2016 Election Thread (My God Kill Me Now)

[stlouie_lipp]

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

But I know plenty of moderate Republicans.

Though it's getting harder to see how they fit given the headliners on down.

Exactly.

Admiral Kird posted this a while back, but it is jsut as true now as ever.

http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/the-battl ... -vote.html

[Arthur Dent]

So..... Did anybody else watch Rick Perry's speech, specifically at :50 here?

[jim]

HA!

[sighyoung]

I mean, that's obviously wrong about Republicans. There are a lot of reasons people are Republican and not all of them are cultural. The guy that said this has a bit of history as a racist. Those ideas do get a disturbing amount of traction in Republican circles, to the point you have articles and blog posts from mainstream GOP publications like National Review about the innate goodness of Western values, etc... Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, and people of that ilk always seems to find a home on some conservative platform. All the conservative radio hosts routinely make sweeping generalizations about other cultures. But I know plenty of moderate Republicans.

I agree with all of this. There are many reasons a person can belong to a party.

And it's quite normal to value the products of an intellectual or cultural heritage. The problem comes when someone ascribes the greatness of Plato's The Republic and Beethoven's nine symphonies to one's self (things Steve King couldn't in a million years produce), and uses them to justify certain self-aggrandizing political policies. King isn't arguing "Shakespeare is terrific," but "Shakespeare is a bludgeon to justify my hierarchical theories of society, and to fend off all criticism." The argument "Shakespeare wrote plays and phenotypically resembled me, or was born in the same country as my ancestors four centuries ago, therefore . . . " is always a fraught one. How King claims Shakespeare's plays as HIS patrimony, but denies it to me, culturally and biologically, is insidious and bizarre. Once calculus is developed (by just two individuals, Newton and Leibniz, not the entire population of England and Germany) everyone shares in its insights, not just people of Anglo-Saxon or Germanic descent.

[wart57]

I mean, that's obviously wrong about Republicans. There are a lot of reasons people are Republican and not all of them are cultural. The guy that said this has a bit of history as a racist. Those ideas do get a disturbing amount of traction in Republican circles, to the point you have articles and blog posts from mainstream GOP publications like National Review about the innate goodness of Western values, etc... Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, and people of that ilk always seems to find a home on some conservative platform. All the conservative radio hosts routinely make sweeping generalizations about other cultures. But I know plenty of moderate Republicans.

I agree with all of this. There are many reasons a person can belong to a party.

And it's quite normal to value the products of an intellectual or cultural heritage. The problem comes when someone ascribes the greatness of Plato's The Republic and Beethoven's nine symphonies to one's self (things Steve King couldn't in a million years produce), and uses them to justify certain self-aggrandizing political policies. King isn't arguing "Shakespeare is terrific," but "Shakespeare is a bludgeon to justify my hierarchical theories of society, and to fend off all criticism." The argument "Shakespeare wrote plays and phenotypically resembled me, or was born in the same country as my ancestors four centuries ago, therefore . . . " is always a fraught one. How King claims Shakespeare's plays as HIS patrimony, but denies it to me, culturally and biologically, is insidious and bizarre. Once calculus is developed (by just two individuals, Newton and Leibniz, not the entire population of England and Germany) everyone shares in its insights, not just people of Anglo-Saxon or Germanic descent.

This guy is an idiot. But just because he is Republican, it does not mean all Republicans think like this deranged lunatic.
That is all I am saying.

[sighyoung]

This guy is an idiot. But just because he is Republican, it does not mean all Republicans think like this deranged lunatic.
That is all I am saying.

I agree, wart. My post was just a general comment.

[JL21]

"Shakespeare is a bludgeon to justify my hierarchical theories of society, and to fend off all criticism."

This is poetry.

[wart57]

"Shakespeare is a bludgeon to justify my hierarchical theories of society, and to fend off all criticism."

This is poetry.

Seems more like a sonnet to me....

[pioneer98]

Someone should have mentioned algebra.

How about basic math? II * II = IV, IV * IV = XVI, XVI * XVI is CCLVI, that sort of thing.

Yeah, you could go on and on and list all the inventions that came out of places other than Western Europe. Those are probably the things that neoliberals and Republicans would value above everything else. And that list would be plenty long. Then there is the entire list of cultural contributions to humanity from all these other places. Religion. Art. Music. Literature. Etc. Those things are not valued at all by Republicans because acknowledging them leads to that scary, scary multiculturalism. This stuff is probably more what King is concerned with. It's a great example of pure willful ignorance.

Wow, so all Republicans are white supremacists? Glad we got that out of the way.

No - *Steve King* is very likely a white supremacist though, and probably a few people in his base of supporters that keep reelecting him.