zoogs

Yes, I also agree that the major political movement that's pushing gun control while also seeking to dismantle universal access to healthcare and mental health is doing a huge disservice to us all. They should really pull their head out and understand that these priorities are, in fact, harmonious. Those guys should be working for expanded health services, accessible to all. It's a total shame that they aren't; I'd fight hard for them if only they did. Anyway. Repeal 2A.

The problem is very obviously guns.

If you can't beat 'em, gerrymander. If you can't get your State Supreme Court to uphold your gerrymander, move to impeach all the Democratic judges.

Enough with this "Dems don't have goals" drivel already (sorry -- but not sorry). Nobody with any interest in finding out can be blind to what the political fights of the day are, why they're happening, and who wants what. It's plain as day, too, that throwing rhetorical barbs all around is rewarding and self-satisfactory. Opposing Republicans and Trump without committing to action; there's a lot of that going around. And no, bitching about the Democrats ad nauseam isn't "action". And no, bitching ad nauseam about the Democrats isn't "action". It's not even clear that the leftists who do have any well-defined, articulated, coherent policy goals of their own, outside of patting themselves on the back for being pure enough to vaguely oppose "the Dems, too" wholesale. Stopping Trump requires organization. Activate the base. Turn out in special elections -- as we have, with considerable success so far. Turn out this November. Flip the House, take back the Senate. There's a long way to go from there, and divergent goals within the anti-Trump coalition, sure, but you don't fly before you can even crawl.

You can't stump the Trump, because he always wins in the minds of his devotees and no amount of fact, logic, humanity, or discernment will get in the way.

Bingo. Anyone looking for an off-ramp to justify not stopping the Republicans in 2018 or 2020 or ever has already got it. There's no need to lay the groundwork ahead of time. Your credibility will only increase if they wait until after the target is tangible to pick their casus belli.

Thanks for starting this thread, zoo. One of the things that always comes up in response to another slaughter-by-firearm is the idea that the fault lies in inadequate mental health treatment. Do we have more of a "mental health" problem in the US than in other countries? Are people with various "mental health" issues more dangerous and likely to become violent criminals? How often does a severe "mental health issue" go undiagnosed until after the fact?

Trump is today putting the Democrats on blast for abandoning DACA recipients. He is the one who unilaterally decided to end DACA. Nothing matters. JFC.

Guys, it's pretty simple. Republicans need to be voted out of office at every level. These guys are insane. That's not an all-out indictment on conservatism, nor is it an endorsement of any specific branch of the opposition (though my views are clear). The GOP is not only unfit to govern, they threaten the very foundations of our democracy and our conception of America. They need to lose control of the House. They need to lose control of the Senate. They need to lose control of state houses and state legislatures. They all need to go.

I was Shawn Watson and Riley/Langsdorf's biggest defender. What have you guys done

I think a lot of my doubt on this comes from specifics. Broadly, I'm very skeptical of how far we've gone in giving the government unchecked (or poorly checked) latitude. That doesn't make every specific piece of that framework wrong and something that should be overturned.

I want to start a new thread on this because I have no idea how to feel on this topic. I'm pretty inclined to be against 'surveillance state' laws and sympathetic to the strong, even angry advocacy in this regard from corners such as The Intercept (which is born of that issue). At the same time I feel it's legitimately one of the least surprising things that there might be some bipartisan consensus on, and it's not entirely clear to me that it is always bad. Obviously, this guy used to work for a government security agency in the UK. To start off with some counter points: Thoughts?

https://www.themarysue.com/jim-halpert-vs-ben-wyatt/ I really enjoyed this breakdown of a specific, core aspect of two of my favorite shows. Parks and Rec is a derivative of the US version of The Office. I would argue that a lot of the differences come from P&R coming along later, and so it was written with a different sensibility. It's been a long time since I watched those early seasons of The Office. I was really wrapped up in Jim and Pam's love story. I wonder what I'd think of it now. It wouldn't be the only once-loved show to have been rendered difficult to watch. Anyway, I'm a biiiiiig fan of the Leslie Knope character, her story, and the Leslie-Ben dynamic. In contrast, Jim's story (and it really is Jim's story...even at the end) is much more familiar, much more traditional, and you can pick through some of the elements of it as presented here for some of its flaws. Don't get me wrong, The Office was really funny and enjoyable for me through at least most of its run. Still, I think this is a worthy contrast to draw in the context of discussing how love is portrayed on television.

What.

@RedDenver, I worded that poorly. What I meant was I think we can grasp that this is a problem, and then we want to settle it with a quick/neat fix so that it can go away again. I don't think that's possible -- I think we're in for a very long, ongoing conversation about this. As for what you say: I agree with you. Well put. @Landlord maybe my experiences are different from yours but um, I would not agree with "almost all" -- by a long shot. But that's some of the right areas to be reflecting on, I think.

^Another thread. As far as criminal definitions go, I appreciate that we don't want to make everybody a criminal and we'll slot our definitions of things accordingly. And the motivation here is DEFINITELY not to be able to charge more people with crimes, and punish more people more harshly. From a cultural language POV, I have a really, really difficult time with minimizing what we call a scenario where there's coercion of consent and complete disinterest in the other party's consent while plowing ahead for your own sexual gratification. And -- well, people like Sady just say it better and fuller and more nuanced than I do, so please do click through and read.

I think so, yes. I don't have a fix and I think the impulse to find one is the wrong answer. In some sense it's pretty simple, right, like making sure you have consent and you didn't coerce it and she's as into it as you are is not hard. I would just say there's a starting point. I hope people get to a place where reactions like mine and Nebfanatic's are not so foreign to them because they see more of this conversation playing out, and it's not just that they are reading the Bari Weiss reactions every time and thinking, well, isn't that interesting. -- I think what Nebfanatic means by "everyone" is he's trying to characterize the arguments of the people who are pushing back, the ones who are pointing to this story and saying, Ha! #MeToo now discredited. A lot of this does rest on victim-blaming. Look, the arguments are all the same, we see them all the time. There are lots of angles. But what if this ruins courtship. But what if she's lying. But what if she's just after fame. But what if we ruin an innocent guy's career. But why didn't she leave. But what did she expect. To go back to earlier, again: what is central here, and what's not.

Can't tell whether this is parody. I actually don't think it is. And that's frightening.

Mini-rant: I remember going through this now. Explaining that "Believe All Women" doesn't literally mean accept that no statement uttered by a female human being can ever be false. Pointing out that the phrase is "Believe Women". Going over the nuances of this and how it's not actually dissertation-level physics. All of this because of that garbage Bari Weiss piece back then, and here we are again. /rant I think this identifies the disconnect pretty well: So often it's identifying what the central points are that matters. -- Man, failing to see what people want? Like how many times do we have to use the words "let's change our culture" in this thread and here you still are, "What is it guys, you want to hurt Aziz, is that it, huh, huh"? Gah. -- Also, we're really going to "both sides" this to death, aren't we? Where there is imbalance, balance is not the right answer.

I do not have a favorable impression of either Sam Harris or Bill Maher. I really, really like the Crooked Media guys. Pod Save America, Pod Save the World, Lovett or Leave it...they have a few more, I haven't really worked through all of them. dudeguyy seems to have covered it I like the Vox folks, too. The Weeds is their politics podcast, and the Ezra Klein Show is at least sometimes political. I also like 538, and they have a politics podcast as well.

Gah

Wow. How did I get that wrong? I saw her name somewhere. I'm sorry. Anyway: it was Bari Weiss! Of course it was. This makes even more sense. I remember name from the last time she penned a roundly-savaged op-ed about 'Believe All Women' in November. That was definitely responded to, a lot, if you want to dig into that. It was also popular fodder for those who didn't want to buy into all this #MeToo stuff. In the interests of carrying this beyond Aziz, since it really should be not just about him. This from Marie Claire:

If that's what I meant I would have said "it's possible you are wrong that Mika represents all feminists". I just want to place that article and all the FEMALE FEMINIST CRED it repeatedly tries to claim for itself in context. I don't know if I have the capacity to respond to it in full. It was awful. Not all of it, to be sure. Soothing language, reasonable points, all used to serve up terrible conclusions. Like, no, I'm not surprised that Aziz sent a pleasant text to her the next day, I'm horrified. He must've known by the end of the night but there he is, trying to make sure he still keeps that possibility of sealing the deal open. Why on earth wasn't his text: "So about last night, I'm really sorry"? Why is *her* response cast as the villainous one here? This is a gross take, Mika. Anyway. Here's another response: What I like is that it emphasizes there's no need to cast Aziz as a "bad" guy, because then we'll get bogged down in defending or attacking one man's honor. The entire point is that this is a normal thing, which doesn't simultaneously make it worth defending the way "normal" often is. A last comment about "which feminists", I would suggest that there are better places to read for the pulse -- which isn't monolithic, and is worth learning about -- than NYT or Atlantic op-eds by women who cast aside the silly "hosannas" of "young" feminists with a dismissive wave of hand. It's not that the outlets are bad, but these are places where such views will find a home because of their prominence. I say "young", by the way, because they're definitely not always young but this is routinely the way they're presented so as to try to diminish the weight of their opinions. One journalist, I forget who, was identified by name in one of these categories and pointed out on Twitter that she was in fact over 40. There's something heavily gendered about "what do silly young women know", and I wouldn't call leaning on that "the feminist thing to do", Mika.

I'm suggesting, BRB, it's possible you do not have an accurate pulse on the overall response of feminists (which isn't singular, to be sure) because you read Mika's op-ed that you already agreed with.

Uh, it's "the woman's fault" to the extent that if women knew all the strategies and exits and could execute them flawlessly all the time, they could avoid being _____ed. That this wasn't one of the worse fill-in-the-blank outcomes doesn't change that. The scenario is one where there is a heavy, gendered power imbalance. "Balance" is always an appeal but it's a false one in response to this.