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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
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"The world is a brothel for about 500 pedo billionaires and the rest of you is just staff who makes it all happen"
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Light, you're trying too hard. Put yourself in the mind of a MAGA grunt, your worldview is now:
- Empathy is cancer
- Might makes right
- Hierarchy must be restored
Within that framework, would the head honcho of this movement raping some destitue adolescent girls and not losing sleep over it be remotely unexpected or upsetting to you? It's an act that checks all the boxes of the above creed on multiple levels. MAGA philosophy and rape have fantastic synergy.
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You think I don't know that? I just enjoy listening to them make fools of themselves trying to deny it.
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On February 02 2026 04:27 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2026 17:43 RvB wrote:On January 31 2026 18:09 Acrofales wrote:On January 31 2026 17:37 maybenexttime wrote:
But China is neither communist nor socialist. It's a capitalist single-party dictatorship, authoritarian and verging on totalitarian. It didn't prosper economically until it adopted capitalism under Deng. What exactly would modern socialists be pointing at here? That's kinda the point ChristianS is making. China is an example of how communism failed. Anybody serious about trying again will have studied these examples in order to learn lessons of what not to do (e.g. Cultural Revolution = bad). Just like anybody serious about liberal democracy in the 19th century would've studied the French Revolution in order to learn what not to do (e.g. guillotining everyone = bad). His point was simply that just because some countries tried it and failed doesn't mean it can't work. There's nothing fundamentally flawed about the economics. There are, however, problems. Problems that Soviet Russia, Maoist China, Albania, Cuba and all the other communist experiments faced and failed to overcome. So the same way later revolutionaries learned from the French Revolution about what is and isn't a good idea, modern communists have learned from the failed communist revolutions. A detractor would point to the failures and try to make the point that all those failures means humans just aren't capable of creating that kind of society, but that is a flawed argument when we have communist systems in small scale. It's a weak point in the case of communism. The communist revolutions didn't all happen at the same time yet all of them have devolved into poor authoritarian states. Somehow none of them seem to be able to learn from previous attempts. When they start liberalising their economies they're suddenly capable of growing rapidly. but that is a flawed argument when we have communist systems in small scale. Your counter argument is the flawed one. What works on a small scale does not necessarily work on a large scale. There's a reason why we're not hunters and gatherers anymore. One of the primary reasons markets work is because it's able to accumulate and transfer a large amount of information rapidly via the price mechanism. The command and control type economies we see in communist states aren't capable of replicating that. Besides that we have an academic discipline dedicated to studying economics. No prominent economist is a communist despite the fact that many sympathize with or are even inspired by someone like Marx. The only Marxist economists are fringe ones that never properly engage with the mainstream like most other heteredox economists. Didn't actually want to go there, but fine, I'll bite. Regarding the first point, I think it's a bit disingenuous. I don't disagree that communism is an order of magnitude harder to "get right" than liberal democracy, but there's plenty of countries that have massive problems with that too, and keep reverting to authoritarian rule shortly after their democratic government fails at something. Also, not all attempts at communism failed from the get-go. Fernando Allende's Chile was doing rather well. So well in fact that the CIA got rid of him and instead put fucking Pinochet in power. Another place communism was starting to work was 1930s Spain. That also ended badly. So clearly the transition to communism is a very hard problem. Move too fast (e.g. Bolshevik Russia) and you end up with horrors like the Holodomor and Stalin rising to power. Move too slow and the established elite use their warning power to stage a coup (possibly with outside help). But we've managed such transitions of power before. One of those times is when we moved from autocratic monarchies to liberal democracies. We should be able to figure it out for communism too, if there's enough people willing to try. And that brings me to your second point: scaling it up. I fully agree that this is probably the more intractable problem of communism. The small communities where it works are mostly opt-in: only people who actually want to participate do participate. The rest fucks off and does capitalism somewhere else. That obviously doesn't work when we're talking about the entire nation's economy. So how does communism deal with the not-insignificant part of the population who don't opt-in. I'm not a communist and I don't really have an answer. People who don't want to follow the rules are not unique to communism, but I suspect the number of them is. Still, I don't think it's an impossible and unsustainable way of running society, just a difficult one to get right. Social democracy is far easier and gets most of the benefits, imho.
I find it a bit odd that the problem of how to treat people not wanting to opt-in seems to me, at least, to get more focus with socialism and communism than with other ideologies. Only land not currently lived on is on other planets, so all systems and ideologies will be formed in places with existing people who may not agree with the new system or ideology. Current countries mostly laugh at people trying to create any kind of separate entity within them. They expect the entity to confine itself to existing laws and rules and not create parallel ones, as their jurisdiction would not be recognised. Thus, people who do not want to opt in to capitalism, democracy, monarchy, religion, slavery, the rule of law, and so on have a hard time everywhere.
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On February 02 2026 05:31 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2026 15:21 oBlade wrote:Here is an accusation that the late George HW Bush raped someone after his feet were cut off by a scimitar. You do not have to debunk things that are self-evidently bunk. + Show Spoiler + That does sound outlandish. But let's imagine how this accusation would seem if George HW Bush was just a little bit more like Trump. Bush spent something like 20 years being best friends with a guy named Barry the Chopper. He excitedly tells news outlets that Barry loves cutting off people's feet as much as he does. There's a photo of Bush cutting a check to Barry for the right to someone's feet. Bush doodles a picture of detached feet with the message "To a bright future with a lot more chopping", signs it lovingly, and sends it to Barry. Bush's staff members remark about how much he loves snuff films. Bush brags about how he walks into the OR at hospitals in the hopes of seeing some leg amputations. Later it's revealed Barry was running a crime ring where he invites the rich and powerful to come chop off the feet of trafficked children with a scimitar. He's arrested once, but the prosecutor gives him a sweetheart deal that lets him stay free and continue chopping. Bush appoints that prosecutor to his cabinet. Barry is then arrested again. He's transferred to a prison where Bush's Attorney General has oversight. Barry commits suicide under mysterious circumstances. Around the same time, Bush is accused by someone of chopping their feet off in a civil suit. He loses the case because the burden of proof is met. Bush then promises to reveal the truth about Barry's crime ring if he wins his reelection. He is reelected. His new AG tells people the Barry files are on her desk waiting to be released. He then says the whole thing was a hoax and anyone who wanted the truth revealed is a fucking moron. Barry's chief of staff is in prison for assisting with the child trafficking. Bush transfers her from a supermax federal prison to a comfy one and blatantly, publicly suggests she'll receive a pardon if she only incriminates Bush's enemies. He does not even bother to suggest any reason whatsoever she deserves a pardon (unfair trial? New exculpatory evidence?), just that he can do it whenever he feels like it. Congress then begins the process to declassify the Barry the Chopper files. Bush gets on his hands and knees and begs, while weeping, his closest supporters in Congress to vote No on releasing the files. Congress votes to release the files. The FBI works around the clock to censor Bush's name from them but he's still mentioned hundreds of times, as are many of his closest allies. Bush, remembering how previous presidents used to distract from bad news by bombing whatever country, proceeds to make plans for war with Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Nigeria, Denmark, whoever the fuck he can order bombed that doesn't result in an immediate mutiny or impeachment. But yes, that rumor was indeed salacious. Very Smart people would never believe it.
There's a really easy to see reason why cutting people's feet off isn't a good analogue of an unfalsifiable conspiracy like systemic sexual assault of children and why no amount of cover-up would work.
Otherwise volume of mentions is simply nothing. Millions of people have claimed ESP and supernatural powers. There's not a single credible case among them. Despite that you'd think the odds suggest at least one of them would be true.
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United States43541 Posts
On February 02 2026 19:31 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On February 02 2026 05:31 LightSpectra wrote:On February 01 2026 15:21 oBlade wrote:Here is an accusation that the late George HW Bush raped someone after his feet were cut off by a scimitar. You do not have to debunk things that are self-evidently bunk. + Show Spoiler + That does sound outlandish. But let's imagine how this accusation would seem if George HW Bush was just a little bit more like Trump. Bush spent something like 20 years being best friends with a guy named Barry the Chopper. He excitedly tells news outlets that Barry loves cutting off people's feet as much as he does. There's a photo of Bush cutting a check to Barry for the right to someone's feet. Bush doodles a picture of detached feet with the message "To a bright future with a lot more chopping", signs it lovingly, and sends it to Barry. Bush's staff members remark about how much he loves snuff films. Bush brags about how he walks into the OR at hospitals in the hopes of seeing some leg amputations. Later it's revealed Barry was running a crime ring where he invites the rich and powerful to come chop off the feet of trafficked children with a scimitar. He's arrested once, but the prosecutor gives him a sweetheart deal that lets him stay free and continue chopping. Bush appoints that prosecutor to his cabinet. Barry is then arrested again. He's transferred to a prison where Bush's Attorney General has oversight. Barry commits suicide under mysterious circumstances. Around the same time, Bush is accused by someone of chopping their feet off in a civil suit. He loses the case because the burden of proof is met. Bush then promises to reveal the truth about Barry's crime ring if he wins his reelection. He is reelected. His new AG tells people the Barry files are on her desk waiting to be released. He then says the whole thing was a hoax and anyone who wanted the truth revealed is a fucking moron. Barry's chief of staff is in prison for assisting with the child trafficking. Bush transfers her from a supermax federal prison to a comfy one and blatantly, publicly suggests she'll receive a pardon if she only incriminates Bush's enemies. He does not even bother to suggest any reason whatsoever she deserves a pardon (unfair trial? New exculpatory evidence?), just that he can do it whenever he feels like it. Congress then begins the process to declassify the Barry the Chopper files. Bush gets on his hands and knees and begs, while weeping, his closest supporters in Congress to vote No on releasing the files. Congress votes to release the files. The FBI works around the clock to censor Bush's name from them but he's still mentioned hundreds of times, as are many of his closest allies. Bush, remembering how previous presidents used to distract from bad news by bombing whatever country, proceeds to make plans for war with Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Nigeria, Denmark, whoever the fuck he can order bombed that doesn't result in an immediate mutiny or impeachment. But yes, that rumor was indeed salacious. Very Smart people would never believe it. There's a really easy to see reason why cutting people's feet off isn't a good analogue of an unfalsifiable conspiracy like systemic sexual assault of children and why no amount of cover-up would work. Otherwise volume of mentions is simply nothing. Millions of people have claimed ESP and supernatural powers. There's not a single credible case among them. Despite that you'd think the odds suggest at least one of them would be true.
Comparing something fictional like ESP to something real like sexual assault is a weird take but okay, if we're going to be silly then let's be silly. Millions of people have claimed that Donald Trump definitely didn't rape any kids and yet it's not only not even slightly credible but additionally not a single one of those millions of people have managed to produce any evidence. Really makes you think.
Of course you might suggest that that is a very silly argument to make but it is, unfortunately, your argument.
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On February 02 2026 19:46 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On February 02 2026 19:31 oBlade wrote:On February 02 2026 05:31 LightSpectra wrote:On February 01 2026 15:21 oBlade wrote:Here is an accusation that the late George HW Bush raped someone after his feet were cut off by a scimitar. You do not have to debunk things that are self-evidently bunk. + Show Spoiler + That does sound outlandish. But let's imagine how this accusation would seem if George HW Bush was just a little bit more like Trump. Bush spent something like 20 years being best friends with a guy named Barry the Chopper. He excitedly tells news outlets that Barry loves cutting off people's feet as much as he does. There's a photo of Bush cutting a check to Barry for the right to someone's feet. Bush doodles a picture of detached feet with the message "To a bright future with a lot more chopping", signs it lovingly, and sends it to Barry. Bush's staff members remark about how much he loves snuff films. Bush brags about how he walks into the OR at hospitals in the hopes of seeing some leg amputations. Later it's revealed Barry was running a crime ring where he invites the rich and powerful to come chop off the feet of trafficked children with a scimitar. He's arrested once, but the prosecutor gives him a sweetheart deal that lets him stay free and continue chopping. Bush appoints that prosecutor to his cabinet. Barry is then arrested again. He's transferred to a prison where Bush's Attorney General has oversight. Barry commits suicide under mysterious circumstances. Around the same time, Bush is accused by someone of chopping their feet off in a civil suit. He loses the case because the burden of proof is met. Bush then promises to reveal the truth about Barry's crime ring if he wins his reelection. He is reelected. His new AG tells people the Barry files are on her desk waiting to be released. He then says the whole thing was a hoax and anyone who wanted the truth revealed is a fucking moron. Barry's chief of staff is in prison for assisting with the child trafficking. Bush transfers her from a supermax federal prison to a comfy one and blatantly, publicly suggests she'll receive a pardon if she only incriminates Bush's enemies. He does not even bother to suggest any reason whatsoever she deserves a pardon (unfair trial? New exculpatory evidence?), just that he can do it whenever he feels like it. Congress then begins the process to declassify the Barry the Chopper files. Bush gets on his hands and knees and begs, while weeping, his closest supporters in Congress to vote No on releasing the files. Congress votes to release the files. The FBI works around the clock to censor Bush's name from them but he's still mentioned hundreds of times, as are many of his closest allies. Bush, remembering how previous presidents used to distract from bad news by bombing whatever country, proceeds to make plans for war with Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Nigeria, Denmark, whoever the fuck he can order bombed that doesn't result in an immediate mutiny or impeachment. But yes, that rumor was indeed salacious. Very Smart people would never believe it. There's a really easy to see reason why cutting people's feet off isn't a good analogue of an unfalsifiable conspiracy like systemic sexual assault of children and why no amount of cover-up would work. Otherwise volume of mentions is simply nothing. Millions of people have claimed ESP and supernatural powers. There's not a single credible case among them. Despite that you'd think the odds suggest at least one of them would be true. Comparing something fictional like ESP to something real like sexual assault is a weird take but okay, if we're going to be silly then let's be silly. Millions of people have claimed that Donald Trump definitely didn't rape any kids and yet it's not only not even slightly credible but additionally not a single one of those millions of people have managed to produce any evidence. Really makes you think. Of course you might suggest that that is a very silly argument to make but it is, unfortunately, your argument.
1) You cannot in general prove a negative, positive claims are different than negative ones
2) The number of people claiming the same event A is different than the number of claims of events A happening
Like extraordinarily simply so. The millions of people having claimed ESP have each claimed it about themselves. That makes any one of them having ESP its own distinct, independent (ideally) claim, and yet none of them are true. If millions of people believed that Yuri Geller had ESP, that would only be one distinct claim, just put forth by many, and it would still be false.
For reasons of me understanding the difference between these things and you volunteering the fact that you don't, your strawman of me is not a reflection of any argument of mine.
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I can’t say that I’ve purposely chosen to hang out with someone who has pled guilty to procuring a child for prostitution and of soliciting a prostitute.
On February 02 2026 19:46 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On February 02 2026 19:31 oBlade wrote:On February 02 2026 05:31 LightSpectra wrote:On February 01 2026 15:21 oBlade wrote:Here is an accusation that the late George HW Bush raped someone after his feet were cut off by a scimitar. You do not have to debunk things that are self-evidently bunk. + Show Spoiler + That does sound outlandish. But let's imagine how this accusation would seem if George HW Bush was just a little bit more like Trump. Bush spent something like 20 years being best friends with a guy named Barry the Chopper. He excitedly tells news outlets that Barry loves cutting off people's feet as much as he does. There's a photo of Bush cutting a check to Barry for the right to someone's feet. Bush doodles a picture of detached feet with the message "To a bright future with a lot more chopping", signs it lovingly, and sends it to Barry. Bush's staff members remark about how much he loves snuff films. Bush brags about how he walks into the OR at hospitals in the hopes of seeing some leg amputations. Later it's revealed Barry was running a crime ring where he invites the rich and powerful to come chop off the feet of trafficked children with a scimitar. He's arrested once, but the prosecutor gives him a sweetheart deal that lets him stay free and continue chopping. Bush appoints that prosecutor to his cabinet. Barry is then arrested again. He's transferred to a prison where Bush's Attorney General has oversight. Barry commits suicide under mysterious circumstances. Around the same time, Bush is accused by someone of chopping their feet off in a civil suit. He loses the case because the burden of proof is met. Bush then promises to reveal the truth about Barry's crime ring if he wins his reelection. He is reelected. His new AG tells people the Barry files are on her desk waiting to be released. He then says the whole thing was a hoax and anyone who wanted the truth revealed is a fucking moron. Barry's chief of staff is in prison for assisting with the child trafficking. Bush transfers her from a supermax federal prison to a comfy one and blatantly, publicly suggests she'll receive a pardon if she only incriminates Bush's enemies. He does not even bother to suggest any reason whatsoever she deserves a pardon (unfair trial? New exculpatory evidence?), just that he can do it whenever he feels like it. Congress then begins the process to declassify the Barry the Chopper files. Bush gets on his hands and knees and begs, while weeping, his closest supporters in Congress to vote No on releasing the files. Congress votes to release the files. The FBI works around the clock to censor Bush's name from them but he's still mentioned hundreds of times, as are many of his closest allies. Bush, remembering how previous presidents used to distract from bad news by bombing whatever country, proceeds to make plans for war with Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Nigeria, Denmark, whoever the fuck he can order bombed that doesn't result in an immediate mutiny or impeachment. But yes, that rumor was indeed salacious. Very Smart people would never believe it. There's a really easy to see reason why cutting people's feet off isn't a good analogue of an unfalsifiable conspiracy like systemic sexual assault of children and why no amount of cover-up would work. Otherwise volume of mentions is simply nothing. Millions of people have claimed ESP and supernatural powers. There's not a single credible case among them. Despite that you'd think the odds suggest at least one of them would be true. Comparing something fictional like ESP to something real like sexual assault is a weird take but okay, if we're going to be silly then let's be silly. Millions of people have claimed that Donald Trump definitely didn't rape any kids and yet it's not only not even slightly credible but additionally not a single one of those millions of people have managed to produce any evidence. Really makes you think. Of course you might suggest that that is a very silly argument to make but it is, unfortunately, your argument.
That equivalency is the same sort argument Musk reply guys do when you mention that Musk is probably fascist. In a vacuum, yeah you can’t prove it because he isn’t a card carrying member of the Third Reich. But if you look at everything he retweets and follows on Twitter, and there are mountains of it, you’d have to be intentionally naive to believe that he isn’t supportive of fascism and white nationalist sentiment.
I don’t know if Epstein hosted underaged girls and boys for these assholes. But they’re all assholes for wanting to party with Epstein after he pled guilty and the same assholes all either have no problems abusing personal and organisational power (Gates), proliferating CSAM and other sexual assault material across their platforms (Musk), or have no problems admitting to using organisational power for the purposes of sexual assault (Trump). That’s just from a very shallow view of the situation, we have photos and a whole load of other completely gross interactions between these guys and Epstein.
All of these guys keep lying about their association with Epstein, like in the case of Howard Lutnik or the former Prince Andrew, to the point that you’d have to be naive to believe there wasn’t some sort of malfeasance occurring on Epstein’s Island. Most people can, and do, just claim their association is purely due to Epstein’s influence in finance like the former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd (who I believe actually did reject Epstein’s offers because it was clear even years ago that Epstein was a piece of shit). Maybe they’re not fucking dozens of underaged girls but, to paraphrase Musk, a lot of these guys weren’t there for a peaceful island vacation with an equal gender ratio.
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On February 02 2026 06:43 Dan HH wrote:
Light, you're trying too hard. Put yourself in the mind of a MAGA grunt, your worldview is now:
- Empathy is cancer
- Might makes right
- Hierarchy must be restored
Within that framework, would the head honcho of this movement raping some destitue adolescent girls and not losing sleep over it be remotely unexpected or upsetting to you? It's an act that checks all the boxes of the above creed on multiple levels. MAGA philosophy and rape have fantastic synergy.
That‘s not how the book works.
Guy on the right doesn‘t look like someone you‘d want to be stuck in the elevator with. Well, neither tbh.
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If something looks like a duck, and it waddles like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, and it lost a civil suit confirming that it's a duck, and there are thousands of classified documents accusing it of being a duck, and there are thousands of photos of it hanging out with other ducks, then it's probably a duck.
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In a deal quietly finalized tonight, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al-Nahyan now owns 49% of the U.S. President’s crypto business. Sheikh Tahnoon is best known for sending money to Syrian President Assad after the EU froze his private assets.
This deal put $500,000,000 in the president’s pocket (plus his top senior advisor negotiating U.S. foreign relations around the world who also has a private stake in the crypto company).
Sheikh Tahnoon, a senior member of the Emirati royal family, chairs both the country’s sovereign wealth fund and the UAE’s artificial intelligence fund.
Just this week, the president authorized the sale of NVIDIA’s flagship GPUs to the UAE. The previous administration passed bipartisan legislation to limit the sale of GPUs to foreign countries in an effort to maintain the U.S. position as the world’s AI superpower.
Transaction fees on the purchase/sale of the president’s private crypto coins is his family’s largest source of revenue in the past year.
Art of the deal 
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You can't prove without a shadow of a doubt that Trump raped anyone or that White House policy is focused on his personal enrichment. The standard of proof is just too high. Now, unrelated, let me explain why someone looking a little too dark is enough justification for ICE to kick their door in and demand their papers.
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On February 02 2026 22:34 LightSpectra wrote:
You can't prove without a shadow of a doubt that Trump raped anyone or that White House policy is focused on his personal enrichment. The standard of proof is just too high. Now, unrelated, let me explain why someone looking a little too dark is enough justification for ICE to kick their door in and demand their papers.
"There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect"
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On February 02 2026 19:58 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On February 02 2026 19:46 KwarK wrote:On February 02 2026 19:31 oBlade wrote:On February 02 2026 05:31 LightSpectra wrote:On February 01 2026 15:21 oBlade wrote:Here is an accusation that the late George HW Bush raped someone after his feet were cut off by a scimitar. You do not have to debunk things that are self-evidently bunk. + Show Spoiler + That does sound outlandish. But let's imagine how this accusation would seem if George HW Bush was just a little bit more like Trump. Bush spent something like 20 years being best friends with a guy named Barry the Chopper. He excitedly tells news outlets that Barry loves cutting off people's feet as much as he does. There's a photo of Bush cutting a check to Barry for the right to someone's feet. Bush doodles a picture of detached feet with the message "To a bright future with a lot more chopping", signs it lovingly, and sends it to Barry. Bush's staff members remark about how much he loves snuff films. Bush brags about how he walks into the OR at hospitals in the hopes of seeing some leg amputations. Later it's revealed Barry was running a crime ring where he invites the rich and powerful to come chop off the feet of trafficked children with a scimitar. He's arrested once, but the prosecutor gives him a sweetheart deal that lets him stay free and continue chopping. Bush appoints that prosecutor to his cabinet. Barry is then arrested again. He's transferred to a prison where Bush's Attorney General has oversight. Barry commits suicide under mysterious circumstances. Around the same time, Bush is accused by someone of chopping their feet off in a civil suit. He loses the case because the burden of proof is met. Bush then promises to reveal the truth about Barry's crime ring if he wins his reelection. He is reelected. His new AG tells people the Barry files are on her desk waiting to be released. He then says the whole thing was a hoax and anyone who wanted the truth revealed is a fucking moron. Barry's chief of staff is in prison for assisting with the child trafficking. Bush transfers her from a supermax federal prison to a comfy one and blatantly, publicly suggests she'll receive a pardon if she only incriminates Bush's enemies. He does not even bother to suggest any reason whatsoever she deserves a pardon (unfair trial? New exculpatory evidence?), just that he can do it whenever he feels like it. Congress then begins the process to declassify the Barry the Chopper files. Bush gets on his hands and knees and begs, while weeping, his closest supporters in Congress to vote No on releasing the files. Congress votes to release the files. The FBI works around the clock to censor Bush's name from them but he's still mentioned hundreds of times, as are many of his closest allies. Bush, remembering how previous presidents used to distract from bad news by bombing whatever country, proceeds to make plans for war with Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Nigeria, Denmark, whoever the fuck he can order bombed that doesn't result in an immediate mutiny or impeachment. But yes, that rumor was indeed salacious. Very Smart people would never believe it. There's a really easy to see reason why cutting people's feet off isn't a good analogue of an unfalsifiable conspiracy like systemic sexual assault of children and why no amount of cover-up would work. Otherwise volume of mentions is simply nothing. Millions of people have claimed ESP and supernatural powers. There's not a single credible case among them. Despite that you'd think the odds suggest at least one of them would be true. Comparing something fictional like ESP to something real like sexual assault is a weird take but okay, if we're going to be silly then let's be silly. Millions of people have claimed that Donald Trump definitely didn't rape any kids and yet it's not only not even slightly credible but additionally not a single one of those millions of people have managed to produce any evidence. Really makes you think. Of course you might suggest that that is a very silly argument to make but it is, unfortunately, your argument. 1) You cannot in general prove a negative, positive claims are different than negative ones 2) The number of people claiming the same event A is different than the number of claims of events A happening Like extraordinarily simply so. The millions of people having claimed ESP have each claimed it about themselves. That makes any one of them having ESP its own distinct, independent (ideally) claim, and yet none of them are true. If millions of people believed that Yuri Geller had ESP, that would only be one distinct claim, just put forth by many, and it would still be false. For reasons of me understanding the difference between these things and you volunteering the fact that you don't, your strawman of me is not a reflection of any argument of mine.
The MAGA movement is built on conspiracy theories, starting with the notion Obama was born in Kenya, which is really how Trump gained traction.
The baaaaalls you have to make that argument is really remarkable. Hats off.
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On February 02 2026 20:57 MJG wrote:
If something looks like a duck, and it waddles like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, and it lost a civil suit confirming that it's a duck, and there are thousands of classified documents accusing it of being a duck, and there are thousands of photos of it hanging out with other ducks, then it's probably a duck.
That‘s very unspecific.
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On February 02 2026 17:44 Legan wrote:Show nested quote +On February 02 2026 04:27 Acrofales wrote:On February 01 2026 17:43 RvB wrote:On January 31 2026 18:09 Acrofales wrote:On January 31 2026 17:37 maybenexttime wrote:
But China is neither communist nor socialist. It's a capitalist single-party dictatorship, authoritarian and verging on totalitarian. It didn't prosper economically until it adopted capitalism under Deng. What exactly would modern socialists be pointing at here? That's kinda the point ChristianS is making. China is an example of how communism failed. Anybody serious about trying again will have studied these examples in order to learn lessons of what not to do (e.g. Cultural Revolution = bad). Just like anybody serious about liberal democracy in the 19th century would've studied the French Revolution in order to learn what not to do (e.g. guillotining everyone = bad). His point was simply that just because some countries tried it and failed doesn't mean it can't work. There's nothing fundamentally flawed about the economics. There are, however, problems. Problems that Soviet Russia, Maoist China, Albania, Cuba and all the other communist experiments faced and failed to overcome. So the same way later revolutionaries learned from the French Revolution about what is and isn't a good idea, modern communists have learned from the failed communist revolutions. A detractor would point to the failures and try to make the point that all those failures means humans just aren't capable of creating that kind of society, but that is a flawed argument when we have communist systems in small scale. It's a weak point in the case of communism. The communist revolutions didn't all happen at the same time yet all of them have devolved into poor authoritarian states. Somehow none of them seem to be able to learn from previous attempts. When they start liberalising their economies they're suddenly capable of growing rapidly. but that is a flawed argument when we have communist systems in small scale. Your counter argument is the flawed one. What works on a small scale does not necessarily work on a large scale. There's a reason why we're not hunters and gatherers anymore. One of the primary reasons markets work is because it's able to accumulate and transfer a large amount of information rapidly via the price mechanism. The command and control type economies we see in communist states aren't capable of replicating that. Besides that we have an academic discipline dedicated to studying economics. No prominent economist is a communist despite the fact that many sympathize with or are even inspired by someone like Marx. The only Marxist economists are fringe ones that never properly engage with the mainstream like most other heteredox economists. Didn't actually want to go there, but fine, I'll bite. Regarding the first point, I think it's a bit disingenuous. I don't disagree that communism is an order of magnitude harder to "get right" than liberal democracy, but there's plenty of countries that have massive problems with that too, and keep reverting to authoritarian rule shortly after their democratic government fails at something. Also, not all attempts at communism failed from the get-go. Fernando Allende's Chile was doing rather well. So well in fact that the CIA got rid of him and instead put fucking Pinochet in power. Another place communism was starting to work was 1930s Spain. That also ended badly. So clearly the transition to communism is a very hard problem. Move too fast (e.g. Bolshevik Russia) and you end up with horrors like the Holodomor and Stalin rising to power. Move too slow and the established elite use their warning power to stage a coup (possibly with outside help). But we've managed such transitions of power before. One of those times is when we moved from autocratic monarchies to liberal democracies. We should be able to figure it out for communism too, if there's enough people willing to try. And that brings me to your second point: scaling it up. I fully agree that this is probably the more intractable problem of communism. The small communities where it works are mostly opt-in: only people who actually want to participate do participate. The rest fucks off and does capitalism somewhere else. That obviously doesn't work when we're talking about the entire nation's economy. So how does communism deal with the not-insignificant part of the population who don't opt-in. I'm not a communist and I don't really have an answer. People who don't want to follow the rules are not unique to communism, but I suspect the number of them is. Still, I don't think it's an impossible and unsustainable way of running society, just a difficult one to get right. Social democracy is far easier and gets most of the benefits, imho. I find it a bit odd that the problem of how to treat people not wanting to opt-in seems to me, at least, to get more focus with socialism and communism than with other ideologies. Only land not currently lived on is on other planets, so all systems and ideologies will be formed in places with existing people who may not agree with the new system or ideology. Current countries mostly laugh at people trying to create any kind of separate entity within them. They expect the entity to confine itself to existing laws and rules and not create parallel ones, as their jurisdiction would not be recognised. Thus, people who do not want to opt in to capitalism, democracy, monarchy, religion, slavery, the rule of law, and so on have a hard time everywhere.
The problem for socialism and communism is that they are based on the ideal that everybody should have a minimum standard of living. Most other formats of running a society is fine with a few people here or there falling outside and dying or having a hard time making a living. So in socialism and communism you need a mechanism to get people to do things that are beneficial for society that isn't starving to death or getting beaten up by the police for it to work.
Nobody has solved that on a large scale, how do you get the teenager that would prefer going out for drugs into society instead? In capitalism they die off and is thus not a burden. In a dictatorship they are killed or sent to a work camp.
Post scarcity where something like 1/10 adults need to work there are plenty of prestige levers to pull. But don't see that as viable when both adults in a family are still working currently.
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On February 02 2026 23:17 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On February 02 2026 19:58 oBlade wrote:On February 02 2026 19:46 KwarK wrote:On February 02 2026 19:31 oBlade wrote:On February 02 2026 05:31 LightSpectra wrote:On February 01 2026 15:21 oBlade wrote:Here is an accusation that the late George HW Bush raped someone after his feet were cut off by a scimitar. You do not have to debunk things that are self-evidently bunk. + Show Spoiler + That does sound outlandish. But let's imagine how this accusation would seem if George HW Bush was just a little bit more like Trump. Bush spent something like 20 years being best friends with a guy named Barry the Chopper. He excitedly tells news outlets that Barry loves cutting off people's feet as much as he does. There's a photo of Bush cutting a check to Barry for the right to someone's feet. Bush doodles a picture of detached feet with the message "To a bright future with a lot more chopping", signs it lovingly, and sends it to Barry. Bush's staff members remark about how much he loves snuff films. Bush brags about how he walks into the OR at hospitals in the hopes of seeing some leg amputations. Later it's revealed Barry was running a crime ring where he invites the rich and powerful to come chop off the feet of trafficked children with a scimitar. He's arrested once, but the prosecutor gives him a sweetheart deal that lets him stay free and continue chopping. Bush appoints that prosecutor to his cabinet. Barry is then arrested again. He's transferred to a prison where Bush's Attorney General has oversight. Barry commits suicide under mysterious circumstances. Around the same time, Bush is accused by someone of chopping their feet off in a civil suit. He loses the case because the burden of proof is met. Bush then promises to reveal the truth about Barry's crime ring if he wins his reelection. He is reelected. His new AG tells people the Barry files are on her desk waiting to be released. He then says the whole thing was a hoax and anyone who wanted the truth revealed is a fucking moron. Barry's chief of staff is in prison for assisting with the child trafficking. Bush transfers her from a supermax federal prison to a comfy one and blatantly, publicly suggests she'll receive a pardon if she only incriminates Bush's enemies. He does not even bother to suggest any reason whatsoever she deserves a pardon (unfair trial? New exculpatory evidence?), just that he can do it whenever he feels like it. Congress then begins the process to declassify the Barry the Chopper files. Bush gets on his hands and knees and begs, while weeping, his closest supporters in Congress to vote No on releasing the files. Congress votes to release the files. The FBI works around the clock to censor Bush's name from them but he's still mentioned hundreds of times, as are many of his closest allies. Bush, remembering how previous presidents used to distract from bad news by bombing whatever country, proceeds to make plans for war with Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Nigeria, Denmark, whoever the fuck he can order bombed that doesn't result in an immediate mutiny or impeachment. But yes, that rumor was indeed salacious. Very Smart people would never believe it. There's a really easy to see reason why cutting people's feet off isn't a good analogue of an unfalsifiable conspiracy like systemic sexual assault of children and why no amount of cover-up would work. Otherwise volume of mentions is simply nothing. Millions of people have claimed ESP and supernatural powers. There's not a single credible case among them. Despite that you'd think the odds suggest at least one of them would be true. Comparing something fictional like ESP to something real like sexual assault is a weird take but okay, if we're going to be silly then let's be silly. Millions of people have claimed that Donald Trump definitely didn't rape any kids and yet it's not only not even slightly credible but additionally not a single one of those millions of people have managed to produce any evidence. Really makes you think. Of course you might suggest that that is a very silly argument to make but it is, unfortunately, your argument. 1) You cannot in general prove a negative, positive claims are different than negative ones 2) The number of people claiming the same event A is different than the number of claims of events A happening Like extraordinarily simply so. The millions of people having claimed ESP have each claimed it about themselves. That makes any one of them having ESP its own distinct, independent (ideally) claim, and yet none of them are true. If millions of people believed that Yuri Geller had ESP, that would only be one distinct claim, just put forth by many, and it would still be false. For reasons of me understanding the difference between these things and you volunteering the fact that you don't, your strawman of me is not a reflection of any argument of mine. The MAGA movement is built on conspiracy theories, starting with the notion Obama was born in Kenya, which is really how Trump gained traction. The baaaaalls you have to make that argument is really remarkable. Hats off.
No inconsistency here. Even with a long form birth certificate verified by every government agency that's ever looked at it, Obama can't prove without a shadow of a doubt that he was born on American soil.
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On February 03 2026 00:33 Yurie wrote:Show nested quote +On February 02 2026 17:44 Legan wrote:On February 02 2026 04:27 Acrofales wrote:On February 01 2026 17:43 RvB wrote:On January 31 2026 18:09 Acrofales wrote:On January 31 2026 17:37 maybenexttime wrote:
But China is neither communist nor socialist. It's a capitalist single-party dictatorship, authoritarian and verging on totalitarian. It didn't prosper economically until it adopted capitalism under Deng. What exactly would modern socialists be pointing at here? That's kinda the point ChristianS is making. China is an example of how communism failed. Anybody serious about trying again will have studied these examples in order to learn lessons of what not to do (e.g. Cultural Revolution = bad). Just like anybody serious about liberal democracy in the 19th century would've studied the French Revolution in order to learn what not to do (e.g. guillotining everyone = bad). His point was simply that just because some countries tried it and failed doesn't mean it can't work. There's nothing fundamentally flawed about the economics. There are, however, problems. Problems that Soviet Russia, Maoist China, Albania, Cuba and all the other communist experiments faced and failed to overcome. So the same way later revolutionaries learned from the French Revolution about what is and isn't a good idea, modern communists have learned from the failed communist revolutions. A detractor would point to the failures and try to make the point that all those failures means humans just aren't capable of creating that kind of society, but that is a flawed argument when we have communist systems in small scale. It's a weak point in the case of communism. The communist revolutions didn't all happen at the same time yet all of them have devolved into poor authoritarian states. Somehow none of them seem to be able to learn from previous attempts. When they start liberalising their economies they're suddenly capable of growing rapidly. but that is a flawed argument when we have communist systems in small scale. Your counter argument is the flawed one. What works on a small scale does not necessarily work on a large scale. There's a reason why we're not hunters and gatherers anymore. One of the primary reasons markets work is because it's able to accumulate and transfer a large amount of information rapidly via the price mechanism. The command and control type economies we see in communist states aren't capable of replicating that. Besides that we have an academic discipline dedicated to studying economics. No prominent economist is a communist despite the fact that many sympathize with or are even inspired by someone like Marx. The only Marxist economists are fringe ones that never properly engage with the mainstream like most other heteredox economists. Didn't actually want to go there, but fine, I'll bite. Regarding the first point, I think it's a bit disingenuous. I don't disagree that communism is an order of magnitude harder to "get right" than liberal democracy, but there's plenty of countries that have massive problems with that too, and keep reverting to authoritarian rule shortly after their democratic government fails at something. Also, not all attempts at communism failed from the get-go. Fernando Allende's Chile was doing rather well. So well in fact that the CIA got rid of him and instead put fucking Pinochet in power. Another place communism was starting to work was 1930s Spain. That also ended badly. So clearly the transition to communism is a very hard problem. Move too fast (e.g. Bolshevik Russia) and you end up with horrors like the Holodomor and Stalin rising to power. Move too slow and the established elite use their warning power to stage a coup (possibly with outside help). But we've managed such transitions of power before. One of those times is when we moved from autocratic monarchies to liberal democracies. We should be able to figure it out for communism too, if there's enough people willing to try. And that brings me to your second point: scaling it up. I fully agree that this is probably the more intractable problem of communism. The small communities where it works are mostly opt-in: only people who actually want to participate do participate. The rest fucks off and does capitalism somewhere else. That obviously doesn't work when we're talking about the entire nation's economy. So how does communism deal with the not-insignificant part of the population who don't opt-in. I'm not a communist and I don't really have an answer. People who don't want to follow the rules are not unique to communism, but I suspect the number of them is. Still, I don't think it's an impossible and unsustainable way of running society, just a difficult one to get right. Social democracy is far easier and gets most of the benefits, imho. I find it a bit odd that the problem of how to treat people not wanting to opt-in seems to me, at least, to get more focus with socialism and communism than with other ideologies. Only land not currently lived on is on other planets, so all systems and ideologies will be formed in places with existing people who may not agree with the new system or ideology. Current countries mostly laugh at people trying to create any kind of separate entity within them. They expect the entity to confine itself to existing laws and rules and not create parallel ones, as their jurisdiction would not be recognised. Thus, people who do not want to opt in to capitalism, democracy, monarchy, religion, slavery, the rule of law, and so on have a hard time everywhere. The problem for socialism and communism is that they are based on the ideal that everybody should have a minimum standard of living. Most other formats of running a society is fine with a few people here or there falling outside and dying or having a hard time making a living. So in socialism and communism you need a mechanism to get people to do things that are beneficial for society that isn't starving to death or getting beaten up by the police for it to work. Nobody has solved that on a large scale, how do you get the teenager that would prefer going out for drugs into society instead? In capitalism they die off and is thus not a burden. In a dictatorship they are killed or sent to a work camp. You make it sound like social democracies around the world haven't already solved a minimal standard of living. Sure its not perfect and people fall through the cracks but it already exists. The rumblings of Universal Basic Income further expand on this.
Even America isn't just letting useless people die off. They just take the extra expensive route of saving people when they come into the ER instead of catching them beforehand.
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On February 03 2026 00:44 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2026 00:33 Yurie wrote:On February 02 2026 17:44 Legan wrote:On February 02 2026 04:27 Acrofales wrote:On February 01 2026 17:43 RvB wrote:On January 31 2026 18:09 Acrofales wrote:On January 31 2026 17:37 maybenexttime wrote:
But China is neither communist nor socialist. It's a capitalist single-party dictatorship, authoritarian and verging on totalitarian. It didn't prosper economically until it adopted capitalism under Deng. What exactly would modern socialists be pointing at here? That's kinda the point ChristianS is making. China is an example of how communism failed. Anybody serious about trying again will have studied these examples in order to learn lessons of what not to do (e.g. Cultural Revolution = bad). Just like anybody serious about liberal democracy in the 19th century would've studied the French Revolution in order to learn what not to do (e.g. guillotining everyone = bad). His point was simply that just because some countries tried it and failed doesn't mean it can't work. There's nothing fundamentally flawed about the economics. There are, however, problems. Problems that Soviet Russia, Maoist China, Albania, Cuba and all the other communist experiments faced and failed to overcome. So the same way later revolutionaries learned from the French Revolution about what is and isn't a good idea, modern communists have learned from the failed communist revolutions. A detractor would point to the failures and try to make the point that all those failures means humans just aren't capable of creating that kind of society, but that is a flawed argument when we have communist systems in small scale. It's a weak point in the case of communism. The communist revolutions didn't all happen at the same time yet all of them have devolved into poor authoritarian states. Somehow none of them seem to be able to learn from previous attempts. When they start liberalising their economies they're suddenly capable of growing rapidly. but that is a flawed argument when we have communist systems in small scale. Your counter argument is the flawed one. What works on a small scale does not necessarily work on a large scale. There's a reason why we're not hunters and gatherers anymore. One of the primary reasons markets work is because it's able to accumulate and transfer a large amount of information rapidly via the price mechanism. The command and control type economies we see in communist states aren't capable of replicating that. Besides that we have an academic discipline dedicated to studying economics. No prominent economist is a communist despite the fact that many sympathize with or are even inspired by someone like Marx. The only Marxist economists are fringe ones that never properly engage with the mainstream like most other heteredox economists. Didn't actually want to go there, but fine, I'll bite. Regarding the first point, I think it's a bit disingenuous. I don't disagree that communism is an order of magnitude harder to "get right" than liberal democracy, but there's plenty of countries that have massive problems with that too, and keep reverting to authoritarian rule shortly after their democratic government fails at something. Also, not all attempts at communism failed from the get-go. Fernando Allende's Chile was doing rather well. So well in fact that the CIA got rid of him and instead put fucking Pinochet in power. Another place communism was starting to work was 1930s Spain. That also ended badly. So clearly the transition to communism is a very hard problem. Move too fast (e.g. Bolshevik Russia) and you end up with horrors like the Holodomor and Stalin rising to power. Move too slow and the established elite use their warning power to stage a coup (possibly with outside help). But we've managed such transitions of power before. One of those times is when we moved from autocratic monarchies to liberal democracies. We should be able to figure it out for communism too, if there's enough people willing to try. And that brings me to your second point: scaling it up. I fully agree that this is probably the more intractable problem of communism. The small communities where it works are mostly opt-in: only people who actually want to participate do participate. The rest fucks off and does capitalism somewhere else. That obviously doesn't work when we're talking about the entire nation's economy. So how does communism deal with the not-insignificant part of the population who don't opt-in. I'm not a communist and I don't really have an answer. People who don't want to follow the rules are not unique to communism, but I suspect the number of them is. Still, I don't think it's an impossible and unsustainable way of running society, just a difficult one to get right. Social democracy is far easier and gets most of the benefits, imho. I find it a bit odd that the problem of how to treat people not wanting to opt-in seems to me, at least, to get more focus with socialism and communism than with other ideologies. Only land not currently lived on is on other planets, so all systems and ideologies will be formed in places with existing people who may not agree with the new system or ideology. Current countries mostly laugh at people trying to create any kind of separate entity within them. They expect the entity to confine itself to existing laws and rules and not create parallel ones, as their jurisdiction would not be recognised. Thus, people who do not want to opt in to capitalism, democracy, monarchy, religion, slavery, the rule of law, and so on have a hard time everywhere. The problem for socialism and communism is that they are based on the ideal that everybody should have a minimum standard of living. Most other formats of running a society is fine with a few people here or there falling outside and dying or having a hard time making a living. So in socialism and communism you need a mechanism to get people to do things that are beneficial for society that isn't starving to death or getting beaten up by the police for it to work. Nobody has solved that on a large scale, how do you get the teenager that would prefer going out for drugs into society instead? In capitalism they die off and is thus not a burden. In a dictatorship they are killed or sent to a work camp. You make it sound like social democracies around the world haven't already solved a minimal standard of living. Sure its not perfect and people fall through the cracks but it already exists. The rumblings of Universal Basic Income further expand on this. Even America isn't just letting useless people die off. They just take the extra expensive route of saving people when they come into the ER instead of catching them beforehand.
Social democracies apply a lot of pressure to get people to work or they get no support. They also don't have enough money to catch everybody. A lot of people live on an amount of money that means they don't have enough money for rent, utilities and food for themselves and their kids.
A social democracy has the same stance but only does it to the level it can afford. It doesn't guarantee it for citizens if it runs out of money. It also doesn't even try to promise a good standard of living if you don't work.
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United States43541 Posts
On February 02 2026 19:58 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On February 02 2026 19:46 KwarK wrote:On February 02 2026 19:31 oBlade wrote:On February 02 2026 05:31 LightSpectra wrote:On February 01 2026 15:21 oBlade wrote:Here is an accusation that the late George HW Bush raped someone after his feet were cut off by a scimitar. You do not have to debunk things that are self-evidently bunk. + Show Spoiler + That does sound outlandish. But let's imagine how this accusation would seem if George HW Bush was just a little bit more like Trump. Bush spent something like 20 years being best friends with a guy named Barry the Chopper. He excitedly tells news outlets that Barry loves cutting off people's feet as much as he does. There's a photo of Bush cutting a check to Barry for the right to someone's feet. Bush doodles a picture of detached feet with the message "To a bright future with a lot more chopping", signs it lovingly, and sends it to Barry. Bush's staff members remark about how much he loves snuff films. Bush brags about how he walks into the OR at hospitals in the hopes of seeing some leg amputations. Later it's revealed Barry was running a crime ring where he invites the rich and powerful to come chop off the feet of trafficked children with a scimitar. He's arrested once, but the prosecutor gives him a sweetheart deal that lets him stay free and continue chopping. Bush appoints that prosecutor to his cabinet. Barry is then arrested again. He's transferred to a prison where Bush's Attorney General has oversight. Barry commits suicide under mysterious circumstances. Around the same time, Bush is accused by someone of chopping their feet off in a civil suit. He loses the case because the burden of proof is met. Bush then promises to reveal the truth about Barry's crime ring if he wins his reelection. He is reelected. His new AG tells people the Barry files are on her desk waiting to be released. He then says the whole thing was a hoax and anyone who wanted the truth revealed is a fucking moron. Barry's chief of staff is in prison for assisting with the child trafficking. Bush transfers her from a supermax federal prison to a comfy one and blatantly, publicly suggests she'll receive a pardon if she only incriminates Bush's enemies. He does not even bother to suggest any reason whatsoever she deserves a pardon (unfair trial? New exculpatory evidence?), just that he can do it whenever he feels like it. Congress then begins the process to declassify the Barry the Chopper files. Bush gets on his hands and knees and begs, while weeping, his closest supporters in Congress to vote No on releasing the files. Congress votes to release the files. The FBI works around the clock to censor Bush's name from them but he's still mentioned hundreds of times, as are many of his closest allies. Bush, remembering how previous presidents used to distract from bad news by bombing whatever country, proceeds to make plans for war with Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Nigeria, Denmark, whoever the fuck he can order bombed that doesn't result in an immediate mutiny or impeachment. But yes, that rumor was indeed salacious. Very Smart people would never believe it. There's a really easy to see reason why cutting people's feet off isn't a good analogue of an unfalsifiable conspiracy like systemic sexual assault of children and why no amount of cover-up would work. Otherwise volume of mentions is simply nothing. Millions of people have claimed ESP and supernatural powers. There's not a single credible case among them. Despite that you'd think the odds suggest at least one of them would be true. Comparing something fictional like ESP to something real like sexual assault is a weird take but okay, if we're going to be silly then let's be silly. Millions of people have claimed that Donald Trump definitely didn't rape any kids and yet it's not only not even slightly credible but additionally not a single one of those millions of people have managed to produce any evidence. Really makes you think. Of course you might suggest that that is a very silly argument to make but it is, unfortunately, your argument. 1) You cannot in general prove a negative, positive claims are different than negative ones 2) The number of people claiming the same event A is different than the number of claims of events A happening Like extraordinarily simply so. The millions of people having claimed ESP have each claimed it about themselves. That makes any one of them having ESP its own distinct, independent (ideally) claim, and yet none of them are true. If millions of people believed that Yuri Geller had ESP, that would only be one distinct claim, just put forth by many, and it would still be false. For reasons of me understanding the difference between these things and you volunteering the fact that you don't, your strawman of me is not a reflection of any argument of mine.
“no, it’s different when I do it”
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EPT![[image loading]](https://image.stern.de/37096364/t/YM/v2/w1440/r1.7778/-/epstein-brett-ratner.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/G_-r82KWMAApC51.jpg)
