2004-11-04 09:01![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
digitaldiscipline
digitaldiscipline[orignally appearing as a comment in ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
angel_renewed's journal, expanded here]
I do sometimes wonder if Middle America thinks it would be better off without the urban/coastal types. Listening to NPR this morning, they had interviews with evangelical Ohioans, who were jubilant that their focus on spiritual issues (morality, family, etc) trumped the concrete issues of the economy and the war in Iraq, I was unable to refrain from doing something I actually seldom indulge in: swearing profusely at the person whose recording I was hearing - "What the fsck is wrong with you?"
felisdemens hit it on the head with her most recent post - I am as incapable of understanding the mindset of these folks just as surely as they're incapable of understanding mine. It's baffling and frustrating (probably for both of us), when I talk political shop with Fran (who ran The Palace of Reason), because we both respect the fact that there's a functioning lump of grey matter at the other end of the conversation, but we reach very different conclusions and hold wildly divergent opinions on a lot of political topics. Trying to winnow out one another's thought process and the rationale that goes into it is daunting, even when we're both trying our darnedest to make our case plainly.
There's a schism bordering on cognitive disconnect, it seems, between the left- and right-leaning minds of people who put some thought into their political stance.
The folks who vote their gut, without engaging anything above the soft palate. . . I'm sorry, they're a lost cause, no matter which way they lean.
I know that during my childhood in Buffalo, there was a lot of honest resentment that New York state almost invariably meant "New York City, and. . . umm. . . oh yeah, a couple million other people 'upstate'." The belief, factually supported or not, that the tax dollars my family and I paid in Buffalo ended up in the pockets of welfare recipients in Brooklyn, was both strong and omnipresent. I'm nearly as certain that folks who lived in The City consider the rest of the state to be a semi-atrophied appendage that was only tangentially part of the same state they lived in.
Political talking heads make a lot of noise and spew a lot of bullshit about being "uniters, not dividers," and then spend a lot of their political currency leading up to elections on "wedge issues."
Maybe it's time for honest-to-blob political division (instead of the far-more-improbable secession scenario) to occur. I was muttering about this yesterday withtrystbat, and came to the conclusion that it would probably be healthy for one, if not both, of the major parties to undergo some form of conceptual mitosis, factionalizing into a more centrist and a more extreme flavor on each side of the middle. There is a full political spectrum out there, and two very-similar options doesn't give the constituent electorate an accurate option from which to choose a representative.
Conservative Republicans can camp out on the far right. Moderate Republicans can hang out in right-center. Moderate Democrats can be left of center, and truly Liberal Democrats can stake out the far left. Even if the moderates tend to be the ones with the lion's share of the votes, an electoral process that can more accurately clue those officials in to the political tenor of the people who -didn't- vote them into office, by giving the ever-larger segment of the population who doesn't feel comfortable endorsing the lesser of two evils, is a step in the right direction.
And, of course, the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
wildturkeyparty will be staggering around there somewhere. . . after all, it's just a jump to the left, and a step to the right. . . you all know how the dance goes.
=============================
Unlike a few folks whose minds and hearts I hold in high regard, I'm not going to be turning in my black to go red or blue. I'm staying a nice, dark grey. It's good enough for an October sky and a battleship, and it's good enough for me. Sure, there's some rust on me, but it still runs good.
angel_renewed's journal, expanded here]I do sometimes wonder if Middle America thinks it would be better off without the urban/coastal types. Listening to NPR this morning, they had interviews with evangelical Ohioans, who were jubilant that their focus on spiritual issues (morality, family, etc) trumped the concrete issues of the economy and the war in Iraq, I was unable to refrain from doing something I actually seldom indulge in: swearing profusely at the person whose recording I was hearing - "What the fsck is wrong with you?"
felisdemens hit it on the head with her most recent post - I am as incapable of understanding the mindset of these folks just as surely as they're incapable of understanding mine. It's baffling and frustrating (probably for both of us), when I talk political shop with Fran (who ran The Palace of Reason), because we both respect the fact that there's a functioning lump of grey matter at the other end of the conversation, but we reach very different conclusions and hold wildly divergent opinions on a lot of political topics. Trying to winnow out one another's thought process and the rationale that goes into it is daunting, even when we're both trying our darnedest to make our case plainly. There's a schism bordering on cognitive disconnect, it seems, between the left- and right-leaning minds of people who put some thought into their political stance.
The folks who vote their gut, without engaging anything above the soft palate. . . I'm sorry, they're a lost cause, no matter which way they lean.
I know that during my childhood in Buffalo, there was a lot of honest resentment that New York state almost invariably meant "New York City, and. . . umm. . . oh yeah, a couple million other people 'upstate'." The belief, factually supported or not, that the tax dollars my family and I paid in Buffalo ended up in the pockets of welfare recipients in Brooklyn, was both strong and omnipresent. I'm nearly as certain that folks who lived in The City consider the rest of the state to be a semi-atrophied appendage that was only tangentially part of the same state they lived in.
Political talking heads make a lot of noise and spew a lot of bullshit about being "uniters, not dividers," and then spend a lot of their political currency leading up to elections on "wedge issues."
Maybe it's time for honest-to-blob political division (instead of the far-more-improbable secession scenario) to occur. I was muttering about this yesterday with
trystbat, and came to the conclusion that it would probably be healthy for one, if not both, of the major parties to undergo some form of conceptual mitosis, factionalizing into a more centrist and a more extreme flavor on each side of the middle. There is a full political spectrum out there, and two very-similar options doesn't give the constituent electorate an accurate option from which to choose a representative.Conservative Republicans can camp out on the far right. Moderate Republicans can hang out in right-center. Moderate Democrats can be left of center, and truly Liberal Democrats can stake out the far left. Even if the moderates tend to be the ones with the lion's share of the votes, an electoral process that can more accurately clue those officials in to the political tenor of the people who -didn't- vote them into office, by giving the ever-larger segment of the population who doesn't feel comfortable endorsing the lesser of two evils, is a step in the right direction.
And, of course, the
wildturkeyparty will be staggering around there somewhere. . . after all, it's just a jump to the left, and a step to the right. . . you all know how the dance goes.=============================
Unlike a few folks whose minds and hearts I hold in high regard, I'm not going to be turning in my black to go red or blue. I'm staying a nice, dark grey. It's good enough for an October sky and a battleship, and it's good enough for me. Sure, there's some rust on me, but it still runs good.
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People are stupid......
Most people I know are bright enough to weigh MULTIPLE issues at the same time, but I do know a few who xero in on one particular thing and then shut down the mental process. "Bush says X about Y, so he's my guy." I can understand this kind of thing if you have some overriding investment in that issue - like of you have Parkinsons Disease you would care a lot about stem cell research, and maybe that alone is enough to get you to vote Dem even if you would normally be a Rep, but I think the vast majority of Americans do not fall into a category like that.
The whole political process, poly/sci, is built around trying to fine tune a set of issues that will win a narrow majority. Thats what the "planks in the platform" is all about, and unfortunately the Republican platform is more cohesive and compelling. The Dem platform has to pick up stuff like gay marriage, which shouldn't even be in the news and is nothing but an anchor around their candidate's neck.
Feh. People are stupid......
Re: People are stupid......
Re: People are stupid......
You may get me this week - I'm screwed hard on bye-week and injury problems.
We need to do a live draft next year - my other team is a live draft and I'm second in the power rankings. The games are a lot closer in that league too - although there were still a couple of bozos who picked DST/Kicker/TE in the first 4 rounds. Hell, one guy chose the Pats DSt in round 2, Tony Gonzales in round 3, and Mike Vanderjagt in round 4. His second RB is on IR for the season, and his third is some backup to a backup to an understudy on the practice squad. Gotta have a punching bag or two.
Re: People are stupid......
Picked up a decent RB replacement. Now it's on!
Re: People are stupid......
If Moss is a go, I'm going to start both my Viking wideouts, just to spite you for having Culpepper. . . throw it, Daunte, because I'm gonna be catching, and I get more points per yard!
I'm lukewarm about the live draft, but will participate if we have one. Honestly, I'd just like a slightly smaller league, since as it stands now, free agents are a total crapshoot, and it's clear that the handful of people who don't have their heads completely up their asses are either getting fucked over by bad luck, or running roughshod over the brain donors.