Lord Raven
-
Posts
9,206 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Posts posted by Lord Raven
-
-
I'll skim/read through that later. Thanks!
John McCain has officially passed :(
-
2 hours ago, Dr. Tarrasque said:
Agreed and this is why I asked. I also agree with your point about being reactionary to these things, specially in the Trump era, but news come and go so quickly and discussion for change appears to be more relevant when something related to that subject occurs and I feel it results into something that's rather sickening: to put these politicians on the spot as the midterms are approaching, the outcry in regards to gun control for example, will never be sufficient unless a mass shooting occurs around that time to "refresh or re-ignite" the discussion.
I've been making the point that this is emblematic of how media sensationalism goes. We've hit a point of too much media, and they're constantly attracted to meaningless, shiny objects.
Currently, we're harping on Trump-Russia and no reasonable talk about gun control has actually occurred despite it being brought up in thread. Let's do it, though I won't start.
Unfortunately, people want to make blanket statements without considering the repercussions.
9 hours ago, Karimlan said:Some people make so much fuss about events like school shootings and decry and lambast the "politics of division" when politics is division by definition, as Christopher Hitchens put it. These are the same people who have not read Microcosmographia Academica yet find themselves unwittingly applying principles and tenets from that piece!
Politics is meant to be a solution to division, though. I'm not reading that anyway, i'm too high and it's 10pm and I already go to school. At any rate, I'm not sure what you're trying to say here at all.
-
33 minutes ago, Dr. Tarrasque said:
Aside from simply having the facts, how long do you wait then?
Whenever people have calmed. It takes varying degrees of time and varies from case to case.
There's a downside to this in that it makes it harder for things to get done, but reactionary rhetoric should be avoided. We don't tend to think straight and we don't think about the long-term issues if we purely run on emotion.
-
There's definitely value to waiting to have the discussion. The issue is that nobody does. Every single incident leads to really shitty reactionary rhetoric from most people and nothing gets done.
It's clearly a suppression technique to stonewall legislation. All we can really do is be persistent.
-
Also, here's a trump distraction: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-renews-attacks-nfl-calls-espn-air-national-anthem-n903196
It's pretty fucked up how he's out and out attacking an entire demographic. The NFL and the executive branch have colossally failed to address this.
-
41 minutes ago, Dr. Tarrasque said:
Clarify, did you interpret "re-allocate funds to other areas such as Science and research" in the military context? Because I meant it in general, not just for military (ie Medicine, Environment, Computer Science, etc) such as putting the money being spent on the surplus of fighter jets into these things instead.
Also, PUPPIES!
Basically there's a bunch of wasteful spending to either continue old projects and maintaining old equipment, which gets more expensive to maintain as time goes on. Given also that the budget is massive and veterans healthcare is still basically trash and unmaintainable there certainly is waste outside of pet projects of US Senators. Stuff you've mentioned effectively. We could re allocate those kinds of funds within the military and it would functionally serve little difference. Military funded education is much more well defined in terms of long term goals too so it's generally not a bad thing to have military backed education.
The main point I'm making is that insisting we need a smaller military budget seems quite counterproductive considering how large the budget is. You could argue that if we warred less, had more affordable education and better primary education, better healthcare as a nation, then I wouldn't be pointing to these as benefits except that even if we had all these things we would still see a budget just as large towards the military because it means they can throw even more into R&D.
I think defense policy is independent of funding in general, if nothing else they would set their funding based on their defense needs. Even then the military tends to be behind technological innovation and unless blah says otherwise I'm fairly certain war has been a driving force for technology for all of human history.
-
18 minutes ago, Dr. Tarrasque said:
Regardless of your views on military might, you should still consider whether or not the allocation is proper or could use some tweaking to re-allocate funds to other areas such as Science and research which will benefit all aspects of the US can boost our military advantage
We already do this. I hate to beat the dead horse with this but this is literally what half of my physics department uses for funding. Pretty sure grants like these are the only way I could afford college at any rate, but it would be cool to expand the R&D side.
Quite a lot of military money makes its way back to the population of the US in many many forms. The allocation is poor. We need much better staffing and funding for the VA, much better mental healthcare for vets and soldiers alike, and the rest of the country still needs affordable healthcare.
I don't think lowering our military budget will do much in terms of influencing what kind of conflict we engage in and could actually make a lot of things worldwide much worse.
-
1 hour ago, Life said:
I was going to take you seriously but then I actually read the first paragraph and this popped to mind. And I really can't take anyone here seriously anymore.
You guys are so far down the rabbit-hole. Well, when it turns on you, I'm just going to laugh and say "told you so".Did you only come here to strawman and trash talk?
I thought you were turning the corner in terms of this but you really didn't, huh. You're still highly ideological instead of reasonable and you still only really like to preach instead of discuss. You only really care about left wing vs right wing any time you venture into this thread and you only care about shitting on "the left" instead of trying to discuss things. I do agree posters here enjoy shitting on "the right" far too much, but your purpose here seems to be to stir shit up. You're actually hilariously steadfast to refer to yourself as a right winger, which is no different from identity politics.
Instead of saying, "you guys still don't get it," why don't you just clarify? And if nobody gets what you're saying, then you need to do a lot better of a job instead of assuming we know what you're trying to say. A lot of people didn't know what you meant until you mentioned something about demographic monoliths, which nobody here is arguing in favor of in any way, shape, or form. You can keep arguing "This is why Trump won," but again it goes both ways -- something you completely and utterly failed to address.
Regardless, the #walkaway movement is heavily rooted in Russian interference. There are some legitimate people who said #walkaway on their own -- and it didn't actually even spawn from Russia -- but it was co-opted and perpetuated by Russia. This doesn't invalidate those people, but I have shown that special elections have shown near-monolithic voting of blacks and that the #walkaway movement is another example of Russian co-opting and interference, and you really just latch onto the guy you can insult the quickest. Come on man..
-
1 hour ago, Life said:
You are not listening to me and creating a strawman.
Currently, you're harping on affirmative action and some vague thing about bringing women down to accomodate for transpeople. Again, doesn't it work both ways?
Quotelinks of people who are part of the #walkaway movement
For the record, here are the exit polls to an Alabama election.
Furthermore, the #walkaway movement is a viral meme perpetuated by Russia that seems to be working somewhat as intended.
Right now you seem to be arguing against an ideology that is not commonly portrayed in this thread (in fact, many people are doing the same). I don't like affirmative action, it was a necessary evil once upon a time but there's more work that needs to be done to curb systemic racism.
-
Eh well if you're lucky, then you may end up with Peterman getting sick and Allen having Flacco's rookie season all over again. Hopefully not with the playoff run included, unless it means knocking the Patriots or Dolphins out of the division title.
-
I legitimately do not understand your point. Are you advocating to tone down hostile rhetoric or are you advocating to abandon a civil rights platform for gender/race politics?
I guarantee you that blacks would flee the party harder if they did not care for race politics. Much of the issue is that Democrats are such a wide tent party demographically that no matter what actions they take, they will lose a demographic for either not doing enough or doing entirely too much. This is fixable by a ranked voting system so the Democratic Party (and Republican Party) can splinter and even make coalitions in the House and Senate, and maybe even introduce an inter-coalition system between the House and Senate.
This is the fundamental issue. Mentioning and putting minor focus on those things while creating a broader, economic message that can help everyone is what's key. And, frankly, a lot of people are doing that; I can probably list quite about as many candidates doing that as you can list candidates who are anti-white or who are focusing exclusively on civil rights. Democrats need to get people excited to vote or want to vote, and ignoring a bunch of politics is not the way to do it. Besides, any vaguely nuanced discussion about this kinda thing will be written off in the form of a shitty soundbite that makes someone sound anti-white. Pretty much, the other thing you could be asking for is to put up and shut up, and that doesn't excite anyone to vote.
There's really a lot of factors to account for.
19 minutes ago, Life said:What you should do is to stop pretending that you have the moral high ground all the time and stop talking down to people. This has been happening for years. Just check out the absolute contempt people from the coast have for middle America.
It really goes both ways. Isn't that what you're doing right now? I don't think changing tone will change people who are entrenched. The crazy part is that there's a very specific facet of this conversation which I have issue with.
Basically, what's happening is that the coastals that you mention sneer upon rural America while at the same time talking down to them and requesting politeness (in some cases, overpoliteness and PC) in rhetoric.
But then you have the anti-PC middle America who demand to not be talked down upon.
There are multiple groups refusing concessions here. There's really nobody who has a moral high ground but there is a lot of pretending amongst these demographics you are referring to. I mean, I should be able to call you a n****, but don't talk down to me when you tell me it's offensive and when you request I shouldn't do it! (This is meant to be an extreme example to convey the point.. and it really is a word that invited a ton of vitriol that I'm sure you have felt towards people at many points in your life -- there really is no winning when people take it upon themselves to be vitriolically offensive).
-
1 hour ago, Life said:
Since Flutie, I had 17 years of Captain Checkdowns. Trust me, Tyrod isn't as bad as guys like Trent Edwards or JP Losman.
From what I've seen, he's not any better or worse. I would say his playstyle imitated 2016/early 2017 Flacco a lot. and Flacco had a bad back and recovering from an ACL tear in those seasons.
He doesn't throw many picks; he doesn't throw downfield nearly enough. He was completely flaccid in the playoffs, and wasn't impressive with his 2016 receiving corps who later went off with Goff the next year.
Also McCarron broke his collarbone, jesus.
-
2 hours ago, Life said:
Holy shit, this Cleveland squad actually has an offense. New look for them.
Fuck that, they have to deal with captain checkdown at QB and captain dumbass at coach... though Tyrod may try to test deep now that he has 2 gigantic receivers and landry in the slot.
Still, I really have no faith in the Browns if Hue Jackson and Todd Haley are on the team. Todd Haley's abrasiveness mixed with Hue Jackson having no clue what the fucks going on is gonna be a bad combination.
-
6 hours ago, XRay said:
As for cutting military spending, I have no opinion on that since I am not sure if the Pentagon was ever audited, so I do not want to just lower or increase spending without more information.
What is kind of nice about military spending -- which mainly indicates to me that it's merely inefficiently used rather than bad -- is that it funds plenty of scholarships and research grants. It's a hell of a source of employment an education.
I'm kind of speaking anecdotally though -- my undergrad was backed by the NSA to some extent, and my grad school is being funded by the Air Force.
-
jim jefferies did a bit on that
I don't like slogans but throughout history they've worked so
-
Nope. Check the pages I linked.
-
Dean has to be Level 15 + and be recruited. Did you get him to 60 kills?
(For the record -- all this info is on SF - https://serenesforest.net/wiki/index.php/Berwick_Saga_Class_Change_Requirements)
-
Spoiler
The reasons were complex, but there was one thing above all else that planted me firmly in the Republican camp: the left’s need to constantly trash or see America in a negative light.
Well yes, if there's systemic issues that some people see and others don't -- for reasons ranging from "I don't want to shatter my current perceptions" to "I'm physically incapable of experiencing this" -- and nobody wants to help because thou doth complain too much, of course nothing gets done and of course people will undermine our country verbally (speaking out) or symbolically (taking a knee.)
That's the kind of badass freedom we live in. People changing their ideology or alliances because people protest too much is petty. Regardless, we as a society need to destroy the concept of left or right because ideology has a wild tendency to blind us to what's real or practical. I stopped considering myself a liberal, leftist, rationalist, or whatever, just a citizen contributing his part.
Regardless, I find the Republicans branding the Democratic party as leftist is beautiful because it continues to entrench us ideologically and against one another and it moves a certain type of person with a certain ideology to the Republican Party... Even though most of the Republican Party platform really doesn't support their views. Maybe a few do in concept and only in concept, but they're not a coalition of the political spectrum as the Democratic party is.
-
This isn't intended to be a serious post, but this is really funny to me.
I love his videos. In the absence of the Southern Strategy, his history makes sense, but unfortunately the Southern Strategy was pretty major.
-
I mean do people honestly care about payments towards Trump's adultery outside of potentially being a campaign donation? I don't care about hypocrisy in voters, especially because these things are easily waived off as a character attack with no substance by some people, other people don't care, and politicians have enough of this going on in their own lives too such that if they snitch they're all pretty screwed. It's not hard to rationalize these as attacks made on Trump, since we're already 18 months deep into a pretty crazy presidency.
-
3 hours ago, Dr. Tarrasque said:
Let's make one thing clear: I'm not suggesting that we forget these people exist and that they shouldn't be taken care of and helped. I'm suggesting that Trump supporters still sticking with Trump at this time are very cultish and that it may be for the best to not waste time on them as far as discussing politics is concerned. Some will turn on Trump in due time, some will continue to support him but what I'm trying to say is what I said at the beginning: I think you're underestimating how much of a cult a large portion of Trump base has been.
You're speaking of how Trump's approval will decrease as a recession occurs and that his poor policies and decision making will lead to his approval rating dropping. Logically speaking, that should be the case and that's what most of us would hope for because it is sad to see the country divided as it is and people supporting a man who's lying to them on a daily basis. If I were you though, I wouldn't hold my breath because a lot of them don't really stop to think and vote for what's best for them and their motivation for voting and their support of Trump and Republican leaders include:
1. Racism and partisan hate
2. Religion
3. Fear
And this is the stuff that right-wing propaganda and Republicans have been tapping into for years and they continue to do it daily. Many of them are that far gone and it is simply not worth it to reason with them while Republican have the control they currently enjoy and Trump is president. The best way to help these people is to get the Republicans out we all know that and waiting for them to wake up is not viable.
"Solving" racism won't stop all problems true but it removes a major component that corrupt politicians will weaponize to create and maintain their base. It should be an issue given greater importance so that the government can play a role in diminishing it and prevent future Trumps from dividing the people as he has.
I'm pretty well aware of the culture status. Look through this thread and you'll see me arguing with the cult aspect. It's just not fair to generalize it as a cult, especially since some people are actually part of a cultist devotion (The_Donald) and their loyalty is much, much different than your average supporter. Regardless, I've seen all of that jingoism since I grew up in and lived in Trump country before Trump. These really aren't particularly new phenomena, and in all honesty I've hated the Republican Party because they've been doing this shit with significantly more subtlety than Trump for the last 40 years and many of my non-minority friends legitimately had no idea, didn't care or explained some of the subtle racism away until Trump came out and said it.
Regardless, those three reasons are why people can go for Clinton too. Muslims can easily check those three boxes off, black people can check off two of the three easily, etc. It's not that all of them do this, but there's a lot of anecdotes you can point to where those three factors or some variation of it in informing their vote. You really don't have to explain the systematic propaganda that goes through these people.
If racism is eliminated then someone will find some other shit to cause conflict between people. Conflict sells and conflict kills people so our resources can be more highly concentrated. That is honestly a shallow interpretation of racism and where it comes from. Otherwise, all I see is that you're complaining about a minority of people who support Trump.
Honestly I'm sorry for all of this aside but I just do not believe it is worthwhile or productive to talk about Trump supporters as if they were all brainwashed. Thats how this orange whale with tiny hands continues to thrive. I believe ultimately the government has colossally failed its people on all fronts and Trump is both a symptom and a result of all that. Government and public figures deserve verbal scrutiny like that but not necessarily civilians.
-
1 hour ago, Edgelord said:
I think there is an "economic" and "social" emphasis side on the left-wing, and they don't always get along well at all. I'd like to think there are some policies that could help almost everyone. Some Trump supporters really are just too far gone and will never support progressivism. But they will probably stand to gain benefits regardless from it as well if rural white America actually feels as though the Democrats might do good for them. Economic populist ideas resonate with them. Most of rural America does not like free trade agreements because they have perceived it to have wrecked American job opportunities. Opioids can be considered a crisis, yet little is being done about it. Corporations get welfare cheques constantly even when they crash the economy but Bob doesn't get one when he is down on his luck or loses his job.
Trump tapped into these types of things, even if he was completely full of shit about them.
They won't support the label, but they'll support the policy. See: ACA vs Obamacare.
They're not that far gone, at least. I really think the basket of deplorables thing -- as kinda right as she may have been (definitely isn't fully right) -- was absolutely the wrong way to go, just bc I'm seeing commentary in this thread lately that is very similar to a flubb that may have cost Clinton the election.
-
2 hours ago, XRay said:
I think that is their main objection to Obama. If he is not black, he would not have his legacy dismantled and gutted like that.
They also do not really care about Trump or the Republican Party making their lives better either. If they actually cared about themselves, they would have held their elected officials responsible when they are not investing back into their communities. Republicans have reduced healthcare and kept wages low. Republicans and Trump had 2 years to do something about updating our infrastructure and they have done nothing. Infrastructure is the least controversial thing and they should have gotten that out of the way first. Instead, the first thing they jumped at was to ruin healthcare and limit immigration. If Republican politicians are not getting their priorities straight, their voters definitely do not have it straight either since their politicians are a reflection of them.
Probably, but if Republicans manage to nominate a SCOTUS to overturn Roe and Obergefell and Trump does stuff about illegals (think ICE, so he's showing that he's doing something) and their lives still suck.. well you can only gaslight people so much before they fight back. The issue is the arrogance of our generation to grandstand when I literally have parents who were alive during the Civil Rights protests.
They didn't live in the US, sure, but don't expect that kind of sentiment to go away especially since the southern strategy and fox news rose not long after as backlash. This current situation is almost a continuation of the Nixon presidency, except that Nixon was much better at foreign policy.
And if they don't rise up, their kids sure as hell will. A lot of rural America's problems are that they have living conditions that are like... The white version of an inner city (drugs everywhere and people are losing or lost work -- there are still advantages to living in rural America, and it's not necessarily or entirely due to race). I'd be inclined to cite the boiling frog as an analogy, but Trump is beginning to get backlash from flip flopping this week and fellating Putin hard like Putin was his daddy, so clearly there are cracks. People's lives have not improved and continue to get worse.
I'm just seeing people in this thread complaining about these people due to racism and everything to that extent, but I've spent so much time re-evaluating my life experiences and concluded that racism is not a reason for grandstanding because even liberal "non-racists" say some really condescending racist shit. It's not like fixing racism will fix the issue of straight up polarization. Nothing can ever get done in the country if one side absolutely refuses to even try to accommodate another part of the country unless you want them to die off and have their kids be that much more spiteful.
-
2 hours ago, Dr. Tarrasque said:
Trump supporters still sticking with him and attacking anyone in news media that criticizes Trump.
As for living in a rural town, not in the US but I did where I'm from when I was a child. I've driven to a few rural areas in Texas to see what it's like... they really don't like the media and dislike how much negative press there is of Trump and no coverage of their struggles. I get that and I do feel sorry for those that were conned into voting for Trump but that doesn't extend to those with petty reasons like "because he gets a rise out of liberals" or take it out on immigrants (legal or illegal).
Probably not as common in real life as you'd think. Typically, it's highly concentrated in rural towns that have very few minorities. You generally don't understand why Fox News is bullshit if your social network is not very diverse.
2 hours ago, Dr. Tarrasque said:Fear doesn't justify racism. It shouldn't be a complicated matter, simply think how you'd like the way you're treating someone of a race you don't like if the positions were swapped.
Oh, but it absolutely does. It's really not worthwhile to keep harping over what people "should" or "should not" do but actually talk about what's going through the heads of these demographics.
For the record, I'm South Asian/Middle Eastern in terms of ethnicity, and my dad owned a restaurant serving that kind of food. My family and I have experienced plenty of racism. I also tend to see that minority groups act the same way towards other races as rural whites act towards people like us; shunning, looking down upon, and speaking with disdain. I'm not saying it's a reason to be racist, only that it's completely natural to talk down on something you're not familiar with, or to talk down on something when life is going tough for you. Life was pretty shit for us, too.
It's just jarring to see people clumping all trump supporters as if they're irredeemable. I'm speaking, again, from a demographic that probably would've gladly voted Trump if the Republican Party didn't actively try to isolate every Muslim ever since 2000. It's like wholly ironic that these two groups really hate each other -- because no two groups in this country are honestly more alike than Muslim-American immigrants and White Rural America. I mean, the immigrants' children generally value liberalism over traditions so they wouldn't go Republican, and that's because they've actually been exposed to American culture. The immigrants themselves aren't liberal at all. And yet, we defend them from verbal attacks from racist. That seems like a contradiction, no? Why tolerate the intolerant, after all?
For the record, at this point, I'm about to sound like I'm concern trolling. I'm not. I'm saying the problems are much deeper than racism. Put people to work, make them busy and get places to invest more into former blue collar towns for different industries and actually get growth. Get them healthcare. Their kids will grow up in a more reasonable spot with more promise and diversity and won't be hateful.
Having that said...... I'm pretty sure Obama offered the demographic retraining, and they didn't accept it, so I don't feel too bad for them.
I think the issue I'm having is that you're making these people sound like mini-Richard Spencers waiting for the right time to pounce, whereas I just see them as white people finally experiencing what it was like to be a poor minority. It's actually kind of fucked up to think of it like that. Minorities or city people or whatever like... don't ever fucking go to these towns because there's nothing to do there that's worthwhile. I'm sure I can cite like 5 comedians who have made a joke about this, but like, there's not a lot going for them or their town and there's not a lot of reason for them to leave either.
I really just think it's a mix of ignorance and fear, and that fear might be better described as anxiety in some cases and fear in other cases. I'm not saying we should accept it, but I'm saying from personal experience, people and eventually their kids will eventually need to survive and begin to see past all the bullshit.
General US Politics
in Serious Discussion
Posted · Edited by Lord Raven
You should see /r/The_Donald. They are showing some relative class today (it's still quite tongue-in-cheek), but a few days ago when McCain went off his cancer treatment they were celebrating the inevitable.