We await JB to correct or verify the record.
I have no idea, Iâd have to check JBâs contributions to the primary thread. Could be Cuban genes or his love of Christ?
Prayer squats.
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@Jewbacca, is Ted Cruz the deadlift champion of the senate? Permabulk notwithstanding.
While I love reactionary whataboutism as much as the next guy, and agree there are valid criticisms of the Right, your comment has absolutely nothing to do with the point Iâm making.
It could pretty easily be argued that the 2 main parties in America tend to somewhat be counterbalances of each other. The stupid ass escalation we constantly see out of National level pols has this weird push/pull aspect.
Itâs like Newtonâs 1st law of politics. For every escalation, there will be an equal & opposite escalation.
I was just struck by the irony of lamenting the âdark placeâ the left is headed while the country is in the grip of the xenophobic, ethno-nationalist, isolationist demagoguery of the TrumpIan right.
There are reasons why this could/should be taken seriously, but for a moment, strictly from a humorous perspective, Iâd like to imagine Trump logging in to Tweet during this time, getting a notification that his Twitter account was offline, and calling an emergency briefing of our national security leaders in the Situation Room.
âIs this it? Is this the move before North Koreaâs first strike? What are our people saying? Have they made any other moves?â
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Iâve found it strange that there was a big push to force trump off of social media, but nobody worries about ISIS having accounts on every platform. Seems odd.
ISIS increasing their exposure reinforces theyâre a problem and keeps us willing to do whatever to defeat them.
When you apply the same logic to Trump⊠probably not the intended effect
Thatâs all well and good. But show me where trump is giving terrorists instructions or publishing beheadings of westerners. Heâs an ass, we get it. But Trump =/= ISIS.
While Congress had the tech companies on capital hill to discuss Russian meddling, they might have at least brought up âwhy are you giving these assholes a platform?â
Oh definitely. Not saying theyâre the same at all.
Because increased exposure of ISIS reinforces theyâre a problem with the public and lets pols get away with extra shit. Things like this are what breeds garbage like the patriot act. Pols will GLADLY take that in exchange for giving ISIS a twitter account (something they will have a very very hard time getting more value out of than the pols)
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More irrelevant reactionary whataboutism?
Iâd say I was surprised, but Iâm not, so thatâd be a lie.
There are fair and rational criticisms of the American right, sure***. However I was discussing the left in terms of the entire Western world, not just America. Iâm not sure if youâre incapable of having that discussion or just canât help yourself at taking swipes at the right, but either way, nothing youâve said now, in two posts, has any bearing, what so ever, on what TB posted and I responded to. (Unless you are saying that the current state of the American Right is a reaction to my points about the Left in Contemporary Western SocietyâŠ)
***Edit: please donât confuse this sentence as me saying what you wrote is fair or rational. Iâm not making a statement on that either way.
I donât get it, or maybe I do. Even if the right is headed somewhere darker than the left, that doesnât mean itâs OK for the left to go somewhere a little less dark. They are fighting divisiveness with divisiveness. Itâs like those Antifa nerds who employ fascist methods, like violence, but say that they arenât fascists. They donât understand that fascism can be defined by its methods. There is no separating the two. It would be like trying to separate antisemitism and racism from nazism. The point being, these people on the left who are going to a âless darkâ place are using the old, the ends justifies the means. Itâs OK for them to go to that place because they believe they are right. They might as well have Gott mit uns for a slogan. For those of us who can think still think rationally they donât offer an alternative.
The DNC can lament how white males helped Trump get elected while at the same time calling them deplorables. They donât see a problem there? Until they do they will continue to have trouble getting people elected. Diversity via exclusion doesnât work.
This obviously would be up for debate. Which direction is worse? I donât know, as there is likely a good case for both points of view.
But like you said, itâs irrelevant if one is worse than the other, when they both may have/have objectively bad elements.
One thing Iâd like to hammer home, which you mentioned, is one side of this issue is actively trying to stifle free speech, and in countries without the 1st, has already done so. Shit I believe both NY & CA now have laws in place forcing you to use certain pronouns. (I trust those will fail once challenged, as government canât dictate what you must say by rule of law.)
The issue with this is once you take away the battle field of ideas, the ability to fight with words, well youâre only left with one other way to fight⊠Which a good example of is the mindless Neanderthals who are still all âhashtag-punch a Naziâ.
There are police departments that wonât investigate serial rapist for fear of âlooking like a racistâ but they will hunt down someone who makes an âislamaphobicâ facebook post⊠These are very big problems, and you canât blame any of it on a fraction of the American Right.
Even if the governmentâs attempts to regulate speech fail, as they should, what prevents places of employment from doing so? They already do. And an employerâs reach in this regard can extend outside of the workplace. Then you have these FB witch hunts, doxing people and trying to get them fired for simply having an opinion.
Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine) was on Bill Maherâs show a little while back. Maher brought up an incident where someone wearing a swastika was punched. Maher condemned the act and said free speech included offensive speech, etc., and then looked to Morello (who graduated from Harvard I believe) assuming he would agree since he is supposedly all about freedom. Morello said he had no problem with punching a nazi and Maher had a look of shock on his face. That tells you something about the divide between the ânewâ left and the old left. Then of course you have the utter hypocrisy and irony of a middle-aged husband and father ivy league graduate socialist multimillionaire telling people who have a lot more to lose than he if they commit a violent crime that itâs OK. These new leftists would call MLK a sellout.
Yeah, I guy who is rich as all hell because of capitalism, that hates it and thinks communism will work? Of course a commie thinks âpunch a Naziâ is okay, that is how all the political violence started in Germany lol.
But yeah, Fuck Morello. He isnât even that great of a guitarist.
Nothing, and thatâs why identity politics is so damn disgusting.
and other choice words too lol.
So, youâre in a position to discuss the state of the left âin terms of the entire Western world,â are you? Thatâs very impressive. I had no idea the scope of your fund of knowledge was so extensive.
So you have absolutely no rebuttal for anything Iâve said?
Iâll take that as tactic admission Iâve hit the proverbial nail on the head then.
So I see that ED isnât just a condescending dick to me. Damn his white privilege!
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