Any LGBT+ Republican individual out here?

[BigBearSean]

21 minutes ago, hntnhole said:

First, Thank you for your service.

To the quote above, I'm wondering how you arrive at the issue of Dem's are "somehow vaguely worse (than, I'm assuming the Republicans?).  

Worse in what particular way?  Which of the political positions supported by D's (and presumably not the R's?) are you referring to?  There have been many times I haven't supported an entire platform of a given party, but I always exercise my right to vote, particularly the down-ballot positions, which directly impact the community in which I live.  

Thanks.

My point was that many who vote MAGA have an almost knee jerk reaction to say Dems are worse, but rarely have actual policies, positions, or actions (stated in context) that backs their claim.  I live in Indiana.  There are STILL "Trump 2020" signs up around here.  I shit you not.  Not people who scream "Dems are worse" rarely think past cultural biases of this red-ass state and how they were raised.

[ScorpionFF]

4 hours ago, tallslenderguy said:

From what i can ascertain, rawTOP started this section on BZ on May 2010 with a post tilled: 

"Post political discussions in this forum" 

Generally speaking, BZ is a discussion forum that, to me, stands out as wonderfully unique and unusual in the gay community precisely because we can discuss things here that depart from the usual. 

i , for one, appreciate anyone who will "elaborate on why"  when they state a position, be it Top, bottom, versatile, queer, trans, republican, democrat, libertarian, liberal, conservative...ad infinitum.   

To me, all of those terms are just starting places, labels that need elaboration to determine their detailed contents.  Without that elaboration, at best, one gets defined by the reader.  

i would suggest, even argue, that it is through elaboration that we find common ground  that can thwart the polarizing effects of generalizations. Generalizations,  catch phrases, are used by unscrupulous manipulators to gain and maintain position and power where very few elite 'win' and the majority on both 'sides' lose.  

i believe it is through sincere scrutiny and elaboration that we uncover substance, what is real. Open discussion, i think, helps us find causes where we can work together, while oversimplification leads to decisions and actions based on absolutist notions that do not reflect the majority. 

Thank you for sharing this 🙂 I did do a search for the original post using the title highlighted in yellow but no results were returned. I particularly resonated with;

 

i , for one, appreciate anyone who will "elaborate on why"  when they state a position, be it Top, bottom, versatile, queer, trans, republican, democrat, libertarian, liberal, conservative...ad infinitum.   

To me, all of those terms are just starting places, labels that need elaboration

Labels indeed. As a result of waking up within the last half of a decade I now no longer define as Gay (a label in my eyes that I did use for about the best part of 30 years) even though I am obviously attracted to men, and even no longer define myself by my Christian name which is just another label that was given to me. Nor even by my skin colour. I am simply just ME. Maybe I could even strip it back another layer still and no longer define as a Top even though I am the individual that gives the seed. Boxes are for cats! 😸 I am undefinable, ying and yong and ping and pong, lol (yes, I have plagiarised that last bit from a comedy classic). Thank you again. 

[viking8x6]

13 minutes ago, ScorpionFF said:

Thank you for sharing this 🙂 I did do a search for the original post using the title highlighted in yellow but no results were returned.

The post is pinned near the top of the forum. Here's a link:

 

[BootmanLA]

13 hours ago, fuckholedc said:

Certainly both parties have essentially the same conservative politics for the most part.  Biden is certainly not Trump but he is also incapable of criticizing failed US policies (esp. ecological policies) and effectively leading to something like a progressive future.

That may be true, to some extent.

But as I always say: Elections are not held to make you feel good. That's what masturbation is for. Elections are for choosing, among VIABLE choices, a person for a particular governmental role. In this election, barring the death or incapacitation of one of them, the viable candidates will be Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

Assuming you are serious when you say "Biden is certainly not Trump" (which I take to mean you think he's at least marginally better of a choice), then:

1. Voting for any other candidate, especially if you live in a swing state, is electoral masturbation and can only help Trump.

2. Not voting also helps Trump, especially if you live in a swing state, because his base will turn out.

3. Even assuming Biden makes little progress toward a progressive future, you can rest assured that a Trump victory will mean backsliding on that same path - in some cases, in a major way.

I know people hate the formulation "vote for the lesser evil" but that's how our system is designed to work. 

[BootmanLA]

14 hours ago, topblkmale said:

TDS

The battle cry of those who can't defend anything the man did.

[BBBxCumDumpster]

21 hours ago, BootmanLA said:

and

Which is it? MAGA and conservatism have zero overlap. Conservatism, at its heart, recognizes that change and progress are necessary, but should be undertaken at a reasonable pace so as not to disrupt too much at once, and so that unintended consequences can be handled.

MAGA is radicalism - knee-jerk, reactionary radicalism, which at its core is based on nothing more than fear or loathing of "other" - as in, "them". Trump said it on the first day of his campaign, in 2015, when he talked non-stop about "them" (ie the governments of poorer, browner nations) sending us criminals, rapists, murderers, and he's never shut up about it. That's the core of MAGA - "us" vs. "them". And that's been Trump his entire life - always fighting, always suing, always bullying, always trying to throw his weight around. Sometimes it works and he gets his way; other times he gets nothing but publicity, which he still considers a win. But always - ALWAYS - it's "us" (meaning HIM) vs. "them".

And he sold that garbage to millions of Americans, pretending that he was just like them, always fighting the oppressor, while hiding the fact that HE is exactly the kind of person who's oppressing the working and middle class.

What's sad is how so many LGBT people jump on that bandwagon, whether it's because they, too, share his bigotry and prejudices, or whether they believe his thousands of outright lies and thousands more misleading statements. Even when the party he represents makes no secret of the fact that they are committed to destroying LGBT equality - overturning same-sex marriage, reinstating sodomy laws, etc., they pretend that will never really happen.

That's what people who believe in abortion rights thought (not the activists, who recognized the danger, but the millions of suburban women who thought It Could Never Happen Here). Those people thought Roe was settled law, even if the courts were chipping away at the edges, and "they" would always be safe - because they're moderate to conservative white women in America. And then the Republican Senate stole a Supreme Court nomination from Obama to give to the next Republican president, and then rammed through another just a few weeks before the 2020 election, all to pad a majority on the Supreme Court that would do EXACTLY what Republicans had been promising to do for decades, and which too many people believed they just wouldn't.

The Republican platform still calls for repealing same-sex marriage. For reinstating sodomy laws. Even if blue states decide to protect LGBT people, red states - Florida, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, etc. - either still have bans on same-sex marriage and laws criminalizing sodomy on the books or will rush to pass them the moment the Supreme Court again decides that "well, back in 1789, these weren't protected, so they aren't protected now either." 

And that's just the selfish, personal reason LGBT voters should reject Trump (and GOP candidates for Congress) - self preservation. That doesn't even touch the massive giveaways of taxpayer money to the wealthy, many or most of whom pay much lower tax rates, in total, than teachers or police officers or bus drivers. Or auto workers or tech support people.

Or Trump's stated, clear intention to abandon NATO, where he unequivocally said he'd invite Russia to invade any of its neighbors and not stand up to support this nation's allies - with whom we have a fucking treaty, mind you, obligating our support.

Or Trump's horrific ripping away children from undocumented immigrant families at the border WHILE NOT EVEN KEEPING RECORDS OF WHERE THE CHILDREN WERE SENT - with hundreds still unaccounted for. A president who screamed about human trafficking actually CONDUCTED human trafficking, and his supporters cheered - proof that they support him because they hate the same people he does.

Or the fact that Trump keeps calling for more and more tariffs, knowing that his supporters are too dumb to understand that tariffs are NOT paid by the producer of the goods in question, or by the producer's country. They're paid by the US importer who brings those goods into the country, which has to then raise prices as he sells them to wholesalers and manufacturers, which raises prices to the consumer. Yes, YOU, the consumer, are the ones who pay tariffs, and yet MAGA nuts go wild, thinking that their guy is gonna stick it to them Commie Chinese bastards!

I could go on, and on, but: I know it's useless. Most MAGA supporters lack the will to understand what their pseudo-Lord-and-savior is pushing, or else they lack the capacity, but they do respond to the raw emotional appeal he has, encouraging them to hate and blame "them" - foreigners, liberals, whomever - for their troubles. 

This was an incredibly succinct and cohesive discourse on what makes Trump and "maggot" ism so vile and so lethal. 

[hntnhole]

4 hours ago, BigBearSean said:

but rarely have actual policies, positions, or actions (stated in context) that backs their claim.

I believe you've succinctly and correctly stated the problem.  There seem to be certain "catch-phrases" that they announce, without much basis in reason.  I see it as the triumph of un-reason.  The avoidance of any interest in real discussion, in favor of the "knee-jerk" reactionary retreat to their slogans, repeated over and over again, and ignoring any actual facts.  It's really a sorrow.  

The only solution I see is to keep trying to advance reasonable discourse, (and vote these maga office-holders out - including the down-ballot officials).  

Thanks.  

[hntnhole]

Welllllll  ..... I confess ...... I don't know what TDS stands for.  The Googler only has stuff about high speed internet 😒

Anyone?

[BBBxCumDumpster]

9 minutes ago, hntnhole said:

Welllllll  ..... I confess ...... I don't know what TDS stands for.  The Googler only has stuff about high speed internet 😒

Anyone?

Trump Derangement Syndrome

[50latinos]

12 minutes ago, hntnhole said:

Welllllll  ..... I confess ...... I don't know what TDS stands for.  The Googler only has stuff about high speed internet 😒

Anyone?

It's just another simplification  by the trumpers to justify their blind allegiance to a person that is demonstrably dumb, incompetent, cruel and recist.

I believe it stand for Trump Derangement Syndrome, and implies that the majority that can't stand the former guy have some sort of mental defect while they are following him for reasons that they can't even explain. Thus everything is reduced to TDR.

Edited February 14 by 50latinos

[hntnhole]

1 hour ago, BootmanLA said:

Biden is certainly not Trump but he is also incapable of criticizing failed US policies

One particular failed US policy stands out to me:  I simply cannot understand why Biden lets Netanyahu push him around, along with Blinken and all the rest.  How can the US allow itself to be so closely associated with what amounts to genocide of innocent kids, families, starving for the barest of necessities.  More, where are all the hundreds of thousands of these unfortunates - herded South - supposed to go when the IDF determines it's time to blow up all the refugees too? 

I know that the election is coming up.  There are about 6.5 million Jewish folks in the US, and about half that number of Arabs, I know Biden needs the liberal Jewish vote, and maybe he can figure out a way to win MI, which is home to many of Arab descent. 

But really ... Clearly Nettie believes that the Trumpanzee will give him all the rope he needs to lay waste to half the Levant unless he's voted out of office in Israel first.  I don't understand what appears to be Biden's "kid-glove" handling of the ongoing and expanding crises in the Middle East. The current state of affairs in that area is - to my mind anyway - simply inexcusable, and our diplomats do not seem able to wring one scintilla of cooperation out of the Israeli War Cabinet.  

 

[hntnhole]

20 minutes ago, BBBxCumDumpster said:

Trump Derangement Syndrome

I must have eaten the "dumb" sandwich for lunch .... thanks, BBBxCumDumpster.

[hntnhole]

19 minutes ago, 50latinos said:

and implies that the majority that can't stand the former guy have some sort of mental defect while they are following him for reasons that they can't even explain

And thanks for that, 50latinos.  Live and learn, huh? 😏

[Guest]

59 minutes ago, hntnhole said:

Welllllll  ..... I confess ...... I don't know what TDS stands for.  The Googler only has stuff about high speed internet 😒

Anyone?

Thanks for clearing that up ! 

[tallslenderguy]

17 hours ago, BootmanLA said:

 

I know people hate the formulation "vote for the lesser evil" but that's how our system is designed to work. 

Weirdly, yes.  It's not as though there isn't precedent, on both sides, for running and electing a president who has early signs of declining cognitive function.  Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Regan come to mind. 

We know a lot more now about dementia,  and it's causes, than we did  with either of those presidents. In an acute care setting, like where i work as a critical care nurse, if we are caring for patient with signs of dementia, we perform a test like a Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCa) as a first step.  With someone in a position of power, like a world leader, there's other more extensive (and expensive),definitive tests, that can be done: CAT, MRI, PET.  Each shows different physiological signs that can better diagnose cognitive decline. 

Even with all those tests though, signs and symptoms are different for each person. It's not a cut and dried diagnosis. There can be waxing and waning. One of the things that delays diagnosis is when one is in a familiar setting, they can go a long time (apparently) functioning from habit patterns. Take that person out of that familiar environment, and the signs start presenting. It's complicated stuff.  Some  areas of the brain can be just as sharp as ever, while others are not. Memory loss, the ability to recall, is often one of the first signs of decline, while the ability to reason can still be fully intact. 

All we can do from the outside is play armchair doctor, no one, not even a trained doctor, can make a definitive diagnosis without standardized tests... though, with both Trump and Biden,  if they were patients in my care, i'd be ordering tests. 

To me, Roosevelt, Regan and Biden all present/presented similar signs that would, in my opinion, call for tests for cognitive decline.  Trump has similar signs to me, but more outstanding is he also presents with psychiatric signs that i don't see in the other three.  

i do not wonder about the other three being sociopaths, but i do with Trump. i'd like to see  him evaluated and i'd also like to see Biden evaluated for cognitive decline.  i think he's a loose cannon at best. But that's me. i think the benefit of discussions like this can be to parse out  the reasons behind why and how we vote and choose our leaders. i think it's a mistake to impugn ones character or intelligence because chose Trump or Biden.  i think there are intelligent people on both sides and that discussion devolves when we start name calling.  

Wouldn't it be great if all candidates for political office had to first qualify mentally?  i wish that was the case. "If wishes were fishes, we'd all cast nets."  And many of us do "cast nets" (aka "votes"), but only in the stocked pond the power structure dictates.