Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Simon]

7 hours ago, indy523 said:

No offense but what you have just put forth is the entire reason that the first amendment was adopted by the continental congress.  Whom do you expect gets to define SANE and RATIONAL and ADULT.  This is the fallacy of Plato's Republic and why every Utopian Socialist movement going back to Robespierre in the French Revolution ends in genocide of some sort.  In electing a class of elite political rulers trained in politics and morality to censor and control society they stand heavily on the third leg of the Cressey's fraud triangle RATIONALIZATION to justify whatever they want as moral.  One cannot have a true discussion of politics with rules allowing those in power to edit or silence others no matter what the reason.  That only opens a window for the clever and deceitful to reclassify anything they disagree with as hate speech and silence their opposition.

To quote the late, great Trace Adkins:  The First Amendment protects you from the government, not from me.

 

I'm going to go on the assumption that the entirety of your post was meant in jest -- don't disillusion me of that.

[Pariah]

Boy, Simon, are you optimistic today!

[Simon]

3 minutes ago, Pariah said:

Boy, Simon, are you optimistic today!

Just wait...it's called fishing.

[Pariah]

[Cancer]

Woo, Jay Buhner GIF!!

[Pariah]

Gone, but not forgotten:

 

With the latest payout, former Sheriff Joe Arpaio has cost Arizona taxpayers $100M

[Cygnia]

Do GOP voters actually believe Trump's Big Lie about "rigged" elections? They don't act like they do

Quote

This is why conservatives are so impervious to facts and become more so as the GOP slides further and further down the fascist path. Facts are only persuasive to people who believe that truth and empiricism matter. For the authoritarian right, however, facts are understood as inconveniences and obstacles. In that light, it makes sense why they take so much delight in rejecting facts and driving liberals bonkers by doing so. It's a show of power, to relish how reality itself cannot defeat them.

Like many on the left, I was amused watching perennial GOP troll Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia freaking out at the possibility that her robotic repetition of the Big Lie might actually cause her followers to believe it and choose not to vote. And certainly, there are a small percentage of numpty-heads in the GOP coalition who don't realize it's all a big con and might elect to sit out elections because of it. In close elections, that extremely small percentage of Republicans who aren't in on the joke may matter. But that 92% of Republicans are feeling confident and excited about voting in future elections shows that the faith in the Big Lie is, for the vast majority of them, an act performed for the cameras and not a sincerely held belief.

Republican voters are not misled by Trump's Big Lie. They are empowered by the opportunity to join in. If there's any chance of beating back the rising fascist movement in America, it starts with understanding this crucial difference.

 

[unclevlad]

56 minutes ago, Cygnia said:

Do GOP voters actually believe Trump's Big Lie about "rigged" elections? They don't act like they do

 

 

Shorter paragraph captures the most important point to me:

 

Quote

Contradictions don't faze right-wingers for the same reason they don't change their minds in the face of facts: The truth does not matter. All that matters is power. Trolling through lies and contradictory claims is viewed as a crucial weapon in getting power. 

 

[Lord Liaden]

I believe there's a lot of validity to the article, but I suspect it may be missing the mark in implying that for most right-wingers rejecting rationality for the sake of power is a deliberate choice. The author of the article quotes Umberto Eco as writing, "Thinking is a form of emasculation" for fascists. Certainly the leading politicians and media figures in the movement understand what they're doing and why, but I believe most of the ground roots Republicans are reacting out of emotion and instinct. They feel powerful by participating in this movement, and against that feeling thought is not only powerless, it's irrelevant.

[Lord Liaden]

I've never read or heard of a genuine fascist who considers the bulk of the movement's followers as better than sheep.

[tkdguy]

Regardless of whether they actually believe it, some will repeat the Big Lie. I have been volunteering online for the New Jersey and Virginia elections. And I have gotten a couple of responses ranting about how Democrats are evil and steal elections. They are in the minority, though. Most responses are much shorter, ranging from a polite "no thank you" to the ever-popular f-bomb.

[Dr. MID-Nite]

I fear we are heading for another major social upheaval in society...something akin to the French Revolution. Clearly, the status quo isn't working. Now...the problem remains in how this will pan out.

[Lord Liaden]

Major corrections recur in society. In most of the West we haven't had one since the fall of Communism. We're probably overdue.

[Dr. MID-Nite]

3 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

Major corrections recur in society. In most of the West we haven't had one since the fall of Communism. We're probably overdue.

 

The end of the Cold War definitely brought about political change, but relatively little social change IMO. We are overdue, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm looking forward to the chaos that usually comes with it.

[Lord Liaden]

Well, for one thing, I don't think you should underestimate the effect of the mental paradigm shift of the West no longer having a Great Enemy to define itself against. But even if you maintain there was relatively little social change in North America as a result, that's only a fraction of the world. In Europe and Asia the changes were profound.

[Pariah]

Ah, but the United States DID have a Great Enemy to define itself against ... Islam! When those dirty Muslim terrorists dared to blow up buildings on our soil, we couldn't get into their countries and start shooting stuff (and people) fast enough. And we've been doing it for a full generation now.

 

And thus began the longest, most expensive war in American history. And the repercussions will be felt for at least another full generation, I expect.

[Lord Liaden]

Very well put. The loss of the Communist "threat" might have been one reason why the US at the time seemed so eager to get back into an open conflict.   But terrorists aren't the same kind of threat as a peer nation, and aren't viewed or reacted to the same way. And unfortunately, the majority of Muslims being brown-skinned people fanned the smoldering embers of racism in the West into a flame.

[Lord Liaden]

I've always been struck by how deeply traumatized American society seemed to be by the 9/11 attacks. Perhaps it's because Americans felt secure on their own soil before that day, but the reaction seemed, frankly, out of proportion to the actual scale of loss. As a friend of mine who's an immigrant from Iraq put it, "In my country, every day was 9/11."

[tkdguy]

I think it was just as much a blow to the American ego. We never considered it was possible for us to get hit that hard at home.

[unclevlad]

Plus, 9/11 was the first direct attack against the US since Pearl Harbor...and while that was horrific enough, it was 60 years earlier.  Plus, it got no live coverage, of course.  We got the news second hand and much later.  How many of us saw one or both planes hit?  One or both towers fall?  Plus, while Pearl Harbor was a surprise attack, it was one against a military target.  So in that sense, it fit with many other, similar attacks like the Cole.  9/11 *used* civilians, and targeted civilians.  For better or worse, terrorist attacks in Britain and France have targeted civilians.  They also remember much more deeply the devastation of WW II.  So they may be more emotionally resilient.

 

It's a combination of many things.  Demonizing goes back to the 50's with Communism.  Can also argue that this was the start of distrust of government, due to McCarthy's tactics, and the damage it did.  It showed that governmental abuse of power was a Real Thing, on a scale we'd not seen.  Then there were the lies of Vietnam, and the first clear schisms on ideological grounds.  Watergate.  Carter...a Democrat...let an embassy be sacked, and Americans held hostage (!!!)  Reagan could be painted as the paragon of normalcy and a return to Good Old American Values.  Then the tawdry, pathetic lies of Clinton...another Democrat, another embarrassment.  9/11 happened on Bush's watch...but he had an acceptable response.  Hit the bastards back HARD.  And even Iran...HECK no, we're not gonna let Saddam pull off another 9/11.  

 

On issues:  Democrats support women's rights, gay rights, immigration.  While "kinder, kuche, kirche" might not literally hold, I suspect it's a LOT closer to what's comfortable for too many American men.  And there's much more resentment, I think, when a man loses a position to a woman, compared to losing it to another man.    Immigration...the narratives here are obvious.  They're cash sinks, they're job stealers, they're criminals.  Gay rights...they're all sinners and fornicators and damned to hell.  They're anti-family.  The perceived threat to family strikes at something very basic.

 

The lesson of McCarthy and Nixon is, you can't trust government.  The lesson of the Democrats is their values are wrong.  So government should do NOTHING...but protect us.  The Wall.  More defense spending.  Strong military.  Don't tell us what to do because your motives are BS to begin with.

 

It's a total mess.

[tkdguy]

That explains some of the venom volunteers get. Today someone responded with a wish that I die from COVID-19. Someone else got a text hoping for a civil war. While I can blow off the first response, the second one is disturbing, even if it may have been a purely inflammatory post.

[Dr. MID-Nite]

4 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

I've always been struck by how deeply traumatized American society seemed to be by the 9/11 attacks. Perhaps it's because Americans felt secure on their own soil before that day, but the reaction seemed, frankly, out of proportion to the actual scale of loss. As a friend of mine who's an immigrant from Iraq put it, "In my country, every day was 9/11."

 

9/11 had the same affect as the Doolittle raid did during WWII. The actual damage wasn't the great, but the psychological effect it had on the Japanese was significant. They weren't invincible anymore.

[TrickstaPriest]

Looks like waiting my entire lifetime to see real attempts to tackle climate change hasn't paid off yet

[Old Man]

1 hour ago, TrickstaPriest said:

Looks like waiting my entire lifetime to see real attempts to tackle climate change haven't paid off yet

 

You haven't waited your entire lifetime yet, though, have you? 

[unclevlad]

38 minutes ago, Old Man said:

 

You haven't waited your entire lifetime yet, though, have you? 

 

Hmm.

I can say yes, I have.  I'll count pollution reduction as climate change.