US Politics Feedback Thread - Page 192

On August 31 2018 22:19 Danglars wrote:

And from my persepextive, the europhiles here are so far left that they shriek and point and say “Far Right!” Or as I heard recently from a Canadian, if Bernie went and ran in Montreal next election, he’d be a mushy center-right candidate.

It just so happens that European politics is far to the left of American politics. If you let that influence your conception of the American center, you lose all nuance on the right and deserve a farcical understanding of factions within the right. In mirror image, someone like me and xDaunt will disagree on trade policy, culture war policy, and social programs policy, but people to our left and ourselves are lumped into the same far right barrel because apparently the GOP is just like the Front National. It’s very disingenuous.

On August 31 2018 23:44 Excludos wrote:


Can't fathom why. They're a completely ok'ish party. Not something I'd vote on myself, due to various stances I don't agree with, but not something I can see outright hating either. But I guess in politics, even in sane countries, it's normal to hate on the opposition just for the fact that they're the opposition. It's a very unhealthy habit which can easily end up biting you in the ass if you keep voting the same party because it's "your team", despite their stances having changed over the years to no longer represent yours (see: GOP).

clarification: "You" here is a hypothetical person, not "you" as in actual you.

On August 31 2018 22:04 Dangermousecatdog wrote:

Nope, I've read it, but theoretical peace studies on real world war and peace bears very little relevance whatsoever to an online forum. There is no violence in an online forum, unless perhaps if one poster finds the location of another poster. The theoretical construct of violence, peace, ceasefire, resolution of conflict, does not apply to online forums. There is no prevention of violence, the impositon of negative peace by the presence of armed forces standing between two armed forces. What does peace and what does violence even mean in an online forum? With that there extends that the concepts of various peace bears no meaning as there is only mod and admin action to regulate the interactions between various posters. Even with extending the concept as a most tenuous analogy, how would a policy of not negative peace be enacted? We are not fighting a war over land ownership or control of water, the concept has no relevance whatsoever, there is only posters and mods.

On September 01 2018 05:57 Gorsameth wrote:
I suppose positive peace is Left and Right deciding their differences are inconsequential and happily walking hand in hand into the sunset of a brighter America.

Which is not going to happen in a million years.

Also, why does it increasingly feel that this thread is becoming an offshoot of the US pol thread and not strictly about its moderation.

On September 07 2018 21:33 iamthedave wrote:


GH is right on the negative peace part, and the response to him mentioning it illustrates his point (conveniently).

I can't remember the last time anyone 'won' an argument with a political rival in the thread. The only time it really seems to happen is with people who are allied politically but differ on points. Like GH won several people over after several iterations of the Abolish The Police diatribe evolved into a proper discussion.

Danglars vs Plansix, say, always follows the pattern of argument until Danglars says 'and I am now done with you'. XDaunt has done the same thing, and I've seen a leftish poster or two do the same to them.

No hearts nor minds are changed. It's just people being angry with each other, declaring victory, then running off into an imaginary sunset, or lapsing into sullen silence because they're tired. Or in GH's case in the past, as he seemed incapable of getting tired out, reaching a stage of transcendental rage and getting threadbanned. A lot of people here think their points are smarter than they are or that they construct better arguments than they do, or simply don't care what anyone else has to say because they've already decided that they're right.

If you have a seeming peace because nobody who disagrees can be bothered to voice their opinion, you have no actual peace, no settled issue. The 'cultural' violence remains. See: silent Trump voters, at least conceptually, or the silent Brexiteers for an example closer to home.

GH is actually a good example for negative peace. He's largely been chased out by often unearned hostility to what he says and lots of thread bans (many of them justly earned, some not). I've seen his opinions change on a topic or two, but not often, and plenty of cases of people digging their feet in against him despite being unable to formulate a decent argument against what he's saying even on the occasions when he's been wrong. Vitriol and snark comes out a bit too often, from all sides instead of people being willing to admit when they can't argue effectively and looking for sources or doing further reading to come up with one.

I've always come here mostly to see what actual Americans say about their political situation, and learn more about topics that interest me but which I have inherently limited perspective on, so I find it enjoyable enough.

It's just people being angry with each other, declaring victory, then running off into an imaginary sunset, or lapsing into sullen silence because they're tired

On September 07 2018 21:33 iamthedave wrote:


GH is right on the negative peace part, and the response to him mentioning it illustrates his point (conveniently).

I can't remember the last time anyone 'won' an argument with a political rival in the thread. The only time it really seems to happen is with people who are allied politically but differ on points. Like GH won several people over after several iterations of the Abolish The Police diatribe evolved into a proper discussion.

Danglars vs Plansix, say, always follows the pattern of argument until Danglars says 'and I am now done with you'. XDaunt has done the same thing, and I've seen a leftish poster or two do the same to them.

No hearts nor minds are changed. It's just people being angry with each other, declaring victory, then running off into an imaginary sunset, or lapsing into sullen silence because they're tired. Or in GH's case in the past, as he seemed incapable of getting tired out, reaching a stage of transcendental rage and getting threadbanned. A lot of people here think their points are smarter than they are or that they construct better arguments than they do, or simply don't care what anyone else has to say because they've already decided that they're right.

If you have a seeming peace because nobody who disagrees can be bothered to voice their opinion, you have no actual peace, no settled issue. The 'cultural' violence remains. See: silent Trump voters, at least conceptually, or the silent Brexiteers for an example closer to home.

GH is actually a good example for negative peace. He's largely been chased out by often unearned hostility to what he says and lots of thread bans (many of them justly earned, some not). I've seen his opinions change on a topic or two, but not often, and plenty of cases of people digging their feet in against him despite being unable to formulate a decent argument against what he's saying even on the occasions when he's been wrong. Vitriol and snark comes out a bit too often, from all sides instead of people being willing to admit when they can't argue effectively and looking for sources or doing further reading to come up with one.

I've always come here mostly to see what actual Americans say about their political situation, and learn more about topics that interest me but which I have inherently limited perspective on, so I find it enjoyable enough.

On September 23 2018 04:04 WolfintheSheep wrote:

Posters like GH, Danglars and xDaunt are on the frequently banned list for an inordinately high frequency of posts consisting entirely of some permutations of "you're misunderstanding me" and "I already told you, go back and read my first post".

For the most part, those long-winded pages of "discussions" that there used to be are just a lot of obtuse avoidance. The US pol thread may seem quieter, but it's basically the same as the last few years minus the cruft.

On September 23 2018 05:04 GreenHorizons wrote:


For the record I was never opposed to explaining myself more clearly, but the last instance was someone literally expecting me to repeat myself when what they asked was at the top of the page they asked on.At some point people have to take responsibility for frequently failing to simply read the discussion they are wishing to opine on.

Several times what happened was one of us would post something that frazzled the status quo, someone would terribly mischaracterize the post, then rather than actually read the OP, people keep building and repeating arguments based off of some terrible mischaracterization of the argument. Or demanding and expecting it to be repeated for them so they don't have to read the discussion.

We're not perfect posters, but anyone who actively followed the thread should be able to acknowledge that I'm describing something that happened reasonably frequently.

On September 23 2018 04:04 WolfintheSheep wrote:

Posters like GH, Danglars and xDaunt are on the frequently banned list for an inordinately high frequency of posts consisting entirely of some permutations of "you're misunderstanding me" and "I already told you, go back and read my first post".

For the most part, those long-winded pages of "discussions" that there used to be are just a lot of obtuse avoidance. The US pol thread may seem quieter, but it's basically the same as the last few years minus the cruft.

On September 23 2018 08:50 Danglars wrote:

Nah, the lib shitposters are more numerous and get less blowback for posting in hyperbolic or sarcastic ways. An even playing field would clear people like me from the banned list (and most likely GH too), or add 5-6 people along with me to it regularly. I've come to accept the double standard, since attempts at promoting more viewpoint diversity among the moderators have failed. And they still catch the absolute lowest version of lib shitposters, so at least the uneven playing field has a bottom.