Biden Picks....

[SciFiFisher]

Kamala Harris for VP. It's official Joe Biden haschosen a running mate.

She has a lot of positive things going for her as far as being a leader, a mover, and a shaker. And it probably doesn't hurt that she is Asian, Black, and a Woman. At at time when racial and gender issues are a very hot topic.

[Rommie]

Hey, the one I chose to see last year!

I'm sure someone will find a reason to nitpick her, but I think she's a strong candidate. And I like the fact that Biden said that he chose her because she calls him out on race issues when he's wrong. Imagine that in a president.

[Rommie]

Random political vent, but the VP choice came up with my Republican parents last night. Then my dad said "of course, this election will be a fundamental test on whether people will vote for the Democrats to take away their liberties." Also, Biden is a terrible choice because he says crazy things- my dad had no idea about the stutter, but JFC, if you're supporting Trump pot meet kettle on that one.

I was surprised at how emotional I felt when I told my father that I cannot live in a country where peaceful protesters are tear gassed by the order of the president. His response was that I "was looking at one small thing instead of the big picture." Then my mom changed the subject with a "both sides bad" thing, ie no side listens to the other any more.

Well, I mean I try, but after 20 years I can confidently say that my dad is not particularly interested in listening to any side or evidence that isn't his abstract philosophical viewpoint and there's a hell of a lot more attempts at understanding the one side in one direction over another. F kindly told me after that he thought I was being a bit mean to my dad, and I feel bad of course if I was, but I'm not even touching the "Kamala calls herself colored, what does that mean? Well Obama was half white but called himself black, and I guess Warren says she's an Indian!" attempts at humor that precluded all this, and I'm kind of beyond caring if I'm "mean" on not letting stuff like that slide.

Edit: I've now set up recurring donations so I will max out for the election for the individual campaign amount. Gotta use that anger somehow.

[lady_*nix]

@Rommie

If you were being "mean" to your dad, I really can't blame you. Dismissing + minimizing your anger about violent repression of protesters was already "mean" IMO.

Really sorry you have to deal with this from your family TBH. For myself at this point I've basically given up arguing with Trump apologists. If they are still true believers at this point they will not be convinced by anything, they're using a completely different system of ethics and never engaging in good faith.

So far only one Trumpist has turned up in my bio-family (an uncle who married a Christian woman and basically made a stereotypical self-loathing Jew of himself). I told my mom that, as far as I'm concerned, he is no longer family. He doesn't get to support despotism and genocide, promote racism and antisemitism, and literally oppose my existence as an LGBT person, and still claim any kind of family loyalty from me.

[SciFiFisher]

Well, we knew that no matter who Biden chose people were going to want to explain why she wasn't a unicorn.

As for family members who insist on supporting Trump and/or the current GOP no matter what... I don't know what the right answer is. Part of me wants to show them every graphic example of why they are wrong. And then I remember that there is no point to it. They won't change their mind just because I rub their noses in the doo doo that Trump and Co. are spreading everywhere. I am left with the choice to tell Face Book to snooze their posts and forget to send them a Christmas card. Sigh. I am just glad that the majority of my siblings and my mother are not totally died in the wool Trumpers. I have one sister who spent way too much time in Arkansas so she is a lost cause. We mostly just stay away from certain topics. Sigh.

[Rommie]

Yeah, my sister decided to poke the bee's nest on our family text thread so I got roped in. My dad basically insisted that he's just for "small government, low taxes, law and order, strong military and intelligence, just like I've always been." When I provided actions with sources showing these things are not true, I got told I live in an alternate universe with some conspiracy theories (unsourced, of course)... then when I point that out with more sources, "you really live in an alternate universe!" said again with no sources.

So yeah, I ended up just saying well as an astronomer I'm happy to know I live in the alternate universe where we rely on facts (but pretty sure I'm getting a long email tomorrow with questionable sources). I mean nothing else you can do at that point.

Reminds me a bit of that Simpsons sketch with Seymour Skinner- "am I that out of touch? No, it's the children who are wrong."

[Sigma_Orionis]

With my old man it got to the point that I got off the table and left when he started talking about politics.

[pumpkinpi]

With my old man it got to the point that I got off the table and left when he started talking about politics.

What were you doing on the table?

[Sigma_Orionis]

With my old man it got to the point that I got off the table and left when he started talking about politics.

What were you doing on the table?

Eating

[Rommie]

With my old man it got to the point that I got off the table and left when he started talking about politics.

What were you doing on the table?

Eating

Don't worry, pumpkinpi, I thought your joke was funny!

[Sigma_Orionis]

Sorry, doing business continuity testing. It went right over my head.

[pumpkinpi]

Sorry, doing business continuity testing. It went right over my head.

Why did you go under the table?

[Sigma_Orionis]

Sorry, doing business continuity testing. It went right over my head.

Why did you go under the table?

My keys fell to the floor

[Rommie]

Yeah, so the family text thing (which went into email) finally ended with my dad saying

I don't think it wise to continue with this. You see Trump as "a terrible person who does not care about liberty and justice for all". I see him as the opposite of this. I doubt if there's anything I can say to make you change your mind.

I mean, he's probably right. What prompted this was my dad said he was going to show why I was wrong by sending me his own sources, which turned out to be a mix of WSJ and Fox News stuff about the Steele dossier/ Horrowitz report. I said that would take time for me to respond to, but I note he didn't address any of my original points, like how saying you care about individual rights is against the fact that Trump tear gassed peaceful protestors for a bizarre photo-op, and I wouldn't let my dad do whataboutism about this. My dad's only comment there was that Trump is such a narcissist he wouldn't be Putin's puppet or anyone's else- which I also agree with, but I don't think the way my dad thinks.

But yeah I think it shows a thing or two about what my dad thinks about liberty. I do think there's a strange closeness between libertarianism and authoritarianism which wouldn't be obvious at first glance, but I'm just noticing more and more as I age.

[SciFiFisher]

And the Republicans are looking to get mileage out of the birther argument. Newsweek actually published an article questioning whether Kamala Harris is actually a U.S.Citizen.

[Sigma_Orionis]

Yeah, so the family text thing (which went into email) finally ended with my dad saying

I don't think it wise to continue with this. You see Trump as "a terrible person who does not care about liberty and justice for all". I see him as the opposite of this. I doubt if there's anything I can say to make you change your mind.

I mean, he's probably right. What prompted this was my dad said he was going to show why I was wrong by sending me his own sources, which turned out to be a mix of WSJ and Fox News stuff about the Steele dossier/ Horrowitz report. I said that would take time for me to respond to, but I note he didn't address any of my original points, like how saying you care about individual rights is against the fact that Trump tear gassed peaceful protestors for a bizarre photo-op, and I wouldn't let my dad do whataboutism about this. My dad's only comment there was that Trump is such a narcissist he wouldn't be Putin's puppet or anyone's else- which I also agree with, but I don't think the way my dad thinks.

But yeah I think it shows a thing or two about what my dad thinks about liberty. I do think there's a strange closeness between libertarianism and authoritarianism which wouldn't be obvious at first glance, but I'm just noticing more and more as I age.

The only argument that shuts them up (more or less) is incompetence. Although it's bad week foe that, at least regarding foreign policy. I am sure they're going to squeeze the thing about Israel and the UAE normalizing relationships for the rest of the campaign, hell they might even throw the thing that the US seized the cargo of 4 tankers coming here with Iranian Gas.

As for Libertarianism and Authoritarism: In my experience ALL of the people I've known that say that they want a "Strong Hand" Hand at the helm and favor authoritarian actions want THAT to fall on someone else, not themselves.

[lady_*nix]

@Rommie, @Sigma

Yeah, there's definitely a lot of "rules for thee and not for me" that feeds into it, but there's more going on. e.g. "States' Rights" has basically always been a veiled excuse for racism, stuff against public healthcare usually has an air of social Darwinism, ideas about getting rid of the welfare state also tend to be wrapped up in eugenics stuff. At the extreme of it, some anarcho-capitalists believe children should be marketable property, freely bought and sold by adults.

The heart of it is that the right-libertarian idea of "freedom" is about "freedom to", not "freedom from". (See also FDR's Four Freedoms.) It's "freedom" as imagined entirely around the ability to exercise power, with the naturally strong being rightfully on top, not held back by the "laws" and "regulations" of untermenschen - IOW, ideologically not that far removed from Nazism.

And yeah obviously there are exceptions. (David Brin for instance, he IDs politically as "libertarian", but has a collectivist mindset and despises the extreme individualist/survivalist types.) But yeah as a rule of thumb, "libertarianism" in the US is usually about social Darwinism, with principles closer to fascism and old-school conservatism than to liberalism or leftist ideologies.

(Sorry if any of this is super vague or illucid BTW, I'm typing through a lot of brain fog. Yaaaaay chronic illnesses. )

[Sigma_Orionis]

I am well aware of how power struggles work. I come from a culture that values power over anything else. The way I see it, in the end it always comes down to the same: "I AM BETTER THAN YOU, THEREFORE: YOU DO AS I SAY". The first thing authoritarians do is create two groups; Those WITH POWER and those WITHOUT IT. Who goes on each group? Take your pick: Race, Gender, Religious Faith, Sexual Orientation, Ideology... Those are just the usual ones, But, it really doesn't matter. It can be choice of soccer teams or which end of a boiled egg you break. Tactics? "We are more MORAL than them", "We stand for Truth," or "Justice" or "Freedom", Again, take your pick, the tactic is irrelevant. Of course, within the first group there are layers and layers of smaller groups until you end up with the top tier where there's a single person or a very small group of people that are basically sociopaths. Since I have little tolerance for arbitrary demands and a strong distrust for any form of authority (that tolerance grows even smaller and that distrust grows even larger the higher in the hierarchy those demands come from) I usually end up in the group without power, or MAYBE, if I am lucky I am at the outermost layer of the group with power. As in one of idiots that do the dirty work for the others in said hierarchy. That's where my extreme dislike of authoritarians comes from.

As for your Libertarians, I find them and Communists to be pretty much the same: Both promote schemes that simply don't work in the real world. Both have NO IDEA of how to make them work either. Both expect the rest of the world to suit them. And of course each and everyone of them thinks that "The World would be a much better place if everyone did as I say".

[code monkey]

And the Republicans are looking to get mileage out of the birther argument. Newsweek actually published an article questioning whether Kamala Harris is actually a U.S.Citizen.

yes, because her *parents* were immigrants. quite a stretch. oh, would this be a good time to point out that our current president's mother was an immigrant? thought so.

[code monkey]

rommie - as for our current president(cp) not wanting to be seen as putin's puppet, I wonder how one might try to explain the many actions that cp has taken which favor putin over American interests and organizations. the american intelligence community states that putin interfered with the 2016 election and is working on the 2020 but putin says he wasn't and isn't. who are you going to believe? meddling with the post office protects American freedom?

I know, i'm singing to the choir. but good on you for asking for citations. (you won't believe the trash I've been sent when I do this just for hydroxychloroquine or the drug testing/approval process.)

[Rommie]

rommie - as for our current president(cp) not wanting to be seen as putin's puppet, I wonder how one might try to explain the many actions that cp has taken which favor putin over American interests and organizations. the american intelligence community states that putin interfered with the 2016 election and is working on the 2020 but putin says he wasn't and isn't. who are you going to believe? meddling with the post office protects American freedom?

I know, i'm singing to the choir. but good on you for asking for citations. (you won't believe the trash I've been sent when I do this just for hydroxychloroquine or the drug testing/approval process.)

I basically said exactly this and got crickets in response. Well not quite, I got told about the Horowitz report and how Obama spied on Trump with the FBI.

Seriously guys, the Fox News bubble is nuts. At some point both my parents got graduate degrees and this is the critical thinking level going on right now, which is borderline Dear Leader shit IMO.

[code monkey]

I basically said exactly this and got crickets in response. Well not quite, I got told about the Horowitz report and how Obama spied on Trump with the FBI.

Seriously guys, the Fox News bubble is nuts. At some point both my parents got graduate degrees and this is the critical thinking level going on right now, which is borderline Dear Leader shit IMO.

dear lord. it looks as though conversation will have to be restricted to family matters (doesn't cousin sally look wonderful?) and such non-controversial topics as religion.

[SciFiFisher]

I basically said exactly this and got crickets in response. Well not quite, I got told about the Horowitz report and how Obama spied on Trump with the FBI.

Seriously guys, the Fox News bubble is nuts. At some point both my parents got graduate degrees and this is the critical thinking level going on right now, which is borderline Dear Leader shit IMO.

dear lord. it looks as though conversation will have to be restricted to family matters (doesn't cousin sally look wonderful?) and such non-controversial topics as religion.

and such non-controversial topics as religion.