oldviolin wrote:

idioms are running the asylum...

 rgio wrote:

Irony alert

 westslope wrote:
I used to feel that way, but competence has no chance against tribalism.  People have apparently lost the ability to reason.  I don't get it.

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote:
I do.

 westslope wrote:
The mythical (reasonable, moderate) middle!

Pick a salient issue and the self-identified reasonable ones can go from zero to wingnut in under five seconds...

 black321 wrote:
Median voters and normal, quiet, stable folks do not make headlines and sell copies/eyeballs.  

 rgio wrote:

Lunatic fringe, on the left and right getting too much attention.
I still think the majority are rational, realistic thinkers.
Those are the ones who need more attention.

 rgio wrote:
you mean Murdoch?

 rgio wrote:

We have met the enemy. It is us.

 rgio wrote:

I do appreciate black321's point.  One US neighbourhood is very different from another.    At one level, numbers do not matter so much as competence, energy, purpose and neighbourhood cohesion.   That comes from special interest/grass roots politics 101.  

Funny though to think of an Aussie making hay while deliberately and successfully misleading Americans.   Well maybe not so funny.  Like it ain't funny when large numbers of Canadians fall for the Trump movement rhetoric.    

 black321 wrote:
You mean like the folks attacking school board members for attempting to protect teachers and their own children by having them wear masks?

The idiots are getting into office based on the votes of those good people in your neighborhood.   To get your neighbors to act irrationally, all you have to do is tell them their Constitutional right to freedom is being violated.  No facts are required.   It took an outsider (Australian) to figure out how to get rich saying that... and down we go!!!

 miamizsun wrote: 
Hello. Wears blinders and feeds on itself. Them and they, curds and whey. Plus its excruciatingly boring...

 rgio wrote:i would agree in general that partisan nuttery is the norm
and for the most part it is toxic
principled thought/behavior should play a larger role in leadership
politicians come and go, but policy hangs around
and our foreign policy leaves a lot to be desired

 rgio wrote:
Idiots are/have been in control, but as long as we have good people in the neighborhoods and streets, we are not lost, just sidetracked. 

 miamizsun wrote:
Trump signed a peace agreement with the Taliban in Feb of last year and ran for re-election on his ability to end the war. 

Biden ran for election saying he was getting out.

Only when there are pictures of people in turbans carrying guns does anyone in the US (or the rest of the world) worry about human rights.

It's amazing to watch the "America First" crowd suggest they would never have done this.  They applauded when he did these things... yet want to crucify Biden for doing exactly what they've been wanting for years.

We're lost.  The idiots are now running the asylum.  

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote:

that and i'm freaking gobsmacked that we left (or are leaving) a bunch of people behind to face the hoard/barbarians
women/girls especially will suffer the giant leap backwards in human rights
trying to change someone's philosophy with force, violence and coercion is a giant flashing sign of stupidity
one hundred eighty degrees of changing the human operating OS
and yet this isn't obvious to the US or the taliban
expect human flourishing to evaporate 
just so disappointed

 Steely_D wrote: 
Agreed, though I still can't believe the allies put their faith in the local police force to hold off the Taliban while they made an orderly evacuation. That there is the very definition of western hubris.
 

I appreciate 
1) no one has bothered to do this in 20 years although we all knew it was necessary
2) he didn’t leave it to the next President, sparing us from sending more soldiers over on a fool’s errand
3) if, after twenty years, the nation still wasn’t ready, then they weren’t going to be ready and we were wasting our resources (and citizens)

 westslope wrote: 
doh!

 kurtster wrote:
In the last 20 years over 200,000 more settlers have established homes and communities in now an over half a century long Israeli occupation of the West Bank.    Is that not what the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan was all about?