FourFans

Sadly, you both arrive: intellectually dissonant and unable to answer a straight question. Were this a formation debrief: You're both weak souls who don't even deserve the honor of a backhand. Weak Dick. Oh, did that offend you? You both claim to be USAF aircrew members from the combat arms, yet you get touchy about political issues? Really? Get sack and man up you bitches. I've read much of what both of you have spoken here, while neither of your have even once asked about my values. Both of you value family. Sincerely and in ways that I admire. Both of you purport to stand stanchly by what you believe, which I also admire. I gather that neither of you would leave your children alone with any Biden, Trump, or Clinton male family member, yet you shrug when one of those same 'men' refuse to acknowledge their own offspring. Neither of you would do that. I have faith that both of your have stronger convictions then these individuals that lead our country, yet you defend your support of them. Why? Please, be intellectually honest. Why are you defending those asshats by denying a clear response here? You @nsplayr claim that you have good in-person relationships with people you disagree with when you are physically with them, yet when you are have no skin in the game, you cannot overcome differences. That's not some relational virtue, that's being a coward about your real beliefs when physically present. If you cannot see the cognitive dissonance there, you are either emotionally or cognitively impaired. All men are reduced to their lowest form of maturity when allowed to be anonymous. It used to be while driving. Now it's on the internet. You both were asked a very simple, direct question. No one will come after you physically for your answer, yet you dodge like you might be mugged for what you say. You claim you'll be bludgeoned. Seriously? Are you so emotionally weak that you can't express your true believes in a venue where NOTHING WILL HAPPEN YOU YOU? Your maturity is thus exposed. I'm guessing at least one of you (if not both of you) is a captain at a major airline, and I find it sincerely sad that someone with such broad exposure and high responsibility would be so emotionally and mentally frail. Be men. Do Better.

That's why he's our favorite troll.

Kinda what I was hoping for @Prozac. If you haven't noticed, I'm one of the guys over here that routinely tries to toss softball questions to help you solidify the legitimacy and rationality of your positions. That helps humanize you and helps all of us understand your arguments better. It's a forum. It's a place for questions, answers, and hopefully, mutual understanding.

So @Prozac and @nsplayr: What are your thoughts on how the president you voted for is addressing his family?

Adam. @congressman You are now part of the ex-congress and now-politic elect crowd. Please don’t quit on we, the crowd who got you there. are you there, or did you quit?

Had this waited until I read further, it would have been “High Calorie Bonus Hole”

In other news, Hunter Biden has agreed to assist in the investigation with the stipulation that he be allowed to examine the evidence in private.

Because he's a Bonus Hole

...and all the students of Russian history collectively said "oh shit"

I was born a yankee...now I live in Florida, but I don't follow the SEC. I'm a man without a country.

Another climate prediction based on computer modeling. The same computer modeling that can't even predict where a hurricane will land inside 48 hours of landfall. Yeah, we trust you. https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-of-failed-eco-pocalyptic-predictions/

@Negatory Curious: What do you do for a living?

Clearly you're not a herk crew member

If you think that's bad, wait till you meet some of our navigators and WSOs...

I've got a lot of thoughts here, but two quick ones: To answer your question about the nuclear family: Anti-family policies surrounding welfare (dads in low income families are incentivized to make children and leave the home), divorces has never been easier so families are split more often, abortion couldn't be more contentious and there is currently no policy that incentivizes men to have accountability in the baby-making process, in several states 'the state' in the form of schools and teachers unions are effectively trying to take over the moral instruction of children...to include the legal prosecution of parents if they 'mis-gender' their own 12 year old, there's a lot more. In short, the federal government should have absolutely no hand inside a family unit, yet they currently do. All of those policies are not tolerated or accepted, but celebrated and in some cases enforced by our current administration. Second: go to your stat source there: https://realtimeinequality.org/ and play around. You'll find that the Times did a wonderful job of zooming in on a very specific data set to tell a story that simply isn't true. Moreover, if you want to compare data, use the same time frame. You compare Jan 2021 to EOY 2022 directly to Trump's entire term. Not an apples to apples comparison. With stats like these, a long view of at least a decade, usually more, is the only way to get a real picture of the impact of policies.

I agree with most of what you're saying. There is, and should be, a heated debate about wealth vs income inequality, as well as whether that's even a good metric to determine the health of a society. Income does not equal wealth. One is a policy item, the other is a behavior item. Lots to debate on that in some other topic. To the point: The current administration states that it's trying to lower the income and wealth inequality, when in fact it's expanding it. This is perfectly in line with it's stance on most topics: make it a hot topic then do nothing to actually heal the topic. A healed and corrected topic can no longer be a hot button to push for votes whenever they want...therefore they haven't actually fixed anything. The current economic woes hit the poor hardest. Inflation, increasing interest rates, and lowered real income value hit them worst...thereby expanding BOTH wealth and income inequality. Which recent administration actually saw the highest rise in both wealth and real income value of the poorest section of American demographics? Yeah, that was the last one. I'm no trump fan, but that's an economic stat precious few administrations have achieved.

Has anyone else here read the Eden Chronicles by S.M. Anderson? The first book "A Bright Shore" was written in 2018, during the genesis of all this social upheaval. With all the excellent justifications provided by some liberals in government service on this forum concerning the 'correctness' of normalizing what began as 'fringe' and celebrating what was once simply tolerated, that first book is beginning to read like a societal prophesy. Simply look at the social narratives coming from our 'apolitical' politician general officer leadership. Students of history understand exactly what his happening. It happened in Greece, Persia, Rome, China, and several others. Hard times make strong men, who make good times, which makes soft men, who make hard times. Unfortunately, the soft men can make that cycle come to a screeching halt. In historical context, we have gone so soft, for so long, that those with opinions of governance which are rooted in neither integrity, fact, nor history can now set policy, which will result in the collapse of our society. To the liberal ideologs here: If you sincerely think that forcing the celebration (which is exactly what pride month is) of LGTBQ+, redistributing wealth, and enforcing ideologies that will eviscerate the family unit will improve things in our currently domestic and international environment, I request you please put it down in a journal and go re-read that in about 10 years and see how it aged...assuming we make it that long. You are supporting ideology that will destroy our society. History already proves it, we're currently living it, and you're supporting it.

"I'm not triggered, YOU'RE triggered" Cute. Sad to see that you have no intention of to answering hard questions or engaging in nuanced discussion. I do genuinely want to hear the reasoned arguments behind why people believe liberal agendas, but I guess that won't be coming from you.

Interesting response. Clearly you've been triggered. Thanks for not illuminating your position with any facts or responding to any of the questions that are asked to you. This response really does tell me a lot about you. You, likewise, don't know very much about me, and as far as I can see, you've not asked very many people here why they believe what they believe. Instead, you've actively displayed disgust, disbelief, and emotive response of distain for viewpoints that are not your own, including the above post. That's telling. Frankly, I'm not concerned if you call yourself a liberal, conservative, independent or other. Do you think you deserve some special treatment because of your viewpoint? One of the two of us actually tries to engage and present nuanced arguments. My comment about hate had nothing to do with liberals. It has to do with views you personally have expressed on this board, the contempt you've repeatedly expressed toward opinions you don't like, and the fact that you feel entitled to throw shade at opposing viewpoints just because you don't like them, not because you have a factually based argment against them that you're willing to share. That's an expression of hate, hence my comment.

I was trying to make a joke and it went poorly....

While I appreciate the bravery of posting a video of yourself, I gotta say that it's dangerous. People will find out what you look like, and possibly geolocate you, though you did a good job with the ambiguous background...irregardlessly Worst of all: That cat owes you.

For what reason? Would you support ending the electoral college if your party were in the minority?

I'm willing to ignore all the other items that feel are being rammed down your throat and that you feel you should, instead be able to ram a whole bunch of OTHER items the other way down conservative throats. You've proven that you think you're right and should not consider other points of view that might force you to evaluate what you believe. Hopefully someday you'll realize you can't fix hate with more hate. Regardless, can we get back to this above quote? Do you seriously disagree with the basic foundational civics of our republic, such as the electoral college? You were asked once and obviously completely ignored it. Do you realize that without the electoral college, our country would not exist? The city dwellers are 100% reliant on the country dwellers for their ability to live in a city. That sparsely populated center section of our country that you appear to despise is THE ONLY REASON CITIES EXIST TODAY. Urbanites who believe they can and should be able to exist and be compensated largely based on the intellectual products they create have clearly forgetten where their out of season avocados come from (try looking in the Columbia river valley or Mexico) for their all so important avocado toast. It appears they don't realize just how dependent they are on things that come from outside the city. If the cities didn't exist, the quality of farm life would be lower, but they'd survive...as they know how to make their own food and in general survive without much outside input. If farms didn't exist. Cities would disperse out of pure necessity. Without the electoral college, our country would be effectively a pure democracy where the 51% decide how everyone lives. In every instance in history where that's happened, pure democracy leads to mob rule leads to dictatorship, and ruin. Put another way, if the city dwellers are allowed to dictate how farmers live and work, farms would cease to function. The USSR and China are fantastic examples. The first forced non-farmers to become farmers. The second now imports a huge section of it's needs. Neither of those are sustainable in the future that's dawning right now. In North America (and even some of south America, depending how we team up), we can exist largely separated from extra-hemispheric imports...IF and only IF we properly manage our natural resources. That's a skill city dwellers claim to have, but in reality have demonstrated they largely lack. Doubt that? Go make your own tortilla from scratch with products made and produced only in a city. The electoral college prevents the domination of one portion of society over the other. The door swings both ways, for which you should be grateful. You may scream for it to be gone now, but you probably not do so when republicans are in control. Why is that? That's basic civics. Not politics. CIVICS. The thing all Americans should understand and appreciate. I highly urge you to re-examine your baseline understanding of our government and WHY it was framed the way it is. Stop calling for re-writes before you re-read.

As someone who's intimately familiar with going off the deep end, you gotta really go for it to get moderated. Thanks @DFRESH for keeping it honest.