• Rand Paul worries political climate will get someone killed.
    30 replies, posted
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/410610-rand-paul-on-political-climate-i-really-worry-that-someone-is-going-to-be Paul's wife, Kelley Paul, wrote an op-ed to Booker in which she appeared to blame him for the threats and protests her husband has faced this past week. Booker's office argued, in a separate op-ed, that his remarks are being taken out of context and that he "has nothing but respect and admiration" for Paul and his family. Hundreds of protesters flooded the Senate office buildings in opposition to Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination. The heated debate led to Republican senators, and some Democrats, being confronted by activists in hallways around Capitol Hill, at D.C.-area airports and restaurants and in their cars. Wow, who knew pissing off the majority of the nation can lead to revolt or violence.
Corey Booker's comment was totally reasonable, IMO. This sort of thing is what really worries me: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/twitter-sanctions-alex-jones-for-video-asking-supporters-to-ready-battle-rifles-against-media
And the people who have already been killed because of the political friction and negligence don't count because....? Looking into the article itself, it seems to be expressing more of a concern about potential politician deaths rather than anyone else.
Her name was Heather Heyer
Do the billions dead due to climate change count?
As they should be. People are getting increasingly more angry at all the "party before country" bullshit happening and Brett was a big drop in that jar, you'd think politicians would fear getting people angry in a country where weapons are so easily available.
https://twitter.com/RandPaul/status/746022114042478592 🤔🤔🤔 and also here's a good twitter thread https://twitter.com/CanerdianGirl/status/1049814056880807936
He's definitely right when he says that somebody might get killed, but I'm not so certain the people who need to hear that message would even consider that a bad thing. Politicians running on socially-exclusive platforms like white supremacy would probably view the death of opponents and "others" as little more than necessary sacrifices or a part of their master plan, you've got nutjobs like Alex Jones actually advocating for violence against "others", usually with language specifically chosen to disavow them of any responsibility while still advancing their own goals, and god knows the malcontents on /pol/ would spread unfunny image macros and edits about it for literal months the moment a corpse with a "D-__" after its name shows up in the papers. And of course, the opposite would galvanize those same people almost immediately, the assassination of anybody more right-wing than a corporate democrat.
"Good people on both sides"
Regardless of the context with Booker, he's not wrong. The USA needs another watershed moment that helps bring the country together, because right now, the general escalation of discourse has been really destructive. It's damaging our confidence in state institutions (I'm talking executive agencies and the courts; not legislature - low confidence, I suspect, is relatively common for lawmakers) which are supposed to be viewed as non-partisan. The real problem is that while both Republicans and Democrats see the problem in each others' rhetoric, neither sees their own. Each party derides the other as the enemy of the people and each party lumps the other into one big group. Even if it's not peoples' intent to lump all Republicans or all Democrats into one box, saying things like "Republicans are X" or "Democrats are Y" is doing nothing productive. I often make it a greater point to criticize those I agree with than those I disagree with for this very reason. If people stopped seeing each other as demons trying to destroy our way of life, it'd make cooperation a hell of a lot easier. If people were comfortable disagreeing with, and recognized how maybe their opponent's point of view is nonetheless reasonable, it'd go a long way.
Obama extended the olive branch and McConnell slapped it out of his hand.
Welcome to the "salt the earth" policy.
Politicians he agrees with of course.
As much as I recognize that "discourse" can be just as toxic on both sides, I feel that many on the left are justified in their outrage. It's hard to cooperate with the other side when they hate you for your sexuality, ethnicity, religion, or skin color. The American right hates a lot of people, and as much as I'd like to encourage cooperation between the parties, the right needs to get with the fucking program and drop the numerous overt '-isms' from their culture. We can and should have disagreements about economics, welfare, foreign and domestic policy, etc; that is important to critically analyzing the situation at hand and making sure we're doing the right thing. Putting children in prison, banning a religious group from entering the country, sweeping sexual assault and perjury under the rug, taking health insurance away from millions with no backup plan, denying climate change, assaulting journalists (physically or otherwise), repeatedly, brazenly lying to the public, and abetting white supremacists do not constructively contribute to the country, its politics or its people. Until such time that they let go of their hate, we are going to call the right out on its bullshit.
Maybe you should've said that before your party started flirting with nazis and the clinically insane, Rand. I hate how politics have turned from inter-/national interest with a side of fringe radicalism to a post-modern art piece about paranoia, communal delusion and cult followings. I don't even care about ideology as much as I care about people doing their jobs right but now that everything's so partisan, you can't do your job right unless you do it according to your party's ideology. Falsify data, commit fraud, violate all the human rights you want, as long as it supports the ruling party. I'm not even sure if I'm referring to the US or to China.
He's absolutely right. In about a hundred years a shit ton of people are going to die and have incredible hardships because of global warming and he's directly responsible for helping that along.
The GOP has been everything but cooperative. The Democrats have tried to cooperate, and the GOP just slap them away or laugh them off like they usually do, just because of their affiliation. Dems and Obama tried to cooperate with them during the last presidency, and they just flat out didn't listen or didn't care because "Democrats hurrrr". They hate Obama because he's black (but are too spineless to say it), not to mention they want to erase his entire legacy just because of that. Not to mention the GOP supporting traitors, imprisoning children, removing visas for spouses in the UN who are in an LGBT relationship, tariffs, and other economically-regressive policies. There's no defending this shit. The GOP have done the most monumentally-fucked up things in the past two years compared to anything the Democrats have done. Whatever modium of integrity the GOP had died a long time ago. They're nothing more than a shell full of bought-out, empty, prolapsed anuses that can't even think of anything else but themselves. As for just simply disagreeing and trying to talk it out, the GOP take disagreement as an attack on their identity and will try to drown you out via decibal ad nauseum. They're a rogue party serving nothing more than hostile nations and special interests.
aren't both connected really?
Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who urged members of a group advocating for an end to homelessness to "get up in the face of some congresspeople and tell them about common sense solutions." Tell them about common sense solutions? I'm literally shaking right now, how dare Booker use this inflammatory language
This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but maybe something like this needs to happen. It's going to be tragic and stupid and pointless more likely than not, yes. But those in power need to be reminded who they serve, and given a reminder of why they should fear the people.
hmm Idk, 2,975 americans are dead from a series of rapidly intensified hurricanes that formed back to back last year, then there's the entire syrian civil war, a primary cause of which was the long unusually hot drought that caused massive civil unrest in the water scarce country, but hey if you think its all a cornspiracy then you'd worry someone might get killed for thinking it doesn't exist too.
More afraid if Violent action is taken at the wrong time. They'll use it to their advantage and pull off their own version of the Reichstag fire.
and the gop approval ratings have gone up. the idea of "let people see how bad they truly are" isnt working. the people are agreeing with it, supporting it even.
I'm not sure we haven't already gone past that point.
Its hard to tell. But i feel if we can't get things fixed in the next 2-3 years or so. America is on the path of Chaos and disorder. Thats why this November is so fucking important for elections. Cause this is one of our last chances of getting things fixed before everything continues to go South. Like i know the Democrat party isn't exactly perfect, but anything in the hands of the GOP is just asking for trouble. So if we are able to take back the house and/or the senate. Then we can at least start to get shit fixed and slowly push the influence of the GOP out of both State and Federal branches of government. But if we don't. And if the GOP continues to expand the power of the the Executive branch and continues to fill the Judicial branch with hard-line conservatives and party-line GOP supporters. Lets just say, anyone who is either left-leaning, Democrat, Independent, A non-batshit insane Conservative who's still sane, get a gun. Cause the 2020s is going to get fucking ugly for the USA.
It feels like a losing battle. Even if the federal government is saved, there are still tens of millions of people hungry for an authoritarian ethno nationalist regime who aren't going anywhere. Even if we avert short term disaster, those people will prevent the action we need to take to prevent long term calamity. Climate change is going to accelerate out of control, the ecosystem will collapse, and we'll kill each other fighting over what remains. In the end, these fucking morons won't even realize that they're the ones that killed us all.
I'm slowly beginning to realize as well. There's going to be some sort of Chaos that will occur, no matter what happens. But the most important thing is avoiding them from taking control of the Government. So its pretty much the path of least resistance. We're going to come out damaged in the end no matter what. But We'll sure as hell be less fucked up than the other scenario, that being the GOP and their tens of millions of cult-like followers taking hold of the Federal and State governments.
The people advocating that the GOP be hoist by their own petard would totally go back to Jim Crow and back alley abortions to 'prove how bad the GOP is' it's totally inane. It's an excuse for doing jack fuck all and shaming people who practice civil disobedience.
TBH there are probably more than a fair share of politicians who's killings would have the opposite effect to harming the nation and probably deserve to be shot.
And someone has already been arrested for planning to use a 200lb IED at the National Mall during election day... Seriously, guys. It's only gonna get worse from here. If you have any sensibilities, you better start learning basic medical and survival skills.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.