All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!

[zinderel]

There are far more pressing issues than gay marriage, I don't give a damn if you want a license to marry a lama. I'm concerned about people who live so far below the poverty line they no longer exist in the public's consciousness.

Of course poverty needs to be addressed. It has needed to be addressed for DECADES, if not longer. But that has NOTHING to do with the basic human dignity inherent in letting adults marry other adults without having to pass through a crowd of protesting idiots whose imaginary friend says that 'gay marriage' is evil. Allowing consenting adult humans to marry other consenting adult humans they are in love with is a pretty basic, very easy issue to deal with. Just pass the bills when they come up, because one group's religion or culture is NOT more valid than any other groups, under the law. Stop wasting time and money on fighting basic human progress and use that money to actually help people who need it.

But you will NEVER find a conservative willing to just let people be people, without interference. You will never find a 'conservative' who would willingly spend money on something like fighting poverty, not when they can rile up their base against homos and pocket more of that money themselves, instead.

So while there may be other, bigger priorities to deal with, as long as adult humans have to fight with other adult humans who blame their imaginary friend or their 'culture' for their bigotry, this issue will keep coming up.

Stop supporting the waste of money that it costs standing in the way of consenting adults doing things in their bedroom just because it icks you out, and it'd be AMAZING how much money suddenly is available to deal with the more important issues like income disparity.

[Holt]

Good thing no one is forcing them into gay marriages, then. There is literally NOTHING to 'buy into' here except the question, "Are LGBT+ people human beings, deserving the same rights and dignities afforded all people under the law?"

Yeah. One has literally nothing to do with the other, so I'm not even sure why some Aboriginals being opposed to it was even brought up.

[JCAll]

Of course poverty needs to be addressed. It has needed to be addressed for DECADES, if not longer. But that has NOTHING to do with the basic human dignity inherent in letting adults marry other adults without having to pass through a crowd of protesting idiots whose imaginary friend says that 'gay marriage' is evil. Allowing consenting adult humans to marry other consenting adult humans they are in love with is a pretty basic, very easy issue to deal with. Just pass the bills when they come up, because one group's religion or culture is NOT more valid than any other groups, under the law. Stop wasting time and money on fighting basic human progress and use that money to actually help people who need it.

But you will NEVER find a conservative willing to just let people be people, without interference. You will never find a 'conservative' who would willingly spend money on something like fighting poverty, not when they can rile up their base against homos and pocket more of that money themselves, instead.

So while there may be other, bigger priorities to deal with, as long as adult humans have to fight with other adult humans who blame their imaginary friend or their 'culture' for their bigotry, this issue will keep coming up.

Stop supporting the waste of money that it costs standing in the way of consenting adults doing things in their bedroom just because it icks you out, and it'd be AMAZING how much money suddenly is available to deal with the more important issues like income disparity.

I've seen this conversation basically verbatim:
"How dare the gays complain about your petty problems when there's so much gun violence in the world!?"
"Okay, let's talk about gun violence instead."
"Now's not the time to talk about gun violence!"

[Old Man Ollie 1962]

I owe you cats an apology for being so sarcastic and irascible. Ollie just being Ollie. I stand corrected.

[zinderel]

Yeah. One has literally nothing to do with the other, so I'm not even sure why some Aboriginals being opposed to it was even brought up.

I'm a firm believer that we are all fighting our own battles, and that there are very real differences between, say, the black rights movement, the women's rights movement, and the gay rights movement.

HOWEVER, ALL of us are fighting the same war. We are all tired of being put aside in favor of whatever new distraction presented to us by the heteronormative, white, Christianist, male elites that run every country they 'colonized'. We are ALL suffering under the rule of religious fanatics and bigots. Not just the blatant scum like Bannon, Robertson, LaBarbera, Spencer, Jones, Trump, Sessions, et al, but also that of the 'lower case kkk' who wouldn't be caught dead in a white sheet, but doesn't want a low-income apartment building or a black family or a couple of *whisper* "queers..." in their gated neighborhood.

They have colonized us, they have set us against one another, and they are the only ones who profit off of us fighting over semantics, because they KNOW that if we looked at things, REALLY looked at them, we would recognize that we are fighting the same fight on different fronts and would be, unified, a TERRIFYING force of change that sets fire to their institutions. How long do we allow them to keep dividing us on arbitrary lines while they get rich off of our conflict with our brothers, sisters and cousins for the scraps of bread they deign to offer us? How long do we allow them to use our dead as weapons against our brothers? How long before we recognize that black rights, women's rights, aborigine rights, poor rights, gay rights, etc are all about the SAME BASIC RIGHTS?

Eat.
The.
Rich.

[mojotastic]

Eh, Do we even know how Australian politics are?

[zinderel]

Eh, Do we even know how Australian politics are?

One minority's basic human rights are being put up to majority vote, and representatives of another under-represented, oppressed minority are being manipulated and trotted out by members of the elite who PLAINLY don't care about EITHER minority's dignity, all in order to distract us from their excesses and to foment conflict that only helps keep us from unifying against them (since there's no profit in cooperation, and LOADS of profit to be made from conflict).

Meanwhile, the rich, white "Christians" we SHOULD be fighting laugh themselves sick while we fight among ourselves for their amusement.

Sounds like politics everywhere.

[mojotastic]

One minority's basic human rights are being put up to majority vote, and representatives of another under-represented, oppressed minority are being manipulated and trotted out by members of the elite who PLAINLY don't care about EITHER minority's dignity, all in order to distract us from their excesses and to foment conflict that only helps keep us from unifying against them (since there's no profit in cooperation, and LOADS of profit to be made from conflict).

Meanwhile, the rich, white "Christians" we SHOULD be fighting laugh themselves sick while we fight among ourselves for their amusement.

Sounds like politics everywhere.

Yeah i got that, but i want to know about the parties, the politicians, the people.

It seems like we dont have Australians to give us an hindsigh, so i guess i will search on my own about the subject.

[Old Man Ollie 1962]

Martin Luther King Jr. helped to change laws. Changing laws, however, didn't necessarily change hearts. Am I my brother's keeper? Love your neighbor as yourself. These are universal tenets. But no legislation in the world can make folks abide by them. And that's the fundamental flaw that keeps us at odds with one another. Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo, Leo Tolstoy, Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, and Richard Wright explored those themes over and other in their works.

[Gray Lensman]

Of course poverty needs to be addressed. It has needed to be addressed for DECADES, if not longer. But that has NOTHING to do with the basic human dignity inherent in letting adults marry other adults without having to pass through a crowd of protesting idiots whose imaginary friend says that 'gay marriage' is evil. Allowing consenting adult humans to marry other consenting adult humans they are in love with is a pretty basic, very easy issue to deal with. Just pass the bills when they come up, because one group's religion or culture is NOT more valid than any other groups, under the law. Stop wasting time and money on fighting basic human progress and use that money to actually help people who need it.

But you will NEVER find a conservative willing to just let people be people, without interference. You will never find a 'conservative' who would willingly spend money on something like fighting poverty, not when they can rile up their base against homos and pocket more of that money themselves, instead.

So while there may be other, bigger priorities to deal with, as long as adult humans have to fight with other adult humans who blame their imaginary friend or their 'culture' for their bigotry, this issue will keep coming up.

Stop supporting the waste of money that it costs standing in the way of consenting adults doing things in their bedroom just because it icks you out, and it'd be AMAZING how much money suddenly is available to deal with the more important issues like income disparity.

As far as gay marriage is concerned, you could find conservatives who were in favor even back in the late 1980's.

Andrew Sullivan's essay from 1989 - reprinted by Slate, originally from New Republic

Theodore Olsen from 2010 - Newsweek

Jason Lee Steorts from 2015 - National Review

This isn't to say that cultural counter-revolutionaries aren't the loudest voices in the 'conservative' party - but there are those who think and say otherwise.

[Gray Lensman]

Eh, Do we even know how Australian politics are?

I do know that in the 70's when they were still part of the Commonwealth the entirety of Parliament got fired for bickering over the budget to the point where the government shut down. First the Queen's rep fired the Prime Minister and gave an ultimatum to get a budget, then he dissolved Parliament and denied permission to run to anyone from the old body.

Makes me wish we had something like that here in the US.

[worstblogever]

Eh, Do we even know how Australian politics are?

It's amazing what you can learn by using the internet you're on to look up things and learn.

Also, listen to Jim Jeffries some time.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, 2015, as well as 2016, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day posted profiles of U.S. Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota, who clearly has been taking hairstyle tips from Donald Trump on how to rock a comb over. Rounds, a former governor of South Dakota, once tried to outlaw all abortion in his state, and was turned back by the courts for it being a violation of Roe vs. Wade. He also insisted the Keystone Pipeline would create 40,000 new jobs in South Dakota alone, which was a gross exaggeration over four times the amount the company who would have owned the pipeline claimed there would be (It was more like 50, in reality). That’s not his only big lie, though, he actually has argued in favor of repealing Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform on the fallacy that the economy got WORSE after it was passed (the opposite is true). Sen. Rounds also was investigated for an immigration scandal, where he supposedly abused the EB5-Visa program to offer green cards to foreign investors if they would pony up $500,000 into beef packing plants in South Dakota. The visas were then not given, and the beef packing plant in question went bankrupt… and the money vanished with several of Rounds’ closest aides.After almost a year and a half, someone was finally charged with a crime in the EB5 Scandal. Regrettably, it was not Mike Rounds, but his associate Joop Bollen, who was charged with five felonies. On March 1st, 2016, Rounds commented on GOP Presidential Nominee Donald Trump, specifically, Trump’s reluctance to disavow the endorsement of David Duke, the former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, which Rounds took time to defend him for. Yeah, you got that right. On top of all the other horrible things about Mike Rounds, he also doesn't object to his party being linked with the Klan that much.

And not surprisingly, Sen. Rounds has been on board with every other terrible idea Donald Trump has managed to float through the Senate, including approving every member of Trump’s “Cabinet of Horrors”, and voting for the attempt the Senate GOP made at the “skinny repeal” of the Affordable Care Act.

His seat in the Senate will be up in 2020, and he had better hope his opponents all forget about the corruption scandal he got caught up in right after he last took office (we doubt they’ll be mum about that).

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Senate Headed Toward Including Obamacare Mandate Repeal In Tax Bill

Are Republicans shooting themselves in the foot again? Yep, pretty much. They can't help themselves.

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GOP Senators Believe Roy Moore’s Accusers But Not Donald Trump’s

They have no idea why and don’t want to talk about it. That's because Roy Moore doesn't have millions of brain dead followers who can keep the GOP in power come 2018 and 2020. Republicans can live without Moore, but they NEED Trump, so, see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Meanwhile....

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Now Sean Hannity Is Calling For Roy Moore To Drop Out Of Senate Race

The Fox News host gives the former judge 24 hours to clear up sexual abuse allegations or exit the race. Whoa! When Sean Hamhocks is doubting Moore, you KNOW the **** has hit the fan!

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Twitter Slams Donald Trump For Tweeting Condolences About The Wrong Mass Shooting

“Jesus, he copy pasted his response to a mass shooting and forgot to change the location. What a clown.” Couldn't have said that better myself.

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Mike Pence Keeps Getting Caught In A Web Of Deception

What did the vice president know, and when did he know it? Just Red Grant doing what Red Grant does best, being a sneaky bastard.

[numberthirty]

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Now Sean Hannity Is Calling For Roy Moore To Drop Out Of Senate Race

The Fox News host gives the former judge 24 hours to clear up sexual abuse allegations or exit the race. Whoa! When Sean Hamhocks is doubting Moore, you KNOW the **** has hit the fan!

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Honestly, I don't know if it's about that Hannity actually doubts Moore.

Hannity has taken a pair of shots going to bat for Moore. I think he came to the realization that Moore might wind up costing him his job. If it comes down to that, Hannity is going to save his bacon before he's going to save yours.