The 2016 election.

rednekk98 wrote: My aunt went on a nice little rant about healthcare and how she doesn't remember going to school with anyone with severe allergies and cant understand why an epi-pen being astronomically expensive is an issue. When reminded that either those allergies didn't exist then thanks to overly-cautious approaches to early exposure or that those kids simply died before school age, she claimed she saw nothing wrong with that and maybe those kids are genetically inferior and should be allowed to die out if you can't afford life-saving medication out-of pocket, or that she should have to pay any more in insurance subsidize keeping those people alive.

Actually, more and more info coming out now points to a lack of caution with early exposure is what prevented life-threatening reactions in kids "back in the day." Case in point, my dad is allergic as hell to peanuts, but it only bothers him when combined with another allergy. He literally scores a "9" on the 1-10 reaction scale, but won't show any signs of a reaction unless another allergy hits. The reason? He ate peanuts/peanut-butter his whole life from an early age so his body adapted over that time. Doctors are now recommended to tell parents to feed their kids EVERYTHING* as soon as they are on solid foods (*with the exception of honey due to botulism concerns).

As for the rest of it, no offense, but your aunt can go DIAF for statements like that IMHO.

tallen702 wrote: rednekk98 wrote: My aunt went on a nice little rant about healthcare and how she doesn't remember going to school with anyone with severe allergies and cant understand why an epi-pen being astronomically expensive is an issue. When reminded that either those allergies didn't exist then thanks to overly-cautious approaches to early exposure or that those kids simply died before school age, she claimed she saw nothing wrong with that and maybe those kids are genetically inferior and should be allowed to die out if you can't afford life-saving medication out-of pocket, or that she should have to pay any more in insurance subsidize keeping those people alive. Actually, more and more info coming out now points to a lack of caution with early exposure is what prevented life-threatening reactions in kids "back in the day." Case in point, my dad is allergic as hell to peanuts, but it only bothers him when combined with another allergy. He literally scores a "9" on the 1-10 reaction scale, but won't show any signs of a reaction unless another allergy hits. The reason? He ate peanuts/peanut-butter his whole life from an early age so his body adapted over that time. Doctors are now recommended to tell parents to feed their kids EVERYTHING* as soon as they are on solid foods (*with the exception of honey due to botulism concerns). As for the rest of it, no offense, but your aunt can go DIAF for statements like that IMHO.

And that's a reasonable analysis based on not being an ass and looking at actual studies. Not a reflexive dismissal that any other person's issue is not their issue and that it's better to let them die or go broke than maybe spend tens of dollars a year on anything that might help them, family or not. I got some other gems from her and the extended family last weekend as well. 

Flynn should not visit any former Soviet-block countries for a while.

Or ever again.

Rednekk, I've gotten a lot of that in the past several months as well. People who I used to consider close friends now speak to me as though I'm an invalid. I can't even begin to count how many times I've been called a snowflake, an ignorant millennial, a libtard and on and on by those same individuals. A few family members have blocked myself and my wife entirely from social media.

I have owned two separate start-up small businesses. I have a degree in business from a fairly small (sub 5,000 students until 2017) University in SW Missouri. People tell me that University professors are all liberal drones, but I can assure you; mine weren't anywhere close to liberal. I scored in the top 1% of business students nationwide, including Ivy League, during the Major Field Test. I AM more liberal than most of my surrounding community, but truthfully, I am fairly middle of the road with left leaning tendencies. Yet I have family members introducing me like, "This is my liberal cousin..." because we had recently had a conversation about why I felt it was wrong to ban and deport the entire Muslim population.

I had another conversation recently about "Why can't all the refugees go to Middle Eastern countries?" We went back and forth on this for a little while until I broke down and started listing off the actual refugee quota numbers that each country had set for refugee immigration. I then posed the question, "If these [independant] nations have already set their limits, doesn't that invalidate your argument? We don't get to tell them how many refugees they take in; we only get to control our own country's actions." At which point the other person stopped responding to me entirely, and went back to posting absurd far-right meme's on their page again about millennial lib-tards.

This absolutely is the Twilight Zone, and it's maddening. I've shared the wikipedia page on "gaslighting" with so many friends in the past few months I'm starting to thing I should get a small advertising stipend.

Comparing Obama to Trump in any capacity isn't going to win you compassion from anyone other than the far-right.

The enemy of your enemy is still burning your house down.

I don't expect to be "hip and with-it" for the rest of my life. I do intend to hold on to my own sense of basic self-preservation.

Good on you Whale. Be prepared for "wasting" you're vote comments in 4 years.

impulse418 wrote: Good on you Whale. Be prepared for "wasting" you're vote comments in 4 years.

I can appreciate the sentiments, but I think priority number 1 is to get Trump out of office. Refine party policy and culture from there. Don't get ahead of yourself.

Tl;dr - Don't waste your vote.

I don't entirely disagree with that. Still - getting Trump out is item 1. Don't fracture the party before you can accomplish that. A third party will struggle to gain the necessary numbers in the given time frame.

__sneaky__ wrote: Well after the incident of bombing Syria; today we just dropped a MOAB on Afghanistan. For those of you who are not familiar with this bomb, it's the largest non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal. This is going well.

I'm more worried of war drums when it comes to North Korea.