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Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)


Simon

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22 minutes ago, wcw43921 said:

I thought the proper military term was rapid deployment force.

 

Scale differences.  A QRF is at the unit level...platoons to companies.  An RDF...the 82nd Airborne Division is an RDF.  Division...3 levels of size larger than a company.

https://www.thirteen.org/blog-post/u-s-army-units-explained-from-squads-to-brigades-to-corps/

 

 

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Okay, guys, I'm back.

 

No; that doesn't mean that I've started reading this thread: I still make a conscientious effort not to read things even from people I respect if there is even the _slightest_ chance that these things will end in an argument.

 

I am here for the same reason that I always come here:  Concern that what I am about to say may be taken politically.  Generally, my concerns are social, but for the past twenty years, I have found fewer and fewer people are able to make the distinction, so why take the chance, right?  This is where politics is allowed, within limits, and I think I can stay within those limits.

 

As all previous posts in this thread, it's going to be a hit-and-run thing: I still don't read this thread; I just really, really want to get this off my chest.

 

 

I used to reference "as my grandfather taught me" or "as my grandfather used to say."  I don't do that as much in recent years: he's been gone for decades now, and I have my own kids, and I spend my time doing my best to teach them-- and a lot of what I teach them is what he taught me.

 

I want to preface all of this with a caveat:  Do _not_ mistake what I imply when I do share something he taught me.  By all accounts-- my own included-- he was an absolute crapfest of a human being: vulgar, abusive, and hateful to his last paranoid breath.  By the time I came along-- my father was the last of his kids to have kids-- well, he hadn't mellowed out, really.  He got older and slower, but even into his nineties, he was a pretty big man.  He just kind of burned out.   The southernism is that he started "buying his ticket to Heaven."  It's not entirely accurate in the case; he was an atheist his entire life, though despite what I hear from atheist friends and acquaintances, it didn't make him one whit less of a ass than any Christian I have ever encountered, either, and he didn't have the fallback of "this is what my religion demands of me" to fall back on.

 

 

All that being said, he really did teach me quite a bit (particularly dodging: a good head weave really comes in handy when someone six-foot-six tries to sucker punch you.  Good thing age slowed him down enough for me to learn that without too much ill effect.

 

One of the most important things he taught me-- I didn't know it then; Hell, I wouldn't know it until... well, let's say "recent events" peeled back a lot of veneers on a lot of people in positions they have no business holding, okay?

 

it was something he didn't talk about often; I suspect it's because he learned in in World War 2.  He talked about a lot of things-- even Korea-- but he didn't talk much about World War 2.  This is the image that got me thinking about it today, tough given my work schedule, I'm sure you've all seen it already:

 

 

BqIBbo4.jpeg

 

 

This image is from Canada (I am so sorry: I thought you guys could be safely inoculated from our special brand of entitlement.  I guess "polite" doesn't always mean "nice," does it?).  All these flags were hung up in protest of mask mandates an in support of a small group of man babies in something called the "Freedom Convoy."  

 

 

 

My grandfather and I had made the trip to Fairbanks (it was a regular thing to do in summer-- resupply and shop, etc, while you could drive out instead of having to rely on the bush pilots).  We had stopped somewhere (I really don't remember: I wasn't very old, and I was more interested in looking around and seeing stuff than haggling for bags of flour, cans of lard, and coffee).  I was staring at a motorcycle in the parking lot.  The back seat had an extremely tall sissy bar on it, and it featured a plate on the back that was essentially the Maltese Cross.  The fuel tank had a pair of swastikas on it and there were little chrome ziggurats screwed on to various parts of the bike.

 

My grandfather had finished loading the truck and come to collect me.  He stopped next to me and just stared at the bike for a long time.  He went so long without yelling at me for something that I was actually getting a little uncomfortable.

 

Finally, he stabbed one massive finger at the swastikas on the tank, arm straight and rigid as if he were attempting to cast out a demon.  "You know what the means, Boy?"

 

"No, Sir."

 

He never looked at me.  He just kept looking at the swastika.  His finger never wavered.  "Look at.  Look at it for a long time.  Burn it into your brain.  Never forget that symbol."

 

After an eternity, he let his arm drop back to his side.

 

"What's it mean, Gramp?"

 

"It means you're wrong!" he bellowed- not his usual bellow, but absolute venom vomited from somewhere deep inside him.  He paused a minute, and I could see in my peripheral vision how stiff he was; even at his side, his fist was clenched and his arm was flexed tight.  Whatever was playing out in his mind finally reached its conclusion and he continued speaking again.  "It means a lot of things, Boy, to a lot of people, and to the worst of them, it's a Goddamned holy symbol. but don't you ever forget that what it means more than anything else is that you are as absolutely, completely wrong as it is possible to get.  It represents and inhuman level of stupid, Boy-- a level that shouldn't be allowed to exist.  I don't care what you ever learn from me, or your parents, or from any school teacher you ever have, what you had damned well better remember any time you pick up a cause-- if this symbol is on your side, you are so goddamned wrong that you need to walk away, change sides, and figure out what's what.  If you can't change sides, then you need to spend every day begging whatever god there might be that he kills you, fast, before whatever the Hell is wrong inside you spreads.  If you're lucky, it'll be quick and painless, but if you ever agree with anyone using that symbol, quick and painless ain't something you are ever going to deserve."

 

 

Sure.  It sounds stupid, and it tells a lot more about my grandfather and my "formative years" than I am typically comfortable sharing, but--- well, I don't know that it was ever possible to do him proud, to this very day, at the age of sixty-one (sixty-two in March!  Damn, where did my life go?  I was supposed to have achieved.... something.... by now), I remember that conversation every single time I see a swastika (even the Native American "good one").  Obviously, today, I know what it means.  No amount of prying got any more detail out of my grandfather-- not that there was much; that was never really a safe thing to do, but today...  Well, I know what it is; I know what it means; I know who rallies behind it.

 

And I have to say that while he was right about most of things he taught me, I don't think it is possible to be more right about anything than he was about this.

 

 

I weep for the damage that unbridled hate and stupidity is doing to the human race.   :(

 

 

Thank you for the chance to vent.

 

 

   

 

 

 

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I find swastikas to be quite comforting in some circumstances.  Normally I try to hear someone's side of things and even feel guilty if i don't at least give them a small chance to make their case.  However, when someone waves that or holds it up while trumpeting a cause, it allows me to completely and quickly disregard that person and whatever point they're trying to make and go on about my day with a clear conscience.

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11 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

BqIBbo4.jpeg

 

 


I disagree with what was supposed to be the initial motivation for this protest -- mandates for vaccination by truckers crossing between the US and Canada, which already apply on the US side -- but I do have sympathy for their frustration, which has been building a long time. But that symbol has no place in any group proclaiming "freedom."

 

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Much is being made by commentators and pundits of Trump having stated during that rally that Mike Pence could have "overturned the election" and "changed the election result."  Besides the fact that Pence did not have the constitutional authority to refuse to count the votes by states' electors, Trump's words indicate that he knew that Joe Biden had won, and that Trump tried to create a different outcome which would ignore the legitimate lawful vote by the American people. This is saying the quiet part out loud in a way that might redound legally against Trump, but that's far from the first thoughtless remark he's made. It probably won't sway his hard core loyalists, but the growing number of former Trumpists on the fence about him might just be pushed over by this.

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Most of the time Trump chooses his words carefully, from many years of practice at coming just short of legally actionable. But as I've always said, while he's cunning he isn't smart, and he's arrogant and undisciplined. He thinks he's cleverer than he is, and assumes he knows enough about subjects and situations of which he's totally ignorant. That's when he trips himself up.

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Anyone could come up with an excuse for that phrasing though.  That's my problem with hanging so much on it.

 

What should be more concerning is that people are accepting that the vice president can throw out ANY election if they want to without oversight or consequence?

 

What the literal *(#$&*( ???????????

 

edit: Just imagine if that was actually a thing people started doing in elections.  "Oh yeah the vice pres says he didn't like how the election was conducted in two of the states, so he tossed out the election.  sorry."

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According to reports I've read, there's wide bipartisan support in Congress to update the wording of the Elections Act (dating from the 19th Century) to clarify that no such "loophole" in the Act exists. (It doesn't, but the wording doesn't explicitly state that.) Trump is categorizing that as an attempt to deprive the Vice-President of a legal power of his office, which, as noted, has no basis in fact.

 

"Bipartisan support..." Those words out of Washington have been rare as hen's teeth in recent years.

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2 hours ago, TrickstaPriest said:

Anyone could come up with an excuse for that phrasing though.  That's my problem with hanging so much on it.

 

What should be more concerning is that people are accepting that the vice president can throw out ANY election if they want to without oversight or consequence?

 

What the literal *(#$&*( ???????????

 

edit: Just imagine if that was actually a thing people started doing in elections.  "Oh yeah the vice pres says he didn't like how the election was conducted in two of the states, so he tossed out the election.  sorry."

 

The Vice President is currently Kamala Harris. Trump is essentially arguing that she should decide the next presidential election.

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6 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

Or as Beau pointed out...a sitting VP fairly commonly runs for President when the sitting President can't, due to term limits.  So the sitting VP could put himself in place.

 

That's a very good point.

 

Like, regardless, Pence chose not to do this... or at least believed he could not.  Pence appeared to make the deliberate choice not to exercise this authority, or to push if he could.  That throws out the implied point of "redoing all this", what Trump is trying to shoehorn in.  If Pence wanted to, he could have pushed the point, but chose not to.  Trump wants to say the media was lying about his VP's authority, without him saying -should- the vice president have the power to throw out a presidential election?

 

It, again, comes down to the idea of him being 'cheated out' without him saying that he'd have to say VPs have unprecedented control over elections in order to do so.  Plus there's nothing to say he's really been 'cheated' unless he concedes that Pence didn't want to push for him to get it - or is he saying Pence had to throw it out, by order of the president?  He's towing a line there of not outright-saying what he said beforehand, that Pence was being cowardly, but it comes down to no one wanting to throw away limits to VP authority for Trump's sake.

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1 hour ago, Pariah said:

If there's one hallmark of the Trump presidency, to me it's this: Donald rump expects you to fall on your sword for him when he asks, but he won't lift a finger for you when you need it.

 

(He's not alone in this among elected persons, of course.)

 

Drop "presidency" and I'll buy it.

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To me the hallmark of Donald Trump is his view of everything: If it's good for Donald Trump, it's good. If it's bad for Donald Trump, it's bad. He couldn't care less what mess he leaves behind after it no longer affects him, and values, principles, and laws don't even rate consideration, other than as something he could personally suffer for violating.

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3 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

To me the hallmark of Donald Trump is his view of everything: If it's good for Donald Trump, it's good. If it's bad for Donald Trump, it's bad. He couldn't care less what mess he leaves behind after it no longer affects him, and values, principles, and laws don't even rate consideration, other than as something he could personally suffer for violating.

 

I've used the term before.  I'll repeat it.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/narcissistic-personality-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20366662#:~:text=Narcissistic personality disorder — one of,lack of empathy for others.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Twilight said:

Given the situation in Ottawa and at the border in recent days, I'll take this moment to wish any chat members from the province of Ontario good luck if they happen to be in the vicinity of the Canada Goose Mob.  So named because at the end of the day it's just a bunch of honking and pooping everywhere.

 

Has made me wonder if moving back is all that...

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1 hour ago, TrickstaPriest said:

 

Has made me wonder if moving back is all that...

It's certainly making me embarrassed to live here, that's for sure.  Looks like the RCMP aren't all that eager to live up to their famous reputation, when they have to face off against unarmed nitwits who're afraid of needles.  :thumbdown🤬:bmk:

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