General US Politics

[Perfect Infinitive Exitus]

1 hour ago, Lord Raven said:

It's been shown for 50 years. People ignored it. What's so difficult about this? Violence is the language of the oppressor, and it's the only language that the oppressor understands.

Who is the oppressor in this case? The collective? Or the individuals associated with the act of killing an individual before they even had the chance of due process?

While i agree, that police is inherently oppressive (i mean... it's their job to oppress those that go against the law and track down suspects, is it not?) I think extrapolating unjust action beyond the individuals responsible toward the entire collective is gay and deliberately inaccurate.

I think the collective police 99% of the time does its job well and the "few" cases (although even one is one too many) make the entire collective look horrible, even though everyone agree with the principles with which the collective was concieved, which is order, safety and peace.

Similarly the collective protestors have good reason to protest and stand against systemic injustice against individuals and while 99% of them are innocent and pure, the individuals looting stores, damaging property or being violent against <arbitrary individual =/= individual responsible> in and out of their community hurts their image.

1 hour ago, Lord Raven said:

There's actually a million and one ways the success of this protest benefits society as a whole, rather than just black people, but since you're so convinced that people are virtue signalling I won't go into it unless you...  change your rhetoric a lot. But I will say that this is personal to me and I'd be fighting alongside the protesters if my home situation weren't precarious.

Yes i agree with this, injustice by <arbitrary/systemic collective> against <arbitrary individual not responsible> is one of the fundamental things liberal values (and by that extent USA itself) was founded on, with the First Amendment as well as the actions that came after, tyranny by the state is dumb and peacefully assembling to protest a thing is detrimental for the people in charge to be able to hear people's voices.

However tyranny by <other arbitrary collective> is also dumb, especially against individuals and their property, especially especially those, who have nothing to do with <individuals responsible> for the injustice commited.

You cannot teach an oppressor that violence is bad by using violence against things they have nothing to do with.

Its like saying "guns are bad" by using guns to kill a bad man.

You don't teach them and especially those, who agree with <individual responsible>.

Let us imagine a hypothetical <arbitrary indvidual>, which dislikes <arbitrary individuals with trait x> because of what they hear about <trait x collective> from <arbitrary source> but they have principles which go against violence.

They think, that violent action against <trait x individual> was wrong, even if it possessed <trait x>, however once they see <trait x collective> use violence too, regardless of <arbitrary source>, their hatred against <trait x individuals> will increase and the tolerance for the principle against violence deteriorates.

As such, if you dont give even the worst seeming ones, regardless of their innocence due process, there will be none of the order left.

Trait x can now be replaced with "is a member of an arbitrary collective" or "has arbitrary race", it does not matter.

 

I would like to ask you a question.

How would you enforce laws against criminals or supposed criminals?

Could you resist acting in violence against <arbitrary individual with trait x> if all of your thoughts and experiences with <arbitrary individuals with trait x> get reinforced so much because of confirmation bias, that it completely warps your belief system?

What if they ran away or pulled a gun on you?

What if you were absolutely stressed out in a situation because of <arbitrary series of events>?

If you could, could someone else you know (or don't know) resist?

The answer might be a yes in all of that, in which case i am glad you and everyone you know has so much self control.

But honestly, if i was delusional and pushed over the edge, i wouldn't hesitate nuking myself, it it meant taking out what i was deluded with with me.

I think humans are all born with a good heart with a potential for such.

Enabeling bad behaviour only leads to more of such, no matter what excuse one has.

Sometimes it is a tough choice to make.

But in this case? When there is no self defence or resistance involved and not even a chance of due process?

It is definetly unjust and such should be dealt with.

I doubt there is any individual who is against that principle, unless they think they are immune to it.

And ironically

Those people "hide" in institutions of power.

Which is why those institutions should be kept as small as possible in their reach and as easily electable and removeable from their position as possible.

Though, really no one wants to be in their place...

Which is why i am a big fan of self policing.

Government doesn't know how to do it's job anyways, which is protecting civil liberties against itself and other governments, which disagree with that principle.

But that's an argument for another day.

[JubileePhoenix]

Trump cant really use the military on citizens right? 

[Lord Raven]

49 minutes ago, Perfect Infinitive Exitus said:

Who is the oppressor in this case? The collective? Or the individuals associated with the act of killing an individual before they even had the chance of due process?

The system and the collective. They're legally allowed to steal your shit and murder people without prosecution, and their records aren't searchable. Look up QI sometime.

There's a million and one factors, but I'm not going to list them all so I can avoid a gish gallop. It's all of the above.

54 minutes ago, Perfect Infinitive Exitus said:

You cannot teach an oppressor that violence is bad by using violence against things they have nothing to do with.

There's enablers (who are also oppressors, but from a different angle) and followers. There were four cops involved with him. There's also the guy who killed Ahmaud Arbery; people didn't wanna prosecute their ex-cop/coworker.

And the entire police forces in cities are in lockstep about attacking protesters. So that's where we are.

55 minutes ago, Perfect Infinitive Exitus said:

How would you enforce laws against criminals or supposed criminals?

You know I can't possibly answer this question in generalities. You're also asking me questions about situations they should be encountering in training. There's a reason why police violence in the US is highest among developed countries.

Whole twitter thread. It'll fill you with info.

 

58 minutes ago, Perfect Infinitive Exitus said:

Which is why those institutions should be kept as small as possible in their reach and as easily electable and removeable from their position as possible.

Though, really no one wants to be in their place...

Which is why i am a big fan of self policing.

Government doesn't know how to do it's job anyways, which is protecting civil liberties against itself and other governments, which disagree with that principle.

This isn't a small government thing. The party of small government is all about police.

[Dai]

34 minutes ago, JubileePhoenix said:

Trump cant really use the military on citizens right? 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurrection_Act

[Shoblongoo]

If you told me 3 years ago the Trump presidency would end with 100,000 dead Americans, 25% unemployment, and clashes between rioters and police and military forces in every major city in America

The only part that would surprise me would be “...and his approval rating will still be 43%”

Edited June 2, 2020 by Shoblongoo

[Lord Raven]

There's six months left, bro.

At this point I don't trust him not to rig the election.

Edited June 2, 2020 by Lord Raven

[eclipse]

1 hour ago, Lord Raven said:

There's six months left, bro.

At this point I don't trust him not to rig the election.

Oh, so that's why he's throwing a gigantic hissy fit over the mail-in ballots.

[Dai]

1 hour ago, Lord Raven said:

There's six months left, bro.

At this point I don't trust him not to rig the election.

Can we really handle six more months of this man? Three-and-a-half years, and look at where we are now compared to his predecessor.

[eclipse]

11 minutes ago, Dai said:

Can we really handle six more months of this man? Three-and-a-half years, and look at where we are now compared to his predecessor.

Let's pretend that Trump is somehow removed from office.  Do you think Pence would do a better job?

[Dai]

2 hours ago, eclipse said:

Let's pretend that Trump is somehow removed from office.  Do you think Pence would do a better job?

My knowledge of Pence is pretty limited, but based on a quick summarization of his career and a handful of notes, as well as what I’ve heard recounted over the past few years....it wouldn’t be by much. Pence backs Trump on a majority, if not all matters, as well as having a pretty nasty history of anti-race/lgbtq/etc.

The only defining difference I can make between the two is ego. A large amount of the actions Trump has taken are due to perceived attacks on his ego. I’m doubtful if Pence’s ego is so supermassive that any criticism towards him would warrant, in his mind, the same actions Trump has taken.

I’m also not sure how large Pence’s base would be, nor if it would be as bombastic and as...worshipful.

Edited June 2, 2020 by Dai

[Perfect Infinitive Exitus]

4 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

If you told me 3 years ago the Trump presidency would end with 100,000 dead Americans, 25% unemployment, and clashes between rioters and police and military forces in every major city in America

The only part that would surprise me would be “...and his approval rating will still be 43%”

 

3 hours ago, Dai said:

Can we really handle six more months of this man? Three-and-a-half years, and look at where we are now compared to his predecessor.

 

Details, details, it seems that nobody cares about the intricacies of those things, reducing everything to a number one can label someone with, instead of looking at policy and how those numbers came to be.

"There is a certain irony, that in a forum dedicated to looking at ones own, enemy stats and as many details of the battle as one has available, one only looks at kills and battles to determine the value of a unit."

Trump as well as Hillary wouldve had losses somewhere, riots wouldve broken out regardless, if floyd was killed and we are totally ignoring, that unempolyment came as a result of a global pandemic, not because of trump, who has reduced that number to i think 3% before this all happened?

Taking these numbers coming from a result of <arbitrary negative event> which might or might not be a result of <arbitrary negative policy> and appropriating them to the individual, rather than discussing the policies responsible and determine the ideal policies is counterproductive and will only spiral towards more ignorance and hate towards a certain orange man.

How would you calm down rioters seemingly uncontrollibly causing anarchy?

Should we do it like in china and Hong Kong and just shoot everyone?

Seems to b

e pretty effective to me, doesnt it?

I doubt that police/military would get too violent, mostly deploying water cannons or something relatively harmless, especially after what happened recently.

Unless of course you want the police to be violent, to justify your belief instead of wanting the least casualties, saying they are the oppressor among other things that are arguably less civil than something as harmless as "gay".

One day they might believe you

[Lewyn]

8 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

The fact that Trump has done absolutely nothing to deserve the zealous loyalty of his base makes it extra frustrating. Demagogue strongman are all consistently terrible but unlike Trump most do have some sort of merit that might cause them to gain the loyalty of their base. I don't respect our homegrown populists but there are things Wilders has said and done that are more or less respectable, and I can at least understand that the pseudo philosophical drivel of Baudet might impress people who aren't all that smart. I can understand why people might be taken in by Farage's charm, why they think Erdogan and Putin made their countries recover from a deep decline or why Le Pen would make an effective leader. 

But Trump doesn't have any of that. He has always been known as a fraud and has a long history of being an openly corrupt businessman. That Trump has nothing in common with the common man and has repeatedly scammed the working class can't be denied yet its within those people that he has the most fanatical support. 

Yeah that is what is most frustrating.  He is every annoying trait a person can have in one.  Loud mouth, ignorant/anti science, lazy as hell, narcissist who constantly brags yet has nothing to brag about, blames his own failures on everyone else, is a hypocrite, is a coward draft dodger, uses people and then disposes of them, sexually assaults/harasses women, a racist, is immature, impatient, says he is self made when he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, has no class.  Other terrible leaders, evil leaders have something that you can see how they got followers.  With Trump maybe it is the super stupid and ignorant have a voice?  That is all I can think of. 

Pence would be a zillion times better.  He would have almost no chance to win the 2020 election so we would only deal with him for a few months.  He is backwards thinking, super conservative, but not near the scum that Trump is.

Hillary wouldn't have called black players kneeling during NFL games sons of bitches.  She also wouldn't have dismissed Black lives matter, with stupid crap like White lives matter, Blue lives matter....completely missing the point.  She wouldn't have told colored Senators to go back to their own country, or call Haiti and Africa as shithole countries.  Maybe a conversation would have been had.  At least you wouldn't have the president doing worse than ignoring peaceful protests, villainizing them.  

Now Trump wants to mobilize the federal military to dominate the protesters.  Bet you if it was the gun toting white corona protesters marching Democratic capitols that started looting, he wouldn't lift a damn finger and would probably encourage it.  

[Lord Raven]

13 hours ago, eclipse said:

Oh, so that's why he's throwing a gigantic hissy fit over the mail-in ballots.

He's polling worse and worse and worse. People are gonna vote Biden to stop him and the enabler party.

9 hours ago, Perfect Infinitive Exitus said:

snip

do you smell your own farts

Quote

Details, details, it seems that nobody cares about the intricacies of those things, reducing everything to a number one can label someone with, instead of looking at policy and how those numbers came to be.

"There is a certain irony, that in a forum dedicated to looking at ones own, enemy stats and as many details of the battle as one has available, one only looks at kills and battles to determine the value of a unit."

Trump as well as Hillary wouldve had losses somewhere, riots wouldve broken out regardless, if floyd was killed and we are totally ignoring, that unempolyment came as a result of a global pandemic, not because of trump, who has reduced that number to i think 3% before this all happened?

trump could've prevented the scale of the pandemic by acting when he got intelligence reports

riots breaking out during a clinton presidency... who even knows if clinton would've had police reform? the obama admin had a police oversight committee building up and clinton would've continued it, but trump scrapped it cuz he's a petty vindictive bitch

you're talking about the guy who literally doesn't encourage testing because, and these are his words

Quote

“Don’t forget, we have more cases than anybody in the world. But why? Because we do more testing,” Trump said. “When you test, you have a case. When you test, you find something is wrong with people. If we didn’t do any testing, we would have very few cases. They [the media] don’t want to write that.”

lol

Quote

Taking these numbers coming from a result of <arbitrary negative event> which might or might not be a result of <arbitrary negative policy> and appropriating them to the individual, rather than discussing the policies responsible and determine the ideal policies is counterproductive and will only spiral towards more ignorance and hate towards a certain orange man.

How would you calm down rioters seemingly uncontrollibly causing anarchy?

Should we do it like in china and Hong Kong and just shoot everyone?

Seems to b

e pretty effective to me, doesnt it?

I doubt that police/military would get too violent, mostly deploying water cannons or something relatively harmless, especially after what happened recently.

Unless of course you want the police to be violent, to justify your belief instead of wanting the least casualties, saying they are the oppressor among other things that are arguably less civil than something as harmless as "gay".

One day they might believe you

no fucking idea what you're saying here, nobody here is in favor of stopping the violence through force. the police should not be above the law and they should be more scrutinized than ordinary civilians.

how would i calm rioters? police reform and stimulus checks. the riots aren't happening just due to police brutality, you know.

 

EDIT: instead fuckface decided to call the army and tear gas protesters for a photo op at a church after the curfew imposed by DC.

Edited June 2, 2020 by Lord Raven

[Perfect Infinitive Exitus]

I think you are interpreting too much malice into trumps actions when much of it is justified.

i think Trump isn't a very pleasant individual but he is by no means evil and his actions do cause some good.

I think the opportunity zones as well as the action for more shool choice for african americans was a great idea and locking down the country at the very beginning to prevent people from other countries coming in at the start of covid was a great idea, which he got bashed for "because of course he does, since there is nothing trump can do that is right and moral" or something.

I don't agree much with the trade war against china, even if they aren't a fair player, i think that the first step of the deal is what caused china to lie about covid because of their contempt although that is just speculation.

then again, at least people see china for the dangerous country that it is now, not to mention their huge influence on the WHO, any entertainment or tech industry or other, who offshore their business out to china or other for cheap labor.

 

 

You cant just give out stimulus checks to people, it causes great inflation and the government cannot afford to spend so much, when its already spending trillions on "stuff nobody needs".

And you might say "oh man inflation boohoo" but not boohoo, rich people, who almost everyone relies on because of their taxes will just move out of the state (like elon musk) or even worse out of the country itself, taking their business with them.

And that way? You lose even more worth in the dolla, so your 1k of trump bux is only worth 300 or less in just 1 or 2 months of prolonged distribution with the (admittingly arbitrary) projection of that being that for continued distribution of money.

Which is why i don't agree with so much money being spent on military either, since that money could go somewhere else, like peoples pockets, so they don't have to pay as much tax, which would be better for the economy.

But Trump has reasons for building up the military, which is primarily making other countries be scared of them, while being a bit more respected.

You wouldnt want to offend someone, who has his hands on the big red button would you?

Unless you have nothing to lose, or you think that you are immune.

 

Maybe one day trump will "accidentially nuke" iraq next time they "accidentially" sink a ship or "unintentionally" shoot down a plane.

With the exact same words the iraquian government used to defend themselves in their "unintentional" action.

Maybe even a sarcastic tone?

"oopsie doopsie i made a fucky wucky uwu i did nawt meen to do dis owo"

Sorry for not being serious but i had to.

I really hope it doesn't come to this either way.

 

On the other hand, do you think Trump would be safe from protestors or rioters if the police wasnt there to protect him?

I doubt it.

Protestors would probably heavily injure the guy if not kill him.

Besides, this is all assuming, that the police tear gassed because of trumps visit and not because people started attacking the police or any other arbitrary reason that is just as valid.

If trump did not visit, protestors would (likely) not attack the police, which wouldnt lead to tear gas use.

But trump felt like he had to visit to pay respects to the monumental church.

The photoshoot might just be an action taken because he doesn't want the church to be town down or burned to ashes before he could even take a pic, yknow.

And if we take the reason the police gave, which is them being attacked first before they shot tear gas, is it that unreasonable of an action?

If i was police i wouldnt like to be attacked by people who are angry at a percieved boogeyman.

Besides, attacking any arbitrary people, like we established earlier, is not a good way to resolve peace.

 

You said you wamted police reform because police brutality wasn't the only thing people protest on the streets for, im which case:

Police reform of what kind?

What would "police reform" mean to you?

What specific reform do you have in mind?

Spoiler

I have my own ideas, which is prison reform that doesn't need quotas, good pay, sufficient training, a background check and no allowing the use of lethal weapons in subduing, unless you or someone else has been attacked/shot before by them, in which case you may annihilate the individual absolutely.

On top of that, encouragement of getting in contact with their lawyer or providing one if they dont have one.

Of course sparing the life is of highest priority but if you are being shot at?

If i was a police officer, i would worry about my own safety as well as my friends and family first, someone who is shooting at me is the last i will care about.

but ok.

 

Sorry for making you read these huge posts but i want to try to be as detailed as i can in talking about those things, to not lose any detail or intent.

I seem to be the only one to be defending this orange guy here even though i don't want to do it.

But i think that some judgements are completely unjust, whatever the source of that judgement might be.

I for one think there is a bigger problem than orange dude, which is people having an opinion about stuff they dont know anything about and therefore making judgements based on their perception, especially if emotionally founded or falsely prioritizing

like me spending an hour on these posts...

sorry, but im not natively english speaking but im trying my best

Edited June 2, 2020 by Perfect Infinitive Exitus

[Shoblongoo]

1 hour ago, Lord Raven said:

fuckface decided to call the army and tear gas protesters for a photo op at a church after the curfew imposed by DC.

Yes, @Perfect Infinitive Exitus. He's malicious.

FYI:  the difference between a career public servant and malice:

 

vs.

Edited June 2, 2020 by Shoblongoo

[Perfect Infinitive Exitus]

How do you define malice? @Shoblongoo

There is a principle, which is

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. In simpler words: some bad things happen not because of people having bad intentions, but because they did not think it through properly"

Just like governors locking down the state to protect individuals from the virus, but screwing over their economy or governors sending back infected elderly back into their nursing homes, i think trumps result of actions is not a result of malice but one of lack of knowledge.

 

[XRay]

14 hours ago, eclipse said:

Oh, so that's why he's throwing a gigantic hissy fit over the mail-in ballots.

I do not recall mail-in ballots favoring one party over another though. Getting rid of mail-in ballots would shoot himself in the foot as much as it does to his opponent. A lot of Republican voters use mail-in ballots too.

Not sure why he is so afraid of mail-in ballots since there is no logical reason for it, although I guess should not expect logic and Trump to go hand in hand.

11 hours ago, Perfect Infinitive Exitus said:

Details, details, it seems that nobody cares about the intricacies of those things, reducing everything to a number one can label someone with, instead of looking at policy and how those numbers came to be.

Details matter. But sure, I can go one step further and say that we should ignore policy details too. Who even cares about all that political mumbo jumbo? If you are not even bothering to cite policy, then neither should I. It will save everyone a lot of time if we skip facts and evidence and simply look at the results.

Bush is infinitely a better leader than Trump. Bush at least had an excuse that war causes a lot of dead people. Trump had ample time to prevent a pandemic and have no major wars on his hands and he still manages to kill lots of Americans when he is doing nothing. That is just fucking sad.

Normally when a president does nothing, a problem will usually go away on its own because his cabinet, federal agencies, and state and local governments are often more than enough to tackle a crisis. All Obama had to do during the ebola situation was to tell his agencies to do their jobs, but other than that, I do not think he did much besides telling other people to do the work for him. Trump is just like Obama in this regard and literally did nothing else besides telling his agencies to do their jobs, but Trump still manages to fail and cause the situation to be worse.

[Perfect Infinitive Exitus]

Ebola wasnt as easily caught as corona is, which is why its easy to quarantine it unlike with corona @XRay

https://www.google.com/amp/s/fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-did-the-world-shut-down-for-covid-19-but-not-ebola-sars-or-swine-flu/amp/

which is partially why the preexisting responses to the virus werent as effective as the one obama took.

Corona has the unfortunate property of being extremely easily transmittable and being pretty deadly for people with a weak immune system, preexisting conditions, older age, thicker, faster clotting blood and already sick people, unlike the swine flu or other, which were basically harmless.

I think its important to distinct here.

[Karimlan]

29 minutes ago, Perfect Infinitive Exitus said:

I seem to be the only one to be defending this orange guy here even though i don't want to do it.

 

I missed the part/s in the huge bowls of word salad you've served up the justification to defend Big Orange.

[Perfect Infinitive Exitus]

@Karimlan sorry, im not really good in expressing myself

but if you think, that what i say is a "word salad", what justification do i have in taking anything you say seriously?

[Shoblongoo]

23 minutes ago, Perfect Infinitive Exitus said:

How do you define malice?

He appreciates the nature and consequence of his actions, and does them anyway 

[Perfect Infinitive Exitus]

Just now, Shoblongoo said:

He appreciates the nature and consequence of his actions, and does them anyway 

This is not an adequate definition of malice to be used.

You probably like the nature of your actions and when the consequences of your actions happen according to how you want them to happen after you act.

Does that make you malicious? I think this makes you a human being.

Fire Emblem is all about having a plan and being happy that it worked out after all.

 

[eclipse]

8 minutes ago, Perfect Infinitive Exitus said:

This is not an adequate definition of malice to be used.

You probably like the nature of your actions and when the consequences of your actions happen according to how you want them to happen after you act.

Does that make you malicious? I think this makes you a human being.

Fire Emblem is all about having a plan and being happy that it worked out after all.

 

Malice is using "gay" as an insult after I warned you not to.

[Shoblongoo]

9 minutes ago, Perfect Infinitive Exitus said:

This is not an adequate definition of malice to be used.

You probably like the nature of your actions and when the consequences of your actions happen according to how you want them to happen after you act.

Does that make you malicious? I think this makes you a human being.

Fire Emblem is all about having a plan and being happy that it worked out after all.

 

Malice as defined by Black's Law Dictionary, if you insist upon being pedantic about it:     


"Wrongful and done intentionally, without justification or excuse"



 

Edited June 2, 2020 by Shoblongoo

[Etrurian emperor]

52 minutes ago, Perfect Infinitive Exitus said:

i think Trump isn't a very pleasant individual but he is by no means evil and his actions do cause some good.

He's not evil in the sense that he eats babies for dinners or kicks puppies. But on a more grounded level I do believe evil is a correct term to use on Trump. 

You don't scam college students, betray most of your business partners, refuge to properly pay your workers or abuse your position for private financial gains if you aren't a little bit evil.