Is this website making America better?

I can tell you without question arguing on this website makes me a worse person

 

The question you need to ask yourself who is in control of your reactions to what you read in this forum?

When you disagree with what someone has posted it should not evoke any emotional reaction because personal attacks are a violation of the rules. They have expressed their opinion and that is as far as it goes. You have the exact same right to express your opinion as they do.

That the opinions are at variance should not change who you are.

Before responding take a moment to reflect on what is motivating your response.

Is your response based upon credible factual information or is it based upon a belief that cannot be substantiated with facts?

That motivational difference tells you something about yourself and the answer to the question as to who is in control of your reactions.

If you only respond with factual motivation you can prevent this forum from making you "a worse person".

The above is just some friendly advice that is worth exactly what you just paid for it.

 

My motivation is to not let leftists destroy what we have worked so hard to create. Knowing that that destruction is their intent and that they both gloat in that intent and are intolerant of others in the process, pisses me the hell off like it should all the good Americans.

 

Well, it depends against whom you are arguing.

The real dividing line is honesty. Someone can be misguided, have wrong or bad ideas, not really be able to defend them ... but if they are honest, then that's just life ... any where you go you will find differences of opinion and differences in the ability of people who hold those opinions t make a persuasive case for them. If you get 25 conservatives in room, you'll have half a dozen conflicting opinions. And sometimes our arguments can get pretty heated ... just look at the dispute over the invasion of Iraq, or the never-Trumpers vs the Trump supporters.

It's the sleezy, slippery ones, that throw out little sly insinuations, etc... who use arguments that they know are demagogic or wrong .. that i can't stand. It makes me feel unclean just to engage with them.

But ... why argue with Leftists at all? Why not use this forum as a place for conservatives to discuss what's happening to our country, and what we should do about it? To 'think out loud', to float ideas, to recommend sources of information?

I'm coming more and more around to the idea that this is the best use of my time. The rest is like going a couple of rounds with someone at the gym. It maybe sharpens up your intellect, but at the end of the day, you haven't persuaded him, nor he you, so what's the point?

 

So you are ASSUMING that all conservative ideas must be FLAWLESS and there is no need to waste your precious time with anyone who has not "seen the light" and embraced conservative dogma?

As an INDEPENDENT I see the glaring FLAWS on BOTH SIDES!

Neither side is capable of ever getting it right because the SOLUTION must ALWAYS be some form of COMPROMISE.

The Founding Fathers understood this which is WHY the original Constitution was a COMPROMISE.

Since then it has steadily advanced towards ever greater INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS being recognized and upheld.

Anyone who DOGMATICALLY believes that either conservatism or liberalism is the ONLY answer is only fooling themselves.

BOTH sides have positive and negative aspects. Furthermore BOTH sides NEED each other in order to reach a COMPROMISE. Liberals need conservatives to restrain spending to feasible levels and conservatives need liberals to keep them grounded on the REALITY that We the People are what matter and not corporate GREED and AVARICE.

So if you are not interested in discussing the obvious flaws in conservative dogma that is your choice and your right but by doing so you are leaving yourself open to legitimate criticism of the FLAWS that you can't see.

 

I actually agree with you, at a certain level of abstraction. As one of the "real" conservatives here keeps telling me, I'm actually a kind of liberal -- more of an FDR/JFK kind of liberal. Health insurance for all, a minimum wage, a Marshall Plan for the inner city ... even high speed rail, if it can pass some economic tests. But ...

I'm sort of like a Rip Van Winkle liberal that went to sleep in 1960 and woke up nearly sixty years later.

Yes... I can sort of see that scenario. I wake up ... am told that I have been sleeping for sixty years. And things have changed of course.

And as I am stretching my limbs and looking around at the new world I have awakened to, I ask someone by my bed if the things we liberals were
fighting for back in1960 have been achieved ...
... I'm from the South and the restrooms were segregated back then.

So I say ... "You know, when I went to sleep ... back in 1960 ...we liberals were fighting for Blacks and whites to be able to use the same bathroom ... did we win?"
And my liberal interlocuter says, "Oh yes, we won that one a long time ago. Now we've moved on."
"Oh yes," I say, "how's that. What are we fighting for now?"

And my friend says, "Now we're fighting for boys and girls to be able to use the same bathroom!"

Put me back to sleep!!!! Or let me out.

 

Right you are Bush Lawyer, you do have a say, within the rules of this forum. This forum being a privately owned enterprise has rules but as far as freedom of speech the rules here roughly parallel US Freedom of Speech enumerated by the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution in our Bill of Rights.

Australia does not have any equivalent. Unlike the US, Australia does not have a bill of rights, and in fact is the only Western liberal democracy not to have one.

This website does serve an important purpose for Americans and for Foreigners who wish to be exposed to the freedoms we Americans enjoy so much.

https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2017/09/australia-does-not-have-freedom-of-speech/

 

Unless "conservatives" have SEPARATE bathrooms for boys and girls in their own homes they are just being hypocrites.

What is the difference between siblings sharing a bathroom in their own home and sharing bathrooms at their own school?

There were no separate bathrooms when our nation was founded and the concept has only been around for about just 130 years and it was based entirely on sexist misconceptions rather than any practical necessity.

So if you had been asleep for 160 years you wouldn't know what the stupid fuss was all about.

https://time.com/4337761/history-sex-segregated-bathrooms/

 

That's the problem there are no liberals anymore. The Democrats ha e been throughly dominated by people so far left the only word for them is communist.
As i said earlier in another thread Bill Clinton was a left of center politician.
The Democrats are so far out in left field there is nothing on which to compromise with them. All their ideas are abominable.

 

Wrong on all counts, as usual!

Clinton was moderate right and he was one of the best Republican presidents as far as supporting the GOP's nefarious Contract ON America fiscal malfeasance legislation agenda went.

While there some extremist leftists they are vastly OUTNUMBERED by extremists on the far right.

Neither of those extremes are willing to compromise, as noted in the content above, which means that it will be the CENTER MODERATES who are dominated by INDEPENDENTS who are going to work out the COMPROMISES and eventually bring our nation back to sanity.

That cannot happen soon enough as far as I am concerned since your odious BLOTUS has gone right back to being White-Supremacist-in-Chief!

 

Why bother. Just split it up. I don't consider trumpers anything close to patriots. Do you? Why should we try to force these people to live by American values? Just dump them and be done with it.

 

While there is merit to your argument the negatives outweigh the positives IMO.

Consider that the Millennial Generation already outnumbers the Boomers and outvoted them in 2018. That generation is essentially "color blind" when it comes to race so the aging white supremacists are going to dwindle as they reach their sell by dates. That does not mean that they will disappear entirely but that their waning influence will relegate them back to the dark corners where they belong.

Our nation has an opportunity at hand to establish that We the People will NOT allow ourselves to be subjugated to racist bigotry. We can stand together and vote against this evil in our midst and shun it for what it really is, an unamerican BLIGHT on everything our nation stands for.

If we separate we allow the white nationalists to win.

That is NOT going to happen on my watch.

 

True, But the problem I see more is on a State by State basis. And they still get 2 Senators each, even if the place is nothing but cornfields.

160 years since the civil war and I don't see that hearts and minds have changed. They still fly Confederate flags. They still are willing to support scum like trump.

On your watch, they gained the power of the Presidency. WHAT COULD BE WORSE?!?!?! Look at what allowing them to be a part of my country has done. The fight to maintain a dead union has put the entire planet in jeopardy.

 

All of this is wrong, Clinton right leaning?
Sorry , no.

 

I don't really care how many confederate flags are flown at funerals.

The rise of white extremism has been around for the last 3 decades and it began under St Reagan and the misnamed "moral majority". It has been vying for power within the GOP and it was in 2016 that it reached it's zenith. Now the GOP can no longer hide the UGLY FACE of white supremacy and what it is doing to our nation.

2016 GALVANIZED the left and they started pushing back. They consistently shrank red state margins and started winning elections where they had always lost before. Between 2017 and 2018 the ROLLED BACK 40% of the seats that the GOP has taken from the Dems. If it wasn't for gerrymandering and voter suppression it would have been closer to 50%.

2020 is going to be REFERENDUM on what We the People want for the future of our nation.

Before you decide to split the nation give the electorate the chance to do what is right.

 

Clinton was from a red state and was a fiscal conservative. Those are undeniable facts.

 

He was a social liveral.

There is another term for fiscal conservative.. conmon sense.

 

Then you should cease and desist, as you're not gonna do anyone else any good either.

 

Nah, I like him, he's entertaining sometimes.
If you think you're getting worse you're probably getting better. You're just noticing how bad you've been.

 

Someone has to combat the lies.

 

who the hell cares

When you tell the truth in such a way as to degrade yourself, you make lies more attractive to your audience.

 

A major secret of good entertainment

 

You've been misinformed.

 

Yet, no wire tap proof has been offered.
And if baby donnie was wire tapped, that would be illegal? Where's the charges?

 

I don't think liberty is in their charter.