Political Cartoons

Since you keep parroting this line, I'll ask a couple of questions:

1) Do you believe that giving a coworker a neck rub during a break in a conference is professional?

2) You're absolutely sure that this is all taken out of context and that the "smirk" given afterward implies consent and approval?

From:

Parroting implies that I'm blindly repeating some talking point. I am not. I am opining.

1) Neck rub? Please. It was 1.5 seconds long. Professional? Not especially, but again, the context is unknown. It could have been an inside joke.

2) One cannot give consent after something has happened. No one knows what exactly the context was. I don't know what it implies, and you don't either. That smirk might have been her responding to his action based on a joke told earlier. NO ONE KNOWS. It's not a big deal.

From:

1) I have friends that I work with, but if I were at a conference with them and rubbed their neck, even for "just 1.5 seconds", it would be decidedly unprofessional even if everyone surrounded me knew the context of said rub, but chances are a lot of them wouldn't. That's why I'm mature enough to not rub on people in professional situations.

2) One cannot give consent after something has happened. Good point! However, since the President obviously can't distinguish between when something is appropriate or not given the context (see #1), your willingness to automatically assume that it's "no big deal" in a "move along, nothing to see here" way even though we don't know disturbs me. In fact, it sounds extremely apologist in much the same way that I hear others trumpeting the "no big deal" line. Perhaps it's not parroting if you're not following talking points and came to this conclusion all on your own, but it's still apologist nonetheless and, to repeat myself, disturbing because being at professional event and rubbing on somebody is not okay, no matter how much you'd like to believe otherwise.

From:

I'm no Bush apologist. I strongly dislike him, his presidency, and his administration. Sure, it was unprofessional. He shouldn't have done it. He's our head of state, and he has repeatedly made himself out to be a fool, both with his words and actions. The reason I said that "it's not big deal" is because Merkel hasn't made any mention that he violated her, and because no official actions have been taken to censure* him for the neck rub. This just seems like such a non-issue. Perhaps I'm wrong. But yes, it's unprofessional. I don't know what else to say.

*I don't know if this is the right word or not.

From:

To me it is an issue, because it was one of those rare, unscripted moments where we get to see how the man really is, the type of person he really is, outside of the sound bites and staged media appearances. If I were Angela Merkel and I was trying to repair relations with the United States, drawing further attention to the incident would not be the way I would go about doing that, especially considering how retalitory this administration is. That leaves the people to be outraged by how unappropriate the situation is, which is why when I hear "it's not a big deal" it ticks me off.

I appreciate the time you took to debate this with me and I especially appreciate your explanation. Thank you.

From:

Do you know if the German people have taken this very seriously? Are they similarly outraged?

No problem. I always enjoy pleasant debate.

From:

I'm not sure if they are or not. The incident was originally reported in German media as Bush's "love attack."

From:

Hah. Ok.

From:

ccnuggie.livejournal.com

I don't think anyone can compare to Clinton banging every chick he saw.

From:

megiloth.livejournal.com

...except Hillary

From:

lesleykajira.livejournal.com

Once again a "conservative" misses out on the concept of "consensual versus non-consensual".

From:

ccnuggie.livejournal.com

Consensual? I guess you forgot how he got taken to court a few times for it?

From:

Can you quantify it? Please exclude any republican smear jobs.

(deleted comment)

From:

ccnuggie.livejournal.com

lol...sure it didn't.

From:

...unlike President Bush's numerous vacations.

From:

How did his actions in private impact his job performance?

From:

anightwlkr.livejournal.com

How do we know how if it affected it...good or bad?
They all screw all of us in the end.

From:

Oh, I agree. I was asking

ccnuggie because he approaches anything Democrat with blind vitriolic hatred but fails to see the shortcomings in his own party's ideology.

From:

megiloth.livejournal.com

I have a dream too. That one day, all liberals will cut themselves and go to a San Francisco bathhouse.

(deleted comment)

From:

megiloth.livejournal.com

Can't a man dream? Stop trying to disenfranchise me!!

From:

My dream is that one day, a UFO comes and picks up all of the Liberals to transport them to a distant galaxy.

From:

-hiddenwolf-.livejournal.com

Hope your dream to be accomplised, for we sometimes do want to get the fuck out of here.

From:

zombiesmustdie.livejournal.com

we both know that isnt your dream. you seem to fancy yourself as a little annie coulter whos out there to put every liberal in its place. if their were no liberals you'd have no purpose, a large part of your person would become useless.

you NEED liberals because you need someone to argue against.

From:

I'm joking about the UFO! Anyway, this is not the first time I've been compared to Ann Coulter (online and in response to my columns in my school newspaper), and I consider it a mini-honor.

(deleted comment)

From:

Well said. We need more people like you in this world.

From:

That's so nice to hear, even though the UFO thing was a joke.

(deleted comment)

From:

lachrymite.livejournal.com

I think a lot of the conservatives in the community have just given up taking any debate here very seriously. Due to the fact that the liberals outnumber the conservatives by a very significant margin, and that there are going to be some rude boneheads on each side, it's more likely that liberal rude boneheads are going to respond to any particular conservative post just because there's a larger pool of liberals from which the rude boneheads may appear. Even if only one in five posters is a bonehead, when you're outnumbered 5 to 1 in the number of responses, chances are you're going to get at least one really obnoxious one every time.

It seems to me a lot of the long time posters here used to try serious attempts at debate, but just got tired of there always being a few responses that were totally rude and stupid and just started doing it back in an exaggerated manner to point out the absurdity of it, because they no longer take any debate here seriously.

I also think the same thing would happen in reverse if the demographics were reversed and the conservatives outnumbered the liberals. I don't think either side is apt to have more or less assholes than the other, but when you're in the minority the assholes pop up against you more frequently.

That's basically why I stopped posting here, anyway; I just got really tired of getting a few incredibly immature responses along with any serious ones, and it just wasn't worth the hassle to get involved anymore. Others might take to trolling instead.

Of course, maybe I'm reading into things far too much as well. :)

From:

You are correct in many ways. When I post, I'm tired of seeing all of the stupid responses, but I keep posting because I want a real conversation. Most of the time, there are only a few people who are interested in a serious debate. In addition, it's not easy being on the less popular side.

From: