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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 04:01 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 03:41 GreenHorizons wrote: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.
I agree (it's fun doing this).
I'd argue that the obscene wealth inequality is inextricable from capitalism.
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Northern Ireland25157 Posts
On July 11 2025 09:03 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 04:01 LightSpectra wrote:On July 11 2025 03:41 GreenHorizons wrote: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. I agree (it's fun doing this). I'd argue that the obscene wealth inequality is inextricable from capitalism.
I’d love to hear a good argument that it isn’t, in actual practice. I’m yet to hear one though
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On July 11 2025 04:56 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 04:30 Fleetfeet wrote: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: Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 04:47 BlackJack wrote: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: 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. 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.
Just pointing out the absurdity of your position. You said it appears Trump and Hegseth gave an order to shoot unarmed peaceful protestors.
Your evidence for Hegseth doing this is his refusal to answer a question about it when asked.
Your evidence for Trump doing this is the above + Esper's testimony from years ago.
So just to be clear, although you feel confident to conclude that Hegseth gave an order to shoot peaceful unarmed protestors simply because he refused to answer that question when asked, you feel the need to set the record straight that you wouldn't make a similar conclusion about Trump if not for Esper's corroborating evidence? Trump, of all people, deserves the benefit of the doubt but Hegseth doesn't?
Okay...
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Northern Ireland25157 Posts
On July 11 2025 04:56 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 04:30 Fleetfeet wrote: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: Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 04:47 BlackJack wrote: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: 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. 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.
I thought I added some ‘meat to the bones’ as it were that was possibly meritorious of discussion on the topic. But apparently not.
It’s more important to show someone left-leaning has been hyperbolic than actually get further into the reality of the issue at hand.
Apparently this is some important, valuable perspective to engage with though. Not really sure what extra value is gained from this selective form of devil’s advocacy but hey.
It’s not even that kind of ‘ok it can be annoying because it pokes my sacred cows, but it’s usually accurate’ form of devil’s advocacy, it’s just insincere nonsense.
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A lot of the lives lost in Texas could have easily been saved if the people wernt brain rotted against the government being able to do anything to better the lives of people. The very simple infrastructure to combat and monitor flash flooding could have been built at any time, and the funding for it was given to them by Bidens infrastructure bill.
When I tell you you can't help people that don't want help it's no clearer then that. Conservatives would rather go with dead kids every time than operate in good faith with even themselves anymore.
I'm probably going to lose my job if trump goes through with his 50% copper tariff, or more likely my shop is just going to smuggle it across the border. I work with people every day that keep telling me that it's genius and will make everything cheaper.
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On July 11 2025 10:14 Sermokala wrote:
A lot of the lives lost in Texas could have easily been saved if the people wernt brain rotted against the government being able to do anything to better the lives of people. The very simple infrastructure to combat and monitor flash flooding could have been built at any time, and the funding for it was given to them by Bidens infrastructure bill.
Do you have a source for this? When I googled it I could only find that the county had made several requests for funding for a warning system but they were unable to procure the funds. Hard to believe they would turn down free money just because it came from Biden's bill.
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On July 11 2025 09:51 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 04:56 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 11 2025 04:30 Fleetfeet wrote: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: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: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. Just pointing out the absurdity of your position. You said it appears Trump and Hegseth gave an order to shoot unarmed peaceful protestors. Your evidence for Hegseth doing this is his refusal to answer a question about it when asked. Your evidence for Trump doing this is the above + Esper's testimony from years ago.
For the last time: Still no. I clearly explained what I deemed as relevant "On the Trump side of things" and what I deemed as relevant "On the Hegseth side of things", and the former had nothing to do with Hegseth's non-answer. (I literally mentioned Hegseth zero times in the Trump section: https://tl.net/forum/general/532255-us-politics-mega-thread?page=5091#101805 .)
You may not have agreed with what I had considered to be sufficient evidence (i.e., maybe Hegseth refusing to answer isn't enough to convince you that Hegseth did what Trump had done, and/or maybe Esper's interview isn't enough to convince you that Trump did what Esper said he did... and that's totally fine), but that's far different than you deciding to follow my elaboration with your fabrication of "Saying that Trump gave an order to slaughter peaceful protestors because Pete Hegseth didn’t answer a question".
You're truly obsessed with your misinterpretation. At this point, you're starting to convince me that you believe that Trump heard Hegseth's non-answer, then went back in time and decided to give an order to "slaughter" a whole bunch of peaceful protestors several years earlier. Feel free to defend your position if you want, but don't project it onto me or anyone else. I'm also not interested in engaging with you any further on this; enjoy your own delusion where Trump can literally travel backwards in time.
On July 11 2025 09:51 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 04:56 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 11 2025 04:30 Fleetfeet wrote: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: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: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. I thought I added some ‘meat to the bones’ as it were that was possibly meritorious of discussion on the topic. But apparently not. It’s more important to show someone left-leaning has been hyperbolic than actually get further into the reality of the issue at hand. Apparently this is some important, valuable perspective to engage with though. Not really sure what extra value is gained from this selective form of devil’s advocacy but hey. It’s not even that kind of ‘ok it can be annoying because it pokes my sacred cows, but it’s usually accurate’ form of devil’s advocacy, it’s just insincere nonsense.
I appreciate you trying to make it work! I'm done trying as well.
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On July 11 2025 09:38 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 09:03 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 11 2025 04:01 LightSpectra wrote:On July 11 2025 03:41 GreenHorizons wrote: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. I agree (it's fun doing this). I'd argue that the obscene wealth inequality is inextricable from capitalism. I’d love to hear a good argument that it isn’t, in actual practice. I’m yet to hear one though
I don't have one, but I also wonder what the strongest/strongman version of this would be, even if "in actual practice" is removed. Like, hypothetically, if all owners/employers behaved themselves and none were greedy and all paid their workers a more-than-reasonable wage... ?
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On July 11 2025 11:01 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 09:51 BlackJack wrote:On July 11 2025 04:56 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 11 2025 04:30 Fleetfeet wrote: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:
[quote]
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: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:
[quote]
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: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. Just pointing out the absurdity of your position. You said it appears Trump and Hegseth gave an order to shoot unarmed peaceful protestors. Your evidence for Hegseth doing this is his refusal to answer a question about it when asked. Your evidence for Trump doing this is the above + Esper's testimony from years ago. For the last time: Still no. I clearly explained what I deemed as relevant "On the Trump side of things" and what I deemed as relevant "On the Hegseth side of things", and the former had nothing to do with Hegseth's non-answer. (I literally mentioned Hegseth zero times in the Trump section: https://tl.net/forum/general/532255-us-politics-mega-thread?page=5091#101805 .) You may not have agreed with what I had considered to be sufficient evidence (i.e., maybe Hegseth refusing to answer isn't enough to convince you that Hegseth did what Trump had done, and/or maybe Esper's interview isn't enough to convince you that Trump did what Esper said he did... and that's totally fine), but that's far different than you deciding to follow my elaboration with your fabrication of "Saying that Trump gave an order to slaughter peaceful protestors because Pete Hegseth didn’t answer a question". You're truly obsessed with your misinterpretation. At this point, you're starting to convince me that you believe that Trump heard Hegseth's non-answer, then went back in time and decided to give an order to "slaughter" a whole bunch of peaceful protestors several years earlier. Feel free to defend your position if you want, but don't project it onto me or anyone else. I'm also not interested in engaging with you any further on this; enjoy your own delusion where Trump can literally travel backwards in time. Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 09:51 WombaT wrote:On July 11 2025 04:56 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 11 2025 04:30 Fleetfeet wrote: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:
[quote]
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: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:
[quote]
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: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. I thought I added some ‘meat to the bones’ as it were that was possibly meritorious of discussion on the topic. But apparently not. It’s more important to show someone left-leaning has been hyperbolic than actually get further into the reality of the issue at hand. Apparently this is some important, valuable perspective to engage with though. Not really sure what extra value is gained from this selective form of devil’s advocacy but hey. It’s not even that kind of ‘ok it can be annoying because it pokes my sacred cows, but it’s usually accurate’ form of devil’s advocacy, it’s just insincere nonsense. I appreciate you trying to make it work! I'm done trying as well.
Trust me, I get your argument. It's just really quizzical to come into a thread and say "It appears Trump and Hegseth have both given orders to shoot unarmed peaceful protestors" and then insist that in that one sentence you're talking about different years, different administrations and different protestors for which they gave the orders. That is to say, I don't believe you.
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On July 11 2025 09:38 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 09:03 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 11 2025 04:01 LightSpectra wrote:On July 11 2025 03:41 GreenHorizons wrote: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. I agree (it's fun doing this). I'd argue that the obscene wealth inequality is inextricable from capitalism. I’d love to hear a good argument that it isn’t, in actual practice. I’m yet to hear one though
There isn't one. It's a feature, not a bug. The best you can get are attempted rationalizations. Which leads us to 3.
1. 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.
2. Obscene wealth inequality is inextricable from capitalism.
3. Capitalism/Capitalists must be overcome to overcome obscene wealth inequality
We all still on board or where did I lose you?
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You lose me at the simplicity of it all. Read on to learn how truly dumb and uneducated I am!
I'll start with my understanding of terms.
Capitalism : In a broad sense, prioritizing the accumulation of valuables ('capital') for the purpose of accumulating more capital, in a loop without end. Get richer to get richer to get richer.
Socialism : In a broad sense, prioritizing the wellbeing of your society and the people within it.
Now, I know the textbook definitions are concerned with who owns the means of production, but I genuinely can't understand what that changes. If my 'state' (Alberta) collectively owned the means of production, wouldn't that mean Alberta is just fucking rich and Ontario can go fuck itself? It doesn't magically make Alberta moral and willing to use its resources to help out the rest of Canada. How is it supposed to work? How does that wealth get distributed to the people? Does 'Ralph Bucks' count as socialism, or is it an awkward product of capitalist mentality?
The way I see it, Capitalism can (and does, in places) work to support the wellbeing of people, and Socialism can fuck up and be horrible. In both cases, it's humans being shitbags (knowingly or unknowingly) that make it go wrong. In my gut, I'd much sooner identify as a Socialist than a Capitalist because I care a hell of a lot more about people than I do wealth, but I have a poor understanding of what those terms mean, and less so when applied to me as an individual. While "Capitalism bad abolish capitalism and boom utopia" feels good as an idea, it doesn't resonate as a sensible and grounded idea as much as an emotional one.
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On July 11 2025 14:18 Fleetfeet wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 12:23 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 11 2025 09:38 WombaT wrote:On July 11 2025 09:03 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 11 2025 04:01 LightSpectra wrote:On July 11 2025 03:41 GreenHorizons wrote: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. I agree (it's fun doing this). I'd argue that the obscene wealth inequality is inextricable from capitalism. I’d love to hear a good argument that it isn’t, in actual practice. I’m yet to hear one though There isn't one. It's a feature, not a bug. The best you can get are attempted rationalizations. Which leads us to 3. 1. 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. 2. Obscene wealth inequality is inextricable from capitalism. 3. Capitalism/Capitalists must be overcome to overcome obscene wealth inequality We all still on board or where did I lose you? You lose me at the simplicity of it all. Read on to learn how truly dumb and uneducated I am! I'll start with my understanding of terms. Capitalism : In a broad sense, prioritizing the accumulation of valuables ('capital') for the purpose of accumulating more capital, in a loop without end. Get richer to get richer to get richer. Socialism : In a broad sense, prioritizing the wellbeing of your society and the people within it. Now, I know the textbook definitions are concerned with who owns the means of production, but I genuinely can't understand what that changes. If my 'state' (Alberta) collectively owned the means of production, wouldn't that mean Alberta is just fucking rich and Ontario can go fuck itself? It doesn't magically make Alberta moral and willing to use its resources to help out the rest of Canada. How is it supposed to work? How does that wealth get distributed to the people? Does 'Ralph Bucks' count as socialism, or is it an awkward product of capitalist mentality? The way I see it, Capitalism can (and does, in places) work to support the wellbeing of people, and Socialism can fuck up and be horrible. In both cases, it's humans being shitbags (knowingly or unknowingly) that make it go wrong. In my gut, I'd much sooner identify as a Socialist than a Capitalist because I care a hell of a lot more about people than I do wealth, but I have a poor understanding of what those terms mean, and less so when applied to me as an individual. While "Capitalism bad abolish capitalism and boom utopia" feels good as an idea, it doesn't resonate as a sensible and grounded idea as much as an emotional one. You don't seem to have the sort of argument Wombat and DPB were looking for, and it doesn't appear you're actually arguing against point 1 or 2 at all.
Before we even think about socialism, we should deal with that.
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GH let me know when you find an argument persuasive enough to convince the average American that handing more power and wealth to corporations and their owners doesn't make their lives better.
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On July 11 2025 10:44 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 10:14 Sermokala wrote:
A lot of the lives lost in Texas could have easily been saved if the people wernt brain rotted against the government being able to do anything to better the lives of people. The very simple infrastructure to combat and monitor flash flooding could have been built at any time, and the funding for it was given to them by Bidens infrastructure bill.
Do you have a source for this? When I googled it I could only find that the county had made several requests for funding for a warning system but they were unable to procure the funds. Hard to believe they would turn down free money just because it came from Biden's bill.
Do you want a source from people not want it or for who denied it?
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On July 11 2025 14:53 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 14:18 Fleetfeet wrote:On July 11 2025 12:23 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 11 2025 09:38 WombaT wrote:On July 11 2025 09:03 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 11 2025 04:01 LightSpectra wrote:On July 11 2025 03:41 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 11 2025 03:12 LightSpectra wrote:On July 09 2025 23:18 LightSpectra wrote:On July 09 2025 22:02 Gorsameth wrote:
[quote]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. I agree (it's fun doing this). I'd argue that the obscene wealth inequality is inextricable from capitalism. I’d love to hear a good argument that it isn’t, in actual practice. I’m yet to hear one though There isn't one. It's a feature, not a bug. The best you can get are attempted rationalizations. Which leads us to 3. 1. 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. 2. Obscene wealth inequality is inextricable from capitalism. 3. Capitalism/Capitalists must be overcome to overcome obscene wealth inequality We all still on board or where did I lose you? You lose me at the simplicity of it all. Read on to learn how truly dumb and uneducated I am! I'll start with my understanding of terms. Capitalism : In a broad sense, prioritizing the accumulation of valuables ('capital') for the purpose of accumulating more capital, in a loop without end. Get richer to get richer to get richer. Socialism : In a broad sense, prioritizing the wellbeing of your society and the people within it. Now, I know the textbook definitions are concerned with who owns the means of production, but I genuinely can't understand what that changes. If my 'state' (Alberta) collectively owned the means of production, wouldn't that mean Alberta is just fucking rich and Ontario can go fuck itself? It doesn't magically make Alberta moral and willing to use its resources to help out the rest of Canada. How is it supposed to work? How does that wealth get distributed to the people? Does 'Ralph Bucks' count as socialism, or is it an awkward product of capitalist mentality? The way I see it, Capitalism can (and does, in places) work to support the wellbeing of people, and Socialism can fuck up and be horrible. In both cases, it's humans being shitbags (knowingly or unknowingly) that make it go wrong. In my gut, I'd much sooner identify as a Socialist than a Capitalist because I care a hell of a lot more about people than I do wealth, but I have a poor understanding of what those terms mean, and less so when applied to me as an individual. While "Capitalism bad abolish capitalism and boom utopia" feels good as an idea, it doesn't resonate as a sensible and grounded idea as much as an emotional one. You don't seem to have the sort of argument Wombat and DPB were looking for, and it doesn't appear you're actually arguing against point 1 or 2 at all. Before we even think about socialism, we should deal with that.
I wasn't trying to argue against anything, I was expressing that your nice three points just seems too simple, so you lose me in how simple it is. I don't know what you're actually talking about when you state "Obscene wealth inequality is inextricable from capitalism" because I don't know what part(s) of society you view as capitalist or 'too capitalist' nor what accepting the sentence as truth would even mean in practical terms. Equally I would accept "Obscene cruelty is inextricable from human existence" as true, but I'm not an advocate for Voluntary Human Extinction. My unemphatic "Sure, yeah" in response doesn't do anything.
You asked "Where did I lose you" and I answered. I'm not trying to argue against any points.
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On July 11 2025 15:11 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 14:53 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 11 2025 14:18 Fleetfeet wrote:On July 11 2025 12:23 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 11 2025 09:38 WombaT wrote:On July 11 2025 09:03 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 11 2025 04:01 LightSpectra wrote:On July 11 2025 03:41 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 11 2025 03:12 LightSpectra wrote:On July 09 2025 23:18 LightSpectra wrote:
[quote]
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. I agree (it's fun doing this). I'd argue that the obscene wealth inequality is inextricable from capitalism. I’d love to hear a good argument that it isn’t, in actual practice. I’m yet to hear one though There isn't one. It's a feature, not a bug. The best you can get are attempted rationalizations. Which leads us to 3. 1. 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. 2. Obscene wealth inequality is inextricable from capitalism. 3. Capitalism/Capitalists must be overcome to overcome obscene wealth inequality We all still on board or where did I lose you? You lose me at the simplicity of it all. Read on to learn how truly dumb and uneducated I am! I'll start with my understanding of terms. Capitalism : In a broad sense, prioritizing the accumulation of valuables ('capital') for the purpose of accumulating more capital, in a loop without end. Get richer to get richer to get richer. Socialism : In a broad sense, prioritizing the wellbeing of your society and the people within it. Now, I know the textbook definitions are concerned with who owns the means of production, but I genuinely can't understand what that changes. If my 'state' (Alberta) collectively owned the means of production, wouldn't that mean Alberta is just fucking rich and Ontario can go fuck itself? It doesn't magically make Alberta moral and willing to use its resources to help out the rest of Canada. How is it supposed to work? How does that wealth get distributed to the people? Does 'Ralph Bucks' count as socialism, or is it an awkward product of capitalist mentality? The way I see it, Capitalism can (and does, in places) work to support the wellbeing of people, and Socialism can fuck up and be horrible. In both cases, it's humans being shitbags (knowingly or unknowingly) that make it go wrong. In my gut, I'd much sooner identify as a Socialist than a Capitalist because I care a hell of a lot more about people than I do wealth, but I have a poor understanding of what those terms mean, and less so when applied to me as an individual. While "Capitalism bad abolish capitalism and boom utopia" feels good as an idea, it doesn't resonate as a sensible and grounded idea as much as an emotional one. You don't seem to have the sort of argument Wombat and DPB were looking for, and it doesn't appear you're actually arguing against point 1 or 2 at all. Before we even think about socialism, we should deal with that. GH let me know when you find an argument persuasive enough to convince the average American that handing more power and wealth to corporations and their owners doesn't make their lives better.
I understand your frustration, but I don't find your phrasing conducive to productive discussion.
Setting that aside to address the underlying point, most Americans are followers and they'll fall in line with organized power.
That's one reason why it's important to focus much less on trying to convince anyone that isn't already on board with at least point 1 & 2 and much more on organizing those that are.
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On July 11 2025 09:38 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 09:03 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 11 2025 04:01 LightSpectra wrote:On July 11 2025 03:41 GreenHorizons wrote: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. I agree (it's fun doing this). I'd argue that the obscene wealth inequality is inextricable from capitalism. I’d love to hear a good argument that it isn’t, in actual practice. I’m yet to hear one though
The problem comes in the implication that Obscene wealth inequality is unique to capitalism or that socialism would inherently solve it. The examples we've seen of it being credibility made better have relied on capitalism as much as any ideology. China had struggled for years until Tiananmen Square forced them to open up and they proceeded to bring more poor people out of abject poverty than any time in history. For as much as the GH types like to rail against capitalism, they fall into the obvious traps laid for them by the right and never get past the philosophical when trying to better peoples lives. Minnesota has the HDI ranking it has because of a technocratic cabal that guides the flows of capitalism to better the people's lives. Meanwhile California has an HDI closer to florida despite the gold, oil, and insane military funding gifted to their economy.
There are always going to be disparities between the people who are given better circumstances than others. Europeans being blessed with horses for example, or the regions with better rivers carved out for them. Africa notoriously has horrid geography while america is on easy mode and Europe has inland seas and rivers connecting the whole place deeply. The Nazis had some insane ideas on how to "fix" Africas issues in this, which was only going to happen due to massive slave labor to do so, ie the suez canal would have been a bike lane in comparison to it.
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On July 11 2025 15:47 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 15:11 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 11 2025 14:53 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 11 2025 14:18 Fleetfeet wrote:On July 11 2025 12:23 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 11 2025 09:38 WombaT wrote:On July 11 2025 09:03 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 11 2025 04:01 LightSpectra wrote:On July 11 2025 03:41 GreenHorizons wrote: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. I agree (it's fun doing this). I'd argue that the obscene wealth inequality is inextricable from capitalism. I’d love to hear a good argument that it isn’t, in actual practice. I’m yet to hear one though There isn't one. It's a feature, not a bug. The best you can get are attempted rationalizations. Which leads us to 3. 1. 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. 2. Obscene wealth inequality is inextricable from capitalism. 3. Capitalism/Capitalists must be overcome to overcome obscene wealth inequality We all still on board or where did I lose you? You lose me at the simplicity of it all. Read on to learn how truly dumb and uneducated I am! I'll start with my understanding of terms. Capitalism : In a broad sense, prioritizing the accumulation of valuables ('capital') for the purpose of accumulating more capital, in a loop without end. Get richer to get richer to get richer. Socialism : In a broad sense, prioritizing the wellbeing of your society and the people within it. Now, I know the textbook definitions are concerned with who owns the means of production, but I genuinely can't understand what that changes. If my 'state' (Alberta) collectively owned the means of production, wouldn't that mean Alberta is just fucking rich and Ontario can go fuck itself? It doesn't magically make Alberta moral and willing to use its resources to help out the rest of Canada. How is it supposed to work? How does that wealth get distributed to the people? Does 'Ralph Bucks' count as socialism, or is it an awkward product of capitalist mentality? The way I see it, Capitalism can (and does, in places) work to support the wellbeing of people, and Socialism can fuck up and be horrible. In both cases, it's humans being shitbags (knowingly or unknowingly) that make it go wrong. In my gut, I'd much sooner identify as a Socialist than a Capitalist because I care a hell of a lot more about people than I do wealth, but I have a poor understanding of what those terms mean, and less so when applied to me as an individual. While "Capitalism bad abolish capitalism and boom utopia" feels good as an idea, it doesn't resonate as a sensible and grounded idea as much as an emotional one. You don't seem to have the sort of argument Wombat and DPB were looking for, and it doesn't appear you're actually arguing against point 1 or 2 at all. Before we even think about socialism, we should deal with that. GH let me know when you find an argument persuasive enough to convince the average American that handing more power and wealth to corporations and their owners doesn't make their lives better. I understand your frustration, but I don't find your phrasing conducive to productive discussion. Setting that aside to address the underlying point, most Americans are followers and they'll fall in line with organized power. That's one reason why it's important to focus much less on trying to convince anyone that isn't already on board with at least point 1 & 2 and much more on organizing those that are.
If one could find a unifying tenet of American society, it would be the belief that capitalism is the best way to prosper.
You want to dismantle that. I am simply asking for what you think is a good argument that would convince the majority of your fellow Americans to drop something they firmly believe in. I should point out that I am already on Team GH on this one, you don't have to convince me.
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MLK said it best.
Neither communism or capitalism see the whole picture.
Communism disregards the benefits of individuality, and capitalism disregards the possibilities of working together.
Regulated Capitalism pushes wealth and innovation. Big companies need to be broken up - absurd individual wealth needs to be taxed away.
Today the US worker works more hours than an english peasant, and owns less of the total wealth.
I want doctors in porsches, but no Robber Barons.
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On July 11 2025 12:23 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 09:38 WombaT wrote:On July 11 2025 09:03 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 11 2025 04:01 LightSpectra wrote:On July 11 2025 03:41 GreenHorizons wrote: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. I agree (it's fun doing this). I'd argue that the obscene wealth inequality is inextricable from capitalism. I’d love to hear a good argument that it isn’t, in actual practice. I’m yet to hear one though There isn't one. It's a feature, not a bug. The best you can get are attempted rationalizations. Which leads us to 3. 1. 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. 2. Obscene wealth inequality is inextricable from capitalism. 3. Capitalism/Capitalists must be overcome to overcome obscene wealth inequality We all still on board or where did I lose you?
I disagree, mostly in the same way and for the same reasons fleetfeet does.
1. We're all in agreement
2. Well, I'd rephrase that as "obscene wealth inequality is inextricable from any system that doesn't put checks and controls on human greed. Capitalism is a system that doesn't put checks on human greed (in fact, it encourages it)." Which still says the same thing, but with a bit more nuance and it shows the problem with the last step.
The problem then is in the third statement. "Overcoming capitalism" doesn't help if you don't replace it with a different system that does put checks on human greed. I know you're a socialist and are arguing that socialism is the only alternative to capitalism, but that is really not true. Getting rid of capitalism is thus a *necessary* step, but not a *sufficient* step.
The other problem with step 3 is that is reductionist. There are a LOT of competing values that lead to people favouring capitalism, and extreme wealth inequality might simply be an "evil" they are willing to accept. So even if we accept that everybody agrees with your 3 points, they may not agree with your conclusion that we should get rid of capitalism: there might be greater evils than extreme wealth inequality that capitalism *does* address, and they don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Note: I am not one of those. I'm a big fan of transitioning to socialism. I don't know how we do it, especially not in a country ruled by a fascist oompaloompa, but when we figure out the how I'm on board!
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EPT
