I HEREBY STEP DOWN FOR NOW

[Markk]

My recollection is that Rush Limbaugh took the word liberal and made it a slur

Your memory is correct. And I'll take the opportunity again to remind everyone that all this hatred in the name of standing up for the truth is a right-wing phenomena. I don't get leftist emails from my liberal friends. My right-wing friends would drown me if they could with their junk political emails. You know, "California Senate just past a bill to let out all the murderers this year..." Originated in 1996 and updated every year since. My right-wing friends and family in the real world are driven by politics to where even their religious beliefs are ancillary to their political beliefs. And they are swimming in a pool of a half inch of water. There is a broad range in terms of intelligence, but even the smartest don't know anything. What they all have in common is an inability to shut up about their politics, and you can't say anything. Just have to listen and look for an 'out' to change the topic or you'll end up getting "cancelled".

It's always amusing to see right-wingers come to this forum and cry persecution given the runaway freight train that is Trumpism.

I see that SPS has taken it down, but you can find clips of SouthPark's "Dances with Smurfs" on YouTube. In that (very old) episode, Cartman becomes the morning announcer for the school, and takes upon himself the mantra of Rush Limbaugh. He writes a 540 page book castigating Wendy, who is school president, as a wretched "liberal", calls for a return to moral values, and makes up stories such as himself living among the Smurfs before Smurfville is destroyed by Wendy. True to form, he complains voraciously about being silenced and censored, even though Mr. Mackey and other school officials basically lecture him while yet allowing him to pull the same stunts over the school intercom again and again.

LOL…come on, what about The Al Sharpton’s on the left….or the talk shows, or SNL…all left wing driving forces that label the right 24/7. The media, entertainment and education (the largest anchor) is as a whole is left, while AM talks radio, and Fox news is right. Th e left owns the narrative these entities, just as you folks own the narrative here.

The left is hosted by mainly greedy people that live conservation, become very wealthy or live off the government and pay taxes with house money, then preach liberal “values.” They like yourself don’t give a rip about those they use (the poor), a do as Isay not as I do attitude. You are a great example when you said you don’t care about 600 gas. You can probably afford it, and don’t have to daily commute…so screw the single moms commuting or a construction worker that has to drive 150 miles a day, or the independent trucker.

The public schools are a disaster. Here in CA we are like 48th is learning and 1st or 2nd on money spent a student, and we are he poster child, and beta for the liberal agenda. It’s funny how most liberals can look and see what is happening, it is easier to just complain about a dead radio talk show host and past president than deal with the mess “liberal values” have put us in.

[Marcus]

[Our moderation efforts] won't be perfect or 100% consistent, but I think they'll be recognizable if you pay attention.

This is a key point because it implies a perfectly reasonable expectation of those who are moderated. Learn from what happens and make an effort to comply with the rules as they are applied.

If you feel they are not consistent, make your case. We've already seen a willingness from the mods to discuss repeatedly an issue, so while they may not be 100% consistent (being human and all ), i'm pretty confident they are 100% willing to talk about it.

Another point, even if one doesn't prevail in an effort to get a moderation action overturned, one has added to one's stack of knowledge about how moderation WILL be happening. So, suck it up and don't keep breaking the same rule in the same manner repeatedly, even if you disagree with the mod decisions. Find other ways to fight your battle, if you must.

( I feel like that's a no brainer, but, given the shear number of deletes in red and prison- or telestial- splits from topics we've observed in the last 8 months or so, apparently not everyone learned learned that at some point in their development.)

[Some Schmo]

It cracks me up the way a lot of right wingers these days use the word "agenda" like it's a pejorative. "The Gay Agenda." "The Liberal Agenda." It's almost as though these guys resent people planning. Ooooo, they have an agenda. Dum dum dum...

Of course, the GOP has no plans except to keep bullshitting the American public, but even that doesn't deserve the moniker "The Trump Agenda" because planning and sticking to a plan is not how the GOP governs. Every day requires a new set of lies (i. e. talking points) so they're making it up as they go along, like a mopologist.

It's just more data showing how right wingers can scare themselves over anything and everything.

[Morley]

The public schools are a disaster. Here in CA we are like 48th is learning and 1st or 2nd on money spent a student, and we are he poster child, and beta for the liberal agenda.

Markk, please show us that you're not just pulling these statistics out of your ass.

[Marcus]

The public schools are a disaster. Here in CA we are like 48th is learning and 1st or 2nd on money spent a student, and we are he poster child, and beta for the liberal agenda.

Markk, please show us that you're not just pulling these statistics out of your ass.

California is 20th in public school education, 27th in spending. So yea, out of his ass.

[Markk]

I got sloppy but it does not change my point. The public school systems are a mess, the economy is a mess, foreign policy is a mess, supply is a mess, we are becoming a lawless society with no consequence, homelessness in many cities and areas is at crises status, the southern border is wide open with drugs coming over in abundance.

We have no real leadership and no plan beyond shutting down the down US dependency on oil and gas…not having a clue what that means.

[Chap]

I got sloppy but it does not change my point.

I'm afraid it does. If the facts are that:

California is 20th in public school education, 27th in spending.

And you tell us that:

Here in CA we are like 48th is learning and 1st or 2nd on money spent a student

and CA is your home state ... then you really don't have any credibility left. That makes your views devoid of any serious interest.

[Snazzip]

I got sloppy but it does not change my point. The public school systems are a mess, the economy is a mess, foreign policy is a mess, supply is a mess, we are becoming a lawless society with no consequence, homelessness in many cities and areas is at crises status, the southern border is wide open with drugs coming over in abundance.

We have no real leadership and no plan beyond shutting down the down US dependency on oil and gas…not having a clue what that means.

"I made stuff up, and was shown to be wrong, but that doesn't matter, because I'm right, because I say so."

[Gadianton]

LOL…come on, what about The Al Sharpton’s on the left….or the talk shows, or SNL…all left wing driving forces that label the right 24/7. The media, entertainment and education (the largest anchor) is as a whole is left, while AM talks radio, and Fox news is right. Th e left owns the narrative these entities, just as you folks own the narrative here.

I don't watch SNL or listen to AM radio and I don't know anything about Al Sharpton. However, I do know that my liberal friends don't inundate me with liberal talking points and conspiracy theories.

They like yourself don’t give a rip about those they use (the poor), a do as Isay not as I do attitude. You are a great example when you said you don’t care about 600 gas. You can probably afford it, and don’t have to daily commute…so screw the single moms commuting or a construction worker that has to drive 150 miles a day, or the independent trucker.

The problem isn't caring about 6$ gas. The problem is not knowing anything about economics and making 6$ gas a talking point for politicians who have no power to change 6$ gas and mainly just want to ride the wave of public outrage for their own personal gain. I can't put a number on what the price of oil should be, but I can tell you that you can't demand both a) that the US become a net energy exporter as Donald Trump championed and b) have the perpetually falling oil prices during the Trump administration that Ajax bragged about. And while we're on that basic point, you can't both A) claim to be heartbroken about the poor who can't afford inflation and B) get outraged over poor people not paying federal taxes. You can't A) brag that Trump predicted 6$ gas and B) failed to have gone all-in on oil futures. Anybody can be a prophet in retrospect. 50% of anybody who two years ago predicted either oil would go up or down are right. You might want to stop pretending you know more about the world than you do and what it will take for the average American to prosper. Or not, you can keep popping in screaming about Joe Bidden personally causing world-wide inflation and I'll keep making fun of you.

[Res Ipsa]

I got sloppy but it does not change my point. The public school systems are a mess, the economy is a mess, foreign policy is a mess, supply is a mess, we are becoming a lawless society with no consequence, homelessness in many cities and areas is at crises status, the southern border is wide open with drugs coming over in abundance.

We have no real leadership and no plan beyond shutting down the down US dependency on oil and gas…not having a clue what that means.

"Everything is a mess" is a nice talking point, but it doesn't say anything. Why do you say the public school systems are a mess? What are the specific problems you see? What do you propose to fix them? And how do you propose to pay for those solutions? Rinse, lather, repeat. It's absolutely false that the southern border is "wide open," so why not start with a realistic description of the problem? The war on drugs has been a dismal failure, and we should admit that. The more we try to interdict drugs that enter the United States, the more profitable getting drugs into the United States becomes, and the more effort and resources will be devoted to getting them in here. This is basic market economics that we've shown is accurate by our decades of failure to keep foreign made drugs out of the U.S. Not only that, we have plenty of home made and manufactured drugs right here in the U.S. Raise the price of foreign drugs imported in to the U.S. and we have plenty of domestic substitutes.

As long as it is profitable for foreign cartels to export drugs to the U.S., they will continue to do so. And we will never have the available resources to prevent drugs from physically entering the country. Secure one border, and the exporters will attack a weaker area. It's a huge waste of taxpayer dollars.

You want to decrease illegal drug imports? Take the profit out of it instead of making it more profitable by artificially created scarcity. Again, basic economics.

Markets can't solve every problem. But ignoring the effect of our actions on markets is just dumb.