r/politics • u/slaysia • Dec 19 '17

Democrat wins Va. House seat in recount by single vote; creating 50-50 tie in legislature

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/democrat-wins-va-house-seat-in-recount-by-single-vote-creating-50-50-tie-in-legislature/2017/12/19/3ff227ae-e43e-11e7-ab50-621fe0588340_story.html?utm_term=.82f2b85b50fa
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u/dotmatrixhero Dec 19 '17

I appreciate this write up. It's important to look critically at the shows that we admire. A show can be amazing, but not perfect. And that doesn't mean we have to flip out and hate it, but it doesn't mean we should be complicit and accept everything about it either.

I think satire, by nature, will always fall short. It's much easier to find the flaws in something than it is to suggest improvements.

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u/[deleted] Dec 19 '17

But many don't see the deficiency. The see criticism and satire as the ANSWER to the problem. Let's hope there are enough of us out there

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u/BEST_RAPPER_ALIVE Foreign Dec 19 '17

What people are forgetting is that with a turd sandwich, you're literally eating shit, but a giant douche can be used for good things: like basting a giant Thanksgiving turkey, or douching your mum's cavernous vagina.

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u/Picnicpanther California Dec 19 '17

It's also extremely unhealthy to get your entire worldview, lock stock and barrel, from one tv show—especially a fictional, satirical cartoon. They can invent situations and bend it into the point they're trying to make, which makes it a lousy way to formulate your own opinions about the world.

Then again, libertarians have been taking fiction as reality since Ayn Rand.

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u/MaximumEffort433 Maryland Dec 20 '17

Then again, libertarians have been taking fiction as reality since Ayn Rand.

Rant 2!

Ayn Rand's fiction wasn't that bad. I really liked Anthem... I think I completely disagreed with the point she was trying very hard to make, but I liked it, it was a good read. There are lots of people who like Atlas Shrugged, too! (I got about a third of the way into the book, I couldn't finish it, it was so. goddamn. boring. But some people like boring, who am I to judge?) From what I've heard The Fountainhead is also a book that she wrote.

One of my favorite writers was a sometimes libertarian, Robert A. Heinlein. The difference is that nobody tried to build an entire political ideology on The Moon is a Harsh Mistress or Stranger in a Strange Land.

I hate it when good fiction gets abused, it's sort of like what the Nazis did with the swastika, or Fox News did with the word "balanced."

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u/FlyingChange Dec 20 '17

Thank you for not calling Heinlein a fascist. It really irks me when people go on about the "military fascist ideals" of Heinlein.

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u/MaximumEffort433 Maryland Dec 20 '17

I have to imagine that those people only ever watched Starship Troopers, completely misunderstood the plot, and never bothered to read the book. Idiots gonna idiot, though.

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u/FlyingChange Dec 21 '17

Ain’t that the truth. I think Heinlein’s politics are rather hard to pin down- he’s definitely across the board. I actually think Starship Troopers is, in a way, very progressive, especially for when it was written.