LA Grant

If the House were proportional, the same ratio protections for small states would still exist. Less-populated states would benefit proportionally as much as the more populated states -- instead of having 1 Rep in Wyoming, they would have 2. The result would be that your vote would matter more, and your Rep would be more accountable, wherever you live. Aha. Thanks for the predictably partisan non-response. At least you boosted your post count, I guess.

I've posted this a few times in different threads but it wasn't able to cut through the noise. But here's a proposal that should cut through partisan lines — left or right, Americans are not accurately represented by their government. Your average elected official in The House of Representatives speaks for about 700,000 people. When the limit of 435 total Reps for the House was set in 1913, the ratio was far lower: 1 rep for every 200k citizens. In the 100+ years since, the population has grown dramatically, yet the ratio remains fixed, archaically. Ironically, it means that America, for all of the branding of "freedom" and "democracy," represents the average citizen worse than other major countries. That's a pretty bad deal if you prefer, as I do, for America to be a representative democracy. There have been proposals — from both left & right — to change this, because there's no shortage of ways to see how an increase in the House would lead to (a) better representation for third-parties, (b) easier for cross-aisle coalitions to build, (c) would lead to more citizen-legislators and fewer career lifers or lobbyists with government clearance. Sources https://www.conservativereview.com/articles/is-it-time-to-increase-the-size-of-congress/ https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/07/enlarging-the-house-of-representatives/ https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/24/opinion/24conley.html https://www.census.gov/population/apportionment/about/history.html http://archive.ipu.org/parline-e/NumberOfSeats.asp?REGION=All&LANG=ENG&typesearch=1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming_Rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reapportionment_Act_of_1929 Right now, the Republicans control the legislative & executive branch — if they truly believe in "smaller government" and "draining the swamp" — putting more power in the hands of the public would be a great way to achieve both.

Mm hmm. And you can see no reason why Nunes might not be a reliable primary source? https://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/02/nunes-fine-the-fbi-didnt-lie-but-its-font-was-too-small.html http://thehill.com/homenews/house/372315-nunes-claims-theres-no-evidence-papadopoulos-ever-met-trump-despite-photo Okay buddy. You're less interested in talking politics & society than you are in pretending to be the sewing circle's sheriff. Simple minds gossip about people. Expanded minds discuss ideas & concepts. Be better, Tom.

Hi Tom! Great to hear from you again. 1) Correct. I'm not suggesting DACA is law, or rather, I wasn't intending to but I guess by saying repeal, I did. So you've got me there, sh*tbird. What I'm saying is Dreamers shouldn't be targeted by ICE or deported because they're not protected legal status, and they should have that status. 2) I agree, and have said, what I would like to see is a simpler path to citizenship, which, if you'd consider what I'm saying instead of using it as another excuse to get an ulcer, would realize we obviously agree. You are correct this would require action from Congress. Right now both legislative & executive branches are in the hands of Republicans. If this is something you like, as a conservative, perhaps you could email your favorite representative. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/dan_newhouse/412660 3) This is also why I keep advocating for an increased House of Reps, because it increases the chance of laws like you propose of finding momentum & finding a majority.

On second thought. Please put me on ignore, Boyst.

Anything besides joke answers?

It is quite a bit more complicated than that, actually. You've seen the experience with your wife; you live in Austin, I'm in LA. So I've asked you to consider who ICE is targeting & why, and consider the Immigration Court system. Let's consider amnesty and let's consider DACA. DACA and Dreamers. Here is a common story, I personally know several people this fits: Born in US, or have lived here since infancy. Parents visa expires. They stay. That kid is now an adult, technically illegal. To deport this person means sending them to a country they've never been in their lives, or haven't been since before they could walk. Trump wants to repeal. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/04/02/what-is-daca-and-what-does-trump-administration-want-to-do-with-it.html Why is that the solution instead of providing a simpler path to citizenship? Maybe I'll make another post about it another time but Trump & the "caravan of criminals" specter -- this is all theater, the worst kind. Trump wants to change the headlines away from... everything he's doing. He's not a subtle mind -- the plan for 2018 re-elections is to target the most fearful contingent of white people in his base & get them worked up about brown people. The caravan thing is ridiculous - it comes from Fox & Friends, which even Breitbart (a !@#$ing openly nativist conservative site) issued a correction on. The full story, if you read into it, is the precise opposite of "caravan of criminals," it's literally people trying to immigrate as legally as possible, doing so in a group to protect & educate each other -- but of course that would take actually listening to people instead of just believing the story from Fox & Friends, as President Trump did.

In principle, sure, but to a degree --because journalists/articles don't exist in vacuums. The organization matters, from newsrooms to NFL teams to anything in the world. If you are only focusing on the article & the journalist, you limit your view of the larger context. Ignoring the organization to only focus on the story sounds right, but it completely ignores the how and the why that shaped the story. The source matters. Also. You've frequently cited Devin Nunes tweets, have you not?

Sure, who can forget those famous instances of George Soros & Oprah buying up a bunch of Local News affiliates, then demanding they include "must-run" segments about how Clinton's Lewinsky scandal was actually an investigation into the Deep State vast right-wing conspiracy. Lol, can you imagine. The "vast conspiracy" was laughed off immediately, which is ironic as that claim has at least as much merit as Deep State conspiracy. Or remember that time when Obama had Beyonce & Jay-Z buy up a bunch of local newspapers to smear Donald Trump for spreading the birther conspiracy? Because I remember it being about the exact opposite of that -- cable media falling over themselves to discuss Obama's birth certificate or he's secretly an Islamic Muslim agent. To which, again, all TV is hyperbolic and a production to varying degrees. Is there a line? At what point does it become unacceptable? Why are media conglomerates so acceptable? Especially if they are literally forcing "most-run" hardcore partisan stories, some as op-eds and some as stories mixed in with the rest, taking advantage of the trust the Local News reporter/station has built with their audience. I guess I am struggling to understand why you think that's okay? ? Okay that's good. But really though. Who?

I don't know. What would you call the belief system of wanting fair representation in shaping society? That's the form of government I'm advocating for, if you're paying attention. Do you feel fairly represented? You might say yes, but you've only experienced what you've experienced. I might say no, but I've experienced the same representation. So how could either of us know any differently? Consider the average House Rep speaks for about 700,000 Americans. The cap was set in 1913, when the ratio was 1=2k. Other chambers of lower legislative houses in comparable countries have a much lower ratio. Americans are ironically among the worst represented in that sense. Combine this with gerrymandering, which has somehow just become accepted as a fact of life; consider the still, to this day, tons of questionable voter suppression laws or defacto laws. Increasing the amount of House Reps would help to eliminate things like that; it would help shake the crumbling two party system; you'd be more likely to see regular citizens running instead of political lifers or the politicians who are merely corporate lobbyists with government clearance. It's ironic that increasing the size of the House would actually lead to the smaller government that conservatives supposedly prefer -- better representation leads to, y'know, "checks and balances" against corporations and deadlocked ideological battles. It would lead to better debate, and likely to more consensus-based solutions. It'd make it easier for Tasker or Rhino to run for office and have a legitimate chance. Tell me how that proposal is fascist. Can you name another source that is provably more consistently accurate? The Wall Street Journal maybe? The Tribune? AP? You tell me.

Hey we agree! In principle. Corporate lobbying is too powerful. Power to the people. Right on. Inept Congres is also due to gerrymandering and the misproportioned House. The average House Rep speaks for 700,000 people. This needs to change. The limit of 435 was set in 1913, when the proportion was 1 House Rep = 200,000. What that means is present-day Americans are among the worst represented proportionally. This won't happen on it's own -- Congress isn't going to just want to take power out of their hands. But if we agree in principle on the above, we'd agree with increasing representation of the people by increasing the size of the House. What do you think? https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/07/enlarging-the-house-of-representatives/ https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/24/opinion/24conley.html https://www.census.gov/population/apportionment/about/history.html http://archive.ipu.org/parline-e/NumberOfSeats.asp?REGION=All&LANG=ENG&typesearch=1

This is 100% incorrect and misrepresenting my post. That is probably why Tasker chose to not quote my post in his response to it. He's been doing this lately, trying to get away with pot-shots against my name without directly engaging me. Hard to find any other definition for that behavior besides "cowardly." Tasker has countless posts accusing others of dishonesty, or attacking straw-men, yet just as frequently pulls these shenanigans. Every attack from a conservative ends up a projection of their own guilt, it seems. The one thing we agree on is "We need an informed citizenry. " What we apparently don't agree on is: "We also need an active citizenry." Tasker fancies himself an intellectual. "The smartest man in the room." Which is a joke, you can smell the fedora from across the country... but his belief is real. Rather than a democratic society, it sounds like Tasker would prefer an oligarchy of technocrats, of which he imagines himself one. If their policies affect you & you don't like it --- "sorry, tough luck. Leave it to us, the experts!" Tasker wants the political process to be as exclusionary to the public as possible, apparently. In Tasker's view, you aren't entitled to your opinion on society... unless you agree with him. Until he deems you "expert" enough. He will "Take You To Tasker" through a fundamentally anti-democratic anti-American viewpoint — like he is now, advocating against voting rights — then just as soon lecture you on how actually it's exactly what the Founders intended. Ludicrous. The irony here is that Tasker, an ignoramus, thinks himself superior. I'm "dangerous" because I'm advocating for your basic right to vote. Boyst can't read above a third-grade level, and he still gets one vote. Trump, similar ability, is president. The trouble with intelligent people is they tend to be cautious -- they have become intelligent because they're willing to learn, whereas the ignorant are supremely confident in what they think they know. Tasker's misbegotten confidence is a pure example of the Dunning-Kruger effect. He's stated multiple times he thinks Trump will be regarded as a hero equal to George Washington in the history books, for just one example of why Tasker is a very confused and silly, silly man. Everything you described there ... also works as a description of Trump's election. How else do describe MAGA rallies than "emotional angry mob who don't understand the issue... lead to nothing but violence... antithesis of a free society"? Try to tell me any of that doesn't apply. So your worst case scenario description matches what you think is the realization of your fantasy. In other words, it's where we are at now. The difference is you refuse to recognize MAGA Trump voters as the "emotional, angry mob who don't understand the issue" because then you would be worst case scenario. So that's present day. That's our starting point. Consider that in Tasker's post above, he is quite literally telling you what to think, accusing me of the same. Except, I don't tell "you" what to think. I tell you to not rely solely on provably junk news sources. I advocate for including the NYTimes in one's daily reading; not as the only source, but as a consistent one. Tasker says "don't believe that; only believe me and my sources. I'm an expert." Decide for yourself. Do so by looking at a variety of sources. My point, again, is that you are entitled to your vote, and therefore, your opinion. Don't let any fool here tell you otherwise.

If you'd bothered reading the posts of mine that you deign to respond to, you'd know what kind of party solution I'd prefer. Don't let your ignorance prevent you from certainty, though. It's served you this long, so why change now? I never claimed to know what you do & don't read, now did I? You broadened the conversation, so I was speaking broadly. When that didn't work, now you fall back on "well you don't know me, so you don't know anything." Reading the NY Times on a daily basis won't make 'you' or anyone else more like 'me' or anyone else, but it would result in you being more well-informed than you were before. It's simple. You prefer to have the biases hidden, then? In that case, Sinclair's secrecy is just right for you. I don't know, what else could it be? It's a mystery alright. I don't know. The answer might even already be in this very thread. I guess you'll never know.

FTFY. Also, people are concerned about having one (1) party in control of all three (3) branches in control of government AND that government outright accusing all other news sources to be "fake" -- and only the one they've cut a favorable deal with as being "real." Feel free to grow up & stop your martyrdom at any point. Wrong, fool. You're just not connecting the dots, and it appears to be willful. I'm not saying the NYT is the only thing you should read. I'm saying it can be trusted, for the most part, more than any other source you can name. I'm saying to include it in your daily news diet; not because I say so, but because reputations, processes, track record -- that should matter. If you can't see the difference between Sinclair & the NYT on your own, then... idk.

Yesterday, weren't you b*tching about my posts being too long-winded. The day before, if I provide you with an explainer video, you're afraid to watch it unless it's something you've already seen before. Now, if I employ the Socratic method, this too brings your "shut the f*** up" approach. I know you're comfortable describing yourself as an idiot, Boyst, but it's not your intelligence I find troubling so much as your integrity. You provide nothing of value to any discussion. You can't articulate any thoughts or positions of your own with any coherence. Yet you still bark, bark, bark, bark. Would you describe yourself as a "toady," Boyst? When you look up "stooge" in the dictionary, is it a mirror? If you think of yourself as an independent thinker, why do you never demonstrate this? Are you an obedient manservant or a man? If you're a man, why are you incapable of articulating your own thoughts beyond repeating "douchebag" as though it has any meaning, weight, or value?

I already covered this in my previous response, if you'd bothered to consider the point. I'll try to make it as simple & clear as possible. 1. The worst you'll find from the NY Times is that they reported information that proved to be inaccurate, or, they didn't have the complete story. 2. As you demonstrate, they will be upfront with their errors when it is learned. In other words, the NYT will admit when they were wrong. 3. It is impossible to name a more consistently reliable source for national news. Feel free to try, but it doesn't exist. 4. For example, The Washington Times will gleefully run intentionally misleading headlines like the one you link to. Think about what The Washington Times is doing in the article. It says "Here's an editor from NYT talking over beers about the readership being mostly liberal." then takes that somehow as "proof" that "you can't get facts from the NYT." This kind of slanted, shoddy coverage is not seen from the NYT. I frequently see Washington Times, Breitbart, Federalist, American Thinker, Fox News double-down on wrong information with excuses like "don't blame us, we're just trying to present the other side." But you won't see The NY Times misrepresent facts, you won't see them spin outright lies, then cower behind "hey don't blame us, we're just showing the other side." Again, just because news is all made by humans, and all humans hold bias & opinions, does not mean all news is equally biased. "The Grey Lady" deserves at least as much respect as your mother if not more, considering the NY Times has brought lots of good into the world, whereas your mother only contributed you.

So, let me get this straight. Your conclusion from the Sinclair "must-runs" is you think what people are objecting to is "neutrality" in news? That's what you're taking from this?

Be specific: what sensible gun legislation do you refer to?

OK so then you likely saw with your wife's example, the difficulty of applying for visas with the lottery system; the need for an employer to sponsor you; the convoluted path to citizenship; the whole mess of legal red-tape before you even get to take a damn Citizenship test. Did she go through things like that before you were married? If you've seen people go through the ridiculousness of it, it's easy to understand why the current laws are a mess. I don't want second class citizens. That's not the argument I'm making. I'm saying, if you're working, if you're peaceful, if you want to be here -- why shouldn't you be allowed to be here? That's the exact principle this country was founded on. I'm saying Latino immigrants working in the fields or restaurants do deserve the same opportunity. The path to legal citizenship should be simpler. The current Immigration laws are broken, they are not practical. I am also saying, being here illegally because the laws are impractical, does not necessitate ICE doing raids through poor neighborhoods, targeting farmers for their citizenship paperwork. The crime does not fit the punishment. It is cruel and unusual. It is some Gestapo like sh*t.

Yeah. I think we agree on basically all points. Going to respond in, er, bullet-form. Personally, I don't think you need to be a "gun guy" to have an opinion. Similarly, you don't need to be an expert coder or programmer to have an opinion on Facebook/social media. Trump doesn't need to be fully literate to be president. So I respect that you are cautious in asserting your opinion before you feel like you understand all of the previous arguments better, but at the same time, you're entitled to your opinion based on what you do know, based on how this issue affects you or society. To be clear, I'm not advocating for "ignorance" -- I'm saying, broadly speaking, the ignorant don't mind being loud one bit, while the more thoughtful people tend to shy away from jumping in because they assume they don't know more. I'm advocating against "technocratic rule" -- the idea that you're not allowed to have a vote in the matter if you aren't an expert. I hate that approach, I think that is an anti-American view, frankly. I think the burden should be on the experts to succinctly explain things clearly & plainly -- the burden should not be on the general public. We agree that gun ownership is part of the USA, and that gun owners need to concede some level of reasonable regulation. I also like the cars analogy. The seatbelt comparison is good. It's why I think "Universal Background Checks" are the best compromise - think of it like the DMV. Competency tests, annual registration, etc., just like the DMV. And just like you might be pulled over in traffic if your tag is expired, if your registration lapses, then it should be acceptable for Local Police to get a warrant to investigate your home for illegal unregistered weapons. This will help crack down on "bad guys with guns." The other comparison I like, with Universal Background Checks, is to include a behavioral assessment, similar to what you might take if you applied for a job at Walmart. All of this would necessitate a waiting period for the application to be reviewed. It would prevent 18-year-old psychotic person Nikolas Cruz from buying an AR-15 to act out his nihilistic revenge fantasy. I appreciate your compassion toward both sides. I am becoming less patient with the "responsible gun owner" contingent, or at least, the folks who claim to be "just innocent good guys" yet who staunchly oppose any reform. It's a contradiction. If you don't support reform, you are not responsible. The idea that they are being demonized is a self-applied Martyr complex -- in truth, you can see it trickling down from the NRA. "They're demonizing you! They're blaming you! Don't let them!" You know, it's ridiculous. It's saying -- we need to fix this aspect of society. To do so, it will require some compromise. The folks who will need to compromise most are the "good guys with guns" who will suffer the inconvenience of an added bureaucratic step. I have yet to see any reasonable argument on why this should be unacceptable other than, "I don't want to, and guns aren't the problem." At that point, it's back to step one, and the question is — are the mass shootings acceptable, or unacceptable? If we are a moral, ethical society, then that shouldn't be a debate. We also need to understand the 2nd Amendment does not say "guns." It does not say "firearms." It says "arms." What is an arm? An arm is a weapon. So then the question becomes -- why did we draw the line where we did, in defining "arm" for practical law? Does that line make sense? Again, that's why I think the best solution is not to ban individual guns, necessarily (although I see the argument on bump stocks, AR-15s, etc., I get why proponents of those plans support them) -- the best solution is to say -- everything that is a crossbow and above, you need to be "well regulated." If you, Joe Citizen, want to own firearms that increase your ability & rate to murder beyond your natural abilities, then you need to go through a softer version of Boot Camp, essentially. You need to be trained & demonstrate you can wield the power of a firearm responsibly. I think all of the above is entirely fair and reasonable. What do you think?

Hmm, I dunno. There is some truth to what you're saying. I agree that all news is inherently partisan, to a degree. But there is a bit of cherry-picking here too, if you will. I think you are really oversimplifying your Facebook & Comey examples. It's not as though the NY Times just decided to write about FB and Comey differently to push any kind of skewed narrative other than "this happened." Positive FB coverage versus negative FB coverage after it became more known about data farming -- they are different contexts! I think the worst of it is TV news; you're not getting information in a full way, regardless of where you're getting it. Some are way worse than others. Fox and CNN are not guilty of an equal amount of crimes, not close. But TV news in general is just ... it's more of a production. It is a show, by necessity. All of it. TV news is like watching the Bills season only through SportsCenter versus reading the Buffalo News. Assuming you only had the choice of either & couldn't watch the game live. Watching the game live is C-Span, in this metaphor, I guess. Maybe calling C-Span games is what John Murphy can do in the offseason. At least on TSW everyone is dealing with the same objective information. Can you imagine if the conversations on PPP were like that?... "10 Thoughts on Senate Floor Proceedings 1, March 22nd, 2018" In general, the best thing for TV news has been the increased investigative stories and long-form journalism -- documentaries on television and film that can provide a fuller version of a story, as opposed to the soundbite you'd get on Local News or Cable News. Podcasts & digital & social are also huge. Similar to TV, very powerful in shaping opinion, because there's the performance aspect. I think Fox News is popular because it makes the potatoes feel a li'l riled up every night and that's fun. As I said, by all means, read more than NYT but I think it's a far stretch to identify anything else as consistently the best daily newspaper in the US free press, by a fair margin, for a long time. The NY Times does not have a reputation for misrepresenting facts - then, or now. They simply don't. It doesn't mean they haven't been wrong (Rhino would like to repost their correction issued on Iraq lead-up -- they've been guilty for reporting information that has proven to be inaccurate, but that is not the same thing as taking a fact and deliberately skewing or misrepresenting it). That doesn't mean the editors don't lean liberally. Their op-eds are generally liberal, but that's not news, in both senses of the phrase. So yes, while all news is inherently partisan, that is only true in the very broadest sense, in that news is created by human reporters, shaped by editors who are people with the job of deciding, answering to owners who decide what to decide & not decide. At every level of that, you want the responsible ethical choice made consistently. Right? And it's not easy to find a better example for that than NY Times, past & present.

Case in point. Why don't you provide anything more than myopic laziness & an attitude of superiority? Hopefully you bring more than that to Thanksgiving. I'm not sure you even possess a worldview beyond "Tom rules!" hahah — what, did you get oppressed by another elementary school crossing guard asking you to not jaywalk today?

I don't know that you do know what I'm trying to do here. My point, if you'll take it, is that the first "Americans" didn't come here "legally." Settlers didn't apply; they forced their way in as immigrants. African-Americans didn't apply; they were brought here as slaves, to be used as resources. Irish-Americans were demonized for decades, a number of laws passed were targeting their arrival & integration. I'm asking if you think the immigration laws as they are make sense. If so, why? Immigration Courts are broken. The application process is absurd if you get into the weeds of it. The current enforcement with ICE is targeting blue-collar workers like farmers. This is the current state. If people are immigrating to the US to work & be peaceful... why can't their process to citizenship be streamlined to be more effective for them, and thereby, all of us? Is your life any different because of illegal Mexican immigrants working farming jobs in California or Texas? You're bad at this but don't let that stop you.

That's on you, actually. Our post histories bear this out — anyone is free to click through & check. I don't have that many posts and I've mostly been posting on PPP over TSW lately, so shouldn't take long to dig through. I've posted many facts, and attempted multiple times to engage you in a debate of facts. You ignore, make a snide remark ("shooting retards from the balcony" as you imagine it), get confronted, say "tl; dr" then bounce. @The Poojer... You can easily check the posting history of Boyst & myself, and come to your own conclusion on who is uninformed and who is dishonest. I imagine you've seen Boyst around and know his history, but trigger warning either way, I'd guess somewhere around 80% of his posts are slurs & insults. Edit tl;dr — The rest of this is a philosophical tangential Isn't it funny how "trigger warning" became a punch line unto itself? The idea originally comes from PTSD treatment for the benefit of veterans. For example, you might issue a trigger warning before fireworks, or maybe an intense war film, that it might cause distress. PTSD can come from traumatic events besides war, like rape, but the idea of colleges or other media offering warnings for similarly intense subjects like rape somehow turned "trigger warning" into a joke among conservatives, who see it as an example of liberals either (a) wanting to control their minds or (b) too sensitive for the real world. Either way, liberals are dumb, haha libtards. "Trigger warning" now is in the class of "snowflake, safe space," like the idea that liberals are too precious and sensitive to face reality, when all a "trigger warning" is, is like an R-rating. It's a heads up for the benefit of the potential audience on what's coming from them. From what I've been seeing, Conservatives seem to be opposed to helping people, or more to the core of it, they simply do not want to be bothered or inconvenienced. That's the point of America, I think, to conservatives; let me get mine, and f*** off. There's an appeal to that mindset, who doesn't feel that way to some degree? But it also means that they inherently think that how they got their mine was only because of their unique specialness. They don't acknowledge the role of society and societal factors in their status, or especially other peoples' status. In other words, the conservative mindset of rugged bootstrap individualism is "SNOWFLAKE." You can see it on this board; some think that only they can see the truth of the Deep State conspiracy; only they are special enough to see the secret truth. And "f*** off" means, don't tread on me, don't come into my space, I don't want to have to think about you. In other words, they want their own little piece of who-cares, and the rest of the world to disappear. Gun rights are so important to Conservatives because they want to defend their homes from intruders. They want a "SAFE SPACE" in other words. Here's my point: what I notice more & more is that seemingly every accusation from modern conservatives is a total projection of their own guilt on the subject. It bears out if you look for the pattern. During the campaign, Trump makes "crooked politicians" his strawman scapegoat... while he was doing dirty dealings with Russian oligarchs & gangsters, stomping or bumbling all over the law like a sh*t-covered pig in a china shop, and lord knows what else. Multiple examples of the most intense anti-gay Republican congressmen being closeted gay, or outright pedophiles, like Roy Moore. The right chants "Hillary's emails" nonstop for months and months and months, then it turns out Trump's being investigated for crimes far more dishonest & damaging -- now they say nothing. The idea that George Soros and a cabal of globalists including Benghazi Hillary herself (who is somehow also a frail old woman collapsing every three hours) are controlling the populace through CNN -- meanwhile NRA literally buy off politicians in broad daylight. There's so many examples; a few weeks or months ago, some of the letters they were sending judges up for re-election had the tone of mobster threats; pay up if you know what's good for you. We see their smear campaigns happen in real-time now with social media; they're not even subtle about it. Obviously there's also the Sinclair example of this, too, being an unfounded accusation (fake news) being a confused confession. Tomi Lahren & Dana Loesch & Trump himself & Bannon & Beck, so many of the loudest voices on the right, are failed entertainment industry people. Tomi & Dana didn't make it as actresses so took this gig spewing hate speech with a pretty face. Actual crazy people like Robert Mercer want to reshape the world with their money; Bannon & Mercer are people who'd be just as happy seeing the world burn if it meant they personally benefited. Yet these voices will somehow claim that you can't trust protests because they're actually charades organized by the Hollywood elite, it's all a TV show (Boyst probably thinks I'm paid by Soros to post here), the Parkland & Chicago kids must be actors or liars or pawns, because they're bothered by the message and literally cannot fathom the idea of people caring about other people. (DC Tom actually described the concept of fairness as "alien.") Actors paid by Big Money Conservatives With Bad Intent.... labeling messengers they don't like..... as "actors paid by big money liberals with bad intent." The message is always "Government is broken, vote for us." Republicans regulate, cut, dismantle government as much as possible; give out some tax cut scraps for rebate in exchange for massive long-term gains to the 1% business class. Meanwhile, raise the national debt to absurd proportions. This is the Republican way since Reagan. The last two Republican presidents didn't even win the popular vote; in a society that worked practically and morally, that should mean something. Wasn't this country founded on ideas of "fair representation"? Republicans do not care unless it affects them personally. Anyway, there are a lot of examples like this, where the GOP projects their own guilt as accusations on their opponent. GOP should stand for gaslighting, oppression, projection. There's an argument to be made for outright criminalizing the Republican Party, quite frankly. At this point there's little doubt they've been horribly corrupt, and though it pretends to serve the interests of conservatives, it never does. If somehow big necessary changes came about — eliminate money in politics; eliminate gerrymandering; eliminate as much corruption as humanly possible — you wouldn't have a Republican Party. You wouldn't have much of a Democrat party either, but let whoever's left hang on by a thread as the party of center/business. Conservatives can figure out what the f*** they care about, and what they want, in a practical sense: are you libertarians? are you constitutional absolutists? are you imperialistic business? are you William F. Buckley or Steve Bannon? figure that out. Meanwhile, liberals can start a democratic socialist party picking up from the enthusiasm for Bernie Sanders. It's not like Bernie is the only person to hold such ideas; it's not about Bernie himself -- it's about how he was the only one who brought together traditional "Democrats" and "Republicans" because he was proposing ideas that we now label as "independent." But voters should be reminded of things like the New Deal, should be talking about "radical" ideas like fixing the broken economic system so it allows for fairer distribution of resources outside of the 1%. There's a contingent of conservatives who agree with ideas like Universal Basic Income, as it would eliminate unnecessary social service programs by rolling them all into one. It would eliminate economic fears of automation, it would allow people flexibility to leave a bad job or leave a job for a time to care for an ailing loved one. More people would have the opportunity to start new businesses that could address other societal problems. The political discourse should be more solution-based discourse. Eliminate corruption. Three parties. Left, center, right. We need laws & protections toward more direct representation in the government, NOT less. Forces trying to oppress the one thing that keeps everything in check should be labeled traitorous and dealt with as such, unless someone wants to somehow argue in favor of "voter suppression"? What's crazier: these proposals, or the fact that the proposals are a pipe dream in our society? Compromising on things to make sense & be fair in the effort to create peace in society is somehow just preposterous.

Since you brought up the gun debate — and you're interested in finding common ground, and you're talking about the relationship between freedom, responsibility, and fear — What do you support for gun reform? You're correct that compromising seems to be more & more difficult to come by these days. Especially in this area. Where any proposal for reform is seen as the beginning of a slippery slope to take away individual rights. And so then it becomes abstract to the point of meaninglessness. Yet it seems to me that the best solution is "a fair compromise" — the proposals for Universal Background Checks appear to have the most support & make the most sense for all. Guns are more controlled, or "well regulated" and the individual American still has "the right to bear arms." Personally, I'd even be willing to put a time-limit on it — say, 10 years, enough for at least two different presidential administrations. Re-evaluate after that with the new data. Did it make a difference in reducing mass shootings? Are legal gun owners more oppressed than they were before; are they unable to hunt or defend themselves? If it seems satisfactory, it can be renewed. If there are problems, it can be revised. What do you think? I do know what you're talking about. Do you understand the point I'm making? I ask because it doesn't seem so. What point do you think I am making?