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I probably agree with GH that oBlade is a waste of time to engage with. He’s not dumb, I even kind of admire the willingness to do some pretty tedious nitpicky argumentation. But it’s just so clear that he treats politics like a speech and debate club where he’s been assigned the Republican position and is supposed to defend it vigorously by any means necessary. I never did speech and debate, it doesn’t interest me that much, if I just wanted an mentally engaging competition I’d go play chess or Starcraft or something.
Intro I’m less certain about. He’s got some of that speech and debate tendency (he’ll even kind of say this himself, talking about how if he has anti-Trump opinions he doesn’t see the point in posting them here). But I do think an important thing to understand in all this is what the fans of all this actually want, and why they’re supportive of it. oBlade’s perspective is probably too fabricated to give much insight there, but Intro is a bit more mixed.
Like, there’s a subtext to everything happening in MN (currently, although previously and still somewhat currently it was LA or Chicago or DC or etc.). It’s a pretty obvious subtext, I don’t think anyone is actually missing it, although oBlade or Intro might pretend to. But like, what is the actual purpose of these massive military-like “enforcement operations” they’re doing? They’re run by ICE so nominally they’re immigration enforcement, and I don’t doubt that they’re paying special attention to anybody they think is deportable. But why the focus on blue cities? And why are these guys they’re deploying to blue cities wearing camo fatigues and wielding assault rifles?
It’s obvious this is a punishment of liberal areas. It’s obvious Trump likes the idea of bands of street fighters loyal to his cause parading through “enemy territory” and cracking skulls (why else would he pardon everybody involved in J6?). And it’s obvious that these masked gunmen in these videos view their job primarily to be intimidating the population into submission.
But the question is, why do regular people like it? Or do they? When those masked gunmen break into every room of a 40-floor apartment building, no due process in sight, and drag a bunch of people off into the night with no oversight or accountability of any kind, am I honestly supposed to believe a guy like Intro thinks “yes, good, I like this because of my firm commitment to rule of law”?
On January 12 2026 02:15 ChristianS wrote: I probably agree with GH that oBlade is a waste of time to engage with. He’s not dumb, I even kind of admire the willingness to do some pretty tedious nitpicky argumentation. But it’s just so clear that he treats politics like a speech and debate club where he’s been assigned the Republican position and is supposed to defend it vigorously by any means necessary. I never did speech and debate, it doesn’t interest me that much, if I just wanted an mentally engaging competition I’d go play chess or Starcraft or something.
Intro I’m less certain about. He’s got some of that speech and debate tendency (he’ll even kind of say this himself, talking about how if he has anti-Trump opinions he doesn’t see the point in posting them here). But I do think an important thing to understand in all this is what the fans of all this actually want, and why they’re supportive of it. oBlade’s perspective is probably too fabricated to give much insight there, but Intro is a bit more mixed.
Like, there’s a subtext to everything happening in MN (currently, although previously and still somewhat currently it was LA or Chicago or DC or etc.). It’s a pretty obvious subtext, I don’t think anyone is actually missing it, although oBlade or Intro might pretend to. But like, what is the actual purpose of these massive military-like “enforcement operations” they’re doing? They’re run by ICE so nominally they’re immigration enforcement, and I don’t doubt that they’re paying special attention to anybody they think is deportable. But why the focus on blue cities? And why are these guys they’re deploying to blue cities wearing camo fatigues and wielding assault rifles?
It’s obvious this is a punishment of liberal areas. It’s obvious Trump likes the idea of bands of street fighters loyal to his cause parading through “enemy territory” and cracking skulls (why else would he pardon everybody involved in J6?). And it’s obvious that these masked gunmen in these videos view their job primarily to be intimidating the population into submission.
But the question is, why do regular people like it? Or do they? When those masked gunmen break into every room of a 40-floor apartment building, no due process in sight, and drag a bunch of people off into the night with no oversight or accountability of any kind, am I honestly supposed to believe a guy like Intro thinks “yes, good, I like this because of my firm commitment to rule of law”?
Weird analysis of my sincerity put to the side, the answer "why target blue jurisdictions" is obvious. It's where a great many illegal immigrants are and it is where the local and state authorities are least helpful. They won't even coordinate to help deport convicted criminals. If you have a state government willing to cooperate to remove the worst of the worst it relieves pressure. In response to what was happening over the weekend DHS was posting on social media pictures and I think some bios of all the felons they were rounding up. Is everyone is a violent felon? No, but as i said before this is what happens when rules are ignores and then enforced. I've seen this dynamic even in my own workplace. Rules can be bent, even broken along the edges but if pushed too far the crackdown feels unfair and it hits eveyone. The hard truth is, if Biden hadn't let in literally millions of people on dubious or just ridiculous pretenses we might see a Trump policy more like his previous term. When I look at polls they are the classic American dichotomy, they like the idea of the thing but always wince at it implementation. Most voters disapprove of his current, uh, harshness. But they also favor deporting lots and lots of people lol. It's like the polls we used to see with climate change: "is climate change something very important that the government should act on?"
Yes: 40%
"Would you be willing to pay an extra 10$ in taxes if thst would solve the problem?"
Yes:14%
I'm not 100% sure but I think part of the problem is that Americans are so rich that they aren't used to making tradeoffs. It's why American politicians will always default to "spend more money" when trying to fix any problem. It's why they like the idea of deporting people but think it looks mean when they see it.
On January 12 2026 02:15 ChristianS wrote: I probably agree with GH that oBlade is a waste of time to engage with. He’s not dumb, I even kind of admire the willingness to do some pretty tedious nitpicky argumentation. But it’s just so clear that he treats politics like a speech and debate club where he’s been assigned the Republican position and is supposed to defend it vigorously by any means necessary. I never did speech and debate, it doesn’t interest me that much, if I just wanted an mentally engaging competition I’d go play chess or Starcraft or something.
Intro I’m less certain about. He’s got some of that speech and debate tendency (he’ll even kind of say this himself, talking about how if he has anti-Trump opinions he doesn’t see the point in posting them here). But I do think an important thing to understand in all this is what the fans of all this actually want, and why they’re supportive of it. oBlade’s perspective is probably too fabricated to give much insight there, but Intro is a bit more mixed.
Like, there’s a subtext to everything happening in MN (currently, although previously and still somewhat currently it was LA or Chicago or DC or etc.). It’s a pretty obvious subtext, I don’t think anyone is actually missing it, although oBlade or Intro might pretend to. But like, what is the actual purpose of these massive military-like “enforcement operations” they’re doing? They’re run by ICE so nominally they’re immigration enforcement, and I don’t doubt that they’re paying special attention to anybody they think is deportable. But why the focus on blue cities? And why are these guys they’re deploying to blue cities wearing camo fatigues and wielding assault rifles?
It’s obvious this is a punishment of liberal areas. It’s obvious Trump likes the idea of bands of street fighters loyal to his cause parading through “enemy territory” and cracking skulls (why else would he pardon everybody involved in J6?). And it’s obvious that these masked gunmen in these videos view their job primarily to be intimidating the population into submission.
But the question is, why do regular people like it? Or do they? When those masked gunmen break into every room of a 40-floor apartment building, no due process in sight, and drag a bunch of people off into the night with no oversight or accountability of any kind, am I honestly supposed to believe a guy like Intro thinks “yes, good, I like this because of my firm commitment to rule of law”?
It is great for the social media memes. Your actual run of the mill MAGA guy (25-40) (which I have a lot I know in person and even on my facebook friends list because of where I live), have very little clue about what is actually going on and live through the meme's. It is not like they even watch Fox news. They just get the joke one page picture that might reference Fox news.
This is why the epstien thing has been so sticky and such a problem for the Trump admin. There is a bunch of cool guy macho jokes that can be made about Trumps involvement. Where as with the ice stuff, cool manly men in masks grabbing drug dealers off the street while stupid Karens and pussy white knights cry about it. Is a win. Not to mention those super dangerous antifa folks who are behind it and working with the deep state and swamp (which seems to be pretty close to the Jews.).
A whole other topic is that the far left online world is not that much different so it is easy for both groups to find really stupid shit they can laugh at. And of course the Jews are bad guys in both ("capitalists" or "deep state",)
On January 11 2026 20:58 Manit0u wrote:
Well, so much for Trump's glorious success in Venezuela. ExxonMobil calls Venezuela "uninvestable."
This is actually the kind of thing I've had the most success of getting intelligent people who are conservative (usually due to religion) to start to turn on Trump for. At the end of the day is fucking stupid, and does not put in the necessary ground work to actually get anything done. Removing a figurehead so that the number two takes over does not change anything fundamentally.
He is basically running a mob style protection racket but does not understand that there is a lot more complications when you are talking about billion dollar investments rather than getting a new bodega owner to give you the couple hundred a week that the other one wouldn't.
You're a POS and so is oBlade. Just own it. All this explanation of your intent behind your words is useless. Just own to being a POS and we can treat your posts as such. This circle-jerk is tiresome and just goes to show that Rs hold more power over people's everyday lives than they'd care to admit. The ones who keep coming back and engaging are the women in the world saying "But I can change him!" even though he's beaten your ass countless times. Just leave and let be. Don't engage because you're not changing their minds. oBlade is probably jerking himself off while he trolls you all and Introvert is probably sipping an Old Fashioned with drops of immigrant tears.
Just let them talk to the void and have a civilized conversation among yourselves. Drop some concrete ideas/plans/insights into what the US could feasibly do to recover from this shit show.
On January 12 2026 02:15 ChristianS wrote: I probably agree with GH that oBlade is a waste of time to engage with.+ Show Spoiler +
He’s not dumb, I even kind of admire the willingness to do some pretty tedious nitpicky argumentation. But it’s just so clear that he treats politics like a speech and debate club where he’s been assigned the Republican position and is supposed to defend it vigorously by any means necessary. I never did speech and debate, it doesn’t interest me that much, if I just wanted an mentally engaging competition I’d go play chess or Starcraft or something.
Intro I’m less certain about. He’s got some of that speech and debate tendency (he’ll even kind of say this himself, talking about how if he has anti-Trump opinions he doesn’t see the point in posting them here). But I do think an important thing to understand in all this is what the fans of all this actually want, and why they’re supportive of it. oBlade’s perspective is probably too fabricated to give much insight there, but Intro is a bit more mixed.
Like, there’s a subtext to everything happening in MN (currently, although previously and still somewhat currently it was LA or Chicago or DC or etc.). It’s a pretty obvious subtext, I don’t think anyone is actually missing it, although oBlade or Intro might pretend to. But like, what is the actual purpose of these massive military-like “enforcement operations” they’re doing? They’re run by ICE so nominally they’re immigration enforcement, and I don’t doubt that they’re paying special attention to anybody they think is deportable. But why the focus on blue cities? And why are these guys they’re deploying to blue cities wearing camo fatigues and wielding assault rifles?
It’s obvious this is a punishment of liberal areas. It’s obvious Trump likes the idea of bands of street fighters loyal to his cause parading through “enemy territory” and cracking skulls (why else would he pardon everybody involved in J6?). And it’s obvious that these masked gunmen in these videos view their job primarily to be intimidating the population into submission.
But the question is, why do regular people like it? Or do they? When those masked gunmen break into every room of a 40-floor apartment building, no due process in sight, and drag a bunch of people off into the night with no oversight or accountability of any kind, am I honestly supposed to believe a guy like Intro thinks “yes, good, I like this because of my firm commitment to rule of law”?
I don't know, a few dozen more times of going back and forth for a several more pages and maybe...
Who are "regular people"?
Part of the problem is that people are so wrapped up in US mythology they don't realize this is essentially who/what the US has always been with only the thinnest veil. This is basically what I was talking about before Trump was elected:
On April 24 2024 07:28 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Framing pro-Palestinian protests as anti-Semitic is a bad take for Biden, and I disagree with his interpretation of those protests. I'm with you on that part. I'm still struggling to see how this lays the foundation for fascism though.
Republicans/Fascists also frame pro-Palestinian protests as antisemitic and will find the fact that Biden already laid the foundation for that framing in Democrat's minds and provided a program to help fascists crack down on such protests quite useful.
Then fascists can point to it being a critique and product/policy that came from Democrats, that "the libs" accepted it when Biden/Democrats did it, and any opposition now is just them being bitter partisans. If Democrats push it, they'll be labeled as sympathizers or terrorists themselves, so they won't, and will call that "pragmatism".
Same for the Cop City in ATL, domestic spying, the (still in use) 2001 AUMF, policing the public in NYC using the military, cracking down on "illegals", and the list goes on and on.
After Democrats lay down all these foundations for fascism and eventually lose control of them (since they won't win every election in perpetuity) they'll pick up their batons in a vain attempt to avoid being the targets of those policies, institutions, etc. by finding "bipartisan compromises" on where to direct that fascism among the US public and oppressed people around the globe. Which is uncomfortably acceptable to relatively affluent cishet white men. Because to be clear, Democrats have been making these kinds of "compromises" with less overtly fascist Republicans for decades (like consistently increasing police budgets, DOMA, and so on).
Which brings us back to the bipartisan framing of pro-Palestinian actions as "antisemitic protests" that is already aligning Democrats and Republicans around cracking down on these purportedly "antisemitic protests" in a tiny, comparably placid, preview of what is to come if they aren't stopped (organized civil disobedience, like Biden is joining Republicans to crack down on, will be required) before then.
On January 12 2026 03:29 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote: You're a POS and so is oBlade. Just own it. All this explanation of your intent behind your words is useless. Just own to being a POS and we can treat your posts as such. This circle-jerk is tiresome+ Show Spoiler +
and just goes to show that Rs hold more power over people's everyday lives than they'd care to admit. The ones who keep coming back and engaging are the women in the world saying "But I can change him!" even though he's beaten your ass countless times. Just leave and let be. Don't engage because you're not changing their minds. oBlade is probably jerking himself off while he trolls you all and Introvert is probably sipping an Old Fashioned with drops of immigrant tears.
Just let them talk to the void and have a civilized conversation among yourselves. Drop some concrete ideas/plans/insights into what the US could feasibly do to recover from this shit show.
On January 12 2026 02:15 ChristianS wrote: I probably agree with GH that oBlade is a waste of time to engage with. He’s not dumb, I even kind of admire the willingness to do some pretty tedious nitpicky argumentation. But it’s just so clear that he treats politics like a speech and debate club where he’s been assigned the Republican position and is supposed to defend it vigorously by any means necessary. I never did speech and debate, it doesn’t interest me that much, if I just wanted an mentally engaging competition I’d go play chess or Starcraft or something.
Intro I’m less certain about. He’s got some of that speech and debate tendency (he’ll even kind of say this himself, talking about how if he has anti-Trump opinions he doesn’t see the point in posting them here). But I do think an important thing to understand in all this is what the fans of all this actually want, and why they’re supportive of it. oBlade’s perspective is probably too fabricated to give much insight there, but Intro is a bit more mixed.
Like, there’s a subtext to everything happening in MN (currently, although previously and still somewhat currently it was LA or Chicago or DC or etc.). It’s a pretty obvious subtext, I don’t think anyone is actually missing it, although oBlade or Intro might pretend to. But like, what is the actual purpose of these massive military-like “enforcement operations” they’re doing? They’re run by ICE so nominally they’re immigration enforcement, and I don’t doubt that they’re paying special attention to anybody they think is deportable. But why the focus on blue cities? And why are these guys they’re deploying to blue cities wearing camo fatigues and wielding assault rifles?
It’s obvious this is a punishment of liberal areas. It’s obvious Trump likes the idea of bands of street fighters loyal to his cause parading through “enemy territory” and cracking skulls (why else would he pardon everybody involved in J6?). And it’s obvious that these masked gunmen in these videos view their job primarily to be intimidating the population into submission.
But the question is, why do regular people like it? Or do they? When those masked gunmen break into every room of a 40-floor apartment building, no due process in sight, and drag a bunch of people off into the night with no oversight or accountability of any kind, am I honestly supposed to believe a guy like Intro thinks “yes, good, I like this because of my firm commitment to rule of law”?
Perhaps a redneck revenge for the Union's occupation and Reconstruction?
That is because getting rid of Maduro was objectively good for the Venezuelan people. It was not multiple millions of "capitalists" celebrating his removal. It was all the people, from all parts of the political spectrum who are not directly profiting from his corruption. Which is like 99% of them.
The issue is that Trump was not actually removing him to make it better for them, with a leader of their choosing, he was doing it to get someone who would kiss his ass. This is why the celebrating stopped.
Your issue is the same as the MAGA cults issue. If someone brands them self as a socialist or communist you act as though they are good and anything bad is "capitalist propaganda" ignoring all fact and reason that is happening in front of your face.
Maduro is an awful person and an awful leader for Venezuela and the population. Anyone who does not see this is not part of reality. Hell that can stretch to every dictator regardless of political leaning or theocracy, and to all their supporters.
On January 12 2026 02:15 ChristianS wrote: I probably agree with GH that oBlade is a waste of time to engage with. He’s not dumb, I even kind of admire the willingness to do some pretty tedious nitpicky argumentation. But it’s just so clear that he treats politics like a speech and debate club where he’s been assigned the Republican position and is supposed to defend it vigorously by any means necessary. I never did speech and debate, it doesn’t interest me that much, if I just wanted an mentally engaging competition I’d go play chess or Starcraft or something.
Intro I’m less certain about. He’s got some of that speech and debate tendency (he’ll even kind of say this himself, talking about how if he has anti-Trump opinions he doesn’t see the point in posting them here). But I do think an important thing to understand in all this is what the fans of all this actually want, and why they’re supportive of it. oBlade’s perspective is probably too fabricated to give much insight there, but Intro is a bit more mixed.
Like, there’s a subtext to everything happening in MN (currently, although previously and still somewhat currently it was LA or Chicago or DC or etc.). It’s a pretty obvious subtext, I don’t think anyone is actually missing it, although oBlade or Intro might pretend to. But like, what is the actual purpose of these massive military-like “enforcement operations” they’re doing? They’re run by ICE so nominally they’re immigration enforcement, and I don’t doubt that they’re paying special attention to anybody they think is deportable. But why the focus on blue cities? And why are these guys they’re deploying to blue cities wearing camo fatigues and wielding assault rifles?
It’s obvious this is a punishment of liberal areas. It’s obvious Trump likes the idea of bands of street fighters loyal to his cause parading through “enemy territory” and cracking skulls (why else would he pardon everybody involved in J6?). And it’s obvious that these masked gunmen in these videos view their job primarily to be intimidating the population into submission.
But the question is, why do regular people like it? Or do they? When those masked gunmen break into every room of a 40-floor apartment building, no due process in sight, and drag a bunch of people off into the night with no oversight or accountability of any kind, am I honestly supposed to believe a guy like Intro thinks “yes, good, I like this because of my firm commitment to rule of law”?
Weird analysis of my sincerity put to the side, the answer "why target blue jurisdictions" is obvious. It's where a great many illegal immigrants are and it is where the local and state authorities are least helpful. They won't even coordinate to help deport convicted criminals. If you have a state government willing to cooperate to remove the worst of the worst it relieves pressure. In response to what was happening over the weekend DHS was posting on social media pictures and I think some bios of all the felons they were rounding up. Is everyone is a violent felon? No, but as i said before this is what happens when rules are ignores and then enforced. I've seen this dynamic even in my own workplace. Rules can be bent, even broken along the edges but if pushed too far the crackdown feels unfair and it hits eveyone. The hard truth is, if Biden hadn't let in literally millions of people on dubious or just ridiculous pretenses we might see a Trump policy more like his previous term. When I look at polls they are the classic American dichotomy, they like the idea of the thing but always wince at it implementation. Most voters disapprove of his current, uh, harshness. But they also favor deporting lots and lots of people lol. It's like the polls we used to see with climate change: "is climate change something very important that the government should act on?"
Yes: 40%
"Would you be willing to pay an extra 10$ in taxes if thst would solve the problem?"
Yes:14%
I'm not 100% sure but I think part of the problem is that Americans are so rich that they aren't used to making tradeoffs. It's why American politicians will always default to "spend more money" when trying to fix any problem. It's why they like the idea of deporting people but think it looks mean when they see it.
There's a thick blanket of irony over this paragraph about deporting convicted criminals, the state not cooperating, and rounding up the felons.
On January 12 2026 02:15 ChristianS wrote: I probably agree with GH that oBlade is a waste of time to engage with. He’s not dumb, I even kind of admire the willingness to do some pretty tedious nitpicky argumentation. But it’s just so clear that he treats politics like a speech and debate club where he’s been assigned the Republican position and is supposed to defend it vigorously by any means necessary. I never did speech and debate, it doesn’t interest me that much, if I just wanted an mentally engaging competition I’d go play chess or Starcraft or something.
Intro I’m less certain about. He’s got some of that speech and debate tendency (he’ll even kind of say this himself, talking about how if he has anti-Trump opinions he doesn’t see the point in posting them here). But I do think an important thing to understand in all this is what the fans of all this actually want, and why they’re supportive of it. oBlade’s perspective is probably too fabricated to give much insight there, but Intro is a bit more mixed.
Like, there’s a subtext to everything happening in MN (currently, although previously and still somewhat currently it was LA or Chicago or DC or etc.). It’s a pretty obvious subtext, I don’t think anyone is actually missing it, although oBlade or Intro might pretend to. But like, what is the actual purpose of these massive military-like “enforcement operations” they’re doing? They’re run by ICE so nominally they’re immigration enforcement, and I don’t doubt that they’re paying special attention to anybody they think is deportable. But why the focus on blue cities? And why are these guys they’re deploying to blue cities wearing camo fatigues and wielding assault rifles?
It’s obvious this is a punishment of liberal areas. It’s obvious Trump likes the idea of bands of street fighters loyal to his cause parading through “enemy territory” and cracking skulls (why else would he pardon everybody involved in J6?). And it’s obvious that these masked gunmen in these videos view their job primarily to be intimidating the population into submission.
But the question is, why do regular people like it? Or do they? When those masked gunmen break into every room of a 40-floor apartment building, no due process in sight, and drag a bunch of people off into the night with no oversight or accountability of any kind, am I honestly supposed to believe a guy like Intro thinks “yes, good, I like this because of my firm commitment to rule of law”?
Weird analysis of my sincerity put to the side, the answer "why target blue jurisdictions" is obvious. It's where a great many illegal immigrants are and it is where the local and state authorities are least helpful. They won't even coordinate to help deport convicted criminals. If you have a state government willing to cooperate to remove the worst of the worst it relieves pressure. In response to what was happening over the weekend DHS was posting on social media pictures and I think some bios of all the felons they were rounding up. Is everyone is a violent felon? No, but as i said before this is what happens when rules are ignores and then enforced. I've seen this dynamic even in my own workplace. Rules can be bent, even broken along the edges but if pushed too far the crackdown feels unfair and it hits eveyone. The hard truth is, if Biden hadn't let in literally millions of people on dubious or just ridiculous pretenses we might see a Trump policy more like his previous term. When I look at polls they are the classic American dichotomy, they like the idea of the thing but always wince at it implementation. Most voters disapprove of his current, uh, harshness. But they also favor deporting lots and lots of people lol. It's like the polls we used to see with climate change: "is climate change something very important that the government should act on?"
Yes: 40%
"Would you be willing to pay an extra 10$ in taxes if thst would solve the problem?"
Yes:14%
I'm not 100% sure but I think part of the problem is that Americans are so rich that they aren't used to making tradeoffs. It's why American politicians will always default to "spend more money" when trying to fix any problem. It's why they like the idea of deporting people but think it looks mean when they see it.
Kinda feels like I’m taking the bait here but I called a bunch of stuff “obvious” and you are insisting it’s not, so let’s talk about it.
I’ll start small. Why camo? In the 20th century soldiers started wearing camouflage fatigues because they were expecting to be shot at on sight, and the wars were happening in natural environments where those irregular green and brown patterns made you harder to spot. It’s a strategic choice premised on helping your soldiers blend into the natural environment so they won’t get shot.
In a domestic law enforcement operation there’s no particular reason they should expect to be shot at on sight, and even if they did, those irregular greens and browns don’t help you blend into a MN suburb. So why? Maybe they inherited them from army surplus or something, but God knows they’ve got the budget to be able to afford uniforms for their people. The only reason I can come up with is that they want a soldier aesthetic – they know citizens associate those irregular greens and browns with soldiers occupying, say, Fallujah, and they’re hoping that will be intimidating. Why, if this is just a law enforcement operation, do they want to look like an occupying army?
But that’s superficial. Here’s a more central one: do these ICE guys need to follow the law? And what oversight or accountability is there ensuring they do? It is the law of the land, for instance, that law enforcement needs probable cause to arrest or search someone, and that person is entitled to due process. Now, I’ve seen ample evidence that ICE has detained people, forced entry into homes, and hauled off dozens of prisoners at a time without the faintest whiff of a warrant. Citizens have been detained for days or weeks despite having proof of their identity and citizenship readily available; green card holders and other legal residents have had the same or worse. All of this is being done by masked officers who refuse to provide identification of any kind, and I’ve seen no evidence that anybody inside their agency is tracking these abuses, let alone trying to stop them.
It’s also the law of the land that ICE detention facilities are subject to surprise (no notice) audits and inspections by members of Congress. Multiple times members of Congress have attempted to perform these audits and inspections, and been refused entry by the men with guns. That appears to be a straightforward violation of black letter law. What recourse do we have as citizens when these supposed “law enforcement officers” dress up as an occupying army, arm themselves to the teeth, and brazenly flaunt any legal restrictions to which they are nominally subject?
More directly targeted at you, though: how can you assign any moral authority to “law enforcement“ that acts in such lawless fashion? Supposedly you’re supportive because regardless of propriety or decency or morality, damnit, the law says those people are supposed to be deported and we have to enforce the law. But you’ve expressed no concern that I’ve seen for any of the violation of law being performed in pursuit of that goal, which implies that you only selectively apply this zealous insistence that the law must be enforced.
You must have some criterion for deciding which laws must be enforced, no matter how impractical or cruel, and which are apparently violable without any pearl-clutching or notable concern of any kind. What is it? I could try to infer it as charitably as I can, but I’ll be honest, all the explanations I can come up with are still pretty damning. So hopefully you can enlighten me about a possibility I missed?
On January 12 2026 02:15 ChristianS wrote: I probably agree with GH that oBlade is a waste of time to engage with. He’s not dumb, I even kind of admire the willingness to do some pretty tedious nitpicky argumentation. But it’s just so clear that he treats politics like a speech and debate club where he’s been assigned the Republican position and is supposed to defend it vigorously by any means necessary. I never did speech and debate, it doesn’t interest me that much, if I just wanted an mentally engaging competition I’d go play chess or Starcraft or something.
Intro I’m less certain about. He’s got some of that speech and debate tendency (he’ll even kind of say this himself, talking about how if he has anti-Trump opinions he doesn’t see the point in posting them here). But I do think an important thing to understand in all this is what the fans of all this actually want, and why they’re supportive of it. oBlade’s perspective is probably too fabricated to give much insight there, but Intro is a bit more mixed.
Like, there’s a subtext to everything happening in MN (currently, although previously and still somewhat currently it was LA or Chicago or DC or etc.). It’s a pretty obvious subtext, I don’t think anyone is actually missing it, although oBlade or Intro might pretend to. But like, what is the actual purpose of these massive military-like “enforcement operations” they’re doing? They’re run by ICE so nominally they’re immigration enforcement, and I don’t doubt that they’re paying special attention to anybody they think is deportable. But why the focus on blue cities? And why are these guys they’re deploying to blue cities wearing camo fatigues and wielding assault rifles?
It’s obvious this is a punishment of liberal areas. It’s obvious Trump likes the idea of bands of street fighters loyal to his cause parading through “enemy territory” and cracking skulls (why else would he pardon everybody involved in J6?). And it’s obvious that these masked gunmen in these videos view their job primarily to be intimidating the population into submission.
But the question is, why do regular people like it? Or do they? When those masked gunmen break into every room of a 40-floor apartment building, no due process in sight, and drag a bunch of people off into the night with no oversight or accountability of any kind, am I honestly supposed to believe a guy like Intro thinks “yes, good, I like this because of my firm commitment to rule of law”?
Weird analysis of my sincerity put to the side, the answer "why target blue jurisdictions" is obvious. It's where a great many illegal immigrants are and it is where the local and state authorities are least helpful. They won't even coordinate to help deport convicted criminals. If you have a state government willing to cooperate to remove the worst of the worst it relieves pressure. In response to what was happening over the weekend DHS was posting on social media pictures and I think some bios of all the felons they were rounding up. Is everyone is a violent felon? No, but as i said before this is what happens when rules are ignores and then enforced. I've seen this dynamic even in my own workplace. Rules can be bent, even broken along the edges but if pushed too far the crackdown feels unfair and it hits eveyone. The hard truth is, if Biden hadn't let in literally millions of people on dubious or just ridiculous pretenses we might see a Trump policy more like his previous term. When I look at polls they are the classic American dichotomy, they like the idea of the thing but always wince at it implementation. Most voters disapprove of his current, uh, harshness. But they also favor deporting lots and lots of people lol. It's like the polls we used to see with climate change: "is climate change something very important that the government should act on?"
Yes: 40%
"Would you be willing to pay an extra 10$ in taxes if thst would solve the problem?"
Yes:14%
I'm not 100% sure but I think part of the problem is that Americans are so rich that they aren't used to making tradeoffs. It's why American politicians will always default to "spend more money" when trying to fix any problem. It's why they like the idea of deporting people but think it looks mean when they see it.
but I called a bunch of stuff “obvious” and you are insisting it’s not, so let’s talk about it.
I’ll start small. Why camo? In the 20th century soldiers started wearing camouflage fatigues because they were expecting to be shot at on sight, and the wars were happening in natural environments where those irregular green and brown patterns made you harder to spot. It’s a strategic choice premised on helping your soldiers blend into the natural environment so they won’t get shot.
In a domestic law enforcement operation there’s no particular reason they should expect to be shot at on sight, and even if they did, those irregular greens and browns don’t help you blend into a MN suburb. So why? Maybe they inherited them from army surplus or something, but God knows they’ve got the budget to be able to afford uniforms for their people. The only reason I can come up with is that they want a soldier aesthetic – they know citizens associate those irregular greens and browns with soldiers occupying, say, Fallujah, and they’re hoping that will be intimidating. Why, if this is just a law enforcement operation, do they want to look like an occupying army?
But that’s superficial. Here’s a more central one: do these ICE guys need to follow the law? And what oversight or accountability is there ensuring they do? It is the law of the land, for instance, that law enforcement needs probable cause to arrest or search someone, and that person is entitled to due process. Now, I’ve seen ample evidence that ICE has detained people, forced entry into homes, and hauled off dozens of prisoners at a time without the faintest whiff of a warrant. Citizens have been detained for days or weeks despite having proof of their identity and citizenship readily available; green card holders and other legal residents have had the same or worse. All of this is being done by masked officers who refuse to provide identification of any kind, and I’ve seen no evidence that anybody inside their agency is tracking these abuses, let alone trying to stop them.
It’s also the law of the land that ICE detention facilities are subject to surprise (no notice) audits and inspections by members of Congress. Multiple times members of Congress have attempted to perform these audits and inspections, and been refused entry by the men with guns. That appears to be a straightforward violation of black letter law. What recourse do we have as citizens when these supposed “law enforcement officers” dress up as an occupying army, arm themselves to the teeth, and brazenly flaunt any legal restrictions to which they are nominally subject?
More directly targeted at you, though: how can you assign any moral authority to “law enforcement“ that acts in such lawless fashion? Supposedly you’re supportive because regardless of propriety or decency or morality, damnit, the law says those people are supposed to be deported and we have to enforce the law. But you’ve expressed no concern that I’ve seen for any of the violation of law being performed in pursuit of that goal, which implies that you only selectively apply this zealous insistence that the law must be enforced.
You must have some criterion for deciding which laws must be enforced, no matter how impractical or cruel, and which are apparently violable without any pearl-clutching or notable concern of any kind. What is it? I could try to infer it as charitably as I can, but I’ll be honest, all the explanations I can come up with are still pretty damning. So hopefully you can enlighten me about a possibility I missed?
You 100% are.
What I find fascinating from a sociological perspective is that things like slot machines (where you know it is a losing endeavor before you play) need all sorts of lights, sounds, and actual payouts to keep people hooked. What are the "lights, sounds, and actual payouts" of these hopeless engagements that manages to overcome your rational minds over and over and over?
If ZerO, Simberto and others can't dissuade you all from doing it, I'd at least like to get a better understanding of the phenomena?
On January 12 2026 02:15 ChristianS wrote: I probably agree with GH that oBlade is a waste of time to engage with. He’s not dumb, I even kind of admire the willingness to do some pretty tedious nitpicky argumentation. But it’s just so clear that he treats politics like a speech and debate club where he’s been assigned the Republican position and is supposed to defend it vigorously by any means necessary. I never did speech and debate, it doesn’t interest me that much, if I just wanted an mentally engaging competition I’d go play chess or Starcraft or something.
Intro I’m less certain about. He’s got some of that speech and debate tendency (he’ll even kind of say this himself, talking about how if he has anti-Trump opinions he doesn’t see the point in posting them here). But I do think an important thing to understand in all this is what the fans of all this actually want, and why they’re supportive of it. oBlade’s perspective is probably too fabricated to give much insight there, but Intro is a bit more mixed.
Like, there’s a subtext to everything happening in MN (currently, although previously and still somewhat currently it was LA or Chicago or DC or etc.). It’s a pretty obvious subtext, I don’t think anyone is actually missing it, although oBlade or Intro might pretend to. But like, what is the actual purpose of these massive military-like “enforcement operations” they’re doing? They’re run by ICE so nominally they’re immigration enforcement, and I don’t doubt that they’re paying special attention to anybody they think is deportable. But why the focus on blue cities? And why are these guys they’re deploying to blue cities wearing camo fatigues and wielding assault rifles?
It’s obvious this is a punishment of liberal areas. It’s obvious Trump likes the idea of bands of street fighters loyal to his cause parading through “enemy territory” and cracking skulls (why else would he pardon everybody involved in J6?). And it’s obvious that these masked gunmen in these videos view their job primarily to be intimidating the population into submission.
But the question is, why do regular people like it? Or do they? When those masked gunmen break into every room of a 40-floor apartment building, no due process in sight, and drag a bunch of people off into the night with no oversight or accountability of any kind, am I honestly supposed to believe a guy like Intro thinks “yes, good, I like this because of my firm commitment to rule of law”?
Weird analysis of my sincerity put to the side, the answer "why target blue jurisdictions" is obvious. It's where a great many illegal immigrants are and it is where the local and state authorities are least helpful. They won't even coordinate to help deport convicted criminals. If you have a state government willing to cooperate to remove the worst of the worst it relieves pressure. In response to what was happening over the weekend DHS was posting on social media pictures and I think some bios of all the felons they were rounding up. Is everyone is a violent felon? No, but as i said before this is what happens when rules are ignores and then enforced. I've seen this dynamic even in my own workplace. Rules can be bent, even broken along the edges but if pushed too far the crackdown feels unfair and it hits eveyone. The hard truth is, if Biden hadn't let in literally millions of people on dubious or just ridiculous pretenses we might see a Trump policy more like his previous term. When I look at polls they are the classic American dichotomy, they like the idea of the thing but always wince at it implementation. Most voters disapprove of his current, uh, harshness. But they also favor deporting lots and lots of people lol. It's like the polls we used to see with climate change: "is climate change something very important that the government should act on?"
Yes: 40%
"Would you be willing to pay an extra 10$ in taxes if thst would solve the problem?"
Yes:14%
I'm not 100% sure but I think part of the problem is that Americans are so rich that they aren't used to making tradeoffs. It's why American politicians will always default to "spend more money" when trying to fix any problem. It's why they like the idea of deporting people but think it looks mean when they see it.
Kinda feels like I’m taking the bait here but I called a bunch of stuff “obvious” and you are insisting it’s not, so let’s talk about it.
I’ll start small. Why camo? In the 20th century soldiers started wearing camouflage fatigues because they were expecting to be shot at on sight, and the wars were happening in natural environments where those irregular green and brown patterns made you harder to spot. It’s a strategic choice premised on helping your soldiers blend into the natural environment so they won’t get shot.
In a domestic law enforcement operation there’s no particular reason they should expect to be shot at on sight, and even if they did, those irregular greens and browns don’t help you blend into a MN suburb. So why? Maybe they inherited them from army surplus or something, but God knows they’ve got the budget to be able to afford uniforms for their people. The only reason I can come up with is that they want a soldier aesthetic – they know citizens associate those irregular greens and browns with soldiers occupying, say, Fallujah, and they’re hoping that will be intimidating. Why, if this is just a law enforcement operation, do they want to look like an occupying army?
But that’s superficial. Here’s a more central one: do these ICE guys need to follow the law? And what oversight or accountability is there ensuring they do? It is the law of the land, for instance, that law enforcement needs probable cause to arrest or search someone, and that person is entitled to due process. Now, I’ve seen ample evidence that ICE has detained people, forced entry into homes, and hauled off dozens of prisoners at a time without the faintest whiff of a warrant. Citizens have been detained for days or weeks despite having proof of their identity and citizenship readily available; green card holders and other legal residents have had the same or worse. All of this is being done by masked officers who refuse to provide identification of any kind, and I’ve seen no evidence that anybody inside their agency is tracking these abuses, let alone trying to stop them.
It’s also the law of the land that ICE detention facilities are subject to surprise (no notice) audits and inspections by members of Congress. Multiple times members of Congress have attempted to perform these audits and inspections, and been refused entry by the men with guns. That appears to be a straightforward violation of black letter law. What recourse do we have as citizens when these supposed “law enforcement officers” dress up as an occupying army, arm themselves to the teeth, and brazenly flaunt any legal restrictions to which they are nominally subject?
More directly targeted at you, though: how can you assign any moral authority to “law enforcement“ that acts in such lawless fashion? Supposedly you’re supportive because regardless of propriety or decency or morality, damnit, the law says those people are supposed to be deported and we have to enforce the law. But you’ve expressed no concern that I’ve seen for any of the violation of law being performed in pursuit of that goal, which implies that you only selectively apply this zealous insistence that the law must be enforced.
You must have some criterion for deciding which laws must be enforced, no matter how impractical or cruel, and which are apparently violable without any pearl-clutching or notable concern of any kind. What is it? I could try to infer it as charitably as I can, but I’ll be honest, all the explanations I can come up with are still pretty damning. So hopefully you can enlighten me about a possibility I missed?
You said it was obvious ICE was targeting blue jurisdictions and I agreed with you. What I tried to do was answer your question "why?"
I don't know why they wear camo, I don't know what they should wear, besides that they should be identifiable as federal law enforcement. You are right, it's superficial imo.
I'm all for real oversight of every government agency, not just ICE/DHS. As well as accountability. If citizens are unduly detained they should be remunerated. As always mistakes will happen, but they should be corrected. I have no doubt that within DHS, as again, within every organization of any size, there is a instinct to defend their own even when they shouldn't.
The long established immigration laws have a lot of provisions and rules that have been very underused, but to put it simply the suite of constitutional processes don't apply to people about whom there is no doubt to their status. It's why Kilmar Abrego Garcia doesn't need to have a trial to be deported, despite what some people here seem to think. What rights he does have come from federal law as passed by Congress, not the Constitution.
The "right" of members of Congress to enter CBP facilities is large but still less expansive than you think. Members of Congress do not, in general, have the ability to show up at any federal facility just walk in and "inspect." Such rights as there do not come from some Constitutional rule, which is what they seem to claim, but from specific laws which are currently in dispute. Nonetheless, it wouldn't bother me. What does bother me is pretending that these objections are what matters. Is anyone who is upset at ICE mad because of these particulars you have laid out? Not really so far as I read. They are more mad that people are being deported at all.
I say again what I said above. This is an excellent lesson in why we don't so flagrantly violate the rules we have in the first place. If the population of illegal immigrants was small or very old with no new arrivals, the political calculations would be different. As it stands now, a lot of people are going to have a hard time, even innocent people. And they should be fully recompensed. The difference is that I am not a utopian and also I have memory better than that of a goldfish. I know what happens when rules are ignored more and more. Everyone who enters illegally knows they could be deported at any time. It is a calculated risk, and sometimes you lose.
On January 12 2026 02:15 ChristianS wrote: I probably agree with GH that oBlade is a waste of time to engage with. He’s not dumb, I even kind of admire the willingness to do some pretty tedious nitpicky argumentation. But it’s just so clear that he treats politics like a speech and debate club where he’s been assigned the Republican position and is supposed to defend it vigorously by any means necessary. I never did speech and debate, it doesn’t interest me that much, if I just wanted an mentally engaging competition I’d go play chess or Starcraft or something.
Intro I’m less certain about. He’s got some of that speech and debate tendency (he’ll even kind of say this himself, talking about how if he has anti-Trump opinions he doesn’t see the point in posting them here). But I do think an important thing to understand in all this is what the fans of all this actually want, and why they’re supportive of it. oBlade’s perspective is probably too fabricated to give much insight there, but Intro is a bit more mixed.
Like, there’s a subtext to everything happening in MN (currently, although previously and still somewhat currently it was LA or Chicago or DC or etc.). It’s a pretty obvious subtext, I don’t think anyone is actually missing it, although oBlade or Intro might pretend to. But like, what is the actual purpose of these massive military-like “enforcement operations” they’re doing? They’re run by ICE so nominally they’re immigration enforcement, and I don’t doubt that they’re paying special attention to anybody they think is deportable. But why the focus on blue cities? And why are these guys they’re deploying to blue cities wearing camo fatigues and wielding assault rifles?
It’s obvious this is a punishment of liberal areas. It’s obvious Trump likes the idea of bands of street fighters loyal to his cause parading through “enemy territory” and cracking skulls (why else would he pardon everybody involved in J6?). And it’s obvious that these masked gunmen in these videos view their job primarily to be intimidating the population into submission.
But the question is, why do regular people like it? Or do they? When those masked gunmen break into every room of a 40-floor apartment building, no due process in sight, and drag a bunch of people off into the night with no oversight or accountability of any kind, am I honestly supposed to believe a guy like Intro thinks “yes, good, I like this because of my firm commitment to rule of law”?
Weird analysis of my sincerity put to the side, the answer "why target blue jurisdictions" is obvious. It's where a great many illegal immigrants are and it is where the local and state authorities are least helpful. They won't even coordinate to help deport convicted criminals. If you have a state government willing to cooperate to remove the worst of the worst it relieves pressure. In response to what was happening over the weekend DHS was posting on social media pictures and I think some bios of all the felons they were rounding up. Is everyone is a violent felon? No, but as i said before this is what happens when rules are ignores and then enforced. I've seen this dynamic even in my own workplace. Rules can be bent, even broken along the edges but if pushed too far the crackdown feels unfair and it hits eveyone. The hard truth is, if Biden hadn't let in literally millions of people on dubious or just ridiculous pretenses we might see a Trump policy more like his previous term. When I look at polls they are the classic American dichotomy, they like the idea of the thing but always wince at it implementation. Most voters disapprove of his current, uh, harshness. But they also favor deporting lots and lots of people lol. It's like the polls we used to see with climate change: "is climate change something very important that the government should act on?"
Yes: 40%
"Would you be willing to pay an extra 10$ in taxes if thst would solve the problem?"
Yes:14%
I'm not 100% sure but I think part of the problem is that Americans are so rich that they aren't used to making tradeoffs. It's why American politicians will always default to "spend more money" when trying to fix any problem. It's why they like the idea of deporting people but think it looks mean when they see it.
but I called a bunch of stuff “obvious” and you are insisting it’s not, so let’s talk about it.
I’ll start small. Why camo? In the 20th century soldiers started wearing camouflage fatigues because they were expecting to be shot at on sight, and the wars were happening in natural environments where those irregular green and brown patterns made you harder to spot. It’s a strategic choice premised on helping your soldiers blend into the natural environment so they won’t get shot.
In a domestic law enforcement operation there’s no particular reason they should expect to be shot at on sight, and even if they did, those irregular greens and browns don’t help you blend into a MN suburb. So why? Maybe they inherited them from army surplus or something, but God knows they’ve got the budget to be able to afford uniforms for their people. The only reason I can come up with is that they want a soldier aesthetic – they know citizens associate those irregular greens and browns with soldiers occupying, say, Fallujah, and they’re hoping that will be intimidating. Why, if this is just a law enforcement operation, do they want to look like an occupying army?
But that’s superficial. Here’s a more central one: do these ICE guys need to follow the law? And what oversight or accountability is there ensuring they do? It is the law of the land, for instance, that law enforcement needs probable cause to arrest or search someone, and that person is entitled to due process. Now, I’ve seen ample evidence that ICE has detained people, forced entry into homes, and hauled off dozens of prisoners at a time without the faintest whiff of a warrant. Citizens have been detained for days or weeks despite having proof of their identity and citizenship readily available; green card holders and other legal residents have had the same or worse. All of this is being done by masked officers who refuse to provide identification of any kind, and I’ve seen no evidence that anybody inside their agency is tracking these abuses, let alone trying to stop them.
It’s also the law of the land that ICE detention facilities are subject to surprise (no notice) audits and inspections by members of Congress. Multiple times members of Congress have attempted to perform these audits and inspections, and been refused entry by the men with guns. That appears to be a straightforward violation of black letter law. What recourse do we have as citizens when these supposed “law enforcement officers” dress up as an occupying army, arm themselves to the teeth, and brazenly flaunt any legal restrictions to which they are nominally subject?
More directly targeted at you, though: how can you assign any moral authority to “law enforcement“ that acts in such lawless fashion? Supposedly you’re supportive because regardless of propriety or decency or morality, damnit, the law says those people are supposed to be deported and we have to enforce the law. But you’ve expressed no concern that I’ve seen for any of the violation of law being performed in pursuit of that goal, which implies that you only selectively apply this zealous insistence that the law must be enforced.
You must have some criterion for deciding which laws must be enforced, no matter how impractical or cruel, and which are apparently violable without any pearl-clutching or notable concern of any kind. What is it? I could try to infer it as charitably as I can, but I’ll be honest, all the explanations I can come up with are still pretty damning. So hopefully you can enlighten me about a possibility I missed?
You 100% are.
What I find fascinating from a sociological perspective is that things like slot machines (where you know it is a losing endeavor before you play) need all sorts of lights, sounds, and actual payouts to keep people hooked. What are the "lights, sounds, and actual payouts" of these hopeless engagements that manages to overcome your rational minds over and over and over?
If ZerO, Simberto and others can't dissuade you all from doing it, I'd at least like to get a better understanding of the phenomena?
What success have you had with any of your posts and various tactics?
Could you not look internally for this answer rather than talking down to others who are doing something similar but with farm more detail and in good faith?
On January 12 2026 02:15 ChristianS wrote: I probably agree with GH that oBlade is a waste of time to engage with. He’s not dumb, I even kind of admire the willingness to do some pretty tedious nitpicky argumentation. But it’s just so clear that he treats politics like a speech and debate club where he’s been assigned the Republican position and is supposed to defend it vigorously by any means necessary. I never did speech and debate, it doesn’t interest me that much, if I just wanted an mentally engaging competition I’d go play chess or Starcraft or something.
Intro I’m less certain about. He’s got some of that speech and debate tendency (he’ll even kind of say this himself, talking about how if he has anti-Trump opinions he doesn’t see the point in posting them here). But I do think an important thing to understand in all this is what the fans of all this actually want, and why they’re supportive of it. oBlade’s perspective is probably too fabricated to give much insight there, but Intro is a bit more mixed.
Like, there’s a subtext to everything happening in MN (currently, although previously and still somewhat currently it was LA or Chicago or DC or etc.). It’s a pretty obvious subtext, I don’t think anyone is actually missing it, although oBlade or Intro might pretend to. But like, what is the actual purpose of these massive military-like “enforcement operations” they’re doing? They’re run by ICE so nominally they’re immigration enforcement, and I don’t doubt that they’re paying special attention to anybody they think is deportable. But why the focus on blue cities? And why are these guys they’re deploying to blue cities wearing camo fatigues and wielding assault rifles?
It’s obvious this is a punishment of liberal areas. It’s obvious Trump likes the idea of bands of street fighters loyal to his cause parading through “enemy territory” and cracking skulls (why else would he pardon everybody involved in J6?). And it’s obvious that these masked gunmen in these videos view their job primarily to be intimidating the population into submission.
But the question is, why do regular people like it? Or do they? When those masked gunmen break into every room of a 40-floor apartment building, no due process in sight, and drag a bunch of people off into the night with no oversight or accountability of any kind, am I honestly supposed to believe a guy like Intro thinks “yes, good, I like this because of my firm commitment to rule of law”?
Weird analysis of my sincerity put to the side, the answer "why target blue jurisdictions" is obvious. It's where a great many illegal immigrants are and it is where the local and state authorities are least helpful. They won't even coordinate to help deport convicted criminals. If you have a state government willing to cooperate to remove the worst of the worst it relieves pressure. In response to what was happening over the weekend DHS was posting on social media pictures and I think some bios of all the felons they were rounding up. Is everyone is a violent felon? No, but as i said before this is what happens when rules are ignores and then enforced. I've seen this dynamic even in my own workplace. Rules can be bent, even broken along the edges but if pushed too far the crackdown feels unfair and it hits eveyone. The hard truth is, if Biden hadn't let in literally millions of people on dubious or just ridiculous pretenses we might see a Trump policy more like his previous term. When I look at polls they are the classic American dichotomy, they like the idea of the thing but always wince at it implementation. Most voters disapprove of his current, uh, harshness. But they also favor deporting lots and lots of people lol. It's like the polls we used to see with climate change: "is climate change something very important that the government should act on?"
Yes: 40%
"Would you be willing to pay an extra 10$ in taxes if thst would solve the problem?"
Yes:14%
I'm not 100% sure but I think part of the problem is that Americans are so rich that they aren't used to making tradeoffs. It's why American politicians will always default to "spend more money" when trying to fix any problem. It's why they like the idea of deporting people but think it looks mean when they see it.
but I called a bunch of stuff “obvious” and you are insisting it’s not, so let’s talk about it.
I’ll start small. Why camo? In the 20th century soldiers started wearing camouflage fatigues because they were expecting to be shot at on sight, and the wars were happening in natural environments where those irregular green and brown patterns made you harder to spot. It’s a strategic choice premised on helping your soldiers blend into the natural environment so they won’t get shot.
In a domestic law enforcement operation there’s no particular reason they should expect to be shot at on sight, and even if they did, those irregular greens and browns don’t help you blend into a MN suburb. So why? Maybe they inherited them from army surplus or something, but God knows they’ve got the budget to be able to afford uniforms for their people. The only reason I can come up with is that they want a soldier aesthetic – they know citizens associate those irregular greens and browns with soldiers occupying, say, Fallujah, and they’re hoping that will be intimidating. Why, if this is just a law enforcement operation, do they want to look like an occupying army?
But that’s superficial. Here’s a more central one: do these ICE guys need to follow the law? And what oversight or accountability is there ensuring they do? It is the law of the land, for instance, that law enforcement needs probable cause to arrest or search someone, and that person is entitled to due process. Now, I’ve seen ample evidence that ICE has detained people, forced entry into homes, and hauled off dozens of prisoners at a time without the faintest whiff of a warrant. Citizens have been detained for days or weeks despite having proof of their identity and citizenship readily available; green card holders and other legal residents have had the same or worse. All of this is being done by masked officers who refuse to provide identification of any kind, and I’ve seen no evidence that anybody inside their agency is tracking these abuses, let alone trying to stop them.
It’s also the law of the land that ICE detention facilities are subject to surprise (no notice) audits and inspections by members of Congress. Multiple times members of Congress have attempted to perform these audits and inspections, and been refused entry by the men with guns. That appears to be a straightforward violation of black letter law. What recourse do we have as citizens when these supposed “law enforcement officers” dress up as an occupying army, arm themselves to the teeth, and brazenly flaunt any legal restrictions to which they are nominally subject?
More directly targeted at you, though: how can you assign any moral authority to “law enforcement“ that acts in such lawless fashion? Supposedly you’re supportive because regardless of propriety or decency or morality, damnit, the law says those people are supposed to be deported and we have to enforce the law. But you’ve expressed no concern that I’ve seen for any of the violation of law being performed in pursuit of that goal, which implies that you only selectively apply this zealous insistence that the law must be enforced.
You must have some criterion for deciding which laws must be enforced, no matter how impractical or cruel, and which are apparently violable without any pearl-clutching or notable concern of any kind. What is it? I could try to infer it as charitably as I can, but I’ll be honest, all the explanations I can come up with are still pretty damning. So hopefully you can enlighten me about a possibility I missed?
You 100% are.
What I find fascinating from a sociological perspective is that things like slot machines (where you know it is a losing endeavor before you play) need all sorts of lights, sounds, and actual payouts to keep people hooked. What are the "lights, sounds, and actual payouts" of these hopeless engagements that manages to overcome your rational minds over and over and over?
If ZerO, Simberto and others can't dissuade you all from doing it, I'd at least like to get a better understanding of the phenomena?
Could the same line of questioning be turned on you? Kwark, JimmiC and others can't dissuade 'you all' from doing it just the same, despite it being predictable and well-trod ground.
On January 12 2026 02:15 ChristianS wrote: I probably agree with GH that oBlade is a waste of time to engage with. He’s not dumb, I even kind of admire the willingness to do some pretty tedious nitpicky argumentation. But it’s just so clear that he treats politics like a speech and debate club where he’s been assigned the Republican position and is supposed to defend it vigorously by any means necessary. I never did speech and debate, it doesn’t interest me that much, if I just wanted an mentally engaging competition I’d go play chess or Starcraft or something.
Intro I’m less certain about. He’s got some of that speech and debate tendency (he’ll even kind of say this himself, talking about how if he has anti-Trump opinions he doesn’t see the point in posting them here). But I do think an important thing to understand in all this is what the fans of all this actually want, and why they’re supportive of it. oBlade’s perspective is probably too fabricated to give much insight there, but Intro is a bit more mixed.
Like, there’s a subtext to everything happening in MN (currently, although previously and still somewhat currently it was LA or Chicago or DC or etc.). It’s a pretty obvious subtext, I don’t think anyone is actually missing it, although oBlade or Intro might pretend to. But like, what is the actual purpose of these massive military-like “enforcement operations” they’re doing? They’re run by ICE so nominally they’re immigration enforcement, and I don’t doubt that they’re paying special attention to anybody they think is deportable. But why the focus on blue cities? And why are these guys they’re deploying to blue cities wearing camo fatigues and wielding assault rifles?
It’s obvious this is a punishment of liberal areas. It’s obvious Trump likes the idea of bands of street fighters loyal to his cause parading through “enemy territory” and cracking skulls (why else would he pardon everybody involved in J6?). And it’s obvious that these masked gunmen in these videos view their job primarily to be intimidating the population into submission.
But the question is, why do regular people like it? Or do they? When those masked gunmen break into every room of a 40-floor apartment building, no due process in sight, and drag a bunch of people off into the night with no oversight or accountability of any kind, am I honestly supposed to believe a guy like Intro thinks “yes, good, I like this because of my firm commitment to rule of law”?
Weird analysis of my sincerity put to the side, the answer "why target blue jurisdictions" is obvious. It's where a great many illegal immigrants are and it is where the local and state authorities are least helpful. They won't even coordinate to help deport convicted criminals. If you have a state government willing to cooperate to remove the worst of the worst it relieves pressure. In response to what was happening over the weekend DHS was posting on social media pictures and I think some bios of all the felons they were rounding up. Is everyone is a violent felon? No, but as i said before this is what happens when rules are ignores and then enforced. I've seen this dynamic even in my own workplace. Rules can be bent, even broken along the edges but if pushed too far the crackdown feels unfair and it hits eveyone. The hard truth is, if Biden hadn't let in literally millions of people on dubious or just ridiculous pretenses we might see a Trump policy more like his previous term. When I look at polls they are the classic American dichotomy, they like the idea of the thing but always wince at it implementation. Most voters disapprove of his current, uh, harshness. But they also favor deporting lots and lots of people lol. It's like the polls we used to see with climate change: "is climate change something very important that the government should act on?"
Yes: 40%
"Would you be willing to pay an extra 10$ in taxes if thst would solve the problem?"
Yes:14%
I'm not 100% sure but I think part of the problem is that Americans are so rich that they aren't used to making tradeoffs. It's why American politicians will always default to "spend more money" when trying to fix any problem. It's why they like the idea of deporting people but think it looks mean when they see it.
but I called a bunch of stuff “obvious” and you are insisting it’s not, so let’s talk about it.
I’ll start small. Why camo? In the 20th century soldiers started wearing camouflage fatigues because they were expecting to be shot at on sight, and the wars were happening in natural environments where those irregular green and brown patterns made you harder to spot. It’s a strategic choice premised on helping your soldiers blend into the natural environment so they won’t get shot.
In a domestic law enforcement operation there’s no particular reason they should expect to be shot at on sight, and even if they did, those irregular greens and browns don’t help you blend into a MN suburb. So why? Maybe they inherited them from army surplus or something, but God knows they’ve got the budget to be able to afford uniforms for their people. The only reason I can come up with is that they want a soldier aesthetic – they know citizens associate those irregular greens and browns with soldiers occupying, say, Fallujah, and they’re hoping that will be intimidating. Why, if this is just a law enforcement operation, do they want to look like an occupying army?
But that’s superficial. Here’s a more central one: do these ICE guys need to follow the law? And what oversight or accountability is there ensuring they do? It is the law of the land, for instance, that law enforcement needs probable cause to arrest or search someone, and that person is entitled to due process. Now, I’ve seen ample evidence that ICE has detained people, forced entry into homes, and hauled off dozens of prisoners at a time without the faintest whiff of a warrant. Citizens have been detained for days or weeks despite having proof of their identity and citizenship readily available; green card holders and other legal residents have had the same or worse. All of this is being done by masked officers who refuse to provide identification of any kind, and I’ve seen no evidence that anybody inside their agency is tracking these abuses, let alone trying to stop them.
It’s also the law of the land that ICE detention facilities are subject to surprise (no notice) audits and inspections by members of Congress. Multiple times members of Congress have attempted to perform these audits and inspections, and been refused entry by the men with guns. That appears to be a straightforward violation of black letter law. What recourse do we have as citizens when these supposed “law enforcement officers” dress up as an occupying army, arm themselves to the teeth, and brazenly flaunt any legal restrictions to which they are nominally subject?
More directly targeted at you, though: how can you assign any moral authority to “law enforcement“ that acts in such lawless fashion? Supposedly you’re supportive because regardless of propriety or decency or morality, damnit, the law says those people are supposed to be deported and we have to enforce the law. But you’ve expressed no concern that I’ve seen for any of the violation of law being performed in pursuit of that goal, which implies that you only selectively apply this zealous insistence that the law must be enforced.
You must have some criterion for deciding which laws must be enforced, no matter how impractical or cruel, and which are apparently violable without any pearl-clutching or notable concern of any kind. What is it? I could try to infer it as charitably as I can, but I’ll be honest, all the explanations I can come up with are still pretty damning. So hopefully you can enlighten me about a possibility I missed?
You 100% are.
What I find fascinating from a sociological perspective is that things like slot machines (where you know it is a losing endeavor before you play) need all sorts of lights, sounds, and actual payouts to keep people hooked. What are the "lights, sounds, and actual payouts" of these hopeless engagements that manages to overcome your rational minds over and over and over?
If ZerO, Simberto and others can't dissuade you all from doing it, I'd at least like to get a better understanding of the phenomena?
“Losing” depends on what I’m trying to achieve, no? I’m losing some of my time, certainly. I have no illusions that my rhetorical prowess will allow me to convince oBlade or Intro of the error of their ways. I doubt even the three ghosts could do that.
I do think “why does someone like oBlade support this?” is a valuable question to answer, and one I don’t have very clear ideas about. Unfortunately I don’t think actually talking to oBlade about it provides any meaningful illumination. It’s a bit like WW1, he’ll fight you all day long but it’s virtually impossible to find out what his actual war aims are; he’ll just continue forever, occasionally on offense but mostly on defense, until he believes his side has either won or lost.
Intro, I’m not convinced. I think he’s selective in his attention but probably believes the things he says, and if he seems overly credulous about this or overly skeptical about that, it’s not just rhetorical; it’s a genuine window into how his political understanding functions.
Or, well, sometimes it is, at least. I’ve lamented the loss of Danglars a little over the years, partly because while getting his true perspective was still like pulling teeth, I think it was still a lot easier than with Intro. But he’s sui generis just like the rest of us.
On January 12 2026 02:15 ChristianS wrote: I probably agree with GH that oBlade is a waste of time to engage with. He’s not dumb, I even kind of admire the willingness to do some pretty tedious nitpicky argumentation. But it’s just so clear that he treats politics like a speech and debate club where he’s been assigned the Republican position and is supposed to defend it vigorously by any means necessary. I never did speech and debate, it doesn’t interest me that much, if I just wanted an mentally engaging competition I’d go play chess or Starcraft or something.
Intro I’m less certain about. He’s got some of that speech and debate tendency (he’ll even kind of say this himself, talking about how if he has anti-Trump opinions he doesn’t see the point in posting them here). But I do think an important thing to understand in all this is what the fans of all this actually want, and why they’re supportive of it. oBlade’s perspective is probably too fabricated to give much insight there, but Intro is a bit more mixed.
Like, there’s a subtext to everything happening in MN (currently, although previously and still somewhat currently it was LA or Chicago or DC or etc.). It’s a pretty obvious subtext, I don’t think anyone is actually missing it, although oBlade or Intro might pretend to. But like, what is the actual purpose of these massive military-like “enforcement operations” they’re doing? They’re run by ICE so nominally they’re immigration enforcement, and I don’t doubt that they’re paying special attention to anybody they think is deportable. But why the focus on blue cities? And why are these guys they’re deploying to blue cities wearing camo fatigues and wielding assault rifles?
It’s obvious this is a punishment of liberal areas. It’s obvious Trump likes the idea of bands of street fighters loyal to his cause parading through “enemy territory” and cracking skulls (why else would he pardon everybody involved in J6?). And it’s obvious that these masked gunmen in these videos view their job primarily to be intimidating the population into submission.
But the question is, why do regular people like it? Or do they? When those masked gunmen break into every room of a 40-floor apartment building, no due process in sight, and drag a bunch of people off into the night with no oversight or accountability of any kind, am I honestly supposed to believe a guy like Intro thinks “yes, good, I like this because of my firm commitment to rule of law”?
Weird analysis of my sincerity put to the side, the answer "why target blue jurisdictions" is obvious. It's where a great many illegal immigrants are and it is where the local and state authorities are least helpful. They won't even coordinate to help deport convicted criminals. If you have a state government willing to cooperate to remove the worst of the worst it relieves pressure. In response to what was happening over the weekend DHS was posting on social media pictures and I think some bios of all the felons they were rounding up. Is everyone is a violent felon? No, but as i said before this is what happens when rules are ignores and then enforced. I've seen this dynamic even in my own workplace. Rules can be bent, even broken along the edges but if pushed too far the crackdown feels unfair and it hits eveyone. The hard truth is, if Biden hadn't let in literally millions of people on dubious or just ridiculous pretenses we might see a Trump policy more like his previous term. When I look at polls they are the classic American dichotomy, they like the idea of the thing but always wince at it implementation. Most voters disapprove of his current, uh, harshness. But they also favor deporting lots and lots of people lol. It's like the polls we used to see with climate change: "is climate change something very important that the government should act on?"
Yes: 40%
"Would you be willing to pay an extra 10$ in taxes if thst would solve the problem?"
Yes:14%
I'm not 100% sure but I think part of the problem is that Americans are so rich that they aren't used to making tradeoffs. It's why American politicians will always default to "spend more money" when trying to fix any problem. It's why they like the idea of deporting people but think it looks mean when they see it.
but I called a bunch of stuff “obvious” and you are insisting it’s not, so let’s talk about it.
I’ll start small. Why camo? In the 20th century soldiers started wearing camouflage fatigues because they were expecting to be shot at on sight, and the wars were happening in natural environments where those irregular green and brown patterns made you harder to spot. It’s a strategic choice premised on helping your soldiers blend into the natural environment so they won’t get shot.
In a domestic law enforcement operation there’s no particular reason they should expect to be shot at on sight, and even if they did, those irregular greens and browns don’t help you blend into a MN suburb. So why? Maybe they inherited them from army surplus or something, but God knows they’ve got the budget to be able to afford uniforms for their people. The only reason I can come up with is that they want a soldier aesthetic – they know citizens associate those irregular greens and browns with soldiers occupying, say, Fallujah, and they’re hoping that will be intimidating. Why, if this is just a law enforcement operation, do they want to look like an occupying army?
But that’s superficial. Here’s a more central one: do these ICE guys need to follow the law? And what oversight or accountability is there ensuring they do? It is the law of the land, for instance, that law enforcement needs probable cause to arrest or search someone, and that person is entitled to due process. Now, I’ve seen ample evidence that ICE has detained people, forced entry into homes, and hauled off dozens of prisoners at a time without the faintest whiff of a warrant. Citizens have been detained for days or weeks despite having proof of their identity and citizenship readily available; green card holders and other legal residents have had the same or worse. All of this is being done by masked officers who refuse to provide identification of any kind, and I’ve seen no evidence that anybody inside their agency is tracking these abuses, let alone trying to stop them.
It’s also the law of the land that ICE detention facilities are subject to surprise (no notice) audits and inspections by members of Congress. Multiple times members of Congress have attempted to perform these audits and inspections, and been refused entry by the men with guns. That appears to be a straightforward violation of black letter law. What recourse do we have as citizens when these supposed “law enforcement officers” dress up as an occupying army, arm themselves to the teeth, and brazenly flaunt any legal restrictions to which they are nominally subject?
More directly targeted at you, though: how can you assign any moral authority to “law enforcement“ that acts in such lawless fashion? Supposedly you’re supportive because regardless of propriety or decency or morality, damnit, the law says those people are supposed to be deported and we have to enforce the law. But you’ve expressed no concern that I’ve seen for any of the violation of law being performed in pursuit of that goal, which implies that you only selectively apply this zealous insistence that the law must be enforced.
You must have some criterion for deciding which laws must be enforced, no matter how impractical or cruel, and which are apparently violable without any pearl-clutching or notable concern of any kind. What is it? I could try to infer it as charitably as I can, but I’ll be honest, all the explanations I can come up with are still pretty damning. So hopefully you can enlighten me about a possibility I missed?
You 100% are.
What I find fascinating from a sociological perspective is that things like slot machines (where you know it is a losing endeavor before you play) need all sorts of lights, sounds, and actual payouts to keep people hooked. What are the "lights, sounds, and actual payouts" of these hopeless engagements that manages to overcome your rational minds over and over and over?
If ZerO, Simberto and others can't dissuade you all from doing it, I'd at least like to get a better understanding of the phenomena?
Some people engage in online debates (or live / in-person debates) to appeal to / change the minds of the silent viewers / readers / lurkers / audience, even when the interlocutors know that they won't change the mind of the opposing debater. Maybe that's relevant for some people?
On January 12 2026 02:15 ChristianS wrote: I probably agree with GH that oBlade is a waste of time to engage with. He’s not dumb, I even kind of admire the willingness to do some pretty tedious nitpicky argumentation. But it’s just so clear that he treats politics like a speech and debate club where he’s been assigned the Republican position and is supposed to defend it vigorously by any means necessary. I never did speech and debate, it doesn’t interest me that much, if I just wanted an mentally engaging competition I’d go play chess or Starcraft or something.
Intro I’m less certain about. He’s got some of that speech and debate tendency (he’ll even kind of say this himself, talking about how if he has anti-Trump opinions he doesn’t see the point in posting them here). But I do think an important thing to understand in all this is what the fans of all this actually want, and why they’re supportive of it. oBlade’s perspective is probably too fabricated to give much insight there, but Intro is a bit more mixed.
Like, there’s a subtext to everything happening in MN (currently, although previously and still somewhat currently it was LA or Chicago or DC or etc.). It’s a pretty obvious subtext, I don’t think anyone is actually missing it, although oBlade or Intro might pretend to. But like, what is the actual purpose of these massive military-like “enforcement operations” they’re doing? They’re run by ICE so nominally they’re immigration enforcement, and I don’t doubt that they’re paying special attention to anybody they think is deportable. But why the focus on blue cities? And why are these guys they’re deploying to blue cities wearing camo fatigues and wielding assault rifles?
It’s obvious this is a punishment of liberal areas. It’s obvious Trump likes the idea of bands of street fighters loyal to his cause parading through “enemy territory” and cracking skulls (why else would he pardon everybody involved in J6?). And it’s obvious that these masked gunmen in these videos view their job primarily to be intimidating the population into submission.
But the question is, why do regular people like it? Or do they? When those masked gunmen break into every room of a 40-floor apartment building, no due process in sight, and drag a bunch of people off into the night with no oversight or accountability of any kind, am I honestly supposed to believe a guy like Intro thinks “yes, good, I like this because of my firm commitment to rule of law”?
Weird analysis of my sincerity put to the side, the answer "why target blue jurisdictions" is obvious. It's where a great many illegal immigrants are and it is where the local and state authorities are least helpful. They won't even coordinate to help deport convicted criminals. If you have a state government willing to cooperate to remove the worst of the worst it relieves pressure. In response to what was happening over the weekend DHS was posting on social media pictures and I think some bios of all the felons they were rounding up. Is everyone is a violent felon? No, but as i said before this is what happens when rules are ignores and then enforced. I've seen this dynamic even in my own workplace. Rules can be bent, even broken along the edges but if pushed too far the crackdown feels unfair and it hits eveyone. The hard truth is, if Biden hadn't let in literally millions of people on dubious or just ridiculous pretenses we might see a Trump policy more like his previous term. When I look at polls they are the classic American dichotomy, they like the idea of the thing but always wince at it implementation. Most voters disapprove of his current, uh, harshness. But they also favor deporting lots and lots of people lol. It's like the polls we used to see with climate change: "is climate change something very important that the government should act on?"
Yes: 40%
"Would you be willing to pay an extra 10$ in taxes if thst would solve the problem?"
Yes:14%
I'm not 100% sure but I think part of the problem is that Americans are so rich that they aren't used to making tradeoffs. It's why American politicians will always default to "spend more money" when trying to fix any problem. It's why they like the idea of deporting people but think it looks mean when they see it.
but I called a bunch of stuff “obvious” and you are insisting it’s not, so let’s talk about it.
I’ll start small. Why camo? In the 20th century soldiers started wearing camouflage fatigues because they were expecting to be shot at on sight, and the wars were happening in natural environments where those irregular green and brown patterns made you harder to spot. It’s a strategic choice premised on helping your soldiers blend into the natural environment so they won’t get shot.
In a domestic law enforcement operation there’s no particular reason they should expect to be shot at on sight, and even if they did, those irregular greens and browns don’t help you blend into a MN suburb. So why? Maybe they inherited them from army surplus or something, but God knows they’ve got the budget to be able to afford uniforms for their people. The only reason I can come up with is that they want a soldier aesthetic – they know citizens associate those irregular greens and browns with soldiers occupying, say, Fallujah, and they’re hoping that will be intimidating. Why, if this is just a law enforcement operation, do they want to look like an occupying army?
But that’s superficial. Here’s a more central one: do these ICE guys need to follow the law? And what oversight or accountability is there ensuring they do? It is the law of the land, for instance, that law enforcement needs probable cause to arrest or search someone, and that person is entitled to due process. Now, I’ve seen ample evidence that ICE has detained people, forced entry into homes, and hauled off dozens of prisoners at a time without the faintest whiff of a warrant. Citizens have been detained for days or weeks despite having proof of their identity and citizenship readily available; green card holders and other legal residents have had the same or worse. All of this is being done by masked officers who refuse to provide identification of any kind, and I’ve seen no evidence that anybody inside their agency is tracking these abuses, let alone trying to stop them.
It’s also the law of the land that ICE detention facilities are subject to surprise (no notice) audits and inspections by members of Congress. Multiple times members of Congress have attempted to perform these audits and inspections, and been refused entry by the men with guns. That appears to be a straightforward violation of black letter law. What recourse do we have as citizens when these supposed “law enforcement officers” dress up as an occupying army, arm themselves to the teeth, and brazenly flaunt any legal restrictions to which they are nominally subject?
More directly targeted at you, though: how can you assign any moral authority to “law enforcement“ that acts in such lawless fashion? Supposedly you’re supportive because regardless of propriety or decency or morality, damnit, the law says those people are supposed to be deported and we have to enforce the law. But you’ve expressed no concern that I’ve seen for any of the violation of law being performed in pursuit of that goal, which implies that you only selectively apply this zealous insistence that the law must be enforced.
You must have some criterion for deciding which laws must be enforced, no matter how impractical or cruel, and which are apparently violable without any pearl-clutching or notable concern of any kind. What is it? I could try to infer it as charitably as I can, but I’ll be honest, all the explanations I can come up with are still pretty damning. So hopefully you can enlighten me about a possibility I missed?
You 100% are.
What I find fascinating from a sociological perspective is that things like slot machines (where you know it is a losing endeavor before you play) need all sorts of lights, sounds, and actual payouts to keep people hooked. What are the "lights, sounds, and actual payouts" of these hopeless engagements that manages to overcome your rational minds over and over and over?
If ZerO, Simberto and others can't dissuade you all from doing it, I'd at least like to get a better understanding of the phenomena?
“Losing” depends on what I’m trying to achieve, no? I’m losing some of my time, certainly. I have no illusions that my rhetorical prowess will allow me to convince oBlade or Intro of the error of their ways. I don’t even the three ghosts could do that.
I do think “why does someone like oBlade support this?” is a valuable question to answer, and one I don’t have very clear ideas about. Unfortunately I don’t think actually talking to oBlade about it provides any meaningful illumination. It’s a bit like WW1, he’ll fight you all day long but it’s virtually impossible to find out what his actual war aims are; he’ll just continue forever, occasionally on offense but mostly on defense, until he believes his side has either won or lost.
Intro, I’m not convinced. I think he’s selective in his attention but probably believes the things he says, and if he seems overly credulous about this or overly skeptical about that, it’s not just rhetorical; it’s a genuine window into how his political understanding functions.
Or, well, sometimes it is, at least. I’ve lamented the loss of Danglars a little over the years, partly because while getting his true perspective was still like pulling teeth, I think it was still a lot easier than with Intro. But he’s sui generis just like the rest of us.
Danglars was oBlade but he prided himself on storing the pot and creating drama, with a speciality in concern trolling. He was literally cosplaying a villain. Who knows what he actually believed, he was just trying win in a different way.
xDaunt was far more authentic. Which is what directly led to his ban, as his beliefs were very much in contrast with what the site was about and the community it was attempting to foster. But he said what he actually believed and did so directly.
On January 12 2026 02:15 ChristianS wrote: I probably agree with GH that oBlade is a waste of time to engage with. He’s not dumb, I even kind of admire the willingness to do some pretty tedious nitpicky argumentation. But it’s just so clear that he treats politics like a speech and debate club where he’s been assigned the Republican position and is supposed to defend it vigorously by any means necessary. I never did speech and debate, it doesn’t interest me that much, if I just wanted an mentally engaging competition I’d go play chess or Starcraft or something.
Intro I’m less certain about. He’s got some of that speech and debate tendency (he’ll even kind of say this himself, talking about how if he has anti-Trump opinions he doesn’t see the point in posting them here). But I do think an important thing to understand in all this is what the fans of all this actually want, and why they’re supportive of it. oBlade’s perspective is probably too fabricated to give much insight there, but Intro is a bit more mixed.
Like, there’s a subtext to everything happening in MN (currently, although previously and still somewhat currently it was LA or Chicago or DC or etc.). It’s a pretty obvious subtext, I don’t think anyone is actually missing it, although oBlade or Intro might pretend to. But like, what is the actual purpose of these massive military-like “enforcement operations” they’re doing? They’re run by ICE so nominally they’re immigration enforcement, and I don’t doubt that they’re paying special attention to anybody they think is deportable. But why the focus on blue cities? And why are these guys they’re deploying to blue cities wearing camo fatigues and wielding assault rifles?
It’s obvious this is a punishment of liberal areas. It’s obvious Trump likes the idea of bands of street fighters loyal to his cause parading through “enemy territory” and cracking skulls (why else would he pardon everybody involved in J6?). And it’s obvious that these masked gunmen in these videos view their job primarily to be intimidating the population into submission.
But the question is, why do regular people like it? Or do they? When those masked gunmen break into every room of a 40-floor apartment building, no due process in sight, and drag a bunch of people off into the night with no oversight or accountability of any kind, am I honestly supposed to believe a guy like Intro thinks “yes, good, I like this because of my firm commitment to rule of law”?
Weird analysis of my sincerity put to the side, the answer "why target blue jurisdictions" is obvious. It's where a great many illegal immigrants are and it is where the local and state authorities are least helpful. They won't even coordinate to help deport convicted criminals. If you have a state government willing to cooperate to remove the worst of the worst it relieves pressure. In response to what was happening over the weekend DHS was posting on social media pictures and I think some bios of all the felons they were rounding up. Is everyone is a violent felon? No, but as i said before this is what happens when rules are ignores and then enforced. I've seen this dynamic even in my own workplace. Rules can be bent, even broken along the edges but if pushed too far the crackdown feels unfair and it hits eveyone. The hard truth is, if Biden hadn't let in literally millions of people on dubious or just ridiculous pretenses we might see a Trump policy more like his previous term. When I look at polls they are the classic American dichotomy, they like the idea of the thing but always wince at it implementation. Most voters disapprove of his current, uh, harshness. But they also favor deporting lots and lots of people lol. It's like the polls we used to see with climate change: "is climate change something very important that the government should act on?"
Yes: 40%
"Would you be willing to pay an extra 10$ in taxes if thst would solve the problem?"
Yes:14%
I'm not 100% sure but I think part of the problem is that Americans are so rich that they aren't used to making tradeoffs. It's why American politicians will always default to "spend more money" when trying to fix any problem. It's why they like the idea of deporting people but think it looks mean when they see it.
Kinda feels like I’m taking the bait here but I called a bunch of stuff “obvious” and you are insisting it’s not, so let’s talk about it.
I’ll start small. Why camo? In the 20th century soldiers started wearing camouflage fatigues because they were expecting to be shot at on sight, and the wars were happening in natural environments where those irregular green and brown patterns made you harder to spot. It’s a strategic choice premised on helping your soldiers blend into the natural environment so they won’t get shot.
In a domestic law enforcement operation there’s no particular reason they should expect to be shot at on sight, and even if they did, those irregular greens and browns don’t help you blend into a MN suburb. So why? Maybe they inherited them from army surplus or something, but God knows they’ve got the budget to be able to afford uniforms for their people. The only reason I can come up with is that they want a soldier aesthetic – they know citizens associate those irregular greens and browns with soldiers occupying, say, Fallujah, and they’re hoping that will be intimidating. Why, if this is just a law enforcement operation, do they want to look like an occupying army?
But that’s superficial. Here’s a more central one: do these ICE guys need to follow the law? And what oversight or accountability is there ensuring they do? It is the law of the land, for instance, that law enforcement needs probable cause to arrest or search someone, and that person is entitled to due process. Now, I’ve seen ample evidence that ICE has detained people, forced entry into homes, and hauled off dozens of prisoners at a time without the faintest whiff of a warrant. Citizens have been detained for days or weeks despite having proof of their identity and citizenship readily available; green card holders and other legal residents have had the same or worse. All of this is being done by masked officers who refuse to provide identification of any kind, and I’ve seen no evidence that anybody inside their agency is tracking these abuses, let alone trying to stop them.
It’s also the law of the land that ICE detention facilities are subject to surprise (no notice) audits and inspections by members of Congress. Multiple times members of Congress have attempted to perform these audits and inspections, and been refused entry by the men with guns. That appears to be a straightforward violation of black letter law. What recourse do we have as citizens when these supposed “law enforcement officers” dress up as an occupying army, arm themselves to the teeth, and brazenly flaunt any legal restrictions to which they are nominally subject?
More directly targeted at you, though: how can you assign any moral authority to “law enforcement“ that acts in such lawless fashion? Supposedly you’re supportive because regardless of propriety or decency or morality, damnit, the law says those people are supposed to be deported and we have to enforce the law. But you’ve expressed no concern that I’ve seen for any of the violation of law being performed in pursuit of that goal, which implies that you only selectively apply this zealous insistence that the law must be enforced.
You must have some criterion for deciding which laws must be enforced, no matter how impractical or cruel, and which are apparently violable without any pearl-clutching or notable concern of any kind. What is it? I could try to infer it as charitably as I can, but I’ll be honest, all the explanations I can come up with are still pretty damning. So hopefully you can enlighten me about a possibility I missed?
You said it was obvious ICE was targeting blue jurisdictions and I agreed with you. What I tried to do was answer your question "why?"
I don't know why they wear camo, I don't know what they should wear, besides that they should be identifiable as federal law enforcement. You are right, it's superficial imo.
I'm all for real oversight of every government agency, not just ICE/DHS. As well as accountability. If citizens are unduly detained they should be remunerated. As always mistakes will happen, but they should be corrected. I have no doubt that within DHS, as again, within every organization of any size, there is a instinct to defend their own even when they shouldn't.
The long established immigration laws have a lot of provisions and rules that have been very underused, but to put it simply the suite of constitutional processes don't apply to people about whom there is no doubt to their status. It's why Kilmar Abrego Garcia doesn't need to have a trial to be deported, despite what some people here seem to think. What rights he does have come from federal law as passed by Congress, not the Constitution.
The "right" of members of Congress to enter CBP facilities is large but still less expansive than you think. Members of Congress do not, in general, have the ability to show up at any federal facility just walk in and "inspect." Such rights as there do not come from some Constitutional rule, which is what they seem to claim, but from specific laws which are currently in dispute. Nonetheless, it wouldn't bother me. What does bother me is pretending that these objections are what matters. Is anyone who is upset at ICE mad because of these particulars you have laid out? Not really so far as I read. They are more mad that people are being deported at all.
I say again what I said above. This is an excellent lesson in why we don't so flagrantly violate the rules we have in the first place. If the population of illegal immigrants was small or very old with no new arrivals, the political calculations would be different. As it stands now, a lot of people are going to have a hard time, even innocent people. And they should be fully recompensed. The difference is that I am not a utopian and also I have memory better than that of a goldfish. I know what happens when rules are ignored more and more. Everyone who enters illegally knows they could be deported at any time. It is a calculated risk, and sometimes you lose.
There was an ICE action in Chicago where, if I recall correctly, they went through every room of an apartment building. Knock knock, open up, bash the door down as necessary, shout and wave guns around and intimidate and grab who they want to and drag them out into the night. I’m going off memory here, we can try to look up specifics if you want but that’s the gist. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and assume you and I agree that is not consistent with the 4th Amendment. So what do you think should happen here?
For starters, what does “remuneration” look like? Are these people supposed to sue the federal government for the cost of replacing their front door or whatever? The 4th Amendment says no search and seizure without probable cause, not “you can do it but you have to cut them a check after.”
And if they did find any undocumented immigrants, do they get any protection because they were found in an illegal way? Or is it, well, we don’t love how they got the job done but we’re not gonna undo it either? Because if it’s the latter, surely they’ll just keep doing that kind of thing, no? I haven’t heard a single ICE official acknowledge that operations of this sort are an overreach or talk about ceasing them, let alone compensating the victims of their past mistakes.
You come extremely close here to just coming out and saying that you don’t believe it’s possible to enforce the law while generally complying with the law on this issue. In which case, again I ask: why the zeal for absolute compliance with the law when it comes to, say, deporting dreamers, while shrugging “yeah, well, I’m not a utopian” when an agency appears completely unwilling to abide by legal restraints of any kind on their operations?
Trump, for his part, has been remarkably honest and consistent on this. Going back to the 2016 campaign, he promised to pay the legal bills of anybody who assaulted reporters on his behalf, because he thinks street fighters doing mundane violence in his name is a good thing, and he’ll shield them from consequences for that behavior any way he can. That’s why he pardoned the J6ers, that’s why ICE hide their faces and refuse to give identification or badge numbers, that’s why the administration makes up “domestic terrorist” bullshit when an officer panics and shoots a suburban mom. He’s been as explicit and detailed as he could possibly be on this point: no consequences of any kind, no legal constraints apply, he advertised this operation as such and he’s delivering.
So when their leaders are insisting it’s unaccountable and not subject to legal constraint, and their agents are acting like they’re unaccountable and not subject to legal constraint, how can you possibly salvage a position that you support all this on grounds that we need to have laws and follow them, no matter what?
On January 12 2026 02:15 ChristianS wrote: I probably agree with GH that oBlade is a waste of time to engage with. He’s not dumb, I even kind of admire the willingness to do some pretty tedious nitpicky argumentation. But it’s just so clear that he treats politics like a speech and debate club where he’s been assigned the Republican position and is supposed to defend it vigorously by any means necessary. I never did speech and debate, it doesn’t interest me that much, if I just wanted an mentally engaging competition I’d go play chess or Starcraft or something.
Intro I’m less certain about. He’s got some of that speech and debate tendency (he’ll even kind of say this himself, talking about how if he has anti-Trump opinions he doesn’t see the point in posting them here). But I do think an important thing to understand in all this is what the fans of all this actually want, and why they’re supportive of it. oBlade’s perspective is probably too fabricated to give much insight there, but Intro is a bit more mixed.
Like, there’s a subtext to everything happening in MN (currently, although previously and still somewhat currently it was LA or Chicago or DC or etc.). It’s a pretty obvious subtext, I don’t think anyone is actually missing it, although oBlade or Intro might pretend to. But like, what is the actual purpose of these massive military-like “enforcement operations” they’re doing? They’re run by ICE so nominally they’re immigration enforcement, and I don’t doubt that they’re paying special attention to anybody they think is deportable. But why the focus on blue cities? And why are these guys they’re deploying to blue cities wearing camo fatigues and wielding assault rifles?
It’s obvious this is a punishment of liberal areas. It’s obvious Trump likes the idea of bands of street fighters loyal to his cause parading through “enemy territory” and cracking skulls (why else would he pardon everybody involved in J6?). And it’s obvious that these masked gunmen in these videos view their job primarily to be intimidating the population into submission.
But the question is, why do regular people like it? Or do they? When those masked gunmen break into every room of a 40-floor apartment building, no due process in sight, and drag a bunch of people off into the night with no oversight or accountability of any kind, am I honestly supposed to believe a guy like Intro thinks “yes, good, I like this because of my firm commitment to rule of law”?
Weird analysis of my sincerity put to the side, the answer "why target blue jurisdictions" is obvious. It's where a great many illegal immigrants are and it is where the local and state authorities are least helpful. They won't even coordinate to help deport convicted criminals. If you have a state government willing to cooperate to remove the worst of the worst it relieves pressure. In response to what was happening over the weekend DHS was posting on social media pictures and I think some bios of all the felons they were rounding up. Is everyone is a violent felon? No, but as i said before this is what happens when rules are ignores and then enforced. I've seen this dynamic even in my own workplace. Rules can be bent, even broken along the edges but if pushed too far the crackdown feels unfair and it hits eveyone. The hard truth is, if Biden hadn't let in literally millions of people on dubious or just ridiculous pretenses we might see a Trump policy more like his previous term. When I look at polls they are the classic American dichotomy, they like the idea of the thing but always wince at it implementation. Most voters disapprove of his current, uh, harshness. But they also favor deporting lots and lots of people lol. It's like the polls we used to see with climate change: "is climate change something very important that the government should act on?"
Yes: 40%
"Would you be willing to pay an extra 10$ in taxes if thst would solve the problem?"
Yes:14%
I'm not 100% sure but I think part of the problem is that Americans are so rich that they aren't used to making tradeoffs. It's why American politicians will always default to "spend more money" when trying to fix any problem. It's why they like the idea of deporting people but think it looks mean when they see it.
but I called a bunch of stuff “obvious” and you are insisting it’s not, so let’s talk about it.
I’ll start small. Why camo? In the 20th century soldiers started wearing camouflage fatigues because they were expecting to be shot at on sight, and the wars were happening in natural environments where those irregular green and brown patterns made you harder to spot. It’s a strategic choice premised on helping your soldiers blend into the natural environment so they won’t get shot.
In a domestic law enforcement operation there’s no particular reason they should expect to be shot at on sight, and even if they did, those irregular greens and browns don’t help you blend into a MN suburb. So why? Maybe they inherited them from army surplus or something, but God knows they’ve got the budget to be able to afford uniforms for their people. The only reason I can come up with is that they want a soldier aesthetic – they know citizens associate those irregular greens and browns with soldiers occupying, say, Fallujah, and they’re hoping that will be intimidating. Why, if this is just a law enforcement operation, do they want to look like an occupying army?
But that’s superficial. Here’s a more central one: do these ICE guys need to follow the law? And what oversight or accountability is there ensuring they do? It is the law of the land, for instance, that law enforcement needs probable cause to arrest or search someone, and that person is entitled to due process. Now, I’ve seen ample evidence that ICE has detained people, forced entry into homes, and hauled off dozens of prisoners at a time without the faintest whiff of a warrant. Citizens have been detained for days or weeks despite having proof of their identity and citizenship readily available; green card holders and other legal residents have had the same or worse. All of this is being done by masked officers who refuse to provide identification of any kind, and I’ve seen no evidence that anybody inside their agency is tracking these abuses, let alone trying to stop them.
It’s also the law of the land that ICE detention facilities are subject to surprise (no notice) audits and inspections by members of Congress. Multiple times members of Congress have attempted to perform these audits and inspections, and been refused entry by the men with guns. That appears to be a straightforward violation of black letter law. What recourse do we have as citizens when these supposed “law enforcement officers” dress up as an occupying army, arm themselves to the teeth, and brazenly flaunt any legal restrictions to which they are nominally subject?
More directly targeted at you, though: how can you assign any moral authority to “law enforcement“ that acts in such lawless fashion? Supposedly you’re supportive because regardless of propriety or decency or morality, damnit, the law says those people are supposed to be deported and we have to enforce the law. But you’ve expressed no concern that I’ve seen for any of the violation of law being performed in pursuit of that goal, which implies that you only selectively apply this zealous insistence that the law must be enforced.
You must have some criterion for deciding which laws must be enforced, no matter how impractical or cruel, and which are apparently violable without any pearl-clutching or notable concern of any kind. What is it? I could try to infer it as charitably as I can, but I’ll be honest, all the explanations I can come up with are still pretty damning. So hopefully you can enlighten me about a possibility I missed?
You 100% are.
What I find fascinating from a sociological perspective is that things like slot machines (where you know it is a losing endeavor before you play) need all sorts of lights, sounds, and actual payouts to keep people hooked. What are the "lights, sounds, and actual payouts" of these hopeless engagements that manages to overcome your rational minds over and over and over?
If ZerO, Simberto and others can't dissuade you all from doing it, I'd at least like to get a better understanding of the phenomena?
“Losing” depends on what I’m trying to achieve, no? I’m losing some of my time, certainly. + Show Spoiler +
I have no illusions that my rhetorical prowess will allow me to convince oBlade or Intro of the error of their ways. I don’t even the three ghosts could do that.
I do think “why does someone like oBlade support this?” is a valuable question to answer, and one I don’t have very clear ideas about. Unfortunately I don’t think actually talking to oBlade about it provides any meaningful illumination. It’s a bit like WW1, he’ll fight you all day long but it’s virtually impossible to find out what his actual war aims are; he’ll just continue forever, occasionally on offense but mostly on defense, until he believes his side has either won or lost.
Intro, I’m not convinced. I think he’s selective in his attention but probably believes the things he says, and if he seems overly credulous about this or overly skeptical about that, it’s not just rhetorical; it’s a genuine window into how his political understanding functions.
Or, well, sometimes it is, at least. I’ve lamented the loss of Danglars a little over the years, partly because while getting his true perspective was still like pulling teeth, I think it was still a lot easier than with Intro. But he’s sui generis just like the rest of us.
That's enough to be losing imo.
It's a precious resource. One you (and the rest of us insist) we have precious little of to devote to (discussing/reading/practicing) politics unworthy of our attention. Your time and brain power would be better spent in a multitude of ways, not the least of which being that which has been requested/suggested by ZerO, Jankisa (hardly fans of mine personally), and others.
You're not going to get anything of value from the Sartres. You can actually find much better insight imo from something like The Colonizer and the Colonized
PG 52:
He finds himself· on one side of a scale, the other side of which bears the colonized man. If his living standards are high, it is because those of the colonized are low; if he can benefit from plentiful and undemanding labor and servants, it is because the colonized can be exploited at will and are not protected by the laws of the colony; if he can easily obtain administrative positions, it is because they are reserved for him and the colonized are excluded from them; the more freely he breathes, the more the colonized are choked. While he cannot help discovering this, there is no danger that official speeches might change his mind, for those speeches are drafted by him or his cousin or his friend.
PG 65:
It must leave him, they insist, for humanitarian romanticism is looked upon in the colonies as a serious illness, the worst of all dangers. It is no more or less than going over to the side of the enemy. If he persists, he will learn that he is launching into an undeclared conflict with his own people which will always remain alive, unless he returns to the colonialist fold or is defeated. Wonder has been expressed at the vehemence of colonizers against any among them who put colonization in jeopardy. It is clear that such a colonizer is nothing but a traitor. He challenges their very existence and endangers the very homeland which they represent in the colony.
His world is dependent on maintaining this irrefutably exploitative relationship. He is smart enough to know that he's either with it or against it. He is basically just as disillusioned as Kwark, but instead of fleeing (there's nowhere to hide), he is choosing to side with the oppressors/fascists (who he has spent his life enjoying the spoils of/cheering on to some degree).
Illegal immigrants working under the table is predominantly a red state issue, farming industries being the main employers of them. Almost all blue state employers do I-9 verification, it’s a requirement. It’s not about illegals and it never has been.
EPT
