Oh No, The New Awesome Primary Thread

How much for just the toupee?

Hi, Tanypteryx. I'm not sure that would work, since the Bundys are devout Mormons.

Hi, RAZD. So, this is the first year I've really closely followed the primaries and tried to understand the system, so maybe I don't know the history here. As much as I disagree with Republicans on social issues, I have to say that the GOP's nomination apparatus is far superior.It seems like the DNC has overthought every aspect of the primary system. Counting votes should be just about the least complicated thing human civilization has ever done, yet somehow the DNC managed to make it obscure and convoluted to the point that I don't even have the will power to look it up.Has it always worked this way?

And I repeat my previous statement that counting votes should be the single least complicated thing human civilization has ever had to do.

Some, I assume, are good people.

Hi, Faith. Wrong? I don't know about that, but they're almost certainly wired differently from "rightist" brains. Here is a site that lists some recent research on the interface of politics and brain physiology. Take a quick look: that site highlights 16 recent studies that discuss some interesting patterns. And, it's pretty neutral: it's not pro-leftist propaganda, or anything like that.I am reminded of my debate with Bolder-dash a few years ago about whether or not apes had beards.I imagine that the frustration you're feeling right now is lot like what I was feeling then: "how the hell are we looking at the same @#$&! photographs, and yet somehow seeing two very different things? One of us must be crazy, or at least irreconcilably wrong, and I'm pretty sure it's not me. But, am I really sure?"I think the same thing is happening here with the Donald Trump comments and PC discussion. I don't think anybody participating on this thread is crazy, stupid or blatantly dishonest (and that includes you, Faith): you're all just looking at the same thing, but seeing something different.That's why we have democracy: because when two parties become deadlocked in spite of all the evidence, unfortunately the only way to decided who is wrong is to gather more opinions. In my mind, voting should be one of the simplest things we do as a society, but instead we have this drawn-out system of primaries and caucuses and delegate formulas. But, that's the process we have, so that's what we'll rely on.I have to say that I find it distressing to know that so many people are rallying behind Trump. That's a huge chunk of the people in my own country whose brains are apparently wired very different from mine. Naturally, that makes me uncomfortable; but what is to be done about it?

Hi, Faith. I was trying to be supportive, Faith. I know it was just a silly joke, but you were actually right: liberal brains are "wired wrong"; at least from your perspective. I was hoping you would see it as me throwing you a bone and trying to find some common ground that we could laugh about and start a productive discussion.Just check it out: it's not propaganda, it's just a list of scientific studies. Some of it is pretty favorable to conservatives, in fact: #16, for example, says liberals tend to sleep poorly and have weird dreams.Come on, I read the article about Marxist PC that you linked to. If you wanted to start a thread about political correctness, I'd be interested in joining you there.----- I believe that Hillary was stupidly irresponsible with her email, and willfully disregarded rules that were supposed to protect sensitive information. The mean little vigilante in my head (which I normally suppress) is pulling for her to be indicted for it. But, I'd still rather elect her than Donald Trump.There, I brought it up. But, I don't particularly want to debate it, because I don't like fighting with people who understand the topic better than I do. I refer you to source #15 on the list for one possible explanation for my cowardly behavior.

Hi, Pressie. We're all still trying to figure it out. This is probably largely due to the inherent granularity of representative democracy. States are divided up into districts, and the each district elects convention delegates by popular vote. Inevitably, somebody is going to get screwed over by a rounding error when you translate vote proportions into delegates, and this is likely to be compounded across multiple districts.Say a certain district awards 5 delegates. In that district, Candidate A gets 50% of the vote, Candidate B gets 30% of the vote, Candidate C gets 15%, and the rest go to minor candidates. Proportionally, you'd give 2.5, 1.5 and 0.75 delegates to the three candidates, but delegates don't come in fractions, so somebody is going to get more and somebody is going to get less than their vote proportion. The formulas are usually set to favor higher-ranked candidates, so the guy in third place is going to get rounded down to 0 most of the time.

Here, on Megyn Kelly's show tonight, a Navy SEAL named Pete Higbie supports Donald Trump because he is the kind of leader who can lobby for changes to the Geneva Convention, which would make it so American soldiers don't have to go to war "with their hands tied behind their backs."The war rhetoric in this primary is really getting out of hand. As an example, in the debate last night, Trump said ISIS is laughing at us because we balk at the morality of waterboarding while they chop off heads; and this is reason enough for us to do "a lot worse than waterboarding."

Hi, Ringo. Well, let's file that under "Points you never thought you'd have to clarify, except in American politics or on the internet."

I just thought of something, and even though it risks opening the old wounds, I wanted to share it.Over on the Corvid ecologists thread a while back, Faith and I bantered a bit about blue jays (the North American birds). Faith opened with this statement: I wanted to try a little experiment: Hmm... nope, doesn't work. Reasons to criticize a bird are not valid reasons to criticize a candidate for President of the United States.How odd.

And don't forget about this one.But, at least we didn't vote for Trump, so we're clearly not all depraved human beings.