BS: how can you be other than an extremist?

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Jan 18 - 07:36 AM

"I have no record of such hateful things Jim."
Ho-ho-ho
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: Iains
Date: 13 Jan 18 - 07:55 AM

Has christmas come again already???

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 13 Jan 18 - 08:50 AM

Steve,
Are you proud that you are a Tory-voting, Labour-hating, right-wing, Farage-defending, Bibi-backing

I am none of those things. These are just smears. Personal attack.

I don't care how you wish to brand me or anybody else.

I do not, but you used to brand yourself far-Left.
I am happy if you have now moderated your views, and I take some credit for assisting your journey.

Why would I bother when you are wrong about everything all the time?
You can not identify one such thing!

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: robomatic
Date: 13 Jan 18 - 09:31 AM

12 Jan 18 - 06:30 AM

"The only extremists on this forum are the Islamophobes who talk about "implants" and Anti Semites who claim that to criticise Israel is antisemitic"

Pot. Kettle.

One of the biggest problems with dealing with Trump is that it inspires Trump-like responses on the part of his nay-sayers. This makes it harder to select a preference when both sides behave the same. That's how you get civil wars started.


"When you live with wolves, howl like one."

                   - Russian proverb

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Jan 18 - 10:29 AM

I have no record by Jim Carrol.

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Jan 18 - 11:04 AM

the thing is....

I suspect theres two theatres of thought.

1) what we KNOW should happen

2) What is likely to happen in this vale of tears.

I suspect, whatever our political slant, we are all decent human beings and want the greatest good for the greatest number.

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: Raggytash
Date: 13 Jan 18 - 11:10 AM

I suspect you may be correct Al but some would have a proviso that everyone only includes white, anglo-saxon protestants.

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: Greg F.
Date: 13 Jan 18 - 11:33 AM

I think it's quite possible that Nader and Sanders gave the elections to "W" and Trump.

Nonsense. The people naive and/or foolish enough to VOTE FOR Nader and Sanders and the hell with the consequences gave the elections to "W" and Trump. Take it up with them instead of blaming the candidates who did indeed have a lot to say that was worthwhile & needed to be said.


Elizabeth Warren is another very admirable person who may well be causing the right wing to control the U.S. [emphasis mine]

Oh please, Joe - that's bullshit. You're smarter than that - I hope.

I think coalitions and compromise are essential.

So Joe, help us out here. What exactly IS your program for building coalitions and compromizing with racists, Islamophobes, sexual predators, child rapists, plutocrats and persons who inhabit various fact-averse alternative realities?

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: bobad
Date: 13 Jan 18 - 11:52 AM

The only extremists on this forum are the Islamophobes who talk about "implants" and Anti Semites who claim that to criticise Israel is antisemitic

I was waiting for this excrement to issue forth from the likes of Carroll - he never fails to live up to expectations.

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: Greg F.
Date: 13 Jan 18 - 12:14 PM

Nor do you, Boo - nor do you.

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: Jackaroodave
Date: 13 Jan 18 - 01:22 PM

How could Sanders have given the election to Trump? He got the bulk of his write-ins in California, Vermont, and New Hampshire, which all went for Clinton. A proportion of former Sanders supporters voted for Trump, but that makes them Trump voters, not Sanders'.

On the other hand, Nader did get far more votes than Bush's margin in Florida. But those votes weren't added to Bush's total. Gore just didn't

Focusing on hypothetical results if minor candidates had not existed distracts from the actual reasons the candidates lost: Gore was an inept campaigner who would have won had he been able to carry his own home state. Clinton was a very weak candidate who was especially vulnerable to the vicious disinformation campaign waged against her.

Centrists need to examine the process where

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: Jackaroodave
Date: 13 Jan 18 - 01:24 PM

. . . whereby nominations pass to heirs apparent whose "turn" it has become.

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Jan 18 - 05:10 PM

offered as light relief


https://soundcloud.com/denise_whittle/the-big-red-sausage

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: robomatic
Date: 13 Jan 18 - 09:21 PM

There are those who 'split' votes because of conviction of their views and a true desire to furnish an alternative for voters. There are those who are paid by the other side to run as they do to split votes to defeat an entire party. Both are facts of life and it is up to alert voters to figure out what's going on. On the eve of November Presidential election in 2000 I was at the Egan Center where all local media congregated, and many lead campaigners. As George W. Bush's victory clarified, the local Nader chapter staged a small march down the middle of the grand floor, to accolades which must have been mainly Republican. They might not have intended the Republicans to win, but they couldn't deny they had affected the way things turned out.
In Alaska, again, in 2012, we had a situation where an extreme RWing Republican, Joe Miller, won the primary, and the moderate Republican, and incumbant, Lisa Murkowski, had to run a full scale Senatorial campaign as a write-in. The only way she could win was for Democrats to combine with moderate/centrist Republicans to vote for her, thus in the particular case of the election the Democratic candidate was the vote splitter.

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: Jackaroodave
Date: 13 Jan 18 - 10:45 PM

"As George W. Bush's victory clarified, the local Nader chapter staged a small march down the middle of the grand floor, to accolades which must have been mainly Republican. They might not have intended the Republicans to win, but they couldn't deny they had affected the way things turned out."

Sorry, I don't see it. A vote for Nader in an essentially two-party election was not a vote for Bush; functionally it was the same as a vote for nobody. And it was a miniscule portion of the votes for nobody in Florida.

The voter turnout in Florida for president was 56% of estimated eligible voters, who numbered over 12 million. Presidential Turnout Percentages of Eligible Voters in 2000

The Nader vote was around 17 thousand. Of the roughly 5.28 million voters who sat it out, many more than 17 thousand at least preferred Gore to Bush, to say nothing of the smaller number necessary to elect him. Compared to the potential Gore voters who did not bother to vote, the Nader vote was conspicuous but utterly trivial--and those voters didn't even WANT Gore.*

If we want to construct counterfactual scenarios, a more plausible one, and one which more reasonably assigns responsibility would be, "Suppose the Gore campaign had been 5% more effective in turning out the vote, then Gore would have won walking away."

(*I have never seen the logic of "You prefer your candidate, therefore you should vote for mine.")

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 14 Jan 18 - 03:20 AM

Joe Offer says: I think coalitions and compromise are essential.

Greg_F responds: So Joe, help us out here. What exactly IS your program for building coalitions and compromizing with racists, Islamophobes, sexual predators, child rapists, plutocrats and persons who inhabit various fact-averse alternative realities?

Greg, there's no hope of building a compromise with the people on your list. But what percentage of the electorate fall into your category of crazies? If it's as much as ten percent, I'd be surprised.

Most people are far more reasonable, than you give them credit for. And yeah, for legislation to be long-lasting and effective, I think it has to satisfy 60-70 percent of the electorate. A 51% majority is not enough to enact credible and effective legislation. I think Obamacare would be far more durable if it had been designed by rational rules instead of political games meant to squeak a vote out here and there to satisfy political "special interests." I think that means for Obamacare to survive in the long run, it must be a single payer program like Medicare.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Jan 18 - 03:46 AM

A 51% majority is not enough to enact credible and effective legislation.

I wish you would post that on the brexit thread, Joe:-)

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 14 Jan 18 - 04:00 AM

Ain't it the truth, Dave?

The U.S. Senate rules usually demand a 60% majority to pass major legislation, but the Republicans have been playing games with that rule lately. It won't make for solid legislation.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Jan 18 - 05:00 AM

I feel your pain Joe:-(

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: Jackaroodave
Date: 14 Jan 18 - 05:06 AM

I made a huge mistake in describing the vote in Florida, confusing Nader's 97 thousand votes with Buchanan's 17 thousand. The non-voting numbers are so great, however, that it makes no change in my description of the Nader vote as a "miniscule" portion of the voters who might have voted for Gore but didn't.

From Wikipedia, presidential Election 2000:

Bush: 2,912,790
Gore: 2,912,253
---------------------
Difference: 537

Nader: 97,488

I also used the voting-age population for the figure of 12 million instead of the more conservative voter-eligible estimate of 10,667,193.

HOWEVER, 44% of these sat out the election, or 4,693,565 (rounded to whole numbers). If we assume, based on the actual vote, that half of these would have preferred Gore to Bush if you held a gun to their heads, that gives us 2,346,782.

If we add the Nader voters, we have 2,444,270 voters who might have voted for Gore but effectively threw their ballots away. Of this group of wasted votes, the Nader vote is a mere 4%.

Now obviously the largest number of these "eligible voters" were indifferent, hostile to both candidates--like the Naderites--or unreachably apathetic. But if you consider only the top 2.5%, those 2 standard deviations above the mean in the direction of Gore support, those on the voting-nonvoting border, that's 61,107 votes that were low-hanging fruit for a slightly more enthusiastic GOTV campaign, more than 100 times the amount necessary to defeat Bush.

I apologize for messing up, and for the blizzard of figures, but the point stands: Nader voters had nothing to do with Gore's defeat. He lost because he didn't get as many voters to the polls in Florida as his opponent. (And because he was jobbed by the state of Florida and the Supreme Court.)

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Jan 18 - 09:41 AM

I just bought some spelt bread and 'ultimate' crumpets from Marks and Sparks. I am now a middle class extremist:-)

Oh, hang on, best not say that. I can see, in years to come, someone on here reminding us that I admitted being an extremist!

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: Senoufou
Date: 14 Jan 18 - 09:52 AM

Show me a crumpet and I'll follow you anywhere Dave.
But, please, what are 'ultimate crumpets'? Am I missing something?

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Jan 18 - 10:05 AM

Quoting from the packet, 'ultimate 5 grain crumpets. High in fibre, made with softgrains, a blend of white and wholemeal flour. With sourdough for a fuller flavour'.

The you have what constitutes the ultimate, or maybe extremist, crumpets :-)

DtG.

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: Senoufou
Date: 14 Jan 18 - 10:08 AM

Sounds extremely delicious. I'm extremely drooling, and will go and put one of my ordinary plebeian crumpets in the toaster and add some extreme Irish butter.
My husband will say, "And you will get extremely FAT!"

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: Greg F.
Date: 14 Jan 18 - 11:08 AM

But what percentage of the electorate fall into your category of crazies?

By the last poll, Joe, somewhere around 40% of the electorate who still love Trump. [And about half the voters in Alabama, but I digress].They might be excused (and I stress the conditional) for voting for that piece of shit in the first place, but after a year, there's no damn excuse.

Plus a substantial number of the gutless-wonder ostrich Republicans in Congress...

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Jan 18 - 01:50 PM

I bought those crumpets too, Dave, and found them very disappointing. The best crumpets in my estimation are Waitrose ones made with buttermilk or just ordinary Warburtons ones. I can follow crumpet around too, Senoufou, but you have to be careful not to get arrested...

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: Senoufou
Date: 14 Jan 18 - 02:19 PM

Oh Steve, you are a one! heh heh

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Jan 18 - 05:09 PM

I found them a bit soggy :-( The M and S Columbian coffee sponge roll was lovely. Though how it got into the tastes of Britain range escapes me.

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Jan 18 - 06:10 PM

Exactement, Dave. Exactly what I found.

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: Raggytash
Date: 14 Jan 18 - 08:42 PM

Senoufou, I'm not really trying to tempt you away from your husband, who you obviously dearly love .......... but I make my own Crumpets and my own butter.

Newly made and freshly toasted with lashings of fresh butter. I doubt if there is anything finer !!

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 15 Jan 18 - 03:01 AM

You make your own crumpets? It must take ages to drill all those holes.

:D tG

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: Senoufou
Date: 15 Jan 18 - 03:36 AM

Oh Raggytash, I'm yours, I'm yours!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 Jan 18 - 01:30 AM

The local Unitarian church had its annual Martin Luther King celebration today. I usually enjoy it, and I always see a lot of friends there. This year, though, it seemed to run on far too long. It began at 10 AM, and then we had a march to the town square at noon, and then a talk by a guy who's really nice but known to talk on and on, and singing and drumming by some Native American performers. I thought it would be impolite to leave, but I finally gave up at 1:15 PM and went across the street to the bookstore. I drove past at 1:45 PM, and they were finally closing down.

I'll tell ya one thing about liberals - give 'em a microphone, and they don't know when to shut up.

Wait! Wait! I have just one more thing to say, and that will save the world!

Nice people, but they sure talk a lot.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Jan 18 - 05:36 AM

"I'll tell ya one thing about liberals"
In a nation that elects Trump as president, I don't suppose there are many opportunities for Liberals to speak their piece so it seems sensible that they should take advantage of any opportunities that come their way
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: how can you be other than an extremist?
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Jan 18 - 09:03 AM

Liberals... they sure talk a lot.

As opposed to Trumpists who spew? or Tweet? (or is that twat....)