An actual good pick

[Rubbishplayer]

I didn't say that that though.

I said that the Tories were taking steps to remove public healthcare options.

Austerity is ALSO a issue. But I was taking issue with you saying that right wing governments in the UK wouldn't abolish free healthcare, and it factually has been for lots of people as a matter of intentionally not providing services (waitlists designed for people not to see the end), which is a separate thing to austerity.

Because austerity and not paying staff and offering better wages to agencies to fill shifts with staff that already work on the same wards and working junior doctors to death and raising university fees and tax structures that cause older doctors to retire early and on and on and on and...

Ah, that was less than clear from your prior posts. I think we're more on the same page than you think.

Context is everything: I was making the point that, in contrast to the USA, I know of no right-wing parties have abolishing the NHS in their manifesto and, as I said previously, if you know differently, please correct me. But that's not the same as saying that the last conservative government hasn't done vast damage to it.

But again, the NHS has no such policy. Indeed, the new IHCS approach trusts are taking is trying to do far more - through preventative interventions, informed by AI applied to NHS patient data - with the same money.

As for current government policy, I'm cautiously optimistic they at least understand how to solve the issue and have the intent to do so, even if there isn't a money tree to pay for it yet.

 

[BlackMastodon]

ThE SoCiAlIsM!

 

[Moongrum]

ThE SoCiAlIsM!

but the taxes!

 

[tedtan]

Loving you boot lockers as always.

Bootlicker: a person who praises, helps, or obeys someone in order to gain favors or advantages.

I don’t see anyone here doing that. In fact, you’ll probably need to look to the various GOP candidates for various offices and how they treat Trump in order to see a good example of bootlicking.

Me, "I don't like this political personality"

You, "oh you're just a trumpet blower"

I don’t buy this.

It’s perfectly reasonable to not like someone or their political position, if not substantively then at least emotionally.

But your post wasn’t about that at all. It merely parroted right wing propaganda talking points in order to stir the shit. If you admitted you were stirring shit up that would be one thing, but to pretend you were completely innocent and then blame everyone else is weak.

It honestly doesn't matter. We'll get our tastes of socialism in the country to please the wackos, country will go to shit, people will die, and all the major population centers that voted for it will reap what they sow.

Good luck everyone

Perhaps one day, but I don’t think we’ll get there in the short- to mid- term (less than 30 years).

It doesn’t seem like it if you’re one the far right, but US politics tend to be pretty much to the right. Most of the “radical left wing” democrats the right likes to cry about are to the right of center, so even if they got their way unchecked, it wouldn’t go far enough left to be socialism.

Also, socialism ≠ communism. A capitalist economy with a social public policy is probably the best option we have right now. Yes, there will be a few people that take advantage of this type of system (there are always people that take advantage of the system), but it’s better to have a system that works for everyone with a small percentage of people taking advantage of it that to have a broke dick system that doesn’t work for anyone except the top 1% (see our current system).

 

[tedtan]

I don't think he did a cool thing. I think it's one thing to dodge a draft because you're adamantly against war, and entirely different to dodge it when you think war is cool but are too cowardly to serve yourself. I think it's clear where Trump falls on this spectrum, but I'm not sure where Tim Walz fits here -- sounds like he was just ready to switch over to a political career. But nothing in his record that I've seen really points to him being particularly against war. You know, you have one guy in here saying Walz retired without knowing about troop mobilization, and you have another guy saying he retired because he "didn't want to commit a crime". These are not going to both be true.

If that refers to my prior comment, I based it on the factcheck.org article I linked. I’m not very familiar with Walz and certainly don’t have any inside info on this.

So that's what I mean. No point in everyone tripping over oneself trying to define Walz as some patronus of their own personal values just to argue directly against whatever a Trump fanboi says.

But has anyone actually done that?

 

[ArtDecade]

 

[Randy]

Bootlicker

I hear it most frequently used to describe people bowing to authority, mostly in reference to police but in Libertarian or general right wing circles, it's used specifically to describe bowing to federal authorities (frequently referred to as "jack boot thugs").

It's confusing because which authority they're referring to is kind of case-by-case. I know Libertarians and Sovereign Citizens often only recognize the authority of sheriffs because they're elected officials. I think it's even more confusing in this case because the guy frequently talks up soldiers and specifically extrajudicial killing.

I don't think I've heard bootlicker in reference to politicians, as appears to be the case here?

 

[Ordacleaphobia]

I hear it most frequently used to describe people bowing to authority, mostly in reference to police but in Libertarian or general right wing circles, it's used specifically to describe bowing to federal authorities (frequently referred to as "jack boot thugs").

It's confusing because which authority they're referring to is kind of case-by-case. I know Libertarians and Sovereign Citizens often only recognize the authority of sheriffs because they're elected officials. I think it's even more confusing in this case because the guy frequently talks up soldiers and specifically extrajudicial killing.

I don't think I've heard bootlicker in reference to politicians, as appears to be the case here?

I don't think he's using it to refer to a particular politician / supports of a particular politician. I think it's a follow up to this:

He's a retired master sergeant that didn't complete requirements to officially be pinned as a command sergeant major, and dodged deployments to Afghanistan.

Because what I've heard re: Walz's retirement, is that even though the dates line up to make his retirement not in response to his unit being deployed, at that rank and in that position, you would absolutely know that was coming down the pike, so he would have known it was coming at the time he submitted for retirement; thus- coward.
So, following that, if that's your position, the notion that people are buying the line of 'nuh uh he didn't know' would imply to you that those people just believe whatever their selected authority figures tell them and follow through on it unquestioningly, which is....yeah, bootlicker behavior.

To be clear, I don't have a dog in this fight. I don't know anything about Walz. I certainly have never served so far be it from me to turn my nose up at anyone that's put their time in. I'm also not going to pretend I know how things work in that chain of command. And even if this line of reasoning was true, I'm not even sure I'd count that as much of a black mark on his record. After 24 years I'd probably be ready to hang it up too. The 'that I carried in war' line bothers me more because it is blatantly untrue. I'm also not sure I'd call folks that see the dates lining up and letting Walz go on this one bootlickers either because even if the above reasoning were true, you can't expect civilians to be aware of that or willing to accept your argument of 'he totally knew' because 'trust me bro that's not how it works'.

 

[TedEH]

Playing semantic games to paint a picture of the reason for someone's retirement from the military is the kind of thing that only matters if you're worshiping the military to begin with.

Does it mean Walz is a coward? I really don't care. I'd rather a coward who serves in the vague ballpark of my interest compared to the alternative.

 

[Ordacleaphobia]

Playing semantic games to paint a picture of the reason for someone's retirement from the military is the kind of thing that only matters if you're worshiping the military to begin with.

Does it mean Walz is a coward? I really don't care. I'd rather a coward who serves in the vague ballpark of my interest compared to the alternative.

Yeah this is pretty much where I fall on this one too. I guess that's why they're leaning so hard into the stolen valor attack, since military service is often correlated with republican support? Like a 'he's a vet but not our vet so we gotta discredit his service' type thing? Kinda how it comes off.
I dunno. It's been a tough month to be a republican, man; I've been seeing an awful lot of stuff that just doesn't make sense. They are not handling this pivot well at all.

 

[Crungy]

A white supremacist that trump had dinner with doesn't like JD Vance's non white wife?

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4822608-jd-vance-wife-usha-white-attacks/

 

[MFB]

Pics of JD Vance in drag from college going around, wonder if he read to any kids at breakfast time too?

 

[ArtDecade]

Pics of JD Vance in drag from college going around, wonder if he read to any kids at breakfast time too?

 

[Crungy]

I wonder if Ted and Ben Shapiro teamed up to craft that question

 

[Rubbishplayer]

A white supremacist that trump had dinner with doesn't like JD Vance's non white wife?
View attachment 148246

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4822608-jd-vance-wife-usha-white-attacks/

Oh no!!!!!!

 

[tedtan]

I hear it most frequently used to describe people bowing to authority, mostly in reference to police but in Libertarian or general right wing circles, it's used specifically to describe bowing to federal authorities (frequently referred to as "jack boot thugs").

It's confusing because which authority they're referring to is kind of case-by-case. I know Libertarians and Sovereign Citizens often only recognize the authority of sheriffs because they're elected officials. I think it's even more confusing in this case because the guy frequently talks up soldiers and specifically extrajudicial killing.

I don't think I've heard bootlicker in reference to politicians, as appears to be the case here?

Yeah, it’s generally used to mean attempting to gain favor by demeaning oneself, but that Britannica definition that I quoted tied in so closely to how the republicans have been behaving toward Trump since he won in 2016 that I had to use it. I mean, how many trashed trump before he was elected or claimed he was guilty immediately after Jan 6th only to go back and kiss the ring soon thereafter.

 

[tedtan]

I don't think he's using it to refer to a particular politician / supports of a particular politician. I think it's a follow up to this:

Because what I've heard re: Walz's retirement, is that even though the dates line up to make his retirement not in response to his unit being deployed, at that rank and in that position, you would absolutely know that was coming down the pike, so he would have known it was coming at the time he submitted for retirement; thus- coward.
So, following that, if that's your position, the notion that people are buying the line of 'nuh uh he didn't know' would imply to you that those people just believe whatever their selected authority figures tell them and follow through on it unquestioningly, which is....yeah, bootlicker behavior.

To be clear, I don't have a dog in this fight. I don't know anything about Walz. I certainly have never served so far be it from me to turn my nose up at anyone that's put their time in. I'm also not going to pretend I know how things work in that chain of command. And even if this line of reasoning was true, I'm not even sure I'd count that as much of a black mark on his record. After 24 years I'd probably be ready to hang it up too. The 'that I carried in war' line bothers me more because it is blatantly untrue. I'm also not sure I'd call folks that see the dates lining up and letting Walz go on this one bootlickers either because even if the above reasoning were true, you can't expect civilians to be aware of that or willing to accept your argument of 'he totally knew' because 'trust me bro that's not how it works'.

No one really knows the full story, at least not yet, so it’s mostly speculation at this point. But some of the republicans going so hard based on this comes off as desperate - don’t they have anything of substance to attack Harris and Walz over? They can’t agree on policy, but they’d rather go after speculative minutia that doesn’t really matter to voters than focus on policy. And even Trump is focused on Harris’s crowd size rather than policy.

And that’s where we are with politics these days: politicians on both sides (though especially on the conservative side) divide us based on culture then turn us against one another so we’re distracted by stupid shit while they take away our rights and raise our taxes while cutting those on themselves and their rich donors.

 

[tedtan]

In fairness, ol’ Count Chocula there may not actually know, so this may be a sincere question coming from him.

 

[BlackMastodon]

Yeah, it’s generally used to mean attempting to gain favor by demeaning oneself, but that Britannica definition that I quoted tied in so closely to how the republicans have been behaving toward Trump since he won in 2016 that I had to use it. I mean, how many trashed trump before he was elected or claimed he was guilty immediately after Jan 6th only to go back and kiss the ring soon thereafter.

Remember when Trump made fun of Cruz and called his wife ugly in 2016? Simpler times, those.

 

[Randy]

Pics of JD Vance in drag from college going around, wonder if he read to any kids at breakfast time too?

Pretty cute, ngl. Wonder if he can be coaxed back to our side. Or perhaps he still is and he's working in the Trump campaign as a sleeper cell?