The Republican Convention

@oralloy,

obviously important enough to force you to lie in bed with the folks you're teamed up with now...

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@izzythepush,

izzythepush wrote:

Close minded indeed, unlike those jolly chaps who threw peanuts at a black CNN cameraman. You need to expand your horizons, and, like Finn, have an extremely relaxed attitute towards racism.

A despicable act by two moronic bigots who were thrown out of the convention as a result.

You think that I should either switch parties because of the act or declare myself a sympathetic racist.

Sorry izzy, neither is going to happen.

I don't know what point you're trying to make with this story.

It proves all Republicans are racists?

It proves the GOP welcomes and tolerates racists?

With 20,000 or more Democratic delegates hitting the Charlotte bars after the speeches, I suspect there was one or two incidents of offensive behavior. If they were featured in the news, would you accept that they were reflective of all Democrats or said anything that might be accurate about the Democrat Party?

You know you would not, but still you are going to maintain that this disgusting incident speaks volumes about Republicans and their party.

I can't wait for your snappy retort accusing me once again of having a cavalier attitude towards racism. I guess I'll just have to live with the burning shame of knowing that someone calling himself izzythepush doesn't hold me in high regard.

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

At long last you actually condemn something in rather strong terms. Prior to that you were referring to these racists as 'weirdos,' and asking if we were weirdo free in the UK.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm sure casual racism exists amongst the ranks of the Conservative party and UKIP. However, this would consist of eye rolling, maybe a bit of muttering and talk about the dangers of mass immigration. Such overt displays of racism would be confined to the BNP, and even there, such acts would be publicly condemned, (although privately praised,) for fear of a PR disaster.

The fact that those racists felt comfortable enough to act in such a way, says a lot about the soul of the Republican party, and the malign influence of the Tea Party. This fascist tendency raised its ugly head when McCain ran for president, and McCain didn't have the character to slap it down then and there. Since then things seem to have got a lot worse with one candidate after another trying to court this element.

From our perspective this behaviour is shocking in a party that classes itself as 'mainstream.'

1 Reply

@izzythepush,

Quote:

From our perspective this behaviour is shocking in a party that classes itself as 'mainstream.'

This could also accurately be said about other characteristics of the modern GOP. Take for instance, the resurgence of voter suppression tactics and the defense and denial of same by GOP supporters.

There is relatively recent blood-soaked American history of this same kind of crime against democracy. The murders of the three young voter-rights advocates Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner characterized the violent attitude of resistance to minority voting led by organizations like the White Citizens Council and Ku Klux Klan.

The past blatant and despicable efforts to suppress participation by minorities in the democratic process have morphed into subtler, smarmier efforts by the modern GOP that are cloaked in falsehoods about "protection from fraud".

They legislate for moving the borders of voting districts to favor those whiter and/or more conservative. They start voter-intimidation efforts like "True the Vote". They advocate on a widespread, multi-state level to create stringent voter-id laws that are well-known to impact minorities and other Dem-leaning populations. One such heinous voter suppression effort was overturned recently by a Texas judge because it placed "strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor".

These lowdown efforts are made even more sickening to consider by the efforts of people (like several on this forum for instance) who deny and minimize the existence and nature of voter suppression by the GOP.

It was criminal and anti-American in the sixties, and it is criminal and anti-American now.

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Meanwhile...

http://freethoughtblogs.com/camelswithhammers/files/2012/09/524414_10151034636398683_1352936550_n.jpeg

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@snood,

Agreed, the criminal disenfranchisement of legal voters is disgusting, they wouldn't be able to get away with it over here.

1 Reply

@snood,

snood wrote:

This could also accurately be said about other characteristics of the modern GOP. Take for instance, the resurgence of voter suppression tactics and the defense and denial of same by GOP supporters.

There is relatively recent blood-soaked American history of this same kind of crime against democracy. The murders of the three young voter-rights advocates Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner characterized the violent attitude of resistance to minority voting led by organizations like the White Citizens Council and Ku Klux Klan.

The past blatant and despicable efforts to suppress participation by minorities in the democratic process have morphed into subtler, smarmier efforts by the modern GOP that are cloaked in falsehoods about "protection from fraud".

They legislate for moving the borders of voting districts to favor those whiter and/or more conservative. They start voter-intimidation efforts like "True the Vote". They advocate on a widespread, multi-state level to create stringent voter-id laws that are well-known to impact minorities and other Dem-leaning populations. One such heinous voter suppression effort was overturned recently by a Texas judge because it placed "strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor".

These lowdown efforts are made even more sickening to consider by the efforts of people (like several on this forum for instance) who deny and minimize the existence and nature of voter suppression by the GOP.

It was criminal and anti-American in the sixties, and it is criminal and anti-American now.

That is silly. The only voters who are being suppressed here, are the ones who try to vote when they are not allowed to, who try to vote multiple times in the same election, or both.

Preventing people from cheating in elections is hardly similar to the acts of the KKK.

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@izzythepush,

izzythepush wrote:

Agreed, the criminal disenfranchisement of legal voters is disgusting, they wouldn't be able to get away with it over here.

The only party here with a history of trying to disenfranchise legal voters, are the Democrats.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

Quote:

The only party here with a history of trying to disenfranchise legal voters, are the Democrats.

Talk about laughing my head off...............

1 Reply

@oralloy,

I guess if you equate a US citizen voting once with cheating then your statement would have some validity.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

Can you prove this allegation or is this once again your opinion dressed up as fact?

1 Reply

@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

oralloy wrote:
The only party here with a history of trying to disenfranchise legal voters, are the Democrats.

Talk about laughing my head off...............

Well, it's true. The Democrats deliberately and maliciously disenfranchised Michigan in the 2008 presidential primary.

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@oralloy,

I think you are confused about what a primary is.

1 Reply

@parados,

parados wrote:

I guess if you equate a US citizen voting once with cheating then your statement would have some validity.

No, my statement does not need you to twist any definitions. It'll stand just fine on its own.

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@RABEL222,

RABEL222 wrote:

Can you prove this allegation

Probably. The disenfranchisement of Michigan in 2008 was a pretty widely-covered event.

But I'm not sure I'm inclined to do so, unless I can be convinced that it would be worth my while. You're not exactly an enlightened conversationalist.

RABEL222 wrote:

is this once again your opinion dressed up as fact?

Liar (for implying I've ever done such a thing).

1 Reply

@parados,

parados wrote:

I think you are confused about what a primary is.

I think I'm voting for the Republican in every single race again, just like I did in the 2008 and 2010 general elections.

Maybe let Michigan go first in the next primary, and prevent New Hampshire from voting at all, and I'll go back to splitting my ticket.

Otherwise, my next vote for a Democrat in a general election might have to wait until after I'm dead (unless the Republicans succeed in cracking down on election fraud, of course, in which case I'll probably have to stop voting after I'm dead).

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@oralloy,

Would you care to expand that statement?

Oh they broke the rules about when they was suppose to hold their election and got punish for it by their party by having half their voting power removed is that what you are talking about?

Somehow that is not the same as trying to keep tens of thousands of voters from voting in the general elections in the hope you can steal the election.

The constitution does not cover political parties or the internal working of political parties.

If you do not care for the internal actions of a political party the simplest solution would be to vote for another party candidate in the general election and it would seem that the voters of MI did not do so as the Democrats carry MI.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

There was no disenfranchisement in the Michigan primary. Michigan voters were free to vote in the primary.

Michigan was stripped of DELEGATES to the convention. It's a little difficult to argue that reducing the number of delegates disenfranchised Michigan since the rule was in place before any voting occurred. Michigan could have easily avoided losing delegates by holding it's primary at a later date.

2 Replies

@parados,

By the way, if you want to argue that political parties disenfranchise voters when they set internal rules then you would also have to argue that corporations disenfranchise voters when they allow people to vote their shares owned rather than one vote per person.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

Oh they broke the rules about when they was suppose to hold their election and got punish for it by their party by having half their voting power removed is that what you are talking about?

That is not even close to what happened.

Michigan got the rules changed so that it was not always Iowa and New Hampshire going first and second. New Hampshire was bumped back to third.

Then New Hampshire broke the rules and moved ahead to second. And the national party declined to penalize them in any way for doing this.

In protest for New Hampshire not having their delegated halved when they broke the rules, Michigan also jumped ahead of their spot. In response to that, the national party stripped 100% (not half) of Michigan's voting power, even while they let New Hampshire go unpunished.

While all that was going on, New Hampshire radicals asked Obama to take his name off the Michigan ballot, since we had dared to challenge New Hampshire's right to break the rules.

Instead of telling the New Hampshire radicals to keep quiet and respect the principles of democracy, Obama turned his back on democracy and took his name off the Michigan ballot. As a consequence, he got no votes in the primary.

Later, when Hillary and Obama were locked in a tight race, Hillary urged Michigan to run a second primary (where the results would be counted 100%). And even though we really should have just insisted that our original results be counted (after all, it's Obama's own fault he turned his back on democracy and took his name off the ballot), we started trying to organize a second primary.

But then Obama concluded that Hillary stood a good chance of winning that second primary (not sure if that is true, I for one was torn about who I would have voted for, had I been given a chance to vote), and he blocked Michigan from being able to run that second primary.

In the end, they counted Michigan's delegates, but since Obama took his name off the ballot in the first primary, and then blocked Michigan from running a second one, a fair count of our delegates gave him zero votes (though he could have tried to sway the uncommitted delegates to his cause). So Obama cheated, and took all the uncommitted slots (and even some of Hillary's slots) for himself, even though he never earned those slots from the voters.

BillRM wrote:

Somehow that is not the same as trying to keep tens of thousands of voters from voting in the general elections in the hope you can steal the election.

The only people the Republicans are trying to prevent from voting, are the ones who are not allowed to vote to begin with, and the ones who try to vote multiple times in the same election.

BillRM wrote:

If you do not care for the internal actions of a political party the simplest solution would be to vote for another party candidate and it would seem that the voters of MI did not do so as the Democrats carry MI.

I can guarantee you that there is at least one voter in Michigan who is doing it.

I voted for every Republican on the ticket in both 2008 and 2010. I even figured out which judicial candidates were Republicans (that part of the Michigan ballot is non-partisan).

I'm doing the same in 2012.

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