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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread |
On July 11 2025 01:04 KwarK wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Sometimes someone will say something stupid but I don’t need to call it out because BlackJack already has. That’s on the plus side of the ledger. But on the other side sometimes the person saying something stupid is BlackJack. Ultimately we have to keep our expectations from this topic reasonable. All of us are wasting every second we spend here. Considering its a gaming site, in one sense, its entire existence and all the time/effort put into it is a wasting of time. In another sense, it's been a hub of community, entertainment, education, professional/personal development, and a priceless resource in the general maturation for countless people over the decades.
The political part of that is hard and messy and it's easier to just throw one's hands up in exasperation while proclaiming it's all just a waste of time.
I think most, if not all of us that are still kicking around here, have the capacity to be better than that when we face this rising tide of fascism. I believe we owe future generations at least that much.
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United States42649 Posts
On July 11 2025 02:13 GreenHorizons wrote:
I think most, if not all of us that are still kicking around here, have the capacity to be better than that when we face this rising tide of fascism. I believe we owe future generations at least that much.
Sure, if contributions to this forum represented the totality of all efforts to fight fascism or climate change or world hunger or whatever then that would certainly be an insufficient effort.
I don't think it does though and so I don't think measuring the success of forum posts against that specific goal is the correct approach.
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On July 11 2025 02:18 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 02:13 GreenHorizons wrote:
Considering its a gaming site, in one sense, its entire existence and all the time/effort put into it is a wasting of time. In another sense, it's been a hub of community, entertainment, education, professional/personal development, and a priceless resource in the general maturation for countless people over the decades.
The political part of that is hard and messy and it's easier to just throw one's hands up in exasperation while proclaiming it's all just a waste of time.
I think most, if not all of us that are still kicking around here, have the capacity to be better than that when we face this rising tide of fascism. I believe we owe future generations at least that much. Sure, if contributions to this forum represented the totality of all efforts to fight fascism or climate change or world hunger or whatever then that would certainly be an insufficient effort. I don't think it does though and so I don't think measuring the success of forum posts against that specific goal is the correct approach.
I agree.
Our contributions should be representative though. As in we all benefit from our contributions being more demonstrative of our efforts and less venty.
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On July 09 2025 23:18 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2025 22:02 Gorsameth wrote:give it a few days before they get back in line and start defending it. Happens every time. Trump's going to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell. Half of conservatives will be outraged for a day or two (the length of their attention span), half of conservatives will trip over themselves to praise Trump for being brave enough to finally end this controversy.
In case you thought I was joking, this just broke today: Trump Held Talks on Pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell: Biographer
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On July 10 2025 19:58 WombaT 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. Who made the bolded claim?
Right here:
He says Trump and Hegseth gave direct orders to shoot unarmed peaceful protestors and his source included in the post is a video Pete Hegseth refusing to answer a question.
Now DPB is insisting he was talking about something Trump said years ago which rings untrue since he included Hegseth as giving direct orders to shoot protestors. So even if we buy his excuse that he wa talking about something Trump said years ago, what is his evidence that Hegseth gave direct orders to shoot peaceful protestors outside of Hegseth refusing to answer a question??
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On July 11 2025 03:12 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2025 23:18 LightSpectra wrote:On July 09 2025 22:02 Gorsameth wrote:give it a few days before they get back in line and start defending it. Happens every time. Trump's going to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell. Half of conservatives will be outraged for a day or two (the length of their attention span), half of conservatives will trip over themselves to praise Trump for being brave enough to finally end this controversy. In case you thought I was joking, this just broke today: Trump Held Talks on Pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell: Biographer
Some of the MAGA people losing their minds on it are starting to post the videos of Trump talking about maybe not releasing Epstein list because "it might hurt people and there could be phony stuff in there" and then also lots of why is Ghislaine in jail if there was no clients?
People should not underestimate how seismic this decision to say there was a list about to be released and was on the AD's desk to J/K no list. Million of Americans were waiting for this big moment to show they were "right" about everything. And all these influencers have no idea how to spin this when they made this the biggest of all bigs and there hero Trump was going to do it. They have there head of the FBI, their head of the DOJ, their supreme court, there senate, their congress, their President. They can't even figure out how to blame the Dems. It is quite the pressure cooker.
I'm expecting Trump starting some big controversy that those types really like to deflect but this is a hard one. You can have Charlie Kirk blame DEI for the floods and a bunch of them say yep. This one is not so easy.
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On July 11 2025 03:12 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2025 23:18 LightSpectra wrote:On July 09 2025 22:02 Gorsameth wrote:give it a few days before they get back in line and start defending it. Happens every time. Trump's going to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell. Half of conservatives will be outraged for a day or two (the length of their attention span), half of conservatives will trip over themselves to praise Trump for being brave enough to finally end this controversy. In case you thought I was joking, this just broke today: Trump Held Talks on Pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell: Biographer
I'm starting to lose track of what exactly it is (besides a barely tenable negative peace [that requires disregarding a bunch of violence against vulnerable people domestically and around the world]), we're preserving by pretending the US is a "nation of laws" in the face of constant reminders that it isn't.
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On July 10 2025 22:57 Magic Powers wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2025 22:11 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 10 2025 21:05 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 10 2025 19:59 EnDeR_ wrote: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. I think it depends what you are trying to get out of the conversation. I've had more than a few of his posts where I've gone, "well, I hadn't considered that". The trick is to move the conversation beyond the nitpicking, because that's just an infinite loop. BJ doesn't let you move past the nitpicking. He'll rub it in your face until you say something that he interprets in bad faith and the cycle continues. If you try to break the cycle he considers that a W and he'll use every opportunity to remind you of his W regardless of how bad his interpretation was to begin with. If you ignore him he'll use insults and ad homs to get under your skin until you have enough and call him out. Then he'll act upset over your alleged hypocrisy and he'll remind you again of his big W. And so on and so forth. It never ends. The only solution is to not put anywhere near as much effort into your responses to him as he does to yours. Just call out his shit and let him blabber on until his face turns green. Use the opportunity to spread accurate information while he's busy looking for another big W.
The reason there is no moving past is because you double and triple down on ridiculous takes for absolutely no reason. We're still talking about the surgeon/Trump thing many hours later.
It's a very simple point. Your argument was that if Trump gives an order to shoot protestors he must be talking about peaceful protestors because 99% of protestors are peaceful. I showed the error in that logic by making the analogy that if a surgeon orders limbs to be amputated he must be talking about healthy limbs because 99% of limbs are healthy.
Instead of addressing the analogy head on and pointing out any flaws in it you want to insist that I'm making an equivalence between Trump and surgeons and you want to argue the moral goodness of Trump vs surgeons.
Now Simberto has weighed in that not all surgeons are morally good and he references the Nazi surgeons that experimented on death camp prisoners. FWIW, I've also heard that surgeons have higher levels of psychopathy than other professions.
But that's besides the point. The point is we're now discussing the "moral goodness" of surgeons all because you don't know how to respond to an analogy. Then I get blamed for derailing the thread as if I'm personally steering the conversation into a "morality of surgeons" debate in order to run interference for Trump.
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On July 11 2025 03:21 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2025 19:58 WombaT 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. Who made the bolded claim? Right here: He says Trump and Hegseth gave direct orders to shoot unarmed peaceful protestors and his source included in the post is a video Pete Hegseth refusing to answer a question. Now DPB is insisting he was talking about something Trump said years ago which rings untrue since he included Hegseth as giving direct orders to shoot protestors. So even if we buy his excuse that he wa talking about something Trump said years ago, what is his evidence that Hegseth gave direct orders to shoot peaceful protestors outside of Hegseth refusing to answer a question??
You essentially had a chance to clarify and say that your misinterpretation was just a mistake, but with you doubling down like this, it's now undeniable that you're operating in bad faith. You just posted me *not* saying what you asserted I had said in Wombat's bolded text. My post is clearly *not* saying "Trump gave an order to slaughter peaceful protestors because Pete Hegseth didn’t answer a question". Neither my post's writing nor the included video support that assertion of yours, and in fact the writing and video both contradict the causality part of your assertion. You're digging yourself a deeper hole.
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On July 11 2025 03:41 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 03:12 LightSpectra wrote:On July 09 2025 23:18 LightSpectra wrote:On July 09 2025 22:02 Gorsameth wrote:give it a few days before they get back in line and start defending it. Happens every time. Trump's going to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell. Half of conservatives will be outraged for a day or two (the length of their attention span), half of conservatives will trip over themselves to praise Trump for being brave enough to finally end this controversy. In case you thought I was joking, this just broke today: Trump Held Talks on Pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell: Biographer I'm starting to lose track of what exactly it is (besides a barely tenable negative peace [that requires disregarding a bunch of violence against vulnerable people domestically and around the world]), we're preserving by pretending the US is a "nation of laws" in the face of constant reminders that it isn't.
It's not a uniquely American problem. Centimillionaires and billionaires regularly evade just consequences no matter what country they're in. Obscene wealth inequality is inherently immoral and a risk to security of any state, the faster people realize that the faster we'll be able to fix it.
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On July 11 2025 03:21 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2025 19:58 WombaT 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. Who made the bolded claim? Right here: He says Trump and Hegseth gave direct orders to shoot unarmed peaceful protestors and his source included in the post is a video Pete Hegseth refusing to answer a question. Now DPB is insisting he was talking about something Trump said years ago which rings untrue since he included Hegseth as giving direct orders to shoot protestors. So even if we buy his excuse that he wa talking about something Trump said years ago, what is his evidence that Hegseth gave direct orders to shoot peaceful protestors outside of Hegseth refusing to answer a question??
ctrl-f "Slaughter"
Hmm...
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On July 11 2025 04:15 Fleetfeet wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 03:21 BlackJack wrote:On July 10 2025 19:58 WombaT 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. Who made the bolded claim? Right here: He says Trump and Hegseth gave direct orders to shoot unarmed peaceful protestors and his source included in the post is a video Pete Hegseth refusing to answer a question. Now DPB is insisting he was talking about something Trump said years ago which rings untrue since he included Hegseth as giving direct orders to shoot protestors. So even if we buy his excuse that he wa talking about something Trump said years ago, what is his evidence that Hegseth gave direct orders to shoot peaceful protestors outside of Hegseth refusing to answer a question?? ctrl-f "Slaughter" Hmm...
That *and* the causality ("because") part.
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On July 11 2025 04:20 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 04:15 Fleetfeet wrote:On July 11 2025 03:21 BlackJack wrote:On July 10 2025 19:58 WombaT 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. Who made the bolded claim? Right here: He says Trump and Hegseth gave direct orders to shoot unarmed peaceful protestors and his source included in the post is a video Pete Hegseth refusing to answer a question. Now DPB is insisting he was talking about something Trump said years ago which rings untrue since he included Hegseth as giving direct orders to shoot protestors. So even if we buy his excuse that he wa talking about something Trump said years ago, what is his evidence that Hegseth gave direct orders to shoot peaceful protestors outside of Hegseth refusing to answer a question?? ctrl-f "Slaughter" Hmm... That *and* the causality ("because") part.
Mostly I agree with BJ. When he says you said Trump gave a direct order allowing the US gestapo to skullfuck protesters, starting with the most peaceful, he was exactly right. Especially since it was preceded by a rant about the accuracy of words.
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On July 11 2025 04:20 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 04:15 Fleetfeet wrote:On July 11 2025 03:21 BlackJack wrote:On July 10 2025 19:58 WombaT 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. Who made the bolded claim? Right here: He says Trump and Hegseth gave direct orders to shoot unarmed peaceful protestors and his source included in the post is a video Pete Hegseth refusing to answer a question. Now DPB is insisting he was talking about something Trump said years ago which rings untrue since he included Hegseth as giving direct orders to shoot protestors. So even if we buy his excuse that he wa talking about something Trump said years ago, what is his evidence that Hegseth gave direct orders to shoot peaceful protestors outside of Hegseth refusing to answer a question?? ctrl-f "Slaughter" Hmm... That *and* the causality ("because") part.
I think it's fairly obvious that the "because Hegseth refused to answer a question" was an inference I made from your post and not something I said that you said. You're the one that added quotation marks to it as if I was quoting you.
Do you have any evidence that Hegseth gave orders to shoot unarmed peaceful protestors outside of him refusing to answer the question?
Because if you don't then it's reasonable to conclude that you believe he gave those orders "because he refused to answer a question" about it.
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On July 11 2025 04:30 Fleetfeet wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 04:20 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 11 2025 04:15 Fleetfeet wrote:On July 11 2025 03:21 BlackJack wrote:On July 10 2025 19:58 WombaT 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. Who made the bolded claim? Right here: He says Trump and Hegseth gave direct orders to shoot unarmed peaceful protestors and his source included in the post is a video Pete Hegseth refusing to answer a question. Now DPB is insisting he was talking about something Trump said years ago which rings untrue since he included Hegseth as giving direct orders to shoot protestors. So even if we buy his excuse that he wa talking about something Trump said years ago, what is his evidence that Hegseth gave direct orders to shoot peaceful protestors outside of Hegseth refusing to answer a question?? ctrl-f "Slaughter" Hmm... That *and* the causality ("because") part. Mostly I agree with BJ. When he says you said Trump gave a direct order allowing the US gestapo to skullfuck protesters, starting with the most peaceful, he was exactly right. Especially since it was preceded by a rant about the accuracy of words.
See, that's the kind of bold embellishment we need from him! If he's gonna lie, he should just be as insane as possible. Trump levels of delusion.
Edit:
And in his post above, BlackJack literally swaps out "Trump" for "Hegseth", perhaps trying to retcon his original misinterpretation (which he finally admits is his own inference and not a direct statement from anyone else anymore, despite it already being contradicted by the original video and by the fact that Trump doing something in the past couldn't have been caused by Hegseth doing something years later).
BJ now mentions Hegseth and then writes "it's reasonable to conclude that you believe he gave those orders "because he refused to answer a question" about it." Except, of course, all along BJ has been saying that Trump gave the orders because of Hegseth's non-answer, not that Hegseth gave the orders because of his own non-answer. I see his swapping of "Trump" for "Hegseth" as a tripling down of malicious behavior.
In fact, BJ has completely removed Trump altogether:
On July 11 2025 04:47 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 04:20 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 11 2025 04:15 Fleetfeet wrote:On July 11 2025 03:21 BlackJack wrote:On July 10 2025 19:58 WombaT 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. Who made the bolded claim? Right here: He says Trump and Hegseth gave direct orders to shoot unarmed peaceful protestors and his source included in the post is a video Pete Hegseth refusing to answer a question. Now DPB is insisting he was talking about something Trump said years ago which rings untrue since he included Hegseth as giving direct orders to shoot protestors. So even if we buy his excuse that he wa talking about something Trump said years ago, what is his evidence that Hegseth gave direct orders to shoot peaceful protestors outside of Hegseth refusing to answer a question?? ctrl-f "Slaughter" Hmm... That *and* the causality ("because") part. I think it's fairly obvious that the "because Hegseth refused to answer a question" was an inference I made from your post and not something I said that you said. You're the one that added quotation marks to it as if I was quoting you. Do you have any evidence that Hegseth gave orders to shoot unarmed peaceful protestors outside of him refusing to answer the question? Because if you don't then it's reasonable to conclude that you believe he gave those orders "because he refused to answer a question" about it.
That's a completely different person than who is mentioned in BJ's original misinterpretation, where he first started with this Hegseth-caused-Trump-to-do-something nonsense:
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.
And, of course, Trump allegedly mentioned shooting protesters years before Hegseth gave his non-answer, so there's no way that Hegseth's recent non-answer could have caused Trump to do something in the past.
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On July 11 2025 03:48 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 03:21 BlackJack wrote:On July 10 2025 19:58 WombaT 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. Who made the bolded claim? Right here: He says Trump and Hegseth gave direct orders to shoot unarmed peaceful protestors and his source included in the post is a video Pete Hegseth refusing to answer a question. Now DPB is insisting he was talking about something Trump said years ago which rings untrue since he included Hegseth as giving direct orders to shoot protestors. So even if we buy his excuse that he wa talking about something Trump said years ago, what is his evidence that Hegseth gave direct orders to shoot peaceful protestors outside of Hegseth refusing to answer a question?? You essentially had a chance to clarify and say that your misinterpretation was just a mistake, but with you doubling down like this, it's now undeniable that you're operating in bad faith. You just posted me *not* saying what you asserted I had said in Wombat's bolded text. My post is clearly *not* saying "Trump gave an order to slaughter peaceful protestors because Pete Hegseth didn’t answer a question". Neither my post's writing nor the included video support that assertion of yours, and in fact the writing and video both contradict the causality part of your assertion. You're digging yourself a deeper hole.
There is not really an alternate interpretation that makes your claim look much more reasonable. I think you talking about BlackJack more than talking about what you actually think now is a tacit admission of that.
You said two people issued direct orders to shoot unarmed, peaceful protestors.
Your source for Hegseth doing it, is a video where he doesn't say he didn't do it.
Your source for Trump doing it is an interview with a fired guy who wrote a book claiming something that everyone else who was there said didn't happen, and the quote was "Can't you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something."
That's it. This is your provided quote, I didn't read Esper's book. Even if that quote were credibly 100% verbatim, it is not direct, and it's not an order. And it does not necessarily refer to the unarmed/peaceful. It could be spitballing, thinking aloud, venting, could be talking about rubber bullets, and could most of all be manufactured.
You don't want BlackJack to think he can disprove the latter by saying your only evidence for it was the former. Sure. Unfortunately, you first muddied the water when you put the two alleged issues, one from DC in 2020 and one from LA last month, together. Hegseth laughing and saying to believe the Bible and not believe Esper's book, which you also specifically made light of, was presumably part of your gut feeling for believing one or both of them had done what you said.
There is nothing wrong with thinking Blumpf and/or Hegseth are fascist. The phrase direct order is a serious factual claim. As a serious claim, it thus needs evidence and will be challenged, or else if unable to hold up to scrutiny, it needs the person making it to be able to simply realize they were reaching with that particular phrasing and move on to the more tangible aspects that concern them.
For example, saying Blumpf is a retard for asking why hurricanes can't just be nuked, is different than saying it appears he issued a direct order to launch an ICBM at Irma.
The reason one is asked for evidence (aka "sealioning") with more vigilance is that it trespasses on reality. In both cases, we can look back in time. Was Irma nuked? No. Is there evidence of an order to nuke being issued, but not followed? Did SecDef sign off on the nuke, which is necessary as even the president doesn't have sole control, it's 2 people at every level? No. Hey, orders are serious in the military. You're supposed to follow them. Anyone fired, reported, leaked, or resigned? No. Now instead of nukes. How about protestors. Who was shot by the National Guard in 2020? One man, not in DC, after he shot at the National Guard first. Who has been shot by the National Guard in 2025? None that I know. So where'd the orders go? Anyone fired, reported, leaked, or resigned? Any single shred of evidence for orders either to nuke Irma or shoot unarmed, peaceful protestors?
Nobody questioning you supports the shooting of peaceful, unarmed people. Everyone is on the same page. People are not questioning you because they like fascism and support the shooting of peaceful, unarmed people. This is not a microcosm representation of the entire culmination of political movements and everyone's posting pattern. This is you said one specific thing that is impeachment level severity and you have conspiracy level scant justification.
Like if I say Putin told his military to take every infant in Ukraine and individually put them in a blender and make so many smoothies that he changes the dictionary definition of shaken baby syndrome. To lend this claim any veracity, I would need to produce evidence of at least one infant smoothie, or a copy of an order, or someone fired or summarily executed for not blending an infant when ordered. And if you asked for any single shred of such evidence, and I responded, wow that's nitpicking, I can't believe you're trying to brush aside Putin's fascist intent so callously, it's still wrong to order the blending of infants even if none have been blended yet - if I responded that way, I should expect to be looked at strangely. Even by people who dislike Putin, which is basically everyone.
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On July 11 2025 04:59 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 03:48 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 11 2025 03:21 BlackJack wrote:On July 10 2025 19:58 WombaT 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. Who made the bolded claim? Right here: He says Trump and Hegseth gave direct orders to shoot unarmed peaceful protestors and his source included in the post is a video Pete Hegseth refusing to answer a question. Now DPB is insisting he was talking about something Trump said years ago which rings untrue since he included Hegseth as giving direct orders to shoot protestors. So even if we buy his excuse that he wa talking about something Trump said years ago, what is his evidence that Hegseth gave direct orders to shoot peaceful protestors outside of Hegseth refusing to answer a question?? You essentially had a chance to clarify and say that your misinterpretation was just a mistake, but with you doubling down like this, it's now undeniable that you're operating in bad faith. You just posted me *not* saying what you asserted I had said in Wombat's bolded text. My post is clearly *not* saying "Trump gave an order to slaughter peaceful protestors because Pete Hegseth didn’t answer a question". Neither my post's writing nor the included video support that assertion of yours, and in fact the writing and video both contradict the causality part of your assertion. You're digging yourself a deeper hole. There is ...
Don't think I forgot that you're still avoiding the original questions 
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On July 11 2025 03:42 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2025 22:57 Magic Powers wrote:On July 10 2025 22:11 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 10 2025 21:05 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 10 2025 19:59 EnDeR_ wrote: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. I think it depends what you are trying to get out of the conversation. I've had more than a few of his posts where I've gone, "well, I hadn't considered that". The trick is to move the conversation beyond the nitpicking, because that's just an infinite loop. BJ doesn't let you move past the nitpicking. He'll rub it in your face until you say something that he interprets in bad faith and the cycle continues. If you try to break the cycle he considers that a W and he'll use every opportunity to remind you of his W regardless of how bad his interpretation was to begin with. If you ignore him he'll use insults and ad homs to get under your skin until you have enough and call him out. Then he'll act upset over your alleged hypocrisy and he'll remind you again of his big W. And so on and so forth. It never ends. The only solution is to not put anywhere near as much effort into your responses to him as he does to yours. Just call out his shit and let him blabber on until his face turns green. Use the opportunity to spread accurate information while he's busy looking for another big W. The reason there is no moving past is because you double and triple down on ridiculous takes for absolutely no reason. We're still talking about the surgeon/Trump thing many hours later. It's a very simple point. Your argument was that if Trump gives an order to shoot protestors he must be talking about peaceful protestors because 99% of protestors are peaceful. I showed the error in that logic by making the analogy that if a surgeon orders limbs to be amputated he must be talking about healthy limbs because 99% of limbs are healthy. Instead of addressing the analogy head on and pointing out any flaws in it you want to insist that I'm making an equivalence between Trump and surgeons and you want to argue the moral goodness of Trump vs surgeons. Now Simberto has weighed in that not all surgeons are morally good and he references the Nazi surgeons that experimented on death camp prisoners. FWIW, I've also heard that surgeons have higher levels of psychopathy than other professions. But that's besides the point. The point is we're now discussing the "moral goodness" of surgeons all because you don't know how to respond to an analogy. Then I get blamed for derailing the thread as if I'm personally steering the conversation into a "morality of surgeons" debate in order to run interference for Trump.
I don't care what you consider "ridiculous takes". You've been misinterpreting my words a few too many times for me to care. What you actually do is that you argue in bad faith. You argue that I'm not honest, that I'm not informed, that I don't read my own sources - provably however you don't read your own sources, you're not honest, and you're not informed.
You are the pot calling the kettle black. It doesn't matter if you're perhaps right twice a day like a broken clock. The way you interpret my comments is so often wrong that the few times that you correctly interpret them is completely irrelevant. It doesn't make a difference when the vast majority of your interpretations stem from bad faith.
I do not care anymore what your argumentation is. You stopped making sense long ago, you have not earned the right to question me. You do not have my respect, you don't deserve my respect.
The day that you start arguing with me in good faith is the day that you may have my respect be returned to you. Until that day don't ever be surprised that my responses to you are simply rejections of your argumentation and nothing more. I don't give the same effort anymore when I respond to you as I used to. I used to put effort into our conversations, and that time is over until you stop arguing in bad faith.
That is all.
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On July 11 2025 05:08 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 04:59 oBlade wrote:On July 11 2025 03:48 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 11 2025 03:21 BlackJack wrote:On July 10 2025 19:58 WombaT 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. Who made the bolded claim? Right here: He says Trump and Hegseth gave direct orders to shoot unarmed peaceful protestors and his source included in the post is a video Pete Hegseth refusing to answer a question. Now DPB is insisting he was talking about something Trump said years ago which rings untrue since he included Hegseth as giving direct orders to shoot protestors. So even if we buy his excuse that he wa talking about something Trump said years ago, what is his evidence that Hegseth gave direct orders to shoot peaceful protestors outside of Hegseth refusing to answer a question?? You essentially had a chance to clarify and say that your misinterpretation was just a mistake, but with you doubling down like this, it's now undeniable that you're operating in bad faith. You just posted me *not* saying what you asserted I had said in Wombat's bolded text. My post is clearly *not* saying "Trump gave an order to slaughter peaceful protestors because Pete Hegseth didn’t answer a question". Neither my post's writing nor the included video support that assertion of yours, and in fact the writing and video both contradict the causality part of your assertion. You're digging yourself a deeper hole. There is ... Don't think I forgot that you're still avoiding the original questions
He did write 'No.' a bunch of times, so it's clear he's -capable-, he just seems to get confused along the way and forget that he doesn't always need to word-vomit.
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On July 11 2025 07:11 Fleetfeet wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 05:08 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 11 2025 04:59 oBlade wrote:On July 11 2025 03:48 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 11 2025 03:21 BlackJack wrote:On July 10 2025 19:58 WombaT 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. Who made the bolded claim? Right here: He says Trump and Hegseth gave direct orders to shoot unarmed peaceful protestors and his source included in the post is a video Pete Hegseth refusing to answer a question. Now DPB is insisting he was talking about something Trump said years ago which rings untrue since he included Hegseth as giving direct orders to shoot protestors. So even if we buy his excuse that he wa talking about something Trump said years ago, what is his evidence that Hegseth gave direct orders to shoot peaceful protestors outside of Hegseth refusing to answer a question?? You essentially had a chance to clarify and say that your misinterpretation was just a mistake, but with you doubling down like this, it's now undeniable that you're operating in bad faith. You just posted me *not* saying what you asserted I had said in Wombat's bolded text. My post is clearly *not* saying "Trump gave an order to slaughter peaceful protestors because Pete Hegseth didn’t answer a question". Neither my post's writing nor the included video support that assertion of yours, and in fact the writing and video both contradict the causality part of your assertion. You're digging yourself a deeper hole. There is ... Don't think I forgot that you're still avoiding the original questions He did write 'No.' a bunch of times, so it's clear he's -capable-, he just seems to get confused along the way and forget that he doesn't always need to word-vomit.
And he certainly likes to talk about nukes lol.
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EPT
