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Posted (edited)
15 hours ago, Shaddie said:

So I guess the question is

Was he batshit crazy while he made his money or did the money make him crazy? 
 

Sorry to quote myself but I guess construction of said sentence was not good.  
 

So, If I act like a stupid asshole, spoiled bitch, will that make me 💰?

Or do I have to have some marketing skills for selling shit?

I believe billionaire for me is still possible but I need some help on the grift. Cmon surly help a brother out.

Edited by Shaddie
A
Posted
On 10/13/2025 at 3:23 PM, Brisketexan said:

Kinda yeah.  I mean, at least Thanos grasped, and had some remorse for, the cost of his insane plan (even if it was only because it touched him personally).

3fd.jpg

Thiel, Musk, Ellison, etc., would answer that question with "just half of all human population.  Not bad."  And then they'd move on to their next piece of bullshit without giving it a second thought.

 

Fuck, Sam Bankman-Fried was paraphrased to have said given a scenario where if you flip a coin and get heads, the entire world improves by more than double but if you get tails, the world is destroyed, that he would take that coin flip/wager.

This is the what is wrong with all of these people, they have the intellect, ability, drive and worst of them all ZERO empathy. It gives them all of the skills to become successful and not care who they run over or hurt. 

These tech bros: "I want to do XYZ!!"

Lackey #1: "That is impossible."

Tech Bros: "YOU'RE FIRED!!!"

These tech bros to the next guy: "I want to do XYZ!!"

Lackey #2: "That is impossible."

Tech Bros: "YOU'RE FIRED!!!"

These tech bros to the next guy: "I want to do XYZ!!"

Lackey #3: "We shall do all we can to make it happen!"

Fire people with homes, families, bills, don't care. Gamble with humanity to help or harm, don't care. If it gets in the way of them making more money, they just don't care about harm they create or inflict.

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Posted

The whole attitude of "break things, disrupt to achieve change" is great when the only one that can be hurt is you. When you're playing with jobs and lives of millions, it's not that easy.

There is also a tendency of some high achievers to blame others for not being high achievers, as if its some personal flaw. I recently watched a Nick Saban video from the past where he criticized mediocrity, and slammed high achievers if they put up with mediocre people around them. Think about what the average person achieves (or doesn't achieve) and then realize that half of the public is below that level.

It's great if we can continue to grow technology to improve efficiency but we also need to decide how are we assist people who will fall behind. The Ayn Rand crowd isn't ok with the homeless camping on sidewalks so whats the solution.

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Posted
13 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

It's great if we can continue to grow technology to improve efficiency but we also need to decide how are we assist people who will fall behind.

I've raised it on here before: the most important question that our evolving society can ask, and ANSWER, is "what do we do with our morons?"

I use "moron" broadly, but let's put math to it - as a matter of math, half of all people are of below median intelligence.  So, our old answers of "learn to code, trade stocks, study hard and become a doctor," or all kinds of shit that requires at least above-middling intelligence, doesn't apply or help.  People with below median intelligence exist, and always will.  And they deserve not just to exist, but to live lives with dignity.

Used to be, someone with an IQ of 90 could work on a farm, or do manual labor, or simple manufacturing work, etc.  Real jobs, with real pay, and a real sense of actually doing something and being compensated for it.  That's a good thing.  We should want that.  Human beings have inherent value, and that should translate to our social and economic systems. 

Instead, we are offering the 1-2 punch of (1) designing and refining systems that give such folks dwindling avenues to work and make a dignified living, and (2) focusing solely on them as sources of additional revenue and value for oligarchs.  We don't care if you have a job worth a shit, but we VERY much care that you click on this TikTok or buy this crappy thing on Amazon or whatnot that will give another .01 cents to an oligarch.  Human beings are seen solely as an operating expense and/or a resource from which value can be extracted, NOT a capital investment and asset.  That's fucked, and we're fucked.

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Posted
1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

I've raised it on here before: the most important question that our evolving society can ask, and ANSWER, is "what do we do with our morons?"

I use "moron" broadly, but let's put math to it - as a matter of math, half of all people are of below median intelligence.  So, our old answers of "learn to code, trade stocks, study hard and become a doctor," or all kinds of shit that requires at least above-middling intelligence, doesn't apply or help.  People with below median intelligence exist, and always will.  And they deserve not just to exist, but to live lives with dignity.

Used to be, someone with an IQ of 90 could work on a farm, or do manual labor, or simple manufacturing work, etc.  Real jobs, with real pay, and a real sense of actually doing something and being compensated for it.  That's a good thing.  We should want that.  Human beings have inherent value, and that should translate to our social and economic systems. 

Instead, we are offering the 1-2 punch of (1) designing and refining systems that give such folks dwindling avenues to work and make a dignified living, and (2) focusing solely on them as sources of additional revenue and value for oligarchs.  We don't care if you have a job worth a shit, but we VERY much care that you click on this TikTok or buy this crappy thing on Amazon or whatnot that will give another .01 cents to an oligarch.  Human beings are seen solely as an operating expense and/or a resource from which value can be extracted, NOT a capital investment and asset.  That's fucked, and we're fucked.

And, if you start reducing the "what do we do with the morons" question and carrying the oiligarch's solution to its end, everyone ends up being a moron, a drag on the bottom line.

That includes various intelligent and diligent folks that didn't choose the "right course of study," or through various life events categorized as "luck,"  so that the line defining "morons" starts to creep to the right of the mean and before long, it's the sub-90% and not just the sub-50%.

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Posted
2 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

And, if you start reducing the "what do we do with the morons" question and carrying the oiligarch's solution to its end, everyone ends up being a moron, a drag on the bottom line.

That includes various intelligent and diligent folks that didn't choose the "right course of study," or through various life events categorized as "luck,"  so that the line defining "morons" starts to creep to the right of the mean and before long, it's the sub-90% and not just the sub-50%.

Bingo.

The question becomes "what do we do with people who are not members of the oligarchy?", and the answer ALWAYS ends up being "fuck 'em."  

Shit, it's really not different than the folks clamoring to be "in favor" with the rising fascist regime.  "I'm an insider!  I'm one of you!"  That lasts right up until they all turn on each other, and the group of "true believers and favored members of the regime" becomes really fucking small.

Gessen-PB-PromoSocial2.jpg

This is how it goes.  Always.  Literally 100% of the time, with no exceptions.

And we're living in a world run by these people:

3gwdow.png

 

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Posted

@Brisketexan, @TwiceHorn

How the fuck were y'all Republicans in the before times? The easy way I reconcile it is you were seduced by the small government rhetoric we now know (but many of us suspected) was complete bullshit, but now I have to ask. On this page y'all are engaging in a back and forth that would've had you RINO'd out the door of your local GOP club, even if you brought the doughnuts. How were you sucked in by the party whose raison d'être is to protect and expand the wealth of the filthy and obscenely rich?

 

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Posted

As a sometime subscriber to The Economist, I hear ya . . . a bit. It just seems like people that think like you were always a one in a tiny minority watching as the platform and rhetoric always seemed to barely account for your views. Would you say you were slow to see that the party was well on its way to completely abandoning your views beginning with with the Tea Party revolts in 2009?

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Posted
4 minutes ago, softlynow said:

As a sometime subscriber to The Economist, I hear ya . . . a bit. It just seems like people that think like you were always a one in a tiny minority watching as the platform and rhetoric always seemed to barely account for your views. Would you say you were slow to see that the party was well on its way to completely abandoning your views beginning with with the Tea Party revolts in 2009?

Oh, I wasn't slow to see that at all.  I realized very, very quickly that electing Obama broke society's brain.  The birther shit that started during the campaign told me that we were fucked, and I haven't looked back since then.

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Posted
1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

In short?  Because we were (foolishly) convinced by a message of small government, but also respect for and protection of individual rights, that a regulated capitalist system provides broad benefit to all classes, etc. (seriously, just laying out broad strokes).  And I DO believe that regulated capitalism does that -- it does so elsewhere, it's just that now, MAGA calls that approach "SOCIALISM!"  If you want to make it even shorter....read some issues of The Economist for a basic center-right perspective.  Most of us still agree with much of that.  But realize that "center-right" actually INCLUDES things like some form of universal health care, actual regulations on capitalism, and being in favor of managed and reasonably regulated global trade.  Today, MAGA literally calls The Economist a "leftist rag."  So, we're Economist readers.  For a long time, the American Republican party generally aligned (at least in its messaging) with the values and approaches voiced there, so it made sense for us to find a political home there.

Did the Republican party ALWAYS have these flaws running through it?  Of course it did.  We're also pragmatic in knowing that all parties/movements have flaws.  But now we live in a world where the GQP has given in to every last one of its worst impulses.

Can't improve much on that.

But more than any slogan like small government, I am just fundamentally conservative.  I'm kinda cheap, I'm super-careful with my clients' money and resources and my advice to clients is conservative, although I present more extravagant options.

I was never comfortable with the social/culture bullshit.

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Posted
16 minutes ago, mchookem said:

my excuse is i was young and stupid

Oh, there was a healthy base coat of same, but it lasted beyond my prime "young and stupid" years.

I also grew up in a household that generally (not exclusively, but generally) voted Republican.  My old man, while hispanic, was an army veteran petroleum engineer, and pretty straight-laced.  But gotDAMN in their later years did my parents fucking HATE the GQP and Trump.  Shit, some of my dad's last thoughts were regrets that he didn't live to see that sonofabitch die.

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Posted (edited)
33 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Can't improve much on that.

But more than any slogan like small government, I am just fundamentally conservative.  I'm kinda cheap, I'm super-careful with my clients' money and resources and my advice to clients is conservative, although I present more extravagant options.

I was never comfortable with the social/culture bullshit.

You're describing fiscal responsibility, not conservatism as a political philosophy. The GOP hasn't been fiscally responsible since it embraced Reagan's voodoo economics. It was never about "balanced budgets," an idea they sold to the public to win campaigns. 

The "conserve" in conservatism is all about retaining the proverbial status quo, i.e., maintaining a specific social hierarchy, protecting the rich from the poor, ensuring the wealthy keep their money, etc.

It's a political movement inherently designed to keep the hoi polloi in check, and you can draw a through-line all the way back to feudalism, where it was assumed a specific social class had the divine right to get richer off the backs of the serfs, with knights acting as enforcers. If that also sounds like the Antebellum South and the Post-Reconstruction South, then you can start connecting the dots to modern-day Conservatism.

ETA: Oh shit, I just realized I'm in the Peter Thiel thread. You know, the guy who follows Curtis Yarvin, a crazy fucker who wants us to live in a world of technofeudalism.

Edited by bolverk
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Posted
2 hours ago, softlynow said:

Would you say you were slow to see that the party was well on its way to completely abandoning your views beginning with with the Tea Party revolts in 2009?

It went back way more than 2009. 

Posted
2 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Oh, I wasn't slow to see that at all.  I realized very, very quickly that electing Obama broke society's brain.  The birther shit that started during the campaign told me that we were fucked, and I haven't looked back since then.

Dude.

Posted
13 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

Dude.

I mean....am I missing a major timeline event?  The open descent into (1) racism that was (2) utterly disconnected from reality that was birtherism was rather jarring.  And it popped up re his campaign in 2008.

I'm not saying there weren't plenty of issues with the party pre-2008, but that was a pretty eye-opening break in 2008.

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Posted
4 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

It's great if we can continue to grow technology to improve efficiency but we also need to decide how are we assist people who will fall behind. The Ayn Rand crowd isn't ok with the homeless camping on sidewalks so whats the solution.

You know the answer to that.

Soylent Green Quote GIF by Top 100 Movie Quotes of All Time

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Posted
6 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

I mean....am I missing a major timeline event?  The open descent into (1) racism that was (2) utterly disconnected from reality that was birtherism was rather jarring.  And it popped up re his campaign in 2008.

I'm not saying there weren't plenty of issues with the party pre-2008, but that was a pretty eye-opening break in 2008.

Not here to argue with you about it, but the Southern Strategy was an explicit appeal to southern racists who were abandoning the Democratic Party in droves following the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act. In that moment, the party embraced the racism.

  • Nixon's Law and Order bullshit to crack down on urban Blacks; War on Drugs.
  • The Party's embrace of "States' Rights” was an appeal to Southern racists.
  • Reagan's Welfare Queens stereotypes; campaigning in Philadelphia, MS.
  • The framing of affirmative action as "racial preferences" and all the other coded language.
  • Bush Sr's Willie Horton ad, Jesse Helms' very existence.
  • Targeted voter suppression: strict ID laws, gerrymandering, and closing polling stations in minority districts, etc.

All of this partial list was going on well before 2008. Again, I'm not faulting you for being slow on the uptake, and I definitely see you as an ally.

My personal breakthrough happened in high school when all this shit was readily apparent growing up in a small town and seeing how all the oil-rich White Christian kids who didn't earn shit but who loved Reagan at the First Baptist Church were total dicks to the Blacks, Browns, Poor White Trash, and the Gays (yes, I had a couple of gay friends in a rural West Texas high school during the 1980s). It was (is) a stark reality and quite open, and holy shit, come to think of it, local economies built on oil, ranching, and cotton farming are really fucking feudal: the haves always putting down the have-nots. Serious Wilhoit's law stuff, in practice, with what they could get away with.

Once I got to Tech after a year in France, the same kinds of fuckers dominated all the frats and sororities, student government, using the "free speech" area on campus outside the Student Union Building (similar to the West Mall at UT) to promote their bigotry and hate, further reinforcing the notion that Republicans were the party of bigotry. Then, I took a few polisci, sociology, cultural anthropology, and upper-level French literature courses that began to give me a slightly better insight into what the fuck was going on.

We're all products of our upbringing, and my exposure to the GOP's blatant hypocrisy in those environments simply led me to the earlier conclusion that it was the party of oppression above all else. None of that makes me more intelligent or more insightful than you, because I actually think the opposite is true. 

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Posted
26 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Not here to argue with you about it, but the Southern Strategy was an explicit appeal to southern racists who were abandoning the Democratic Party in droves following the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act. In that moment, the party embraced the racism.

  • Nixon's Law and Order bullshit to crack down on urban Blacks; War on Drugs.
  • The Party's embrace of "States' Rights” was an appeal to Southern racists.
  • Reagan's Welfare Queens stereotypes; campaigning in Philadelphia, MS.
  • The framing of affirmative action as "racial preferences" and all the other coded language.
  • Bush Sr's Willie Horton ad, Jesse Helms' very existence.
  • Targeted voter suppression: strict ID laws, gerrymandering, and closing polling stations in minority districts, etc.

All of this partial list was going on well before 2008. Again, I'm not faulting you for being slow on the uptake, and I definitely see you as an ally.

My personal breakthrough happened in high school when all this shit was readily apparent growing up in a small town and seeing how all the oil-rich White Christian kids who didn't earn shit but who loved Reagan at the First Baptist Church were total dicks to the Blacks, Browns, Poor White Trash, and the Gays (yes, I had a couple of gay friends in a rural West Texas high school during the 1980s). It was (is) a stark reality and quite open, and holy shit, come to think of it, local economies built on oil, ranching, and cotton farming are really fucking feudal: the haves always putting down the have-nots. Serious Wilhoit's law stuff, in practice, with what they could get away with.

Once I got to Tech after a year in France, the same kinds of fuckers dominated all the frats and sororities, student government, using the "free speech" area on campus outside the Student Union Building (similar to the West Mall at UT) to promote their bigotry and hate, further reinforcing the notion that Republicans were the party of bigotry. Then, I took a few polisci, sociology, cultural anthropology, and upper-level French literature courses that began to give me a slightly better insight into what the fuck was going on.

We're all products of our upbringing, and my exposure to the GOP's blatant hypocrisy in those environments simply led me to the earlier conclusion that it was the party of oppression above all else. None of that makes me more intelligent or more insightful than you, because I actually think the opposite is true. 

I think that me going to Catholic schools, including a Jesuit school, somewhat insulated me from that.  Not that I didn't see/experience racism and such - dude, it was Texas in the 70s-80s -- but because in my tighter circle, it not only wasn't tolerated, it was expressly taught AGAINST.  My handful of classmates who were more openly racist actually stood out.  And, we had scholarship students, and minorities, and they were generally treated well and well-regarded (again, sure, there was a divide between the really rich and snooty and the rest of us, but that was asshole-based, not race-based).  So, as much as I was exposed to the full world, had family on both sides of the border, grew up among oilpatch types, etc., I was also pretty sheltered, and not only was I not really exposed to the worst impulses of the GOP, I was actively indoctrinated against them, by many people who were also Republicans.  I was sheltered, had a small sample-size, etc.

When I got to UT, I got to see more of the broad entitled rich white kid dynamic, and it did indeed start to open my eyes.

And let's not forget that the Republican party in Texas actually pushed back against some of this nativist shit.  I actually remember a meeting back when GWB was governor, and a guy showed up with a whole anti-immigrant screed (that would be moderate in MAGA world today).  He was told to GTFO, in pretty plain terms.  BUT, the precinct chair explained to me that those assholes had started showing up a few years back, and they were going to keep coming back.  He was right.

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Posted
5 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

I've raised it on here before: the most important question that our evolving society can ask, and ANSWER, is "what do we do with our morons?"

I use "moron" broadly, but let's put math to it - as a matter of math, half of all people are of below median intelligence.  So, our old answers of "learn to code, trade stocks, study hard and become a doctor," or all kinds of shit that requires at least above-middling intelligence, doesn't apply or help.  People with below median intelligence exist, and always will.  And they deserve not just to exist, but to live lives with dignity.

Used to be, someone with an IQ of 90 could work on a farm, or do manual labor, or simple manufacturing work, etc.  Real jobs, with real pay, and a real sense of actually doing something and being compensated for it.  That's a good thing.  We should want that.  Human beings have inherent value, and that should translate to our social and economic systems. 

Instead, we are offering the 1-2 punch of (1) designing and refining systems that give such folks dwindling avenues to work and make a dignified living, and (2) focusing solely on them as sources of additional revenue and value for oligarchs.  We don't care if you have a job worth a shit, but we VERY much care that you click on this TikTok or buy this crappy thing on Amazon or whatnot that will give another .01 cents to an oligarch.  Human beings are seen solely as an operating expense and/or a resource from which value can be extracted, NOT a capital investment and asset.  That's fucked, and we're fucked.

U.

B.

I.

It's inevitable.

Posted
8 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

I think that me going to Catholic schools, including a Jesuit school, somewhat insulated me from that.  Not that I didn't see/experience racism and such - dude, it was Texas in the 70s-80s -- but because in my tighter circle, it not only wasn't tolerated, it was expressly taught AGAINST.  My handful of classmates who were more openly racist actually stood out.  And, we had scholarship students, and minorities, and they were generally treated well and well-regarded (again, sure, there was a divide between the really rich and snooty and the rest of us, but that was asshole-based, not race-based).  So, as much as I was exposed to the full world, had family on both sides of the border, grew up among oilpatch types, etc., I was also pretty sheltered, and not only was I not really exposed to the worst impulses of the GOP, I was actively indoctrinated against them, by many people who were also Republicans.  I was sheltered, had a small sample-size, etc.

When I got to UT, I got to see more of the broad entitled rich white kid dynamic, and it did indeed start to open my eyes.

And let's not forget that the Republican party in Texas actually pushed back against some of this nativist shit.  I actually remember a meeting back when GWB was governor, and a guy showed up with a whole anti-immigrant screed (that would be moderate in MAGA world today).  He was told to GTFO, in pretty plain terms.  BUT, the precinct chair explained to me that those assholes had started showing up a few years back, and they were going to keep coming back.  He was right.

 

Appreciate the response. One benefit of going to public school in a one-high-school town was exposure to all elements of society, good and bad, and having the opportunity to associate with all social classes. Both of my parents were teachers, so we weren't rich, by any means, but we went to the "right" church and lived on the "right" side of town. Also, being white and fairly smart, I was in all the same "honors" classes with them.

Somewhat embarrassing to say on a football board, but being in marching band with 125+ other kids from all social backgrounds also helped immensely in my getting out of that bubble.

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Posted
7 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

what is it with foreign billionaires coming over here and fucking with our country? can't they just enjoy their spoils and stfu?

We don't have quite the same checks and balances on billionaires that other Western countries do.

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Posted
9 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

what is it with foreign billionaires coming over here and fucking with our country? can't they just enjoy their spoils and stfu?

Other countries have rules in place to keep them from being such strident assholes. They can buy their own rules here.

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Posted
2 minutes ago, bolverk said:

 

Appreciate the response. One benefit of going to public school in a one-high-school town was exposure to all elements of society, good and bad, and having the opportunity to associate with all social classes. Both of my parents were teachers, so we weren't rich, by any means, but we went to the "right" church and lived on the "right" side of town. Also, being white and fairly smart, I was in all the same "honors" classes with them.

Somewhat embarrassing to say on a football board, but being in marching band with 125+ other kids from all social backgrounds also helped immensely in my getting out of that bubble.

source.gif

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Posted
16 minutes ago, Vegas64 said:

U.

B.

I.

It's inevitable.

That isn't going to happen. It will be something like the basic support system in The Expanse series.

Posted
On 10/13/2025 at 5:24 AM, Shaddie said:

So I guess the question is

Was he batshit crazy while he made his money or did the money make him crazy? 
 

Money just amplifies who you really are, IMO.  I'm guessing he's always been batshit but probably hid it much better.

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Posted
3 hours ago, bolverk said:

You're describing fiscal responsibility, not conservatism as a political philosophy. The GOP hasn't been fiscally responsible since it embraced Reagan's voodoo economics. It was never about "balanced budgets," an idea they sold to the public to win campaigns. 

 

GWB was effectively handed a balanced budget, at least close to it, and he decided to give everyone a tax cut. I don’t think we will ever get close to one again.

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Posted
On 10/13/2025 at 9:42 AM, Hookah Horns said:

It really depresses me that crazy assholes can make so much money.

When all you care about is making money and you don't care who you hurt to do it, it's a lot easier.

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Posted
3 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Can't improve much on that.

But more than any slogan like small government, I am just fundamentally conservative.  I'm kinda cheap, I'm super-careful with my clients' money and resources and my advice to clients is conservative, although I present more extravagant options.

I was never comfortable with the social/culture bullshit.

 

3 hours ago, bolverk said:

You're describing fiscal responsibility, not conservatism as a political philosophy. The GOP hasn't been fiscally responsible since it embraced Reagan's voodoo economics. It was never about "balanced budgets," an idea they sold to the public to win campaigns. 

The "conserve" in conservatism is all about retaining the proverbial status quo, i.e., maintaining a specific social hierarchy, protecting the rich from the poor, ensuring the wealthy keep their money, etc.

It's a political movement inherently designed to keep the hoi polloi in check, and you can draw a through-line all the way back to feudalism, where it was assumed a specific social class had the divine right to get richer off the backs of the serfs, with knights acting as enforcers. If that also sounds like the Antebellum South and the Post-Reconstruction South, then you can start connecting the dots to modern-day Conservatism.

ETA: Oh shit, I just realized I'm in the Peter Thiel thread. You know, the guy who follows Curtis Yarvin, a crazy fucker who wants us to live in a world of technofeudalism.

 

So I was going to add, that one, Brisket summed it up pretty well, though I can say I have unequivocally moved on some political positions, and two, I would describe myself like Twice. I make fundamentally conservative decisions in business. And here's the thing. In my lifetime, the Democrats have been the more fiscally responsible party. I wouldn't say it took deprogramming to see that, just eyeballs. I started with the thought Republicans were more conservative, but I didn't need any training to see that wasn't the case, just basic critical analysis. 

 

The other things I will add, is one, some of my early political memories were things like Tipper Gore grilling Dee Snider. Democrats came off as tremendous scolds. And you know what? They still do. I'm so fundamentally aligned with most of their policy positions now that it doesn't bother me, but I can assure you it once did. The other is actual change in policy preference, and this comes from basic reasoning. As a businessman, I can tell you I think any other business owner that doesn't want universal healthcare is an abject moron. It is one of the biggest drags on a business there is. And these MAGAts absolutely lap that shit up because go team red or something. It's insane.

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Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, bolverk said:

You're describing fiscal responsibility, not conservatism as a political philosophy. The GOP hasn't been fiscally responsible since it embraced Reagan's voodoo economics. It was never about "balanced budgets," an idea they sold to the public to win campaigns. 

The "conserve" in conservatism is all about retaining the proverbial status quo, i.e., maintaining a specific social hierarchy, protecting the rich from the poor, ensuring the wealthy keep their money, etc.

It's a political movement inherently designed to keep the hoi polloi in check, and you can draw a through-line all the way back to feudalism, where it was assumed a specific social class had the divine right to get richer off the backs of the serfs, with knights acting as enforcers. If that also sounds like the Antebellum South and the Post-Reconstruction South, then you can start connecting the dots to modern-day Conservatism.

ETA: Oh shit, I just realized I'm in the Peter Thiel thread. You know, the guy who follows Curtis Yarvin, a crazy fucker who wants us to live in a world of technofeudalism.

Well yeah, conservatism within the context of liberal democracy.  And, although my examples were monetary or fiscal in nature, it goes beyond that.

It seemed to me for a good while that Rs, by comparison, were less likely to do stuff that had unintended consequences, yes, cost, but other things as well, as nice as a progressive thing might sound.  

And, although I approved of the "status quo," that didn't entail enshrining me or my fellow male whiteys and rich-ies, just a healthy whenever government makes a big departure, there's usually a lot of fallout kind of thing.

Also, being an alcoholic and making recovery and getting reconnected with spirituality/faith/the spaghetti monster, whatever, got me to a more progressive mindset.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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Posted
2 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Also, being an alcoholic and making recovery and getting reconnected with spirituality/faith/the spaghetti monster, whatever, got me to a more progressive mindset.

Something I noticed, a lot of the very outspoken Surly Republicans seem to have an issue with drinking.

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Posted
2 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

I mean....am I missing a major timeline event?  The open descent into (1) racism that was (2) utterly disconnected from reality that was birtherism was rather jarring.  And it popped up re his campaign in 2008.

I'm not saying there weren't plenty of issues with the party pre-2008, but that was a pretty eye-opening break in 2008.

Uhhhh yeah

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