My blogvesary has ramped up the rhetoric as of late and, whereas I do enjoy our debates over the years, we are symptoms of a greater problem. We really aren’t hearing each other anymore. On that note, let’s start off with an agreement. Looking at AOCs emergence as a key voice there is certainly concern future progressives may not look before they legislate. Having said that, the GOP is already in four point restraints with an ass full of Haloperidol. Let the debate begin!

The following is a long comment thread from my friend that I dissected for your enjoyment:

Pokey: Under Obama we restricted U.S. gas and oil drilling, forcing us, and much of Europe to purchase from Russia and other adversarial nations. To Become energy independent (under Trump, the U.S. now exports more energy than it imports for the first time in 65 years–why is this bad?) while we develop practical alternative energies. Under Trump that has become a sensible policy.

Zano: Well, for starters, because every corner of that statement is garbage. Find.The.News. For one, Obama restricted drilling in some protected areas, but overall he had a very aggressive drilling policy. Certainly oil production ebbed a bit under Trump.

As for a gradual shift toward green, that is a lie perpetuated decade after decade by people actively sabotaging any shift toward renewable. I have watched this topic over the years and there’s no excuse anymore. The debate should have ended long ago, much like every other issue of our time. Here’s an old Zano article from when Fox & Friends claimed we couldn’t match Germany’s solar efforts, because Deutscheland has so much better weather. Seriously? Sunny old Stuttgart?

This would have been a wonderful argument during the Carter administration, Pokey, although it was still bullshit even then. The first clue was when Reagan ripped out the solar panels Carter had installed in the White House …or, the other 4,569 examples since then. I remember when I was a kid one of my neighbors attempted to go solar and the power company, LILCO, charged the guy to take the panels down from his roof and charged more to get himself back on the grid. Remarkably, those same peeps are still calling the shots forty years later. Always remember the equation: Republicans push issues into a false binary choice and then choose the wrong one. I’m giving you the answer key here. It’s time you used it.

Pokey: I’d like to get back to your claim that Republican policies are “all too far right, almost without exception.” The first part of this sentence (ALL TOO FAR) is immediately contradicted by the second part (ALMOST without exception–which means that there IS an exception).

Zano: I’ve addressed this …a lot. When it comes to the GOP I am okay with junking the whole political ideology, particularly if 90% of the GOP is made of Foxal matter, something so toxic to the discourse it can’t even help plants grow. I do waffle between giving or not giving the GOP points for writing their name correctly at the top of the paper, thus your confusion. My quest to find out what Republicans are right about spanned decades and it was quite fruitless. I’ve given up. My only retractions occurred after those few times I entertained a conservative viewpoint. Reread my venn diagram article, it chooses a dozen of our key issues and why the Republican viewpoint is superfluous. In fact, this very argument is one of them!

For this one you are casting yourself as the moderate, while supporting and voting for batshit. Lip.Service. Watch The Naked Gun 2½ from 1991. The same joke holds true today. The Mr. Meinheimers of the world will always be silenced by the fossil fuel people and the lie about gradually shifting to green has been an empty since the ’70s. If you vote for Republicans it doesn’t matter what you think about the problem; you are the problem.

Pokey: Let me speak to the more important contradiction of the substance of your claim. In a recent article in which you provided a hypothetical scenario of a right leaning America, you acknowledged to me that in reality America has been moving Leftward for some time–but not fast enough in your estimation. Left and Right being relative–as a nation shifts Left, moderate becomes the new Right. So if America has been shifting Leftward, how can you say that the Republicans are too far right? For example, Donald Trump is the first president whose campaign actually supported gay marriage. [Winslow: Outwardly, how is that LGBTQ support looking now?]

Zano: It’s a polarized world. People are running to the edges of both ideologies, so how is that contradictory? It started in the ’90s with Newt Gingrich and really ramped up post 9/11. The Republicans moved off the chart of political relevance long ago and now the predicted backlash of liberal extremism is upon us. I know you’re always surprised by events, but have you ever wondered why I keep predicting them?

Summary Alert: Recent Democratic presidents were pragmatists and recent Republican presidents were idiots.

Pokey: The relativism of Left/Right dichotomy can only be objectively “balanced” by enduring principles, such as those given to us in the founding documents.

Zano: No argument, you should find some. Time and time again the Republicans have jeopardized the founding principles. Republicans have enabled the consolidation of power in the executive branch (Patriot Act, The Authorization to Use of Military Force) as well as corporations (Citizen’s United, net neutrality, and Trump’s all but ending of consumer protections). After your last comment you are confused on net neutrality. Surprise face emoji.

Let’s look at your list *cough*:

No one should force me to bake gay wedding cakes, and I have the right to die in the lobby if I don’t want healthcare. Strong work, sir! Everything you’ve ever complained about that made any sense refers back to my list over the years, not yours. This may even prove the case for the Russia probe as NSA guidelines and warrantless wiretaps were made much more attainable for any overseas phone conversation. Republicans only protest when their tools are used against them.

Summary Alert 2: Whereas your list of liberal horrors are either exaggerated or theoretical, my list of what’s already been done is damning.

Pokey: But the Left has increasingly attacked the principles expressed in those founding documents. This is what President Obama meant by “transforming our nation.” The principles upon which our nation was founded (Bill of Rights) give negative rights to individual human beings that defend against governmental intrusion. The Left reinterprets our Bill of Rights as positive rights, which the government is responsible for supplying to all individuals–healthcare, education, housing, food, standard of living, environmental protection.

Zano: Whereas other countries have figured out the risk pools involved and solved the affordability and availability of healthcare for their citizens, your ilk demonizes such successes by labeling it socialism for the sole purpose of continuing their raping and pillaging of the populous. Conservatives are against saving money (see: current deficits minus meaningful programs), and they are against saving lives (see: dropping insurance enrollments). This, again, was all predicted. You reside in an alternate universe where freedom equals a freedom from healthcare. I have offered you the opt-out button, because there’s more than enough liberals to make an Obamacare-type plan work. But what we can not have, just like the attack on green energies, is a concerted misinformation campaign at the state level designed to sabotage these programs outright.

Hint of the Day: your political party is a walking misinformation campaign.

Or do you have another theory for your inability to grasp what’s happened or happening?

Pokey: In my estimation, this successful “transformation” is the death of our nation that leads straight to collective statism. You seem to recognize the Green New Deal as being too far Left, but if our nation continues moving Left (in contradiction to the principles of our constitution) then the Green New Deal will soon become “moderate.” Remember, only 15 years ago, gay marriage was an extreme position. Only 15 years ago, a ninth-month abortion was an extreme position. Even President Obama argued against a single payer healthcare system. Until very recently Open Borders and the abolitions of ICE were extreme positions. All these positions have been normalized.

Zano: Yeah, since all of your other predictions are so spot on, ha! Again, garbage. I recently heard on NPR late abortions account for .002 of all abortions. That number would skyrocket if abortions suddenly became illegal, so you would want more late-term abortions why? Hmmm. Oh I forgot, more unsafe abortions would kill more of the mothers. I get it.

I don’t think my positions have evolved much on these matters, at least offhand. We have waited patiently for our less savvy friends to catch up and the time for waiting is over, but is it already too late? That’s my only question. You have been allowed to keep the debate going without a valid viewpoint. Waiting to fix healthcare when we’re broke, old and sick is not a great plan, nor is waiting until we’re all dead to acknowledge climate change. The next and final Republican fomented collapse will be about all-she-wrote for Lady Liberty, or at least I’ll say this much: what emerges from the other side will be unrecognizable.

Pokey: As I’ve said before, “Progressivism is the incremental normalization of insanity.”

Zano:  A last note on healthcare: this has been successfully implemented, to one degree or another, by every other free, industrialized country. Most of these programs are very popular, very effective and did nothing to encroach on its citizens freedoms. Why you are not permitted to see, acknowledge, or even understand this is part of the story within the story of our time.

Oh, and as I’ve said before, “Conservatism is a shit sandwich, with a side order of freedom fries, served by a sociopath.”

[Retraction: I never said that until now.]

[Winslow: it’s already in the title, Zano, so retract your retraction]