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softlynow

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by softlynow

  1. The other day I was thinking we’ll miss not having Escriva/Laphoaig/LonghornLaw for this thread. But Anastasis has filled the role nicely.
  2. “Legislating from the bench,” “activist judges,” “originality,” “textualism,” “strict constructionism” and so on are simply rhetorical cover for the tradcons and allies of capital in siding with their favored interests. It’s totally unsurprising that conservative justices will opine from the living constitution perspective when it suits them.
  3. let me guess the same dudes that for decades showed late well after the anthem, and bailed for the tailgate or Schultzes during route 44 etc are now all U must StaNd for whols GamE to earn your SpoT guys? right? If only it was 44. I stayed for all 66 miserable points that day. I guess I’ve never been much for entitlement. I knew I needed to suffer as others had to be a real fan. Fuck all the those who bail early come late and whinge about “all lives.”
  4. We must cultivate our garden.
  5. Hell, the terrorists won. We no longer resemble the country we were 20 years ago.
  6. Fuck no. The end of the Western Empire contributed to the onset of the Dark Ages. The end of the American empire would likely lead to one variation of the post-apocalyptic hellscapes we used to pack into theaters to see. Or worse, ou could cease to suck. As bad as we think it is, it could always be worse. You pointed out that folks are asking conservatism means anymore, well it should at the very least opposition to the "burn it all down" people. If conservatism no longer stands, at the very least, for preservation of the union, then we truly are lost.
  7. Have we checked in on this guy?
  8. This is a good lie. By claiming the severity is in the middle of the scale, we're all left guessing if it's actually mild or severe. Well done.
  9. Who? What specific solutions are ProgCons pushing? What's the ProgCon health care plan, plan to secure our elections, stance on and solutions to slow climate change, immigration solutions . . . ? And we're ultimately talking about another possible strain of Team Red, right? So, we're really talking about voting for the pols who get donations from, and are answerable most readily to, the same interests as the current Team Red, but maybe with some Never Trumpers back in the fold, right?
  10. How do we exercise our option to take the ProgCon approach as opposed to voting team Red or team Blue? Are you ignoring that some are claiming that Trumpism IS the approach you're advocating?
  11. Another reason ideological discussions are limited in their usefulness is they ignore the necessity of coalitions to attain power. Until the Traditionalist Conservative marriage to the flavor-of-the-month limited government bait-and-switch scheme ends, your wish will never come true. Waste, like the deficit, is only an issue for the party out of power. It's also inherent with large organizations. Oversight should be honest, diligent and vigorous. That would require, however, that CONGRESS be honest, diligent, and vigorous. Sure.
  12. I didn't say anything about it being new, and I'm not lumping anyone together. I'm talking about the usefulness of ideology to people with outsized levels of greediness operating in the political sphere. Now that libertarianism is less useful, conservative think tanks will look for other ways to convince the have-nots to vote against their economic interests. I was aware of this philosophy, having read a bit about the Disraeli ministries after hearing Theresa May call herself a progressive conservative a few years ago. I also stumbled upon this article a few weeks ago: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/why-not-progressive-conservatism/. There's much to take issue with in there, but this: tells me that Progressive Conservatism is just another vaguely stated, enticing-sounding ideal that any moderately-talented, morally-unmoored hack can hail as their guiding principle as they carve out a career accomplishing nothing for the general welfare. To me, ideology is useful in an educational setting, in teaching people how to think. Beyond that, it's mostly useful to sell books and candidacies. I don't care what any particular ideology says about an issue, I care about the effects of the policy choices to be made. Now, as a persuasive tool in a debate or sales pitch, ideology is immensely useful in shifting the opinions of people who haven't investigated a subject or given a subject much thought. But it is appeal to the listener's ideology that's important, not my own. I don't need to debate ideology to understand issues and how I feel about them, not there's anything wrong with those who do.
  13. Sounds like a good line for the kleptocrats to turn to now that "libertarianism" has been exposed as mere justification for their fleecing of the middle class.
  14. Plenty of norms are falling by the wayside. A Court with Roberts as the swing vote wouldn’t be that worrisome. A Court where Roberts is a dirty liberal is something any centrist or liberal should always worry will take up for their team. The justification doesn’t matter when even Thomas is a dispensable vote. Now might they choose to assert their independence from the political sphere and follow reason and precedent? Sure. Is that a good bet for Dems? Of course not.
  15. You need to pack the court to ensure you can expand the union. The court as currently comprised may well invalidate anything that swings the balance of power towards the Dems.
  16. I was against it before. But it’s been long enough now that a tearful apologetic comeback would work.
  17. Who saw the GRHorn Anastasis whataboutism tag team coming? Oh, right, everyone.
  18. Dems should look at it a different way. The constitution no longer functions correctly in a number of areas. It's framework needs updating because of the advent of a number of things, not the least of which is the need for a gigantic executive which the founders had zero suspicion would arise. The electoral college is on its way to losing its legitimacy, the two-party system encourages black and white thinking in a grey-shaded world and every Congressperson represents far too many people. It's time for a refresh. Of course, that's why Dems will simply fight fire with kindling. Their personal wealth would likely take a hit in any effective plan to force actual change.
  19. I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say he meant Catholics are consistently pro-life (against abortion AND the death penalty) whereas the protestant pro-lifers aren't really pro-life, just out for control of poor female uteruses.
  20. This is another reason to leave Warren in the Senate. She's very much needed there. The Dems in the Senate don't have any other bomb-throwers among them, unless you count Gillibrand, but she's into torching her own house. Other than Warren, I think Chris Murphy, Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar are your best bets to step up effectively in this fight. I have doubts that Schumer will even want to go the direction that's needed.
  21. The first (and possibly one which stymies the whole thing) step to doing this is to get everyone on the same page. The press is going to make a huge deal about the Dems acting like Pubs. That will be off-putting to the older Dems, set in their cravenness, who expect their appearance on TV to be rather pleasant and well in their comfort zone. If the weaklings can't handle a tough sounding question from creampuffs like Willie Geist, stay the fuck off TV and let the new blood take the lead. They should lean heavily on Katie Hill, Eric Swallwell, Ted Lieu and Chris Murphy. They should prepare to go on MSNBC like they're going on OANN. Prepare to bring their A games, because the "liberal" media is going to go completely apeshit. There's nothing those guys like better than a chance to show how objective they are by tearing into what is perceived to be their own "team" (kind of like Kirk Bohls picking Reggie Bush). This isn't the well-traveled road to an easy life of wealth and power for these folks. Which is why I'm not really expecting them to take it.
  22. Y'all are gonna scare the DT crowd to death. They're only into tacticool cosplay, not the real thing.
  23. Haley - Ivanka 2024. The deplorables don't have a platform, and don't need pacification they need the hate spice to flow. The showmanship got him here, but post-TIA/stroke/whatever he's not a showman any more. He's the crazy fucker at the end of the bar people used to find engaging but now drop by for a story and quickly wander away once their nostalgic needs are met. The cult is formed, and will be sated with mere allusions to the man and what he meant to the cult in 2016.
  24. Add to that the fact that the structural economic problems that are leaving more people behind while enriching a few to fantastical levels, and I don't see this election and year as cataclysm but as prelude.
  25. Hell, Blackum wrote Roe v. Wade, and Stevens would go on to be one of the court's most liberal justices. Souter also drifted to the left after being thought of as a probable conservative.
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