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On July 10 2025 17:57 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2025 17:17 Magic Powers wrote:
After years of right-wing denialism, I think it's fair to say BJ does in fact not agree with DPB in spirit. He's done everything other than make overtly clear that he supports Trump's cause and has been consistently flirting with the far-right. The sum of his actions (anti-left propaganda while staying silent on right-wing scandals) leads to this fairly obvious conclusion. I think this is fundamentally misreading BJ's posts. He likes to nitpick and will die on any hill where he's technically correct. If you can get past his adversarial style, he brings in a different perspective on things that I find interesting. I honestly doubt that he would disagree with the statement "It is problematic that Trump thinks it's okay to shoot protestors". But if you frame it differently, e.g. "Trump is ordering the national guard to shoot peaceful protesters", you will find yourself in an infinite loop of disagreement.
Yes I agree that Trump is problematic when it comes to his actions or desired actions against protestors and people practicing free speech.
I disagree that it’s “nitpicking” to insist that people not stretch the truth. It’s really not hard to do. Do you think I could get away with a similar stretching of the truth here?
Saying that Trump gave an order to slaughter peaceful protestors because Pete Hegseth didn’t answer a question is beyond stretching the truth. It plays right into his hands by giving credit to his “fake news” spiel. If Democrats could get their heads out of their asses maybe they would stop losing so many winnable elections.
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On July 10 2025 18:23 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2025 17:17 Magic Powers wrote:
Here BJ lazer focuses on 1% and argues about the 1%, even though the original point can reasonably only be about the 99%, then he denies that it was about the 99% because that'd be an "assumption". And then he draws a false comparison to surgeons (surgeons! In an equivalency to defend Trump, fucking hilarious. Give me a fucking break).
If you don’t understand how analogies work you could just ask and someone would be happy to explain it, I’m sure.
Analogies work, and I understand analogies. Your analogy doesn't work, it's nonsense.
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On July 10 2025 18:31 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2025 17:57 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 10 2025 17:17 Magic Powers wrote:
After years of right-wing denialism, I think it's fair to say BJ does in fact not agree with DPB in spirit. He's done everything other than make overtly clear that he supports Trump's cause and has been consistently flirting with the far-right. The sum of his actions (anti-left propaganda while staying silent on right-wing scandals) leads to this fairly obvious conclusion. I think this is fundamentally misreading BJ's posts. He likes to nitpick and will die on any hill where he's technically correct. If you can get past his adversarial style, he brings in a different perspective on things that I find interesting. I honestly doubt that he would disagree with the statement "It is problematic that Trump thinks it's okay to shoot protestors". But if you frame it differently, e.g. "Trump is ordering the national guard to shoot peaceful protesters", you will find yourself in an infinite loop of disagreement. Yes I agree that Trump is problematic when it comes to his actions or desired actions against protestors and people practicing free speech. I disagree that it’s “nitpicking” to insist that people not stretch the truth. It’s really not hard to do. Do you think I could get away with a similar stretching of the truth here? Saying that Trump gave an order to slaughter peaceful protestors because Pete Hegseth didn’t answer a question is beyond stretching the truth. It plays right into his hands by giving credit to his “fake news” spiel. If Democrats could get their heads out of their asses maybe they would stop losing so many winnable elections.
I think this is a valuable perspective, how one phrases things matters. I find myself doing this when people try to use questionable sources to substantiate important points in their posts. We had some election deniers come through here a while back, and it was illuminating to see where they were getting their information from.
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On July 10 2025 18:31 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2025 17:57 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 10 2025 17:17 Magic Powers wrote:
After years of right-wing denialism, I think it's fair to say BJ does in fact not agree with DPB in spirit. He's done everything other than make overtly clear that he supports Trump's cause and has been consistently flirting with the far-right. The sum of his actions (anti-left propaganda while staying silent on right-wing scandals) leads to this fairly obvious conclusion. I think this is fundamentally misreading BJ's posts. He likes to nitpick and will die on any hill where he's technically correct. If you can get past his adversarial style, he brings in a different perspective on things that I find interesting. I honestly doubt that he would disagree with the statement "It is problematic that Trump thinks it's okay to shoot protestors". But if you frame it differently, e.g. "Trump is ordering the national guard to shoot peaceful protesters", you will find yourself in an infinite loop of disagreement. Yes I agree that Trump is problematic when it comes to his actions or desired actions against protestors and people practicing free speech. I disagree that it’s “nitpicking” to insist that people not stretch the truth. It’s really not hard to do. Do you think I could get away with a similar stretching of the truth here? Saying that Trump gave an order to slaughter peaceful protestors because Pete Hegseth didn’t answer a question is beyond stretching the truth. It plays right into his hands by giving credit to his “fake news” spiel. If Democrats could get their heads out of their asses maybe they would stop losing so many winnable elections.
BJ: "People shouldn't stretch the truth."
Also BJ: "Transgender athletes and cat-eating immigrants and occasional violence among 1% of protesters are real issues, totally not made-up issues, all this definitely needs to be discussed in this thread for the coming days."
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On July 10 2025 13:55 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2025 07:18 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 10 2025 05:54 oBlade wrote:On July 10 2025 04:27 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 10 2025 04:18 oBlade wrote:Absolute fascism. How many total unarmed peaceful protestors have been shot in the at least 3 weeks since the alleged order was given (since that video was posted)? You don't think it's problematic that Trump and Hegseth ordered the military to shoot unarmed, peaceful protesters? Only if the orders are actually carried out? It is made-up bullshit like this that causes actual political violence Dodge acknowledged. Ironically, your sarcastic use of "Absolute fascism" is indeed what Mark Esper sincerely thought, when he cited "authoritarian regimes". But sure, I guess it's no big deal to you; feel free to accuse the other side of political violence instead. "Dodge?" That would be you ignore every basic question
It's wild that you would say this after dodging a very basic question from me, where you seemingly brushed aside fascist intent. Here it is, one last time, in the most general, charitable, let's-even-say-hypothetical-and-remove-Trump-and-Hegseth-altogether form: Would you find it problematic if a political leader was morally okay with using the military to shoot peaceful, unarmed protesters, as a means for quelling disagreement? (A simple Yes or No can suffice as an answer, if you'd like to just give a one-word response. For example, my answer is Yes.)
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On July 10 2025 18:34 Magic Powers wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2025 18:23 BlackJack wrote:On July 10 2025 17:17 Magic Powers wrote:
Here BJ lazer focuses on 1% and argues about the 1%, even though the original point can reasonably only be about the 99%, then he denies that it was about the 99% because that'd be an "assumption". And then he draws a false comparison to surgeons (surgeons! In an equivalency to defend Trump, fucking hilarious. Give me a fucking break).
If you don’t understand how analogies work you could just ask and someone would be happy to explain it, I’m sure. Analogies work, and I understand analogies. Your analogy doesn't work, it's nonsense.
Every "comparison" is false in a trivial sense because it compares something that isn't the exact same.
Your problem with the analogy is you didn't even get to the point of it, you got tripped by that it mentions the field of medicine. The analogy is not calling Trump a surgeon in a way that you need to be astounded at the fact he didn't receive the years of rigorous medical training and years of experience in schooling and residency to get his credentials. That wasn't the point.
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On July 10 2025 18:58 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2025 18:34 Magic Powers wrote:On July 10 2025 18:23 BlackJack wrote:On July 10 2025 17:17 Magic Powers wrote:
Here BJ lazer focuses on 1% and argues about the 1%, even though the original point can reasonably only be about the 99%, then he denies that it was about the 99% because that'd be an "assumption". And then he draws a false comparison to surgeons (surgeons! In an equivalency to defend Trump, fucking hilarious. Give me a fucking break).
If you don’t understand how analogies work you could just ask and someone would be happy to explain it, I’m sure. Analogies work, and I understand analogies. Your analogy doesn't work, it's nonsense. Every "comparison" is false in a trivial sense because it compares something that isn't the exact same. Your problem with the analogy is you didn't even get to the point of it, you got tripped by that it mentions the field of medicine. The analogy is not calling Trump a surgeon in a way that you need to be astounded at the fact he didn't receive the years of rigorous medical training and years of experience in schooling and residency to get his credentials. That wasn't the point.
No, wrong. Comparing Trump to surgeons is just literally always false. Mister "hyper-correctness" BJ should know that, but with his pro-Trump bias he obviously thinks otherwise.
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On July 10 2025 19:04 Magic Powers wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2025 18:58 oBlade wrote:On July 10 2025 18:34 Magic Powers wrote:On July 10 2025 18:23 BlackJack wrote:On July 10 2025 17:17 Magic Powers wrote:
Here BJ lazer focuses on 1% and argues about the 1%, even though the original point can reasonably only be about the 99%, then he denies that it was about the 99% because that'd be an "assumption". And then he draws a false comparison to surgeons (surgeons! In an equivalency to defend Trump, fucking hilarious. Give me a fucking break).
If you don’t understand how analogies work you could just ask and someone would be happy to explain it, I’m sure. Analogies work, and I understand analogies. Your analogy doesn't work, it's nonsense. Every "comparison" is false in a trivial sense because it compares something that isn't the exact same. Your problem with the analogy is you didn't even get to the point of it, you got tripped by that it mentions the field of medicine. The analogy is not calling Trump a surgeon in a way that you need to be astounded at the fact he didn't receive the years of rigorous medical training and years of experience in schooling and residency to get his credentials. That wasn't the point. No, wrong. Comparing Trump to surgeons is just literally always false. Mister "hyper-correctness" BJ should know that, but with his pro-Trump bias he obviously thinks otherwise.
Again, the point was not to compliment Trump by implying he is similar to a surgeon (if you are stuck on the idea surgeon=good). That didn't have a single thing to do with it.
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On July 10 2025 17:36 Magic Powers wrote:The sad truth is that - from an exclusively legal viewpoint - Trump skirted the line perfectly on Jan 6. His inaction spoke much louder than his actions, but he can't be prosecuted for inaction. He also told his supporters to "go home", so it seems impossible to pin him down on this in a court. And that even though in the same breath he also repeatedly lied about the election being stolen. His inaction (such as refusing to explicitly denounce the attack on the capitol) and his lies about the election, that behavior should've strictly disqualified him from a second term. But inaction is... well, that's the trick, right? It creates room for interpretation. It's a simple trick that lets radicals like Trump get away with shit. Legally he's in the clear. Now, he's still a felon. And America voted for a felon. So take it with a grain of salt when I say that America (and especially right-wingers) cares about the law in any meaningful capacity.
To bring this back to the topic of Trump using the National Guard against protesters, Trump made a conscious decision not to use the National Guard to prevent non-peaceful protesters from storming the US Capitol. If we compare and contrast with Trump's use of the National Guard against peaceful protesters in California then a very clear picture emerges: Trump supported the coup.
EDIT:
But you're right that, from a legal point of view, it would be very difficult to prosecute.
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On July 10 2025 19:15 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2025 19:04 Magic Powers wrote:On July 10 2025 18:58 oBlade wrote:On July 10 2025 18:34 Magic Powers wrote:On July 10 2025 18:23 BlackJack wrote:On July 10 2025 17:17 Magic Powers wrote:
Here BJ lazer focuses on 1% and argues about the 1%, even though the original point can reasonably only be about the 99%, then he denies that it was about the 99% because that'd be an "assumption". And then he draws a false comparison to surgeons (surgeons! In an equivalency to defend Trump, fucking hilarious. Give me a fucking break).
If you don’t understand how analogies work you could just ask and someone would be happy to explain it, I’m sure. Analogies work, and I understand analogies. Your analogy doesn't work, it's nonsense. Every "comparison" is false in a trivial sense because it compares something that isn't the exact same. Your problem with the analogy is you didn't even get to the point of it, you got tripped by that it mentions the field of medicine. The analogy is not calling Trump a surgeon in a way that you need to be astounded at the fact he didn't receive the years of rigorous medical training and years of experience in schooling and residency to get his credentials. That wasn't the point. No, wrong. Comparing Trump to surgeons is just literally always false. Mister "hyper-correctness" BJ should know that, but with his pro-Trump bias he obviously thinks otherwise. Again, the point was not to compliment Trump by implying he is similar to a surgeon (if you are stuck on the idea surgeon=good). That didn't have a single thing to do with it.
Surgeons are not just morally above Trump, they're also good at what they do. Trump is an incompetent fascist. He's twice removed from surgeons. No comparison can be made. End of debate.
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On July 10 2025 19:25 MJG wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2025 17:36 Magic Powers wrote:On July 10 2025 16:37 MJG wrote:https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c784ee81y4zoIt's not surprising to see Trump sticking his neck out for Bolsonaro. It seems the difference between Brazil and the United States is that Brazil prosecutes former leaders who attempt a coup. The sad truth is that - from an exclusively legal viewpoint - Trump skirted the line perfectly on Jan 6. His inaction spoke much louder than his actions, but he can't be prosecuted for inaction. He also told his supporters to "go home", so it seems impossible to pin him down on this in a court. And that even though in the same breath he also repeatedly lied about the election being stolen. His inaction (such as refusing to explicitly denounce the attack on the capitol) and his lies about the election, that behavior should've strictly disqualified him from a second term. But inaction is... well, that's the trick, right? It creates room for interpretation. It's a simple trick that lets radicals like Trump get away with shit. Legally he's in the clear. Now, he's still a felon. And America voted for a felon. So take it with a grain of salt when I say that America (and especially right-wingers) cares about the law in any meaningful capacity. To bring this back to the topic of Trump using the National Guard against protesters, Trump made a conscious decision not to use the National Guard to prevent non-peaceful protesters from storming the US Capitol. If we compare and contrast with Trump's use of the National Guard against peaceful protesters in California then a very clear picture emerges: Trump supported the coup. EDIT: But you're right that, from a legal point of view, it would be very difficult to prosecute.
Very good point. Trump is clearly in favor of right-wing insurrectionists when comparing his actions vs his inaction.
I think this is generally what people ought to do when figuring out where people stand politically. Don't just look at what they say and do, also look at what they don't say and do. It paints a much clearer picture.
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On July 10 2025 18:37 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2025 18:31 BlackJack wrote:On July 10 2025 17:57 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 10 2025 17:17 Magic Powers wrote:
After years of right-wing denialism, I think it's fair to say BJ does in fact not agree with DPB in spirit. He's done everything other than make overtly clear that he supports Trump's cause and has been consistently flirting with the far-right. The sum of his actions (anti-left propaganda while staying silent on right-wing scandals) leads to this fairly obvious conclusion. I think this is fundamentally misreading BJ's posts. He likes to nitpick and will die on any hill where he's technically correct. If you can get past his adversarial style, he brings in a different perspective on things that I find interesting. I honestly doubt that he would disagree with the statement "It is problematic that Trump thinks it's okay to shoot protestors". But if you frame it differently, e.g. "Trump is ordering the national guard to shoot peaceful protesters", you will find yourself in an infinite loop of disagreement. Yes I agree that Trump is problematic when it comes to his actions or desired actions against protestors and people practicing free speech. I disagree that it’s “nitpicking” to insist that people not stretch the truth. It’s really not hard to do. Do you think I could get away with a similar stretching of the truth here? Saying that Trump gave an order to slaughter peaceful protestors because Pete Hegseth didn’t answer a question is beyond stretching the truth. It plays right into his hands by giving credit to his “fake news” spiel. If Democrats could get their heads out of their asses maybe they would stop losing so many winnable elections. I think this is a valuable perspective, how one phrases things matters. I find myself doing this when people try to use questionable sources to substantiate important points in their posts. We had some election deniers come through here a while back, and it was illuminating to see where they were getting their information from.
Unfortunately, BlackJack is just as easily susceptible to phrasing things incorrectly and/or uncharitably as well. For example, he just wrote this to you: "Saying that Trump gave an order to slaughter peaceful protestors because Pete Hegseth didn’t answer a question is beyond stretching the truth." Who is BlackJack referring to here, in the underlined portion? Who said that?
It seems that he's implying that I said that, especially based on his aggression towards me a few hours ago, but I sure didn't make that non sequitur he just fabricated, and neither did the video I posted. I didn't say that in my original post, and both the video and my follow-up article credit Esper for saying that Trump gave the order (literally years before Hegseth refused to answer the question about whether or not Hegseth has ever directed the military in a similar fashion).
And if that weren't enough, I made an entire follow-up post further fleshing out the Trump side of things vs. the Hegseth side of things (which I even delineated by underlining the two different sections), which BlackJack has seemingly mashed together into an idea that I think "Trump gave an order ... because Pete Hegseth didn't answer a question." That's ridiculous. Hegseth's recent non-answer could not have possibly caused Trump to do something several years ago. That's not how time or causality work, as far as I can tell.
On the other hand, maybe BlackJack isn't referring to me with this accusation. Or maybe it was an honest mistake on BlackJack's part. Or maybe it was a malicious strawman. I don't know, but even now he's clearly posting things that aren't even "technically correct", which is the phrase you had used that sometimes justifies his nitpicking. Ironically, BlackJack even had the foresight to write "Do you think I could get away with a similar stretching of the truth here?"
And this is how BlackJack (and oBlade) derail a topic. Sigh.
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On July 10 2025 19:31 Magic Powers wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2025 19:15 oBlade wrote:On July 10 2025 19:04 Magic Powers wrote:On July 10 2025 18:58 oBlade wrote:On July 10 2025 18:34 Magic Powers wrote:On July 10 2025 18:23 BlackJack wrote:On July 10 2025 17:17 Magic Powers wrote:
Here BJ lazer focuses on 1% and argues about the 1%, even though the original point can reasonably only be about the 99%, then he denies that it was about the 99% because that'd be an "assumption". And then he draws a false comparison to surgeons (surgeons! In an equivalency to defend Trump, fucking hilarious. Give me a fucking break).
If you don’t understand how analogies work you could just ask and someone would be happy to explain it, I’m sure. Analogies work, and I understand analogies. Your analogy doesn't work, it's nonsense. Every "comparison" is false in a trivial sense because it compares something that isn't the exact same. Your problem with the analogy is you didn't even get to the point of it, you got tripped by that it mentions the field of medicine. The analogy is not calling Trump a surgeon in a way that you need to be astounded at the fact he didn't receive the years of rigorous medical training and years of experience in schooling and residency to get his credentials. That wasn't the point. No, wrong. Comparing Trump to surgeons is just literally always false. Mister "hyper-correctness" BJ should know that, but with his pro-Trump bias he obviously thinks otherwise. Again, the point was not to compliment Trump by implying he is similar to a surgeon (if you are stuck on the idea surgeon=good). That didn't have a single thing to do with it. Surgeons are not just morally above Trump, they're also good at what they do. Trump is an incompetent fascist. He's twice removed from surgeons. No comparison can be made. End of debate.
You're not focusing, buddy.
This is going to be impossible for you to understand but I'm going to use an analogy inside an analogy.
Saying Trump or Hegseth want the army to shoot unarmed peaceful protestors just because, for example, officers shot the guy who opened fire on them in Texas last week, would be like saying: Steve Ballmer wants to wipe all everyone's valuable data and programs off their hard drives, evidenced by he advocated deleting some viruses and worms, which are executable programs, so if he's into deleting those programs he obviously wants to delete all executable programs.
What this analogy is about: Equivocation and blurring categories
What this analogy is not about: The coding skills and computer literacy of Donald J. Trump
Reasons to object to this analogy: Things that are falsely deleted can be recovered or you can reinstall a program that's deleted, whereas you can't reinstall a person shot by police, etc.
Not reasons to object to this analogy: DJT doesn't have an MIT PhD in computer science so he's stupider than software engineers and this analogy was somehow calling him a computer genius (It isn't)
By the way, there's surgeons who cut off the wrong limbs, work for organ traffickers, inscribe their initials inside patients, and oh yeah Mengele. Whoopsie.
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Northern Ireland25172 Posts
On July 10 2025 18:31 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2025 17:57 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 10 2025 17:17 Magic Powers wrote:
After years of right-wing denialism, I think it's fair to say BJ does in fact not agree with DPB in spirit. He's done everything other than make overtly clear that he supports Trump's cause and has been consistently flirting with the far-right. The sum of his actions (anti-left propaganda while staying silent on right-wing scandals) leads to this fairly obvious conclusion. I think this is fundamentally misreading BJ's posts. He likes to nitpick and will die on any hill where he's technically correct. If you can get past his adversarial style, he brings in a different perspective on things that I find interesting. I honestly doubt that he would disagree with the statement "It is problematic that Trump thinks it's okay to shoot protestors". But if you frame it differently, e.g. "Trump is ordering the national guard to shoot peaceful protesters", you will find yourself in an infinite loop of disagreement. Yes I agree that Trump is problematic when it comes to his actions or desired actions against protestors and people practicing free speech. I disagree that it’s “nitpicking” to insist that people not stretch the truth. It’s really not hard to do. Do you think I could get away with a similar stretching of the truth here? Saying that Trump gave an order to slaughter peaceful protestors because Pete Hegseth didn’t answer a question is beyond stretching the truth. It plays right into his hands by giving credit to his “fake news” spiel. If Democrats could get their heads out of their asses maybe they would stop losing so many winnable elections.
Who made the bolded claim?
Where would the truth lie there then? Yeah that particular interpretation is a stretch. Although I think there’s enough breadcrumbs there to paint a picture that’s still pretty bad.
My personal read is that Trump is down for it, but more sensible heads would prevail. Which isn’t ideal but better than the alternative.
Then, going into reading between lines without much evidence, I think is actually potentially more worrying. Whether his desire exists to or not, I actually think Hegseth’s non-answer is to placate the, probably quite large cohorts of people who want pesky protestors shot.
There’s a very easy way for Trump or Hegseth to defuse rampant imaginations, which they choose not to do. They choose not to do so because it is politically harmful for them to do, in their calculations anyway.
It has close to zero to do with why Democrats lose elections IMO. Maybe it does, I have been wrong plenty of times before.
It just seems a pretty consistent cycle of:
A - Anti-Trump claims, some feature hyperbole or exaggeration
B - Enlightened CentristsTM go ‘hey I’m not a fan either, but let’s not exaggerate hey?’
C - Much of what group A were shouting about ends up happening, but not to the degree that was being weren’t.
D - Enlightened CentristsTM go ‘see, I said youse were exaggerating’ and the cycle restarts at whatever next issue is thrown up.
Outside of just non-voting, which is of course impactful as fuck, who’s the potential swing voter here?
They need to be very conflicting things
1. Not put off by Trump’s actual actions enough to not vote for him:
2. Consider bullshit and hyperbole as worse for society and the wider fabric on their moral barometer than other factors.
3. While that being their metric and value system, not notice the metric fuckton of it coming from the right of the ledger.
People are strange, I’m sure this hypothetical person exists, maybe there’s quite a few of them knocking around.
If there’s a crude cohort who are somehow even less effective than the Democratic Party machine it’s Enlightened CentristsTM who exist in some bubble apparently impregnable to alteration with the times.
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On July 10 2025 19:46 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2025 19:31 Magic Powers wrote:On July 10 2025 19:15 oBlade wrote:On July 10 2025 19:04 Magic Powers wrote:On July 10 2025 18:58 oBlade wrote:On July 10 2025 18:34 Magic Powers wrote:On July 10 2025 18:23 BlackJack wrote:On July 10 2025 17:17 Magic Powers wrote:
Here BJ lazer focuses on 1% and argues about the 1%, even though the original point can reasonably only be about the 99%, then he denies that it was about the 99% because that'd be an "assumption". And then he draws a false comparison to surgeons (surgeons! In an equivalency to defend Trump, fucking hilarious. Give me a fucking break).
If you don’t understand how analogies work you could just ask and someone would be happy to explain it, I’m sure. Analogies work, and I understand analogies. Your analogy doesn't work, it's nonsense. Every "comparison" is false in a trivial sense because it compares something that isn't the exact same. Your problem with the analogy is you didn't even get to the point of it, you got tripped by that it mentions the field of medicine. The analogy is not calling Trump a surgeon in a way that you need to be astounded at the fact he didn't receive the years of rigorous medical training and years of experience in schooling and residency to get his credentials. That wasn't the point. No, wrong. Comparing Trump to surgeons is just literally always false. Mister "hyper-correctness" BJ should know that, but with his pro-Trump bias he obviously thinks otherwise. Again, the point was not to compliment Trump by implying he is similar to a surgeon (if you are stuck on the idea surgeon=good). That didn't have a single thing to do with it. Surgeons are not just morally above Trump, they're also good at what they do. Trump is an incompetent fascist. He's twice removed from surgeons. No comparison can be made. End of debate. You're not focusing, buddy. This is going to be impossible for you to understand but I'm going to use an analogy inside an analogy. Saying Trump or Hegseth want the army to shoot unarmed peaceful protestors just because, for example, officers shot the guy who opened fire on them in Texas last week, would be like saying: Steve Ballmer wants to wipe all everyone's valuable data and programs off their hard drives, evidenced by he advocated deleting some viruses and worms, which are executable programs, so if he's into deleting those programs he obviously wants to delete all executable programs. What this analogy is about: Equivocation and blurring categories What this analogy is not about: The coding skills and computer literacy of Donald J. Trump Reasons to object to this analogy: Things that are falsely deleted can be recovered or you can reinstall a program that's deleted, whereas you can't reinstall a person shot by police, etc.Not reasons to object to this analogy: DJT doesn't have an MIT PhD in computer science so he's stupider than software engineers and this analogy was somehow calling him a computer genius (It isn't) By the way, there's surgeons who cut off the wrong limbs, work for organ traffickers, inscribe their initials inside patients, and oh yeah Mengele. Whoopsie.
By the way, there are politicians who speak the truth, work for the people of America, threaten no violence, and oh yeah Cofveve. Whoopsie.
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On July 10 2025 19:39 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2025 18:37 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 10 2025 18:31 BlackJack wrote:On July 10 2025 17:57 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 10 2025 17:17 Magic Powers wrote:
After years of right-wing denialism, I think it's fair to say BJ does in fact not agree with DPB in spirit. He's done everything other than make overtly clear that he supports Trump's cause and has been consistently flirting with the far-right. The sum of his actions (anti-left propaganda while staying silent on right-wing scandals) leads to this fairly obvious conclusion. I think this is fundamentally misreading BJ's posts. He likes to nitpick and will die on any hill where he's technically correct. If you can get past his adversarial style, he brings in a different perspective on things that I find interesting. I honestly doubt that he would disagree with the statement "It is problematic that Trump thinks it's okay to shoot protestors". But if you frame it differently, e.g. "Trump is ordering the national guard to shoot peaceful protesters", you will find yourself in an infinite loop of disagreement. Yes I agree that Trump is problematic when it comes to his actions or desired actions against protestors and people practicing free speech. I disagree that it’s “nitpicking” to insist that people not stretch the truth. It’s really not hard to do. Do you think I could get away with a similar stretching of the truth here? Saying that Trump gave an order to slaughter peaceful protestors because Pete Hegseth didn’t answer a question is beyond stretching the truth. It plays right into his hands by giving credit to his “fake news” spiel. If Democrats could get their heads out of their asses maybe they would stop losing so many winnable elections. I think this is a valuable perspective, how one phrases things matters. I find myself doing this when people try to use questionable sources to substantiate important points in their posts. We had some election deniers come through here a while back, and it was illuminating to see where they were getting their information from. Unfortunately, BlackJack is just as easily susceptible to phrasing things incorrectly and/or uncharitably as well. For example, he just wrote this to you: " Saying that Trump gave an order to slaughter peaceful protestors because Pete Hegseth didn’t answer a question is beyond stretching the truth." Who is BlackJack referring to here, in the underlined portion? Who said that? It seems that he's implying that I said that, especially based on his aggression towards me a few hours ago, but I sure didn't make that non sequitur he just fabricated, and neither did the video I posted. I didn't say that in my original post, and both the video and my follow-up article credit Esper for saying that Trump gave the order (literally years before Hegseth refused to answer the question about whether or not Hegseth has ever directed the military in a similar fashion). And if that weren't enough, I made an entire follow-up post further fleshing out the Trump side of things vs. the Hegseth side of things (which I even delineated by underlining the two different sections), which BlackJack has seemingly mashed together into an idea that I think "Trump gave an order ... because Pete Hegseth didn't answer a question." That's ridiculous. Hegseth's recent non-answer could not have possibly caused Trump to do something several years ago. That's not how time or causality work, as far as I can tell. On the other hand, maybe BlackJack isn't referring to me with this accusation. Or maybe it was an honest mistake on BlackJack's part. Or maybe it was a malicious strawman. I don't know, but even now he's clearly posting things that aren't even "technically correct", which is the phrase you had used that sometimes justifies his nitpicking. Ironically, BlackJack even had the foresight to write "Do you think I could get away with a similar stretching of the truth here?" And this is how BlackJack (and oBlade) derail a topic. Sigh.
I'm not really defending BJ, he can fight his own battles. I am just saying that if you can get past the adversarial style, his perspective can help you see why some people view things differently.
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On July 10 2025 19:39 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2025 18:37 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 10 2025 18:31 BlackJack wrote:On July 10 2025 17:57 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 10 2025 17:17 Magic Powers wrote:
After years of right-wing denialism, I think it's fair to say BJ does in fact not agree with DPB in spirit. He's done everything other than make overtly clear that he supports Trump's cause and has been consistently flirting with the far-right. The sum of his actions (anti-left propaganda while staying silent on right-wing scandals) leads to this fairly obvious conclusion. I think this is fundamentally misreading BJ's posts. He likes to nitpick and will die on any hill where he's technically correct. If you can get past his adversarial style, he brings in a different perspective on things that I find interesting. I honestly doubt that he would disagree with the statement "It is problematic that Trump thinks it's okay to shoot protestors". But if you frame it differently, e.g. "Trump is ordering the national guard to shoot peaceful protesters", you will find yourself in an infinite loop of disagreement. Yes I agree that Trump is problematic when it comes to his actions or desired actions against protestors and people practicing free speech. I disagree that it’s “nitpicking” to insist that people not stretch the truth. It’s really not hard to do. Do you think I could get away with a similar stretching of the truth here? Saying that Trump gave an order to slaughter peaceful protestors because Pete Hegseth didn’t answer a question is beyond stretching the truth. It plays right into his hands by giving credit to his “fake news” spiel. If Democrats could get their heads out of their asses maybe they would stop losing so many winnable elections. I think this is a valuable perspective, how one phrases things matters. I find myself doing this when people try to use questionable sources to substantiate important points in their posts. We had some election deniers come through here a while back, and it was illuminating to see where they were getting their information from. Unfortunately, BlackJack is just as easily susceptible to phrasing things incorrectly and/or uncharitably as well. For example, he just wrote this to you: " Saying that Trump gave an order to slaughter peaceful protestors because Pete Hegseth didn’t answer a question is beyond stretching the truth." Who is BlackJack referring to here, in the underlined portion? Who said that? It seems that he's implying that I said that, especially based on his aggression towards me a few hours ago, but I sure didn't make that non sequitur he just fabricated, and neither did the video I posted. I didn't say that in my original post, and both the video and my follow-up article credit Esper for saying that Trump gave the order (literally years before Hegseth refused to answer the question about whether or not Hegseth has ever directed the military in a similar fashion). And if that weren't enough, I made an entire follow-up post further fleshing out the Trump side of things vs. the Hegseth side of things (which I even delineated by underlining the two different sections), which BlackJack has seemingly mashed together into an idea that I think "Trump gave an order ... because Pete Hegseth didn't answer a question." That's ridiculous. Hegseth's recent non-answer could not have possibly caused Trump to do something several years ago. That's not how time or causality work, as far as I can tell. On the other hand, maybe BlackJack isn't referring to me with this accusation. Or maybe it was an honest mistake on BlackJack's part. Or maybe it was a malicious strawman. I don't know, but even now he's clearly posting things that aren't even "technically correct", which is the phrase you had used that sometimes justifies his nitpicking. Ironically, BlackJack even had the foresight to write "Do you think I could get away with a similar stretching of the truth here?" And this is how BlackJack (and oBlade) derail a topic. Sigh.
It is definitely honest mistakes on BJ's part. That's what living in a cult does. People are honestly and sincerely arguing in bad faith. They don't realize they're doing it because they're in a cult which makes them jump through all the mental hoops to arrive at far-fetched conclusions. This is why they are projecting so hard - because if they had to admit to being wrong once, that would be based on good faith reasoning, which would then lead to them admitting being wrong multiple times, which would then break their entire illusion. And so they can't ever admit to being wrong about anything no matter how obvious it is to everyone outside of their cult.
Projecting their bad faith onto others is therefore a fundamental requirement to sustain their cult behavior.
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On July 10 2025 19:59 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2025 19:39 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 10 2025 18:37 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 10 2025 18:31 BlackJack wrote:On July 10 2025 17:57 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 10 2025 17:17 Magic Powers wrote:
After years of right-wing denialism, I think it's fair to say BJ does in fact not agree with DPB in spirit. He's done everything other than make overtly clear that he supports Trump's cause and has been consistently flirting with the far-right. The sum of his actions (anti-left propaganda while staying silent on right-wing scandals) leads to this fairly obvious conclusion. I think this is fundamentally misreading BJ's posts. He likes to nitpick and will die on any hill where he's technically correct. If you can get past his adversarial style, he brings in a different perspective on things that I find interesting. I honestly doubt that he would disagree with the statement "It is problematic that Trump thinks it's okay to shoot protestors". But if you frame it differently, e.g. "Trump is ordering the national guard to shoot peaceful protesters", you will find yourself in an infinite loop of disagreement. Yes I agree that Trump is problematic when it comes to his actions or desired actions against protestors and people practicing free speech. I disagree that it’s “nitpicking” to insist that people not stretch the truth. It’s really not hard to do. Do you think I could get away with a similar stretching of the truth here? Saying that Trump gave an order to slaughter peaceful protestors because Pete Hegseth didn’t answer a question is beyond stretching the truth. It plays right into his hands by giving credit to his “fake news” spiel. If Democrats could get their heads out of their asses maybe they would stop losing so many winnable elections. I think this is a valuable perspective, how one phrases things matters. I find myself doing this when people try to use questionable sources to substantiate important points in their posts. We had some election deniers come through here a while back, and it was illuminating to see where they were getting their information from. Unfortunately, BlackJack is just as easily susceptible to phrasing things incorrectly and/or uncharitably as well. For example, he just wrote this to you: " Saying that Trump gave an order to slaughter peaceful protestors because Pete Hegseth didn’t answer a question is beyond stretching the truth." Who is BlackJack referring to here, in the underlined portion? Who said that? It seems that he's implying that I said that, especially based on his aggression towards me a few hours ago, but I sure didn't make that non sequitur he just fabricated, and neither did the video I posted. I didn't say that in my original post, and both the video and my follow-up article credit Esper for saying that Trump gave the order (literally years before Hegseth refused to answer the question about whether or not Hegseth has ever directed the military in a similar fashion). And if that weren't enough, I made an entire follow-up post further fleshing out the Trump side of things vs. the Hegseth side of things (which I even delineated by underlining the two different sections), which BlackJack has seemingly mashed together into an idea that I think "Trump gave an order ... because Pete Hegseth didn't answer a question." That's ridiculous. Hegseth's recent non-answer could not have possibly caused Trump to do something several years ago. That's not how time or causality work, as far as I can tell. On the other hand, maybe BlackJack isn't referring to me with this accusation. Or maybe it was an honest mistake on BlackJack's part. Or maybe it was a malicious strawman. I don't know, but even now he's clearly posting things that aren't even "technically correct", which is the phrase you had used that sometimes justifies his nitpicking. Ironically, BlackJack even had the foresight to write "Do you think I could get away with a similar stretching of the truth here?" And this is how BlackJack (and oBlade) derail a topic. Sigh. I'm not really defending BJ, he can fight his own battles. I am just saying that if you can get past the adversarial style, his perspective can help you see why some people view things differently.
Perspectives based off of misinformation and bad faith takes are valuable in the same way stab wounds are valuable to someone doing an autopsy, if that's what you mean.
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On July 10 2025 19:59 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2025 19:39 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 10 2025 18:37 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 10 2025 18:31 BlackJack wrote:On July 10 2025 17:57 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 10 2025 17:17 Magic Powers wrote:
After years of right-wing denialism, I think it's fair to say BJ does in fact not agree with DPB in spirit. He's done everything other than make overtly clear that he supports Trump's cause and has been consistently flirting with the far-right. The sum of his actions (anti-left propaganda while staying silent on right-wing scandals) leads to this fairly obvious conclusion. I think this is fundamentally misreading BJ's posts. He likes to nitpick and will die on any hill where he's technically correct. If you can get past his adversarial style, he brings in a different perspective on things that I find interesting. I honestly doubt that he would disagree with the statement "It is problematic that Trump thinks it's okay to shoot protestors". But if you frame it differently, e.g. "Trump is ordering the national guard to shoot peaceful protesters", you will find yourself in an infinite loop of disagreement. Yes I agree that Trump is problematic when it comes to his actions or desired actions against protestors and people practicing free speech. I disagree that it’s “nitpicking” to insist that people not stretch the truth. It’s really not hard to do. Do you think I could get away with a similar stretching of the truth here? Saying that Trump gave an order to slaughter peaceful protestors because Pete Hegseth didn’t answer a question is beyond stretching the truth. It plays right into his hands by giving credit to his “fake news” spiel. If Democrats could get their heads out of their asses maybe they would stop losing so many winnable elections. I think this is a valuable perspective, how one phrases things matters. I find myself doing this when people try to use questionable sources to substantiate important points in their posts. We had some election deniers come through here a while back, and it was illuminating to see where they were getting their information from. Unfortunately, BlackJack is just as easily susceptible to phrasing things incorrectly and/or uncharitably as well. For example, he just wrote this to you: " Saying that Trump gave an order to slaughter peaceful protestors because Pete Hegseth didn’t answer a question is beyond stretching the truth." Who is BlackJack referring to here, in the underlined portion? Who said that? It seems that he's implying that I said that, especially based on his aggression towards me a few hours ago, but I sure didn't make that non sequitur he just fabricated, and neither did the video I posted. I didn't say that in my original post, and both the video and my follow-up article credit Esper for saying that Trump gave the order (literally years before Hegseth refused to answer the question about whether or not Hegseth has ever directed the military in a similar fashion). And if that weren't enough, I made an entire follow-up post further fleshing out the Trump side of things vs. the Hegseth side of things (which I even delineated by underlining the two different sections), which BlackJack has seemingly mashed together into an idea that I think "Trump gave an order ... because Pete Hegseth didn't answer a question." That's ridiculous. Hegseth's recent non-answer could not have possibly caused Trump to do something several years ago. That's not how time or causality work, as far as I can tell. On the other hand, maybe BlackJack isn't referring to me with this accusation. Or maybe it was an honest mistake on BlackJack's part. Or maybe it was a malicious strawman. I don't know, but even now he's clearly posting things that aren't even "technically correct", which is the phrase you had used that sometimes justifies his nitpicking. Ironically, BlackJack even had the foresight to write "Do you think I could get away with a similar stretching of the truth here?" And this is how BlackJack (and oBlade) derail a topic. Sigh. I'm not really defending BJ, he can fight his own battles. I am just saying that if you can get past the adversarial style, his perspective can help you see why some people view things differently.
I don't mind adversarial styles, as long as they lead to substantive dialogue instead of just starting shit and derailing topics. For example, BlackJack's first response to me on this topic was this:
"I'm curious why you keep deciding to add "peaceful" in there when it's not even something she said. Or why you plainly state that he gave the order to shoot peaceful protestors when he didn't even answer the question. Are you unwilling or just incapable of being accurate?"
That was his entire post, and I thought that two out of those three sentences warranted a response. I was happy to ignore his third sentence (the inflammatory accusation) and engage with him on the first two sentences, because those two were reasonable and could potentially lead to a conversation. I responded to both of those sentences... but then the majority of his next response to me was him freaking out about how we're all so unfair to him. At that point, it was clear to me that a productive dialogue with BlackJack wasn't going to be possible.
"His perspective" - "how one phrases things matters", as you put it, earlier - isn't a new or unique revelation that BlackJack is productively bringing to the table. Most people have that same perspective, and BlackJack certainly doesn't epitomize careful word choice. In fact, a candidate for the least careful word choice in this whole discussion is when BlackJack wrote that I (or, I guess, some mystery person) said "Trump gave an order to slaughter peaceful protestors because Pete Hegseth didn’t answer a question". I could have just responded to that with something flippant and aggressive like BlackJack's "Are you unwilling or just incapable of being accurate?", but instead I laid out why BlackJack's accusation is factually inaccurate and misrepresentative.
The reason why I have issues with some of BlackJack's posting isn't because he's adversarial (and it's not because he's a big meanie or that he's dropping cold, hard truths that I just can't deal with because I'm too fragile); it's because there's often nothing substantive behind his aggression. Sometimes he might be a correct jerk, but there are plenty of instances where he's both a jerk and incorrect, and that's where I have the biggest issues.
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On July 10 2025 16:37 MJG wrote:https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c784ee81y4zoIt's not surprising to see Trump sticking his neck out for Bolsonaro. It seems the difference between Brazil and the United States is that Brazil prosecutes former leaders who attempt a coup.
And it does that despite being as corrupt as corrupt gets.
But i'm (very) unsure if it achieved that because it's system is working or the other side just paid the people more to get the desired result because Lula isn't exactly a saint either...
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EPT
