CapnMac
Member
I wish they'd stop calling him "Texan." He's the get of carpetbaggers, and ones with questionable history, who went from rags to riches before Booby Frank even hit puberty.
Delightful Reddit thread with Beto
- Thread starter ATLDave
- Start date
- Status
AOC has six or seven years before she is even eligible to run and that is if she is natural born citizen.No. He's not.
But he is good running mate material.... for AOC.
danez71
Member
Assessing a persons intelligence (ie. problem solving ability) is a much, much more complicated task than simply evaluating the impressions given by his or her public appearances. Until a comprehensive set of Raven's standard matrices or equivalent have been completed and scored, I recommend refraining from making any statements or even hazarding a guess.
Politicians, however, are highly experienced and conditioned in public appearances and creating an impression of competence and perceived intelligence. That's an acquired skillset anyone with average or higher intelligence can duplicate with a moderate amount of training and practise. On a national level nearly all politicians have a team of writers and strategists, comprised of genuinely intelligent individuals, with a sole task of boosting the public image of their employer.
The politician is more or less a front, an actor whose task is to present the speeches in a believable manner and have a sufficient amount of training to come up with a (canned or improvised) response whenever the views are challenged.
That rarely coincides with actual high intelligence. It's not about problem solving, it's figuring out what kind of agendas might or might not gain traction among the voters and 99% of the background work down to the actual wording is done by someone else.
My superficial assessment? O'Rourke has been selected as a probe by the democratic party, to gauge the response to extreme anti-gun rhetoric. One candidate among many others, one that doesn't have a realistic chance to win the election next year, so he's deemed expendable if the experiment backfires.
This is no more than an educated guess and may be as good or bad as any. At least that's how I'd strategize it if I was given the task to assess the public response to different campaign strategies.
Pat Riot
Contributing Member
I don’t do Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, et al.
Almost tempted to join Reddit to go one Beto’s “thingie” to say.
“If you feel so strongly about gun control then you must not allow your security team(s) to carry any of the guns that you do not think that we “Americans” should be “allowed”, in your opinion, to possess.”
Almost tempted to join Reddit to go one Beto’s “thingie” to say.
“If you feel so strongly about gun control then you must not allow your security team(s) to carry any of the guns that you do not think that we “Americans” should be “allowed”, in your opinion, to possess.”
Trunk Monkey
member
First I'm aware that Corporal Agarn didn't say this. I am aware that he's quoting somebody else.
That said, the biggest mistake that we could ever make and probably the one that's going to lose this fight for us is to assume the ignorance of our enemies.
Beeto may well not understand how Firearms or gun violence works, but he doesn't care.
He (really they) wants you disarmed because they have an agenda and they can't implement it as long as you have the means to resist.
If we could find a way to end all gun violence they still want you disarmed and as long as we ignore that or pretend it's not really what they want, we're fighting a losing battle.
That's pretty much it, total disarmament is their end goal. It has nothing to do with crime, children's deaths, mass shootings, these are just ways to get votes to take away guns. "Saturday Night Specials" today, "Assault Weapons" tomorrow, "Long Range Sniper" rifles perhaps after that, deadly "Repeaters" after that, then they just keep crying and saying it isn't working because we haven't taken them all. It will never stop until they have total disarmament, so the fight for gun rights/freedom will never stop. They are happy to chip away at the stone, but would love to take great big chunks as they can.
fireside44
member
- Joined
- Sep 22, 2009
- Messages
- 1,145
Probably on a Soros payroll like the squad. Non-entities, jr politicians (obama cough) politically with mega money and media backing. He moved overtons window leftward. Now we can talk confiscation. It's on the table in the realm of public discussion in federal politics. However, I think it will play favorably into our hands for now. Even Trump is saying Beto's mouth is making it hard to make progress with supposedly less radical Democrats on meaningful legislation. I'm hoping that's just his excuse to sit on his hands on the whole deal. Per Trumps past record that would be my guess. Plus everyone else saying "see, they just want to take the guns away". Because it's true.
Speedo66
Member
He's following in the footsteps of Ted Kennedy, he's a drunk driver with a DWI conviction, and supposedly tried to leave the scene of the ensuing accident. Sounds like presidential material.
AlexanderA
Member
Maybe moving the Overton Window in regard to guns is a side effect of Beto's change of stance.
I don't believe he was thinking about it that deeply, nor do I believe he's a puppet doing the bidding of some gray eminence puppetmaster. I think his move was prompted by two things: (1) an emotional reaction to the El Paso shooting, and (2) desperation to find something to appeal to the Democratic voting base, since he was trailing so badly in the polls. So far his ploy seems to have succeeded, since his polling has seen a small uptick since the last debate.
He's still not going to get the nomination, and on the whole this open talk of gun confiscation is going to set the cause of the antigunners back. Gun confiscation is a loser among the general public.
Any interpretation that depends upon Beto being some deep thinker, a real mastermind with a grand strategic vision, is gonna be a "no sale" with me.
I don't think he's stupid, per se, nor do I think he's evil. I think he's just kind of a surface level thinker. As is common, though not universal, with politicians. Which makes sense, given that actual deep thought isn't something that is typically recognize or understood, much less rewarded, by most voters.
I don't think he's stupid, per se, nor do I think he's evil. I think he's just kind of a surface level thinker. As is common, though not universal, with politicians. Which makes sense, given that actual deep thought isn't something that is typically recognize or understood, much less rewarded, by most voters.
fireside44
member
- Joined
- Sep 22, 2009
- Messages
- 1,145
Everyone has skeletons in the closet. But not everyone wants to take my AK away. I believe redemption is possible, but not confiscation.
We have a divided nation and only a few Democrats were driven to pro 2A by their Trump derangement. Many of these people hate the type of life we lead and the beliefs we hold. Confiscation and regulation is a way they can poke fingers in our eye so they will back Beto type characters.
Sadly, I have to concur with this. There's a lot of mutual distrust - no, strike that, the mistrust was the problem 10 years ago. Now we're into mutual antipathy. "Pwning the libs" is seen as sufficient justification for things on the right, and the left is no better. A great many Americans would now like to affirmatively harm (in some legal fashion - indeed, through the law itself) anyone whose ideology is not generally aligned with theirs.
A nation dividing up into teams that hate each other is rarely good for anyone.
fireside44
member
- Joined
- Sep 22, 2009
- Messages
- 1,145
I work with many libs, I listened to one of them, a man who would be conservative were it not for jezebel in his life. He said "we all want the same things". That's true, I told him. I also told him there are things that the left demands now that can no longer be compromised on. A house divided against itself can't stand, very true. But I can't stand and compromise with leftist agendas anymore without being like Lot and pitching my tents towards Sodom.
I actually don't think that's true. People want different things in their own lives. Some people, for instance, want to be able to have some level of personal control over their safety, which means accepting attendant risks if they mismanage it; others don't want to spend time or energy managing that stuff themselves, would rather "outsource it." Some people want a house on enough land so that they don't ever have to see anyone but the delivery guy... others want to live where the streets are lively at 2am. Some people want to have lots of romantic/sexual partners, while others are deeply monogamous.
They key to a functioning liberal (in the original sense), pluralistic democracy is making sure that there's enough space (legally, but also, to some degree, physically) for the "to each his own" approach to be used. The desire to control how other people live is the great source of the trouble right now... and the tighter we pack in (both physically and in terms of sharing communicative space online), the harder it is to not bump into each others' individual life choices.
It makes me very worried for our nation that we seem largely oblivious to this underlying dynamic.
Yep, somehow we need to fix that, too many haters and dividers out there.
Stevie-Ray
Member
+1. I wanna puke when I hear that name. A name he's given himself in order to garner the Latino vote. I've called him RF O'Rourke since I've heard of him, the few times I've even mentioned the putz.
edwardware
Member
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2010
- Messages
- 4,422
Thank you for saying that. We live in a time of "cancel culture" where everyone wants to tear people down (who aren't in their tribe) by judging them for their worst mistakes, which are often well into the past and no longer represent who they are.
@fireside44 may never have had such days in his life. That's to be commended. But I'll be the first person to say that part of the American dream is dead if we no longer believe redemption from the worst versions of ourselves is possible.
bassjam
Member
I didn't read all 26k comments, but I'm surprised I didn't see anyone calling out the irony of Francis wanting to call off the War on Drugs (which I agree with) but he wants to start a War on Arms.
ClickClickD'oh
Member
Don't worry, I got you covered on that one:
https://old.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/d6etv5/hi_im_beto_orourke_a_candidate_for_president/f0t5bhz/
AlexanderA
Member
A War on Guns would be far worse than the War on Drugs (currently) or the War on Alcohol (in the past). Drugs and alcohol are recreational in nature. Guns, for those who own them, are existential. They provide a means of self defense, but more importantly, they provide a guarantee of self-determination. A lot of people are beset economically. Their guns, at least, assure them that they won't be bullied physically as well. Their guns are the last shred of their dignity.
edwardware
Member
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2010
- Messages
- 4,422
And consider, the War on Drugs is against druggies. . . not the sharpest needles in the bin.
The War on Arms would be against a very different, very law-abiding, very cautious, and well-prepared demographic who don't engage in the sorts of stupid that make druggies easy to spot.
AlexanderA
Member
What you're saying is that when such people decide to become felons (or rather, when the status of being felons is forced upon them), they are likely to become very capable felons.
When the gun regulation system loses its last bit of legitimacy (through, for example, forced confiscations), then there will be no gun regulation system at all. People will be making machine guns in their garages. The current system works because it has built-in safety valves, so that people can do most of what they want to do legally. As these safety valves are being removed one by one, the incentive to comply diminishes proportionately.
- Status