Rand Paul fires first salvo (1 Viewer)

[Joe Bryant]

Now, I'm not suggesting that we have to put everything into one of these threads. Clearly some of these topics were important enough in their own right that you'd want to start a new thread, just like every one of the groups above does from time to time. But can you explain why Rand Paul, the gift that keeps on giving, and Rand Paul won't say how old the earth is, and Rand Paul doing all these other horrible things, why all of these needed their own thread? Do we also need a couple more threads on the same topic with the conservative spin? And while you say that two competing conversations in the same thread is some terrible thing, this thread is over 140 posts, and is still on topic for the most part. So there's some precedent that this kind of thing works. It's just that in politics, people want to have their spin for every thread, and they want to be the first to post a new thread, and they want to post their specific thoughts on a political topic, and so on. I've been guilty of it too. The same thing's happening in the Shark Pool, where people start threads talking about how this guy is going to blow up this week, or starting the new Choo Choo sign up for this guy's train thread, or I think the Lions are going to beat the Jets thread, or whatever. The good posters have slowly shied away from the shark pool, and they're shying away from the FFA, too, because there's more weeds than flowers in the garden these days.

Thanks Fred,I don't doubt your sincerity one bit but what I really don't understand is why you seem to feel we can't have both types?The giant epic threads are fun. No doubt. They almost become a subforum for some folks. That's fine. But for a great many people, they also like to jump in on a quick thread like this one. I have very little opinion at all on Rand Paul. But I do have thoughts on government spending and government business vs private business that I think I've expressed here. As others have. So for me this thread was a lot more government spending / business than it was Rand Paul. It allowed me something to say on the topic that I never would have said in the giant thread. Now maybe me saying something is a bad thing but I think as a general rule, it's good. Which is what I said many posts ago.I think some people bristle at the perception you gave here that you are the decider of what's a worthy thread when you told him this thread should have been a post. A good number of people, myself included, think it's a decent enough topic to be it's own thread. And more specific, I don't think we need to be too quick to throw every topic into the one giant thread. In some ways, the board is very much like the coffee station at work or wherever it is you gather at work to talk about things. I can very easily see a Monday conversation starting of "did you see Rand Paul talking about cutting federal salaries yesterday?" as a typical Monday conversation. I think you can very easily have that conversation outside of backing up and saying, "wait, let's make sure that conversation happens within the existing framework of all the other Rand Paul conversation we've ever had". You can do that if you like. But I've got no problem at all with having the conversation fresh as it might take turns completely away from Rand Paul (as it did for me). Just my opinion of how I see it.J

 

[Bottomfeeder Sports]

Or do you REALLY think that these guys were so noble, that they believed in this bill SO MUCH, that they were willing to commit career suicide for it?

The standard for my argument isn't "career suicide", just that voting for HCR did not appear to enhance their political futures.

Of course they aren't. Your standards for arguments are typically far different than those normally reasonably applied.

...How about Putting America FIRST instead of your future political aims....

How exactly did the democrats that voted for the stimulus and/or health care reform put their future political aims first?

I don't need career suicides, I simply need politicians that knowingly expended political capital to vote for an unpopular measure that they knew would not help there political futures - unless the bill become popular in the future. Democrats that voted for this did not reap any benefits from their base as liberals and progressives largely hated the HCR bill's compromises. Independents and moderates that may have wanted HCR in 2008 wanted this shelved until some later date when the economy and jobs were doing better. They at least disagreed on this being a priority. And I doubt anyone is arguing that any democratic congressmen was expecting to pick up many crossover votes from the GOP. The only voters that would be happy are the more pragmatic democrats that appreciate that politics is the art of the possible and those that simply celebrate all things democrat. These vote democratic anyway. So there is no immediate gain from voters. Any gains that kick in the future would be because this bill was successful at some level that it becomes popular with voters. I don't see how ideologically betting that piece of legislation that is unpopular today will be successful tomorrow is putting America second to one's future political aims.Now of course there are other considerations to one's political future than just voters. There are potential future appointments to gravy government jobs. There is "banking of favors". Etc., etc. But all of these are dependent on the democrats maintaining power. That was pretty much considered unlikely months prior to HCR. (Granted I argued with Chad back then that if things broke just right - obviously they didn't that the period around the state of union could be the low water mark for democrats, and Tim had the "jobs report thread" but all of that was banking on a lot of things breaking in the right direction quickly enough to change perceptions.) So I don't see this one either.There are also private industry lobbyist and consulting jobs. This one remains to be seen. If you have a point it is here, but again many of those that lost office were guilty by association with the democrat's vote and not their actual individual vote. (That is assuming that the GOP rhetoric is correct and that this election was a mandate to roll back and kill HCR.)

 

[Colts Win]

So exactly how did Democrats voting on HCR in March (I think?) believe that a bill that had very few provisions that benefited the electorate until 2014 were going to parlay this bill into votes in November? I mean, yes the polls that we progressives spin suggests that the public supports continues to grow month after month since, but no where near with any turn out the vote excitement to reward these public servants. Can't you conservatives go a day without immediately rewriting history so you can project your own sins on the other side to justify yourselves?

Because they thought people really, really wanted it.Or do you REALLY think that these guys were so noble, that they believed in this bill SO MUCH, that they were willing to commit career suicide for it?

Pretty much what they did in the 60's for civil rights.

 

[Sinn Fein]

If this were thrown in an existing thread, what would happen if someone wanted to pick up the discussion from a couple days earlier? You'd have two competing conversations in the same thread.

Bostonfred needs to calm down.

I wonder how all these other threads do it. You know, the ones started by people who follow a common forum ettiquette by keeping one big thread for a major topic, and only starting new threads when there's a major topic to discuss. It seems to work for them. Here's a smattering, but there are plenty more where these came from.This thread has been working for over three years. http://forums.footballguys.com/forum/index...howtopic=305522

This thread on running is still going strong long after the topic changed, and there's lots of old topics that still get discussed. http://forums.footballguys.com/forum/index...howtopic=302486

This thread is dedicated to this year, but it seems to be working fine. http://forums.footballguys.com/forum/index...howtopic=536305

This thread is just for one sport: http://forums.footballguys.com/forum/index...howtopic=536205

This thread is just for one team. And they occasionally have separate game threads. But at least they manage everything in one main thread: http://forums.footballguys.com/forum/index...howtopic=557130

And they had a separate playoff thread last year: http://forums.footballguys.com/forum/index...howtopic=528621

This boxing thread started recently. It may pick up soon or it may not. Such is the market of ideas. http://forums.footballguys.com/forum/index...howtopic=533145

Maybe just college football

Or just one conference, like ACC football: http://forums.footballguys.com/forum/index...howtopic=550234

Or just one team, like Michigan: http://forums.footballguys.com/forum/index...howtopic=507022 or Alabama http://forums.footballguys.com/forum/index...howtopic=528810 or Oklahoma http://forums.footballguys.com/forum/index...howtopic=540189

Or even the occasional poll on college football: http://forums.footballguys.com/forum/index...howtopic=568793

And the gambling thread still exists even though there are separate threads on boxing, hockey, college football, the NBA, the Lakers, and the Lakers-Celtics game: http://forums.footballguys.com/forum/index...howtopic=516869

There's a group of people who play video games, and they keep it to one thread for the most part: http://forums.footballguys.com/forum/index...howtopic=382819

There's a thread about just about every TV series out there: http://forums.footballguys.com/forum/index...howtopic=275794

And another one on movies. http://forums.footballguys.com/forum/index...howtopic=160947

Over 100 pages on the iPhone: http://forums.footballguys.com/forum/index...howtopic=300014

Now I don't expect you to read every one of those, but the concept of having one big thread clearly works. Now let's do a quick search for threads that have Rand Paul's name in the title:

This is the thread we're in right now: http://forums.footballguys.com/forum/index...132&hl=rand

Rand Paul changes his mind on earmarks: http://forums.footballguys.com/forum/index...151&hl=rand

A Rand Paul supporter stomped on an activist?!?: http://forums.footballguys.com/forum/index...390&hl=rand

Republicans were posing as democrats to help Rand Paul: http://forums.footballguys.com/forum/index...975&hl=rand

Rand Paul wouldn't say how old the earth is: http://forums.footballguys.com/forum/index...341&hl=rand

Rand Paul, the gift that keeps on giving: http://forums.footballguys.com/forum/index...021&hl=rand

Rand Paul: Obama slamming BP is "unamerican" http://forums.footballguys.com/forum/index...066&hl=rand

Rand Paul victory celebration at private country club: http://forums.footballguys.com/forum/index...803&hl=rand

Now, I'm not suggesting that we have to put everything into one of these threads. Clearly some of these topics were important enough in their own right that you'd want to start a new thread, just like every one of the groups above does from time to time. But can you explain why Rand Paul, the gift that keeps on giving, and Rand Paul won't say how old the earth is, and Rand Paul doing all these other horrible things, why all of these needed their own thread? Do we also need a couple more threads on the same topic with the conservative spin?

And while you say that two competing conversations in the same thread is some terrible thing, this thread is over 140 posts, and is still on topic for the most part.

So there's some precedent that this kind of thing works. It's just that in politics, people want to have their spin for every thread, and they want to be the first to post a new thread, and they want to post their specific thoughts on a political topic, and so on. I've been guilty of it too. The same thing's happening in the Shark Pool, where people start threads talking about how this guy is going to blow up this week, or starting the new Choo Choo sign up for this guy's train thread, or I think the Lions are going to beat the Jets thread, or whatever. The good posters have slowly shied away from the shark pool, and they're shying away from the FFA, too, because there's more weeds than flowers in the garden these days.

Update?