I don't understand partisanship. I am driven by issues. Even though I come off as highly partisan, I'm really not. What one party or the other supports has no bearing on my political positions. What drives my positions are facts. But then that seems to be part of the problem: No one can agree on the facts anymore. Am I a liberal because I accept science and not conspiracy theories? This isn't a left or right issue but the right wing makes it so. They are the ones who reject mainstream science in favor of crackpot conspiracy theories. That doesn't make ME left. That makes them irrational. Science is self correcting. The scientific method has been proven time and time again. The phenomenal technological world in which we live ALL depends on science working. This assertion that the entire global scientific community and governments are all colluding to deceive the public is untenable. It isn't rational. Righties can throw up all of crackpot videos they want. The scientific process doesn't include You Tube. I have been an environmentalist since I was a child. I have also devoted a fair bit of my life working to help solve the energy-environment problem. I grew up in Los Angeles and saw what pollution does first hand. I remember the air being so thick with oxides of nitrogen that I couldn't see a hill less than a quarter mile away. I remember the air being too dangerous to breath - what we called 3rd stage smog alerts back then. All outdoor activity was to be minimized. [We all saw what Bejing was like before the Olympics. At times LA was just as bad in some areas]. I also remember the oil crisis. It was then that I decided the US should never be held an energy hostage again and decided to do something about it. So what really drove my desire for energy solutions was patriotism, not environmentalism. Oil has been a blessing but also a curse on humanity. Environmental issues aside, oil has been at the root of global conflicts since WWI. In fact, even Pearl Harbor was attacked to protect Japan's oil supply [I believe from the Dutch East Indies]. It is in everyone's best interest to end the age of oil. With China and India coming online and wanting as much oil as we use per capita,the future of humanity depends on it. This should not be a partisan issue. If we don't solve the oil problem, there will be an energy war. And there will be no winners. Personal liberty: How supporting liberty and the right of lifestyle choice, be it women's rights, gay marriage, legal pot, prostitution or gambling, makes me liberal, I will never know. The right wing once defended liberty and State's rights. They changed, not me. They substituted the bible for the Constitution. The Constitution: Money is speech? I know the SC made a legal ruling. Fine. Then define things differently. The right wing opposes a constitutional amendment that limits the idea of a person, to an actual human; and that says money is money and not speech. I'm not a lefty at heart but the right wing has gone over a cliff. So on an issue by issue basis, I tend to land on the left. I hated Hillary but Trump is a monster. I am not pro left. I am anti-Trump.
Even with immigration... farmers need migrant workers. That's a fact. That fact doesn't make me a liberal. I shot my first gun at a very young age and was a member of the NRA, and qualified as a marksman, by age 12. I have also given four speeches in my life arguing for the 2nd Amendment and why it must be preserved. I'm a liberal? Really?!?!
Our NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll bears this out this week. 38 percent gave President Trump a positive rating, 38 percent believe the economy has improved and that the president deserves the credit, 38 percent believe Obamacare is a bad idea, and 38 percent want efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare to continue. Do you notice a pattern http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-june-25-2017-n776471
So it appears that everyone else is driven by partisanship? Can any Trumper name one issue where they side with the left? Just one where they oppose Trump and side with the left? If not, you are not being rational. That is called a religion How about the same question for lefties. Name one issue where you support the rw position?
Yes, Trumpers are delusional. That fact doesn't make me partisan. Facts do exist. I'm not a lefty either. The fact that you obfuscate and misdirect suggests that you don't have one example. You are 100% partisan. You do understand that 100% partisanship is mindlessness, right? It suggests the inability or an unwillingness to think.
Hmmm. That is a tough question. Just as a qualifier: Does the "rw" even have a "position" that isn't blind support of Trump (even if he tells them that 1+1=3)?
This, to the power of ten. Anyone who is ENTIRELY right or left is not genuinely interested in politics and progress. No ideology is all good or all bad, so the genuine political animal will be open to the good (or bad) from both sides. It's the mark of bona fide political intelligence. I know, because I was a political dumb-dumb for far too long. Coming out of that haze for the first time was quite the epiphany. Wonderful, but horrifying to think that I may as well have been religious, for all the difference there was.
I am not obfuscating anything. I also did not misread anything. I was simply pointing out the hypocrisy your ego spun out your fingers.
Of course you are. I have voted for Reagan twice, Bush sr. , Bush jr once, yet I'm still a "lefty" because I disagree with Trump. What I find hilarious is Trump supporters, who are purportedly "anti-establishment" now support and defend the idiotic establishment Republicans in Congress to the bitter end.
I agree with just about everything you've stated. Now I do not know whether this is still a Republican position or not -- they certainly seem to pay lip service to it during elections -- but it is in regards to small business regulations, which I do think sometimes maybe too many. Of course, that is not a federal issue but a local one. The RW has flipped 180 degrees from where I knew what it was since the 80s that it hard to distinguish today's GOP platform. They tenaciously hold onto economic and foreign policy ideas that have been miserable failures, yet they do not change their tune. They keep insisting on the belief of trickle down economics, yet completely ignore the aftermath of what happens to our economy when they implemented it. The GOP has become the party of division and angst, all the while securing the future for their rich friends as they peddle lies to their blue collar constituents. Pointing out the obvious doesn't do a damn thing. Unfortunately, I am resigning myself more to the fact this country needs to suffer the consequences of its stupidity before anyone will wise up. We do not live in a democracy anymore, the GOP is moving us towards a blatantly open plutocracy.
I'm driven by the issue. I've voted both parties over the years. My vote this past election was not for hillary but rather against trump.
Yeah NBC makes **** up as it goes along and aren't very original when it comes to numbers. The issues you favor tend for the most part to divide along partisan lines, When I was 18 I gave a proabortion speech when I was a freshmen in college.
At this point, I think that the best hope (for any citizen of the USA (and of the World)) is that the damage that Trump does to the Republic isn't irreversible.
RIGHT!?!?! I helped the campaign for Reagan. I was as big a fan of supply-side economics as anyone. I was also very close to being an Ayn Rand Libertarian wrt free markets. I thought of Greenspan as THE master. Well, all of the wealth trickled down to foreign production and the free market [really dark markets highly favored by Greenspan] nearly destroyed the global economy. Okay, that was a disaster. What now? But most righties go about their business with no regard for the facts. Greenspan even testified before Congress that his model failed and he doesn't know why. Can't get much more clear than that! The biggest free marketeer of all time, Henry Paulson, became the biggest bail-outer in history. He was forced into it by the facts. But most righties go about their business as if it never happened.
To the first, the first thing any rational person thinks when he gets the same result back on a series of related but different surveys is that something is wrong with the methodology. To the second It doesn't matter what issues you favor you are a partisan of all of them or you simply wouldn't care about them. To care about something one way or the other automatically makes you a partisan, one way or the other of that issue. To be a partisan simply means you care. You are a partisan and I am a partisan. I respect you because of that though I disagree with you about most things, but you at least care. In my opinion that put's you one ahead of the overwhelming number of jackasses motoring about the surface of the planet that seem only to care about those things in their immediate vicinity and them only to the extent that it impacts their lives for good or for ill. For instance we both want the best medical care for the greatest number of people, we disagree vehemently over how best to achieve that goal but the goal is the same in both cases.
I have to agree with the OP's premise that one is accused of partisanship even when the actual position is not a partisan one at all. My own Independent stance is that I put We the People first and foremost. If it harms people I am opposed to it and if it helps I support it irrespective of partisanship. For instance I support the 2nd amendment right to own firearms but I am opposed to the NRA because they are harming We the People. I support the right of We the People to have affordable healthcare while supporting the right of medical professionals to earn a decent living. I support regulated capitalism which benefits We the People while opposing the Wall Street Casino Bosses and deregulation which harms We the People. I support the rights of children who were born to illegal immigrants or brought here as children by illegal immigrants and I am opposed to deporting them because that is inhumane and violates the principles upon which this nation was founded. I support raising taxes on the wealthy 1% because by them not paying higher rates they are harming We the People. We the People override profits before people.
I get called a trumper all the time, simply because I ignore unsourced articles by media outlets that consistently publish stories that are proven false. I'm usually called a righty because I don't listen to the AGW arguments because they have become a political football. The more sensational the rhetoric from a politician, the less likely the issue they are speaking about is actually relevant. I'm called a racist because I know the voter suppression arguments are pure garbage. If anything, the people that push them are are bigots. I don't believe pundits, I don't believe politicians, I don't believe scientists that have an obvious agenda, and I most certainly don't believe anyone in the media. I base my arguments on common sense. The same common sense that those with an agenda do their absolute best to stifle with the use of easily manipulated statistics, biased reporting, and flat out lies.
The hosts blessed us with an area dedicated Satire and Humor, probably to capture jokes in one place. It really is a benefit, so when we need to smile we know exactly where to find funny material.
I don't know that I qualify as a Trumper (I didn't vote for him) but I am a deplorable: racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic. These left wing issues bid fair to destroy Western Civilization, as such On the other hand I have come to believe that socialism is imperative in the modern world because of automation. When machines are doing all the work, why require humans to do so to maintain a living? And I am firmly on the left when it comes to drug policy. I suppose the most succinct description for me is White Nationalist Socialist, except that would suggest antisemitism whereas I am quite fond of Jews, infuriating as they can be some of the time. But of course all political positions are religious in the sense they are not rational. Politics requires values that cannot be arrived at rationally.
