Perpetual Congressional Roundup 2013: Sanford peepin

[waldojeffers1]

true yeah, I wasn't thinking of the recall specifically, just our electoral system in general

[the_village]

the_village my argument is that as long as they are not being surpressed or kept from voting, their non-vote is their voice being heard. i don't care if they are non-partisan and turned off by the right or left, this is their choice. if their vote is being supressed, not counted or if access to voting is structurally difficult, then I have problem.

if voting is mandatory i just see more and more people relying on two or three minutes of information from television or quickly asking someone like their pastor on what to vote for in order to "get it over with." I think that while there are plenty of people voting against their interests, I think currently people who are voluntarily voting at least have some investment in it.

like i said, if more people vote because we make it easier then that is great, I love that idea. break down every barrier there is for an informed individual to become part of the process and increase their chance of proper representation, but I simply believe forcing voting with the threat of punishment is undemocratic.

the concerns you express were also concerns australians had before they took on compulsory voting. none of them have come to fruition. what has happened, however, is their politicians now try to appeal to as many citizens as possible. the hard right and left just kind of faded away.

i don't buy the non-vote as a form of expression. these people feel disenfranchised and because of this they disengage from the process. why come out and vote when neither party represents your values? it's why so many black people didn't vote before 2008. right now more americans consider themselves independent than they do republican or democrat. if all of these people had to vote and expressed interest in a 3rd party candidate, you can bet the dems and reps would change their tune. a non-vote only gives permission for our two party system to continue with politics as usual. you can say they choose to be silent, but i think most non-voters feel silenced by hardcore democrats and republicans.

[palmer eldritch]

American Crossroads is buying ads against Donnelly in Indiana

thanks tea party!

[Jeremy]

I think I picked up Gramsci at the best/worst moment of my life. What's the American version of Avanti! I have some editorials about soccer and cocaine for them.

[Durham]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/14/gary-kreep-superior-court_n_1595435.html

Evidently you can be an actual insane person in 2012 America and people will vote for you to be a judge.

[Durham]

Justice should not only be blind, but fucking retarded and fickle, too.

[universe]

This fucking guy

Brown agrees to debate Warren at Kennedy Institute, but with conditions
Senator Scott Brown said he will debate at UMass Boston only if Edward Kennedy's widow stays neutral in the race and MSNBC quits as a sponsor. (Boston Globe)

[sleigh]

The widow thing is pretty fucked up?

[universe]

She's "hosting" the debate, if that makes a difference. But, it's not like people don't know who she supports. He's just trying to stop her from being a campaign asset.

[deebster]

New Samuel Wurzelbacher joint is pretty good

[Amblin]

don't know where to even start with that one

[can]

jesus...

was definitely not expecting that at all

[SvenMaeglasson]

glad to hear joe the plummer gets off on shooting things because of his stance against tyranny and not his giant wimpiness

[Shalabi]

Why is he still going by The Plumber?

[The Dirty Turtle]

[waldojeffers1]

god fucking damnit

[The Dirty Turtle]

remember, joe supports guns so we can go kill the tyrants

[staple]

"to defend your property, to protect your family, to track down tyrants"

[staple]

New Samuel Wurzelbacher joint is pretty good

fuck this gay earth

[The Dirty Turtle]

[waldojeffers1]

if these assholes are really so serious about using their 2nd amendment rights to fight tyrants, and they also believe that obamacare is socialism, then how come they're not shooting up police stations.

I'd wish this question was posed more often, except that they might actually start doing it if they thought about it that far.

[sideshow raheem]

New Samuel Wurzelbacher joint is pretty good

fuck this gay earth

yeah this is so offensive

[Jeremy]

if these assholes are really so serious about using their 2nd amendment rights to fight tyrants, and they also believe that obamacare is socialism, then how come they're not shooting up police stations.

I'd wish this question was posed more often, except that they might actually start doing it if they thought about it that far.

I mean they're probably thinking that the police are not radical socialists and they're probably right.

[waldojeffers1]

yeah but they have to draw the line somewhere, at some point people need to become responsible for the dictatorial actions of the government and thereby become fair targets for being shot

otherwise, the argument that the 2nd amendment protects us from dictatorship doesn't make sense anymore. almost like it's obsolete.

[Jeremy]

NRO had a couple of reasonable posts about how people agitating against "Sharia Law" might not have like unprejudiced constitutional integrity as their main motivation or whatever and guess who Andrew McCarthy grabbed to write a rebuttal?

Edit: A rundown of the whole thing where NRO purged their previous open racists.

Here's some stuff from his website a few years ago that he's since taken down for some reason:

…Now, if skin color, disease, body shape and size, athleticism all have a biological basis, why is it that intelligence or predilection to violence might not also have genetic bases. In fact, there is enormous evidence to the contrary. For example, at the extremes, we know that mentally retarded people and geniuses were “born” that way.

…But if standardized testing suggests a racial component to IQ, if the New York City and national murder statistics suggest there is a racial component to murder, why is that necessarily a bad racism? With all of the liberal talk of evolution and biology, why do people find it so difficult to confront the facts that some races perform better in sports, some better in mathematical problem solving, some better in language, some better in Western societies and some better in tribal ones?

…There is a reason the founding fathers did not give women or black slaves the right to vote. You might not agree or like the idea but this country’s founders, otherwise held in the highest esteem for their understanding of human nature and its affect on political society, certainly took it seriously.

…The fact that a retarded person can vote [i.e., literacy tests have been outlawed] but a child cannot is not sustainable and eventually the ACLU will successfully challenge this baseless age discrimination. Just like the laws against “consensual” sex with minors, or animals, or polygamy will eventually be challenged and held to be unconstitutional in the same way sodomy has been transformed into a “right,” when it once was an absolute abomination to the vast, vast majority of Americans… When Process and Rights replace the moral compass supplied by this country’s Judeo-Christian foundings, nothing, absolutely nothing can be morally repugnant anymore, at least not in the eyes of the law.

…If, on the other hand, science, meaning liberal scientists with the Elites’ agenda firmly in hand, don’t allow for an inquiry into the differences between peoples, races and sexes, and scientists carefully guard the boundaries that keep science in control, democracy and the Open Society, multiculturalism and the remainder of the trendsetters on the way to an amorphous World State, remain unchallenged.

[sideshow raheem]

look pal the 2nd amendment is for home defence, hunting dangerous or delicious animals and keeping the King of England out of your face

[waldojeffers1]

man that thing started out suggesting criminality was inherited and then somehow managed to get crazier and crazier with each sentence

[The Dirty Turtle]

the other day i told one of my friends that if he doesnt think race and crime stats are 100% the product of the actions of the united states government that makes him a racist
he got so mad

[waldojeffers1]

my mom thinks it shows a liberal double-standard that rappers can complain about how life in the ghetto is hard and get paid for it

[The Dirty Turtle]

"WHAT THE FUCK MAN?? YOU CALLIN' ME A RACIST??"
"well if the disparity in crime stats isnt due to years of things like slavery, segregation, fucked up housing laws, etc, then what is it about black people that inherently makes them commits more crimes?"
"FUCK YOU ASSHOLE"