenty minutes doing those things. Imagine what your understanding would be like if all the information you got was from the evening news, your friends on FaceBook and the ads you see from corporate PR departments.
I’m describing millions of people. Probably the majority. I’m not downing them. Most of them are good, well-meaning people. They just have a ton of other things that they spend their time thinking about other than politics. And in a sane world, they’d be absolutely right to take that attitude.
It isn’t willful blindness so much as not even understanding they need to look.