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A gunman opened fire at U.S. Congressmen and others who were gathered at a practice this morning for the Congressional Baseball Game. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and at least four others were reportedly injured. The gunman, who has been identified by unnamed sources as James T. Hodgkinson III, was taken to a local hospital where he died from his injuries:
A gunman unleashed a barrage of gunfire Wednesday at a park in Alexandria, Va., as Republican members of Congress held a morning baseball practice, wounding at least five people, including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (La.).
The suspected gunman is James T. Hodgkinson III, 66, from Illinois, according to multiple law enforcement sources. President Trump announced that the gunman, who was wounded in a shootout with officers, has died at an area hospital.
The wounded also included two Capitol Police officers and a congressional aide, according to one law enforcement official and witness accounts.
Congressman Scalise was shot in the hip and is in stable condition.
Hodgkinson's motive may have already been identified by the media:
A Facebook page belonging to a person with the same name includes pictures of Democratic presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, and rhetoric against President Trump, including a post that reads: "Trump is a Traitor. Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. It's Time to Destroy Trump & Co."
Charles Orear, 50, a restaurant manager from St. Louis, said in an interview Wednesday that he became friendly with Hodgkinson during their work together in Iowa on Sanders's campaign. Orear said Hodgkinson was a passionate progressive and showed no signs of violence or malice toward others.
Also at LA Times, Reuters, The Atlantic, The Hill, and CNN.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jmorris on Wednesday June 14 2017, @04:37PM (158 children)
Ok, lets get the "Call for gun control" posts in and the happy dances from the progs and wishes there had been dead Republicans. Both are already everywhere else on the Internet so lets get em going here.
But by all means lets not discuss the "Climate of Hate" the legacy media have been whipping up for over a year.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @04:44PM (35 children)
Yup, obvious troll is obvious. Glad we got THAT out of the way.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by jmorris on Wednesday June 14 2017, @04:56PM (11 children)
But I was right you know. Take a look, solyentbob goes to the 2nd Amendment attack in the very next post and ianreed decides that while denouncing a "Climate of Hate" every time a D gets shot is ok, he is going to just justify the Hate now and double down. Between those idiots Lagg bemoans the fact this might hurt the Holy Jihad against Literally Hitler.
Knowing this would be the reaction I decided to goad you tards a bit and get on the record telling you morons what you would say. You guys have no actual moral code beyond a primal will to power so nothing your team's crazies do could possibly deflect you from your course toward a full on war.
(Score: 3, Offtopic) by Lagg on Wednesday June 14 2017, @05:02PM (9 children)
Oh, actually I was literally just now typing up a post calling the AC a cunt for doing the troll thing against alternate perspectives. But mkay den.
Also I tried rly hard to not make it look like I favor any one party. Because I don't. But those names tell me I must have...
It's actually getting legit disappointing that I try to engage with you guys. But I also understand why you're like that. Because cunts like AC. Well, as I've stated more than once you're an asshat but I will defend your right to hold that opinion if it costs me blood.
By the way you should let a better sample size build. I don't take issue with replying to anyone who is posting. I just will bitch for a while if you end up claiming trollage. I'm not representative. I vent.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Wednesday June 14 2017, @05:09PM (1 child)
Catching in the rye.
Catching in the rye.
We will come rejoicing, catching in the rye.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @05:25PM
"To Holden Caulfield, From Holden Caulfield, This is my statement"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @05:21PM (6 children)
You have a point about me disregarding jmorris out of hand, he did have a legit point about the media's culture of hate for both political sides. However, he is still a troll and I won't apologize for calling him out. I have lost patience for his alternative perspectives, playing the high road with a bunch of shit slinging turds makes zero difference except that I get to slog through shit while they get off on having someone to rant against.
Soylentbob was making a point about Trump calling for gun violence against his political opponents, it had nothing to do with promoting gun control (so jmo is wrong again), he mischaracterized your own comment as you had the joy of experiencing, but hey at least it was pretty much impossible to twist ikanreed's comment. Pretty direct promotion of hate and violence with that one.
I've tried the high road many times, but at this point I've learned there are true believers who don't discuss, they don't think, they don't budge in the slightest. It is a waste of my time to engage them on specific topics, and it merely fuels their trolling. Jmorris posted his "predictions" which only got 1/3 correct specifically to start this thread where he can bitch, moan, argue and finally point the finger of hate and violence at liberals.
He could have stuck to "discuss the "Climate of Hate" the legacy media have been whipping up for over a yea" and after all the examples of "my side your side" we could find out that the media just stokes the fires of hate no matter which side you're on. Maybe we could move forward, but as long as someone starts with this perspective:
"Knowing this would be the reaction I decided to goad you tards a bit and get on the record telling you morons what you would say"
There is no way forward. He doesn't care about the climate of hate, he is intentionally spreading it! He only cares now that "his side" as been attacked, never seen him be concerned in any other story. So sure I dismissed him, but that is all the little cunt deserves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @05:56PM (3 children)
Truly, Alexander could never unknot your Gordian panties.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @06:02PM (2 children)
I guess you didn't actually read the history then. Not surprising.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @06:21PM (1 child)
I did, actually, and the many nuances are lost on you. Not surprising.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @06:41PM
Cut your bullshit sir. Are you one of those self-educated types? Cause that would explain so much.
Not that self-education doesn't work or, and not every self taught person is misguided, but it seems to be a trend #iamverysmart
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Wednesday June 14 2017, @06:22PM
I know. Guess I can't blame you either, I just deal with it because it's a form of catharsis for me and any resulting interesting viewpoints are just additional perks. Can't expect someone to have the same patience for bullshittery.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Wednesday June 14 2017, @10:39PM
Ignoring or dismissing speakers, regardless of whether or not you agree with their opinions, is a part of free speech and does not require apology/justification. You have a right to not listen to them, just as they have a right to speak.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @09:09PM
Gee, given that, why do you even need any rhetorical opponent? Why not just continue your argument with the imaginary voices in your head?
I think you are projecting...but that could be just me.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Hartree on Wednesday June 14 2017, @04:57PM (22 children)
But wait, we haven't yet gotten to the claims and counterclaims of false flag and false, false flag operations!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @05:24PM (21 children)
Too late, ikann has already leap-frogged straight into false moral equvalence.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by jmorris on Wednesday June 14 2017, @06:12PM (20 children)
No, worse. All of the Left has been pushing the Literally Hitler line since Trump won the election. Who wouldn't say they would have killed Hitler if they had been in 1930's Germany? Or if they had a time machine? Heck, that meme is so widespread they make fun of it in Futurama. Well words have consequences. Ikanreed is simply accepting the logical consequences of what his Tribe have been shouting. If Trump is Literally Hitler then it is moral to shoot him or anyone supporting him. And once our side fully internalizes that this is the reality on the ground it is going to get messy fast. The Stickman vs Antifa hijinks phase will be remembered as the fun times.
The Left commands the heights of the culture, they can rewrite the Narrative should their leadership choose. But they won't, they have been working toward The Revolution for generations. They think they are about to win. Guys, take a look at the record of the "Masters of the Universe" lately, do you believe they are right this time? Willing to bet the fate of the world on it? Pull back from the brink or nobody really knows what will happen; but there will be blood, of that there can no doubt.
(Score: 3, Touché) by cmdrklarg on Wednesday June 14 2017, @07:11PM (4 children)
Me for one. Who knows who or what might have taken his place? Someone more competent could have made things much harder.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday June 14 2017, @08:13PM (2 children)
If Hitler hadn't meddled so much in military planning, his generals would've had a lot better shot at winning the war.
Reading about the Battle of France is pretty funny for that reason. The guys in the general staff and Hitler are screaming at Rommel to stop, and he's all "hey, I'm going to drive over here 'cuz I think I can cut them off and surround them." They were worried his supply lines would get cut but the French bungled the entire thing so badly it didn't end up mattering.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @11:03PM (1 child)
Even though they were underpowered by WW2 standards, Rommel's cutting of French supply lines lead to thousands of French tanks becoming available to Germany as regional patrol vehicles. While they weren't good enough to go toe to toe with WW2 era tanks, they allowed them to free up their own tanks for other offensives, while still providing heavier fire support than infantry or available wheeled vehicles.
Interestingly there are parallels to be drawn between Hitler's bungling of the War, and Trump's bungling of American Foreign Policy. The difference is one involved delivering/failing to deliver bullets, while the other involved selling/losing sales of bullets :)
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday June 15 2017, @03:46PM
To be fair, early-war German tanks were much more about mobility and coordination than firepower and armor.
- wikipedia [wikipedia.org]
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday June 15 2017, @12:40AM
Using various definitions of "competent", one can imagine many different results, some better, and some worse than what actually happened. Competent general? Competent statesman? Competent humanitarian? Competent genocidal monster?
I think it most likely that if Hitler had died in the '30's, there would still have been a war. The "peace" written after WWI almost ensured that there would be. With Hitler out of the picture, would the Nazi party have been as powerful? Would the Brown Shirts have existed?
Hitler was just one part of a huge puzzle, after all.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Wednesday June 14 2017, @07:15PM (11 children)
WTF is the "The Left" and "the Narrative" crap. It's pretty obvious to those of us watching from other countries that your current president is a misogynistic, narcissistic bully of well below average intelligence, and that can be gained just from his own campaign speeches and tweets. His party seems to be standing behind him to a degree, but I think even that's going to go off the rails. People in the US *really* need to get over this polarized us and them view of politics. It seems to be well on the way to destroying your country. It was already well on its way to becoming a defacto police state, and things have been going downhill rapidly.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @07:37PM (5 children)
Those are the propaganda terms that allow conservatives to shut off their critical thinking skills and presume it is one giant conspiracy to push whatever "ism" fits the current discussion. It allows them to disregard anything and everything they disagree with as simply a fiction of "the narrative". That trait is why we are in such trouble.
A smaller fraction of liberals suffer from similar problems where they view every conservative / republican as "racist white patriarchy" which makes discussions impossible. That is where the "literally hitler" complaints come from, idiots on the left calling too many things "literally hitler".
Idiots on the left, idiots on the right. However the conservative base has been highly brainwashed with harmful propaganda whose sole aim is to stoke the fires of anger in order to manipulate the people. We are looking at a new civil war if this bullshit doesn't stop. I still have hope, a lot of conservatives are getting a real education on what their group is really made of and what their leaders actually do for them. If nothing else good comes from Trump at the least he has raised their hopes so high and now dashed them upon the rocks of the black sea. The salt will soak into them and perhaps they will finally start rejecting the bigots and bullshit who lie and hurt them. Obama did it for the liberals, we lost faith in the system after his campaign of hope for change. Now conservatives get to see the bullshit behind the curtain of propaganda.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DECbot on Wednesday June 14 2017, @09:42PM (1 child)
The conservatives already saw behind the curtain once. That was the basis of the Tea Party movement before it was hijacked by corporate interests. The conservatives have been pissed about their party leadership since GWB. That's how Trump got the nomination, the republican constituents (1) nominated him in protest of the other bimbos selected as they were unelectable against Hillary and (2) hoped Trump might actually act on his campaign promises of helping small businesses and the middle class. Most conservatives would be happy to see the Progressive agenda curbed as it tends to harm average people and dismiss traditional values as irrelevant; stop the empowerment of banks, large corporations, and government; and provide a bit more protectionism for the American laborer as globalized manufacturing model hurts local US communities. If the media and politicians stayed out of the conversation, two sensible people of either party can come to an agreement on all of these issues with some of the details still a little fuzzy. What the media, politicians, and internet forums are doing is providing gasoline to add to the fire to ensure these conversations cannot happen. Specifically, narratives are written (AM talk radio vs print/TV) that frame the arguments in a manner that makes the opposing faction to appear to be logically insane.
Here's two issues where people on all sides have shut down their critical thinking:
Our 30 year war on drugs has not curbed the problem. If anything, it has made things worse by making more profit in selling drugs, overworking our judicial system, militarizing our police force, and making a whole demographic of our population 2nd class citizens. Legalizing and controlling pot like tobacco will stop this insanity and as an added benefit bring a huge tax incentive for the States. Like the end of Prohibitions, this should be stupid simple.
How many responsible gun owners who've owned their firearms for decades have committed a gun-toting act of terrorism? I'm sure Google can find a few, but most recent acts have been committed by people who have bought or acquired the guns to commit their premeditated acts. It was a convenient tool they had access to, if you remove the accessibility you still won't remove their intent. As events in Europe have shown, a determined terrorist or mentally unstable person can perform an act of terrorism with anything. Guns, knives, trucks, fertilizer, compressed air and hardware, pencils, scissors, literally about anything can be used to take a life. Banning guns won't stop anything--especially if your government is selling them to gun trafficking criminals. Taking away guns from law abiding citizens does not solve the terrorism problem. It only makes law abiding citizens unable to protect themselves while waiting for law enforcement to arrive. Will all people carry guns and solve all trivial arguments with a western style shootout? Hell no. Legalizing guns doesn't turn the world into some Mad Max post apocalypse playground. However, if there is one armed citizen in 100 subjected to a terrorism attack, he or she may possibly save 99 other people before law enforcement arrive. Sure there are risks to everyone, but mostly there is a greater risk to criminals as you cannot assume who of your targets will be armed and to law enforcement and government officers as there are greater immediate consequences when you abuse your power.
Yes, both my arguments have flaws and deserve criticism. That's what Congress should be doing as there is a middle ground that most everyone can agree on. I'm not advocating that every drug should be legalized, but legalizing pot--even if only medicinally--will defang much of the gang violence and theft that is associated with drugs because the finical incentive is diminished, it will lighten the load on the courts and police, and remove the tools used to punish nonviolent minorities for being a minority. Likewise, not every gun should be legalized and there should be public places where gun possession does not make sense like courthouses and airplane cabins, but area wide bans covering entire cities seem to violate an individual's constitutional right to own a firearm in my simple opinion.
Here is the problem: responsibility is lost. Congress is not held responsible. The POTUS is not held responsible. Most regrettably, the media is not held responsible for setting a decisive narrative. Our current situation makes sense if you realize that all news articles are written to increase revenue from the target audience--the urban subscribers and viewers while AM talk radio is formatted for those adversely affected by the policies enacted by the former target audience.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @11:15PM
Drop the medical exclusion for pot, it is disingenuous and would have zero impact on gang activity. Legalize all the drugs, get money from sales tax, use lots of that money for education and rehabilitation programs. It is the only sane way forward, obviously even draconian laws can't stop the massive drug problems. People that want to do hard drugs do them regardless, at least make the drugs safer and make it easier and less stigmatized to get help.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 15 2017, @07:42AM (2 children)
Sometimes I read infowars or breitbart. Yuck.
This is what it has come to. I used to like CNN. A few years back, well maybe 5 or 10, they starting getting serious about shoving a liberal agenda down my throat. Illegal aliens became "undocumented immigrants", despite normally having stolen identity documents. Um, the term "illegal alien" is in our law and in our supreme court rulings, and it is a factual description. Men with implants and overgrown hair are now getting female pronouns. It's now "racist" to oppose importing people who chop sex parts off of girls and idolize a man who married a 6-year-old girl. It's now "racist" to want a monolingual English-speaking country. It's now even "racist" to have an American flag. Instead of rememberance for D-Day, we hear about Ramadan... but of course ignoring the Ramadan Bombathon. Just last week, CNN was even caught staging a fake protest in London. They even moved the people around to different locations. WTF, this is a new low for very fake news. We never seem to hear the end of Russia, but what about Seth Rich? His assassination, right in DC after he leaked DNC email to wikileaks, gets almost zero coverage.
So yeah, what am I supposed to do? You want me to just gobble down the shit that CNN is trying to serve me? No thanks. I have to go elsewhere.
FYI, conservatives are pretty darn happy with Trump so far. I could gripe about net neutrality, but that's about it. For all the rest, he's doing so well that I've been in shock since the first week. He's clearly the best president in at least 28 years, and maybe the best since Washington. I wasn't hoping for much; he could've grabbed pussy 24x7 and still been better than Hillary Clinton so the choice was obvious, but the man is actually kicking ass.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 15 2017, @06:43PM (1 child)
All of your examples are extremes that you apply to large groups of people. Your entire rant could be mirrored by someone saying "I'm tired of racist conservatives being allowed to vote, they all support human rights violations and are dumb as a bunch of bricks to boot!"
I don't care for CNN, but they are a hell of a lot better than r/The_Donald. Anyone happy with Trump so far is a willfully blind idiot, or a bootlicking authoritarian. Not saying you should have voted differently, we can argue all day about which would have been worse, but we have seen Trump in office for a while now and the verdict is in. Only idiots still support him.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @08:05AM
Let's start with this: lots of supposedly anti-authoritarian people don't act that way when they feel they might lose -- the left went for authoritarianism with Lenin, Castro, Kim, Chavez, Mao, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh, and many more. I can't actually think of a proper example on the right. The popular one, Hitler, is only "right" relative to the popular alternative at the time, which was communist. He's far left by modern American standards, and totally mainstream by modern European standards. Maybe some kind of theocracy would count, but the only non-Islamic one is a silly example: Vatican City.
It isn't fair to compare Trump against a theoretical ideal. We just got done with Obama, who was even more into drone strikes and spying than the second Bush. Heck, Obama even spied on Trump, which is kind of a Nixon thing! Our standards are thus pretty low.
Trump has made at least a bit of progress on the wall, shifting the current budget a bit and putting out bid requests for contractors. He has made some progress in tossing out illegals. He has made multiple attempts to block immigrants from Obama's list of dangerous countries and is taking the fight to the supreme court. He has gotten a great judge onto the supreme court, probably better than Scalia and almost as good as Thomas. He found a truly wonderful secretary of defense. He is beating some sense into the EPA and he got us out of that Paris climate disaster, so now there is hope for our economy. People are getting hired again.
So... that all looks good. You should support him. MAGA
(Score: 4, Touché) by Grishnakh on Wednesday June 14 2017, @09:11PM
It's pretty obvious to those of us watching from other countries that your current president is a misogynistic, narcissistic bully of well below average intelligence
That's simply not true: he was elected by roughly half the voting population here, and it's immediately apparent to me that his voters aren't any smarter than he is.
I can't say I'm too impressed by the intelligence of a significant portion of the Democratic voters either.
Trump may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I think it's wrong to say he has "well below average intelligence", at least if you're talking about the US population that elected him.
(Score: 2) by KGIII on Wednesday June 14 2017, @11:29PM
You don't get out of it that easy, I'm afraid. If the US goes down, it's going to take a whole lot down with it. No, I don't have the answers. Well, I guess, if I had to make a suggestion, it would be to eat more homemade donuts.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Thursday June 15 2017, @12:44AM (2 children)
However good or bad you think Trump is, do you think it is justified that the left is essentially calling for his assassination, and/or armed revolt? Is Trump that bad? Does Trump pose that much of a threat against your view of what America should be?
(Score: 2) by SpockLogic on Thursday June 15 2017, @03:58AM (1 child)
Yes and yes.
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday June 15 2017, @02:28PM
So, you would have been comfortable if some racist white asshole had assassinated Obama? You know, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
Put in a position where I might have to defend a president's life, I would have defended any president in history with equal enthusiasm. It wouldn't matter in the least what his name was, what his politics were, or how much I liked or disliked him. The President of the United States is the President. End of story. That's because I'm an American. I don't know what some of the rest of you are, but you aren't Americans.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @07:22PM (1 child)
>... killed Hitler if they had been in 1930's Germany
http://www.conceptcarz.com/z22681/Miller-FWD-Special.aspx [conceptcarz.com]
A near miss -- from this link about the pioneering full-time four wheel drive Miller race car,
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday June 14 2017, @09:13PM
I wonder if there's an alternate universe out there where that fragment had a slightly different trajectory, and hit him.
Is Trump the US President in that universe?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Hartree on Wednesday June 14 2017, @09:51PM
"take a look at the record of the "Masters of the Universe""
Actually, I'm still wanting to do naughty things with Evil-Lyn.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Lagg on Wednesday June 14 2017, @04:54PM (69 children)
I'd rather call for recreation-only gun usage, but at this point I'd also be fine with an ozzie style forced buyout. Because my willfully ignorant countrymen made them incredibly unfun to think about. Shame too. I like them. But I don't believe that most of my country can be trusted to see them as tools to be respected. If you give a kid a toy he stabs another kid with, you take it away. I know this is the part at which people like to say "so you support a nanny state". But naaah, you already know that's not true.
and naaaaaah. Why would I discuss media with someone right now? I already got tricked by that. When people say "media" now they really mean "that station that feeds me propaganda I don't like".
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @05:02PM (2 children)
e.g. only girls can have guns (and only after training and proof that they can consistently and accurately hit a target). If a guy wants to have a gun he has to have his balls removed first.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @10:32PM
Will the NRA provide free marksmanship training to liberals?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 15 2017, @08:52AM
> So far >90% of terrorists and shooters have been male.
They've also been overwhelmingly Democrat.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Wednesday June 14 2017, @05:08PM (65 children)
Ballots are more dangerous than a gun. So lets remove the vote from anyone you are deciding is too childlike to be entrusted with adult responsibilities. Oh right, that was always the Prog plan. The first gun control laws were tied into the same efforts to disenfranchise 'those people' who aren't deserving of the full rights and privileges of real God fearing American white people. Democrats haven't changed much.
And boy do I love being proved right. Notice when the calls for gun control occur and when they do not. Gang bangers in Chicago every freaking weekend are just "n*gg*rs killing other n*gg*rs" so that isn't even newsworthy enough to get the saturation coverage required for you guys to work in a gun control theme, but when some cracker in DC gets wounded the blood isn't sprayed off the field before you guys are calling for gun control. Even when it is a Republican getting shot by a Bernie Bro. You can't help yourselves.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday June 14 2017, @05:39PM (32 children)
As usual you have it precisely backwards, J-Mo. Wanna know how to get the GOP onto gun control? Mention the Black Panthers. *That* is what was behind several stronger gun-control laws.
It's amazing how you manage to be not only wrong, but exactly, precisely, completely mirror-image ass-backwards. Were you born this way, or is it a lifestyle choice?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @05:43PM (29 children)
I still hold to the idea that he is a russian troll account, or some other organization, waging a propaganda war against US citizens. I simply can not figure out another explanation for a seemingly intelligent person who has demonstrated advanced technical knowledge yet fails so hard as you point out. Not just once, but pretty much every single time a political angle comes up his views are factually incorrect to a shocking degree.
I guess I don't want to believe that a human is capable of such stupidity without an actual disability.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by julian on Wednesday June 14 2017, @06:06PM (12 children)
This is a pretty obscure website with low traffic, I don't think they'd bother. Sadly, the simplest explanation is that he's one of our overnumerous indigenous nutters.
You certainly can be incredibly skilled and also deluded. One of the greatest living geneticists, Francis Collins, became a fundamentalist Christian because a frozen waterfall told him to.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @06:20PM (10 children)
I think that's actually the most rational explanation or excuse for converting to Christianity I've ever heard.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday June 14 2017, @06:48PM (9 children)
I'm pretty sure that "Because the (white) guy with the weapons told me to" has been the most rational reason to convert for quite a few centuries.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday June 14 2017, @07:59PM (5 children)
You got that wrong.
It's because "the (white) person who was handing me food, clothing, and helping me with shelter couldn't shut the fuck up about it". Starvation is the penultimate form of duress, suffocation being the ultimate. Some people refused to convert or confess their sins in the Inquisition, but it's a much easier route when you're smiling and feeding people ;)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @08:06PM
Yes those methods were used as well, but they started with guns. "We're gonna move in here and do what we want, try and mess with us and you die." Then they bring in the priests for the slightly more subtle tactics.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday June 14 2017, @09:09PM (3 children)
> handing me food, clothing, and helping me with shelter
Are you referring to poor people in civilized societies, who only massively converted during invasion (or King strategic decisions), but otherwise starved while already praying the local god?
Are you referring to a convenient myth that colonizers were actually helping locals with food, clothes and shelter?
Because, "Hey, it's this way to pray unless you want it to be your last prayer" vastly outnumbers both of the above.
(Score: 2) by KGIII on Wednesday June 14 2017, @11:39PM (2 children)
That seems numerically unlikely, given population totals, time, and the breadth of missionary coverage.
I don't suppose you have a citation?
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday June 15 2017, @12:29AM (1 child)
http://i.imgur.com/rzv85dn.png [imgur.com]
Which ones of these regions was never conquered by force by someone bringing their one true religion in their luggage?
Maybe the US/Canada/Australia, because the locals ended up mostly dead anyway, and that's only if we don't count the people brought against their will, then encouraged to worship right...
(Score: 2) by KGIII on Thursday June 15 2017, @12:36AM
I see you missed my point. Numerically, they are happily converting people even today. It's not like they stopped converting people in the 1800s. They are still bribing hungry souls for Jesus, and on a very large scale. Hell, you probably have a religious soup kitchen, right there in your town.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @09:12PM (2 children)
White? Try Latino. Cortez. Junipero Serra. Coronado. etc.
(Score: 2, Informative) by bob_super on Wednesday June 14 2017, @09:27PM (1 child)
*facepalm*
*headdesk*
*wondering if kidding, re-reads, no hints ...*
*second headdesk, just in case*
*cleans keyboard*
Spanish people, like the English, French, Dutch, italians, greeks and most other world-wide colonizers (Sorry Genghis!), are white.
The fact that they later bred with any woman they saw, regardless of skin color, whether they were local "indians" or they had to import them across the ocean, doesn't change the fact that the colonizers of America, Africa, and huge chunks of Asia, were predominantly white, including all the ones you named.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 15 2017, @12:51AM
Some Spaniards are very white. Most are somewhat less white. Many more are descended from black and white mixes. But, whatever.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @08:19PM
The small size of the site's user base is actually perfect for such activity and has a snowball effect. Due to the "fuck beta" motivation behind this site the user base also has a higher proportion of viable targets.
Maybe he is a shill and maybe he isn't, but I think it is very important to keep the possibility in mind. We KNOW there are thousands of trolls being paid to actively push agendas and undermine others. Why would a government not spare a tiny bit of effort for this site? The grassroots feel and the common "we're too small to bother with" actually lends credibility!!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday June 14 2017, @06:37PM (11 children)
He's not a Russian shill, and he's not stupid-as-in-low-IQ either. Accept the fact that evil walks among us, and wears a human face. This is a person who has confessed to wanting to burn the entire system down, whose vocabulary is full of "cuck" and similar alt-reich memes, and who is very clearly in it for no one and nothing but himself. Search his post history; you'll find some hair-raising shit in there.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @08:15PM (1 child)
Yes evil is out there, but the weird juxtaposition of statements seems more than just authoritarian racist bullshit. Conservatives have been pretty well radicalized as a group, so now it seems like conservative viewpoints are being used to bait liberals into radicalization. The posts make more sense from the perspective that they are solely intended to piss off liberals. Valid points don't matter, and discussions are simply platforms to continue the propaganda and piss people off even more. Successfully baiting a liberal into a discussion is the end-game. Queue more and more bullshit in attempts to get a reaction.
If he isn't a foreign propagandist then he is a complete troll, and as he admitted he was trying to bait people with his initial post of predictions. I can only hope that one day we move past this politically volatile time and everyone just starts ignoring the online trolls.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday June 14 2017, @09:24PM
Well, yes, he *is* a troll, but that's not his entire MO. Trolls mostly just do it for the lulz. This keyboard Keystone Kop probably thinks he's advancing the cause of--what was it, again?--burning the lot down and starting fresh.
I have to wonder what his BMI is, if he has a job, and how many weird action figures he has.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 15 2017, @08:07AM (8 children)
I found the "cuck" term horrifying at first. I happen to value and respect virginity and marriage. I think a person ought to have exactly 1 sex partner in life, with allowance for widows of course. I'm not OK with the idea that a man should "sow his oats"; that is a shameful and disgusting man-slut to me. Cheating isn't OK for either sex, for either the married person or the homewreaker.
There are however some disturbing truths about liberals that, taken in total, seem to merit the term.
Conservatives are basically never OK with being cuckolded. The few people who are OK with it are universally liberal.
Cuckoldry also works pretty well as a metaphor for handing over your descendant's birthright to people who bear no relation to you. In a place like Germany, the natives have something like 1 kid per woman. Hostile immigrants are brought in to replace the native population. Perhaps "ethnic cleansing" or "self-genocide" is a less icky term, but "cuck" works pretty well. The nation will have children, but on average they will not be fathered by the nation's men. This is a sort of national cuckoldry. German natives will go extinct. Oddly, this decrease in diversity does not trouble the left; the left truly hates western civilization and the European race.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday June 15 2017, @08:38AM (3 children)
Holy damn that's a lotta crazy. Given your sexual hangups no wonder you're nuts; you're sublimating all that into defense of the fatherland, as it were. Here's a hint: leftists don't like being cuckolded either. I'm not sure this applies to lesbian couples, but I'd never cheat on my girlfriend and expect (and know I will receive!) the same consideration from her. Obviously it's missing the kids angle, but yeah.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 15 2017, @09:23AM (2 children)
Most leftists don't like it, but pretty much zero conservatives do.
To pull numbers from my ass: 175 million conservatives who hate being cuckolded, 174 leftists who hate being cuckolded, and 1 million (under 1%) leftists who are OK with it.
There may be shades of grey; how furious would one get? Is it an offense that merits cursing, abandonment, killing, or slow and agonizing torture? If we could score this, perhaps on a 1-to-10 scale, and draw up histograms, there would be differences associated with politics.
I'm not loving the term "cuck" for politics, but it is a workable metaphor. We need a word to describe people who eagerly assist in the extinction (via immigration, etc.) of their own culture, ethnicity, race, nationality, and/or language. It boggles my mind, but there are plenty of leftists on record with this desire. I might never wrap my head around the self-loathing that leads to welcoming one's own genocide.
The worst thing about the "cuck" term is probably that it seems to originate from the vile PUA (pick-up artist) culture. Oh well.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday June 15 2017, @04:24PM (1 child)
Dude, seriously...you have some massive psychosexual hangups here. Your insistence on one partner for life is bizarre, and I say this as the living embodiment of the "U-Haul Joke" who only ever wanted the same thing for herself. Maybe that works for you (and me) but I don't think most humans are naturally mate for life types and we don't have a right to force that on other people.
Cheating is a different matter entirely. I don't think, though, that it deserves torture or death. I *do* think it's justified grounds for instant termination of the relationship, with the cheater getting kicked out on his or her ass, but not death.
You touched on something that highlights the disease of the "conservative" mindset though: the cons have two extra parameters in their moral phase-space, those being "in-group loyalty" and "respect for authority qua authority." Now these of course aren't moral; they're useful cognitive shortcuts from the days when rock'n'roll involved a boulder and a hillside and "fast food" was a potential dinner that ran quicker than you did.
Point is, that extreme reaction with its undertones of disgust points to you having a dangerously un-adapted mindset for the modern (read: "post-Iron-Age") world we live in. The fact that you conflate personal sexual matters with questions of cultural expansion or takeover, specifically with the fear of having your family line ("in group") snuffed out, is a classic, diagnostic tell of this mindset. They are not the same thing, and you will be a lot mentally healthier once you untangle them.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @01:26AM
If my mindset is unadapted for the modern world, then my bloodline will die out. That is how evolution works. Other than survival of descendants, nothing counts.
Um... all of my ancestors that I am aware of have had my mindset. I have 11 kids, my parents have 4, my grandparents had 4 and 8, the next generation up had around 7 each, and the one above that includes somebody with 17. All my kids are alive, all my siblings are alive, and 10 out of the 12 in the prior generation are still alive. I have to say, I appear to be well-adapted for the modern world.
Now consider a nation-sized group of people. The more they align with my mindset, the more they are able to ensure that their culture (including religion and language) and DNA lives on in future generations. So even looking at larger populations, it is obvious that my mindset is not unadapted to the modern world.
Over in Europe, we can see that native Germans are in fact unadapted, while the immigrants to Germany are well-adapted. A more interesting case is Japan, currently shrinking without immigration. It is highly likely that an unnoticed little subset of the Japanese population is in fact reproducing well. If so, this subset will enjoy exponential growth and soon put Japan back on track as a nation with an expanding population.
On a long-term basis, the only thing that holds back population growth is death. We are currently in an odd moment in history. We have invented reliable birth control. This is a tremendous selective pressure, so evolution is likely to overcome it very quickly. The only plausible way for evolution to defeat birth control is mental differences. People who strongly desire numerous kids will be selected; they are the ones adapted to our modern world. All the rest are unfit.
I can't point to a spot in my DNA and say that I'm therefore fit, but with the large family sizes I sure do show the signs.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 15 2017, @01:08PM (3 children)
Why do the people hung up on immigration now presume immigration and the tensions surrounding it is a new phenomenon? It's more or less a constant in American history (and perhaps elsewhere, but the rest of the world is beyond scope in this post). Previously it was protestants in America decrying all the Irish and Italian immigrants who would bring their "popery" with them and subvert religious freedom in the United States. Or the Yellow Peril (aka all the Chinese brought in to work on the transcontinental railroad). Yet as it happens those waves of immigrants did come, and they did stay, and the United States of America endures.
So, there seem to be two general paths to take on the immigration issue: accept that America evolves, and is not a static state. Or, we can acknowledge that all immigration is and always has been a mistake and roll the country back to earlier versions. That means that all current citizens with unacceptable ancestry should self-deport or be sent packing by Immigration. So all the O'Reilly's, DiMaggios, Kennedys, Marilyn Monroes, etc shall have their statues dashed and names stricken from the records. Every Taco Bell shall be razed, every PF Chang's, every Pizza Hut, every Chipotle, every box of pasta shall be purged.
What's that? Oh, wait, that's not what you meant? That's going too far? Well, unless that is what you're advocating, you're a hypocrite.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @12:42AM (2 children)
It's not new, but the level of danger is new. We are facing violent people who are extremely resistant to cultural integration. They self-isolate and self-police the isolation, attacking any of their own to dare to integrate with the surrounding society. They use distinctive clothing restrictions to help enforce this.
It mostly wasn't like that with prior immigrants. We had minor problems. Some of the German-speaking populations took a century to switch to English. We have lingering problems with a distinct black culture. Right now we are having trouble with Spanish-speaking immigrants; they might be a problem for much longer than the German-speakers due to numbers and due to proximity of a Spanish-speaking country.
Also, the country is full. We no longer have a western frontier. We have a country full of people, many of them poor and unskilled. Conditions change, and policy should be adjusted as needed.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday June 16 2017, @04:48PM (1 child)
You mean like Hasidim do [wordondastreet.com]? They have regressive morals (Halacha [momentmag.com]) they try to impose on others and also speak a weird language and dress weird and have been known to riot [nydailynews.com]. They have their own religious police force, the Shomrim [nytimes.com], and run their own ambulances. Surely they must also be forcibly deported according to your definition?
It was like that with prior immigrants. Germans were held collectively responsible for WWI. Japanese were sent to concentration camps in WWII; you can still see one at Manzanar in California, east of the Sierras and not far from the entrance to Death Valley.
The country is full? Where do you live, downtown Chicago? Ever been to North Dakota? You could cram several Europes into that state and still want to shoot yourself in the head to escape the tedium of its landscape.
China, which has a much, much greater claim to being 'full' than the United States still has plenty of room for more people because most of those billion Chinese live on about 25% of the total land area.
If you chose to go by how much food there is to go around instead of the vast empty acreage America does have, then it could support at least double the number it does because it wastes about half of its food every year.
All of which is to say the racially/ethnically/culturally pure America you imagine is achievable has never existed at any point in its history, not even in its pre-history, and moreover you would not recognize or welcome such a country even were you to purge all non-conforming elements. For the rest about what the country is and can do I encourage you to hop in your truck and take an extended drive around and note how really huge America still is.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @06:42PM
It does look like the Hasidim are taking active and effective measures to prevent integration into the larger society, so yes. They do not belong.
The fact that Germans were held collectively responsible for WWI was not a problem with the Germans; it was a problem with the rest of us. There was at least a benefit though: the Germans quickly ditched the German language. To solve our problems with Spanish, perhaps we need a WWIII that can be blamed on Mexicans.
As far as I know, the Japanese hadn't been a problem. The security measures were cruelly excessive.
By "full", I don't mean that the addition of more people will cause starvation. I mean that we don't need any more, and the downsides outweigh the upsides. There are no natural resources that are going untapped due to lack of manual labor.
We might benefit from a total of a million foreign-born high-value workers (scientists for example), as long as none are from a self-isolating culture and we don't get too many of the same non-English language in the same location. We don't need it though, and if we are politically unable to filter out trouble then we shouldn't bother. Bringing in a few good people isn't worth bringing in hoards of useless people with permanent anti-American hostility.
(Score: 2) by Soylentbob on Wednesday June 14 2017, @08:34PM (3 children)
I once had a colleague with a masters degree in computer science. One should assume some level of applied logical thinking. After some time we accidentally hit the topic of religion and he turned out to be a creationist. Completely with all the "earth is 6000 years old" and "god just buried those fake dinosaur-bones to test our faith" and so on. Looks like sanity and intelligence are only mildly correlated at best.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 15 2017, @09:35AM (1 child)
likes chess and boxing, has a security clearance, moved from Florida to the DC area, white male with brown hair
I countered with "Last Thursdayism", a variant of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omphalos_hypothesis [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by Soylentbob on Thursday June 15 2017, @11:30AM
No, was somewhere here in Germany. I countered that is must be a pretty crappy god to give us brains, plant wrong evidence, tell us to use our talents [wikipedia.org] and then punish us for using brains.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 15 2017, @01:12PM
Technical competence does not automatically confer wisdom or perspective. I have an uncle with advanced degrees in chemistry who ran Shell's oil refineries in the Houston area for years. He also is a creationist.
It makes a strong argument for a liberal arts education.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Wednesday June 14 2017, @05:55PM (1 child)
I don't want to remove the RTKBA from the Black Panthers because they are black, I want most of them in jail because that is where violent felons belong. The rest of the people, rich, poor, white, black, brown, etc., in the Blue Hells that people like them prey upon should be able to carry as a defense against them, who always seem to have firearms regardless how 'strict' the gun laws are btw. Which is kinda obvious, that laws disarm law abiding people but do little to stop the lawless. Especially when law enforcement is given orders to turn a blind eye to certain groups.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @06:06PM
Oh man you are so deluded by propaganda and have no idea what reality actually is. You are in the matrix, except it isn't sci-fi high tech amazement, it is a matrix of bullshit. You are living in a half-reality of bullshit propaganda, it is terrifying to think that so many people literally believe in a reality that doesn't exist.
Here I am wasting some bytes on something you won't engage with because it goes against your personal narrative, but here you go anyway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_Party [wikipedia.org]
Become less ignorant, help yourself and everyone you interact with.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @05:39PM
I have yet to see anyone on this site argue much for gun control. Maybe here and there, but it is definitely not a narrative on SN. You just want a platform to rant on, your own soapbox where you can vent your personal frustrations about the world. You're the worst.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Lagg on Wednesday June 14 2017, @05:42PM
Hm, is prog the new slang for something stupid and twitter based? Anyway, nah I'm going to have to say that I've never seen someone with a vote inside a behind-belt holster hovering near people to be irritating because they think they're badasses. Also, given that democrats have changed so much that the meaning of republican and democrat has swapped since Lincoln's time directly contradicts what you're saying. And the identity politics embraced by both parties with such speed and enthusiasm they forget who they're calling what further contradicts it. You're buying into those identity politics by forgetting that people and parties switch platforms. People aren't static. What you call a "democrat" is what your brain fears. That's all.
Also fucking please with this "you guys". I understand the convenience factor since I do lean a bit towards an open mindset. I'm just not though. I've been told my association is "independent". But I don't like the people who call themselves that and I don't think it fits. I'm not going to suddenly turn into the guy you think I'm going to. The binary thinking and willfully restricting myself to this tiny little bitch-baby of a country's values has been out of my mindset for long enough that I'm used to it. And will serve me well later.
I'm actually pretty heavily against overreaching gun control. Thing is though. If I don't see value in owning or using them anymore because of just how little they're worth the conflict. I don't personally have any reason to think the majority of america that has guns can figure out personal responsibility with such a tool.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday June 14 2017, @07:50PM (29 children)
If voting really had the power to upset the system, they'd have found a way to make illegal a long time ago.
By the time that a candidate has gotten close to actually winning a seat in Washington, s/he has already met the approval of the businesses that pretty much own the place. Candidates that don't do that receive no media coverage and lose because nobody has heard of them or their party.
And for what it's worth, I'm still in support of some gun control, even though I'm further to the left than the Democratic Party and it was Republicans shot by somebody else further to the left than the Democratic Party. Basically, what I have in mind is checks for criminal record and mental illness before someone can buy a gun, a licensing requirement that would be similar to the current conceal carry licenses, and a safe storage program so that responsible gun owners are less likely to have their guns stolen by the bad guys. That won't be perfect, because good guys can snap and become bad guys, but it at least would make it harder for people who are already bad guys.
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 June 14 2017, @08:05PM
The Voight-Kampff empathy test [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday June 14 2017, @08:13PM (27 children)
Take a look around you. The Powers that Be (the ones with both the R and the D brands) thought they HAD made voting ineffectual, why do you think they totally lost it when Trump won? Say what you will about Trump, it is clear they Powers that Be are terrified of him because they do not think they can control him. We shall see what comes, it is certainly off script at this point. But I voted for it because it is better than the war with Russia that Hillary and the Powers that Be had planned out.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @08:25PM
Yeah I wish!
The GOP realized Trump commanded the demographics so they quickly welcomed him into the fold. Your little "upset" was immediately integrated with their game plan and Trump simply is not capable of throwing them off. He is a puppet, a loud obnoxious near-perfect puppet. His major accomplishment? Being so shitty that they are constantly in damage control mode, but that just means the annoyance of a few extra appearances on talk shows.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Soylentbob on Wednesday June 14 2017, @08:49PM (5 children)
So, instead of "The powers that Be" destabilizing the middle east, helping the weapons industry to make more money, exploiting the lower class, destroying the environment, bending over for the NRA and increasing surveillance and growing the swamp by installing cronies left right and centre, you have now the Trumpinator, destabilizing the middle east, helping the weapons industry to make more money, exploiting the lower class, destroying the environment, bending over for the NRA and increasing surveillance and growing the swamp by installing cronies left right and centre. And building the biggest swamp you've ever seen. A great swamp. Really amazing. With short sentences. On twitter. Really amazing.
And instead of having a strong opponent to Russia with all their human rights issues, you have now someone who might actually be in their pocket.
So sad.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 15 2017, @01:17PM (4 children)
Russia with all their human rights issues? Really? Is that something Americans can harp on anymore? They rather surrendered that good guy stuff two decades ago when they decided to go all butch and start torturing people. For me, that pretty much abnegates any and all other claim to any moral high ground at all, but for giggles let's also throw out there a total police state surveillance system, detaining people indefinitely without charges or due legal process, assassinating American citizens with drones, and having the highest members of the federal government openly and brazenly subverting the law.
Against all that, can anybody really throw stones at Russia?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Soylentbob on Thursday June 15 2017, @01:49PM (3 children)
I have some Russian colleagues, and they are often slightly amused when I talk to them about the issues I see with human rights here in Germany... I think it's all grey, but some grey is slightly darker than the other, and while I consider Putin an accomplished politician, I'm still quite happy not to live in Russia.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 15 2017, @01:58PM (2 children)
Well sure. It's very cold and the life expectancy for men is 45 years. And they write their "R"'s backwards. On the other hand, it's acceptable to have two vodkas at lunch and the women are beautiful and the popular culture dark enough to warm the cockles of a hipster's heart.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Thursday June 15 2017, @05:25PM (1 child)
So, you're telling me I get all of that in addition to removing 30 of the most painful years of my life? Where's the signup sheet or do I have to do the NSA/Snowden thing first?
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 15 2017, @09:04PM
It's not the years in your life, but the life in your years, tovarich. How much heroism you practice in between is purely optional.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday June 14 2017, @08:56PM (14 children)
If you look at what Trump has actually done, and what guys like Paul Ryan wanted to do and George W Bush did, they aren't all that different. Donald Trump may be the bad boy of the cabal, but he's part of the cabal. When it comes to policy, Donald Trump does what he's told, just like most everybody else in Washington.
Of course, to understand this, you have to ignore the soap opera drama cooked up by the media that dominates most politics coverage. Look at budgets, policy changes, laws passed, executive orders, and you'll see that Trump is just like any other Republican would have been.
If the Powers That Be were really terrified of him, the news networks would not have slavishly covered his campaign, and the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton would not have pushed for him to be the Republican nominee behind the scenes.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by jmorris on Wednesday June 14 2017, @09:17PM (9 children)
They were sure they could beat Trump. That is why they pushed him to get the Republican nomination. Yea, they really were that dumb. Most people started having a sneaking suspicion Trump wasn't nearly as incompetent as 'everyone' thought around about Convention time, but they kept right on believing a hot mess like HRC could easily beat him right into the first two hours of election night coverage. Aren't you glad people that dumb aren't running everything for a brief moment? Aren't you glad we aren't at war with Russia? That we aren't supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS anymore? And did I not predict electing Trump would bring Republican and Democrats in Congress together in bipartisan opposition and has this not happened? Has this not brought much needed clarity to the extent of the problem we face with the Uniparty? And if unmoved by any of those rational arguments, are you not at least entertained? :)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday June 14 2017, @09:26PM (7 children)
Drumpf *is* incompetent. It's just that the Dems 1) were corrupt and infighting and 2) seriously underestimated just how much of a pack of irredeemable degenerates most of the US voting public is. This was an inevitability, a bad idea whose time had come. But the orange shitbag has *no idea* how he got up there or what he's doing and lordy lordy does it show.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Thursday June 15 2017, @12:56AM (6 children)
"irredeemable degenerates"
That's pretty funny coming from 'Zumi.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday June 15 2017, @07:54AM (5 children)
Please, you aren't fit to tie my shoes, and that lame attempt to even suggest I'm the same kind of subhuman as you only makes you look worse.
Not, though, as bad as the fact that you're so unaware of how people see you that you even thought for a moment that would work. Ye gods. You are your own worst enemy, has anyone ever told you that?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Thursday June 15 2017, @02:22PM (4 children)
"same kind of subhuman as you"
I made no such suggestion.
"unaware of how people see you"
So, it's a popularity contest? I'll just let you win. Seriously, I'm not even interested in competing.
"you aren't fit to tie my shoes"
More funny stuff. I don't tie shoes. Not since my youngest son learned to tie his own shoes, anyway. Then, he got smart, and stopped tying shoes.
http://dungarees.net/product_Wolverine_W02429_Raider_MultiShox_Contour_Welt_-986-1.html [dungarees.net]
So, if you're still tying shoes, you're way behind the curve. Yes, I am unfit to tie your shoes.
Meanwhile, you are by far the champion degenerate, and way out of my class.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday June 15 2017, @04:09PM (3 children)
See, this is one of those things where the proper response to you isn't a yes or a no; it's "mu" (void, emptiness, "un-ask the question," "not even wrong"). You're so far out to lunch your mind, such as it is, is overdrawing its expense account.
But keep replying, please; with every post you further prove my point, viz., "Runaway has forgotten the First Rule of Holes, and indeed is such an un-self-aware individual he doesn't even know he's *in* a hole." Uzzard has the same problem. Neither of you know when to lay down and shut up.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Thursday June 15 2017, @05:34PM (2 children)
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
-Dylan Thomas
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday June 15 2017, @05:50PM (1 child)
Correction: not only do you not know when to shut up, but you run out of material long before you're done making an idiot of yourself. Keep going; the mere fact of your continuing posts is enough to condemn you, content aside :) I dunno what it is about you and Uzzard but you two have an almost Trumpian inability to know when to fold.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Thursday June 15 2017, @11:59PM
And, look at the mirror. You insist that you must "win". But, look back at "Uzzard" and I. You can't win, because neither one of us thinks that you matter. Speaking for myself, I just can't take you very seriously. Actually, not seriously at all. I'll see your Trumpian, and raise you a two Clintonians. Like Hillary, you take yourself far more seriously than the world takes you.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday June 15 2017, @02:32PM
The Democrats being idiots does not mean that Donald Trump or the Republicans aren't idiots. It's entirely possible, and there's substantial evidence for this, that they're all idiots.
Another reason that I'm reasonably certain Trump is not a real threat to the Powers That Be: He wasn't shot while on the campaign trail, before he had Secret Service protection. Compare that to, say, Bobby Kennedy, who was repeatedly showing a willingness to stand up to the military and end the Vietnam War and just happened to meet Sirhan Sirhan.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 15 2017, @01:30PM (3 children)
Trump is a businessman and not a politician. He doesn't understand DC. He understands the vox populi, but not DC. The policies, except for the sensational handful he can do unilaterally, are the same as Bush and Ryan's because he surrounded himself with people cut from the same cloth as Bush and Ryan. His Chief of Staff, his VP, his Sect. of Treasury, etc. They are business-as-usual, they like business-as-usual, and so of course they will conduct business-as-usual. They're gonna keep doing that and let the President run around with his thumbs on Twitter, chasing his ego high, fighting with the media, etc. Suits them fine.
The only way Trump would get anything different than that is to really shake things up in just a handful of ways. He could sack everybody but characters like Steve Bannon, but that would consume the next two years while he tries to find more people like Steve Bannon. Congress, whose operatives in the administration had just been purged, would fight Trump on confirmations every step of the way. DC would absolutely shut down and everything would fall into civil war. He could call on his base to descend on Washington and rattle the windows and doors of Congress and everyone else who fights him to intimidate them, but there would be an inevitable reaction from forces opposed to him who would do the same and everything would fall into civil war. Or, Trump could start a war with Iran or Syria or North Korea and use that as cover to purge DC and recast it into something more to his liking.
He doesn't have many more options than that because he's not the head of the Trump party, with loyalists controlling blocks of Congress and statehouses and willing to back him up on policy.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Thursday June 15 2017, @02:05PM (2 children)
Based on his 37% approval ratings, I'd say he does not in fact understand the vox populi. He won because his opponents had even less of an understanding of the vox populi. Apparently, the people who claim to be the smartest political minds in the country need to be told that the message "You will never again hold a decent job, and the people that took your house and your job have had absolutely nothing happen to them for their highway robbery, but don't worry, everything is great!" isn't a winner.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 15 2017, @09:21PM (1 child)
His approval ratings haven't really moved all that much, when you think about it. The same voters who saw him through the primaries and general are still with him, for the most part. If his polls have dipped at all it's because both the Republicans and Democrats in DC have turned on him with equal fervor, whereas during the general the RNC held its fire.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, the approval ratings for those in DC going after Trump are far lower than 37% (I've seen 47%, but let's go with yours for the sake of argument). Congress is in the single digits and gets excited if they break into the low teens. The press is at something like 24%. Next to that Trump's a frickin' genius.
I do agree with you whole-heartedly that the people who claim to be the smartest political minds in the country do need to be told a message, which is that their even more awful performance in office (according to approval ratings) and general shenanigans don't cut the mustard anymore. Their failure to answer to the real needs of the American people made Trump possible, and make incidents like yesterday's likely if not inevitable.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday June 15 2017, @09:35PM
Which poll are you looking at for that? I agree Congress in general has a low polling number, but since on average people think their own congresscritter is just dandy, that may not mean as much as you think.
However, what I do think is extremely important is that not a single political institution in this country has the support of a majority of Americans. Seriously. Not Congress, not the president, not the Supreme Court, not either major political party. That wasn't supposed to be possible in a democracy, and it definitely bodes trouble.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Thursday June 15 2017, @02:20AM (4 children)
I don't think Hillary and her masters had a war with Russia planned, too much risk of some patriotic soldier on either side escalating until they hit MAD.
I am sure she was gearing up for a full on war with Iran. No nukes, biggish army, nasty terrain, massive amounts of warbucks to be made, and who cares about the G.I.s who will die for the Lizard profits.
Sad thing is, Trump is possibly heading there too, but it's not as certain.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 15 2017, @01:32PM
"Sad thing is, Trump is possibly heading there too, but it's not as certain."
It's the only thing he can do to survive, politically. Perhaps he's too hapless to realize that and make that move.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday June 15 2017, @02:12PM (2 children)
The real reason for that upcoming attack is that Iran presents a salient on the southern Russian front in the global game of Risk that the strategists in Washington never stopped playing. What, you thought it was a coincidence that there are now US allies all along Russia's western border and much of its southern border? And that Iran is surrounded on 3 sides with US military presence? These guys have never forgiven Mikhail Gorbachev for ending the Cold War without a US army in Moscow.
Well, that, and Iran has oil and natural gas.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 15 2017, @09:27PM (1 child)
What are all those strategists going to do with themselves in 7 years when oil and natural gas are as passe as whale oil? Does the Great Game shift to securing sources of cobalt? Maybe it's war under the sea for krill supplies?
Maybe the rest of humanity would fare much better by removing all those people from anything important and putting them in therapy to help them cope with their penis envy.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by toddestan on Saturday June 17 2017, @03:28PM
I'm pretty sure in 7 years these strategists will be playing the same game they are now. Keep in mind they still think they are fighting the Cold War which actually ended over 25 years ago. I don't think another 7 years is going to matter much.
(Score: 2, Troll) by bob_super on Wednesday June 14 2017, @05:21PM (6 children)
> lets not discuss the "Climate of Hate" the legacy media have been whipping up for over a year
I'd like to exercise my first amendment right to call you a dangerous idiot.
I could elaborate on Fox News, the right-wing conspiracies, threats under Obama, the Tea Party, W's power abuses, or even how just listening to the current guys in charge (during their campaigns or after) is enough to make anyone in the 99% worry for the future, but you don't care.
Enjoy your tunnel vision, or your shill paycheck.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by jmorris on Wednesday June 14 2017, @05:45PM (5 children)
You are an idiot. The Tea Party was respectable middle age folks in tricorn hats pushing history books about the American Founding fathers into Amazon best sellers, whose idea of a protest rally was showing up, listening to some motivational speaker type stuff and leaving the venue cleaner than they found it. It was when they were slandered as "dangerous revolutionaries" and despite seizing Congress achieving absolutely noting of note that the Alt-Right surged out of nowhere as the inevitable stronger reaction. And you really do not want to know what will come next should they too fail to turn the course of the ship of state.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday June 14 2017, @06:20PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delusion [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Wednesday June 14 2017, @08:22PM (1 child)
Some Tea Party folks were like that. Some were not. In general, trying to characterize a large group of people based on a small sample size is not a good idea.
I had an interesting chat with a Tea Party guy on a train many years ago. I was clearly not convinced, but I thought it would be at least worth hearing what he had to say. My basic impression:
1. There is a genuine grassroots interest behind it. The basic claim of the Tea Party is that the US government is not accurately representing the needs of constituents like them, and in that they are absolutely correct. I'm a left-wing guy, so I disagree about their solutions to the problem, but we agreed on a fair amount.
2. Some very rich people have also spent a lot of money steering that genuine grassroots enthusiasm towards voting for Republican candidates. For example, early on in the Tea Party's history there was a convention with a star-studded cast of speakers like Sarah Palin (fresh off her VP campaign), and she got paid something like $500K to give her 1 hour speech. I asked my new acquaintance one simple question about it: Where did the money for that kind of paycheck come from?
One other factor that has to be involved when discussing the Tea Party: The Republican Party had become very unpopular when the Tea Party started, in no small part due to the failures of the Iraq War, combined with the economic crash of 2008. So in part the "Tea Party" was about rebranding the Republicans so as to not leave behind their base of ordinary voters. It was trying to contain them in much the same way that the Democrats are currently trying to contain Sanders supporters. In neither case is the attempt likely to work long-term.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday June 15 2017, @02:39AM
To make sure they -- and everyone else -- are represented, you need proportional representation.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @09:25PM
And some Nazis were nice people too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 17 2017, @03:39PM
The Tea Party started off like that, back when it got its start back towards the end of Bush's second term as a grass-roots libertarian/conservative movement. If the movement had actually had split off from the Republicans and became a real political party things could have been real different. But instead they allowed themselves to be controlled by the Republican Party, corporate interests, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and the like, allowing total morons like Sarah Palin and Sean Hannity to become their spokespersons, and turned into a bunch of mouth-breathing birthers by the time Obama was elected. That's the Tea Party that most people know nowadays.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by VanessaE on Wednesday June 14 2017, @05:28PM (14 children)
You love to rag on people who don't follow your specific way of thinking, so what exactly would YOU do to actually solve this?
I say three steps are needed, and they're all difficult:
1. take the fucking guns away from the crazies who shouldn't be able to own them (notice I didn't say to take them away from everyone)
2. get those crazies some mental help, meds, time in a mental institution, whatever, pay for it with taxes or something.
3. get rid of the people who are so corrupt/greedy/bigoted/whatever that they become targets for these crazies in the first place - throw them out of office, take away their money and power, throw them in jail, whatever it takes.
In other words, solve the conditions that led to the attack, rather than wasting time screaming about the fact that it happened or that it involved a gun (screaming does not refer to you, jmorris).
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jmorris on Wednesday June 14 2017, @06:05PM (10 children)
Seems to me that your second action item is the far easier one to achieve in light of the fact about half of the country will let you take their gun from their cold dead hands and knows from bitter experience what you 'common sense control' language translates to; while nobody is against improvements in mental health, at least in theory. Now if you achieve that one, doesn't it make your first one a nullity? Yet you mentioned it first. Examine your thought processes and understand the why of that. This is the Narrative. They live rent free in your head, overturning reason.
That leaves #3. You do understand that about as many people think YOUR favorite politician is a corrupt, greedy bigot, right? But I have a solution you won't like either. The solution is to realize ANY politician given the power DC now wields is a menace, that was why we had the 9th and 10th Amendments written in. 90% of what Washington DC does now violates the Constitution. You can't remove the weasels when there is so much weasel bait attracting them, remove the bait and the weasels will leave on their own.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @06:12PM
Hmm, jmorris proving me wrong with a relatively reasonable response. It is so maddening to see common sense and rational thinking occasionally pop out of you... I guess the 2nd amendment stuff isn't a topic that triggers you.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday June 14 2017, @06:25PM (8 children)
> But I have a solution you won't like either. The solution is to realize ANY politician given the power DC now wields is a menace
That's not a solution. It's a fact, but not a solution.
> Remove the bait
Elaborate on that solution. This is a pretty complex and powerful (divided) country, it needs some form of government.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jmorris on Wednesday June 14 2017, @06:49PM (7 children)
We had fifty perfectly capable governments out in the States. If CA wants Single Payer health care they can give it a go. And if TX wants to try their ideas they should also be free to give it a try. The Federal Government was intended to be more of a cross between NATO and the original Eurozone, a mutual defense and trade zone. It was believed a single government couldn't govern something as diverse as the original colonies, and we are far larger and far more diverse in our beliefs now.
It doesn't work. Look at the Constitution, pay close attention to that list of enumerated powers and the 9th and 10th Amendments. Those words were not written as the "E Plub Neista" for Chiefs and Sons of Chiefs in a bad Star Trek episode, it isn't the exclusive domain of the Supreme Court either. It was intended for YOU to read and understand. So prove you are as smart as an average 18th Century colonist and go read the damned thing for yourself. Read it with the tech eye like it was an ISO or IETF document and assume the words mean exactly what a dictionary [gutenberg.org] of the time says they mean. Then explain how 90% of what the Federal government currently does is actually permitted. And that is why everything feels like it has 'gone wrong.' Because it has been 'wrong' since before we were born and rapidly getting worse.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Wednesday June 14 2017, @08:10PM (5 children)
You have to get the Supreme Court to take the word "affects" out of the Interstate Commerce clause first.
Note: yes, I know that "affects" does not appear anywhere in the Interstate Commerce clause, but the Supreme Court seems to think it does.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday June 14 2017, @08:31PM
Wouldn't it be far simpler to simply remove them on the grounds of being either illiterate or generally being incompatible with the concept of Laws? Stop being polite and call them out for what they are, tyrants. There IS no legitimate 'other side' on this question this side of the rabbit hole to Wonderland, the words mean what they say or they don't and we admit we live in a lawless land governed by whoever has the most guns and will to use them. The Foe feeds on our politeness and urge to compromise, be 'bipartisan' and such but there can be no compromise with chaos and evil.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fyngyrz on Wednesday June 14 2017, @09:28PM (3 children)
If it were possible (I can't see that it is), it would be better to take the Supreme Court out of the constitutional validity process altogether. After all, article III doesn't assign any such power to them, article V specifically assigns that specific elsewhere, and the only actual reason the Supreme Court is pseudo-officially in the process at all is because they arrogated to themselves that power in Marbury v. Madison / 1803 (after exercising said power without even that blatent reach-around in Hylton v. United States / 1794.)
There are a number of very good reasons why putting the Supreme Court back into its actual constitutionally specified role would be the optimum path. Unfortunately "reasons", at least as far as they apply to the good of the nation, no longer seem to have much in common with our political process.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 15 2017, @02:36AM (2 children)
Sorry, this is absurd. Article V concerns the power to alter the Constitution, not to determine which laws are authorized under the Constitution (thus valid) and which conflict with the Constitution (thus invalid). The inability to distinguish these powers is part of the problem.
In point of fact, the Constitution seems to have been written with the assumption that, having sworn to uphold the Constitution, Congress will simply refrain from passing unconstitutional laws. Since this turns out to be wishful thinking... somebody has to have the power and responsibility to throw the unconstitutional laws out.
That responsibility can't lie with Congress, because any law is already approved by at least a majority of Congress -- if an unconstitutional one is passed, they've already chosen to disregard the Constitution. It also shouldn't lie with the Executive, because of their role in signing/vetoing laws -- they could at best be trusted to fight laws passed over their veto, but since someone's gotta handle the rest, I can see no point in splitting the power on this basis. Short of creating a fourth branch specifically for this role, the judiciary is it by default.
I'm not convinced the judiciary being the exclusive holders of this power is really the right option (there's some things to be said for the idea of a separate branch), but their exercise of this power is an utterly unsurprising practical result of the Constitution as written, not some great seizure of power.
Anyway, to turn the question on it's head... what do you propose the courts should do, under the Constitution as written, when Congress passes an unconstitutional law? Let's make it a simple, concrete example, using an uncontroversial section of the Constitution... Congress passes a law (in peacetime) requiring people within x miles of military bases to quarter soldiers in their homes. A soldier is assigned to a house, the homeowner bolts the door and refuses him entry, and eventually the civil police come by and arrest the homeowner.
The Congress should refuse to pass the law because it's plainly unconstitutional.
The President should veto the law because it's plainly unconstitutional.
If we'd added a fourth branch charged with constitutional validity, they should reject the law because it's plainly unconstitional.
The soldier should refuse the order to invade an unwilling homeowner's spare room, because it's an unlawful order.
The police should refuse to arrest the homeowner.
The prosecutor should refuse to press charges.
But if all those fail, when the homeowner is in court, charged with violating a law that is plainly unconstitutional, and contesting none of the facts... what happens next?
(Score: 3, Informative) by jmorris on Thursday June 15 2017, @04:49AM
Everyone who serves in the Federal government, from the lowliest clerk or soldier to a POTUS of Judge takes an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. So no, a Judge couldn't violate that Oath. He could not enforce a clearly unconstitutional law. He also has no authority to strike that law from the books though. He simply doesn't enforce it in his court, possibly creating a Constitutional crisis depending on the law in question.
But the lawlessness has gone far beyond that level. Judges now invent whole new laws, which is unconstitutional on its face, that power belonging exclusively to the Legislative Branch, the courts now enact taxes to fund the laws they write which usurps the House's exclusive power to tax. Then there is the unescapable fact that the laws these judges 'enact' would be utterly unconstitutional even if lawfully passed and signed. So who judges the judges? Your logic fails into an infinite spiral of suck at that point.
The best solution I can see is leave the courts some power to reject an unconstitutional law but admit that if the other two branches are truly Hellbent on a course of action they get their way... at least until the next election. So formalize a process with an actual Amendment allowing the SCOTUS to strike a law or part thereof, but Congress can override with a 2/3 majority. Such an override also removes the Justices who voted for the strikedown to eliminate the conflict from recurring and also to ensure they only use the power sparingly. Also give the States the power to both strike down an act of Congress, a SCOTUS decision or an executive order with the same 2/3 of States inside a six month window. Power balanced against power is the American Way.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Thursday June 15 2017, @05:17PM
Your error is fundamental. You assume the judiciary will do the right thing. But they don't. That's why we have unconstitutional searches and seizures; that's why we have unconstitutional ex post facto laws; that's why we have unconstitutional "free speech zones"; that's why we have massive unconstitutional infringement on the right to keep and bear arms; and so on.
When congress creates an unconstitutional law, we can observe this – the constitution is written in plain English – and vote them out. We, the people, have the power to object, to bring in those who would undo the problem within just a few years – as long as it's just legislation. This eliminates the massive conflict of interest that is created by the government saying its own laws are okay.
Whereas a supreme court position is an appointment for life. When you get bad justices in there – as we have had for many decades now – we're stuck with them. Which in turn means that bad law – "case law" – made by the justices themselves can stand for a much longer time, and we have no political control over that. As we have seen. Repeatedly. They have to die or retire before there's even a chance of the people having an indirect effect.
It should be up to us. Not a government entity we can't say yea or nay to.
The judiciary was intended to be the weakest branch of government. Not the most powerful. You know how it became the most powerful? Case law.
But don't worry. None of this will change. The mold is set; the future will be more of the same. So relax and enjoy being ruled by a majority among nine. That old constitution thing is just a piece of paper anyway, no need for the people to have any say about it. Right? Right?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Thursday June 15 2017, @04:00PM
You obviously have had very limited dealings with state governments. Basically, all of the stuff you see going wrong at the federal level are even worse at the state level, and often even worse than that at the county and local level. Corruption and incompetence are both common and have surprisingly little effect on electoral success.
It's not all that surprising when you think about it: There are about 550 federal office-holders, a couple thousand state-level office-holders, and hundreds of thousands of local-level office holders. At each level, your chance of advancing in power and salary by getting a better political office is fairly low, because there just aren't any spaces above you in the food chain to fill, and the simple fact that you're already in office helps you tremendously electorally so there's very little threat of losing your office. So instead of trying to work up to being governor or something, many, especially those who have reached their level of incompetence, instead try to boost their earnings via corruption.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by ilsa on Wednesday June 14 2017, @06:10PM (1 child)
The problem is that by all accounts, this guy was a regular mild-mannered guy before.
What do you do when you have perfectly 'regular' people, who then become radicalized in a short period of time due to current events?
That's been the MO for several of the most recent attacks.
Short of pro-actively denying people access to guns in general, or requiring the entire population to undergo regular evaluations, I can't think of what could be done.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by KGIII on Thursday June 15 2017, @12:05AM
I can't tell you what to do. I can tell you what I do.
I accept it. I know that freedom carries great risks. I'd like to think we will someday stop stigmatizing mental illness and provide adequate care for the vulnerable and afflicted. At the same time, and I donate dearly to the ACLU, I know that it was the ACLU who finally got us to stop locking crazy people against their will. I don't want to take their rights away, so the easiest route is just making it acceptable, and affordable, for people to get help.
For the record, I'm pretty left. I'm well to the left of any elected officials in this country. The difference is I reasoned my way here and many of them appear to have emoted their way here.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday June 14 2017, @07:13PM
I'm not him, but I thought he answered you very well, so apparently we are somewhat similar in our thinking. And I guarantee you *I* don't actually thinking anything like what you're imputing to him here, for whatever it's worth. If I ragged on people for not following 'my specific way of thinking' I'd rag on everyone non-stop, believe me ;)
And I truly don't. I actually have a lot of tolerance. But anyway.
"1. take the fucking guns away from the crazies who shouldn't be able to own them (notice I didn't say to take them away from everyone)"
This is so much easier said than done, there are so many levels of impossible, and if you start trying to make it possible you're going to find yourself reaching for totalitarian distopia territory.
Also you have this starkly manichean view here, you have 'crazies' and 'corrupt/greedy/bigotted' everyone who disagrees with you seems to become an extreme caricature in your mind. Is there no room for genuine political disagreement on important questions? Is there no possibility of a legitimate opposition to your program?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday June 14 2017, @06:23PM (28 children)
You're a fucking dumbass. There is ONE person responsible for climate of hate for MORE than just the last year.
Donald Trump
By all means though, try to distort reality and blame it all on how the media is reporting the news. YOU put words in other people's mouths, and YOU were the first one complaining about people wanting dead Republicans. Which is really fucking odd when you have first post you idiot. Just because the gloating about dead Republicans are elsewhere, doesn't mean they have to be here.
I have many progressive and/or liberal positions, but gun control ain't fucking one of them. So it's not black and white, and every person that leans left isn't guaranteed to be for it.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @08:11PM (27 children)
Wait... Donald Trump created the climate of political correctness, identity politics and social justice that has been stifling honest discussion for almost a decade? We're good here and there (ie: moderation system works) but elsewhere people have been self-censoring for fear of offending the random unhinged bullies that whip up a colossal drama over even the most innocuous comment. Donald Trump did not create that climate, he merely capitalized on what was already festering.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Wednesday June 14 2017, @09:24PM (17 children)
Bullshit. Donnie Tiny Hands capitalized on the duress and anger that everybody had towards the complete shit-fest that America has become. That's true.
However, he is completely responsible for whipping it into a frenzy in the last year and a half. Nobody was constantly pushing hate like he was, and he didn't do jack diddly shit to moderate himself and condemn the other hate filled pieces of shit that came of out of hiding to celebrate hate with him.
Now, we're just a fucked country run by Russia that is in a perpetual state of civil war every day. We may not be firing guns at each other yet, but this was just the tip of the iceberg. All because of the hate that piece of shit whipped up, because hate is what fills him and motivates him.
If if was just under the surface before, that was because of the last 10 years of the Great Depression II: The Fuckening. That doesn't absolve the Orange Anus for taking us away from unity as fast as possible to "Fuck you, I got Mine" which is where we are.
Civil War is pretty much inevitable now.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday June 14 2017, @09:52PM (4 children)
Cough. Hopefully not. I would like to think that most of the population of the US is smart enough to know that a state of civil war is really no good for, you know, people and other living things. Much as I dislike many of the things that are going on, words and paper are a far better choice than a shooting conflict. Everything our citizens depend on (and hopefully are still able to recognize that they depend on) such as sanitation, food supplies, power, fuel... all these things depend heavily upon a civil society. Break that assumption, and you're going to starve, get too cold/hot, live in the dark, and be unable to travel, in no particular order but pretty much guaranteed to all come about.
My chief concern right now – and I emphasize right now – is that all these threats of taking medical care from people are going to create some thoroughly angered individuals. Basically, if you never give a baby candy, it'll just sit there and burble. But if you give it candy, and then take away the candy, it's going to scream until something is done about the offense or until is distracted by something more interesting. The problem with medical care is that the "candy" is the extended or even immediate life of family members, and inevitably, some people are going to be left without said family members, they will inevitably be very, very angry, and they are going to be able to rather precisely assign responsibility for their losses. And as for the "more interesting" bit, there may not be anything more interesting anyone can offer those people.
See, the thing about taking everyone's guns? That was right-wing agitprop, and it never had anything behind it. So no one really got past the armchair warrior stage. But the signs exist that taking people's medical care is quite possibly going to come about, legislation to that effect is in play right now in the senate, and the suffering that will cause is far beyond the insult to one's liberty that comes about by being told you can't have a gun. The potential for more-than-armchair reactions seems to me to be much higher than it was for those concerned about their 2nd amendment rights.
I don't claim to know what's going to happen. But I see some fairly serious potential for problems if the medical care thing isn't dealt with in a forward-looking, actual-better-care manner. Anyone who thinks they'll be angry with higher taxation really hasn't thought through how angry someone could be if they directly lose an SO or a child to existing policy reversals.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Wednesday June 14 2017, @11:18PM (3 children)
Nobody, except for some military jarheads with blood lust, think war is good for anyone. Internally, or externally, it's a fucked deal that illuminates how avarice and power corrupts all that it touches. It's touched the whole world.
How quaint. I guess you believe voting solves things too?
ONLY violence, sea changes, and massive strikes/riots changes anything. It's not about better or worse, but about effectiveness. People started out with the quest for the 8-hour day by talking. The Elites responded with cops moonlighting (mercenaries) as their personal enforcers that shot women and children dead in front of their husbands.
We get nothing by talking, nothing by writing, nothing by voting. The only possible choice that involves very little conflict is massive national strikes. ALL of that conflict is related to scabs crossing the line because their desperation, and not being represented or cared for by those striking. The Elites play us against each other in this way.
In order for talking and writing to work, the other side has to be evolved enough to be receptive. They're not, and are nothing but pigs on two feet wholly bereft of any compassion, empathy, or humanity. How does talking work with these people again? I don't mean to imply the rank and file Republicans, but those that lead the party and hold office, along with the Elites driving it behind the scenes (Dark Money Politics). The really fucked part is, that when it comes to the Elites, party lines don't mean anything. I hold Democrats to nearly the same degree of contempt that I do Republicans, but that is largely isolated to the politicians and Elites. The average Republican voter has the ability to be a decent person, and could probably be reasoned with.
Ahhh, the duress. "We can't strike! We don't have enough food!", "We can't fight back! We're too weak!", "We can't push for change because they'll hurt us!". Nobody is deluded to think we don't need those things except for a very small fringe group with their own economic ideas that can pretty much be summed up as anarchy.
Society is already broken, and the complete breakdown in its fabric is well under way. There is no other future when living wages no longer exist, and the Elites own politics as their own personal engine of avaricious change. Sanitation, water, power, etc. are already broken and in incredible disrepair. Flint was the tip of the iceberg, and local taxes are going down faster because the average American Worker isn't paid a living wage, compounded by the fact that the American Worker is besieged on all sides by rich Elites bleeding them dry. Wages don't go up, but the cost of commodities do. More problematic is that for entire counties the average rent isn't 30-40% of income, but 150-400% of income. War on the poor is a fucking understatement.
Anger has nothing to do with it. Medical is wholly unaffordable, and yet, other countries demonstrate that the ONLY reason why American medical is unaffordable are the parasites in the system. When less than 40c on the dollar goes to your health care, that means health care is broken. Where government is picking up the tab, the taxpayer is so poorly represented it borders on criminal negligence. That fucking cunt that runs Mylanta deserves a hot spike up her asshole in hell for all eternity. You wonder how we have no fucking money, and yet are the wealthiest country on Earth? When a hammer costs $400 because a government procurement contract is run by fucking idiots.
You bet there will be blood when they take away the health care. Nobody will believe it's because of ethics, morality, or that it's more American somehow to not have medicine available to all. EVERYONE will believe the simple truth: Elites were being greedy little bitches, couldn't pay living wages, and cannot even be bothered to treat their wage slaves as human beings.
Yeah, that can start civil war. Americans don't sit there and watch the pigs on two legs go about their business. We rise up, kill that fucking pig, burn his house down, and watch his family run out of town to complain the "King" pigs that the slaves finally had enough. That's American history, and the true American way.
No shit. You can go an entire life without owning a firearm, but you can't go your whole life without seeing a doctor. Not unless you are very, very, lucky and don't mind living to or past the average life expectancy. The average American Worker, or wage slave, now lives considerably less long than the average Elite. That is precisely because of the rampant income inequality that has creeped up the last 40 years with the death of unions and the outsourcing of work to cheap hell holes where it is easy and common to abuse the people.
If it happens to me, I already know who I will be killing. That's not a joke. They will not get to go forward in life, exploiting the fuck out of other people, so that somebody else may die because of them. That's my line in the sand, and after they cross that, I will engage in a killing spree to rival them all. Not indiscriminately, but precisely, and my targets will be all people that are involved in the law, but especially those that profited from my loved ones death. Killing may not be the best word either, as I intend for them to live. Just with horrifically broken bodies that require a lot of medical care on a daily basis, that exist only as pain amplifiers.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by GlennC on Wednesday June 14 2017, @11:35PM
And here I am without mod points!
Please accept a virtual +10 from me.
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 15 2017, @09:57AM (1 child)
And then you go on to fantasize about your war on others.
You do plenty here to earn that complete lack of respect you get. Maybe you should learn how to help fix the world instead of merely being another problem on it?
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday June 15 2017, @07:49PM
Fuck off you piece of fucking shit. I don't give a fuck what a sociopathic little whining bitch like you thinks. "Muh society!".
You want me to be on you like white on rice again? I can. I've been ignoring you, would you like that to change? Then shut the fuck up. There is absolutely nothing positive to be gained by our interaction, unless it is your eyes bulging out of your head when I crush your fucking neck.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @10:54PM (9 children)
Your evidence for this claim?
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday June 14 2017, @11:37PM (8 children)
You're right. All I have are the reports from the FBI and the U.S intelligence agencies. Not to mention a huge coverup over the current investigation with the person in charge being fired by the suspect being investigated. Just multiple high level people in the CIA and intelligence community telling us.
<sarcasm>No actual evidence, just mountains worth of smoke...........</sarcasm>
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @11:57PM (4 children)
Mountains of smoke and you just act like it is true? Talk about cognitive dissonance pushing an agenda! We should only talk facts here. Like so many other narratives you're buying into this trope like a real rube. I bet you believe in the moon landings too...
But have you personally been to the moon? Its all a hoax! You have no proof we were there except easily doctored video!
Not to mention the earth is flat. Just look out your window, drive to the next state, still flat! Then there is the UN symbol, obviously showing a flat earth. And planes, hey all fly weird routes, but if you use the true flat shape of the earth then they are really just flying straight lines! Stop being a sheep.
And don't get me started on the lizard people.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday June 15 2017, @01:48AM (3 children)
You're the rube that can't understand sarcasm tags, you stupid fuck.
As for evidence, you or I can't see it. We're not allowed. James Clapper, however, HAS SEEN THE FUCKING EVIDENCE.
I'm not pushing an agenda you fucking moron. I've waited for the FACTS, which are NATIONAL SECURITY and TOP SECRET at the moment. I would learn about it the same time you would, and that would be when the government is ready to disclose it. Reality Winner beat them to the punch by disclosing *some* of the evidence, but not all of it.
That's JAMES CLAPPER, a FORMER DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE. Not some gone-full-retard AC on a niche website with less than 10,000 users. I don't agree with all of his positions (he's for backdoors in encryption), but the man has served his country with distinction. If you can easily dismiss his warnings, then you are a complete fucking moron. Dismissing mine, I can understand, but his? Utter stupidity.
You want more people? James Clapper isn't the only high level official crying foul, but one of many. All of them having security clearances. The people that have agendas are the ones conveniently ignoring the facts because they're not tired of "winning" yet.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 15 2017, @03:39AM (2 children)
Oh man you gotta chill. I was just messing with you a bit and tried to make it obvious with the conspiracy nonsense. I guess you could read that as saying your a conspiracy wacko... Sorry about that. But really, you need to meditate and stop letting people bait you emotionally. Gotta stay calm!
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday June 15 2017, @07:46PM (1 child)
Go fuck off and die in a fire. The only thing you make obvious with the conspiracy nonsense is that you may be an Infowars subscriber that believes Hillary is diddling little kids with a strap-on in the basement of a pizza parlor. Those fucking nuts are everywhere, and unsurprisingly, are Trumpanzees.
I'm not a conspiracy whacko when James Fucking Clapper and others in government are saying they've seen evidence and are raising the alarms. Only conspiracies I've ever talked about have been revealed to be true. All of those related to the NSA/FBI/CIA and their un-American activities.
Hard to be a conspiracy whacko when you keep getting proved right, and high level people in the government are leading the charge. Not somebody in a basement with tin foil on, as your characterization suggests.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 15 2017, @09:35PM
You mean the same James Clapper that lied to Congress (with impunity) about the existence of the NSA's police state surveillance system? Yeah, that guy's totally credible.
I'm glad you retain some faith in people in the federal government, but as for me I have practically none left. Even Elizabeth Warren, who had she run for President I would have bled for, has shown herself to be a farce after rolling over for Hillary.
Trump is an asshole, and everybody else in DC is an asshole, but at least with Trump we get to see the assholes really fighting each other. And with each wounding blow struck, we get to see the assholes suffer. The rest of the American people and the world have been suffering because of them for decades, so it's gratifying to see them join the party. I say we erect a barrier around the Beltway, throw running chainsaws in to them, and chant, "a million assholes enter, one asshole leave!"
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 15 2017, @12:30AM (2 children)
Except there was no investigation. You know this and yet you spread lies. I suspect you are a paid shill working to attempt to stir dissent.
You may be right about an upcoming civil war, but this time we won't lose.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday June 15 2017, @01:54AM
Yes, there very much is an ongoing investigation, and I'm not spreading lies. If you want to get fucking cute about it, Comey said that Trump was not under criminal investigation, but that there also different kinds of investigations. He basically admitted that Trump could be an "unwitting accomplice", and that the FBI often investigates people in these contexts.
This isn't about investigating Trump as much as it is about investigating Russian interference in our election. At the moment it is centered on many individuals within the Trump campaign, but not Trump specifically at the moment.
That, and you have one hell of a logic failure. You can't fire somebody for investigating something if they aren't actually investigating something. Trump is on record as saying he fired Comey BECAUSE of the investigation.... but there is no investigation? Really? There are even reports he is considering firing Mueller, who is investigating it now. Is this one of those investigations, but not an investigation?
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 15 2017, @03:42AM
The majority of US citizens are against you pal, not a chance of winning no matter how much toilet paper you've stockpiled
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 15 2017, @01:51PM (1 child)
C'mon, that's blinkered. You're conveniently forgetting all the heated rhetoric that led to Gabbie Giffords getting shot in the head. How about 30 years of right-wing talk radio? David Duke? But, wait, this shooter was a progressive guy, so you can't really blame his radicalization on the Right, can you? Otherwise you're basically saying, when right-wing people hate, it's the Right that's responsible for it, but when left-wing people hate, it's still the Right that's responsible for it. Surely you can see the flaw there.
So let's examine the heated rhetoric on the Left that has been in high gear since before the election. We've had avatars like Rachel Maddow spiraling into new hyperbolic heights. As far as I am aware, the only person brave enough to call them out on it was Jon Stewart, who held her equally culpable for the polarized climate in America. But, unchastened, they haven't stopped calling for impeaching Trump since before he was even sworn in. They were even more insta-conspiracy minded after his election victory than the Right was about Obama. I mean, isn't it obvious? It wasn't that they were wrong about Hillary winning, because they were never wrong and never will be wrong, but because Russia and Trump conspired to steal the election. All that stuff about Obama being a Marxist Muslim Manchurian candidate was total hogwash, but the Russia/Trump thing is totally real.
Me, I hope this serves as a small, cut-the-crap moment for DC, the way there was after Gabbie Giffords was shot. Stuff like this is the real consequence of their corruption and ass-hattery, and it is not only a possibility, but at the door. And I mean that in a non-partisan, a pox-on-both-their-houses way.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday June 15 2017, @09:02PM
You didn't read what I said. I specifically said all of that hate was there before (for quite some time), and I didn't lay it on the feet of any party. Trump IS responsible for whipping it into a frenzy, with the implication that there needed to be something there in the first place to whip up.
Hitler didn't create antisemitism, but merely capitalized on what was already there. This time with Trump it is no different. You caught the part about how other people came out to celebrate hate with him? That can only be if they had hate before him.
You're correct. I don't blame the radicalization on the Right. I blame it on Trump. Without Trump, the Republicans rarely whipped up hate, but chose fear instead. Yeah, there were some things with Hillary, but by and large the Republicans at least attempted to hold on to some civility and decorum. That's gone.
Not seeing it. I don't find concerns about Trump's tax returns, his f-u to the foreign emoluments clause, and generally shitty performance to be hyperbolic when simply reported. Yes, I caught that piece with Jon Stewart too, and yes there is something to it. What you are forgetting though is that the heated rhetoric on the Left is the Resistance. We need to resist, or we lose the whole country. That's not hyperbole. It really is that bad, and until Trump decisively answers questions about this tax returns and divests himself of his financial interests, it is very reasonable to be concerned that he is a Moscow puppet being blackmailed. Maybe he is just doing this for money and to serve the interests of powerful and corrupt people. This is why is so fucking important for a president to show proof to people that he is not compromised. We have no proof, just a lot of smoke and high level people warning us.
The calls to impeach Trump are correct. One of the first things he did was to have a Mafia like conversation with a law enforcement official where he DID obstruct justice. "We had that thing you know, that thing.... I need loyalty, I will be loyal to you", just screams Mafiaa like behavior. The calls to impeach him were based on his behavior, not partisan politics. If he were just running us into the ground with the abhorrent platform of the Republicans, that would be one thing. We would still have the Resistance, but no grounds to ask for impeachment. There are grounds now for impeachment by any reasonable standard.
I don't care about all that ego bullshit, and who won, who lost. I'm not on the Left, or the Right, and I've been calling out Obama as the traitorous piece of shit that he is since *year one*.
The Russia/Trump thing MAY be real. There is a HUGE fucking difference between the racist dipshit bullshit that was laid at Obama's feet (who showed his tax returns), and the racist dipshit that shovels it now. I might be with you if all there was for evidence was rumors and fear mongering. You can say whatever the fuck you want, and I don't like James Clapper one bit, but when a person that high up in the intelligence community starts to warn us we would foolish to dismiss it. Likewise, I don't like James Comey, but he flat out testified before Congress that there was an investigation into many of the members of the Trump campaign for collusion with Russia. Comey "vindicated" Trump only by saying that Trump may be an "unwitting accomplice". Then what about Roger Stone flat out bragging that he had access and contact to the hacker group that went after the HRC campaign? Then we have the documents that Reality Winner leaked that showed a concerted effort by Russian state actors to compromise our elections.
It's not that simple dude, and you can't simplify this as conspiracy theory nonsense similar to what the Right did to Obama. There are real and actual concerns here that are being promulgated be people that have prided themselves as a group to be independent of politics, that have decades worth of experience in the intelligence community. This is not the same as a Benghazi investigation into HRC.
To give you a Star Trek analogy... when a Ferengi in a bar is talking shit about how the Romulans may invade next year, you might ignore him. When Captain Picard says he is concerned about Romulan presence in the neutral zone and that there may be compromised people in Star Fleet, you listen to Captain Picard and take him seriously.
Right now our decorated captains and admirals are warning us. Dismiss that if you want, but you can't call it conspiracy theory nonsense.
I honestly don't care if they all get shot, including Trump. That is a non-partisan pox-on-both-their-houses position. Nothing about either party is for the American Worker or progressive reforms designed to reign in the corruption of the Elites and their War on the Poor. The Republicans are at least fully transparent now in their service to the Elites, but the Democrats still like to play as if they are not supporting the Elites over their base. All of them deserve what they get at the moment. Every single thing they get, they deserve.
Especially Republicans that won't hold town halls anymore, and dismiss all opposition as paid protestors and not legitimate grievances of their constituents. This shooter was allegedly a progressive going after Republicans, but if they take away health care from their constituents? You may very well see Republicans shooting Republicans.
Like I've said for some time, Civil War is inevitable. This is just the beginning.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @09:31PM (4 children)
What exactly is wrong with political correctness? Or would you rather go back to people calling each other cunts, savages, kikes, and niggers? Would like prefer that?
What is wrong with social justice? Or would you rather prefer that Donnie fucks over pension plans so he can steal another billion for his bank account? Social justice is THE reason why you have middle class!
And I have no clue WTF you are talking about identity politics. AFAIK, that died with Hitler in the west. But maybe ignorants like Donnie want to revive it.
So you are mixing the good with the bad now... really awesome.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @11:07PM
I'd like words to be taken in the context within which they are presented. As in, you should not be attacked for using the words in the context you just did. Bill Maher should not have been attacked for his comment some week back, especially not since it was probably a reference to this. [twitter.com]
Are you living on the same planet as the rest of us? Links have been provided in your quoted comment.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 15 2017, @10:10AM (2 children)
I'll add my take on this. Political correctness is about ostracization of groups with the wrong beliefs and speech.
Social justice has nothing to do with justice. It's just wealth transfer schemes and ideological status signaling. For example, your "pension funds" are merely wealth transfers from young to old. The great majority of them are underfunded and unlikely to deliver a positive ROI for young people putting into them today.
And identity politics is what the name says - politics based on identification with some group or characteristic. Your example of the Nazis who among other things were about advancing the "Aryan" race at the expense of many other ethnic groups was a good example of identity politics, but it takes someone with a peculiarly blinkered imagination to not understand how identity politics manifests today. For example, political correctness above is a classic example of identity politics.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 15 2017, @06:57PM (1 child)
Stop being an ignorant part of the problem please. Thaaaanks that'd be greaaaaat.
Seriously, you're filled with propaganda nonsense. I did some googling trying to see your viewpoint and only came across reactionary emotional laden garbage without any decent citations or arguments. Just "muh monies" and "muh white privileges".
You can rightfully argue against some affirmative action stuff, but you are one of those people who would do so in bad faith and not address the actual societal problems we have. So go fuck yourself you ignorant douche**
** I used to try and stay away from ad hominems, but rational discussions go nowhere with people such as yourself so I make a somewhat rational point and then tell you what I really think about you. Maybe in 5-20 years the comments will sink in and you'll do some self-reflection. Maybe you'll become less ignorant and understand that you deserve the criticism. I won't hold my breath though.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 15 2017, @11:12PM
I'll note here that there is a remarkable lack of evidence for the supposed seriousness of modern racism. We don't have slavery or genocide in the developed world any more - our racism has gotten a lot better. Maybe it's time to figure out softer and far more effective approaches than the puritan-style shunning for dealing with residual racism? I'll note, for example, there isn't an ethnic group out there that doesn't have great food.
I suggest you try again. There's a reason fallacies are bad. It's because they are short cuts that inhibit thinking and the hard work of reasoning. If you can't argue a point without using copious fallacies, then you don't have an argument. I'm not saying you're wrong, though that's a usual consequences, but if one is to convince others of one's rightness (or at least not embarrass oneself in front of others), one needs to learn how to argue.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @11:28PM (3 children)
You confuse your leftist buzzwords with reality and impose your own warped analysis on top. PC culture got a bit ridiculous, but sure as hell wasn't the hatefest that Trump championed throughout Obama's years during the election, and continues to do now. Identity politics and social justice? No one has a real issue here, it is just another buzzword to get conservatives upset. Taking your statues? Please, only some dumbass bigots really care and the talk shows used that to whip up yet some more hate and anger from their gullible base. Stifling honest discussion? Have you not paid attention? Liberals discuss things, conservatives shout people down. I have seen the pattern too many times, you're just upset that at a certain point people just say "you're wrong" and will not continue the discussion.
This climate of sensitivity was a snowball in the making since the US was first colonized with slaves. We've finally reached the point where we can bring these issues to light but conservatives are too busy pretending the problems don't exist. Instead of rolling with it and moving on to a better culture that rejects racism, the conservative base has gone into hysterics and dropped all critical thinking. Big fucking babies, and then you all elected the biggest baby of them all to be president.
OWN UP TO YOUR SHIT! If you consider yourself conservative and honestly don't think YOU are the problem, then discuss these issues with your peers.
Shine the light of truth, see what kind of shit bags you are surrounded with. I guarantee that there is more real racism than you think, and even the "I'm not racist but I like a good off-color joke haha" is minimalist racism, subconscious bullshit that does have an effect.
Get your shit together. Put it all in one spot so its all together. Get. Your. Shit. Together.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 15 2017, @09:04AM (2 children)
Or we could worry about other problems. I think it's a bit hypocritical to have this big hate on for "shit bags" just because they have a bit of flawed humanity. And "minimalist racism" is a hell of a lot better than what used to go on, like the slavery you mentioned earlier.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 15 2017, @07:10PM (1 child)
Meh whatever, you're just using the mirroring tactic to try and judge me back. Anger is a natural human emotion, with hatred being the more extreme side. Racists are hateful shitbags, and calling them out does not suddenly make me the same as them. I understand the hypocrisy angle you're trying to work here, but that is not how human nature works.
I have compassion for the flawed people and have had many conversations trying to discuss the issues. They always end up detrimental to myself since arguing with a racist/minimal racist is not fun or productive for my own growth, and is very questionable as to how much it helps them. We are making slow progress on the racism front, but the big PC culture wave has led a lot of people to think "hey we're over it!" when that is very very far from the truth. The racists became unpopular, went underground, and hide in plain site. KKK members working on the police force, that is about the worst scenario imaginable.
So address the issues and stop trying to deflect away from them. If you don't consider yourself a bigot then go help your political peers, because a good fraction of them really are.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 15 2017, @11:54PM
Of course, I am. And it works because you are being deeply hypocritical here. If you can't come close to living up to your morality, then I probably can't either. I certainly am not going to bother to try.
Yet again I see the excuse that arguing with people who disagree with you is "not fun or productive". That's a classic problem with people who haven't learned how to argue and who have high expectations for mere argument. I think learning to reason and argue, and learning to understand others, even racists would be more productive than grandstanding about how much you've tried in the past with token efforts.
What makes you think those people aren't right? I disagree that this is somehow "far" from the truth. We have a variety of signs, such as improving welfare of minorities and interracial couples to indicate that something very positive is happening.
Let's start with that second observation first. What's wrong with a KKK member wanting to serve their community? It would depend on what sort of klan the officer was a member of. Some are law abiding and respect laws on discrimination, etc, some don't. It should be like any other group membership.
Second, what exactly is wrong with going underground? That was the desired outcome, right? Breaking the back of racism by making it an ostracized belief. As to hiding in "plain site", where exactly do you want racists to hide? I'd rather have them as productive members of society than as hidden prisoners in some gulag. That's far more humane.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 15 2017, @12:58PM
Aside from the differences when the shooters are "right" leaning (usually,) where are the people like myself who are pleased to see some lawyers get shot at?
We say all this stuff about lawyers... even jokes and lines about how 90% of lawyers make them look bad. So when shooting at a bunch of them... it shouldn't be as big of a deal. None of them are innocent. On top of all that, these are the worst kind of lawyers and most have their job due to deep corruption.
The extremes the propaganda has allowed the corruption to continue is going to not only motivate suckers to go too far and some nuts to get elected (who were just support to donate more money) but it ALSO is going to motivate people who see past the farce and can no longer take what is going on. This sort of stuff will increase to the point where sane fanatics start getting involved too (not sure this guy is one... but given people are getting worn out at how bad things have degraded beyond what the world thought was possible, one has to expect some stressed out sane people to take action...)
I'm waiting for the sick people who are being killed due to policy changes to do something instead of just die because their leaders said "let them eat cake." The French revolution wasn't all about crazy people and it began with small numbers of "traitors" etc. The American revolution had fewer motives and it still happened.