I'm so freaking tired of you, home experts in politics

a reply to: JedemDasSeine

coming to an online public forum where everyone always think they can solve every problem in the world, and expecting sensible thoughts with intellectual consideration is the same as going to Twitter or MSM for 'news'. ...

imho

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Good thing is, that participation isn't confined to the internetz and you know jacksh!t about JdS, except that it's probably another sinister Putillery Troll in Krautsuit disguise. Works like a charme!

Anyway, where was I?

take part in politics.

Ahja. The whole OP obviously went over your head, which didn't stop you from composing a condescending response and hitting reply afterwards. Which is great, because I think you just posterchild_ed precisely what this thread was getting at.

Funny story though, carry on!

Except for maybe a dozen people here that I've seen, no one is a subject matter expert on anything.

This is a forum to display our opinions on a variety of conspiratorial subjects.

Politics just happens to be one of the conspiracies that we discuss.

I mean, I guess we can't post on the paranormal threads if we've never seen a ghost.

Can we post in the "Pets" forum if we've never owned a dog?

Should only military people post in military threads?

Environmentalists should only post in environmental threads?

Musicians only posting in music threads?

originally posted by: DBCowboy
Except for maybe a dozen people here that I've seen, no one is a subject matter expert on anything.

I'm not an expert on anything but I did stay in a Hiliday Inn Express last night.

originally posted by: IAMTAT
If you hate Chinese food...stay out of Chinese restaurants.

Same logic applies to threads.

Ummm...I like...takeout...

I really...really...like delivery...

That way I can both...stay out of the restaurant...and...enjoy the menu...


YouSir

a reply to: JedemDasSeine

Wow, great OP! And you're absolutely drop dead correct! Considering the extent to which US politics has practically no effect whatsoever on the trajectory of the economy, health care, taxes, infrastructure because Congress never gets anything done, it makes politics in the US practically speaking, irrelevant. Its a game show. Unfortunately, as far as the MSM is concerned, its the ONLY game show........its all they report on, or perhaps I should say, opine on.

Endless discussions about the irrelevant are utterly pointless.

originally posted by: FauxMulder

originally posted by: DBCowboy
Except for maybe a dozen people here that I've seen, no one is a subject matter expert on anything.

I'm not an expert on anything but I did stay in a Hiliday Inn Express last night.

Ummm...Hiliday Inn...?

Is the Hildabeast who shall forever remain unnamed...competing with The Teflon Don...in the Hospitality business...?

Or is it better reminiscent of a..."Hostel"...



YouSir

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
Everyone has a civic and moral duty to take part in politics. That's how democracy works. Free societies might fail if those who refuse to do their part leave the work to be done by the ignorant.

Ummm...oh wait...





YouSir

originally posted by: YouSir

originally posted by: IAMTAT
If you hate Chinese food...stay out of Chinese restaurants.

Same logic applies to threads.

Ummm...I like...takeout...

I really...really...like delivery...

That way I can both...stay out of the restaurant...and...enjoy the menu...

YouSir

I like Chinese food too.

I hear Hillary just opened a Chinese restaurant.
The food is actually pretty good...but an hour later, you're hungry for power.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
Everyone has a civic and moral duty to take part in politics. That's how democracy works. Free societies might fail if those who refuse to do their part leave the work to be done by the ignorant. Worse, your absence directly contributes to the poor state of politics.

That begs the question of whether participating in forums like ATS actually constitutes "participating in politics." The only value I see in participating on forums such as this is that you are forced to recognize that there are other points of view. In many venues we have in life we are surrounded by people with a single mindset. For example, work in a newsroom of a newspaper and you will find a conservative point of view is not allowed. Its the same in most libraries. Voicing something other than a liberal point of view is not healthy for you and your continued employment because "free speech" means "spouting the liberal point of view." That's my personal experience. I'm sure there are other venues where conservatism reigns--maybe working for the NRA, for example, and the liberal point of view is squashed. At least here you know that no matter at you say, someone is going to argue with you.

a reply to: Mikehawk

You said

Until people realize that we are controlled by invisible people from behind the scenes who's only wish is to control us financially, physically, mentally and spiritually, we are doomed to continue this pointless cycle of circular logic.

And how true I find that to be. However for me anyway that is just the tip of the iceberg. I think that for most of us life is just 'well this is the way it is''. And we go on making the most of it all for ourselves and our own families. Working and playing and just making what we can in ''the way it is'. Some people seem to like calling others in this state of existence ''sheeple''. When I first heard this phrase I thought ''oh, how cute'' , what a great play on words.

Then it dawned on my that it really was a derogatory label, a demeaning term which would only set me apart from those who had not reached the heights of independent selfhood that I had achieved and realized that I was conditioning my own consciousness by making that specific distinction. You know what I mean? That I was better because I was awake and they were not. Oh yes I was rather full of hubris too. Still am of course but now at least I can laugh at myself some.

In my life I have run with extremely rightwing fundimentalists and then in the big swing with extremely left wing Marxists. Fortunately for me, in both extremes I only ''ran' with them -in both cases for over 4 years,- that is the level of complete belief that both extremes required seemed to be beyond my ability.

As to your problem, I don't see it as such. Part of my motivation in exploring both extreme sides of the political and existential spectrum was due to my desire to help save the world. This had come about from a very young age of believing that helping, not only the family and the community and the nation but indeed the whole world was paramount to being the good Christian I had been raised to be.

But then as I, as an individual, began to explore the roots of '' why so much help was needed that perspective of helping the world morphed into the need to ''save the world''. At that time I was in my late teens and early twenties. I am now 70.
So in my youth, the 60s, there was no conservative uprising. There were only the liberal youth of the time that were going into the streets to call out the alarm that society was on a collision course with the entropy of establishment mentality. And that the course of human existence could no longer be allowed to just take it's own seeming mindless course through history, in that as the lemmings we so appeared at times to be, we were heading ever closer to that proverbial cliff. Yes, of course. Believing this meant we HAD to holler out and do something to change the course of that train with no real engineer.

So I now hold that both extremes are chimeras, illusions of selfhood that both seek to make over the world in their own images. It is now clear to me that this will never happen. For one, the very thought that the rest of the world could be like me is just too egotistical That I might have some deeper insight into the human condition that could butterfly effect into saving that world was just to hard for me to live with without bringing on complete alienation and depression within myself when it was not coming about as I had envisioned. Oh yes, I have been wrong about much of the way of things for most of my life.

Yet now, I do not see this as part of the problem, nor from what I read from you that you are part of the problem.
Over the decades I have heard over and over and over again from both left and right, ''all we have to do is for all of us'' to do this or that, believe this or that, all of us act in concert and we can make it happen. I now say bolox to that. I will not happen and very possibly never could. Sometimes I like to fantasize that maybe, just maybe back in my youth, had we worked harder to jump our train from one set of tracks to another that held the possiblity of taking us further then we might be in a better world with a brighter future than what we see before us now. But then I realize that was my old dream, my old dream from having been a liberal dreamer.

There was a song back in the late fifties by a fellow whose name was very close to mine. Mine is Terry McGuire and his name was Barry McGuire. His song was a short lived hit. Back in those days most popular music was still in the ''teenage love'' and ''I got the best car in the world'' genres. While the folk genre was singing out about social change, it was modest and kind. This guys song was dramatic and existential. His song was titled ''The Eve of Destruction''. It's clarion message was heard by most but quickly dismissed because it was just to frightening to really consider. But silly me, his name being as close to mine as could be and me being a fledgling existentialist as I was at the time plunged into over forty years of seeking for that which might come along and save us. Gurus, political leaders, populist groups, you name it. Even the movie or song that would come along and make it clearer to all of us. But it ain't happened.

So I used to be a doom Sayer because I thought that perceiving our eminent species collapse just might be alterable. But you know what? I found out that the universe will one day burn out and freeze. Before that our sun will explode and burn out everything within a parsec. And our little planet will with us or without us will loose it's garden and life sustaining nature. And that the hope of moving off into space to save ourselves is a far and remote possiblity which to my study is just one more pipe dream to keep us all working for the good of the corporations and the elites of the world.

People here do not so much anymore seem to want to discuss and so I may have overly extended myself here, but what the heck, I"m an old liberal and still hold out hopes that conversation with strangers my help us all. So if you feel to take any words of ''wisdom'' from me, get rid of that idea that you are part of the problem because it all may be just as it can be and that extinction may be the only logical outcome of this short lived combination of physical evolution and spiritual convergence.

a reply to: YouSir

No it's a hotel for hillbillies

a reply to: PublicOpinion

None of which you said made any sense. No one said politics is confined to the internet, but I'm sure that has nothing to do with your comprehension.

a reply to: schuyler

Not participating on forums like ATS, but discussing politics and informing oneself is step one to participating it.

originally posted by: MOMof3
Can't help myself. This is like the 60's. It's a time of choosing sides. I hate every policy presented by conservatives and they hate every liberal policy. I'm ready for this states rights thingy to happen. You go red and I'll go blue. Forget all federal social programs and money. Republicans will continue to sabatoge and defund anyway.

I give up on the economy. Wall Street is doing great, so the economy for the rest of us does not matter now.

You realize a time for choosing sides, picking a side, least of the worst choice, will just continue the division?

WS will continue as they are funded by both sides of the same coin whether one sees that or not.

originally posted by: FauxMulder
a reply to: YouSir

No it's a hotel for hillbillies

Are you sure it wasn't a Hillton?

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Of course it didn't make any sense to you, who said I'm talking to you?

“To Generalize is to be an Idiot. To Particularize is the Alone Distinction of Merit — General Knowledges are those Knowledges that Idiots possess.”

William Blake

a reply to: PublicOpinion

Of course it didn't make any sense to you, who said I'm talking to you?

You replied directly to my post. It didn't make any sense because the language was nonsensical.

For example:

"Good thing is, that participation isn't confined to the internetz and you know jacksh!t about JdS, except that it's probably another sinister Putillery Troll in Krautsuit disguise. Works like a charme! "

a reply to: schuyler

That begs the question of whether participating in forums like ATS actually constitutes "participating in politics."

Preee- sisely, sir!

The U.S.'s two political parties are raging, but the problem is we of moderate-to-no wealth (or those possessing morals and/or a modicum of common effin sense) aren't invited.

I understand withdrawing and/or plotting coups or even standing on a busy street corner with placards, but what I don't get is yammering online about one entitled moron or the other... especially at a conspiracy forum made popular by the very folks seeing the political manipulation for what it is.. . i.e. a pressure valve to bleed off the righteous indignation so the guillotines stay unused for another year.

Regurgitating second hand views/propaganda from one side or the other is ... simplistic.

Wish I had better idea of what we could do, though, to actually improve government... though I suspect it's actually doing something locally and I KNOW it isn't helped by posting on a discussion forum... especially this one!

But maybe, juuuuust maybe, some of the guilty polluters will "get it" and go back to tinfoil, ancient astronauts and the occult. Mmmm... occult.

originally posted by: FauxMulder
a reply to: YouSir

No it's a hotel for hillbillies

Ummm...ahhh...a hostel takeover...



YouSir