The objection isn't with the thoughts and prayers themselves. The problem those decrying "thoughts and prayers" have is that "thoughts and prayers" seem to be all the gun crowd and GOP ever offer. The folks decrying "thoughts and prayers" are tired of the GOP offering condolences but no solutions. I'm not sure if that's entirely fair, but I understand their frustration on the issue.
Republicans are not entirely responsible for all the flaws in the political process - mainly, but not entirely. Reforming one party won't fix the districts, the voter lists, the malfunctioning machines, the electoral college, the campaign schedule, the amount of money being squandered on it, the misinformation, the mud-slinging, the lobbies, the pork barrels, etc.
Blaming the victims? That's easy, but offers no solution. Many Americans still believe that their system is democratic, so they accept whatever government it gives them. It's not as if they had any way to change the situation: their representatives are under no obligation to represent their interest. The gun control 'controversy' over the last twenty years proves that. Voting for somebody different makes no difference: whatever the next candidate promises, he or she won't be under obligation to keep their word any more than the last one. Which may explain the voter turnout. The only thing you can count on from every candidate, every public official: When they fail you in life, they'll always send you thoughts and prayers in death.
That's beside the point. Republican Party flaws, not the flaws in the "process", are overwhelming. Their responsibility for the malfunctions of the process - in addition to its "flaws" - is overwhelming. When you have a fascist movement taking over a major political Party, you have a central and overriding problem that trumps the others. Yeah, it would. Almost all of that is direct Republican doing since 1980. That stuff is almost all the creation and establishment and consequences of the Republican Party alone. An actual reform of the Republican Party alone would have prevented most of that stuff from taking over, and would probably be sufficient to get rid of most of it now. (Mind, I don't think "reform" is a sound idea. It's destroyed, that Party - it needs to be junked). And "most" is what is needed: it's a matter of degree. We don't need perfection - like the bearing clearances in an engine: they just have to be good enough, and the machine runs. A majority of whom voted against the Republican Congress and the Republican President that nevertheless took power. Baloney. It's not "obligation", it's character. Intelligence and integrity. A backing ideology. Some people have more than others - even dramatically more. There have been clear differences between different politicians, and clear differences in the quality and representation voters received depending on who represented them. And that holds even for the miserable bag of weaselers the Dem Party has thrown into the arena this past generation. Dems in power gave us an assault rifle ban, Reps in power took it away, for a small example. Dems gave us the Lautenberg Amendment, which has saved many lives, Reps blocked its implementation in many States and took it to Court. Even on a Party line basis, beyond individual character, it makes a difference who's in office. On a larger scale: There's no way in hell Al Gore invades Iraq, pushes through the Bush tax cuts, or fails so completely to regulate the major banks and mortgage lending industry - and that would have changed the entire debate on gun rights, from ameliorating or possibly even preventing the Crash and its white male economic fallout to draining the post-combat and militarization effects on what we can call the "mood" of the Trump voting electorate. And Clinton in office, especially with a non-gerrymandered Congress, would change the gun control debate dramatically. These bills would not be bottled up in committee, for starters. Elections, even compromised ones like recent US displays of money, have consequences.
If the representatives are not obliged to carry out their platform policies, and the candidates are chosen by non-obligated party delegates, the voters have little choice, even less control and no redress. Nor do they have access to accurate information regarding a candidate's character - only advertising, accusations, propaganda, self-promotion and opinion. No independent, reliable sources. Make that 1968. https://qz.com/645990/nixon-advisor...iminalize-black-people-and-the-anti-war-left/ Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article63683222.html#storylink=cpy But then, given the purges that have taken place in the party since then, how is a comprehensive reform supposed to happen? It can't until after the whole thing implodes. Meanwhile, there is nothing to stop the Dems reforming their own internal problems. Why are the best candidates - and there are plenty of good people with backbones who might run! - unable to get nominations? Financial support: the most urgent reform, overall, is to take all that money out of the the political process. Everybody who got elected with big bucks has a debt to his patrons; is not going to turn on his backers. That makes reform impossible.
That's not the case. The voters have had legitimate choices between seriously different candidates, and enough information to make these choices on solid grounds. I agree the Republican Party is beyond reformation. But only the Republican Party has to implode. That's not strictly the case. As Molly Ivins put it - retelling a maxim that had emerged from one of the worst of American State governments - "If you can't take their money, drink their booze, shake their hands, and vote against them anyway, you don't belong in politics". She also tells the story of a legislator who was forced to vote against one of his big money patrons, who said to that patron that he was sorry but he had to do it, on the basis of three letters received from constituents. Just knowing he was being watched by actual voters, in other words. Because the fact is that Congressmen don't primarily need money - they primarily need votes. The money that counts, beyond the perks and comforts (trivial sums, by comparison), is largely just a means of getting votes. And Iceland, among other places, shows what can happen when the screwup is so bad that the votes aren't available for the money. Our field of view has been obstructed by the fascist takeover of the Republican Party, especially its media wing.
With this, I totally agree. Hence my contention that the voters do not access to reliable information. (Not to get into the whole process of slow, incremental brain-washing, concept-adulteration and language-erosion.)
So well-wishing is self-aggrandizing? If he didn't know him well, how else was he to contact Smith? According to you. Again, so well-wishing is bad? Especially if you can only express it through social media? Yes, they are. More sympathy for high schoolers in Parkland, to sway votes. You changed the subject with your first post to this thread. This is not a thread about mass shootings, and if it were, handguns are more relevant than rifles. Nothing alternative about it. They expressed support. But that doesn't mean they have enough votes without Democrat support. And what did the Democrats do when they had POTUS and both houses of Congress? Not guns and not immigration. They did nothing on either when they had control. No, I just know how guns work. Your vacuous denial just shows you don't. Campus carry is a state and local school board decision. And for the twentieth time, no resources necessary. Just allow current permit holders to pack on campus. Sounds like you'd prefer the federal government mandate that teachers carry. The readily available help is diverting the same sort of security the city provided for the Oscars to schools.
The Republicans have done nothing but offer thoughts and prayers, despite controlling Congress for years and now the White House. They have offered thoughts and prayers, and otherwise blocked Dem proposals and done nothing themselves. That's irrelevant, but: They used those four months to pass the bulk of Obamacare - the stuff that couldn't get through on reconciliation. And you think you don't need an alternative universe - - - I listed some of the costs of Trump's proposal. Other proposals are even more expensive. Your claim was that the proposals on the table did not cost the schools anything. They do. So does yours, btw - although it's the cheapest of the ineffective proposals. It was supposed to be something besides thoughts and prayers.
Just like the Dems when they last had POTUS and both houses of Congress. They just kept quite until they could blame Reps again. Instead of gun control or immigration reform. You seem pretty reality adverse.
Why should he? It's not doing Smith any good, so he could just keep it to himself, instead of making a public display. Not bad, not good, not anything: totally worthless. Why make a public display of it, unless to be noticed? Sympathy is exactly as useful as thoughts and prayers. The high-schoolers themselves aren't praying and wishing; they're campaigning.
