The Guardian reports:
Georgia secretary of state and gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp improperly purged more than 340,000 voters from the state's registration rolls, an investigation charges.
Greg Palast, a journalist and the director of the Palast Investigative Fund, said an analysis he commissioned found 340,134 voters were removed from the rolls on the grounds that they had moved - but they actually still live at the address where they are registered.
"Their registration is cancelled. Not pending, not inactive – cancelled. If they show up to vote on 6 November, they will not be allowed to vote. That's wrong," Palast told reporters on a call on Friday. "We can prove they're still there. They should be allowed to vote."
[...] Palast and the Georgia Coalition for the People's Agenda filed a lawsuit against Kemp on Friday to force him to release additional records related to the state's removal of voters.
Under Georgia procedures, registered voters who have not cast ballots for three years are sent a notice asking them to confirm they still live at their address. If they don't return it, they are marked inactive. If they don't vote for two more general elections after that, they are removed from the rolls.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by archfeld on Tuesday October 23 2018, @10:12PM (33 children)
How can the current secretary of state also be a candidate and not have a conflict of interest ? If you are running for office you should automatically be recused from overseeing the same election.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 23 2018, @10:26PM
In the US, a conflict of interest is not something that actually stops people with power from doing what they want, that's how. As for elections specifically, nearly all secretaries of state in the US are partisan officials who can and do use the power of their office with the goal of giving themselves and/or their buddies a better chance to win. And they get away with it because they are in turn protected by said buddies (e.g. elected state supreme court judges) from the legal consequences of their actions.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @10:30PM (2 children)
Dude, this is the south, okay? The guy is probably his brother's father.
As far as conflict of interest goes, I don't see much effort to remedy that. That kind of stuff is business as usual. The voters don't seem to mind. They keep on reelecting these goofs. Let 'em do their thing.
(Score: 5, Informative) by stretch611 on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:48AM (1 child)
Well now there are potentially 340,000 votes against this asshat that will not even be considered. Makes it harder to not re-elect him.
In addition, Brian Kemp and his office are named in a lawsuit for:
- blocking 53,000 voter registration applications [11alive.com],
- Throwing out a disproportionate number of absentee ballots [11alive.com],
- election machine hacking under his watch [onlineathens.com] (and he refuse to upgrade the machines which lack a paper trail.
Note that his office can throw out absentee ballots on a whim [electoral-vote.com] without even needing to notify people that it was done or even allow them to appeal the decision.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @02:34AM
Yes, and the effort to counter any of this is too feeble to notice. The voters have to take their own initiative.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by FatPhil on Tuesday October 23 2018, @11:16PM (18 children)
However, I am sure that these 340000 people will be overjoyed that they won't have to pay any taxes any more. No taxation without representation, after all - I think there's a war that proves that such principles hold.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Troll) by VLM on Tuesday October 23 2018, @11:31PM (17 children)
The irony is if you believe the far fetched reports, he's implementing no representation without taxation, which ends up being about the same thing. The people de-registered are not known as a group to be net positive taxpayers, so refusal to participate in governmental activities would mostly result in ...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday October 23 2018, @11:43PM (16 children)
Winding up with a whole class of people disenfranchised. I'm sure nothing could go wrong there at all.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:13AM (4 children)
In general I unironically agree with you.
In specific, as regards Georgia, with a "winner takes all" election technology and the -R margin of victory being immensely larger than the small percentages seriously being claimed... all the noise just doesn't matter. As a thought experiment say the right capitulated and as some kind of racial reparation payment disenfranchised an equal number of white men; the margins are such that nothing would really change in Georgia. Tempest in a teacup and all that.
Combining your comment and mine, fundamentally we're just trash talking Georgia. Its not really that bad of a place, but whatevs.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:28AM (3 children)
It doesn't need to be a thought experiment, as it has been done before. It ends in violence.
You should read a history book once in a while.
Even better, the idiots that rule over you should.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:54AM (2 children)
Really? I'd be fascinated with an actual citation or example. It doesn't sound very realistic at all.
(Score: 4, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday October 24 2018, @01:14AM (1 child)
You could start with the revolutions of 1848 I suppose.
Most of those have remarkable similarities with the current setup in the US.
Looking at the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917 might learn you a thing or two also.
Of course it might not too, because I am well aware of how your lot feel about Communists. Frankly, looking at the history of almost any European country from 1700 - 1945 or so would be useful.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Wednesday October 24 2018, @04:09PM
The Russian revolution established a democratic government under the Duma. Unfortunately, probably, it didn't last long enough to consolidate it's power and was overthrown by the Bolsheviks in essentially a coup. (There was a different Duma before the revolution. The word is just "assembly" in Russian, so it's not surprising that it was used for several different bodies.)
It's an interesting question as to what kind of government would have evolved if the Bolshevik coup had failed, but AFAIK the evidence isn't very strong in any direction. Think of the US before the Articles of Confederation were adopted. A mix of chaos and demagoguery, with lots of politics. Only a bit more violent and extreme.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:18AM (9 children)
Given the side dish that the people being disenfranchised were supposedly being specifically targeted because they historically have individually not voted...
I'm just sayin... if you want to disenfranchise a class of people with minimal effort and fight, your best target selection is to disenfranchise the class of self selected people who don't vote, which makes the whole topic kind of comedic.
I mean, if they really want a fight, the -R party should disenfranchise only people who've voted in the last ten partisan primaries for the D party. That would at least be fun to watch, worth popping some popcorn for.
(Score: 4, Touché) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:34AM (2 children)
What a weird way to run a country. You should put some adults in charge instead.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:52AM (1 child)
Well, OK, I'm trying to make the point if you have a James Bond Villain trying to mess up elections, its more of an "Austin Powers" parody to try and "hack" the election by preventing known non-voters from voting. Thats not going to be very effective...
That would imply if the supposed villian's IQ is above room temperature, than maybe the whole squabble is made up fake news?
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday October 24 2018, @01:09AM
Really?
OK then.
(Score: 2) by http on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:47AM (5 children)
Uh, no. Deregistering the voters means that no amount of campaigning, door-to-door, or socialmedia advertising can get them to vote.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by VLM on Wednesday October 24 2018, @01:10AM (4 children)
Well, yeah, so if hypothetically the victim of today's two minutes hate were a bad actor, you'd think he'd target the people active and most likely to vote, not least likely to vote.
I mean, when some rando on SN in mere minutes can plan an evil conspiracy better than the people supposedly involved in the conspiracy ... maybe the whole thing is just a conspiracy theory. It does seem to have great headlines and tweets and anything deeper than a rain puddle examination of the topic starts looking not so impressive.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Whoever on Wednesday October 24 2018, @02:23AM (3 children)
Counter opinion: almost no voters change their minds about whom they will vote for. Elections are won and lost by getting "your" people out to vote (and by suppressing the voters who would vote for the opposition).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @04:28AM
Countering your broad overgeneralisation with my anecdata:
My entire family abandoned the Dems over the course of the last .... oh, decade or so. Some went republican, some went green, at least one went libertarian to my knowledge, but I can't think of a single close family member who will admit to even wanting the democrats in office.
So I guess I live in a family of party-changing freaks.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday October 24 2018, @11:03AM (1 child)
Well, OK, and which candidate is being hurt by suppressing people who historically have not voted?
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday October 25 2018, @02:58AM
The one who has pissed off these people enough that they would finally vote.
Here in Canada, the Conservatives pissed of the natives enough that many who had never voted actually went out and tried to vote. These natives generally did not recognize the Canadian government as they'd made treaties with the crown and many had not voted in generations, but they got pissed off enough that they voted, or tried to. Of course the Conservative party took advice from the American Republican party on how to repress votes. Need ID with a numbered street address, well most reservations don't have numbered street addresses so their ID wasn't good enough. Or like my wife, whose ID is in her maiden name, has always voted under her maiden name mysteriously had her voter registration change to her married name between checking the voter list the day before the election and showing up to vote.
This is problem with requiring ID to vote. Good idea when done impartially such as here for years, bad idea when a party is prepared to cheat.
(Score: 4, Touché) by http on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:50AM
Hopefully, it would also end up with a whole class of businesses disenfranchised. That would be worth it for the lulz alone.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by VLM on Tuesday October 23 2018, @11:23PM (9 children)
I suppose you could have states oversee each other's elections, but at some point the game of "who watches the watchers" gets pointless.
Some data that needs to be censored to keep the uninformed rage going, is WRT the supposed crook, he won his last election by 58% vs 42% and even the most rabid screechers high on their own holiness have not claimed he's disenfranchised more than, say, 8% of the states population.
So theoretically consider a dude who won 51/49 and disenfranchises 10% of the population, well, thats looking very crooked, there's obvious motivation to break the law there.
But a guy who won by sixteen points maybe risking felony by increasing the ratio to 24 points; it just doesn't add up as a plausible criminal act.
Its just "every white man is literally Hitler" rabble rousing as opposed to an actual story. Its just not plausible or realistic.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @11:33PM
Stop your dog whistling bullshit. You've shown yourself many times before, but this is one example that shouldn't be a partisan issue yet that is all you can come up with.
You are one evil person.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Mykl on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:43AM (6 children)
The Australian Electoral Commission is an independent body that oversees voter registration, electorate boundaries, campaign rules, vote tallying etc. Politicians have no involvement or influence.
This Map [aec.gov.au] shows the electorate boundaries and results from 2016. As you can see, not a lot of gerrymandering here.
So before you throw your hands up and say it's all too hard, consider an independent body. Oh wait, this is the US we're talking about - there's no such thing as an independent body there. Sorry.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday October 24 2018, @01:06AM (4 children)
The USA is too multicultural, or AUS doesn't have enough identity politics, to pull it off.
In the USA both housing location and politics are mostly racial; for example historically far over 90% of africans vote for only one party in the USA. Essentially everyone except very young urbanite college kids live in mostly homogeneous ethnic neighborhoods. That compounds with identity politics to result in some breathtaking gerrymandering.
My limited understanding of AUS politics is your party structure is vaguely socioeconomic class based, like wealthy and white collar vs blue collar, more or less. It would be interesting to hear if that is correct. I'm well aware my one liner could not possibly contain all possible intrigue although I believe in good faith (possibly incorrectly) that it's an accurate ultra-short summary of AUS politics. As such I would not be surprised to hear gerrymandering is not an issue.
(Score: 4, Informative) by deimtee on Wednesday October 24 2018, @01:57AM
It used to be that way. Labour was for the proles, Liberal was for the rich bastards, National Party was country voters. Historically the Libs and Nats had similar policies and combined into the LNP (aka The Coalition), which put them about on par with Labour.
The most major of the minor parties was the Australian Democrats, who tried to get the balance of power in the upper house with the very Australian slogan "keep the bastards honest".
However, with the decline of unions the working class element is slowly being purged from Labour, and they are drifting to the right. The LNP, in an effort to differentiate are also drifting further right on some stuff that doesn't matter. Economically the two parties are almost indistinguishable.
This is leading to the rise of many small parties, who get voted for by people pissed off with both main parties. Since we have preference voting, you can vote for anyone you like without 'throwing your vote away'. Rising parties include the Greens (lefties) and One Nation (further right than the mains). The Pirate Party and Sex Party (both libertarianesque) have also made respectable showings in some elections.
I am now one of the growing group of people who routinely puts the two major parties at the bottom of the list in the probably futile hope that throwing more parties and independents into parliament will slow the bastards down a bit.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @02:00AM
Yep, they voted Republican, the party of Mr. Lincoln, until the dixiecrats joined the Republicans during the '60s civil rights movement.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Wednesday October 24 2018, @02:00AM
Racial politics is much less prevalent here, but there are definitely the equivalent of 'red' and 'blue' suburbs, states etc.
The major parties in Australia are Labor (working class, pro union, left wing) and the Liberal/National coalition (pro-business, socially more conservative particularly in the past 10-15 years, right wing though probably still to the left of the US DNC). The only other significant party are the Greens (environment and social justice, 'far left'). There is also minor representation nationally from One Nation (anti-immigration, 'far right'), Family First (bring back the 1950's, 'far right') and a few independents.
The two major parties would love to bury the Greens, as they have been growing in popularity and have managed to win seats. Labor in particular is worried because the Greens are eating into their base more than anyone else. The Greens have won a few federal seats which could have been prevented if the incumbents had the ability to gerrymander.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MostCynical on Wednesday October 24 2018, @02:41AM
there has been major gerrymandering at the State level:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bjelkemander [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Australian_state_election,_1968 [wikipedia.org]
but very little at National/Federal level.
the process [funnelback.com] is quite a-political.
Australia still has a reasonably independent government bureaucracy, and, while Heads Of Departments are appointed by the government of the day (to varying [theguardian.com] levels of influence and attempts at partisan or non-partisan appointments), there is still a strong sense of serving the people (Public Service), not the government.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday October 25 2018, @03:23AM
Canada likewise has Elections Canada which does the same thing as an independent body. The only resident citizens who can't vote are the head and deputy of Elections Canada. When the Conservatives got their majority election before last, first thing they started was neutering Elections Canada. Things like no longer being able to encourage people to vote, including no more volunteers everywhere registering voters. Power to investigate fraud and similar shit taken away and so on. If they'd stayed in government, I'd hate to see how things would have gone, same with if they get another majority.
Another thing the right is doing here is pushing for voting in (and out) Judges, as they really don't like most civil rights and Judges kept ruling against them, including striking down laws. Ended up with the PM fighting with the head of the Supreme Court when they tried to appoint an unqualified Judge.
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Wednesday October 24 2018, @06:16PM
Why would you need the feds ? Just someone who isn't one of the candidates in the election. Elect or appoint a replacement for the duration of the election. Isn't there a Deputy Secretary of State or some such person ? I wasn't able to tell from the article if the removal of the voters was according to the long term rules or in violation of those rules which does have a huge impact on the story. They have a set procedure in place which seems more than generous and if it was followed it makes this story a non-event. If that procedure was violated then it should be a malfeasance of office or criminal issue at the very least.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @10:21PM (67 children)
The GOP has a systemic problem with ethics and it has become normalized with their base. Please, explain how the gleeful Republicans cheering this on are not actively destroying our country?
The anger felt by conservatives is causing them to do and support Very Bad Things regardless of actual evidence. They are fed lies like crazy, and not the context ignoring half-truth kind of lies but full blown insanity that is inspiring violence. The POTUS is openly calling "the left" an angry mob perpetrating violence. This is 100% the tactics of fascism and our POTUS is inspiring his base to treat fellow citizens as enemy combatants.
This insanity will lead us into hell. If you are a conservative and not brainwashed by this craziness PLEASE talk your fellow conservatives off the ledge before they get ready to murder me and my family.
Please no whataboutism with complaints about "the left" unless it is factual information that has bearing on the topic of political violence. Shouting about Antifa is not valid as I am talking about the POTUS inspiring a massive percentage of the country to commit violence. Antifa's violence is not OK either, but that is a small extremist group.
Ask yourself how you would have felt if Obama had called for violence against "the right".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @10:25PM
Replying to my own post, I found this link https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jesse-benn/sorry-liberals-a-violent-_b_10316186.html [huffingtonpost.com] which seems to promote violent protest. I guess violence is being promoted at some level on both sides, but still having the POTUS promote it is the absolute worst thing.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @10:26PM (21 children)
You democrats are hilarious! Fact: #CrookedHillary violently erased emails.
(Score: 1, Troll) by NPC-131073 on Tuesday October 23 2018, @10:31PM (14 children)
Orange man good.
Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!
Nothing wrong was done here.
Registering to vote is easy.
Democrats are racis.
(Score: 2) by RandomFactor on Tuesday October 23 2018, @10:42PM (12 children)
NPC made it here? I thought I had missed your moment in the sun by not reading Twitter before the pogrom commenced.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @11:04PM (11 children)
The only true solution to "NPCs" (e.g. conformists and authoritarian followers) is education and courage to critically examine and confront one's own cognitive dissonance in the pursuit of a scientific approach to reality (i.e. that reality is not inherently mysterious but is knowable), alas.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday October 23 2018, @11:20PM
That, like, your opinion, man. The controversy is not settled.
(grin)
Seriously speaking: see, the 'my ignorance is as good as your science', that's the problem: being proudly ignorant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:21AM (8 children)
You sound so very much like the Red Chinese crazies from several decades ago. You do realize that the Reds have abandoned those kind of excesses?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:42AM (7 children)
Can you elaborate on how GP (me) calls back to Maoism?
I haven't had a chance to give Maoism a decent look yet. It's right behind libertarian socialism [wikipedia.org] for things to read more about in my infinite spare time.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:58AM (6 children)
The people arguing the "left" position here are calling for "education". Wikipedia has it's page on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Re-education_through_labor [wikipedia.org] Mao's reeducation efforts.
The recent best sellers by a Chinese author really brings all that stuff into focus. Cixin Liu happens to be an educated person who lived through some of that crap. He takes so much of the stuff I read about, and brings it into the story, and makes it all human relatable. And, he makes it quite clear that no one really gives a damn whether you survive your reeducation.
These are the things I hear every time I hear either leftists or rightists spouting about reeducation, FEMA camps, or any method of rounding people up to control them.
If China's reeducation isn't bad enough for you, maybe you'd like to examine Pol Pot's reeducation schemes. I leave it to you to find articles on the Khmer Rouge regime.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @01:05AM
Ah, that was what triggered you. Thank you for explaining.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @03:40AM (4 children)
Education is the answer, you can get your panties in a twist if someone actually starts advocating for re-education camps. You conservatives are just fueled by fear and anger, it isn't healthy.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday October 24 2018, @02:56PM (3 children)
Fear and anger. I don't know - maybe SOME people are afraid of the left. What is there to be afraid of? Either the left stops pushing it's agenda, in which case everything is fine. Or, they push their agenda until people get pissed off and start shooting. In that case, there will be a couple years of excitement, then everything will be fine again.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Wednesday October 24 2018, @11:51PM (2 children)
Yeah and the right is %100 agenda-free! The right began a no-compromise campaign under Reagan that solidified under Obama, specifically pushing their agenda.
And that agenda sucks even worse than the lefts agenda, which is no rose either.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday October 25 2018, @12:25AM (1 child)
Well, the neocons have been mostly flushed out of Washington. The job isn't finished, but they are no longer in charge. Dick Cheney is gone, along with his sidekick, Dubya.
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday October 25 2018, @03:31AM
And now you have a strange mixture of leftist and rightist as head of your Country. Friend of Hillary, well to the left of her economically, well to the right of her as an authoritarian and nationalist. It's a mix of right and left that has been used to take over countries before and led to horrible results.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday October 24 2018, @04:20PM
That's not the Copenhagen interpretation. That one insists that reality is essentially unknowable. (Of course, they put some pretty tight bounds about exactly where it's unknowable.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by Captival on Tuesday October 23 2018, @10:48PM
Looks like that shit Trump impersonator found another gig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @10:38PM (5 children)
There is zero evidence H intentionally tried to hide anything. She had a right to delete personal info; it's just that her lawyers did a sloppy job. When investigators recovered a sub-set of the "deleted" emails, there was nothing nefarious in them. She and her lawyers were careless, yes; but a lot of politicians have screwed up emails and tech. Also, the State Dept. is partly at fault for not insuring she went to proper security training. That's the job of the security/IT group, NOT the Sec. of State. H can't micromanage training schedules.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @10:47PM (4 children)
Do you brush your teeth after you lick her asshole?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @03:41AM (3 children)
You sound like one of Trump's assholes.
(Score: 2) by SpockLogic on Wednesday October 24 2018, @01:59PM (2 children)
Trump has more than one asshole? Who knew.
If he could fart in different keys would it constitute a musical instrument?
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 24 2018, @05:07PM
Insert woodwind joke here.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @05:13PM
Isn't that why they are called Trumpets? All the music blowing from the holes.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 23 2018, @11:11PM (9 children)
My understanding as someone who isn't one of them:
1. They believe that the majority of citizens are out to destroy their country. In short, they believe that in a fair fight, America loses. Not that they lose, not that the Republicans don't have control of the government for a while, but that the next part of the story is that the nation is overrun by black or brown transgender lesbians speaking Spanish or Swahili and robbing the remains of what they spent generations creating way back when. In short, they're thinking is akin to living humans in a zombie apocalypse scenario trying to avoid giving the zombies a say in what happens next.
2. They believe that the Democrats and other leftists are pulling all the same things they're pulling, but getting away with it more often because they control the media and courts and such. People who've left movement conservatism and think tanks have said as much: The higher-ups tell the junior staffers that just came in out of the Young Republicans that the Democrats have hundreds of people working in all kinds of institutions doing all of the same immoral things that these junior staffers are being told to do, and that their role is to be the equal-and-opposite of those (quite possibly fictional) people.
It's also vital to understand that to conservatives, the "America" that they view as under potentially civilization-ending threat isn't the territory or the population as a whole, it's an ideology and what they see as the proper social order, a strict hierarchy with God at the top and impoverished non-white children at the bottom and a basic rule that nobody higher up in the hierarchy really has to answer to anybody further down in the hierarchy. This hierarchical thinking is a big part of why they tend to think along the lines of "cop shoots somebody, cop must have been justified, because cop is a higher authority than the person they shot". There's also a strong element of "might makes right": For instance, evangelical Christians sometimes justify their vote for such an unrepentant sinner as Trump with the logic that he couldn't possibly have won without divine intervention, so God must have wanted them to hate the sin but love that particular sinner.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0, Troll) by VLM on Tuesday October 23 2018, @11:52PM (1 child)
Its interesting to see that perspective.
I'd only agree with and extend the remarks, to explain why, rather than how.
in #1, the why is simply looking at demographics since the 1965 immigration reforms its obviously a factual observation. Its sort of a fundamental difference in outlook where either the USA exists as a country and therefore has a fundamental human right to continue to exist as a civilization and culture, vs we do not and we must suicide our civ, culture, and genetics in order to maintain permanent hyper-levels of immigration for some abstract concept that doesn't seem to pragmatically work very well anyway. But yeah, your analysis of #1 is about right. For a smaller scale example, look at everyone's experience of "white flight". You pretty much got it, yeah, the zombies shouldn't have a vote in how to rule over us, that would be a pretty icky zombie movie.
in #2 again that seems to actually match a lot of observed statistical reality. Look at the actual black on white vs white on black crime stats, for example.
The third paragraph hits on the concept that corporations or any human group, really, always heavily promote the opposite of what they think; the stereotype of the all male board of directors having the most ridiculous pro-feminism mission statement that they don't follow, racist company management always promoting the most diversity training for the proles, etc. Likewise the -R side especially the legacy boomer evangelicals are REALLY into saying they don't believe in evolution and are strict creationists and all that, but that never leaves the church on Sundays, they live life the opposite. In fact the left has very strong creationist anti-evolution tendencies WRT all social sciences, its an article of faith that magic dirt exists, for example. So, anyways, if a cop shoots someone, its because lack of devout creationism indicates in social science the super-high-selection-pressure cop is usually less of a dirtbag than the zero-to-negative-selection-pressure bullet catcher, it all makes a lot of evolutionary sense. Or with your example of Trump the correct people absolutely hate him, and every screech against him turns more non-leftist people toward him, in the traditional enemy of my enemy is my friend scenario. The "god wills it " "Deus Vult" stuff is just for Sunday morning and the louder they screech it on Sunday morning the less they feel the need to be ... unrealistic in their real world politics the other 6.95 days of the week. The louder a dude prays in church the less unrealistic he is outside of church, kinda thing. So yeah, you got that right, mostly.
Maybe you didn't provide the most flattering portrayal, but you were not really all that far off, yours was an interesting post..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:03AM
#1 is so wrong I can't even... so let's tackle this:
You're making the same error that the SJWs make of ignoring economic class. Do you have data that controls for economic class (perhaps annual household income as a proxy) that will still demonstrate a racial effect? How does this play out with quadroons?
(bleh... racialist theory... bleh bleh...)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday October 24 2018, @02:21AM (4 children)
Atlas Shrugged was published in 1957, but even today sells a half million copies a year.
The truly hardcore right is heavily into Rand and her Objectivism, what she referred to as a philosophy but that actual philosophers regard as not logically supporting itself. Real philosophers will give credit to philosophies they disagree with if they have internally-consistent arguments in their favor, but that's not the case with Objectivism.
Simply put, Objectivism regards those who are good are wealthy ethical, and those who are not unethical. It makes no allowance for those who inherited their wealth or just happened to get lucky with the stock market. Those who believe in Objectivism always assert that rich people get that way through hard work and their own innate abilities such as intelligence, and never get that way due to some external factor other than themselves.
Just this morning I read an article that made quite a strong case for the Objectivists during Rand's lifetime being just as much a cult as Marshall Applewhite's Heaven's Gate or Jim Jones' People's Unification Church:
Some of the stuff I read about today's Republican candidates strikes me as floridly delusional, such as some politician's assertion to the effect that Medicaid denies the recipient "knowledge of God". I expect he's claiming that if you don't die at a tragically early age you're going to have to live in misery for a much longer time until you get to go to Heaven.
The influence that Ayn Rand still has over the right wing is quite poorly understood by the left. I've known about it because I met an attractive young woman who was always going on about the vital importance of Atlas Shrugged. I figured that I could get in her pants by reading the book then discussing it intelligently with her, but after just fifty pages I concluded "This woman is insane", and by "This woman" I meant both Rand and that attractive young woman.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1) by nekomata on Wednesday October 24 2018, @02:27PM (1 child)
You did not unvneil the most interesting part of your story, did you manage to get in her pants?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday October 24 2018, @04:14PM
It sounds to me like MDC remembered a useful adage: Don't stick your dick in crazy.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday October 24 2018, @04:31PM (1 child)
If you read it as fiction rather than as philosophy, Atlas Shrugged is not a bad novel, but it didn't inspire me to read anything else she wrote. On the whole I found Wilson's Illuminatus more believable and entertaining, and that was intentionally unbelievable. The problem with Illuminatus was Wilson's strong admiration for Joyce's Finnegan's Wake. In his other books he considerably toned down the chaos.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 24 2018, @05:11PM
Have to disagree. Rand's philosophy is useful if simplistic but Atlas Shrugged was chapter-long monologues separated from each other by nothing but a few pages of plot.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by schad on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:54PM
I'd say that it's mostly #2. That's the view that's shared by pretty much all Republicans. And I'd be shocked if most Democrats didn't feel exactly the same way. "The bad guys are doing it, and if we don't do it too, they'll beat us!"
But there is a growing trend of #1, and it's really just identity politics. Whites, straights, men, Christians, etc., they've all been made to feel that their identity -- pick one -- is under attack by The Enemy. The Enemy is implacable, cannot be reasoned with, and will not rest until all opposition has been utterly destroyed. And not merely current opposition, either. No, The Enemy actively erases its foes from the history books, and works to ensure that no future generations will ever arise that can challenge it. When faced with such an existential threat, pretty much all tactics are reasonable. This is the angle that the Democrats have been playing with minorities for decades, and while I don't think anyone at Republican Party HQ consciously tried to coopt their strategy, that's what the effect has been.
Ten years ago I would've said that #1 is a tiny fringe of the Republican party. But today... it's probably still a pretty small minority, but more and more people are listening every year. And, to my immense frustration, the Democrats are doubling down on identity politics and accelerating the damn process. (That's the Democrats for you. Whenever the Republicans bungle, the Democrats manage to bungle even worse.)
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Thursday October 25 2018, @03:09AM
you got it all correct, 100%.
both sides are NOT the same. the R's are quite evil, down to the core, and they brainwash themselves to be blind to that very fact. they can't see it, almost literally.
we can't come together. I say, break the country in half and work it out from there. there's just no joining things that are too deeply different.
this country is too large, anyway. if we lost a lot of our size, we'd be much better world citizens.
I don't believe in 'all things should keep growing'. that's stupid. and clearly harmful, in many cases.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday October 23 2018, @11:12PM (8 children)
You have to be realistic about this, in the balance of public insane triggering of leftists vs stuff thats never gonna happen, I think the great PR makes it inevitable that the mass triggering will increase over time.
I was promised that electing Trump would lead directly to Jews in gas chambers, and until I see smoke I'm gonna assume further histrionics is merely the 12351358th retelling of "The Boy who cried Wolf". Go ahead, tell us all how Orange Man Bad and he's literally Hitler.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @11:19PM (1 child)
Its OK to be stupid as long as you keep it to yourself.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @07:42AM
Not an argument.
(Score: 1) by Aurean on Wednesday October 24 2018, @03:48PM (4 children)
Did you miss the news that someone attempted to bomb
a) Soros
b) The Clintons
c) Obama
sometime between last night and this morning?
Tell me more about how inciting violence never ends up in actual violence...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @04:14PM (2 children)
None of the "bombs" went off. So all we have are reports of bombs. From the same news media who will say anything to help the Democrats.
I don't believe it happened. I think it's all a lie to make Democrat scum look like martyrs for their cause, before the election.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday October 24 2018, @04:20PM (1 child)
What evidence would make you believe that this actually happened? Would a story on this from Fox News [foxnews.com], which has been accused of many things but generally not "saying anything to help the Democrats", affect your judgment in the slightest?
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @04:38PM
That's a fair question and deserves an honest reply. However, since the "Invalid form key" error ate my reply, I give up on trying to type it out all over again.
I see that error more and more, and I guess that it's a fake error to help keep down the AC posts. Even if not, I'm tired of losing so many posts here, so I'm not going to try anymore. I guess the fake error worked. (If this attempt to post also fails, then you'll never see this reply, will you? Think of all the other posts that never got posted...)
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday October 24 2018, @08:56PM
Pretty sure those are false flags.
Look, right wing white people are supposed to be effective at killing six million at a time etc. The false flag bombs seem to have accomplished a grand total of nothing. So either there's nothing to fear from false flags, or you're doing holocaust denial... either way its not looking good.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @04:48PM
You mean that separating children from parents at the border with literally no plan of ever re-uniting them (and presumably not actually wanting them to be reunited) isn't bad enough for you? I guess it's a "Solution" to the "Problem" of having too many Mexicans and other desirable and nowhere to put them...
Imagine you read the headline "President Obama is splitting up families, and then holding the children in metal cages with no beds and only a bit of foil for blankets, while their parents are hundreds of miles away in a separate state and have no contact." What would you be thinking of? Doesn't it smack just a slight bit NAZI-ish to you?
(And yes, some of those families are still not re-united...)
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday October 23 2018, @11:24PM (13 children)
BZZZZT!!!!
The entire mainstream US political system has a problem with ethics. The Democrats at the highest levels are painfully unethical, they just cover themselves with a veneer of respectability that makes you wish that perhaps it's not true, whereas the Republicans are more up-front about it, even proud of it in some cases.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @11:27PM (11 children)
I wasn't saying the DNC doesn't suffer similar problems, but the GOP is an order of magnitude worse for the country. They are actively destroying the country by extracting wealth for themselves. The same occurs with Dems in charge but to a much lesser degree, just look at the economic pattern if you want proof. I will 100% take the party that pretends to have ethics, at least occasionally some decent things are done. Being upfront about being evil fucks is not some badge of honor.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday October 24 2018, @12:29AM (3 children)
Clinton Foundation.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Whoever on Wednesday October 24 2018, @03:09AM (2 children)
Yes, what about the Clinton Foundation. You know, the charity that is highly rated for what it does and how it is run.
Unlike the Trump Foundation that has an actual documented history of illegal use.
Please take your dog whistles and go home.
(Score: 2) by Pav on Wednesday October 24 2018, @06:13AM (1 child)
You mean the Clinton Foundation Hillary feared would lose her the election over Uranium One? Y'know, the reason (according to leaked emails) Trump/Russia was concocted?. (BTW according to Politico many Mueller investigation now concede Trump/Russia doesn't threaten the Trump presidency). You mean the Clinton Foundation Huma Abedidin chastised Hillary for being too blatant? ie. Morroccan donations connected to access. The Clinton Foundation that insiders nicknamed "Clinton Incorporated" because of the wealth Bill was building through it? The Clinton Foundation that naive Chelsea Clinton suggested auditing - which then spurred Doug Brand to express concern, complaints and indignation, angrily calling her a "bratt" because she was "ruining everything". You mean THAT Clinton Foundation?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday October 24 2018, @03:01PM
But, didn't the Clinton Foundation "donate" many millions to Haiti? And, weren't most of those millions channeled into the pockets of loyal Hillary supporters? And, didn't they do Haiti a helluva lot of good? I mean - they DID get one new school house, didn't they? Geez, Louise - it takes a lot of millions to move one whole school house all the way to Haiti. Never mind that the same school somewhere in the Old South of the United States would probably be valued at a couple hundred thousand dollars. It might be valued at half a million further north in the United States. In most of the US, the damned thing would be torn down to make way for a real school house.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @03:11AM (6 children)
What we're really getting is 'good cop/bad cop'. Sorry pal, we're done with the 'lesser evil' shtick. That's what got us here to begin with.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @03:38AM (5 children)
No, if people had gone with the lesser evil then HRC would be prez. If your conscience isn't properly calibrated that is an entirely different problem. I didn't vote for her myself, I went 3rd party.
Yes you have a valid point about REAL change not happening, but again Obama was going to pass something close to single payer healthcare and the GOP blocked that shit like crazy. The one real change Obama could have made and it was shot down.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @04:09AM
Nope, the dems had a big enough majority to overcome the GOP. It was their own people that fucked up, or more correctly sold their votes to their 'contributors'. And that is why they lost. No other reason. People saw that their vote for a democrat was a wasted vote. So, instead of voting third party, they stay home. That's too bad. The non-voting block could vote out the democrat/republicans completely and save us all. They are a majority.
And obviously, 'lesser evil' is quite subjective. 'Staying the course' is not necessarily the 'lesser evil'.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @04:18AM (3 children)
Look again.
Obama didn't write that law. Congress's democrats wrote the law.
This is important: the democrats wrote the law. They had control of both houses of congress, and could (and did) pass what they could agree on.
Obama signed it, and waved a banner and took a lot of credit, but realistically it should be called Pelosicare. Obama had very little to do with the content of the law.
Sure, the republicans didn't vote for it. So what? They're not obliged to vote for things just because they're proposed, and it's a cinch that the bulk of their constituents didn't want them voting for that law. Want to know how I know this? The fact that the democrats didn't have total control over congress after the next elections. It's just like the old "assault weapons" ban in Clinton's first term, that handed congress to the republicans. Same dynamic at work: big, brand name policy with much banner-waving and declarations about how this would make America safe for democracy and the children and the whales and the bison and the wolves and the fluffy bunnies, and the electorate comes back with a resounding, unambiguous FUCKYOU written on ballot papers.
It's even worse than that; you remember that the democrats took Congress on the blue wave that was assisted by the Tea Party being active, without having really worked out what's a good candidate. They lost the republicans a bunch of seats - but that should have been a warning to the democrats. And yet, and yet, they went ahead and sunk themselves.
Brilliant move, guys. Really, stunning stuff.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @04:33AM (2 children)
Yes the DNC is garbage, but the GOP is shit. Again, I'll take garbage over shit. Obama promised hope and change, he was the leader so he bears the responsibility.
Besides that your point is wrong, HRC won the popular vote. With all the evidence of voter suppression and "hacked" voting machines that don't record properly, yeaaaaah, I think you might be mistaking criminal behavior for reality.
THIS attitude is why we're in such a fucked up state right now. Something that would have been a literal life saving piece of legislation was torpedoed and you say "so what"?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @01:40PM
No. This is a false dilemma. If they come into power again (this side of the whirlwind), the Democratic Party will do nothing to attempt to resolve the social conditions that allowed Trumpism to take root and grow. Trump is not an aberration or a mistake. He is the predictable outcome of counterrevolutionary policies against the working class that the Democratic Party has supported (jointly with the Republican Party) at least since WJC. The whirlwind cannot be stopped simply by winning the next election. If the alt-right are somehow denied political power over and over again, the whirlwind will still manifest, in that scenario as violence in the streets and a bloody civil war.
If everybody in the USA who does not vote because they can find no representation among the two major capitalist parties (Republican and Democratic) were instead to vote Libertarian and Green, we might actually start getting somewhere. Voter turnout is just that damned low. If there were political awareness of the Green Party as a left-wing alternative to the Democratic Party, they could be propelled into power with the swiftness the Republican Party came about before the Civil War (1860).
But we are likely past the tipping point into fascist dictatorship anyway. Unless
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @04:46PM
You need a refresher on your civics.
Obama was the leader of the EXECUTIVE BRANCH. Got that? This is not the branch that writes laws. He can a) sign laws or b) veto them. That's it. That's all he gets. Oh, sure, he can propose laws - but so can you. The president (by deliberate design) has no handle on the legislative deliberations that are handled by the LEGISLATIVE BRANCH.
If you want to give credit or blame to leaders, about a law, go to the leaders of the LEGISLATIVE BRANCH, which in this case most notably means Nancy Pelosi.
As for HRC winning the popular vote (by which I think you mean plurality), that is an irrelevant factoid in this system. If you don't like the electoral college, feel free to complain about that, but Trump won, as far as all the enraged investigations after the fact could tell, within the system.
As for your bland assumption that single payer is such a life saver, all I can say is that I lived under single payer. It sucked. It actively inhibits personalised medicine. It constrains formularies. It weakens patient responsiveness by doctors.
There are lots of things wrong with the american medical system. Single payer isn't a problem-free solution to those, and I'd argue that the cure is worse than the disease.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Wednesday October 24 2018, @04:50PM
I think it's worth mentioning that however corrupt you think the federal government is, state government is frequently worse, and local government is not infrequently worse than that. The overall scale may be smaller for each instance of corruption, but as a percentage of the overall budget they're often more serious.
My general impression on government corruption is that it tends to happen when elected officials believe, probably correctly, that they have no chance of gaining a higher office than the one they hold, and by extension no way of getting a significant raise. That plus a general lack of oversight and accountability leads to efforts help themselves to a raise. There's also frequently problems with sinecure appointments, where, say, an elected official's high school buddy or relative comes begging for a job and they don't have the heart to say no.
These kinds of problems don't have a party affiliation. Catching them is extremely difficult, since the perps often hide what they're up to under mountains of paperwork.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @01:09AM (5 children)
Can you point to a tweet, a speech, or anything else that came from Trump that backs up this claim? You know actual evidence, not a media story claiming there is evidence.
I had the same discussion about Trump's racism back when that was all over the media:
AntiTrumper: "Trump tweets horrible racist stuff all the time"
Me: "That's bad, can you show me some of these tweets?"
Get sent a link to a story about Trump's bad tweets and how horrible he is. Zero actual quotes in it.
Me: "That's just a story saying he's bad. Can you link to the actual tweets?"
Get sent a different story about Trump's racism. Still no actual quotes or speeches.
Me: "That's just the same story on a different website. Where's the actual evidence?"
AntiTrumper : "You're just a horrible racist who supports him because he's horrible too."
Me: "But you can't show me even one racist tweet from him?"
AntiTrumper has a meltdown and descends into screaming abuse.
Me: " Well, you've just convinced me to get out and vote for him."
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @03:43AM (3 children)
I know doing a Google search is hard so here you go https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-racist-examples_us_56d47177e4b03260bf777e83 [huffingtonpost.com]
These are all facts you can go verify, no need to cry "fake news MSM lies!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @05:24AM (2 children)
Q . E . fucking D .
Another article claiming Trump is a racist piece of shit without actually quoting any racist tweets. It is another long list of people saying his tweets are racist without actually demonstrating it. Apparently TDS is real and involves the inability to comprehend simple english.
Link to an actual racist tweet you idiot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @02:33PM (1 child)
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-racist-examples_us_56d47177e4b03260bf777e83 [huffingtonpost.com]
But we both know you won't accept the obvious facts about Trump's racism unless he tweets the word nigger.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @05:07PM
You're repeating yourself and still failing basic reading comprehension.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @05:48AM
I wonder if it is due to wikipedia training them with its stupid policies: "No original research. You must quote somebody else."
The dickheads would have deleted Stephen Hawking saying "gravity pulls downward" for being a primary source.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @01:11AM (2 children)
Trump just held a rally in Houston with over 10,000 people. With any normal with a crowd that size, there would be arrests. There were none.
You admit Antifa, you want to disclaim them as a "small extremist group", yet there is NOTHING COMPARABLE on the right. There isn't even a teeny tiny micro-sized conservative group engaging in violent attacks on the left. I'd be happy to admit the chick supposedly run down in Charlottesville, except for the fact that she died of a heart attack and wasn't even wounded, and also the fact that self-defense is a legitimate excuse when a violent mob surrounds your car.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @03:56AM
Can't help crazy :(
Best of luck bub, may your next life be better to you than this one.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @10:16AM
You're using facts, logic, and reason in your attempt to communicate with leftists. Haven't you learned yet that such things do not work?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday October 24 2018, @02:02AM (1 child)
Just after Dr. Ford's Judiciary Committee hearing I read that much of what the GOP does is determined solely by their great desire to piss off the Democrats.
That particular article asserted that the GOP's liberal-owning decisions are often made with no consideration whatsoever as to what it will cost them on November 6th. They're having so very much fun, you see.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @03:26AM
I have to admit every time I see the liberals go into full meltdown when they lose another round I get a good chuckle out of it. Their little shitfit over kavanaugh was priceless. If Republicans can keep the house on election day I'm gonna be laughing my ass off at their temper tantrums.