• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

First Openly Gay Republican on GOP Platform Committee: ‘Why Am I Even Here?’

Status
Not open for further replies.

daveo42

Banned
Seeing how she finished her undergrad in '04, we must remember that the late 90's/early 2000's internet was a much different place, lol

All I remember about the internet then was bittorrent, Steam being garbage and feeling pretty good about having high speed internet for the first time in my life.
 

Steel

Banned
There are ways to advocate for defense/security matters without empowering a party whose base would love to see 150 volts sent through one's cranium.

Not to mention the head of the republican party right now doesn't even care about honoring NATO agreements.
 

Monocle

Member
GOPs idea of Freedom is different than most.

Its freedom to hate as much as you want.
Its freedom to lie, not have an decorum for your fellow Americans.
Its freedom to restrict the rights of others
Its freedom to screw the poor and middle class without repercussions.


I can go on and on.but their vision of freedom is far from what people think
It's freedom for the people who matter, which obviously excludes degenerates, thugs, parasites, ingrates, bleeding hearts, elitists, and pansies.
 
She should consider becoming an independent. I realize she wants to do some good, but fuck supporting a party that wants to send people like her to torture camps. I don't know how you could cope with something like that.
 

Nephtes

Member
But there isn't a ton of difference between blue dog democrats like max Baucus and the GOP on economic issues. The biggest difference is on social issues.

If she has conservative economic views, she should be at home with the conservative wing of the democratic party.

The big tent of the Democratic Party allows for both her social and economic views.

The conservative wing of the Democrat Party? Doesn't exist any more in any meaningful capacity.
Bernie got rid of the last of that with his successfully executed campaign.

There's no true party for those who want economic sanity, far less spending, government reform, AND also lean liberally on social issues like LGBT rights and legalization of drugs, AND want the continued support for the 2nd amendment.

Edit: I think JFK, and Roosevelt would be rolling over in their graves if they saw their party today...
Lincoln and and Reagan too for that matter...
I dislike what both parties have become.
 

boiled goose

good with gravy
The party stands for freedom and limited government*

*except in the freedom to marry, reproductive rights, reduced military interventions, citizen surveillance, religious freedom, militarization of police, immigration, etc. etc. etc.

She still buys the propaganda slogans without looking at the actual policy.
I hate to say this the not super hateful, "smart" republicans are some of the most intellectually shallow people ever.
 

Steel

Banned
I can't believe she actually bought that the GOP stood for individual freedoms. In what world?

The majority of the people in the Republican party buy that. It's easy to boil down the two parties down to nothing other than single line descriptors and then never actually look anything up.
 

Nephtes

Member
The majority of the people in the Republican party buy that. It's easy to boil down the two parties down to nothing other than single line descriptors and then never actually look anything up.

As a former Republican that jumped ship in 2002 to be an independent, yes.

Everyone drank the personal liberty, less spending, less government Kool-aid... And then the Bush years happened and WTF. They spent even more, grew government ridiculously, and then did things like No Child Left behind and made failing schools in urban districts even worse... Plus that whole Iraq thing.

The GOP might have been the party that ended slavery and passed civil rights, but it's in a different place now.
 

Josh7289

Member
It sounds like she should join the Libertarian Party to me.

The majority of the people in the Republican party buy that. It's easy to boil down the two parties down to nothing other than single line descriptors and then never actually look anything up.

So should all of them in my opinion. The Republican Party stands for social conservatism, which is an authoritarian position. If these people are looking for individual liberty and government non-intervention in all aspects of life, I think they should look into the Libertarians.
 

Tigress

Member
Sadly, the Republican party isn't about freedom to do what you want at all. It's freedom to agree with what they think you should do morally. I'm not saying the Democrats are great on that subject but they at least don't lie about it (and seem to have better motivations for why they think the stuff they want restricted should be restricted. Though I don't always agree with them <- probably my biggest contention with them but I do lean heavily Democrat and as I get older been leaning a lot more.. the republican party getting more and more insane is definitely helping that).
 
Why is she Republican in the first place if she's gay? Not seeing the logic there.

The Pride Movement has made it hard to see, but for a lot of gay people being gay is incidental to who they are. There are tons of gay people out there who are not deeply sexual, who are relatively private in general, and who just don't consider sex or sexuality a defining part of their life. There can be any number of things that are more important to them, even all the way down to relatively minor things like hobbies.

Basically, it had to get to the point where they were being outright dehumanizing for her to realize that it wasn't just a matter of them not being keyed in to LGBT issues or dated in their beliefs, but that they actively did not want the LGBT community in the party. She needed to be faced with active hostility rather than just painful negligence or casual dismissal.

Not saying she wasn't oblivious, just that, you know, I get it.
 

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
I get that it's a single issue, but the issue is intrinsic to your very being.

I can't comprehend the dissonance.


And it's not like the party is just "not pro" gay rights, it's corrosively hateful and awful about it.
Take America back rhetoric is composed in significant part by the ban gay marriage attitude.
 

studyguy

Member
I get that it's a single issue, but the issue is intrinsic to your very being.

I can't comprehend the dissonance.

Absolutely, I can fault the dems for a number of issues I don't agree with personally, but at least they're not denying my very existence.
 
And if me, and people like me, advocates for LGBT rights, if we all just leave, then the party&#8217;s never going to get better.

Or, it's going to fade into irrelevance. Which would be a good thing.

Keep fighting the wrong fight, idiot.
 
People keep saying her values made her become a republican and she isn't a single issue voter. You don't have to join a party. You can try to force change as an independent
 

Odrion

Banned
I like how she doesn't state which issues she's really for and against for each party.

It's kinda like how a republican poster will write in neogaf that "Alright I'm a Republican, but I DON'T STAND FOR THESE NEGATIVE THINGS" and when someone asks what they do stand for they either not respond or out themselves.
 

Somnid

Member
She seems like the type of person who would be better catered to with actual parties and not the American zero-sum partisan politics. Of course being independent is not appealing, you have no voice, you're an outsider because we built a whole bunch of systems to push out everything else. People do not want to be de facto Democrats because they literally have no choice and I think that creates a lot of dissonance. You want to participate in politics but literally can't.
 
Yo maybe those aren't the actual principles of the Republican party

Maybe that's just what they say they are

Ya, I never understood why people believe those values are representative of the republicans.

They are more representative of democrats.

There is an education issue there. A lot of people still don't understand the parties characteristics switched 60 years ago.
 

Sulik2

Member
When has the GOP ever stood for this? Anyone who believes this about the GOP is completely blind to reality.

What do Republicans stand for in your view?

What the Internet told me was that they stood for individual freedom, for limited government, for the idea that you could make your own decisions better than the government could make them for you, whether that was decisions about how to spend your personal life or decisions about how to spend your money, and a strong national defense. That was something that was always very important to me and went on to define my career.
 

Nephtes

Member
She seems like the type of person who would be better catered to with actual parties and not the American zero-sum partisan politics. Of course being independent is not appealing, you have no voice, you're an outsider because we built a whole bunch of systems to push out everything else. People do not want to be de facto Democrats because they literally have no choice and I think that creates a lot of dissonance. You want to participate in politics but literally can't.

More or less.
The Democrats are so far left as a party, and the Republicans are so batshit insane on social issues that there's no place for people in the middle except to put an (I) by your name.

Some of us want to be in a party that is right of center when it comes to economic policy, but not part of the overtly anti-human rights bit that comes with membership in the Republican party.

The parties only care about independents just before national elections when we get bombarded with robocalls for both parties...

But there's just a robot on the other end. No one is actually listening to us.
 

Iorv3th

Member
When has the GOP ever stood for this? Anyone who believes this about the GOP is completely blind to reality.

There are many in the republican party that believe that. But there are different 'factions' in the party.


Good that she is staying and trying to change things.
 
More or less.
Some of us want to be in a party that is right of center when it comes to economic policy, but not part of the overtly anti-human rights bit that comes with membership in the Republican party.

Be a Democrat. I don't know where you get the democrats being "so far left." They are not. Ask anyone who is actually super left. .
 

Nephtes

Member
Be a Democrat. I don't know where you get the democrats being "so far left." They are not. Ask anyone who is actually super left. .

It's all the spending quite frankly that keeps me away.
I don't want my government spending all that money. I want it to live within its means like I do and pay off its debts like I did.

The Democrat platform doesn't stand for this. It wants to do more more more. "Everything can be solved if we just had another government program."

More regulations, more hoops, more government.

I've seen what more government looks like. As a medical software developer, I had to wade through around 5000 pages of legalese to ensure our medical providers met the requirements of Meaningful Use EHR as well as the Affordable Care Act. Thousands of labor hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars later and we FINALLY became compliant. I'd like less of that quite frankly... But at the same time, I don't want LGBT rights to be run over by the other political monstrosity.

Again.. for someone in the center who is truly independent of both parties hard lines, there's no party solution to us that doesn't offend some major part of us.
 

Onemic

Member
It's all the spending quite frankly that keeps me away.
I don't want my government spending all that money. I want it to live within its means like I do and pay off its debts like I did.

The Democrat platform doesn't stand for this. It wants to do more more more. "Everything can be solved if we just had another government program."

More regulations, more hoops, more government.

I've seen what more government looks like. As a medical software developer, I had to wade through around 5000 pages of legalese to ensure our medical providers met the requirements of Meaningful Use EHR as well as the Affordable Care Act. Thousands of labor hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars later and we FINALLY became compliant. I'd like less of that quite frankly... But at the same time, I don't want LGBT rights to be run over by the other political monstrosity.

Again.. for someone in the center who is truly independent of both parties hard lines, there's no party solution to us that doesn't offend some major part of us.

If Im not mistaken Republicans have historically actually spent more money than Democrats.
 
I have no sympathy for her. She only has herself to blame for aligning with a party that wants to restrict her rights as not only gay, but as a woman as well.
 

Nephtes

Member
If Im not mistaken Republicans have historically actually spent more money than Democrats.

See earlier statement...
One of the reasons I left the Republican party was due to the fact that during the Bush years they somehow managed to spend even more money than the Democrats...
 

Ekai

Member
If Im not mistaken Republicans have historically actually spent more money than Democrats.

I don't have the numbers but I believe you're right on that.

Not to mention the narrative of Republicans being for small government doesn't make much sense since they're so rigidly conservative in their social views that they want to control the choices of women, erase LGBT individuals with conversion therapy, hate other races, want to more or less make America a theocracy with how much they hate other religions (not to mention how often they rewrite history and claim the founding fathers were Christian and that we were a Christian nation), etc. etc.

Republicans are the definition of big government. Democrats are largely staying out of people's personal lives. All they've done is argue for people to have the right to be themselves. Which is about as far away from big government as you could get.
 

HylianTom

Banned
It's all the spending quite frankly that keeps me away.
I don't want my government spending all that money. I want it to live within its means like I do and pay off its debts like I did.

The Democrat platform doesn't stand for this. It wants to do more more more. "Everything can be solved if we just had another government program."

More regulations, more hoops, more government.

I've seen what more government looks like. As a medical software developer, I had to wade through around 5000 pages of legalese to ensure our medical providers met the requirements of Meaningful Use EHR as well as the Affordable Care Act. Thousands of labor hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars later and we FINALLY became compliant. I'd like less of that quite frankly... But at the same time, I don't want LGBT rights to be run over by the other political monstrosity.

Again.. for someone in the center who is truly independent of both parties hard lines, there's no party solution to us that doesn't offend some major part of us.

"One party is horrible on human rights. The other party is horrible on money. This is a difficult decision."

I wonder if folks get how that sounds.

Adding to this is the ridiculous fantasy that the GOP is disciplined on spending. One (not you specifically) would have to be incredibly, incredibly gullible - almost willfully ignorant - to buy into such claptrap.
 

D i Z

Member
Learned about the GOP values from the internet and still decided to hop on the ship. LOL. She just got her first big break as a political pundit. Valued because of the particular niche that many won't be showing up for .
All according to plan.
 

Nephtes

Member
"One party is horrible on human rights. The other party is horrible on money. This is a difficult decision."

I wonder if folks get how that sounds.

Adding to this is the ridiculous fantasy that the GOP is disciplined on spending. One (not you specifically) would have to be incredibly, incredibly gullible - almost willfully ignorant - to buy into such claptrap.

Like I keep saying... There is NO actual party that represents MY political persuasion.
It's not Democrat or Republican. It's neither of them. I choose neither.
You don't have to choose between human rights issues and money issues because it's not a binary choice. You don't have to be Republican or Democrat. You just won't be listened to by anyone. Clearly.
 

HylianTom

Banned
Like I keep saying... There is NO actual party that represents MY political persuasion.
It's not Democrat or Republican. It's neither of them. I choose neither.
You don't have to choose between human rights issues and money issues because it's not a binary choice. You don't have to be Republican or Democrat. You just don't be listened to by anyone. Clearly.
I tried to note that it wasn't specifically about you. I've heard the kind of balancing act from folks caught in the middle with similar viewpoints for a few decades now, and intended more to comment on how folks weigh priorities.
 

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
What the Internet told me...

Definitely a Republican.


Okay, so I get that this lady says she agrees with the Republicans on almost everything aside from gay rights. But it's still really hard for me to imagine someone supporting a party that actively dislikes them as who they are.

I'm a former muslim who looks Middle Eastern. For me, it's much easier to find a home with the Democrats, not just cause they're tolerant and welcome my kind, but also because I happen to agree with them on nearly all other issues as well. But even if all my beliefs were diametrically opposed to the Dem platform, it would be incredibly difficult for me to join the Republicans given their active hostility for my kind.
 
I tried to note that it wasn't specifically about you. I've heard the kind of balancing act from folks caught in the middle with similar viewpoints for a few decades now, and intended more to comment on how folks weigh priorities.

You know I've been thinking it also might be easier for someone who grew up in a more liberal environment to become a republican thinking you will change then on human rights, whereas I cannot see how anyone who grew up in the south as a gay person could possibly do that to themselves
 

The Kree

Banned
She stays knowing that the same religious right that hates her very existence has completely taken over the Republican party. She built a wall around the part of her brain that would be telling her to leave. Those people are not her friends, they're not her peers, they're not her allies. Bring those so called real conservative values over to a party that will at least acknowledge your existence as a human worthy of dignity and respect. She'd be far more useful there.
 

Aurongel

Member
Her political affiliation is her choice, not mine. If anything, my take away from this story is how many Americans aren't as accurately represented as they should be due to the presence of just two political parties.

I don't know how a gay Republican existing is shocking to anyone in a world where black Republicans exist in the numbers that they do.


I've lost hours to this site, it's a real rabbit hole. The Onion couldn't write a better satire compendium if they tried.
 

Crayons

Banned
I don't know how a gay Republican existing is shocking to anyone in a world where black Republicans exist in the numbers that they do.
.

There-Are-Dozens-of-Us-Tobias-Funke-Arrested-Development.gif


(not me)
 
Republicans are actively trying to legislate against her having equal rights with straight people.

It's most definitely time for her to leave the party.

And she needs to get away from the conservative "Red, White & Blue" filter she's been trapped behind and start reading a wider range of news sources.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom