Freedom of Speech = Freedom from Responsibility?

[dwer.livejournal.com]

So, I know, I know. It's Glenn Beck. We expect the whacko from him. And, of course, he's got every right to speak his mind; I certainly don't think he should be censored.

But at what point does he become responsible for the actions of people who follow his advice?



Buy farmland. Move to places where everyone is like you. Buy guns. Buy ammunition. And then... what? It's not like enclaving really works long term. Eventually, one of two things will happen.

1) After Obama's term ends without the world doing the same, maybe some of these people will pull their heads out and say "why did we listen to that guy?"
2) Someone provokes an incident.

The message sent by the American people this election was quite clear. The President won a resounding electoral victory and beat his opponent by more votes than Bush beat Kerry. Every competitive senate race save for one was taken by the democrats, and these aren't blue-dogs we're talking about; these are real progressive liberals like Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Baldwin. And while the GOP retained the House, they did lose seats, and more people voted for Democratic Congresspeople than Republicans.

It was a fundamental rejection of GOP ideology. It was a rejection of the rape brigade, a rejection of the Ryan budget plan, a rejection of the concepts of the Makers and Takers, a rejection of the concept of the 47%, a rejection of conservative definitions of marriage, women, LGBTQ, race, immigration and drug law.

But the GOP doesn't seem to want to believe it. The constant refrain of "Conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed" continues to sing in their ears, drowning out anything resembling the truth, which is that they lost and they lost big, and then they turn to people like Glenn Beck, and he tells them to buy farms, move to where everyone is like you, and get more guns.

Or this guy, who advocates cutting EVERY democrat in your life out of that life, to the point where he doesn't know if he'd rescue a democrat who was drowning, and thinks that he can get better brain surgery in Mexico than from a US brain surgeon who happened to vote differently than he did.

Or these people who think that losing an election is a national emergency so they, who so often rail about how burning the flag is treasonous, fly their flags upside down to indicate distress.



At their McDonalds.

And why do they do this?

Because they've been lied to, by the guy at the top of this post. By Rush. By Karl Rove. By http://www.unskewedpolls.com By every pundit who insisted that Nate Silver was cheating. Hell, GOP donors are angry because they were assured, ASSURED, I TELL YOU, that Romney was going to win based on bad data using bad algorithms, and a campaign that wasn't going to be dictated to by facts.

So what responsibility to these people have to tell the truth, I wonder? Of course, I think they should tell the truth. There are reasonable arguments to be made on policy. There are reasonable disagreements to have. I just wish we could see more of that, and less insistence that Obama is a kenyan radical christian muslim nazi communist.

Comments

[dwer.livejournal.com]

sadly, no.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Um. The NY Times Shift Map (which I provided and you are using here) " turned to the right" meant a change in the PRESIDENTIAL vote from the 2008 election. Romney lost the election. The House is in Republican hands mostly because of redistricting in 2010, drawn by mostly Republican state legislatures, or I should say Gerrymandered significantly:

Here is Pennsylvania, a typically purple state, except when you look at the Congressional districts drawn up by Republicans. O REALLY?



IF the district maps from 2008 were used, the House would have been easily been back in Democratic control.

Democratic senators INCREASED, Republicans lost any chance of taking the Senate. Republican majorities in several state houses decreased SIGNIFICANTLY. And several state legislatures now have Democratic super-majorities.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Let them keep doing it. They'll be shell shocked yet again in the next cycle. Especially since Arizona, Texas, and Georgia will be much more purple states due to increased Latino population, and more than likely will flip blue.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Yup.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Um. The NY Times Shift Map (which I provided and you are using here) " turned to the right" meant a change in the PRESIDENTIAL vote from the 2008 election.

I'm aware of what it says and what it means. It certainly does not indicate, as dwer thinks, some sort of leftward shift. Nothing in the numbers do.

(And you provided the neato animation, I found the page on my own, thanks)

Here is Pennsylvania, a typically purple state, except when you look at the Congressional districts drawn up by Republicans. O REALLY?

Yeah, state legislatures typically work out districts to be friendly to whoever's in power. I don't see how Obama performing extremely well in Democratic districts says a lot about the majority of the state, especially since the populations of said districts are basically even.

Maybe Pennsylvania isn't really purple, but the Republicans underperform.

Democratic senators INCREASED, Republicans lost any chance of taking the Senate.

Granted. The question, however, is why.

Republican majorities in several state houses decreased SIGNIFICANTLY. And several state legislatures now have Democratic super-majorities.

And there were states where the GOP improved, they still have a majority of governorships, etc. This supposed leftward shift? It doesn't exist.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Contextually, maybe. I think we're talking about two different results, though - Bush won in 2004 by increasing his vote share and support. Obama won on Tuesday by significantly decreasing it. I would imagine Obama's mandate hasn't changed much compared to 2008, but there's a message to be taken from these results as well.

That message, for what it's worth, certainly is not "we've moved leftward." No data supports that.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

I'm unaware of her showing even marginal interest.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Based on what? What conservatives are you reading, listening to? How clued in are you to the American conservative movement that you're somehow noticing that it's "not working?"

Is this based on evidence, or based on what you believe the conclusions should be?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Bush beat Kerry by 2.4%.

Obama beat McCain by 2.5%, it appears.

So a "smaller" margin by 0.1%. Tell me again how 0.1% represents some sweeping change. Tell me again how nearly every region in the US, except for southern areas with significant black populations (because the Obama campaign's GOTV efforts were far superior), voted less for Obama.

You're arguing against math.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

How many of those were clearly in the GOP corner until the true ideology came out? At least two, potentially more, and of course, that leaves out the house races that flipped, like Tammy Duckworth beating tea party darling Joe Dead-Beat Walsh.

Yes, we know that Obama's coattails were long in places like Wisconsin. We also know that, had Akin not been a moron and Mourdock not gotten screwed, they would have held those seats. It wasn't a conservative repudiation in Indiana and Missouri.

How many more people voted for Obama than Romney? over 2.5 million.

Compared to nearly 10 million voting for Obama over McCain. A significant loss.

Also, total loss in the swing states? About 400k, give or take. It's a GOTV/turnout issue that made the difference between a win and a loss. Why didn't they turn out? Because those of us paying attention saw the Republicans nominate a moderate.

Romney is not a moderate. The country did not shift to the right. But I have to admit, it's balsy to try to spin getting spanked as an endorsement of your ideology.

Romney was a moderate, and it's unfortunate that you cannot see it. The vote very clearly, objectively, moved rightward. You are, as usual, arguing against reality, and with no data to support your point of view.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

And his share is down close to 7 million votes from last time. This is not the picture of a president with growing support.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

The kind of person who would resort to killing over something they heard on the radio (or cartoons in a newspaper for that matter) was already a murderous cunt-stain to begin with.

If they don't use your words as an excuse to indulge their proclivities they'll eventually find someone else's to use.

So no.

There is nothing on you beyond being an asshole.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

I like that one.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

I think it's awesome that you left out the 30+ electoral votes that Obama got that Bush didn't.

But hey, you arguing that I'm arguing against math is totally a winner comment!

[dwer.livejournal.com]

oh, Jeff...

[telemann.livejournal.com]

I'm aware of what it says and what it means. It certainly does not indicate, as dwer thinks, some sort of leftward shift. Nothing in the numbers do.

You and numbers and your interpretation of them doesn't have a great track record. And your cherry picking the map as some move to the right in general isn't supported either.

(And you provided the neato animation, I found the page on my own, thanks)

Irrelevant, since you posted my animation, not the NYTimes link. But you're welcome.

Yeah, state legislatures typically work out districts to be friendly to whoever's in power. I don't see how Obama performing extremely well in Democratic districts says a lot about the majority of the state, especially since the populations of said districts are basically even.Maybe Pennsylvania isn't really purple, but the Republicans underperformed.

*Swoosh* right over your head.

And there were states where the GOP improved, they still have a majority of governorships, etc. This supposed leftward shift? It doesn't exist.

Maybe, but neither does the move to the right.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Either you can take this that the country wanted to go conservative or you can join us in reality and just admit that this map is generated based on Obama's lack of turnout (or third party grabbing some votes up, although they didn't grab up 9 million votes).

It's both sides "lack of turnout" in a sense. We know Romney won the independents in a pretty broad swing from Obama - exits show Romney winning them +5, while Obama won them by 8 in 2008 - a 13 point swing rightward.

Why did Romney struggle to meet McCain's total, then? He won independents, so why did the base not show up again?

Tea Party favorites were voted out

The House stayed Republican. After winning 60+ seats in 2010, they only lost 11 of them. That's far from a repudiation.

, an incumbent presiding over a slumping economy was given a second chance, and this election represents a rejection of far-right principles.

Which far right principles were rejected, then? They certainly weren't repudiated at the local district level, or on the Senate level given that one moderate and two people caught in the "rape statement" game got ousted, and the presidential candidate was a moderate, so where's this rejection you speak of? What's the evidence?

If Republicans don't learn from their mistakes, expect a repeat in 2016.

I agree wholeheartedly. The Republicans made a huge, huge mistake in running a moderate with a crappy GOTV plan. Both are things that can be fixed.

Unless more details come out in the next week - definitely possible if not outright probable - the problem has been identified in a nutshell, and that's turnout turnout turnout. A good candidate needs to worry less about that, and bad candidates need to do more for it. Romney simply did not get his people out, and here's a firsthand account of how bad this GOTV plan truly was (http://ace.mu.nu/archives/334783.php). A lot of us expected a Wisconsin recall-style GOTV campaign. What we got was this pile of crap instead, and it utterly failed. 30k volunteers for it, who knows how many of them were locked out by the system or frozen out due to its lack of workability. Romney lost the swing states by a combined 400k - think a better GOTV program could have made that up? I do.

And the focus on the GOTV misses the broader point anyway - a more conservative candidate bridges that gap and then some. A more conservative candidate understands the need to bring the base out. Romney was a failure in that regard.

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

Hm, the conclusion is based on the election results, which seem to suggest something is going wrong. Something in the conservative message is not resonating with the majority of Americans, and the GOP should seriously do some thinking on the subject, as opposed to possibly blaming their failure on everybody else.

And this isn't about me either, so I don't know why you should be so fixated on what I know or don't know, and what my sources are, if any.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

And this isn't about me either, so I don't know why you should be so fixated on what I know or don't know, and what my sources are, if any.

Mainly because I wanted to know what was pointing you at that conclusion. The election results showed that a moderate Republican lost and that the conservative base stayed home. It isn't the messaging, it's the candidate.

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

My bad, then. So there's no problem within the GOP and no identity crisis on the right. Please carry on until 2016.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

You and numbers and your interpretation of them doesn't have a great track record.

If you say so. At least I have data.

And your cherry picking the map as some move to the right in general isn't supported either.

I don't see any cherry picking happening. It's a pretty broad data point.

Maybe, but neither does the move to the right.

Obama's going to end up 7-8 million votes short from 2008. A thirteen point swing away from him with independents. What does that tell you, specifically?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Indeed, it is, especially given your inability to back up your assertions, as normal. Good show, sir.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

As usual, you refuse to accept the facts shown to you. The Dems increased their Senate lead, and the majority of those elected were progressive women -- and the radical conservative men running for the senate on the GOP ticket lost. The Dems took back more than ten house seats. And Barack Obama overwhelmed Romney in the electoral college.

You may wish to shoo that off as "rape silliness". I encourage you to. It will help the democratic party solidify their gains in two years and take back the House.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

There's certainly a problem with the GOP, and it involves the type of candidates we're promoting to the national stage. The GOP continually believes it needs to tack leftward to win, when their biggest victories of late have been due to tacking rightward.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Ooh, another House prediction from you, fun!