(09-23-2018 01:37 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(09-23-2018 11:57 AM)illiniowl Wrote:  

(09-22-2018 06:29 PM)WoodlandsOwl Wrote:  

(09-22-2018 01:07 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  First, there are tons of racists in the other party.... But not necessarily 'anglo' racists.

Second, 'the right to have unpopular and even bad opinions' is something the right supports much more than the left. It's not about supporting their opinion, just their right to their opinion... Which stops as soon as they try and put that opinion into action

Dealing with some of the Republican GOP Grass Roots in the Deep South post-2009 was a bit of a challenge.

Tea Party people were fairly easy. They weren't "off the deep end" even though their understanding of Constitutional Law was limited to what was on a 8 page pamphlet.

The "Alex Jones" "Glenn Beck" and "Birther" people were a different story. Someone comes in spouting off the "Obama and Valerie Jerrett are Iranian Agents" BS and they kindly asked for their contact information and told that we have all the help we need at the time but we will call you if we need you.

But of course all monetary donations were gladly accepted.

I believe Ronald Reagan once said, when somebody tried to play the guilt-by-supporters'-association game, that all it meant was that they support my agenda; it doesn't mean I support theirs.

I also think, to WoodlandsOwl's point, Republicans do a far better job of keeping the wackos confined to the fringe than the Democrats do. Objectively nonserious ideas like "Abolish ICE" find far fewer barriers in progressing from the left fringe to the left mainstream, and easily make it to having high-profile proponents in the Democratic party. There is no equivalent analogy on the right as far as I can tell.

Wasn’t it Rick Perry that pushed the idea of abolishing three, erm, or two, entire Departments? And ideas similar to that (like abolishing the IRS) are similarly thrown out by the right.

Not sure why that is any less nonserious than some Dems who advocate for abolishing a government organization that is less than 2 decades old.

I don’t think there is a big difference between the two parties with respect to fringe policies making their way to the mainstream, you just don’t think your fringe ideas are fringe and, vice versa for Dems.

A Republican calling for abolishing the Education and Energy departments is saying that the federal government is too big and its tentacles are reaching too far, which is an idea reasonable people can disagree on but it's not a fringe idea by any stretch. And I don't think "abolish the IRS" has any high-profile GOP proponents but even so, as far as I know, all that would be is just shorthand for "let's make the tax code simpler and fairer so we don't need tens of thousands of federal employees to enforce it." I'm pretty sure that even if Republicans got their dearest tax wish list desires enacted, they'd still be in favor of having an enforcement agency to track down scofflaws. No serious Republican is in favor of abolishing all federal taxation or relying totally on the honor system to collect federal revenue.

"Abolish ICE," in contrast, is *not* shorthand for "let's sensibly reform the immigration system." It is shorthand for "no borders." It is shorthand for "the whole idea of restrictions on human migration and enforcing laws relating thereto is inhumane and immoral." So, "abolish ICE" is not a serious idea, yet it has mainstream Democratic support.