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PoliGAF 2013 |OT1| Never mind, Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

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A

Aaron Strife

Banned
PhoenixDark said:
Clinton did a good job of moving democrats away from some of its less popular ideas like Welfare; ultimately he governed like a center-right republican and revived the party enough for it to move back to the left (to a degree *winks at Empty Vessel*). Republicans need their own Clinton type to move them to the center-left but unfortunately their base is predominantly located in far right territory (the south and heartland).

Best guy to do it (IMO) would be Christie.
Click to expand...
Republicans moving to the center-right even would be an enormous improvement.
 
G

Gotchaye

Member
PhoenixDark said:
Clinton did a good job of moving democrats away from some of its less popular ideas like Welfare; ultimately he governed like a center-right republican and revived the party enough for it to move back to the left (to a degree *winks at Empty Vessel*). Republicans need their own Clinton type to move them to the center-left but unfortunately their base is predominantly located in far right territory (the south and heartland).

Best guy to do it (IMO) would be Christie.
Click to expand...

But even this sort of shift is typically a pragmatic one. Establishment Democrats didn't decide that they'd been wrong, at least at first. But they knew that they weren't going to win elections unless they changed something, so they moved to the right even though they would have preferred to win elections on their old positions. The political calculations involved were pretty similar to the kind the Republicans are broadcasting lately about rolling over on immigration.
 
T

Touchdown

Banned
now trending on twitter - #GOPFilms
some of these have me cracking up lol....

Honey, I Blew Up The Wrong Country
Honey, I shrunk the surplus
The Last of the Rupublicans
The Taxes Chainsaw Massacre
No Healthcare for Old Men
Three Men and a Baby (starring John Boehner, Mitch McConnel, Eric Cantor and David Vitter(in a diaper)
 
C

cartoon_soldier

Member
And it begins

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/mccain-jeered-at-town-hall-after-opposing-mass

There are 11 million people living here illegally,” he said. “We are not going to get enough buses to deport them.”

Some audience members shouted out their disapproval.

One man yelled that only guns would discourage illegal immigration. Another man complained that illegal immigrants should never be able to become citizens or vote. A third man said illegal immigrants were illiterate invaders who wanted free government benefits.
Click to expand...
 
B

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
Touchdown said:
now trending on twitter - #GOPFilms
some of these have me cracking up lol....

Honey, I Blew Up The Wrong Country
Honey, I shrunk the surplus
The Last of the Rupublicans
The Taxes Chainsaw Massacre
No Healthcare for Old Men
Three Men and a Baby (starring John Boehner, Mitch McConnel, Eric Cantor and David Vitter(in a diaper)
Click to expand...

Those are good. Especially the last one.

cartoon_soldier said:
And it begins

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/mccain-jeered-at-town-hall-after-opposing-mass
Click to expand...

Did you expect something different?
 
S

speculawyer

Member
Copernicus said:
Old lady calling out muslim Obama redux.

I hope that picture is his actual response to the comment.
Click to expand...

mccain-immigration-arizona-sun-lakes-cropped-proto-custom_24.jpg


It almost makes you feel sorry for him. Almost.
 
W

watershed

Banned
cartoon_soldier said:
And it begins

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/mccain-jeered-at-town-hall-after-opposing-mass
Click to expand...

Some of the comments in that article are just as bad as the stuff shouted at the town hall. We all knew the GOP base would get up in arms about this, especially now that people are recognizing how similar the GOP plan is to Obama's own. But are the GOP really willing to once again appease a vocal, irrational, and ever shrinking base at the expense of further alienating Hispanic voters?
 
H

Hitokage

Setec Astronomer
G

Gotchaye

Member
watershed said:
Some of the comments in that article are just as bad as the stuff shouted at the town hall. We all knew the GOP base would get up in arms about this, especially now that people are recognizing how similar the GOP plan is to Obama's own. But are the GOP really willing to once again appease a vocal, irrational, and ever shrinking base at the expense of further alienating Hispanic voters?
Click to expand...

Well, the worry (or hope, depending on how much you care about immigration reform relative to everything else the parties disagree on) is that the GOP may not have a choice.

People who could be made to be very angry about immigration reform are a shrinking group, but they are not a small group. Almost certainly they control the Republican primaries in enough districts to make a lot of noise on a national level even if most right wing media falls in line.

That means the GOP has a big problem. To the extent that there is a national debate about immigration reform, lots of the Republican rank and file, and even many Congressmen, will be saying things that alienate Hispanic voters. If the final bill passes with mostly Democrats' votes, while the Republicans are clearly divided over the issue, the Republicans as a party aren't going to get any credit from Hispanics. A few specific politicians, like Rubio, may come out ahead, but if the intra-party fight is big enough those same politicians will be DOA in a presidential primary. It's entirely possible that the 2016 primary would have several candidates running against immigration reform in something like the way the 2012 primary focused on Obamacare. The end result is that the GOP would do even worse among Hispanics than in 2012.

As I've said before, the politics of this only work if Republicans in Congress can pass something quickly before their own constituents have much time to decide what to think about it, and then never speak of it again. The goal is to stanch the bleeding and then hope to appeal to Hispanics on other issues (which probably won't work, but still). I'm leaning towards the leak of Obama's plan being intentional. If they're not going to get credit, and if lots of Republicans are going to be saying lots of stupid things anyway, they may as well kill immigration reform and at least hold on to their seats in 2014.

What will be really interesting is if grassroots rage becomes a big enough deal that right wing media turns on the issue. Politics is important, but ratings are king.
 
Rhomega Beta

Rhomega Beta

Member
Democrats and Republicans use different parts of their brains when making risky decisions.

It turns out Democrats and Republicans really do think differently.

In a new study published in the journal PLOS ONE, a group of political scientists and neuroscientists have found that conservatives and liberals use different parts of their mind when making risky decisions, and that these differences in brain function can be used to predict party affiliation.

Dr. Darren Schreiber, a researcher in neuropolitics at the University of Exeter, authored the study in collaboration with colleagues at the University of California. Speaking with TIME, Schreiber explains that the study used data from a previous experiment in which a group of people were asked to play a simple gambling task. The team took the brain activity measurements of this sample of 82 people and cross-referenced it with the participants’ publicly available political party registration data.

“We found that you wouldn’t be able to see how Democrats and Republicans behaved differently in how they gambled, but if you looked into their brain, the differences in the levels of activity in different regions were substantial,” says Schreiber.

They found that Republicans used their right amygdala, the part of the brain associated with the body’s fight-or-flight system, when making risk-taking decisions; Democrats tended to show greater activity in their left insula, an area associated with self and social awareness.

Schreiber says that the study’s findings are consistent with similar studies that have been done around the world. “We are not overlapping in our results, but we are definitely looking at different parts of the same elephant,” he says. In a study published this month in the American Journal of Political Science, researchers at Brown University found that people who have more fearful dispositions were more inclined to be politically conservative.

Schreiber is keen to stress that the ‘Red Brain, Blue Brain’ study does not show that humans are genetically hardwired to be a Democrat or a Republican, insisting that we are “hardwired not to be hardwired.” However the insula/amygdala brain function model does offer what they claim to be a 82.9% accuracy rate in predicting whether a person is a Democrat or Republican — better than previous models which rely on a parent’s party affiliation or brain structure.

Perhaps one of the most nuanced and positive upshots of the study is the suggestion that our minds are shaped by different ideologies, rather than biologically pre-determined to think a certain way. “We are finding that the brain can change in response to the environment, i.e., we can change our minds. We can change our allies into enemies and enemies into allies,” says Schreiber — offering some scientific hope at least that humans can overcome their political differences.
Click to expand...

http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/02/19...ifferences-between-democrats-and-republicans/
 
Q

Qazaq

Banned
offering some scientific hope at least that humans can overcome their political differences.
Click to expand...

Things and studies like this really bug me when they're offering conclusions like this. They would have been better off consulting social scientists if that was one of the goals they were aiming to study.

These scientists have never met someone that had a somewhat sudden or rapid change in ideological leaning? Hell I had one after the Democratic primaries where after voraciously rooting for Hillary I ended up voting McCain and becoming a lot more conservative with some of my thought processes for a time -- before reverting to my traditional left leaning habits.

Of COURSE peoples' ideological beliefs are filled with plasticity.
 
P

Particle Physicist

between a quark and a baryon
Qazaq said:
Things and studies like this really bug me when they're offering conclusions like this. They would have been better off consulting social scientists if that was one of the goals they were aiming to study.

These scientists have never met someone that had a somewhat sudden or rapid change in ideological leaning? Hell I had one after the Democratic primaries where after voraciously rooting for Hillary I ended up voting McCain and becoming a lot more conservative with some of my thought processes for a time -- before reverting to my traditional left leaning habits.

Of COURSE peoples' ideological beliefs are filled with plasticity.
Click to expand...

Can you explain how you went from Hillary to McCain and then back to left leaning? If you don't mind, that is. I have to be honest, I am not sure how that happens, especially at such a quick interval.
 
C

Chichikov

Member
Al-ibn Kermit said:
I really hate when people point to brain scans to suggest how people think.
Click to expand...
I tend to laugh at studies, especially when they provide such amazing insights as "people who have more fearful dispositions were more inclined to be politically conservative", but they claim they can identify party identity from brain scan at over 80% confidence, if true, that's at the very least interesting.
 
Q

Qazaq

Banned
I have to be honest, I am not sure how that happens, especially at such a quick interval.
Click to expand...

It all comes down to this:

“We are finding that the brain can change in response to the environment, i.e., we can change our minds.
Click to expand...

I did not think Obama was qualified. I very enthusiastically supported his re-election and proudly voted for him. But when he was running, I did not like really like him, didn't think he had much experience, wasn't sure what he would do in office, didn't like the embarrassing fawning given by politically apathetic people and dumb talking heads. (NeoGAF was absolutely atrocious at this time -- but then, it always is when you don't agree with the NeoGAF HiveMind. And PS, you can get away with a ton of shit if you have The Collective on your side, that will otherwise get you banned if you DON'T have The Collective on your side. But I digress...).

Plenty of that had to do with me wanting Hillary to win, but obviously much of it did not.

I began gravitating towards right-wing blogs because I found their perspective on the Obama/Hillary race very interesting, and at the time I just found it more fair.

I think, in part because Obama had so little experience yet was receiving so much fawning for his great oratory ability, I was susceptible to the "elitist", "arrogant", and "out of touch" claims. (Let's ignore how silly it really is to consider John "I-can't-remember-how-many-homes-I-have" McCain to be in touch.) And I think I felt this belief was married to how I (and many people saw/continued to see) as Obama not respecting the cultures and ways of life that weren't like him (which is quite a liberal impulse in of itself): farmers, rural communities, etc.

Due to me having to retreat to the right wing blogs to have my opinions on Obama echoed, I began to sympathize and agree with the world-view espoused by those sights: Individual responsibility, not punishing job creators and those who earned their wealth. I liked Sarah Palin a lot (at the time), and liked that she seemed to be everything Obama was not: genuine, like she would level with you, that she would speak like a very charismatic ordinary citizen. She had a good record as a governor in Alaska of bipartisanship and of not being a crazy fundie Republican.

I think I became more pro-life. I'm hazy on this. I'm not saying I switched entirely, or maybe I'm wrong if I even did -- but I recall my opinion on abortion shifting. I definitely became more hawkish. I thought a lot of the media was biased -- and that was easy to believe, because they were fawning over Obama and weren't mentioning the obvious viewpoints I had that I felt needed to be represented. I clinged to the scarce polls of good news in the run up to the election -- in much the same way that I recognized the current crop of Republicans do it for this latest election.

My opinions did not uniformly change. I voted a Democratic down ticket, believing a split government was the best way to have the spectrum of views fairly represented in Congress. I was still pro-environment.

So while I'm not sure it's necessarily accurate to say I went from Democrat to Republic in that timespan (despite me voting for Republican for president), I definitely became more conservative.

It wasn't until after the election I began to go back.

But in summary: There's a reason that the right-wing media sphere is successful and powerful. It's because it works.

While surrounding yourself with leftie blogs and watching leftie TV shows like I do also does have the power to obviously shape your ideology and opinions, I don't mind it, because I think very generally speaking, liberals are open to listening to and responding to what the facts say and what the reality really is -- and going from there to fix a problem. It's not about picking and choosing what to believe because you want to believe it.
 
P

Particle Physicist

between a quark and a baryon
Qazaq said:
It all comes down to this:



I did not think Obama was qualified. I very enthusiastically supported his re-election and proudly voted for him. But when he was running, I did not like really like him, didn't think he had much experience, wasn't sure what he would do in office, didn't like the embarrassing fawning given by politically apathetic people and dumb talking heads. (NeoGAF was absolutely atrocious at this time -- but then, it always is when you don't agree with the NeoGAF HiveMind. And PS, you can get away with a ton of shit if you have The Collective on your side, that will otherwise get you banned if you DON'T have The Collective on your side. But I digress...).

Plenty of that had to do with me wanting Hillary to win, but obviously much of it did not.

I began gravitating towards right-wing blogs because I found their perspective on the Obama/Hillary race very interesting, and at the time I just found it more fair.

I think, in part because Obama had so little experience yet was receiving so much fawning for his great oratory ability, I was susceptible to the "elitist", "arrogant", and "out of touch" claims. (Let's ignore how silly it really is to consider John "I-can't-remember-how-many-homes-I-have" McCain to be in touch.) And I think I felt this belief was married to how I (and many people saw/continued to see) as Obama not respecting the cultures and ways of life that weren't like him (which is quite a liberal impulse in of itself): farmers, rural communities, etc.

Due to me having to retreat to the right wing blogs to have my opinions on Obama echoed, I began to sympathize and agree with the world-view espoused by those sights: Individual responsibility, not punishing job creators and those who earned their wealth. I liked Sarah Palin a lot (at the time), and liked that she seemed to be everything Obama was not: genuine, like she would level with you, that she would speak like a very charismatic ordinary citizen. She had a good record as a governor in Alaska of bipartisanship and of not being a crazy fundie Republican.

I think I became more pro-life. I'm hazy on this. I'm not saying I switched entirely, or maybe I'm wrong if I even did -- but I recall my opinion on abortion shifting. I definitely became more hawkish. I thought a lot of the media was biased -- and that was easy to believe, because they were fawning over Obama and weren't mentioning the obvious viewpoints I had that I felt needed to be represented. I clinged to the scarce polls of good news in the run up to the election -- in much the same way that I recognized the current crop of Republicans do it for this latest election.

My opinions did not uniformly change. I voted a Democratic down ticket, believing a split government was the best way to have the spectrum of views fairly represented in Congress. I was still pro-environment.

So while I'm not sure it's necessarily accurate to say I went from Democrat to Republic in that timespan (despite me voting for Republican for president), I definitely became more conservative.

It wasn't until after the election I began to go back.

But in summary: There's a reason that the right-wing media sphere is successful and powerful. It's because it works.

While surrounding yourself with leftie blogs and watching leftie TV shows like I do also does have the power to obviously shape your ideology and opinions, I don't mind it, because I think very generally speaking, liberals are open to listening to and responding to what the facts say and what the reality really is -- and going from there to fix a problem. It's not about picking and choosing what to believe because you want to believe it.
Click to expand...

Wow, thanks for detailing that. It's quite enlightening, and following your thought patterns at the time, I can definitely see how you would move around like that. I appreciate it. :)
 
Q

Qazaq

Banned
quadriplegicjon said:
Wow, thanks for detailing that. It's quite enlightening, and following your thought patterns at the time, I can definitely see how you would move around like that. I appreciate it. :)
Click to expand...

No problem! I don't get to discuss it much, on the internet or certainly in real life, so it was nice to dive into it.
 
A

Aaron Strife

Banned
Rayis said:
Of course he'd get that reaction in Arizona, they've done a great job of dehumanizing illegal immigrants there
Click to expand...
It's funny considering his role in that (see his 2010 campaign). What the hell did he expect would happen?

"Oh, the black guy won in no small part due to Hispanic voters? Certainly my constituents will recognize the political expediency in changing my tune and supporting immigration reform."
 
S

Synth_floyd

Banned
What the fuck is wrong with people? They demonize those who are trying to come to this country for a better life.

I live in AZ and with I knew where and when the town hall was. I'd call out those racists on their bullshit.
 
S

speculawyer

Member
Black Mamba said:
conserv-chart-blog480.png


http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/marco-rubio-the-electable-conservative/


lol @ this country voting in someone that conservative anymore.

But if Christie were to win the nomination against not-Hillary, hm...
Click to expand...

Interesting rankings. I didn't realize that Rand Paul was that far out there. The Ron Paul supporters are very right to chastise him.

Rick Santorum is only as conservative as W?

HW Bush is about as far as I can stomach. After that they are just nutty to me.
 
C

cashman

Banned
Qazaq said:
I liked Sarah Palin a lot (at the time), and liked that she seemed to be everything Obama was not: genuine, like she would level with you, that she would speak like a very charismatic ordinary citizen. She had a good record as a governor in Alaska of bipartisanship and of not being a crazy fundie Republican.
Click to expand...

Holy shit.
 
B

Black Mamba

Member
speculawyer said:
Interesting rankings. I didn't realize that Rand Paul was that far out there. The Ron Paul supporters are very right to chastise him.

Rick Santorum is only as conservative as W?

HW Bush is about as far as I can stomach. After that they are just nutty to me.
Click to expand...

He didn't have a voting record which I'm sure would have been more moderate.

edit: Nixon wouldn't be a Republican in today's world.
 
Z

zero shift

Banned
Synth_floyd said:
What the fuck is wrong with people? They demonize those who are trying to come to this country for a better life.

I live in AZ and with I knew where and when the town hall was. I'd call out those racists on their bullshit.
Click to expand...

Its like Mexico is a third world country in a psuedo-civil war or something.
 
P

PhoenixDark

Banned
Santorum voted for all of Bush's spending hence the low rating.
Black Mamba said:
He didn't have a voting record which I'm sure would have been more moderate.

edit: Nixon wouldn't be a Republican in today's world.
Click to expand...

Come on, Nixon would fit right in with the GOP. The resentment of the elite, the interventionist foreign policy, racial fear mongering...he'd fit right in. I'd love to watch it, too; Nixon is one of my favorite political figures, even though I disagree with most of his policies and find him repulsive in many ways. Nixonland is a great book.
 
C

Chichikov

Member
Avon Barksdale said:
Nixon and Big Bush would never even come close to getting the nomination in today's GOP.
Click to expand...
Nixon made his career stoking up anti communist hysteria, he would've found something to scare modern conservatives into electing him.
Also as a politician, he would've skullfucked that clown car which the current crop of GOP hopefuls, I mean, Romney won against that field.

Edit: wow beaten oddly specifically.
 
P

PhoenixDark

Banned
Watch some of Nixon's anti communist speeches, scary stuff. He was charasmatic and a ruthlessly driven opportunist; today's crop of outrage peddlers seem like monks in comparison. I wonder what he'd think of Obama lol. Better yet, I wonder what he'd think about the drone program.
 
J

Jooney

Member
So today for the first time ever I received a political chain email from my father about the upcoming Australian election.

Now I know how RDreamer feels.
 
B

Black Mamba

Member
PhoenixDark said:
Santorum voted for all of Bush's spending bence the low rating.


Come on, Nixon would fit right in with the GOP. The resentment of the elite, the interventionist foreign policy, racial fear mongering...he'd fit right in. I'd love to watch it, too; Nixon is one of my favorite political figures, even though I disagree with most of his policies and find him repulsive in many ways. Nixonland is a great book.
Click to expand...


Oh sure, Nixon alive today could be a republican by shifting, but I'm simply stating that the Nixon who ran in 1968 and pretty much any republican from 1968 wouldn't be a Republican at all by today's standards.
 
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