'...disowning me and claiming I'm possessed by the devil.'

[hal]

Lemon Drop wrote:
[quote=rjmacs]
He's a denizen of the Tea Party class of 2010. No thanks - voted against impeachment Part I, in favor of punishing sanctuary cities, and to defeat the Equality Act. Let him roast with the rest.

Yeah, we had already established he's a Republican. At some point you have to acknowledge courage in people with whom you have political disagreements.
Indeed - he's going to lose his career in politics and he had to know that was a possibility when he stood his ground. He's a republican, I'll never vote for him, but I'm not going to call for his head on a pike either.

[deckeda]

rjmacs wrote:
He's a denizen of the Tea Party class of 2010. No thanks - voted against impeachment Part I, in favor of punishing sanctuary cities, and to defeat the Equality Act. Let him roast with the rest.

He’s also one of a very few Republicans claiming that evidence of election fraud matters and that everyone who argues against that basic construct is insane.

Dismissing him out of hand for the rest also dismisses what he’s doing here: actively campaigning against his nutjob party.

[rjmacs]

Lemon Drop wrote:
[quote=rjmacs]
He's a denizen of the Tea Party class of 2010. No thanks - voted against impeachment Part I, in favor of punishing sanctuary cities, and to defeat the Equality Act. Let him roast with the rest.

Yeah, we had already established he's a Republican. At some point you have to acknowledge courage in people with whom you have political disagreements.
Where was his courage when he was voting against my civil rights? I think your standards are slipping, and I like you.

Political disagreements are one thing. When you vote repeatedly to allow legal discrimination against citizens, it starts to enter another realm....

How much would you be singing his praises if he thought that hotels and restaurants should be allowed to refuse Black people service solely on account of race?

[Ted King]

rjmacs wrote:
[quote=Lemon Drop]
[quote=rjmacs]
He's a denizen of the Tea Party class of 2010. No thanks - voted against impeachment Part I, in favor of punishing sanctuary cities, and to defeat the Equality Act. Let him roast with the rest.

Yeah, we had already established he's a Republican. At some point you have to acknowledge courage in people with whom you have political disagreements.
Where was his courage when he was voting against my civil rights?
It sounds like what you are saying is that if someone has done enough deleterious things that no one should give them credit for doing a worthy thing. Is that implied by what you are saying?

[rjmacs]

deckeda wrote:
[quote=rjmacs]
He's a denizen of the Tea Party class of 2010. No thanks - voted against impeachment Part I, in favor of punishing sanctuary cities, and to defeat the Equality Act. Let him roast with the rest.

He’s also one of a very few Republicans claiming that evidence of election fraud matters and that everyone who argues against that basic construct is insane.

Dismissing him out of hand for the rest also dismisses what he’s doing here: actively campaigning against his nutjob party.
Good for him. Honestly, I don't care whether his party burns itself to the ground. He can either throw matches or spray water - not my problem.

Edit: if he really wants to campaign against his nutjob party, he should leave it and join the other team, and in the meanwhile reform his backwards attitudes.

[rjmacs]

Ted King wrote:
[quote=rjmacs]
[quote=Lemon Drop]
[quote=rjmacs]
He's a denizen of the Tea Party class of 2010. No thanks - voted against impeachment Part I, in favor of punishing sanctuary cities, and to defeat the Equality Act. Let him roast with the rest.

Yeah, we had already established he's a Republican. At some point you have to acknowledge courage in people with whom you have political disagreements.
Where was his courage when he was voting against my civil rights?
It sounds like what you are saying is that if someone has done enough deleterious things that no one should give them credit for doing a worthy thing. Is that implied by what you are saying?
You are seriously tempting me to Godwin this thread, which I won't. Even terrible politicians occasionally do good things. Our former president granted a number of unjustly sentenced Black Americans clemency, but it didn't make him someone worthy of praise, IMHO.

Other people can sing his praises - maybe he didn't do anything to curb your civil rights. I won't.

Edit: also, it's HIS PARTY that is crucifying him. Why does he get credit for being a noble hypocrite? Does he think that the Republicans who are pillorying him now are somehow not 'real' Republicans? Their bigotry and lunacy are more readily on display now, but it's been there all along...

[Ted King]

rjmacs wrote:
[quote=Ted King]
[quote=rjmacs]
[quote=Lemon Drop]
[quote=rjmacs]
He's a denizen of the Tea Party class of 2010. No thanks - voted against impeachment Part I, in favor of punishing sanctuary cities, and to defeat the Equality Act. Let him roast with the rest.

Yeah, we had already established he's a Republican. At some point you have to acknowledge courage in people with whom you have political disagreements.
Where was his courage when he was voting against my civil rights?
It sounds like what you are saying is that if someone has done enough deleterious things that no one should give them credit for doing a worthy thing. Is that implied by what you are saying?
You are seriously tempting me to Godwin this thread, which I won't. Even terrible politicians occasionally do good things. Our former president granted a number of unjustly sentenced Black Americans clemency, but it didn't make him someone worthy of praise, IMHO.

Other people can sing his praises - maybe he didn't do anything to curb your civil rights. I won't.
Okay, I just wanted to make sure I was interpreting your words correctly.

I'm going to assume that you are okay with the phrase, "done enough deleterious things to not be worthy of credit for doing something worthy". As with most issues like this, I look at it as a continuum from "done hardly any deleterious things so deserve credit for worthy things they do" to "done German Nazi amount of deleterious things and don't deserve credit for any worthy thing they do". People can judge where they would put Kinzinger on that continuum. I'm thinking you and Lemon are putting him on different places on that continuum. Not judging, just making an observation - or maybe better to say that I'm sharing my speculation about how this shakes out.

[rjmacs]

Ted King wrote:
I'm going to assume that you are okay with the phrase, "done enough deleterious things to not be worthy of credit for doing something worthy". As with most issues like this, I look at it as a continuum from "done hardly any deleterious things so deserve credit for worthy things they do" to "done German Nazi amount of deleterious things and don't deserve credit for any worthy thing they do". People can judge where they would put Kinzinger on that continuum. I'm thinking you and Lemon are putting him on different places on that continuum. Not judging, just making an observation - or maybe better to say that I'm sharing my speculation about how this shakes out.

That's a fair assessment.

It appears to me that now, if you are in the GOP and publicly acknowledge reality, Democrats are eager to give you cookies.

I'm disinclined to forget that this man's political career is grounded in his denial of other people's rights, and pursuing a Trump agenda (he voted with the president's priorities 90% of the time) which has led to the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, the separation of thousands of children from their parents, and the embrace of bigotry in the face of progress.

His latter-day willingness to separate from his peers and observe his oath of office hardly qualifies him for praise. He is due for repentance and acknowledgment of the harm he participated in over the last several years, not PAC contributions from Democrats so that he can save his party.

[sekker]

Praise or no, I find it fascinating that he doesn’t drink the koolaid.

Like Jeff Flake before him, why can’t more say the Emperor Has No Clothes?

EDIT: fixed Senator's Flakes last name