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General politics thread (was: General U.S. politics thread)

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Comments

  • Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    This isn't even about Colin Kaepernick or whatever.
    Yes, it's not about him.
    This is about us. What happened to make us all believe it was okay to disrespect or even just simply disregard our national anthems, most especially the American one?
    > us
    Do you even live here?

    > disrespect
    Because taking a pose of submission during a national anthem is a symbol of disrespect.

    > our national anthems
    Who else's?

    > most especially the American one
    The American national anthem happens to be the focus of this because we're discussing the United States.

    It's almost like you're speaking from an opinion where the idea of American greatness is considered orthodoxy and any deviation is considered unfair picking on America.
    Why were these ideas about national symbols being irrelevant allowed to flourish this much?
    The symbols are and continue to be relevant. If they weren't relevant, they'd be ignored.

    relevant =/= rigidly demanding respect
    Why don't we understand the significance of these symbols and their ties to the history that brought us here?
    People here do understand the significance of these symbols. And people here are aware of the history, including the good, the bad, and the ugly. They just don't necessarily agree on what constitutes proper display of that recognition.

    On one hand, some people are using the display to highlight an injustice going on within American society.
    On the other hand, some people are demanding that displays of patriotism be followed according to certain rigid rules (such as disallowing kneeling), because only this constitutes proper "respect" for the flag/anthem.

    You've chosen the latter position.
    It's a mark of a serious lack or appreciation of history and civics.
    No, it's not this that's "a mark of serious lack or [sic] appreciation of history and civics". Rather, it's the fact that state-level and local-level history are rarely taught in sufficient detail, and state-level and local-level civics are also rarely taught, leaving everyone to think that the presidency and maybe also Congress and the Supreme Court are important, and ignoring everything else.

    Ironically, what you call "a lack [of?] appreciation of history" is actually a greater understanding of history nowadays, beyond just the simplified/idealized narrative of "the founding fathers got together and made a great country full of great ideas (with the exception of slavery but that got settled later)".
    Most of all, it's a lack of appreciation for the people who came before us who had to genuinely fight for these things and genuinely think about these things. History doesn't start with us, we owe them quite literally everything.
    What, are you advocating slavishly worshipping idealized (idolized?) conceptions of ancestors, rather than trying to understand them as actual people?
    Ah, I guess I'm the confused one. When the Paper of Record in the country gives such a person editorial license to write her racial fantasies in excruciating detail so it can disseminate them them to not just the wider public, but public schools as well, that's just 'some' and certainly not because the wider intelligentsia think it is true.
    The first indication that you're wrong is that you speak of the "Paper of Record in the country" except we don't have one on a national basis. (And before you argue with me on this, yes, we do have newspapers of record on a local basis, where public notices are actually posted, and we also have local laws that refer to this term for the purpose of actually posting public notices.)

    The second indication that you're wrong is that you speak of "racial fantasies" when people today are more aware of (1) historically-documented information that people have painstakingly pieced together from stuff like letters and bills of sale and oral histories, and (2) modern sociological studies that have found evidence of certain social phenomena.

    I'm guessing you're talking about some specific thing, for you to speak so specifically on the details, but frankly speaking, your framing is already a load of baloney.
    Well, I'm speaking of actual advantages here. You are certainly afforded things by basically every law in your country that most of us aren't. We can literally open real books and see these things, rather than having them be vaguely interpreted to us by a Social Justice soothsayer.
    Except I don't actually read the vast majority of opinion-whining on the internet, so I don't get much of anything "vaguely interpreted to [me] by a Social Justice soothsayer". (Also, why capitalize "Social Justice"?) You're the one reading all that whining so that's why you have this feeling that all there is is whining.

    Meanwhile, I don't need stuff "vaguely interpreted to [me] by a Social Justice soothsayer", because I also get to "literally open real books" and I furthermore also get to observe stuff first-hand (in the course of my own civic participation and observations of what happens around me) and also talk about things with people who've actually been involved in various forms of civic participation.
    And you'll notice I did not tell you you're unfair or participating in some evil/unjust discriminatory scheme rooted in historic evils that are embedded in society to keep the rest of us from achieving "fairness" (ie being exactly like you) because that stuff's whackjob land.
    And if you did, I would respond accordingly by arguing with that instead.
  • There is love everywhere, I already know
    This is about this generation of people overall, especially in the English speaking spheres of the world. What happened to make us all believe it was okay to disrespect or even just simply disregard our national anthems, most especially the American one?

    I'm sorry I didn't clarify further despite the last part?
    are you advocating slavishly worshipping idealized (idolized?) conceptions of ancestors

    You keep seeing things I'm not saying. We owe people quite literally everything. They are human heroes. There is absolutely no human being I respect who is even near perfect. It's not idolizing to realize people did things before you that were important.

    I didn't even say ancestors, I very specifically meant the mavericks of their times and those who assisted them.

    As far as I can see, we're not achieving anything with this. On this issue; you believe what you want to believe, and I will too.
  • "you duck spawn, refined creature, you try to be cynical, yokel, but all that comes out of it is that you're a dunce!!!!! you duck plug!"
    So, who counts as these mavericks where you actually live? Boer leaders? Nelson Mandela? Shaka?
  • edited 2020-10-16 16:12:48
    Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    This is about this generation of people overall, especially in the English speaking spheres of the world. What happened to make us all believe it was okay to disrespect or even just simply disregard our national anthems, most especially the American one?

    I'm sorry I didn't clarify further despite the last part?
    Well, I'm sorry for my misunderstanding of your point, but now that you've clarified it, I think it's worth pointing out that I've been talking about the United States specifically.

    If I am understanding this phrase correctly, "the English speaking spheres of the world" consist of a variety of countries (the US being just one, albeit the biggest one), with a variety of different economic, social, political, cultural, etc. conditions, to which my comments will not necessarily apply.
    It's not idolizing to realize people did things before you that were important.
    And in the same way, it's not ignoring the significance of those people and what they've done in society, when one criticizes the things they've done.

    Meanwhile, it seems we've strayed rather far from the topic of patriotic displays toward the national anthem and the flag.
    As far as I can see, we're not achieving anything with this. On this issue; you believe what you want to believe, and I will too.
    Yeah, this argument is a waste of time, as is the usual case with our arguments on politics.

    You are, of course, free to believe that kneeling during the national anthem is a cause or catalyst of the unraveling of the fabric of American society. However, I still think it's worth pointing out that part of our national identity is the freedom of speech, and specifically that includes the freedom to express disrespect for national symbols, with the most prominent example being burning one's own flag.

    The classic quote "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" is probably relevant here.


    edit: oh hi gacek
  • edited 2020-10-16 16:38:53
    There is love everywhere, I already know
    Boer leaders?

    no I'm not hiding my secret stash of 28 de la rey CDs how dare you accuse me of such a thing

    More seriously;
    So, who counts as these mavericks where you actually live?

    Fred de Klerk and Nelson Mandela.

    People forget that for Mandela to ascend, somebody had to hand him the danged thing amicably.

    Most recently and the one who I think deserves the most credit for not letting things explode into Banana Republic style madness was Thabo Mbeki. As far as I know, he basically created one of the only sane and properly prosperous parts of Africa (and gets absolutely no credit from anyone).
    Shaka?

    He was kind of the worst? Like, responsible for exodus after exodus of people who were running entirely because they just didn't want to be killed anymore (of course they then proceeded to kill/enslave whoever they came upon but like, people in history).
    that kneeling during the national anthem is a cause or catalyst of the unraveling of the fabric of American society

    I specifically said that this isn't about Kaepernik or kneeling, but a deeper problem that started long before he started his bone-headed field games. I mean, I've explained it very clearly over and over. At most, his kneeling and any further Social Justice games on sports fields are a symptom of something much worse that started long before he was even born.
  • edited 2020-10-16 16:42:55
    Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    Oh, that's what you meant by this not being about Kaepernik.

    I've already asked you this before, but why do you capitalize "Social Justice"?
  • edited 2020-10-16 17:22:04
    Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    re "Facebook isn't letting through info on Hunter Biden's e-mails"

    The people on the other side also talk smack about him for denying a platform to progressive stuff. Here is an article brought to my attention by people on a Democratic politics Discord chat: https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-mark-zuckerberg-learned-politics-11602853200

    Specifically, this tweet was posted, which summarizes a few things and links the article:

    TL;DR don't be like "Facebook is so unfair to conservatives"



    Meanwhile, as for the rumors surrounding Hunter Biden's e-mails, here's a couple other things I ran across:


    (The above tweet is part of a tweet thread)

  • edited 2020-10-16 18:01:33
    Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    IJBM: Vanilla embeds tweets

    and they end up taking up a huge amount of space
  • Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    FUCK IT I DONT CARE

    I"VE SPENT ENOUGH DAMEND TIME ON THEIS THREAD ALREADY
  • edited 2020-10-16 18:26:25
    "you duck spawn, refined creature, you try to be cynical, yokel, but all that comes out of it is that you're a dunce!!!!! you duck plug!"
    Most recently and the one who I think deserves the most credit for not letting things explode into Banana Republic style madness was Thabo Mbeki.

    I thought it's headed down there anyway but whatevs

    So, what would be the South African equivalent? A white sportsman kneeling during a rugby game in protest against farm attacks? A black sportsman kneeling in protest against apartheid, disrespecting the orange-white-blue flag?

    Oh, and by the way: I honestly expected you'd bring up Jan Smuts. Seriously, I thought Mandela would be too leftie-mainstream for you.
  • edited 2020-10-17 07:55:46
    Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    Also among the random shit shared on twitter was this curious wonderpost



    I can certainly think of certain stereotypes that fit this, though I haven't yet more thoroughly evaluated whether this pattern holds up well.
  • I tend to get the impression that the center is more focused on economic issues than either extreme.
    At the risk of reigniting the argument, I kinda want to mention that I too find off-putting how anti-US-(the-nation) rhetoric gets in the US, and I don't buy it that it's done out of harsh love. I buy it when it comes to other people in other countries referring to their own, even when I tend to disagree with them, but when it comes to the US, I rarely see "people here could be better" or "we have a serious problem with [problem]" or "we need to [solution]" and more "people here suck (but not me)".
    Usually this is accompanied with judging the country with standards that most places outside the first world don't meet.
    Since it came up, my take from the idea that the US is inherently racist is that nothing can be done about it except act all superior.
  • edited 2020-10-18 03:54:00
    Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    There's a mix of reasonable and unreasonable criticisms.

    There are definitely some people on the internet with criticisms of the United States (or conditions therein) who are just whining about stuff and who will do so in ways that are totally hyperbolic and/or otherwise obnoxious. And, naturally, this includes self-described progressives/liberals here.

    For example, there are people who will lament pretty much every policy thing that doesn't go their way, making abundantly clear their cynicism about everything unless the Democratic Party does exactly what they think ought to be done, (which rarely happens, so they're just unhappy most of the time). These people are a reason why I often don't like to just "talk politics", even with people who ought to be my political allies. Around such people, I have to walk on eggshells to avoid being the target of their endless well of cynicism. And for whatever it's worth, they, too, get to write hot takes and thinkpieces.

    And then there's also people (some of whom are also of the above sort) who will do stuff like jumping on others for using the wrong terminology. Remember that time fourteenwings got on my case for using the phrase "economic inclusiveness" because it's an instance of using "Critical Race Theory"? Basically that kind of thing, but just with a different set of ideological opinions.

    That doesn't mean that there aren't problems here in the US though. And people are also addressing and discussing those problems actively, in ways that are a lot more relevant than hot takes and thinkpieces. Whether the US is inescapably cursed by a history of slavery is a philosophical question that won't ever be settled anyway, but people being subjected to discrimination and harassment based on their race/sexual orientation/etc. is a real and current problem. And you do get people studying and discussing these real problems in a more serious manner, but the hot takes tend to get more notice since they're more outrageous or emotionally-charged.

    I don't typically like to glorify the "middle" position just for the sake of it being in the middle, but, if we're gonna have people on one hand decrying the U.S. as forever tained by the "original sin" of slavery, and people on the other hand saying "Thou shalt not ever suggest that racism is a problem in the great USA!", I'm fine with letting those two sets of chucklefucks duke it out if that's what it takes for the rest of us to be able to sit down and have a conversation about (for example) race/race relations/racism, one that includes acknowledging and examining both what's working and what isn't.

    But I'd really rather they both pipe down.



    TL;DR the US is a pretty cool place, but isn't without its problems, some of which consist of idiots talking about other problems it has

    (I realize I haven't elaborated on how the US is "a pretty cool place", but I can address that in another post if you want.)

    also wow that response turned out way longer than I expected, haha, sorry about that
  • edited 2020-10-18 05:31:01
    There is love everywhere, I already know
    @GMH: This is a lot of bait but I'm not going to take it.

    ...

    Also;
    Mark Zuckerberg directly intervened to prevent progressive news orgs like @CourierNewsroom

    HuffPo, BuzzFeed, Teen Vogue and everybody else weren't enough?

    Also you see what this story does;

    As Mark Zuckerberg [did something unrelated to something nobody has heard of], he let [some of the biggest websites on the internet in terms of Alexa ranking] be on his website, where he would like popular stuff to make him money.
    TL;DR don't be like "Facebook is so unfair to conservatives"

    GMH, Courier Newsroom has exactly 5,400 people following it on Twitter. This isn't about it's progressivism, it's about it's lack of clout in absolutely any way. They should do better (or just like, well?), then ask for our overlord's attention. Their stories aren't even like, new or interesting. These are just people auditioning for jobs at Vox.
    why do you capitalize "Social Justice"?

    From here;
    “Social Justice,” here intentionally capitalized, means something more specific. As can be seen above, it means Critical Social Justice. This is, in fact, an ideology that very aggressively pursues the social, cultural, institutional, and political installation and enforcement of a very specific and radical understanding of social justice as derived from various critical theories[...]
    I thought it's headed down there anyway but whatevs

    Well surprisingly enough when Jacob Zuma was losing his mind doing whatever he could imagine and taking half the administrative state with him, he did manage to somehow genuinely absolve himself of Julius Malema, and that guy took most quite a bit of the cancer with him.

    And as a result of the DA gaining ground, the ANC was scared enough to appoint yet another technocrat (Cyril-kun of the Suspiciously Acquired Wealth). This one is no where near as good as Mbeki (I know, prejudging) but he's good enough to be the duct-tape that holds stuff together for 4-8 years.

    When I see people online who are still stuck in "oh my gosh Jacob Zuma could destroy us at any second!" mode I want to pat them on the head and tell them to look outside or something.

    So, what would be the South African equivalent?

    It's expected that you make dumb racial comments in South Africa so trying to start a whole movement around it would make people look at you weird.

    And also my gosh everybody is terrified of crime so not many people are looking to lionize criminals and protest over having less police (to be fair somehow this is happening in Nigeria right now).
    Oh, and by the way: I honestly expected you'd bring up Jan Smuts. Seriously, I thought Mandela would be too leftie-mainstream for you.

    Of course Nelson Mandela was a member of what was essentially a terrorist organization (his first wife is a terrifying figure), but he was one of the most peaceful of his crowd and also he did not proceed to enact revenge-based policies once in power (I mean imagine being the de Klerk; handing Mandela the reins and just hoping he won't use the state to kill you).

    As much as I dislike his low-expectations=low-effort basicness (especially in his role as a speaker post-presidency) I have to give respect where respect is due.

    And honestly I thought if I didn't bring him up after you explicitly mentioned him it'd make me seem like an insane white ethnonationalist (even though, y'know).

    Smuts helped start the UN and was an avowed globalist, which in 14w terms is basically as close to Big No without being an avowed Social Justice advocate.

    Plus as much as Apartheid wasn't the worst thing he could have helped institute and how it basically allowed later generations to thrive despite circumstances (many have argued this was his Grand Plan or whatever), it was still Apartheid.

    Anyways I did not expect this many replies in the thread but what I really came here to say was that Mozambique now has ISIS.
  • Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    Well I guess this means your contention is that kneeling during the national anthem is an expression of...
    an ideology that very aggressively pursues the social, cultural, institutional, and political installation and enforcement of a very specific and radical understanding of social justice as derived from various critical theories[...]

    Is this an accurate representation of your position?
  • There is love everywhere, I already know
    I think it's (from the same page);
    “Social Justice” is the ultimate “Trojan Horse” term, where it seems to mean one (good) thing as most people understand it—social justice, a more fair and equal society—but actually means something else.

    I mean, it's even a Trojan Horse to the people kneeling. Unless the players have all suddenly taken a serious education in critical theory and become proponents of problematization.

    And frankly, I've explained why the kneeling bothers me beyond what it's proponents say it's for about seven times now. There are other forms of protest that actually promote unity, these are severely lacking in that.
  • Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    Okay, to recap:

    You said:
    "At most, his kneeling and any further Social Justice games on sports fields are a symptom of something much worse that started long before he was even born."

    I asked you why the term is capitalized, since capitalization indicates a specialized usage. You then gave me the definition I quoted in my previous post. I asked you to confirm that that definition is what you associate with his kneeling.

    I'm not sure I understand your response right, but I'm not sure whether this is a "yes" or "no" you're giving me.

    Instead it seems you're now saying that the term you cited is a "Trojan Horse" term, and now you seem to be implying that the people who would kneel during a national anthem think they are promoting lowercase social justice but are actually promoting uppercase Social Justice as defined above, without realizing it?

    This is a social movement we're discussing. Aside from some detractors, people don't actually think it's "an ideology that very aggressively pursues the social, cultural, institutional, and political installation and enforcement of a very specific and radical understanding of social justice as derived from various critical theories", and because it's a social movement, when people don't actually think it's that, it actually isn't that. (You can criticize the methods some people use to promote social justice, but that's different from labeling the ideology itself.)
  • There is love everywhere, I already know
    I also said;
    As far as I can see, we're not achieving anything with this. On this issue; you believe what you want to believe, and I will too.

    What I am saying is:

    Social Justice believes America is inherently racist, systemically racist, and whatever else.

    BLM is a movement built on capitalizing on police shootings that result in deaths of unarmed black men, insisting that this is an "epidemic" and that black people (most especially young black men) in America are "afraid to go outside without getting shot".

    Research shows these deaths are rare, and almost always involve an encounter with the police where said black man was engaging in criminality in a situation where police have to be involved.

    That is, there are no police death squads following these young men, nor are police shooting them for no reason. In most of this tiny minute number of cases, though the men are unarmed, they remain dangerous based on other factors such as violently paranoid delusions (George Floyd, Daniel Prude) or just violently resisting arrest because they feel like it.

    Even though their position is entirely lacking in merit, and they actually seem more interested in using these deaths to push an agenda that has nothing to do with them (their now-disappeared manifesto), BLM has achieved cultural acceptance, adoration, and massive amounts of funding from most influential cultural figures.

    Part of this is in sports, with two figures in particular playing major roles.

    First of all is LeBron James, who insisted he is afraid to leave the house or whatever because black people are "literally hunted". He says this despite being on teams that are almost always 50%+ black and, if he hadn't noticed, alive. He says he bought/is driven around in a Tesla because police don't think black people own Teslas (which frankly would make him a bigger target since they'd think he'd stolen it?).

    That's just the sideshow.

    Most important is Colin Kaepernick, a flagging player who became frustrated at what BLM and the media who loves and supports were providing him as "the truth", and so he started kneeling at games in protest of the United States as a country (and possibly as a concept), thinking it was "a racist country".

    His kneeling was based on what BLM had told him about cases like Michael Brown (shot whilst being a giant man charging a police officer) and Trayvon Martin (shot after smashing a man's head into pavement).

    Football fans, who trended to think America was like, okay and not racist and also liked the flag, didn't like this. He wasn't playing well at all anyways, so he was cut.

    But that was then.

    Even though he was cut, the SocJus BLM messaging was picking up steam on social media and with the younger set, so Nike contracted him to be one of their representatives even though he couldn't play any more.

    At some point between 2016 and 2020, we entered the now, when the Social Justice Hegemony was established. Teams fell over themselves to sign Kaepernick, but he ended up just being a wily jerk. After all, he had sponsorship money for doing nothing (provided by a "racist" capitalist corporation but somehow this never comes up). Even so, the Hegemony pushed further BLM stories, especially after the BLM machine ramped up efforts this year.

    It started not just with Ahmaud Arbery's death (which was unfortunate because citizens took the law into their own hands, but for goodness sakes the guy was not "jogging" by casing building projects), but that man who scared the daylights out of a woman and then acted like the victim, managing to get her doxxed and fired, but George Floyd really set it off.

    Oddly enough it was also at a time that was convenient to mobilize the Black vote for the Democratic party, just like the last time. Hmmm...

    So players knelt, because the police were racists (even the non-white officers who were with Derek Chauvin that day and watched the restraint). They knelt for drug addicts stealing money, men who sexually assaulted their wives and then came back to kidnap their own children, women who involved themselves in the drug trade and seemed unbothered about the dead bodies turning up in the rented cars they borrowed their boyfriends, guys high on PCP spitting at people claiming they had coronavirus...

    I could go on.

    Now, BLM doesn't even lie about their martyrs, they just capitalize on all shootings. Or maybe not even shootings, maybe just suicides.

    But still the players kneel because America is a racist country.

    Do you know who BLM doesn't seem to organize protests for? All the black gang violence victims, or just general low-income neighbourhood deaths. Do you know who BLM doesn't lionize? Little children killed at birthday parties by crossfire. Unless the shooter is an officer, it doesn't seem to matter to them.

    The founders of BLM are a complex mess that almost always seems to end in "also studied Marxism" or "had parents that explicitly called themselves Marxists".

    Yet the players, who believe whatever BLM tells them, keep wearing their messages and kneeling against the racist country.

    That's Social Justice.
  • There is love everywhere, I already know
    When you reply to this, please don't break it up into quotes? That's always confusing and it leads to bloat. Just address it and I'll probably know what you're addressing.
  • edited 2020-10-18 08:13:07
    Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    There's something called excessive use of force. Just because the police have reason to be around does not necessarily justify use of force, and definitely does not justify excessive use of force.

    That's what's being protested.

    You can criticize people for using hyperbole to say stuff like "afraid to go outside without getting shot", but whatever they say doesn't negate the pile of case after case after case of excessive use of force.

    Also, not all use of excessive force results in death. That is the worst possible outcomes. There are other cases too, where various forms of injury happen.

    When these things happen, we have cases of extrajudicial violence. And they are a problem. Not one concocted out of thin air for some devious agenda, as you suggest, but a real one. There is a proper legal channel for dealing with criminal activity, and the police going overboard with force, and occasionally killing people (who might even be innocent), is not it.

    This applies regardless of whether the person is considered a suspect of a crime or not, so your repeated comments suggesting that they're criminals anyway does not hold legal water. Your saying that is merely used to suggest that their lives don't matter as much as other people's. (Gee, I wonder why those folks called this "Black Lives Matter"?)
    But still the players kneel because America is a racist country.
    No, it's because of excessive use of force by police, and specifically how excessive use of force by police happens disproportionately to black people.

    Calling America a "racist country" is hyperbole that overstates the issue. Though this particular issue doesn't exist in a vacuum either, and there are also semi-related issues that also have to do with race, such as the Confederate statues issue.

    Also, this isn't about Marxism. This issue isn't even about economics.

    What it is about is actual ("lowercase") social justice, not the uppercase "Social Justice" ideology you've alleged.

    Most people aren't interested in pushing ideologies. They just want practical results. It's just commentators and pundits and thinkpiece writers, and ideologues themselves, who try to find broad patterns of ideas and end up seeing things in terms of an ideological turf war.
  • "you duck spawn, refined creature, you try to be cynical, yokel, but all that comes out of it is that you're a dunce!!!!! you duck plug!"
    that man who scared the daylights out of a woman and then acted like the victim

    You mean that case with the woman and the dog calling the cops a black man is looking threateningly at her?
    And honestly I thought if I didn't bring him up after you explicitly mentioned him it'd make me seem like an insane white ethnonationalist

    Heh heh. :)

    And since the guy is pretty big around certain circles in here, what's your stance on Janusz Waluś?
  • edited 2020-10-18 10:24:22
    There is love everywhere, I already know
    Janusz Waluś

    That guy who killed Chris Hani?

    Iunno, I don't think he helped stop the communist party. If all they could muster after such a big deal was like... still existing till this day, they probably would have done less if he'd given them the free publicity.

    In fact I think the whole thing just went like... "Let's ignore the communists and get this done."

    Chris Hani was a maniac and he may have driven the communist party further into the ground all by himself so he might have actually helped them even more than I realize.

    Still it's really not okay to assassinate people if you don't have a badge.
    lrdgck wrote:
    You mean that case with the woman and the dog calling the cops a black man is looking threateningly at her?

    If you are man, you do not say these words to a woman you don't know, ever.
    There's something called excessive use of force.

    This is one of those lovely things we discuss in our quiet bedrooms and TV studios whilst not dealing with 200 pound men flinging themselves at us, punching us in the face, or spitting at us. I mean, imagine being tased/restrained over and over and still having the will to fight a policeman for his or her own weapon.

    Police can use excessive force, but it's almost never the case in these deaths (George Floyd is arguable, because guy was OD levels high to start with).
    disproportionately to black people.

    Gee, I wonder if black men aren't disproportionately committing the crimes in order to disproportionately be present in police interactions.

    And, as I said, the statistic on unarmed men being shot is -as I've said- miniscule. There is no epidemic of excessive force when they can't even unjustifiably kill 1% the guys they interact with and get away with it.

    The communities criminal black men attack and terrorize are also disproportionately black, but I see no protests about that.
    Not one concocted out of thin air for some devious agenda

    You don't have to make stuff up to get a terrible plan going. After all, slavery really was a prominent thing and that's what the 1619 Project exploited. The first round of Marxism involved poor workers who felt betrayed by the ruling class (and of course was written by a rich hermit).

    I have explained over and over that this reasoning is not reasonable. How it has held up over four years is a result of nobody in power ever questioning it.
    suggesting that they're criminals anyway does not hold legal water

    I'm not suggesting it. They are.
    Your saying that is merely used to suggest that their lives don't matter as much as other people's.

    Their lives didn't matter to them to start with. Breonna Taylor, as I said, certainly didn't care that her boyfriend rented a car and then left a dead body in it. After all, she kept seeing him (whilst concurrently seeing the guy whose apartment she died in).

    I'm not going to cry over somebody or be ~moved~ entirely because they died, like everybody does. I'll do the opposite if their death was in the pursuit of criminality.

    All Lives Matter covers everyone (including David Dorn, who died as a direct result of these "protests"/looting sprees, his killers are yet to be held accountable).

    If you think these criminals matter more than the people they shot at, physically assaulted, sexually assaulted, stabbed, stole from, faked checks to (ie stole from), and sold drugs to, because of their skin tone, then I can't really say much.
    this isn't about Marxism.

    Let's go!

    One of the BLM Network/BLM Inc (where the majority of the money goes) founders is Patrice Cullors;
    Cullors defines herself as an prison, police and "militarization" abolitionist,[24] a position she says is inspired by "a legacy of black-led anti-colonial struggle in the United States and throughout the Americas".She also favors reparations for what she describes as "the historical pains and damage caused by European settler colonialism", in various forms, such "financial restitution, land redistribution, political self-determination, culturally relevant education programs, language recuperation, and the right to return (or repatriation)".

    She cites the activist and formerly incarcerated Weather Underground member Eric Mann, as her mentor during her early activist years at the Bus Riders Union of Los Angeles.[26] She draws on various ideological inspirations.

    In case you don't remember the Weather Underground, they basically anarchists. Eric Mann is this guy.

    To be fair, apparently Ms. Cullors does not endorse violence in protest, but I highly doubt that sticks when your mentor is the guy above.
    "What it is about is actual ("lowercase") social justice, not the uppercase "Social Justice" ideology you've alleged.

    Most people aren't interested in pushing ideologies.
    “Social Justice” is the ultimate “Trojan Horse” term, where it seems to mean one (good) thing as most people understand it—social justice, a more fair and equal society—but actually means something else.

    Well, that worked out better than I expected.
  • edited 2020-10-18 10:47:23
    There is love everywhere, I already know
    Oh yeah;

    This doesn't sound like it's about any one thing specifically, even the excessive use of force by police.

    I'm not sure why I keep throwing my efforts into this when your only strategy appears to be misrepresenting people to make them look like they aren't radicals and misrepresenting me to appear to be authoritarian or possibly a racist who doesn't love criminals from the deepety downeties of his heart for not wanting to let them kill police officers with wild abandon.
  • "you duck spawn, refined creature, you try to be cynical, yokel, but all that comes out of it is that you're a dunce!!!!! you duck plug!"
    If you are man, you do not say these words to a woman you don't know, ever.

    Sounds like something an overly sensitive leftie would say, you know.
  • edited 2020-10-18 12:21:00
    There is love everywhere, I already know
    Oof~

    Well, I guess if you really want to you can? I'm merely describing the context of being alone with a stranger for the first time. The world is dangerous, and people have every right to think you're a danger to them if you act like it.

    It's quite typical decorum from hundreds of years ago. If I were to point to a good example of chivalry, that'd be it. Certainly #MeToo era feminists didn't invent it (though as noted elsewhere they have resurrected a lot of Victorian-era tenets to the male/female sexual dynamic).

    I guess I could say "You shouldn't" but that's what I was going for to start with. There are lots of things you shouldn't say to people you don't know, and this one's pretty up there.
  • edited 2020-10-18 12:38:14
    Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    I'm not sure why I keep throwing my efforts into this when your only strategy appears to be misrepresenting people to make them look like they aren't radicals and misrepresenting me to appear to be authoritarian or possibly a racist who doesn't love criminals from the deepety downeties of his heart for not wanting to let them kill police officers with wild abandon.
    And in the same breath that you complain about me misrepresenting you, you misrepresent me, grossly.
    Let's go!
    oh noes there are eeeeevil marxists embedded in society; they must be doing eeeeevil secret agendas unbeknownst to most people

    Like I said earlier: this is a social movement. People who participate in this movement are interested in it for the topics of race and police work and their intersection, and they repeatedly discuss these matters. People aren't mindless zombies being surreptitiously used by power players. Because it's a social movement, it's about, frankly, what they say it's about.

    You can make hay of the founder of an organization but said founder isn't even the focus of the social movement. Meanwhile, large numbers of actual people repeatedly bring up case after case of excessive force by police and you gladly ignore them because that doesn't fit your point.
    To be fair, apparently Ms. Cullors does not endorse violence in protest, but I highly doubt that sticks when your mentor is the guy above.
    On one hand, you associate these things inextricably, but on the other hand you are very careful to point out the distinction between Proud Boys and racism, as exhibited in a conversation a few days prior.
    suggesting that they're criminals anyway does not hold legal water
    I'm not suggesting it. They are.
    And who let you decide that even without a case going to trial before extrajudicial punishments are imposed?
    How it has held up over four years is a result of nobody in power ever questioning it.
    Perhaps because it's not an insidiously eeeeevil scheme like you're suggesting?
    The communities criminal black men attack and terrorize are also disproportionately black, but I see no protests about that.
    You haven't looked had enough, evidently. This popped up pretty quickly in a search: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/04/why-dont-black-people-protest-black-on-black-violence/255329/
    I'm not going to cry over somebody or be ~moved~ entirely because they died, like everybody does.
    Crying or "being moved" isn't even the point. The point is to highlight a current social problem.

    Meanwhile, I'm not sure why I keep throwing my efforts into this when your only strategy appears to be finding various ways to claim the problem doesn't exist, then misrepresenting the opinions and positions of people whom you disagree with on it.
  • There is love everywhere, I already know
    but on the other hand you are very careful to point out the distinction between Proud Boys and racism

    I was unaware that the current leader of the Proud Boys was mentored by an anarchist who believes in violence.

    And anyways, I said already that the Proud Boys believe (like, really believe in) in street violence.
    You haven't looked had enough

    Well, not from Black Lives Matter, and obviously these protests never make it to the same stage as theirs do nationally and internationally. These organizations don't receive giant unsolicited donations from random places.
    oh noes there are eeeeevil marxists embedded in society; they must be doing eeeeevil secret agendas unbeknownst to most people

    If you're Patrice Cullors, 1/3rd of the founding members of Black Lives Matter, then certainly.
    Because it's a social movement, it's about, frankly, what they say it's about.

    From the dot com;
    #BlackLivesMatter was founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer. Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, Inc. is a global organization in the US, UK, and Canada, whose mission is to eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes.

    [...]
    We are working for a world where Black lives are no longer systematically targeted for demise.

    Maybe go tell them it's just about excessive use of force by the police and judging people in the court of law?
  • I've been sitting on this one for months.
    Black Lives Matter memberd (IIRC founders, definitely not unimportant people) have thrown their support for the PSUV, in the context of police (and military and paramilitary) brutality, so yeah, regardless of the wider topic of police brutality in the US, I entirely believe their place in it is that of insidious marxists/marxism-apologists making use of a situation, as in elsewhere.
    (The George Floyd murder was still indignating, tho.)
    I seem more eager to speak my mind on this lately, for some reason.
  • edited 2020-10-18 15:39:48
    Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    Maybe go tell them it's just about excessive use of force by the police and judging people in the court of law?
    And in a court of law, we would be examining and weighing the evidence to decide whether someone is guilty of a crime, rather than finding excuses for extrajudicial violence.

    (And also, rather than trying to fearmonger over Marxism, since we've been through that nonsense before.)


    have thrown their support for the PSUV
    idiots, work on fixing this country first!

    (also this is why I hate ideologues)
    I seem more eager to speak my mind on this lately, for some reason.
    Might as well. Though I dunno whether you're just going to burn yourself out on this argument, as fourteenwings and I apparently are.
  • There is love everywhere, I already know
    rather than trying to fearmonger* over Marxism, since we've been through that nonsense before

    "They're quite obviously marxists."=/="Let's shove everybody into a hole they don't fit in."?

    There's no need to get the government involved? I mean, you defeat bad ideas in the marketplace of ideas.

    The most I want to do is have them debated into the ground where they belong?

    *I want people to calm down, not be guilted into listen to tinfoil hat Social Justice Acolytes, revive free speech, and (mainly) go back to their lives, rather than living in this new fantasy Anti-Racist Cabal. That's all.

    Also McCarthy was looking in all the wrong places, this whole list should have been Unreal Studies professors (who to be fair didn't exist yet).
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