td11 wrote:

Werthless wrote:

td11 wrote:

Werthless wrote:

Barry Jive wrote:I didn't vote for Obama in 2012, no

That's when he was in support of gay marriage!

I was talking about 2008, when he was a homophobic bigot (to use the words of others in this thread).

everything is relative. he was for civil unions in 2008 which was a pretty standard liberal position at the time. the only realistic alternative to him, the GOP, believed that gays could be fixed, and some still do.

To a liberal, everything is relative.

i don't get it

Moral relativism is more of a liberal thing. Everything can be debated and justified if only the circumstances are right. There are no universal moral laws. Moral absolutists tend to find more popularity among the religious (ie. Sins are sins).

Monkeyboy wrote:

Werthless wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:Obama said he reconsidered it and changed his mind. This guy is sticking to his guns. If he came out and recanted it, then I suspect he would have kept his job. They are very different situations.

http://www.cnet.com/news/mozilla-ceo-ga ... cause-q-a/

He refuses to recant or reaffirm his position! Burn him!1!
l!

I told you I don't really think the guy should have been canned. I just explained why I thought he was. It's funny how worked up you are about this. You must really hate seeing rich people have their rights infringed upon. Got any outrage for the working class? Personally, I only have so much outrage to go around and I try to save it for the people without golden parachutes and a line of rich friends that will make sure they're set for life, especially since they stood up for the crumbling (especially in those conservative states) institution of marriage.

Sure, I'm annoyed at the slow economic recovery. I just direct my anger at the policies that affect this, and not by shaking my fists in the air at rich people. "Why don't they hire more peeeeeeople, and pay them better waaaaaages?"

Does anyone seem bothered that companies are decreasing the hours of their workers to under 30/week in response to Obamacare? No, wait, let me rephrase. Is anyone bothered by the fact that we have a law that encourages companies to decrease the hours of their workers?

I'M PAYING FOR THAT

Mission Accomplished.

(Seriously, that's a statistic that actually matters. So I'm glad it's down.)

Werthless wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:

Werthless wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:Obama said he reconsidered it and changed his mind. This guy is sticking to his guns. If he came out and recanted it, then I suspect he would have kept his job. They are very different situations.

http://www.cnet.com/news/mozilla-ceo-ga ... cause-q-a/

He refuses to recant or reaffirm his position! Burn him!1!
l!

I told you I don't really think the guy should have been canned. I just explained why I thought he was. It's funny how worked up you are about this. You must really hate seeing rich people have their rights infringed upon. Got any outrage for the working class? Personally, I only have so much outrage to go around and I try to save it for the people without golden parachutes and a line of rich friends that will make sure they're set for life, especially since they stood up for the crumbling (especially in those conservative states) institution of marriage.

Sure, I'm annoyed at the slow economic recovery. I just direct my anger at the policies that affect this, and not by shaking my fists in the air at rich people. "Why don't they hire more peeeeeeople, and pay them better waaaaaages?"

Does anyone seem bothered that companies are decreasing the hours of their workers to under 30/week in response to Obamacare? No, wait, let me rephrase. Is anyone bothered by the fact that we have a law that encourages companies to decrease the hours of their workers?

I don't think I raise my fist and do that. I'm concerned that rich people have so much control because so much money is now in our politics, deeply entrenched. And I'm concerned that they don't seem to think they have enough when income disparity is what it is. How can anyone possibly think the rich need more protection when disparity is so high? It's clear which way the pendulum has swung too far and it isn't in favor of Joe Blow. I get that you think this guy got a raw deal and I can even sympathize with it, but don't expect me to get all worked up about it when there are far worse injustices happening to people who have no safety net. It's a waste of energy.

Obamacare isn't the problem. 7 million more people on insurance isn't going to hurt the country. You're just mad because you're afraid that people will see that the government isn't the big bad buggaboo that libertarians say it is. The government can and does work when the people involved in it have the best interest of people at heart. It's not perfect, but then neither is the free market. Any time the GOP wants to join in the work and try to help, Obama has given them every chance to do so, to a fault. But they don't want success for the government because that will shatter the veil they've held in front of people for decades.

Werthless wrote:http://www.cnet.com/news/mozilla-ceo-ga ... cause-q-a/

He refuses to recant or reaffirm his position! Burn him!1!
l!

Mozilla guy, from linked article wrote:without getting into my personal beliefs, which I separate from my Mozilla work -- when people learned of the donation, they felt pain. I saw that in friends' eyes, [friends] who are LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered]. I saw that in 2012. I am sorry for causing that pain.

he's sorry for causing the pain, but not for donating to an organization presumably for the purpose of helping said outfit extend the pain

his position seems clear and forthright

Look at that rate fall, baby!! That's good government at work right here.

Missed where Obama donated money to deny people equal rights.

To be clear, I think it always was evident that he was dishonest in his statements about marriage equality... he didn't condemn those who favored it, didn't want to overturn the MA ruling, and it was evident where his "evolution" would end up: back where he was in 1996 (!), when as a candidate for IL state senate he indicated support for same sex marriage.

The relationship between presidents and public opinion is tricky. S/he can't be either too far ahead or too far behind. If ahead, then maybe there's a moment where s/he can come out (so to speak) and cement an existing trend. I think Obama's support, announced when it was, probably had a huge influence on African-American opinion on the issue especially.

W, I think everyone understands your argument on this case and most of us are sympathetic, at least insomuch as I doubt many here would have boycotted Mozilla or anything like that if Eich had stayed. But neither do we feel like some vast wrong has been done to the guy. As MB points out, he could have chosen to "evolve." He didn't. Clearly this was an informed choice.

Edit: also missed the page and a half or so between what I was responding to and, um, now. Sorry. Am waiting for my son to be circumcised (really), the doc is an hour behind and I'm getting a bit annoyed...

Came here for comment on Jeb Bush's Act of Love speech, but I see everyone is still working out unresolved issues.

Does this kill his candidacy? Was it ever alive? Torn myself, of course, since I basically agree with on this issue but am far enough apart elsewhere that I wouldn't want to see a successful run.

First Crimea, now Donetsk.

swishnicholson wrote:Came here for comment on Jeb Bush's Act of Love speech, but I see everyone is still working out unresolved issues.

Does this kill his candidacy? Was it ever alive? Torn myself, of course, since I basically agree with on this issue but am far enough apart elsewhere that I wouldn't want to see a successful run.

I honestly don't remember exactly what Romney's position on immigration was, but both Bush and McCain were pretty pro-immigration reform. Perry isn't too far from Bush here either. Huckabee is pretty liberal on immigration as well, at least as governor he was. The libertarian Republicans as well as the pro-business Republicans should be all for reform as well if they're ideologically consistent. So I don't think this damages his candidacy and could help him some.

Of course, the rhetoric is interesting, but I think the sound bite that it's the "Act of Love speech" is a bit misleading.

Werthless wrote:Does anyone seem bothered that companies are decreasing the hours of their workers to under 30/week in response to Obamacare? No, wait, let me rephrase. Is anyone bothered by the fact that we have a law that encourages companies to decrease the hours of their workers?*


*Provided of course that a slew of other factors happen to align with a production decision as important as staffing, given that what mostly will drive those employers' decision to cut or not cut hours is the extent of demand for their services/goods, and probably also the extent to which the pool of capable workers available in the labor market to work shorter vs longer hours because they need the job, any job, remains at or near current levels

fixed your post, kinda

you're bigger than resorting to clumsy "framing" exercises to score your points. I know you are.

Werthless wrote:

td11 wrote:

Werthless wrote:

td11 wrote:

Werthless wrote:

Barry Jive wrote:I didn't vote for Obama in 2012, no

That's when he was in support of gay marriage!

I was talking about 2008, when he was a homophobic bigot (to use the words of others in this thread).

everything is relative. he was for civil unions in 2008 which was a pretty standard liberal position at the time. the only realistic alternative to him, the GOP, believed that gays could be fixed, and some still do.

To a liberal, everything is relative.

i don't get it

Moral relativism is more of a liberal thing. Everything can be debated and justified if only the circumstances are right. There are no universal moral laws. Moral absolutists tend to find more popularity among the religious (ie. Sins are sins).

moral relativism isn't a "liberal thing", it's a real life thing.

The Culture of Shut Up - Thought this was a good read from Obama's ex-speechwriter

Pretty good read, jerz. Enjoyed and agreed with almost all of it. I don't like the fact that a lot of our discourse now-a-days tends to devolve into personal attacks far too quickly.

In the spirit of the article, I wanted to say that I don't think that you or werthless are inhumane bigots or anything(in fact, I'm pretty sure you're both for marriage equality). I hope that by me calling Eich a bigot and intolerant, you didn't think that I was passing that judgement on to youse. you're obviously both very smart people, I just think you both place importance on the wrong kind of things politically.

speaking of wrong political things, jerz: jeb bush & rand paul - have they each committed political hari-kiri (jeb on immigration, paul on basically calling Cheney low-down, no-good war profiteer), or do they each represent a breath of fresh, realistic air in the republican miasma?

SK790 wrote:

Werthless wrote:

td11 wrote:

Werthless wrote:

td11 wrote:

Werthless wrote:

Barry Jive wrote:I didn't vote for Obama in 2012, no

That's when he was in support of gay marriage!

I was talking about 2008, when he was a homophobic bigot (to use the words of others in this thread).

everything is relative. he was for civil unions in 2008 which was a pretty standard liberal position at the time. the only realistic alternative to him, the GOP, believed that gays could be fixed, and some still do.

To a liberal, everything is relative.

i don't get it

Moral relativism is more of a liberal thing. Everything can be debated and justified if only the circumstances are right. There are no universal moral laws. Moral absolutists tend to find more popularity among the religious (ie. Sins are sins).

moral relativism isn't a "liberal thing", it's a real life thing.

How about this... "Moral absolutism is more of a conservative thing." Does me saying it the other way make you feel better?

Many people disagree with your insinuation that everything in real life is relative. Thank you for confirming my jokey response to td.

everything in life is relative. we all affect each other through our actions. people stating the contrary doesn't make it true and putting up rigid moral barriers in a fluid world does not work.

drsmooth wrote:speaking of wrong political things, jerz: jeb bush & rand paul - have they each committed political hari-kiri (jeb on immigration, paul on basically calling Cheney low-down, no-good war profiteer), or do they each represent a breath of fresh, realistic air in the republican miasma?

There isn't a front runner and everyone who might run is flawed, so no one is putting themselves out of the running at this point. I don't think they represent a breath of fresh, realistic air if by that you mean this tactic of challenging the party on its orthodoxies will prove beneficial in a race for the nomination in 2016.

Candidates are always able to get away with one or two places where they deviate from the mainstream conservative line because everyone has a few things they will get hit on, but if you start going beyond that you might run into problems.

Jeb will be a front runner if he runs, but I think he is encroaching on Huntsman territory there in his comment. He can be pro-immigration reform and win the nomination (as his brother and McCain demonstrated), but he'll have to focus on conservative principles and emphasize common goals when disagreements arise. He can't say crap like "it shouldn't rile people up that people are actually coming to this country to provide for their families" and tell people who disagree with him (and make up the majority of his party) how they should feel about issues. You can win the nomination with disagreements with most primary voters on big issues. You can't lecture to the base treating them like idiots when you disagree with them.

Rand Paul is something different entirely. This isn't a moderate vs. conservative thing that you see every 4 years. It's challenging a main pillar of the party for the first time since Reagan. I think it's possible he could succeed, but it's a lot harder than what Jeb or some moderate is trying to do. To have a shot at the nomination, he'll have to frame his foreign policy as being heavily in opposition to Obama's and skip the potshots at Bush/Cheney. He'll be more conciliatory with the party than his dad was, but his foreign policy is outside of the mainstream of the party and probably outside the mainstream of the foreign policy establishment regardless of party. If he just relentlessly responds to attacks from his GOP opponents that his stances are trying to right the wrongs of the Obama years, he might have a chance. He seems to have improved a lot as a politician even in his short time in office. But it's a real uphill climb for him because shifting from the status quo is never easy.