Home Forums FineTunedMac Community Lounge that January feeling

I was the poster and I requested that the post be removed.

The Moderator was hesitant to remove a post that already had a reply but I was insistent explaining that, while the link was intended to generate a laugh or two, it contained language that I found increasingly grating.

It's not language that I normally use and I felt that, to introduce it to a site where would likely be offensive to those who never use that language, I had perhaps been too quick to post.

There was only one posted reply.

The post you refer to was removed on ryck's request; without it your reply to it was left dangling and removed as well. I'm sure cyn will reply to this effect, but under the circumstances I figured I'd do it now.

Btw, your post above and this reply really belong in FineTunedMac Feedback, where they may be moved later.

Okey-dokey. More sinister thoughts occurred to me.
So, as long as no dubious political motivation for the disappearance is in play, I'll be posting/replanting as previously noted.

The following links I find to be more than illustrative of the political process south of the 49th ||.

Here's the Canada Party — a light look at the coming US elections.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrhA0sEkuaM

And if you'd like a little more background, go here (also linked to YouTube)
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/01/06/canada-for-president.html

And for a somewhat harder-edged look at things ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGC0Cw2-AIk&feature=share
WARNING! Very explicit language

And from a couple of my e-correspondents with regard to same, just to give a flavor to the content of and response to those links ...

From the States: "That was great. Canada has my vote — I'm pretty sure Canada believes in evolution, sadly not a trait attributable to all the Republican hopefuls."

From Canada: "Thanks for the links. Pretty depressing. I forwarded them to my brother (who has become an American citizen). After starting out as a Republican 20 years ago, he is so disgusted with the American (GOP) system that he's about ready to move back."

And he's basically tied with Rick Santorum, the man who has pledged to, among other things, try to ban contraceptives in the US if elected.

There's an article over on Salon called "The GOP’s bizarre war on sex" that's worth a read. It shows just how out of sync the Republican party is with the entire rest of the country--Democrat and Republican--on the issue of sex.

The Republicans made a strategic decision after Reagan to start building a strong support base among extreme Evangelical religious groups, which has turned out to be a double-edged sword...it's been very effective, but now the entire party is held hostage to reactionary religious zealots, and even former Republicans like my father are abandoning the party.

Still, the article makes a good point: even though the vast, overwhelming majority of Americans oppose having the government regulate the sex lives of consenting adults, very few people seem willing to stand up for sexual liberty, so the debate is dominated by people who support government regulation of sex.

Hey, I'm on topic! (whereas "topic" refers to any content in the first or last two posts in the thread)

....which makes me wonder why Ron Paul has such a strong following with the young. I've always thought of youth, particularly kids on campuses, as the ones who lead the way in bringing about positive change. And yet here we have a guy, who's credited with curious statements on such things as race and gays (and that 9/11 conspiracy conjecture), with a high percentage of youthful supporters.

He appeals to folks who find Ayn Rand's brand of Libertarianism seductive. A lot of college kids go through a Libertarian phase, before they realize that it's basically an economic system where the biggest bully wins.

As an undergraduate, I studied government and politics under the tutelage of Senator — then professor -- John Tower, the first Republican elected to national office in Texas since reconstruction. It was through his teaching I realized I was a classic Republican in a state where the national election was over after the Democratic primary. I don't think Senator Tower would recognize the positions taken by todays Republican candidates and I seriously doubt he would support any of them. The opinions that used to label me a conservative Republican now make me a a very moderate Democrat. I have a lot of friends in the same situation.

That said, my take on Ron Paul's popularity with youth is there are a few genuine pearls (good ideas) scattered through the mass of trash that he spouts. Most of his supporters I have talked with appear to have fastened on one or maybe two of these pearls and are either choose to ignore the vast mass (or is that mess?) of his stuff they would normally be appalled with or they are so focused on their issue they can ignore the other.

That focusing on the odd pearl in a politician's stated position fits nicely into what Tacit described when he talked about the ways voters can act against their own interests. Quite frequently people seem to think along the lines of 'someone who can come up with this gem cannot possibly mean that even when it sounds like it, so we happily ignore that'.

Combine that with the many topics that are beyond the scope or interest of many young (and not-so-young) voters, and once again political cherry picking pervades the land like the next flu epidemic. Few voters seem to care about the intellectual shortcuts that are being made, or, perhaps even more likely in the case of younger voters, just don't know how potentially dangerous those can be.