On honeymoon in Vegas, Republican governors seek couples counseling with America

[RobinStarwing]

Source because I can't have enough over their loss. (http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/honeymoon-vegas-republican-governors-seek-couples-counseling-america-193643564--election.html)




LAS VEGAS—Throughout history, the desert has been a place for personal reflection and self-discovery, where holy men retreat to seek insights into life's deepest questions.
For example, if you're a Republican in 2012, why your party couldn't get its act together and beat President Barack Obama.
America's Republican governors made a pilgrimage here this week in search of answers. Why did their party lose a contest they were told would be a cakewalk? For two days at the Encore resort and casino, the members of the Republican Governors Association met to lick their postelection wounds and mull over what went wrong. By week's end, there seemed to be more questions than answers: Was it Mitt Romney's fault? Are the Republican Party's ideas outdated? Why did Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock talk about rape so much? What can we do to make minorities like us more? Where's the craps table?

To help guide the beleaguered Republicans, there was no shortage of party brainpower on hand. In attendance was former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, the wise grandfather figure who offered comfort to the afflicted, but not without forcing everyone to swallow a bitter pill first. "We've got to give our political organizational activity a very serious proctology exam," Barbour told the governors Wednesday. (Perhaps the pill was a bit too much to take orally.)

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, the outgoing leader of the association, beamed like a proud father passing on his legacy to a golden son, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who became the group's chairman on Thursday. Under McDonnell's leadership, the number of Republican governors swelled to 30, making the office one of the few bright lights of an election in which Democrats dominated almost everywhere else.

Jindal, who will lead the organization until New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie takes over in two years, took on an active campaign to assert his place as a national party leader. One of the most visible governors during the confab, he led discussion sessions about the election, blasted Romney for the way he ran his presidential campaign, and outlined his vision for the future to anyone who would listen.

Not playing a major public role this year was Christie, a governor burdened by the devastating hurricane that hit his state just two weeks ago. Flanked on all sides by an entourage of bodyguards, Christie walked the halls of the hotel unmolested by reporters. Looking exhausted from sleepless nights handling the relief effort, Christie was in no mood to talk. When one reporter tried to ask him a question after he said he wouldn't answer any, Christie glared at him with tired eyes and boomed, "What part of 'I'm not taking any questions' don't you understand?" Word spread, and few dared ask him anything after that.

During the conference, the governors engaged in an ongoing discussion about the party's need to reach "new constituencies." (Also known as "minorities.") Republicans have long struggled to compete for votes from Hispanic and black voters, but the election was particularly brutal this year on the party of Lincoln. Obama was able to extend his lead among all minority groups. To win in the next cycle, Republicans must recoup the losses. Problem is, they don't seem quite sure how to make this happen.

"We've got to do a much better job of reaching out to the minority community," Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad said in an interview near the end of the conference, echoing a line heard dozens of times in the preceding two days. "Democrats ran a very effective campaign and they did a very effective job motivating interest groups and different people in their base they needed to get out."

Republicans who examined exit poll data after the election were shocked at how much voting demographics had changed. They could hardly believe that Romney won a majority of independent voters but somehow managed to lose the election. The makeup of the nation is changing fast, they found, and the old rule that a candidate just needs to win independents no longer applies.
"There's too many damn Democrats out there," Republican pollster Glen Bolger complained.

The most astute proposal came from New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, a Latina Republican with a record of bringing traditionally Democratic voters into the fold. In 2010, she ran as a conservative in a state where a majority of voters have supported a Republican presidential candidate only once in the past 20 years. She won by more than 6 percentage points.

"Republicans need to stop making assumptions, and they need to start talking to younger people, people of color, and ask them—not talk to them—ask them, 'What is it that we can do better? How do we earn your vote?'"

Martinez said. "We have to start electing people who look like their communities all the way from city council to county commissioners to county clerks all the way through the state and up into national politics."

Of course, reaching minority voters wasn't the only problem the Republican governors felt the party needed to deal with. Many believed that the party has propped up some embarrassingly bad candidates for Congress in recent years, a series of mistakes that helped bolster the Democratic minority in the House and may have cost the Republicans a majority in the Senate. Two Senate candidates this election, Richard Mourdock in Indiana and Todd Akin in Missouri, lost easily winnable elections in part because they couldn't explain their opposition to abortion in a way that didn't turn off swaths of voters.
"We ought to have some rule where if you start talking about 'legitimate rape,' you're out," Bolger said.

If pressed on social issues, they were told to find a way to pivot back to the economy whenever possible. During a meeting Wednesday, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert warned that he saw the country turning "center-left" on issues like gay marriage, and asked what Republicans could do to survive the shift without violating their principles. The answer: If you must discuss it, stand by your beliefs, but please, for the good of the party, try not to sound like a jerk.

"You can articulate your opposition for example to same-sex marriage," advised Bill Bennett, a former adviser to Ronald Reagan. "But you can do it in a dignified way, in the right language, in a forceful way that shows you're not a bigot or intolerant."

While much of the conference focused on how to bounce back, this was, after all, the gathering for Republican winners, not losers. The governors were optimistic about what they can accomplish at the state level, even if the feds in Washington can't balance a budget or name a post office without some bickering.

"There is a brand, there is a set of ideas that Republican governors are offering that stands in fairly stark contrast to what Washington is offering," McDonnell said Thursday. "Washington is broken."



Did it ever occur to them they are the broken ones?

Also, if how you argue being against gay marriage and birth control is based in any part on religious doctrine, you are a bigot in my book.

But yeah, I like this is the winners conference and they are trying to figure out what went wrong. How about instead of blaming just Romney and a few, realize that you all share the blame with propping up asshole mysognists and focusing on social issues rather then your jobs.

[Sithdarth]

Also, if how you argue being against gay marriage and birth control is based in any part on religious doctrine, you are a bigot in my book.

Sorry but no it doesn't matter one bit what your argument is based on at all. Any argument against gay marriage and birth control is bigoted. There is literally no way to make those arguments that isn't indicative of bigotry. Republican's need to figure this out pretty darn quick because changing the subject is just going to make them look even more shifty and untrustworthy and certainly isn't going to win elections.

Beyond that, when it becomes clear that the opposing party as so much more declared supporters that winning the independent vote isn't enough it is a sign that your political party is dead, or rapidly declining. At some point you just have to accept that you are not the majority and get out of the way of progress.

[Magus]

WAIT I HAVE ARGUMENTS

Birth control is too important to allow government interference in it.

Gay marriage is just setting gays up for the inevitable disappointment that has faced straight people for centuries.

MAGUS 2016

EDIT: What Republicans need to realize is that 2010 was a hallmark year for Republicans because it was an off-year combined with the tea party movement, a movement which would have failed in 2008 or this year. The only explanation for why my state has a Republican governor yet went for Obama in this year's election is that people who voted in 2008 didn't vote in 2010 and then voted again in 2012.

People need to learn that off-year elections (and primaries, too) matter. Not just presidential elections.

[RobinStarwing]

Sorry but no it doesn't matter one bit what your argument is based on at all. Any argument against gay marriage and birth control is bigoted. There is literally no way to make those arguments that isn't indicative of bigotry. Republican's need to figure this out pretty darn quick because changing the subject is just going to make them look even more shifty and untrustworthy and certainly isn't going to win elections.

Beyond that, when it becomes clear that the opposing party as so much more declared supporters that winning the independent vote isn't enough it is a sign that your political party is dead, or rapidly declining. At some point you just have to accept that you are not the majority and get out of the way of progress.

Well duh. It's just that all the arguments against Gay Marriage and Birth Control stem mostly from religion and Patriarchal Religion at that.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Gay marriage is just setting gays up for the inevitable disappointment that has faced straight people for centuries.


I really wish people would stop making variations of this joke. Marriage is a patently evil institution and people all being like "Ohhoho we are going to pretend its bad for silly reasons" just takes away from the legitimate problems with it.

[Hatake Kakashi]

I really wish people would stop making variations of this joke. Marriage is a patently evil institution and people all being like "Ohhoho we are going to pretend its bad for silly reasons" just takes away from the legitimate problems with it.

As I am to be married in a little over two years from now, I'm rather curious about the reasoning that marriage is evil.

On topic: Of course the voting demographic has changed. When a political party begins throwing the worst possible candidates with the worst possible ideas and no filter between pre-brain and mouth out for us to consider as prospects for a public office, is it any wonder the general public begins to shy away from them? I set fire to my republican card when I heard they wanted to ban college student voting due to the tendencies of college students to vote Democrat.

I might want to mention here that if you must prevent people from voting because they don't like your ideas, your ideas probably suck.

This past election season has only proven to me that the GOP doesn't learn a damn thing from its mistakes, and that any reversion to even an illusion that they are, as a whole, respectable people is a long way off.

[Magus]

I really wish people would stop making variations of this joke. Marriage is a patently evil institution and people all being like "Ohhoho we are going to pretend its bad for silly reasons" just takes away from the legitimate problems with it.

You're just mad you didn't get to make the joke first.

[Kim]

As I am to be married in a little over two years from now, I'm rather curious about the reasoning that marriage is evil.

Well, it did straight-up start off as nothing more than a contract by which women were traded like property.

[pochercoaster]

As I am to be married in a little over two years from now, I'm rather curious about the reasoning that marriage is evil.

Ever heard of arranged marriages and child marriages?

[Hatake Kakashi]

Well, it did straight-up start off as nothing more than a contract by which women were traded like property.

I'll give you that. And in some cases, it's still very much like that today in both the "modern" and "third-world" (fuck, I hate using those terms) countries. That aside, I tend to think whether or not a marriage represents an evil institution would largely be dependent upon the individual parties involved. Those of us not interested in human enslavement, for example, tend to view our future spouses as equals, or in my case, our "how the hell did I get so lucky?!" life partners. I've made it a point to never allow one day to pass without finding some way to let my bride to be know that I love her more than life itself. The best part about it is that she reciprocates my actions and thoughts. When you have people who do their absolute best to put their spouses first, it is a blessed marriage regardless of genders involved.

[Hatake Kakashi]

Ever heard of arranged marriages and child marriages?

I have. I've also heard of actual, holy-shit-it's-the-real-thing marriages based upon love, trust, and a willingness to be vulnerable to one other person with whom you can no longer imagine spending your lifetime without. Again, it's about who is involved and their motives. You can't go around spouting things like "Marriage is evil" for reasons that could be used to define anything else as evil; things such as control, dominance, fear, power, human beings treated like property.... the list goes on. With that in mind, one could say "Laws are evil, sex is evil, money is evil," etc., but again, it depends upon who is using it and for what purpose. Law misused becomes tyranny. Sex misused becomes molestation and rape. Money misused becomes corruption.

It still doesn't mean that the concepts of marriage, law, sex, or money are inherently bad.

[pochercoaster]

I'm not saying that individual marriages are evil (I'm married myself), but so long as marriage exists in a patriarchal society it will further the interests of patriarchy. While there are egalitarian marriages, everywhere throughout the world (including the US) there are many more that enable male violence and subjugation of women through rape, spousal murder, financial abuse, etc. It's not all that uncommon (will find stats to back this up.) Considering marriage was conceived as a means to control women & children like chattel, it's really hard to separate the institution from the violence it causes and continues to cause. Marrying for romantic love is a really recent development and hasn't existed long enough to undo all the damage marriage does. Overall IMO it's quite safe to say that marriage is an evil institution.

[Hatake Kakashi]

I'm afraid I disagree. I sincerely doubt that people everywhere would fight so passionately to have the right to something inherently evil. I'm well aware of the abuses that happen in marriages, but again, you're looking at people getting married for entirely wrong reasons. Many men today get married to acquire a live-in sex-slave/concubine/dishwasher/punching bag/whateverpitifulreason, but the fact remains that many have found marriage to be a satisfying, life-long expression of love, devotion, and legally binding means to ensure their spouse is cared for in the event of their passing. Again, I argue that it's the motive behind the action, not the action itself.

You can't tell me, honestly, that millions of interracial, lesbian, gay, and transgender couples would want to fight for the right to have something equivalent to enslavement placed upon them. There has to be more to the institution of marriage than you're letting on.

[pochercoaster]

Except that's not what I was saying. I absolutely support same sex marriage. Where in my post did I say I'm against same sex marriage? (Also, what precludes the possibility of a same-sex spouse criticizing marriage as an institution?)

I was just explaining why I think marriage is evil.

You can support someone's right to an institution while still criticizing that institution. I similarly think the military is evil but everyone should be able to participate in it without being discriminated against.


You can't tell me, honestly, that millions of interracial, lesbian, gay, and transgender couples would want to fight for the right to have something equivalent to enslavement placed upon them. There has to be more to the institution of marriage than you're letting on.

Because society benefits married couples in ways that it doesn't benefit unmarried couples, such as access to health insurance, immigration, taxes, raising a family, etc. which forces couple who don't want to be married to get married in order to enjoy benefits that should actually be available to everyone regardless of their marital status.

[Hatake Kakashi]

Except that's not what I was saying. I absolutely support same sex marriage. Where in my post did I say I'm against same sex marriage?


You didn't. And I wasn't originally arguing with you. However;

Marriage is a patently evil institution and people all being like "Ohhoho we are going to pretend its bad for silly reasons" just takes away from the legitimate problems with it.

My argument was simply that marriage is not evil. You never said laws were evil, either. Nor money. Nor anything else that I mentioned. Picking an example that I made with a current hot topic to make a straw-man of isn't helping anyone.

Because society benefits married couples in ways that it doesn't benefit unmarried couples, such as access to health insurance, immigration, taxes, raising a family, etc. which forces couple who don't want to be married to get married in order to enjoy benefits that should actually be available to everyone regardless of their marital status.

Also, those who are getting married for those benefits you mentioned illustrate my point exactly. It's the motive behind the action that defines whether the act is good or evil. You could say that society itself is corrupt in the fashions that it coerces people into committing various actions in order to benefit themselves, and that I would wholeheartedly agree with.

[Osterbaum]

There's also the religious origins of marriage as an institution and what it implies when it is used as the official way to recognize couples by a state.

[Magus]

There's also the religious origins of marriage as an institution and what it implies when it is used as the official way to recognize couples by a state.

Well there were various movements to "strengthen civil unions", i.e. according straight and same-sex civil union partners the same rights married spouses have, in various states. But as far as I could tell neither side wanted to budge on the issue.

In the end the people working against recognizing same-sex civil unions ended up "losing" out in that so many of these states have just straight-up passed same-sex MARRIAGE laws.

[phil_]

You never said laws were evil, either. Nor money.I called money evil, but then I didn't submit the post 'cause I didn't feel like continuing to make this thread about how marriage is evil. But then you had to post this thing. I guess I could offer "Man, sometimes I think about things man"-type reasons why money is evil, but I think it would be more productive to stick what made me post. When you list a bunch of points that obviously no one would agree with because that would be silly, and no one addresses those silly points, that doesn't mean you win top score.* That last sentence was the important part of this post.

*This still applies when the points aren't silly; it's more about the "You gotta address all these, too" thing.

[Hatake Kakashi]

I called money evil, but then I didn't submit the post 'cause I didn't feel like continuing to make this thread about how marriage is evil. But then you had to post this thing. I guess I could offer "Man, sometimes I think about things man"-type reasons why money is evil, but I think it would be more productive to stick what made me post. When you list a bunch of points that obviously no one would agree with because that would be silly, and no one addresses those silly points, that doesn't mean you win top score. That last sentence was the important part of this post.

Top score?

Wow.

Just...

Wow.

[phil_]

Top score?

Wow.

Just...

Wow.Top score isn't the thing you win; it is the thing one achieves in order to win.

[Hatake Kakashi]

Seriously, I can't believe you'd stoop so low. You think I made my statements to make the top score on some fucking game you've dreamed up? I made my arguments because someone declared something I believe in to be evil. My arguments centered around the idea that it is motive, not object (or institution, or whatever), that defines the morality of the subject.

I'm going to step away and relax before I'm tempted further to get nasty about it.

[Osterbaum]

People don't argue to lose.

e: I'm just sayin' that it's fairly reasonable to assume you were arguing your point "to win" ie. you considered yourself to be right and were trying to convince the rest of us.

[phil_]

I can't believe inserting Power Thirst exclamations for levity backfired as completely as it did. Still doesn't make "You didn't address these points we're not talking about, so you're wrong" any more rhetorically sound, though.

[Hatake Kakashi]

I needed that bit of fresh air.

No, Oster. Not necessarily arguing to win or lose, but trying to figure out why marriage could be considered evil. I get the points mentioned, and yes, I concede, in those instances it is. I'm just not convinced that marriage, in and of itself, is evil.

And phil_, my apologies. Unfortunately, I am not quite adept at reading into sarcasm or levity in text. I was attempting to state that ideas, concepts, institutions, physical objects... they're just that. It is the people using those ideas, concepts, institutions and objects that either creates the good or evil in them.

Let's take the example you selected. Money. Now I will freely admit, the pursuit and acquisition of money has likely been more responsible for the atrocities that mankind commits than nearly any other cause. However, the concept of money (at least as I was taught to know it) is simply a physical symbolic measurement of one's earnings. It is a way for a society as a whole to attach a value to work or goods that can be conveniently utilized by its constituents. A dollar bill is not evil in and of itself. It cannot make a choice to commit murder, lie, sleep with its neighbor's spouse, etc., nor can it make a decision to feed the hungry, to put clothing on a person who has none, or pay the rent for someone down on their luck. On the other hand, people often use it to pay for murder, to buy lies in an election season, to rent a hotel room to shoot a pornographic snuff film, to buy groceries to feed their families, to buy a homeless person a hot cup of coffee, or to pay for research into curing disease.

Inanimate object/concept is inanimate.

Morally benign person is morally benign.

Morally corrupt person is morally corrupt.

That's all I'm saying.

[phil_]

I mean, I could argue that the very thing which makes money useful — its ability to conveniently attach a value to goods and services — is where the bad stuff happens; in that it shapes our worldview at a very deep level, i.e. unconsciously and constantly ranking and judging things on a continuum from valuable to worthless, which is what makes people unhappy over petty things; and that spending money to an evil end is a different ball of wax.

But really I'm just glad that breather you took worked and you don't hate us forever.

[Hatake Kakashi]

But really I'm just glad that breather you took worked and you don't hate us forever.

Shit, naw. There were other things in the forums that couldn't break me, this didn't stand a chance.

[Marelo]

The argument is not that marriage can't possibly be done well, nor even that it is inherently evil in some way in all its forms. The argument is that patriarchy makes marriage a tool of oppression, as it does with many other things, that the current institution of marriage, as a cultural structure affected by patriarchy, is corrupt.

This is separate from saying that any individual, specific marriage is inherently evil or harmful, either now or in the future. Speaking about these trends has nothing to do with your marriage or pocheros' marriage or the rights of same-sex couples to marry. It is just fine, and even intellectually consistent, for you to believe in your marriage and in the marriages of other healthy couples as good things while still acknowledging that the institution as it exists today, in the context of the culture surrounding it, is harmful.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

I didn't read any posts by anybody else because if I read too many of one persons posts we become legally married.


There are two basic arguments
1) The patriarchy argument is the first and is pretty good. This applies in general as well, even if we didn't live in patriacharl society- you are contracting out your relationship, making it difficult legally and socially to end it, partners are being coerced to stay together which is never a good sign. If they love each other they shouldn't need some form of legal coercion to stay together.
but I prefer
2) That marriage is inherentely evil because it encourages the formation of family groups- of competing units, of people who care more for protecting their family than for the good of the people as a whole. The best way to kill off revolutionaries is to get them married off and preferably to have kids- as soon as that happens their number 1 goal from then on is protecting and providing for their family and their spouse, thus preventing them from taking up risky actions, for pushing for change which will carry with it periods of uncertainity, from doing anything other than trying to make the maximum money possible.
The family unit is a deeply deeply conservative idea and it is promoted as such to enforce social control and to slow change. This is why the church are so all over controlling marriage- this began in the 12th century right as the church started instituting its most major structural reforms to get in with the rising economics and powers of Europe, they hadn't given a shit before, and they have kept it up ever since.
TLDR: Marriage is exploitative. Marriage is normative. Marriage is depowering. And it doesn't have any good points- there is no need for it.

[Magus]

Clearly when we operated under a barter system instead of currency life was all love and roses.

It is simply greed/lust, not whatever particular object we are applying it to, that is the problem. Capitalism is just a convenient evolution of age-old rapine behavior that allows for greater accumulation of wealth with less and less bloodshed--well, in-person bloodshed, there is plenty of vicarious bloodshed occurring--as time goes on. Whether you call it money or mammon it is the same thing.

Same thing with "marriage"--as a state institution it had been used as an evil tool but monogamous relationships are not necessarily good or bad, it is in their application.

[phil_]

Clearly when we operated under a barter system instead of currency life was all love and roses.You know, I almost put "Chickens and Rock Concerts" in that last post as a way of saying that I'm not proposing a return to barter (if we want to call a state that never existed a "return"), but I wasn't sure everyone else had been indoctrinated with the same pro-capitalist arguments I had and I couldn't find a straight-forward example of the "Currency is super because you can't pay for a rock concert with chickens; that's ridiculous" story, so I left it out. Wow, that was one sentence.

So, yeah, some people gonna hate that other people are alive; it seems impossible to change that. However, currency's an extant way society as a whole encourages and rewards that behavior, and I'm gonna complain about things that exist with less prompting than I will complain about things which don't exist.

[RobinStarwing]

I didn't read any posts by anybody else because if I read too many of one persons posts we become legally married.


There are two basic arguments
1) The patriarchy argument is the first and is pretty good. This applies in general as well, even if we didn't live in patriacharl society- you are contracting out your relationship, making it difficult legally and socially to end it, partners are being coerced to stay together which is never a good sign. If they love each other they shouldn't need some form of legal coercion to stay together.
but I prefer
2) That marriage is inherentely evil because it encourages the formation of family groups- of competing units, of people who care more for protecting their family than for the good of the people as a whole. The best way to kill off revolutionaries is to get them married off and preferably to have kids- as soon as that happens their number 1 goal from then on is protecting and providing for their family and their spouse, thus preventing them from taking up risky actions, for pushing for change which will carry with it periods of uncertainity, from doing anything other than trying to make the maximum money possible.
The family unit is a deeply deeply conservative idea and it is promoted as such to enforce social control and to slow change. This is why the church are so all over controlling marriage- this began in the 12th century right as the church started instituting its most major structural reforms to get in with the rising economics and powers of Europe, they hadn't given a shit before, and they have kept it up ever since.
TLDR: Marriage is exploitative. Marriage is normative. Marriage is depowering. And it doesn't have any good points- there is no need for it.

I'm a Child of Divorce and I approve this message.