“Ouchy! Too many letters makes my head hurt” is how you got away with it. 
@Bemopolis Wonder if their feelings or taxes or healthcare are getting fucked now,
Answer: don’t feed the trolley and move on with your life.
I’m thinking Nehls would be better suited towards running a turkey farm.
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Yup.
OTOH, the Democratic Party is not and has never been “left”.
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His head looks like a Twitter egg
I’m sticking with shitgibbon.
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I don’t think Tom is a troll, and I agree with the general spirit of what he said- rational discourse without hatred and closed-mindedness is a goal to strive for. It’s in that spirit of trying to communicate that I’m genuinely curious how he thinks these views can be applied to people who hold rational discourse in contempt, people whose point of view essentially IS hatred and closed-mindedness. I would like nothing more than to be able to engage these people in a rational debate and change their minds, but that’s not a language they seem to understand or even tolerate. I guess I was hoping that Tom actually would bother to back up his statements with some of the ideas he claims are the solution. I should probably know better by now.
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You know, I dip out for one day and I miss so much great stuff. Every time. Every time.
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I am not talking about how we vote in that sentence but where our ideals come from. Did they come in the “I’m a Democrat action figure boxed set”, the “I’m a Republican boxed set”, or do we truly believe it after informed critical thought? I consider being true to one self something rather more than just idealism. It might just be the purest form of pragmatism.
That’s hilarious 
Here we go with Spam’s lazy whataboutism, false equivalency fallacy. Sorry, but logic, history, facts, and basic ability to govern prove you wrong. There is some truth in what you say. We are fed narratives. Many people never question them. Democrats have issues with lobbiest and money, as seen during the passage of the ACA when specifically two democrats used their influence to help the medical companies get a friendly bill. However, it stops there. One party clearly operates on some really basic things, like facts, science, logic, civics, and just some basic moral beliefs. While the other party has pretty much abandoned all of it, including just running the basics of a government, in a endless, nihilistic quest for ultimate power and wealth. So, yes, other parties would be great, and yes our current system is broken in many ways, but in no way is voting and support democrats the same as throwing your weight being hind nazi sympathizing, anti-science, anti-intellectual, religious zealots, and bigots of all stripes.
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That poor lady must have been in an accident! At least Obamacare covered her neck brace.
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UPDATE
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OK, You all make a very good point, I guess when I talked about ideas not being problems, I was assuming they came out of the minds of reasonable people, and as many have pointed out, those are in short supply these days. But, I would point out that some previously very unreasonable people, including white supremacists and neo-nazis, have turned away from their hate. Not all, not even many, but it is within the power of people to change.
However, that’s beside the point, I’ll admit my comments were naive at best in this wildly polarized world we live in. Equality, basic human rights, compassion, tolerance and acceptance, perhaps they’re all just pipe dreams after all, which is very sad. I’m an old man and my time left is relatively short, but for you younger ones, the burden of change will be on you.
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If it makes you feel any better, youth doesn’t make the realization any easier. I’m in my 30s and I’m faced with the reality of a world where all the values I’ve grown to cherish are under attack from all sides, constantly. I used to think that the world, while not perfect, was making steady progress and would become better and better as I got older, but ever since Trump was elected that hope has been evaporating. All the basic values that I thought were common to every human, no matter their religion, race or creed, have turned out to be completely lacking in huge swathes of the population. I’m not even talking about compassion or tolerance, but stuff as basic as a shared, fact-based reality that we all have to live in, or the desire to have a representative government, or respect for honesty and integrity, even if one lacks it themselves. Without being able to take at least some of these things for granted, human behavior no longer makes any kind of sense. If people were simply acting out of self-interest and greed, it would be a lot easier to deal with than the bizarre nihilistic denialism that seems to be infecting the country.
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I want to argue but you’re right, dammit.
