Burn baby burn! Texas on fire. 🔥

[RobDownSouth]

I also don't live in California, but I don't need to live there to know that Californians are fleeing California. I don't need to live there to know that you're having problems in your big cities with drug needles and human feces on your streets... Or their streets. Apologize for assuming you are a California. I should never assume something that horrible about someone.

I don't need to live in Tennessee to know that is a wonderful bastion of conservatism and that if I were to choose a state that I wanted to ultimately move to, especially as things get worse in this country as policy goes, Tennessee would be one of my choices. I can study and pay attention to what people are saying. I don't have to live in the state to know what's going on in that state. Something called research. There's something called interviews. There's something called conversations. Something called the internet that gives you access to all this stuff and you can research it well if you do it with a balanced mind. And frankly I am about as redneck as they get... I happen to be an educated redneck who also likes my opera and my classical and my culture and all kinds of other niceties of non-redneck areas that are well done.... And I get along well with my friends from Texas and I have many a conversation with people from Texas. And I served in the military with a whole bunch of Texans. I don't just know a guy from Texas. I don't just "know a guy". Trivializing is yet another defense mechanism against having to do research. Stop it.

You've managed to weave the disparate terms "balanced mind" and "human feces" into your angst-laden post above.

This very dissimilar yin and yang would seem to bolster your claim of being simultaneously "Educated" and "Redneck".

Well done.

We've now established that you do not reside in either Tennessee, California or Texas. Only 47 states to go, we're getting closer to your state of residence with each post!

And you now you claim to have "served in the military with a whole bunch of Texans". How exciting, we have something in common!

I too "served in the military with a whole bunch of Texans"! They weren't much for military discipline as I recall, and we did quite a few pushups as a result of their shortcomings. Was this your experience as well? Did you serve with old-school steely-eyed "Alamo Texans" or the kinder gentler marshmallow-soft "Uvalde Texans" in the military nowadays that hunker in the bunker at the sound of opposing gunfire?

You claim to do your own research. Would you like to share the results of your research on, say, vaccines?

And finally, would you be willing to swear on your honor as a soldier that your current userid is the only nom de plume you've ever posted with here on Literotica?

I look forward to your reply.

 

[RobDownSouth]

And I became homeless because I was living like a dumbass... I was living reckless I was behaving badly and I was not able to function in a normal living situation because of it. And that is the truth of many of the homeless situations. It's more complicated than that, but that is the strip down basic version.

Thank you for providing a more complete portrait of yourself.

 

[SgtSpiderMan]

I didn't say they didn't get FEMA dollars... They pay taxes. They spend money in And on those agencies on a federal level, And much of that money has gone to states that have wasted it... ie liberal run States. So when a disaster hits, of course they are entitled to some of the money that the federal government took from them.

I'm not sure if you know that's how taxes work. Government doesn't magically create money. Take money away from those who earned it and give it away. Or spend it on themselves.

What I'm saying is that they aren't constantly whining and constantly complaining and saying we aren't getting handouts quick enough. They help one another. They work hard. They work together as a community. Communities across the state come together to help each other. And yes they do use federal dollars as well because they're not stupid. But they're not living on constant welfare from the government, unlike your liberal-run cities and states.

Wrong again.
https://www.clickorlando.com/news/l...aration-for-25-florida-counties-after-idalia/

 

[JaySecrets]

Wrong again.
https://www.clickorlando.com/news/l...aration-for-25-florida-counties-after-idalia/

Read the article. Desantis requested FEMA assistance for affected counties. Do you know how you get FEMA assistance? You have to request it. You have to request it because it's the federal government coming into the states. The federal government is not allowed to come into the states in that way unless they have specifically been asked by the governor.

It's why after Katrina, fema was waiting literally on the border of the affected areas but could not go in legally until the governor gave the go-ahead, And the governor of he state was in anti-Bush Democrat and was dragging her feet on letting FEMA in. There are literally videos and pictures of the teams from FEMA sitting at the border. Just waiting to go in, waiting for the go-ahead. This is a constitutional states rights over Federal power issue.

So of course DeSantis asks for help. But he's not whining about it and making his State a welfare state. The money that FEMA is spending on helping Florida there, Floridians have paid out in taxes in spades to the federal government for decades. Of course, when the problem comes up they are going to ask for some of that money and those resources that money provided, money that they is taxpayers paid out, now be directed to help them.

Please stop being so blatantly and obviously thoughtless in your comments. Learn how FEMA works before you make comments like that.

 

[Veroe]

I'm sure gov. Abbott and other Republicans will blame the fires on the green new deal and windmills this time around too.

 

[RobDownSouth]

I'm sure gov. Abbott and other Republicans will blame the fires on the green new deal and windmills this time around too.

Wingnut nation has convinced itself that the Texas wildfires were deliberately set by the Federal government as retaliation for Governor Hotwheels Hitler sending Texas National Guardsmen to the border for Operation Maga Photo Op.

 

[JaySecrets]

Wingnut nation has convinced itself that the Texas wildfires were deliberately set by the Federal government as retaliation for Governor Hotwheels Hitler sending Texas National Guardsmen to the border for Operation Maga Photo Op.

I'll make you a deal. You stop acting as though conservatives in general even have a mild tolerance for the Alex Jones types, and I won't assume that all of you liberals are puppets of George Soros.

 

[RobDownSouth]

I'll make you a deal. You stop acting as though conservatives in general even have a mild tolerance for the Alex Jones types, and I won't assume that all of you liberals are puppets of George Soros.

I see no reason to adjust my beliefs and comments to accommodate self-important newcomers such as yourself. As such, I must decline your offer.

 

[JaySecrets]

I see no reason to adjust my beliefs and comments to accommodate self-important newcomers such as yourself. As such, I must decline your offer.

Less of a newcomer than you think. I just happen to be new back on here. I was here before and here for a while.

But my point in my offer was simply to make the statement that associating the mainstream belief system of any group of people liberal conservative libertarian whatever, with the belief systems of some people on the fringes is patently wrong, misguided and foolish. And it's particularly stupid because then all you've done is set up a straw man to knock down. And meantime the real person is affecting changes and getting stuff done that actually would bother you, and is able to do it because you are focused on the wrong thing.

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

I'll make you a deal. You stop acting as though conservatives in general even have a mild tolerance for the Alex Jones types, and I won't assume that all of you liberals are puppets of George Soros.

What’s your opinion of Jews?

 

[JaySecrets]

I value the nation of Israel as the most valuable nation in the Middle East. I value them as that and always have, because they are the one true Ally we've had there. I also happen to believe that they are God's Chosen Nation, and I would not want to be the one to go up against them and attack them the way the United Nations and the so-called Palestinian Nation and others have dared to do. That never turns out well.

And since as a Christian, I would believe that Jesus was born into this world as a Jew... I love the Jewish people. I believe that land is their land... Historically and covenantly... And I believe all of it is their land.

I have zero tolerance for anti-Semitism. And I have zero tolerance for tropes that want to criticize Israel for defending themselves against a terrorist nation state like the Palestinians that are right across offense and that are happy to launch attacks because they're very founding document said their goal was to drive the last Jew out of the land and into the sea.

It is in fact the Democrats who have been supporting the anti-semites... Including a couple congresswomen and congressmen. And it has been the conservatives who have consistently been on the side of Israel.

It's not conservative college campuses that are having problems with administration, allowing anti-semitic riots and rallies, and allowing people to put Jewish students into a state of not feeling safe on their own college campus. That belongs solely in the camp of the liberals.

 

[RobDownSouth]

Less of a newcomer than you think. I just happen to be new back on here. I was here before and here for a while.

But my point in my offer was simply to make the statement that associating the mainstream belief system of any group of people liberal conservative libertarian whatever, with the belief systems of some people on the fringes is patently wrong, misguided and foolish. And it's particularly stupid because then all you've done is set up a straw man to knock down. And meantime the real person is affecting changes and getting stuff done that actually would bother you, and is able to do it because you are focused on the wrong thing.

Thank you for having the courage to admit that you've previously posted under another userid here. This makes your posting under a brand new userid even more suspect, if you don't name your previous userid, most folks here will assume that is because you were banned for TOS violations. Please don't patronize us with "I forgot my previous user name" or "I can't reset my old password". As we say down here in Texas, that dog don't hunt.

I have 21 years of consistent posting under a single userid on this site. I reject your notion that I engage in "strawman" logical fallacies.

I firmly believe anyone voting for Donald Trump in 2024 hates American democracy and embraces fascist totalitarian policies. Voting for Trump, in my opinion, is the epitome of being wrong, misguided and foolish. There are no redeeming qualities to this man, and no redeeming qualities to his shrinking core of supporters.

We have a clear choice in 2024, a "fork in the road": America as a whole will vote to reaffirm its belief in democracy, or will set us on a path towards authoritarian fascism. We likely will not face a choice such as this again in our lifetime.

 

[JaySecrets]

One a person can have many reasons for not wanting to use their old ID. I'm not going to get into mine because right now is not the time and you don't know the backstory. There is no TSO or whatever that is banning involved. I haven't been on this site for 2 years. But I am not going to defend my choice of actions to you because I don't need to.

Second, fact that you attribute Alex Jones thinking to mainstream conservatism is the epitome of straw man arguments. I have been in conservative circles my entire life and I only know one person that follows or listens to Alex Jones and he drives ME crazy.

Third to call Donald Trump a totalitarian is absolutely asinine. He actually took the government's hands out of more businesses than any other president in recent history. Not only did he undo Obama era policies that were literally crushing businesses, he went on to get the government regulations that were redundant and problematic out of the way, regulations that had been in place for decades. He dismantled decades of liberal Democrat policies that were crushing businesses. And did so while everyone was freaking out about the latest soap opera storyline that they were trying to attribute to him. I don't say I like the guy cuz I don't like the guy. But I do appreciate the policies that he enacted and put in place when he was president. I don't have to like a person to like a person's work as a CEO.

Third, America is not nor was it ever supposed to be a democracy. It is a representative Republic. The founders never intended this to be a democracy, and in fact called democracy "mobocracy" and considered it to be very dangerous. When the riots and mobs have happened screaming this is what democracy looks like... they have been right.

I can't help but observe that you on the left want to call conservatives, fascists and totalitarians, who want to put mandates in place that restrict people from going to church and from going out in public and forcing them to wear masks. It's you who call for more government interference and people's private lives and in so many businesses in so many ways. It's you who try to force the person who doesn't believe a certain way to have to still affirm and acknowledge and give you a pat on the back if you don't like what they believe about what you believe. It's you who have mobs tearing down businesses, lighting cities on fire and killing people who they disagree with, sometimes in gruesome ways. None of this is hyperbole. It's all been caught on tape. So please stop with the totalitarian and authoritarian and whatever other trope you want to apply to conservatives. We don't riot in the streets. We vote in the ballots. You can point to one event, that there's still questions about who actually did what, when and how... January 6th. I can point to riot after riot after riot after riot. I can point to your people burning down businesses. I can point to your people literally stomping Trump supporters to death. I can point to your people creating nightmares of situations and creating little militarized zones that are locking out the police. While inside those zones, people are being abused. And if you followed any of the news, you know exactly the situations I'm talking about. We are not the totalitarians or the authoritarians or the fascists. We love Liberty and individualism. We don't group people by ethnicity or skin color. We believe every individual is valuable. We believe every individual from conception on has a right to life. We believe that every person has a right to have their own belief system, and every person has a right to challenge belief systems. We believe in public discourse. We like actual debate. And we love Liberty. We love Liberty to go where we want to go, to believe what we believe, to worship the way we want to worship, and to think and function how we want to function. And we don't want any government getting in the way of that.

If that's fascism and authoritarianism... Sign me up.

 

[KeithD]

One a person can have many reasons for not wanting to use their old ID. I'm not going to get into mine because right now is not the time and you don't know the backstory. There is no TSO or whatever that is banning involved. I haven't been on this site for 2 years. But I am not going to defend my choice of actions to you because I don't need to.

Just try to be a bit honest. You do it to try to create the impression that there are more posters who agree with you than do. It's dishonest and it defines you.

 

[JaySecrets]

Just try to be a bit honest. You do it to try to create the impression that there are more posters who agree with you than do. It's dishonest and it defines you.

I'm not trying to create an impression of anybody agreeing or disagreeing with me. I have conversations with many friends outside of this site and outside of this online world who do agree with me. I also have many friends outside of this online world who don't agree with me. And we are good with that. We have in-depth nuanced discussions, we come to points of agreement on certain areas and start understanding each other's perspectives. We discuss things as adults and we don't use tropes. We don't use straw man arguments and we don't attribute belief systems to people who don't hold those belief systems.

I frankly don't care how many people agree or disagree with me. I'm certainly not trying to create an impression of all kinds of people agreeing with me. I'm simply laying out history and facts and laying out a coherent argument for conservative beliefs. If you don't agree that's fine. Just don't try to associate my beliefs with an Alex Jones or Wingnuts as you call them. What I believe is actually relatively mainstream if you go back in history before the Republican party shifted to the left. Everybody else shifted to the left. I never moved. Now what I believe, that used to be considered mainstream conservatism, is now being called extreme Right wing. It's not extreme or extremely right-wing. It's simple old school conservatism.

 

[Rick345]

I'm not saying you won't have a homeless problem... Even the Bible says that the poor will always be with you. What I'm saying is that it's not as pronounced and as horrible and chronic in areas like lower Alabama or in Wisconsin where I'm at as it is in Los Angeles California...

We have a horrid homeless problem here with squalid conditions. We don't have as many homeless as that other LA only because we don't have as many people.. We have half as many people in the entire state as they do in metro LA.. More people more problems. However, that other LA has more help for the homeless.. More people more taxes more help for the poor. The people of LA are doing what Jesus said should be done for the poor yet you fault them ..

 

[SgtSpiderMan]

Read the article. Desantis requested FEMA assistance for affected counties. Do you know how you get FEMA assistance? You have to request it. You have to request it because it's the federal government coming into the states. The federal government is not allowed to come into the states in that way unless they have specifically been asked by the governor.

It's why after Katrina, fema was waiting literally on the border of the affected areas but could not go in legally until the governor gave the go-ahead, And the governor of he state was in anti-Bush Democrat and was dragging her feet on letting FEMA in. There are literally videos and pictures of the teams from FEMA sitting at the border. Just waiting to go in, waiting for the go-ahead. This is a constitutional states rights over Federal power issue.

So of course DeSantis asks for help. But he's not whining about it and making his State a welfare state. The money that FEMA is spending on helping Florida there, Floridians have paid out in taxes in spades to the federal government for decades. Of course, when the problem comes up they are going to ask for some of that money and those resources that money provided, money that they is taxpayers paid out, now be directed to help them.

Please stop being so blatantly and obviously thoughtless in your comments. Learn how FEMA works before you make comments like that.

You didn’t read the article. DeSantis specifically said he wasn’t getting the money quick enough and was asking for a handout.

FEMA doesn’t work differently in different states.

 

[JaySecrets]

We have a horrid homeless problem here with squalid conditions. We don't have as many homeless as that other LA only because we don't have as many people.. We have half as many people in the entire state as they do in metro LA.. More people more problems. However, that other LA has more help for the homeless.. More people more taxes more help for the poor. The people of LA are doing what Jesus said should be done for the poor yet you fault them ..

The problem in saying it's what Jesus said should be done for the poor, it's a problem of whose job is it. The government has a very specific role. That role is to defend their citizens against enemies, to punish those who do wrong and violate laws that are there to keep society safe, and to maintain those things that the private sector cannot do as effectively... Fix roads bridges infrastructure that sort of thing. It is not their job to provide for the poor or to feed the hungry or to provide health care or health insurance or any of these extra things that we have added to government. Government's role is supposed to be relatively small.

The job of feeding the hungry and helping the homeless that want to be helped, the job of caring for the poor and the sick... That role falls on the private sector. In terms of what Jesus was saying, that was about individuals reaching out. The government was never equipped to handle this stuff. The churches and the private sector were the ones who were supposed to be handling this.

Whenever you put the government in the place where the church or the family is supposed to be, you run into problems. I'm not saying don't help the homeless. I'm saying get the government out of the way, stop taxing the people to death, and the people will use those funds to help the homeless and do it in a better way than the government ever could, more of those funds will actually go to helping the homeless not to supporting a bureaucracy that's expensive to support.

 

[JaySecrets]

You didn’t read the article. DeSantis specifically said he wasn’t getting the money quick enough and was asking for a handout.

FEMA doesn’t work differently in different states.

I didn't say FEMA works differently in different states. I said FEMA can't go into States without the governor saying that they can.

And if you have paid for a service and they are moving very slowly and that slow movement is affecting your life, you start asking for them to step up the process. That's not welfare and that's not whining. That's asking for what you paid for. The people in this country, including in Florida have been taxed to death by the federal government. That money is, in part and in theory, going to agencies like FEMA. The people of Florida paid for that service. The expectation of getting it and getting it in a timely manner when it's needed is not unreasonable.

 

[icanhelp1]

Thank you for having the courage to admit that you've previously posted under another userid here. This makes your posting under a brand new userid even more suspect, if you don't name your previous userid, most folks here will assume that is because you were banned for TOS violations. Please don't patronize us with "I forgot my previous user name" or "I can't reset my old password". As we say down here in Texas, that dog don't hunt.

I have 21 years of consistent posting under a single userid on this site. I reject your notion that I engage in "strawman" logical fallacies.

I firmly believe anyone voting for Donald Trump in 2024 hates American democracy and embraces fascist totalitarian policies. Voting for Trump, in my opinion, is the epitome of being wrong, misguided and foolish. There are no redeeming qualities to this man, and no redeeming qualities to his shrinking core of supporters.

We have a clear choice in 2024, a "fork in the road": America as a whole will vote to reaffirm its belief in democracy, or will set us on a path towards authoritarian fascism. We likely will not face a choice such as this again in our lifetime.

Poor Robby misses *BOTBOY*

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

I value the nation of Israel as the most valuable nation in the Middle East. I value them as that and always have, because they are the one true Ally we've had there. I also happen to believe that they are God's Chosen Nation, and I would not want to be the one to go up against them and attack them the way the United Nations and the so-called Palestinian Nation and others have dared to do. That never turns out well.

And since as a Christian, I would believe that Jesus was born into this world as a Jew... I love the Jewish people. I believe that land is their land... Historically and covenantly... And I believe all of it is their land.

I have zero tolerance for anti-Semitism. And I have zero tolerance for tropes that want to criticize Israel for defending themselves against a terrorist nation state like the Palestinians that are right across offense and that are happy to launch attacks because they're very founding document said their goal was to drive the last Jew out of the land and into the sea.

It is in fact the Democrats who have been supporting the anti-semites... Including a couple congresswomen and congressmen. And it has been the conservatives who have consistently been on the side of Israel.

It's not conservative college campuses that are having problems with administration, allowing anti-semitic riots and rallies, and allowing people to put Jewish students into a state of not feeling safe on their own college campus. That belongs solely in the camp of the liberals.

The idea that George Soros is part of a global conspiracy is an antisemitic trope.

 

[JaySecrets]

No, The fact that George Soros happens to be Jewish has nothing to do with the issue with George Soros. Anti-Semites may use that fact as a bullet point for their talking points, in fact, I know people who have used it and I want to backsmack them.

That George Soros is funding all kinds of globalist and socialist initiatives and is the money behind these things, including being caught on tape, his organizations being caught on tape talking about how his money is paying people to go to these riots and incite things, And paying people to go to conservative rallies and pretend to be conservatives to then incite things. Or do things like lift a Confederate flag or a Nazi flag or whatever... All of this is actually provable. There's too much evidence that has been produced at this point to pretend it isn't provable.

It has nothing to do with him being a Jewish man. It has everything to do with him being a Marxist.

 

[SgtSpiderMan]

I didn't say FEMA works differently in different states. I said FEMA can't go into States without the governor saying that they can.

And if you have paid for a service and they are moving very slowly and that slow movement is affecting your life, you start asking for them to step up the process. That's not welfare and that's not whining. That's asking for what you paid for. The people in this country, including in Florida have been taxed to death by the federal government. That money is, in part and in theory, going to agencies like FEMA. The people of Florida paid for that service. The expectation of getting it and getting it in a timely manner when it's needed is not unreasonable.

You very specifically did say it works differently in different states.

You did say that was whining.

 

[MajorRewrite]

That George Soros is funding all kinds of globalist and socialist initiatives and is the money behind these things, including being caught on tape, his organizations being caught on tape talking about how his money is paying people to go to these riots and incite things, And paying people to go to conservative rallies and pretend to be conservatives to then incite things. Or do things like lift a Confederate flag or a Nazi flag or whatever... All of this is actually provable. There's too much evidence that has been produced at this point to pretend it isn't provable.

None of that is provable because it’s conspiracy nut nonsense.

 

[RoryN]

This poor bastard had no idea what he was in for