Biden drops out

[Marshall]

Yeah, but he's a "jock."

[millring]

Jul 25, 2024 14:15:31 GMT -5 John B said:

Jul 25, 2024 13:55:49 GMT -5 millring said:

(and you guys have the audacity to excoriate young white men who dare to question your dogma and dare to think Republican while you cheer Palestinian protesters wishing to push Jews into the sea and out of existence. Too rich for words.)

I assume "you guys" is a rhetorical device, as we have yet to see anyone here cheer Palestinian protestors, especially those advocating the extermination of Jews.

As far as I know.

You're right. I'm being hyperbolic. I'm over-the-top angry (freshly so, given the visit by Netanyahu ) that the Democrat party would rather see Israel surrender to Hamas than to contribute to a victory over Hamas. They can't even find it in themselves to back Israel with the same fervor with which they defend Ukraine.

[Marshall]

Jul 25, 2024 14:21:16 GMT -5 millring said:

You're right. I'm being hyperbolic.

You realize, you'll never reach the Asymptote.

[millring]

Jul 25, 2024 14:15:31 GMT -5 John B said:

But then again, you were pretty comfortable characterizing me as a fascist the other day, or at least fascist-adjacent, so I am not sure where your word choices come from. And like it or not, I know you are very intelligent and choose your words carefully.

No. What I am doing is stating that while you are calling me a fascist if I dare back Trump (or agree with any or all of "Project 2025")...I am saying that it is you and your side (Democrats) who are more likely to bring on fascism because it is you and your side who believes in increasing the power of both the elected and unelected factions of the federal government. It is your side that wants to empower the unelected regulatory class to control more and more. It is you and your side that is actively working toward punishing the wrong thought. It is you and your side that is trying to empower the federal government to subsume more and more property, more and more institutions, more and more businesses -- or effectively do so by having utter control over them in a regulatory way. It is you and your side that empowers itself by licensing in order to control thought on issues -- so that the only allowable thought is the licensed, approved, State point of view. It is your side that actively censors free speech via social media. THAT is as close to the very definition of fascism than anything any Republican has EVER come up with. Meanwhile, you actually empower yourselves by sowing fear of fascism coming from the right -- the right being the side of the philosophical divide whose very existence is centered around dis-empowering the federal government.

You call my side fascist and because you think you are right about that, you don't think you're being outrageous ... or rude. You, after all, are the side of polite society. But if I turn it back on you, you are offended. After all, I'm a jock.

[Dub]

Jul 25, 2024 14:28:29 GMT -5 millring said:

… After all, I'm a jock.

In my experience, athletic departments and varsity teams have both “jocks” and athletes. The athletes were top performers both in the game and in the classroom. They had 4.0 GPAs earned the highest academic awards. They were also nice caring people. The “jocks” might also have been skilled at their chosen sport but they tended to be bullies and didn’t do as well academically. On the football field the quarterbacks tended to be athletes, while the tackles tended to be “jocks.”

I know this categorization is over broad but, hey, that’s life.

[John B]

OK, once again I am going to assume that the use of "you" is not directed at me specifically, but to somewhere around 40% of the population. I think you're wrong.

Quote from JD Vance (transcript, I watched the video). Emphasis mine.

Let’s give votes to all children in this country, but let’s give control over those votes to the parents of those children. When you go to the polls in this country as a parent, you should have more power — you should have more of an ability to speak your voice in our democratic republic — than people who don’t have kids. Let’s face the consequences and the reality: If you don’t have as much of an investment in the future of this country, maybe you shouldn’t get nearly the same voice.

I suppose that means you, me and Dar (and Russ and C) can hope Bill, Peter, Tamarack, David, Don, etc., will take care of us poor childless wretches.

But maybe they measure investment not just in terms of number of kids, but also in the size of one's investment accounts? If so (and he only said investment in the future), let's pray to not be childless and poor.

[Russell Letson]

Mark posted something like what went through my mind when I read John's post. One of my high school classmates was the best all-around athlete I've ever known personally (wound up as a prominent college coach--soccer, wrestling, lacrosse), but he wasn't a jock. Nice guy, too. Some of the guys on the football team, though, were cliche jocks--and bullies to boot. Which didn't surprise me, since the school's head coach was a bully and an asshole that I'd seen in action from third grade onward. And of course some of the worst bullies in school didn't play any sports at all and didn't hang out with the jocks because they were even worse jerks. And some jerks were neither bullies nor jocks. All those traits get distributed across a population in all kinds of combinations. (Some of the girls were jerks, too.)

[Russell Letson]

I'm married to a childless cat lady who could rip JD a new one without getting off her chair. Oh, and she's twice his age.

[epaul]

Sounds like I'm JD Vance's kind of guy! I have two kids with my current wife, five from my previous marriages, and three or four others that I just kind of lost track of back when I was really hitting the bottle. I'm invested!

Does he give out badges and stuff?

[epaul]

Oh, and while I'm not Catholic, I do drink a lot and sing in the choir. I think I got most of it covered.

[howard lee]

When I was in high school, in 1971, I hung out with the opposite of the jock crowd, who mocked and bullied us outside classes. We dabbled in controlled substances. We marched against the war in Vietnam. We marched for civil rights. We played Frisbee. We listened to Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, the Grateful Dead, King Crimson, and Jethro Tull (country music and bluegrass came later on for me). We had shoulder-length hair.

Sometimes, I'd braid my hair to keep it out of the way in mandatory phys ed class. The phys ed instructor was a former Marine with a blond buzz cut. He called me Pocahontas. He was a bully and a racist, and I wasn't even of First People's descent.

Those years set my philosophical and moral compass.

[Rob Hanesworth]

I was my high school valedictorian and played basketball (many pounds ago). What a fucked up mess I must have been.

[Cornflake]

"I was my high school valedictorian and played basketball (many pounds ago). What a fucked up mess I must have been."

My younger daughter was captain of the basketball team and valedictorian. She convinced me that athletes can be okay. Actually, I already knew it. But my gym coaches back in Texas were not okay.

[Dub]

Jul 25, 2024 18:18:56 GMT -5 Rob Hanesworth said:

I was my high school valedictorian and played basketball (many pounds ago). What a fucked up mess I must have been.

Not at all. You were an athlete, not a Jock.

I’m guessing Millring wasn’t actually a jock either.

[TKennedy]

Hey I played right guard in high school. Guess I actually am a jock. Always kind of secretly wanted to be.

[howard lee]

Jul 25, 2024 20:28:11 GMT -5 TKennedy said:

Hey I played right guard in high school. Guess I actually am a jock. Always kind of secretly wanted to be.

It was very popular in those days.

[Marshall]

Nicely said, John, for a jock.

[Marshall]

John's discussion reminds me about what I read about Russian people. We are abhorent about Putin's Russia and wonder why the people don't revolt. But when Russians are interviewed, it's the system they've lived under for their whole lives. And they've got their work-arounds. It's what is "normal" to them. They have no interest in adopting a Western form of democracy. We are the devil.

[millring]

There's a piece by Heather Cox Richardson that's currently going viral. I've tried to copy and paste part of it but can't manage it with my phone, but she makes the comment that Biden didn't pass the torch to Harris to maintain our democracy, he passed the torch to the voters.

But isn't that exactly what didn't happen? Because everyone seems mesmerized by the new energy of all of a sudden there is absolutely no dissention in the ranks, not even a discussion -- when my recollection was that everyone here did not want Harris.

Doesn't it bother anyone that you're being steam rolled into accepting a nominee who didn't win a single primary AND won't face an open convention? Where's the democratic process in that?

[Dub]

Keep in mind that political parties aren’t provided for in the Constitution. They have their own rules and, as far as I know, are free to pick candidates any way they choose. To have a say in selecting candidates one needs to be directly involved in the work of the party, attend party functions, and stuff like that. It’s more than just checking a box somewhere.

The process differs between parties and between states.