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t.j

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Posts posted by t.j

  1. Posted

    15 minutes ago, Hardcore troubadour said:

    Ben Carson and Mike Pompeo are corporate lobbyists? Betsy Devos? Some people just say stuff. Same guy said China was a Republican boogeyman the other day. Pay no mind to the troll. 

    Yeah corporate lobbyists is not the right word. More like wealthy know-nothing yes men. Trump's cabinet picks and his entire administration only made the government more ineffective and corrupt, the opposite of the supposed purpose of draining the swamp.

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  2. Posted

    56 minutes ago, Fumbleweed said:

    It didn't all start in mid-2016 for millions upon millions of people in the US. It started in 2009 and has continued from that day forward. Trump's election was only a surprise to those who were ignorant of what was going on below the surface from 2009-2016. Conservative Americans felt trampled on during that period as did many Rural Americans and certainly Christian Americans. The "this whole mess started in 2016" thing comes only from a left perspective. For those to the right of center on the political spectrum, 2016 was more of when the volcano erupted than when it became active. Trump's election was a reaction to what happened the eight years prior. 

    I appreciate the perspective of your experience. In my experience, my conservative friends and family (save for a lot of "Thanks Obama!" complaints about Obamacare and such) went from 0 to 60 in 2016, and then to 100 in 2020. And during that time it went from mostly vocal Obama (and Clinton/establishment) hate to vocal hatred of all liberals and all Democrats, echoing Trump's ever-escalating rhetoric. But if conservatives were already as upset as you say for the 8 years preceding and the volcano was simply filling up per your analogy, I suppose that explains the "silent majority electoral college plurality" phenomenon.

    Back to my point, electing and supporting Trump ensured that liberals (and in a lot of cases, independents) are incredibly wary of conservatives' priorities now. To your point, a cyclical pattern. Which unfortunately promotes revenge and division over integrity and the common good. Again I recognize that's both sides. I certainly understood wanting respite from the establishment but I felt that backing Trump to achieve that end was as reckless as using a grenade to unlock your house's front door. And at best it seems its accomplished making a lot of people trust the establishment over disruption, even people who were disillusioned with the establishment to begin with.

    Going full circle to Rusty's point, what is it specifically that you feel Christians and rural Americans felt trampled on about? (We can skip the third group you mentioned, conservatives, as that seems more obvious.) Again it's incredibly hard for me to understand how supporting someone who lives the complete antithesis of Christian values can be viewed as a desired solution for Christians. Hard to understand how a big city silver-spoon fed enricher of the wealthy, who f***ed over farmers with the China trade war, can be viewed as a champion for rural Americans. Clearly he got them to buy in to a populist movement but it doesn't make sense to me in terms of their well-being. I'd like to think the anger and the response were not just as simple as party loyalty.

  3. Posted

    27 minutes ago, TBayXXXVII said:

    The Ravens, with Joe Flacco, made the playoffs 64% of the time.  He has just as many rings as Brees.

    As pointed out (probably several times) before, Flacco's consistent success in Baltimore was all entirely before he won a Super Bowl, and he wasn't costing a lot. Brees' consistent success in New Orleans is almost entirely after he won a Super Bowl, and he was costing a lot.

  4. Posted

    Just now, TBayXXXVII said:

    Your point is that you're blaming Trump for the bad things that are happening.  Instead, you should be blaming the people who responded the way they did.  Those people I'm referring to are the media and Democrat politicians.  Instead of listening to the criticism and trying to prove him wrong, all they did was lambaste him and prove him right.  That's not Trump's fault, that's their fault.... and yours if you voted Democrat this past November.  Congratulations, you're part of the problem.

    My point is that thanking Trump for being a lightning rod for attacks missing the point that his approach resulted in a drastic increase in attacks on all sides, and now that he's going to be out of office you guys are going to largely lose the lightning rod benefit of it. So, it's not the win that Fumble thinks it was. Of course you want to put all of the blame on the liberals for things escalating, but as GutterBoy pointed out, that's not the truth of it. And no, as stated in my long post, I didn't vote for Biden in part because he is also too combative and not smart enough/trustworthy enough for my taste.

  5. Posted

    On 1/13/2021 at 9:32 AM, DrG said:

    Yes you can win a Super Bowl without a great QB but it sure helps to have one. In the salary cap era it is almost impossible to assemble a dynasty.

    The Saints making the playoffs 60% of the time with Brees clearly helps, rather than hurts, the argument that having a great QB is what you need to compete year in and year out. Considering that only 37.5% of teams* made the playoffs in a given year, making the playoffs 60% of the time is competing year in and year out.

    (*Not counting the extra WC team in 2020, which didn't matter since Saints won their division anyway.)

  7. Posted

    23 hours ago, fricker66 said:

    My kids are always talking about various influencers.  Who is your favorite influencer and why?  TIA.

    In general, any of them which are hot women, even though I don't give a crap about any of the things they are trying to influence, which I guess in the case of the hot ones is generally clothing or food that they get sponsored to promote while looking hot.

  8. Posted

    1 hour ago, TBayXXXVII said:

    1. That's because that's what you wanted to see.

    2. He was taking EVERYONE to task.  The thing is, the Democrats and media were afraid of him and tried to vilify him.  When that didn't work, they attacked the people who voted for him.

    1. Keep telling yourself that. Perhaps you've spent too much time at this particular toxic place to see how much things have changed everywhere.

    2. I can see that you're missing my point. You assumed that I was saying that liberals on the internet or in congress are more reasonable than conservatives on the internet or in congress, and I that wasn't my intent. I'll admit that my inclusion of "his supporters ate it up" put you on the defensive, and I shouldn't have thrown that in, because I agree with you that his detractors escalated in response too.

    What I'm saying that it was Trump's campaign which was the turning point of politics going from a relatively niche pissing match to a nationwide brawl. And by saying this you're supporting my point, even though you thought I was making a completely different point.

  9. Posted

    1 hour ago, TBayXXXVII said:

    I skimmed through.  Read the paragraph that started with "And I don't want to hear about...".  It's all BS, so I stopped reading.  I guess he pretends that Liberals weren't berating and hateful towards conservatives, on this board, from 2008-2017.  Most left crying after Trump beat Hillary because they couldn't handle the return fire.  I guess he's playing the victim, like all Democrats do.

    I didn't post here during that time. The Geek Club was far more political than I cared for when I did post here, which was longer ago than that. But even then it was easy to post here and ignore the political stuff. And it was very easy to avoid politics elsewhere in life, even on the internet, until mid-2016. Now political discussion and hate is everywhere, and all that changed when Trump ran for president. He ran on owning the libs and drawing attention to himself constantly, his supporters ate it up, and the consequence is that no one is sleeping on politics now.

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  10. Posted

    8 hours ago, Fumbleweed said:

    Sort of, yeah. I basically believe many on the left and their powerful partners in media, Hollywood, academia, and big tech want to destroy people like me and eliminate me from the American equation. Trump got in the way of that for four years. 

    (tl;dr: Skip to the last paragraph)

    I don't know much about you and I don't know what characteristics you're referring to people like you. I don't buy that people want to destroy/eliminate you.

    I understand not wanting to be hated on. However I don't understand a conservative being glad for Trump's Presidency as a means to that end. I can only speak for myself but before Trump I didn't give a crap what people's politics were. I certainly can't speak for Democratic politicians, who, like Republicans, rely on attacking the other side to make themselves seem important. Trump took all that up an order of magnitude. Sure I prefer progressive policies to conservative ones, but that stuff is not a huge deal to me. I've written in my President vote the last 4 elections, voting based primarily on intelligence and integrity. Libertarian twice, progressive once, and Yang. Trump is the worst of both worlds in my opinion, a person with zero ethics and willfully ignorant/lazy trying to be the leader of the free world. Other than Trump and I guess Cruz, it wouldn't have bothered me to see any of the other Republican candidates from the last 16 years in office. In my view, as President he hasn't given a s*** about anyone but himself, and aside from saying f*** you to the rest of the world and damaging our country's reputation, his playbook consisted of little more than attacking the left/liberals/Democrats with an unprecedented amount of combative press conferences, hateful rallies, alternative-fact pushing press secretaries, with his go-to move being to paint everyone that doesn't support him as far left.

    What I see in the aftermath is a ton of conservatives like those on this board that wrongly believe all the exaggerations that Trump has been spouting. Who believe that a vote for Democrats is a vote for hating American and wanting to destroy/eliminate conservatives. Who believe that the typical Democrat voter is far more left on the political spectrum than they really are. Who believe that Democrat voters are almost all in favor turning the country communist, handing the country to foreign enemies on a silver platter, raising taxes on the middle class, making everyone state their pronouns, making whites feel guilty just for being white, taking everyone's guns, etc. For people to believe those things doesn't make any sense to me but I'll be damned if I don't see/elm those beliefs stated by a dozen posters on this board every day.

    And I don't want to hear about "Oh but Rusty makes exaggerated attacks on conservatives just the same way." He does, but as a group you guys know you can't expect to post a hundred hateful anti-lib posts on the board every day without someone fighting back dirty. Try to put yourself in a non-conservatives shoes (and I'm speaking less to Fumble here and more to the more vocal conservatives here), and read one day's worth of the geek club's political posts with a politically neutral mindset and take in how exaggerated all the hate from the conservatives is. It was not like this pre-Trump. The worst of the vocal anti-conservatives on social media were not like this pre-Trump either. So that's why I'm challenging Fumble on the effectiveness of Trump as a lightning rod.

    And I've heard many say that Obama was the one who created the division we have in the country now. Hogwash. Sure he took the liberal side of some of the controversies in his term and of course conservatives are going to disagree with that. You didn't like the ACA? Understandable. You don't believe systemic racism (which by the way didn't not at all mean that most people in the system are racist) is a thing? Fine. But he absolutely didn't spend his entire presidency craving attention and demonizing half of America the way Trump has. There is no comparison, Trump caused night and day more division in 4 years than Obama did in 8. If Obama were 1/5th as far from the center as Trump is, or 1/10th as combative/hateful/think-skinned, he would have never had a chance to be elected. Trump launched his own initial political profile with over a year of baseless birtherism BS and Obama handled it gracefully. I don't love Obama by any means, as stated before I didn't vote for him and I didn't like his economic policies before, during, or after his presidency played out. But he was about as moderate, professional, humble, and respectful a candidate as either party could ever nominate in a primary, and Trump has many of you believing that Obama is radical left Muslim America-hater.

    I see Republican politicians that know Trump is unhinged but feel they don't have a choice to go along because his base is so fanatical. So now that means the concern which has escalated so rapidly these last 5 years shifts from the man who will be out of office in a week, to the tens millions of Americans who are for Trumpism. And everyone (Americans and otherwise) who couldn't fathom voting for Trump in the first place, whether previously politically inclined or not, is now very concerned about the priorities of those who did. And that's why Biden got elected... people didn't really like him any more than Hillary, but after 4 years of Trump it was clear that, in states where it mattered*, voting for neither of the two evils was not an option (*my state wasn't one of the contested states, hence my vote for Yang). I'm not a fan of Biden or Pelosi or Schumer. You won't see me or anyone else participating in vehicle parades in adoration of Democrat politicians. But where I do agree with them is where I also agree with all of his Republican ex-staffers who he turned on and fired and in turn once they were not beholden to him they turned on him as well... that Trump had to go and the people who still support him have lost touch with reality. That's not to say all of the Democrats in office are in touch with reality either, but two wrongs don't make a right. And sure if Trump were to get 4 more years then the focus of the left's ire would remain mostly on Trump, but it would only be an bigger divide in the end for it. His legacy is simply going to be having attacked everyone in his path (which again includes many people who went out of their way to be loyal to him as long as they could stomach it), and yet some of you think it's a hilarious referendum on everyone else that such an approach pissed people off.

    So, electing Trump to take the heat off conservatives is like building a poorly-designed nuclear power plant in your hometown which you can't control, when all you needed was a hydro plant. Sure, in the meantime, you get some of what you want... extra power, piss off the people who didn't want it... but now you have so many people who won't ever trust your decision-making, and the eventual meltdown may be inevitable.

    Funny how so many conservatives claim their vote for Trump, who is far right, is merely an anti-left vote, without considering that many Democratic voters likewise similarly just don't want to risk things going far right. I don't want to see the far left--which is supposedly (but not really) pervasive--make drastic changes to our country, yet in a short time posting here, so many of the conservatives here have assumed exactly that about me for simply questioning conservative viewpoints. I would think the success of moderate Democrats (Biden included) and the lack of success of the socialist candidates last year would have quelled a lot of the fears about so-called radicals, but apparently that message hasn't through. It would be one thing if more Trump voters said you know what, I thought he made sense as an anti-establishment candidate four years ago, and I'm glad we got a very fortunate gain of conservative Supreme Court justices in a short period of time, but filling the cabinet with even more corrupt folks and constantly escalating the political war was crazy, time to chill. Instead it seems like way too many conservatives bought into way too many of his lies and exaggerations, and now the rest of America, and the world, is more aware of it than they'd care to be.

    Bottom line, Fumble, the rumors that people want to destroy/erase you have been greatly exaggerated. But whatever critical scrutiny you think Trump has been heroically shielding his voters from for 4 years, it's going to be relatively giant spotlight compared to that now, because people elected and nearly re-elected him.

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  13. Posted

    57 minutes ago, Fumbleweed said:

    For most Christians that I know, Trump did not represent Christianity. His popularity rested in the fact that he stood in the gap and took all the bullets that conservative evangelicals would typically take. He did the same for Conservatives. For rural Americans.  I don't appreciate or admire Donald Trump the man. I very simply and honestly appreciate that he stood up for four years and took the gunfire from all sides. As a rural, conservative, Christian male, Biden's election means I'm back in the line of fire again. That's why many Americans can dislike Trump and still appreciate what he did in office simultaneously. 

    So your appreciation for him is that he's a giant lightning rod? Seems like a low bar. Especially since he's been intentionally starting lightning fights for 5 years.

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  18. Posted

    1 hour ago, Vikings4ever said:
    79 WPM(words per minute)
    Top 20 %
    Keystrokes (397 | 0) 397
    Accuracy 99%
    Correct words 76
    Wrong words 0

    Aren't you the accurate one? 😁

    Tried again with more emphasis on accuracy...

    92 WPM(words per minute)
    Top 10 %
    Keystrokes (458 | 10) 468
    Accuracy 94.24%
    Correct words 88
    Wrong words 1

  19. Posted

    1 hour ago, nobody said:

    What you do if you're Trump is take the L, and insist that a real investigation take place.  The democratic process is supposedly so important to everyone.  Why are we not investing time and money into making sure our elections can't be fūcked with?

    That doesn't go along with either Trump's MO or his motivation, obviously.

  21. Posted

    8 minutes ago, MTSkiBum said:

    I thought i did pretty poorly, one of the words i typed wrong was because i was typing the word in front of the word i was on.

    I had this happen too. Got on the wrong word at one point and typed the next word instead of the current word, resulting in 4 Wrong words in a row.

  25. Posted

    51 minutes ago, Hardcore troubadour said:

    I guess that’s why he got a lot more votes this time. Pushing people away. Keep telling yourself that. Reality says otherwise. 

    He pushed away a lot of people, he catered to other people, and overall his non-stop drama caused a lot more people to consider the election important enough to get out and vote. That's what's reality, not your implaud fraud crap.

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