It was at me but I decided to ignore. I had my share of discussions with people that don't want to actually have a chat, maybe understand why you have such views, maybe even learn something in the process. 

Some people just want to pick up fights on the internet to win arguments, maybe they get off doing it or something. You can sense it by the way they ask their questions and the words used. 

I recommend you do the same, for your own sanity when you face people like that. 

It's a shame unfortunately. In the end  this whole thread is a good example on how the left, especially the very hard left, see conservative people.

I will go back lurking in this thread, I dont want to derail it as it should be about US politics and not how each side of the war paints the other one.

Except we know that the majority of republicans and conservatives (even those who do wear masks and are vaccinated) do not support compulsory masking and vaccination.  For example, DeSantis is very popular among republicans because of his decisions in Florida.   Truly horrible policy that is putting people in danger.  We also know that many conservatives are making the personal decisions to not get vaccinated and pushing back against all levels of government attempting to get the virus under control, which is only exacerbating this crisis.  Captain Explosion's response was totally understandable under the circumstances.

People getting upset over legitimate (and popular) policy that is negatively effecting the lives of 10s of millions of people is not compelling evidence that this forum is biased against conservative voices.  And it certainly does not warrant defending the weird caricature of the left that Dulfite described.  Completely misrepresenting a group and what they believe is way worse than criticizing a group for things they are actively doing and promoting, hyperbole be damned.

This is actually one of the most diverse forums of political discussion I have found, which is why I keep coming back to read posts every day.  If people are thinking this is an echo chamber...  They are probably in an echo chamber of their own.

The way I see it, Conservatives are petulant children with power.

When your kid's sick, you keep him at home, tell him to stay in bed, and eat chicken soup until he's better. You don't go 'oh, he needs the socialization' and send him to the neighbour's birthday party while he's still pale and coughing up phlegm. You wait until he's better, then you wait a little more just to be safe, because being behind in your school or missing out on a bit of cake is a far less harsh penalty than death.

anyone who;s like 'boo hoo I got my rights I don't gotta wear masks' is completely missing the point, is selfish, is ignorant, and frankly should be ostracized. If americans actually had compassion for their fellow man (like most democrats do, it's why they become democrats), they'd wear the masks out of respect and solidarity. Unfortunately, you've got an entire party of fools who go against anything the government says regardless of its merit.

Protip/life hack: Automatically disbelieving anything told to you by the experts/people in power is not free thought and is not just you not being sheep, it's being an intellectual hipster. you're not a cool free thinker, you're making a fool of yourself.

"Oh, but nobody can make me wear a mask!" Some might say. "It infringes upon my rights!" others might say. But have you ever been told you have to get car insurance? Or wear a seatbelt? Or go the speed limit? Or obey traffic laws? Or all laws, for that matter. Your rights end when the safety of others is on the line. That's why you're allowed to smoke in your own home but not in a restaurant anymore. That's why you have to drive the speed limit and obey the laws.

We now live in a world where simply being next to each other too closely is enough to put each other at risk. Wearing a mask and staying apart sucks. Nobody is denying that. Nobody LIKES wearing masks and nobody likes being told to stay at home, but it's what needs to be done, and as long as petulant man-children are actively fighting against these laws and being selfish about it, we're gonna keep going into further lockdowns and keep having new waves and people are going to keep dying and it's going to be the fault of the fools who think their personal comfort is more important than the health and safety of literally everyone around them,

And you absolutely should be forced to have 'vaccine papers' in order to travel. Holy shit I don't understand how people think this is a bad thing.

Depends what you mean by "the left". If you mean that most people in these groups tend to vote for the Democratic Party's candidates for public office, then yes. If you mean that these are all like ideologically progressive people who subscribe to Kimberle Crenshaw's social justice theories, then no. The Democratic Party is the primary ballot destination of basically everyone in this country who doesn't specifically identify as a conservative, and there are also a good number of straight-up conservatives in the Democratic coalition too.

Concerning Democratic conservatives, your average Muslim-American is indeed an example. This is a person who favors the Democrats for their refugee/Middle East policies, but is often quite sexist, anti-Semitic, and bigoted. There are also many black conservatives in the Democratic coalition since nearly all black people vote Democratic. That's been a ritual tradition for more than 50 years now, owing to the fact that it was Democratic presidents who signed most all the key bills challenging the old Jim Crow system into law. Outside of race issues, many black Democratic voters are rightists. That's part of why black people tend to be the most ideologically moderate voting block in the Democratic Party overall; because it's not just the leftists and the moderates among them who vote Democratic, but the conservatives as well. In point of fact, for this very reason, drifting too far to the left could realistically threaten the party's current margins among black voters in particular. The Republicans could also help themselves though by not reflexively defending each and every police shooting of black men that occurs.

61% of American women identify themselves as feminists presently and are indeed most concentrated in and around the Democratic Party, yes, though I would characterize the median woman identifying herself with that term in this country as ideologically liberal (as in to say individualist more than anything else) more so than progressive. This person tends to be, well, pretty much an average, middle class American who accordingly favors more moderate, middle class type candidates. (I'm not especially representative in this sense, being as I'm a working class person and consider myself a moderate, but typically vote for progressive candidates because of their populistic economic policy ideas like $15/hour minimum wage, Medicare for all, workplace democracy, public works programs, this sort of thing.) The typical American woman is a feminist is what I'm trying to say, so there's nothing that greatly distinguishes her way of thinking from that of just simply the average American. She is the average American. She votes Democratic like most women in general vote Democratic.

I'm of the view that lesbians, gay men, bisexual people, and trans people ought to be thought of separately rather than as a singular, monolithic phenomenon, but of course opinion polls typically capture only small samples of LGBT people in general, so I guess it's just not too practical in general to ask pollsters to dissect the political opinions of each of these groups individually unless they're sampling like 20,000 people or more. Anyway, "LGBT" people have typically voted Democratic primarily owing to "LGBT issues", if you will. However, as many noticed, the Democratic margin amongst LGBT people fell last year to the lowest on record (although the lowest on record was still a 37-point margin). I suspect that's owed to the realization of marriage equality and child adoption rights nationwide in no small part, which might have the effect of causing many non-heterosexual people to focus more on other issues wherein perhaps some are more prone to agree with Republicans. It's also owed to a fundamental change of heart among Republicans though that was caused by Donald Trump, which is that most Republicans now support same-sex marriage too. One cannot discount the Milo Yiannopolous / Twinks for Trump / Pulse night club factor or the fact that Trump was the first Republican president to (however crudely) acknowledge Pride Month, for example. Lesbian critics of gender identity like myself I would classify as a separate phenomenon that still consists pretty exclusively of Democratic voters. I voted for Biden, for example, and can't think of a single lesbian I know who voted for Trump. Democrats are alienating this group right now and many are considering shifting to independent status, but interest in Republicans remains fairly minimal. The GOP will have to change certain key positions like their opposition to abortion rights and the Violence Against Women Act to have any hope of getting a majority of this group. The general positions of GC lesbians is: support for women-only spaces, abortion rights, same-sex marriage and family rights, opposing surrogacy, opposing the sex industry, and above all general seriousness about combating rape, battery, and sexual objectification.

What I'm saying is that the Democratic coalition is a large and tenuous one featuring many groups with conflicting interests, yeah. It's more diverse than the Republican coalition in every way, including in terms of ideological range. In general it consists about 40% of moderates (mostly working class people who think like Eric Adams or Andrew Yang; I consider myself part of this group, but it often goes without decent representation in many primaries), 30% of ordinary liberals (general individualists who maybe support a modest welfare state if it doesn't inconvenience the business community), 20% of progressives (proper welfare state / social justice types; typically younger people), and 10% of conservatives who vote Democratic for single-issue reasons (also rarely represented in Democratic primaries). That'd be my assessment of the demographic breakdown.

I'm from a military family and I have some pretty strong feelings about the Taliban's recent takeover of Afghanistan that I feel like airing tonight. First, let's get the academic shit out of the way.

POST-TALIBAN VICTORY POLLING:

Remember a month ago when I pointed out the downward trend in President Biden's popular support and highlighted a bunch of the demographic changes in who was supporting him? Well that trend has sped up this last month to the point that he's now actually underwater for the first time in the current moving average of polls. Biden currently averages the support of 47.8% of Americans, while a larger 48.6% now disapprove of the job he's doing as president.

Although some of this recent shift is likely owed to things like increasing worries about the rising cost of living (which has outpaced wage growth all year), the coronavirus continuing to spread at faster and faster rates across the country and the consequences of that, ongoing concerns about rising rates of violent crime and the perpetually chaotic situation at the southern border since Biden took office, most of the drop from last month's support levels has occurred in just the last week, which strongly indicates that the difference is primarily owed to the Taliban taking over Afghanistan last Sunday.

The single most representative poll in the current sample is the latest one conducted by the Economist and YouGov, which has Biden exactly tied. A visit to pages 196-8 reveals that the demographic trends I highlighted last month have largely continued in this poll, with the difference that support for Biden and the Democrats has now also dropped (slightly) among white people and men as well. The biggest concern here should be the continued erosion of support from groups that form key Democratic voting blocks.

2020 Biden vote vs. current Biden approval levels among...

Black people: 87% vs. 63%
Hispanic people: 65% vs. 44%
Working class people: 55% vs. 41%
Middle class people: 56% vs. 46%
Women: 57% vs. 47%
Moderates: 64% vs. 54%

An overwhelming majority of Americans had favored withdrawing the last U.S. troops from Afghanistan back in April, but support for doing so fell by 20 points to 49% over the course of the summer as the Taliban failed to adhere to the terms of the peace deal we'd struck with them and instead began just seizing territory, along with American weapons and military equipment, as we pulled out. The most pointed consequence is that the Economist/YouGov poll linked above shows that barely more than a third of Americans remain confident in President Biden's ability to handle an international crisis (see page 214).

MY FEELINGS ABOUT RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN AFGHANISTAN

Okay, so now that we've established that many, many Americans consider the Taliban seizing Kabul to be a bad thing that probably shouldn't have been allowed to happen, let me say why I agree.

Like I said before, military service runs in my family. My dad fought in the Vietnam War as part of that tradition. He didn't believe in the cause, but he did believe in a concept called patriotic duty. I didn't really understand that much as a kid when he tried to explain it to me. The war severely damaged his ability to function on multiple levels and he never really recovered. He degenerated into alcoholism and was physically abusive to me and my mom. He eventually died in a car accident (yep, alcohol involved). As I grew into my teen and early adult years, I sought to distance myself from his way of viewing life as much as I could. This eventually landed me in the orbit of a series of Maoist type organizations, one of which, called the Leading Light Communist Organization, I eventually joined. For six months. It was a tiny, misogynistic leader cult of about 25 internet zombies mostly living in Denver, Colorado; about 20 guys, five women (including myself), mostly white, entirely controlled by one man. The worldview of the LLCO held that the American working class has no potential for communist revolution because it has all been bought off with plunder and spoils stolen from Third World countries. We had stats. So many stats!! Accordingly, the group's goal was to somehow lead a global revolution based in the Third World that would conclude with the invasion and conquest of the United States from without and the dispersing of its population to Third World countries as essentially slave labor. Then I learned about the methods we were going to use. We were going to sell drugs and essentially be a street gang, much like our fearless leader, "Prairie Fire" (he never disclosed his real name to ordinary members because security), was still on probation for. This struck a bad tone for me as a recovering addict. The dude second in command (like that meant anything) was a white rapper who regularly performed on Russian state television and had his own psychotic radio program. A stripper lady who purportedly also worked for the CIA was to be our public face going forward. *shrugs* I had a brain, so I ditched and began a process of reassessing my life and worldview that I'd say is currently ongoing. Point though being that I'm familiar with the "anti-imperialist" mode of thinking.

Defending the Taliban was part of what we did at the LLCO. We explained about their land redistribution policies and publicized every American bomb drop in Afghanistan and the toll it took on civilians and reminded our very few readers that Third World nationalist groups like the Taliban were a natural part of the political alliance necessary to overthrow the imperialist countries, especially AmeriKKKa (actual spelling occasionally used); a flawed and bourgeois one, but a net positive force nonetheless. And what of the women? Well voicing such concerns was a sign you were bought off by the U.$. ruling class. This was the aspect of our line I despised the most, but initially feared to criticize because I couldn't discredit the theory behind this position academically. I can today though. The whole Leninist theory of the labor aristocracy, in fact, has trouble surviving the reality that American foreign policy changed after World War II to one of actively developing other countries rather than simply exploiting their resources, the first major case in point being the Marshall Plan. Indeed the reality of today is that much of the "anti-imperialist" movement that persists at this point is also an anti-development movement, seemingly just to maintain ideological opposition to the stance of the United States, and the Taliban perfectly exemplifies this with their neo-feudal politics. I can even remember in the LLCO it was a crucial position of our's that "economism", by which was meant prioritizing economic growth over political purity, was to be treated as an unacceptable form of revisionism. Perhaps that's because the adoption of "economism" is precisely what ended the period of classical Maoism in China owing to the fact that, well, people liked eating better than dogma.

People sometimes tell me that the American involvement in Afghanistan has been just like our occupation of Vietnam and Iraq. I disagree. The whole point of the our intervention in Vietnam from the '50s onward was to prevent the nation from reunifying by holding a nationwide democratic election, as intelligence indicated that rebel leader Ho Chi Minh stood to win some 80% of the vote. To prevent this fate, we supported the installation of a military dictatorship in the south of Vietnam and used it keep the country divided against the will of its people. Coca-Coca was more important. Our occupation of Iraq likewise fell out of favor with the local population within its first year, but was maintained anyway to try and keep gasoline prices down here in the U.S. (Which didn't happen anyway, as the military destruction of the country actually reduced the outflow of oil to the world, causing domestic prices to spike!) Afghans, by contrast, welcomed American intervention in and democratization of their country. For example...

...2006 WPO opinion poll found that 83% of Afghans had a favorable view of the U.S. military forces in their country, that 82% believed the overthrow of the Taliban had been a good thing, that Afghans gave America one of their most favorable ratings in the world, and that the majority of Afghans viewed neighboring Pakistan negatively for harboring Taliban fighters.

...A May 2009 poll of Afghans conducted by the BBC indicated that this support for the American military presence had fallen to 63% because most were against American plans to surge a ton more troops into the country, but we just knew better and we all know how that worked out. What would Afghans know about Afghanistan? Why listen? The same survey still found that the fundamental position of the population hadn't changed though concerning forms of government, as 82% of Afghans preferred their new, democratic government while only 4% favored Taliban rule.

...But Afghan support for the presence of U.S. forces rose back up to 77% in a 2015 survey by Langer Research Associates conducted immediately after the end of the aforementioned troop surge. Finally listening to what the people wanted improved support, shocker. More Afghans blamed either the Taliban or Al Qaeda for the country's violence (53%) than those who blamed the United States (12%).

Thus we see that our role in Afghanistan was consistently supported by the local population, especially when we use the "light footprint" model rather than attempting heavy-handed intervention that was known to produce the leveling of whole villages and so forth. My point here being that, for all of Afghanistan's flaws, and for all the conservative attitudes of its 75% rural population, they're NOT actually Taliban enthusiasts, folks. They like democracy even if they struggle to make it work effectively.

I likewise take exception to those who claim that the Afghan army we helped train and supply was just a bunch of wimps compared to us or something. I would point out folks that 60,000 of them died fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and mind you often while going unfed, unpaid, and under-supplied because their superiors in the chain of command frequently just stole the resources that were designated for them! How many of you would do the same? How many of you would be willing to sacrifice your life for a government that regularly cheated you out of basic necessities like that because that's how corrupt it was? THAT is what I call patriotism! And it sort of reminds me of my dad and his sense of unconditional duty that I mentioned earlier.

Everyone has limits though. When our last president decided to accede to a major Taliban demand by excluding the Afghan government that army was fighting for from peace negotiations, morale collapsed. With this brilliant gesture, we de-legitimized the very government they'd made all those sacrifices to defend. And of course the Taliban didn't honor their agreement. Of course they just went on the offensive as soon as the opportunity consequently arrived. And yet we just kept pulling out. If we weren't willing to stop the collapse of everything they'd been fighting for, why should they? It just follows the new model we seem to have embrace in recent years. Our last president likewise sold out our Kurdish allies in Syria who only defeated ISIS for us to Turkey. Selling out our allies just seemed to be his thing. It's too bad that didn't end with his presidency because it should have.

In case any of you actually believes the lies the Taliban has been messaging about how they're now a bunch of tolerant, open-society liberals who respect women's autonomy, "forgive" everyone who aided the former government, and all that, let me just supply you some recent headlines:

Taliban going door to door for girls as young as 12 to make them sex slaves

Afghans tell of executions, forced 'marriages' in Taliban-held areas

Afghan women forced from banking jobs as Taliban take control

Taliban fighters set a woman on fire for 'bad cooking'

No democracy, only Sharia law in Afghanistan, says Taliban

Afghans chase down our planes and cling to the outside of them until they fall off and plunge to their deaths after takeoff. People are giving their children up to foreigners because it's the only chance they have of a future. And yet my president is all put out and exasperated to have to answer questions from the press on the subject like it's just not fair and he's the victim here. Wished I could've punched his face. Fortunately though, there is resistance emerging. A second day of women-led protests against the Taliban today (Afghan Independence Day) drew thousands after three demonstrators were killed yesterday. At least somebody cares. They have no chance, but their lives are over anyway, so what is there to lose?

Jiacee thank you for your insight, many here focus on the small picture, it really isnt common to see someone like yourself that has the big picture view, really enjoyed your last two posts

If that's the impression you have from me, then I'll excuse myself for giving you such an impression, because this was an honest question and I wanted to honestly see what kind of description you were talking about. Me being not from the US and not having anywhere near such hyperpartisan politics makes me simply wonder what kind of descriptions are being thrown around from either side, since we simply don't have those things here.

To me, the question about Afghanistan is a question what the role of the United States should be around the world, and I've been somewhat struggling with that answer for the last week. I personally don't think that we should have entered Afghanistan in the first place. I also feel that we should have never engaged in nation building exercises.

However, we cannot change those past decisions, and in 2020, we were in a place where we failed in creating a state that can stand on its own, but succeeded in creating a state that has a much better record on human rights than the one we replaced. This brought us to a place where continued occupation of Afghanistan was manageable. Yearly deaths were low, and costs were fairly sustainable - $2trillion over twenty years really isn't that much money for the US, and those costs were likely frontloaded.

So what benefit do we get from pulling out? Not much. We avoid a few casualties and save a little bit of money, but this cost isn't overly burdensome. 

What would we have gained from staying in? We would have upheld the human rights for millions of people and ensured the conditions upon the agreement that were made would be upheld.

But I still find myself supporting a withdrawal. To me, I find the initial condition of our occupation so untenable, that I feel we simply cannot justify continued occupation. 

I agree with you when you state that Afghanistan doesn't want Taliban occupation. I also agree when you state that criticisms of Afghani soldiers are overstated. The failures with the military largely rest with the leaders, not the soldiers. But I'm not sure if this changes anything, because it isn't what the fundamental question is about.

That said, I do agree that the withdrawal has been fairly disastrous. It started with the Trump deal which presupposed the Taliban taking over, but it was also a failure on Biden's part. I do sympathize with how shitty his options were - If we break the deal, we undoubtedly would have to engage in more fighting. If we uphold it, the nation will inevitably fall - but even considering that, the withdrawal was not well orchestrated (it is more complicated than a lot of people are making it out to be though). I think under different circumstances, we likely could have pulled out in a much more organized fashion, which simultaneously would give the Afghani government a better chance, but their fall was likely inevitable. 

Progressive Democrats, the true centre, are challenging the 9 Corporate/Conservative/"Moderate" right leaning Democrats currently blocking Biden's infrastructure bill because it doesn't protect/benefit the elites enough, and it appears to be having an effect  

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/08/24/afghanistan-woes-sink-bidens-approval-41-usa-today-suffolk-poll/8244854002/

Even if it eventually goes back up, I'm glad the administration is catching heat for their abysmal withdrawal and lack of planning. Turns out you can't hide from failures forever.