"I'm a Republican and I'm angry."

[kpete]

I'm a Republican and I'm angry. I almost never explain why I'm angry, but when I do, I blame it on somebody who had nothing to do with it. I almost never blame the people responsible for what's wrong with government, partly because I voted for them repeatedly, partly because I don't know any better. I never take responsibility for my actions. I don't understand how government works, but I get upset when the people I've elected, do exactly what it is they said they would do, because I never think about the consequences of what it is they say they want to do. I also like to get help, freebies, or discounts from government or business or anybody who is giving something, but tend to look down on others who do exactly what I do. This is also true in terms of getting divorced, having abortions, cheating on my spouse, abusing children, and being a pervert. It's mostly because I am selfish, unthoughtful, and anti-intellectual, with a slight overbite, and people who think and look differently than I do terrify me. I don't have the capacity to understand or think in nuance, so I tend to stereotype and make assumptions to make myself feel better. I don't understand the world around me or the changes that occur, and I lack intellectual curiosity, so I tend to say the same things regardless of new data, old data, logic, nor do I use factually accurate statements. And no, I'm not a racist, I just don't like it when black people talk about race or struggles with the police or the past. They were only slaves for 300 years here - they got a free ride to America, they should be as happy as I am. I mean, I'm not really happy. We live in the greatest country on Earth, but it's a tyranny, and Republicans in Congress are stopping this foreign Muslim Commie tyrant in the White House who for some reason hasn't been able to get everybody a job and prosperity yet. USA! USA!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/01/26/sunday-open-thread-61/?commentID=washingtonpost.com/ECHO/item/1390788039-939-429

[Scuba]

1. Perfect.

[Drew Richards]

2. You know, sometimes I really wonder if evolution threw us a curve and a surprise division

Of our spiecies.

It really seems like a large portion of our population does not have the ability of cognitive thought.

[RoccoR5955]

15. The problem is

Like so many other species that are overpopulating, like deer, the natural predators are not in the environs. They are either rare, or extinct.
If there were predators, I am sure that many of those less intelligent would have been eaten a long time ago!

[Scootaloo]

26. Well, what happens to overpopulated deer?

Fuck physics and astronomy; it's biology and ecology that are the fucking terrifying, mind-boggling fields of science.

[The_Commonist]

28. Except there ARE predators and WE complain about them ad nauseum.

Nature HAS, in fact, provided a way to keep these people out of the gene pool. And although I'm sure this is a joke, the guy who wrote this describes those predators, and even votes for them.

"The Republican healthcare plan - if you get sick, just die. Fast!"

Can't have it both ways. Either every human life has value, OR we have to allow the predators among us to do their job and weed out the sick and weak. The choice is ours, and we have to do one thing or the other - either give up our sentimentality and allow the predators to do what they do, OR we have to build new systems that will allow the planet to support us all without predators among us.

[AnneD]

31. Nature...

in the form of viruses and bacteria is developing advanced biologic weapons as we speak, aided in part by our own stupidity. We weren't the first dominante species that has declined and we won't be the last.

[RoccoR5955]

49. Or we have to colonize other planets.

And spread the infection called "hewmans" throughout the universe!

[The_Commonist]

52. Yes, we do have to colonize other planets.

Actually, I think that's the only way we will save our species.

However, I don't think "humans" are the problem. I don't think "we" are an infection, not any more than the dolphins or the zebras or the krill. There is certainly an infectious strain of thought among us, as represented by what is written in the OP. An infectious strain of thought that has led to an unsustainable lifestyle. That is the problem we have, not "us" as a whole.

In order to get to other planets to colonize them, we are going to need to get over all kinds of shit and learn to cooperate in ways that most individuals have never had to accept. Just imagine a bunch of people in close quarters without showers for the rest of their lives. You can't have a socio- or psycho-path in a group of settlers to Alpha-Centauri, but we let them run around this place and write articles for the Washington Post.

I really don't think we are all that far away from the Star Trek highly cooperative society. We just need a generation or two of weeding out and/or controlling the soocio- and psycho-paths among us. Either we do that and get to the stars, or we lay waste to the planet and go extinct.

[undeterred]

3. The other day I was driving behind a car with these 2 bumper stickers:

"Liberalism is a mental disorder" and "I want Obama to fail"

[butterfly77]

4. Exactly...

[Spider Jerusalem]

5. You can turn some of this around with a change of the party labels.

Especially the bit about "I get upset when the people I've elected do what they said they'd do" (see: Obama disappointment); the bit about stereotypes (see: any discussion here about the South, about religious people, etc). And "slight overbite"? Really? Almost everyone has a slight overbite (or at least everyone who's grown up in a culture that uses utensils to eat with).

Through a glass, darkly.

[DeadLetterOffice]

6. +1 n/t

[Brewinblue]

12. Uhhh . . .

FAIL!

[zeemike]

16. "I get upset when the people I've elected do what they said they'd do"

You mean like when Obama said he would close Gitmo and end the wars?...and he did it?...I guess I was sleeping when that happened.

[Spider Jerusalem]

17. ...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/11/26/808280/-Obama-s-Afghan-Position-2007-2008-A-Reminder

[zeemike]

19. ...

[uponit7771]

29. Obama didn't say he'd close Gitmo without congress and end the wars as stupidily as they

...were started

[zeemike]

33. As CIC of the military he does not need congress to close Gitmo.

All he had to do was give the order...it is a military operation not subject to congress approval.

[Red Mountain]

37. Might be true....

but the question is where the inmates go when they close.

I think Obama wanted them to stand trial in the US.

Congress forbid that.

[zeemike]

39. How about back to where they came from?

And if they have charges against them they have a military court called Jag for the perpouse...if no charges let them go.
It is just that simple, despite all the bullshit.

[jeff47]

41. Yes, he does. Unless you want to abandon the prisoners there.

The President can't spend money without Congress's approval. Congress has explicitly forbidden the President to spend any money to "shut down Gitmo".

While the President does have the authority to yank all the guards and close all the buildings via his CIC powers, he can't move the prisoners anywhere without spending money. And that requires Congress to approve.

[zeemike]

42. That is total bullshit.

He needs congress to spend new money
The military already has a budget and is spending money to keep Gitmo runing...to close it would save money not spend it.
And they also have aircraft that they brought them there with and they can take them away to where they got them with the same aircraft, and they do not need congress permission to do that.

In order to avoid closing Gitmo Obama asked the congress to approve a new expensive prison to be built in the US, knowing full well they would say no and he would have an excuse not to act on his promise

[jeff47]

43. Nope, it's not.

The military already has a budget

And one of the lines in the budget is "You can't spend any money to shut down Gitmo".

And they also have aircraft that they brought them there with and they can take them away to where they got them with the same aircraft, and they do not need congress permission to do that.

Except that said aircraft require fuel and a crew and maintenance to do so. Which cost money.

In order to avoid closing Gitmo Obama asked the congress to approve a new expensive prison to be built in the US, knowing full well they would say no and he would have an excuse not to act on his promise

Yeah, sure. It has nothing to do with adding that "You can't spend money to close Gitmo" line in the budget/CR for the last 5+ years. It's all a brand-spanking-new conspiracy.



You're yelling at the wrong end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

[zeemike]

45. Show me where that line is in the Budget.

The military budget is under the discretion of the CIC not micro managed by Congress.

The way you tell it every time a plane takes off congress has to approve money for it...which is bullshit.
We spend a million dollars a year to keep each prisoner there and you are telling us that sending them back to where they came would cost more?...for gods sake they could buy them a plane ticket back and let them fly commercial and save 990k.each...and first class too.

[jeff47]

46. That's an impressive amount of wrong crammed into a single post.

Show me where that line is in the Budget.

http://www.ibtimes.com/1-trillion-spending-bill-proposed-congress-read-entire-omnibus-spending-bill-full-text-1538380
Scroll down.

Transfers to "where they came from" is difficult, because "where they came from" does not want them back. As a result, shutting Gitmo down anytime soon is going to require transferring them to somewhere else in the US until those transfers can be negotiated.

The military budget is under the discretion of the CIC not micro managed by Congress.

Utterly false.

And you should know it's false when the DoD says "we don't want money for those airplanes" and Congress puts it in the budget anyway. And they get airplanes.

Also, if what you said was true, we need to apologize to Oliver North. That whole Iran-Contra thing wasn't illegal according to you. (What made it a crime is the line in the budget that said no US funds could be spent to aid the Contras.)

The way you tell it every time a plane takes off congress has to approve money for it...which is bullshit.

They have to approve the funding to buy the fuel for training and ongoing operations. They're lines in the DoD budget.

They don't have to approve every single flight, but they do have to approve that flights can happen at all.

We spend a million dollars a year to keep each prisoner there and you are telling us that sending them back to where they came would cost more?

No, I'm saying Congress forbade us from spending any money to close the place down any time soon. It's economically moronic, but politically expedient.

After all, you're busy screaming at Obama when Republicans in Congress forced it into the budget.

[zeemike]

47. More bullshit.

" Guantanamo Bay — The omnibus continues language prohibiting funding for transfers of Guantanamo prisoners to facilities elsewhere in the United States or territories, frustrating the president’s effort to close the prison camp."

Well then what happens if Mexico does not want back illegal aliens?...do we have to keep them?

But go on and rationalize it, it does not help make Obama seem more right...it only makes him seem weaker.

And I don't know what the real situation is and neither do you, but if I had to guess Obama may have wanted to close Gitmo but the military said no, and they are the ones who dictate policies not him...which is a sad state of our nation.
So he threw it to the congress who could be counted on to say no to cover his not keeping his promise.

[Cha]

7. K&R!

[LiberalElite]

8. The much shorter post right after this one -

suggests LLynching [sic] a Democrat...

[HomerRamone]

30. Was it from Llewyn Davis?

LLOL

[Laxman]

9. From The Department Of Redundancy Department

"I'm a Republican and I'm Angry"

Everybody is getting over on me! Everybody wants to take my stuff. I hate the government but I rely on society to provide me the means to make a living.

[Thinkingabout]

10. Big K & R

Good you had all of this and did not even get to the war on women. Loved it.

[pscot]

11. That's very funny.

I knew there was something about them; it's the overbite

[niyad]

13. wow, the comments after that are just disgusting.

[calimary]

24. And terribly misguided. Obviously fed and watered by constant exposure to Pox Noise.

[Mr.Bill]

14. I'm a Republican

and I don't know when to start a new paragraph.

[svpadgham]

18. At what point would you suggest?

http://www.saidsimple.com/content/When-to-Make-a-New-Paragraph

[Mr.Bill]

22. According to your link,

whenever he wants to to make a dramatic effect.

[calimary]

23. ROFL!!!

[fadedrose]

53. I'm with you there . . .

I am a lover of short paragraphs.

[byronius]

20. instaclassic

[blkmusclmachine]

21. NO WAY that was written by a Repub, because it's far too enlightenend, nuanced, and self-aware,

and it has proper spelling and English grammar.

[truebluegreen]

27. My first thought was the Onion.

No way a real Republican wrote that.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

25. The sad thing is how many of them don't see a problem with that rant.

[heaven05]

32. I am never surprised

at the ignorance, stupidity and backward thinking and logic of the typical RW amerikkkan. Really amazing stupidity.

[DeSwiss]

34. I'm sure Fox Snooze......

...will report this as the ravings of some turncoat RINO.

- K&R

''For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks...... The work for which all other work is but preparation.'' ~Rainer Maria Rilke

[BlancheSplanchnik]

35. that was great! n/t

[Jakes Progress]

36. Hey. That guy was at the the same bar I was last night.

[DFW]

38. In other words:

[URL=.html][IMG][/IMG][/URL]

Same old, same old........

[kpete]

40. perfect DFW

peace,
kp

[bkanderson76]

44. I'm an American and I'm Angry but if You Are an

angry Republican, then hey, what's new?

[florida08]

48. Salute!

[woo me with science]

50. Actually, Republicans are angry because they aren't represented either.

Our government, both parties, was purchased by the one percent, and 99 percent of us have been disenfranchised. They are not running Republicans or Democrats for office anymore. All major party candidates are Corporatists, or they do not have the money to compete.

We are ALL being played and exploited by the one percent. The corporate media has been systematically divided so that we Democrats have our channels and pundits, and they have their channels and pundits, and we are each fed lies and propaganda to make us hate and fight each other rather than the ones who are impoverishing ALL of us.

The big unacknowledged secret on DU is that Republicans across the country are just as angry as we are.

Just as our politicians lie to us about wanting to protect public education and the social safety nets and unions and the environment, their politicians lie to them about wanting to stand for small government, limited government interference in private lives, and the defense of civil liberties. Yet no matter which party is elected, we get the same corporate direction of larger, more oppressive and authoritarian government, assaults on and privatization of public services, and more warmongering.

If we could agree across party lines on just one thing....that our representation has been stolen from ALL of us by the corruption of money in the system....we could join together as the 99 percent to get the corporate money out and demand our representation back. When elections are for the people again, and corporations are not allowed to select our candidates, we can have a real fight in the public square about Democratic versus Republican philosophy. And real Democrats will win.

Right now, we don't get any choice at all. We get two candidates pushing essentially the same corporate agenda, by and for the one percent.

[kpete]

51. hmmmmmmmmmmm