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There may be cases KwarK still gets away with things that others wouldn't, but in this case Magic Powers is the one getting away with everything and acting like a victim.
He said KwarK is racist for something he didn't say. Then he brought up an old argument from a different thread in order to prove KwarK is racist. Then he brought up another, unsettled, but at least until then moved-on-from argument. That KwarK hates him for being German. Why do this? To prove that KwarK keeps attacking him, even though Magic Powers is the one who brought it up again. The crux of the argument? That KwarK was accusing him of being a Nazi apologist. And he somehow snuck in calling me the most racist poster on the forum.
Without turning this into a side debate about any of those claims' being true or not. I have zero sympathy for Magic Powers and think he should just suck up the risk of being called a Nazi or Wehrmacht apologist, or whatever it was, when he's already calling so many people racist, and fascist. + Show Spoiler +Basically the same behavior, but Magic Powers thinks in one case it's over the line because he thinks the other party is incorrect, whereas in his own case it's necessary because he's personally correct. That's the envisioned standard. He's correct so he can do it, KwarK is wrong so KwarK is bullying him.
Now the issue of letting people turn the subject of the topics into gossip about posters instead of the actual thing the topics are supposed to be about is its own problem. It's not appropriate to begin with. There simply is no line now. It's not unique to KwarK, there is no line, there are no standards. You can call another user whatever you want and say whatever you want as long as it comes off as a certain kind of moral. LightSpectra has called me "stormfront" 5 times. He's turned it into the way he refers to and addresses me.
If there is a specific case of hypocrisy or contradiction, then you should be free to challenge someone on that. But these are just blanket bullshit attacks. Pages of posts become broad discussions of posters that are well outside the scope of the current thread.
You can't let that environment happen and then blame KwarK for not being dignified enough in responding to a personal attack with no evidence. If anything it's like the supposed reputation of KwarK acts as a prophylactic shield for Magic Powers, letting it seem like any unfounded character assassination that comes from him towards KwarK must just be reciprocal from him meeting KwarK on his own terms. And thus Magic Powers is given extra latitude to defend himself against the evil KwarK. When anyone who looks can see Magic Powers instigated it. And actually, Magic Powers doesn't need extra latitude because there's nobody who doesn't get away with doing the same thing he's done now against anybody else.
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You're allowed to back down and admit you're wrong at any point. The idea that you're somehow not a man or are weak is a lie fed to you by bad actors. If you don't like or don't understand why someone is doing something you're also allowed to ask someone to stop without being weak or a loser.
I guarantee you no one gives that much of a shit about each other in the thread.
Also if anyone's gotten preferential mod treatment it's clearly GH and that's before he revealed its all been a right wing troll job by him. He's literally been banned for cause and then had it reversed for no reason.
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On July 21 2025 02:16 Broetchenholer wrote:
Oh come on. You did nothing to defuse the situation. The whole forum was able to see that he dug himself in a hole and was not able to get out anymore. 5 different people came to tell him to stop it. Then you showed up and digged into the biggest wound you know he has. You did not do this to defent yourself, you never do. Because you assume that you never need defending because you are right every time. You did this to destroy him.
Like i said, there is zero need of defending yourself from an argument that everybody else has already told him was really really bad. If you hate being the target of vendettas, maybe stop posting so fucking confrontational. People sometimes make bad arguments without needing to be absolutely humiliated for being wrong. You either lack the empathy or the decency to ever recognize this.
Exactly as Serm says. He was always able to get out of the hole. At any time he could have said "ok fine I guess that's true", or simply logged off.
Instead he kept going, over multiple pages, with multiple otherwise-aligned posters calling him out on it. When "everybody else has already told him [it] was really really bad", but he's continued to quintuple-down while aggressively quoting someone, it's hardly a surprise when that person eventually tells him it's bad in more forceful terms. Kwark is... what he is, and he's not blameless, but there's no way MP isn't predominantly at fault there.
The only real alternative is to warn/temp him before it gets to that point, which is pretty hard to do when he's spamming out pages of trash in the space of an evening, and we have to wait for a nonparticipating mod to wade through multiple pages of slop and action it.
On July 21 2025 15:14 Broetchenholer wrote:
It's not about banning people, i don't want you or MP banned. I might want oBlade banned, but that's a different thing. I think we should strive to keep the conversation as civil as possible. I can understand why someone would warn MP for the behavior he has been exhibiting, because holy shit has this been stupid. I just don't think he can stop himself anymore. I believe KwarK might though. I have not seen him be unreasonably foaming at the mouth over something, if anything he is too analytical to let go of something.
If the goal is "to keep the conversation as civil as possible," imo the #1 behaviour that erodes civility is someone pooping out pages and pages of increasingly insane goal-post shifting just to avoid admitting they're wrong. MP is absolutely one of the worst offenders for this - he's almost impossible to engage with in good faith.
The debate is really between heavier moderation and softer discourse, or leave-them-in-the-cage-and-let-them-bite-each-other. The thread has tended to the latter for a while now, and honestly, that seems more sustainable in the long run.
An occasional temp for a long-term pattern of behaviour is still helpful. MP might even be in line for one, he clearly can't stop himself, but I'm not particularly nostalgic for red text in general.
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Norway28689 Posts
No, if anyone has gotten preferential treatment, it's several different people and you are near the top. (Serm) I don't think a single poster is more guilty of inventing opinions or stances among other posters and that, honestly, is the main area I wish we had moderated in a more strict and stringent manner. I don't mind the occasional insult, but claiming that people are holding positions they deny holding because you think you know better than they do is cancerous for fruitful discussion.
Wouldnt hold my breath expecting change, but this is where I wish we could see some improvement.
Anyway, the idea that GH is a right wing troll is fucking idiotic. There's plenty of legitimate criticism to throw his way, that is not it.
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Norway28689 Posts
As a piece of advice, I recommend both writing posts that go 'to clarify, what i actually mean is...' and 'can you clarify what you mean here, because it sounds to me like you are saying...' , and maybe if we get a little better at this, we get fewer inane arguments. Misphrasing yourself isn't a crime, nor is misinterpreting, and both are possible to undo with the slightest amount of effort - far less than is sometimes spent in some if the back and forths we see.
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On July 21 2025 21:32 Liquid`Drone wrote:
No, if anyone has gotten preferential treatment, it's several different people and you are near the top. (Serm) I don't think a single poster is more guilty of inventing opinions or stances among other posters and that, honestly, is the main area I wish we had moderated in a more strict and stringent manner. I don't mind the occasional insult, but claiming that people are holding positions they deny holding because you think you know better than they do is cancerous for fruitful discussion.
Wouldnt hold my breath expecting change, but this is where I wish we could see some improvement.
Anyway, the idea that GH is a right wing troll is fucking idiotic. There's plenty of legitimate criticism to throw his way, that is not it.
You are almost right on this, just you have a absolutely huge blind spot regarding your "fairness". The reality is you are just as biased towards the posters you like and do not like the only thing that makes you different than most is that who you like and do not like does not follow political lines. I've had to ask over 10 times in fairly short order for people to provide a quote of what they say I've said or think, not a single one has, never have you stepped in. And this is not unique to me, there are plenty of us on your shit list. On the other hand your golden boys get non stop protection because you have decided they are being picked on in spite of them constantly picking fights and often being the bigger dicks.
Overall I'm OK with this no moderation style in the sense that it is more fair , but the quality of discussion is sure the shit. It is more often than not a bunch of shitty one liners and attempted gotcha's with people talking about what they think some one really means rather then what they want and then an argument about the clarification is actually a lie.
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so if were all agreeing that the new meta lax moderation is the way forward can i start flaming people for being retarded now? bring back the golden 2000s era
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United States42973 Posts
I think we’re still all agreed on no slurs.
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On July 21 2025 18:20 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2025 18:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 21 2025 17:52 KwarK wrote:+ Show Spoiler +In general my posting style is to meet people where they're at. Different posters get a different levels of effort and goodwill. For example with Jimmi it's general amusement at his quirks but I don't actually reply to his posts anymore. When he brings up the miracle on ice or Pierre Trudeau or whatever I think there might be legitimately something going on with him so I'm just letting him be. With GH I'm making zero effort at all because he routinely changes my words to suit the narrative of the day so there's literally no point. + Show Spoiler +There's a poster called stilt and every time he sees one of my posts he calls me a negationist and every time he does I say "no I'm not". I don't think he's worked out the joke there yet. In this instance I think I tailored the response perfectly to where he was at. On July 19 2025 16:48 Magic Powers wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2025 07:06 KwarK wrote:On July 19 2025 01:25 Magic Powers wrote:On July 10 2025 23:46 KwarK wrote:
The population growth has been exponential KwarK claims that Gazans show no restraint and breed like rabbits. You're the one calling them rabbits. You're the one doing that. If not "no you" then what? I'm very happy to engage in discussions of political theory with people who are interested in doing so. But it'd be ridiculous to approach every poster in the same way, posters get the KwarK they deserve. I don't recall doing that. Certainly not "routinely" lol. I remember you doing that to my posts during your crashout, but that's about it. I once said that the working class Americans you’re trying to mobilize would sooner beat you with a baton to maintain the current social structures than join your revolution. They just don’t like you and your ideas. You then spent a year telling me over and over that I was planning to beat you with a baton. The first few times I responded with denial and requests for any kind of citation but you wouldn’t provide one. + Show Spoiler +The next few times I just went with negation. Eventually, and keep in mind I had literally no idea why you kept saying that I had a baton and planned to beat you with it, I started simply reversing it and insisting that you had a baton and planned to beat me with it. One of many examples of you simply deciding I said something and then bringing it up over and over. And never providing any opportunity to clarify because you wouldn’t make the effort to tell me which post of mine you’d decided to interpret in the stupidest possible way. Without knowing what you’d failed to read all I could do was say “I didn’t say that” and eventually just start putting words in your mouth. Incidentally putting words in your mouth did actually get you to stop doing it. Something about a golden rule. Edit: you actually quoted an example of yourself doing it there. In 2023 I said America under Trump was better than it was during the time of literal slaveowners, the trail of tears, and the Confederacy. Because it is. I hate Trump with a passion but I’m not looking at his presidency and wishing we could go back to the good old days of slavery. There’s a general historical upward trend and while Trump is an aberration he’s not bringing America back below the very low historical low points. I was very clear on this. Historical trend. Slaveowners. Monsters. Confederacy. Specific examples I called out to illustrate that the trend was away from those things. On August 14 2023 16:44 KwarK wrote:
Trump is awful, of course. But is he historically awful? The US has had some real monsters in charge. Plus that time it broke into two countries because half of them wanted to own people. Two years later you, completely out of the blue and with no reference to the 2023 post, asserted that I supported Trump over Hillary in the 2016 election because I thought Trump was part of an upward trend. On April 12 2025 00:50 GreenHorizons wrote:
Kwark was trying to convince people Trump winning the election [over Hillary in 2016] would be a sign of how the US is getting better There is absolutely no reading of “Trump’s America was better than the confederacy” that could lead you to believe that I supported Trump’s election victory over Hillary. None. It’s just not there. The preference order is Hillary, Trump, Confederacy. Trump winning the election was a bad thing because Trump was worse than Hillary. The Confederacy did not run in the 2016 ejection so I could not possibly have supported Trump’s campaign over the Confederacy. But for you that was enough. I said something completely different two years earlier and so you decided that I was a Trump supporter and no amount of denials would be enough. You still owe me an apology for that shit.
Okay, so no.
I said: On February 26 2024 12:21 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2024 11:48 KwarK wrote:
As has been explained to you countless times, you don’t have to support a candidate to vote for them. It’s absurd, naive, and childish to expect that a candidate representing 300m people agrees with your specific stances. And if they did then that would mean most other people wouldn’t find the candidate agreeing with them.
You keep repeating this fundamental misunderstanding of how simple plurality elections works. You keep accusing people of supporting Biden or agreeing with Biden just because they say we should vote for him. At a certain point it’s just a you problem. You don’t get how elections work. You should get it as a grown up living in America. And you should get it because it’s been explained to you. Either you’re mentally deficient or you’re choosing not to get it.
In any case your “demanding his voters support” is just as much of a miss this latest time as it was the last hundred. We don’t have the luxury of only voting for politicians we support. Grow the fuck up. You're indignance at the notion that voting for someone is in fact supporting them should be aimed at the system that forces you to make such absurd contortions to rationalize it, rather than someone confronting you with this reality. You know that our issue isn't that I don't know how US elections work. It's not even that we disagree that they lack the capacity to address problems that need to be addressed in a necessary timeline. It's that you've picked up your baton for the decimation of Palestinians and others
As to this bit about your Hillary Clinton crashout, I explained to you at the time, that it had nothing to do with Hillary On August 14 2023 17:37 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2023 16:44 KwarK wrote:On August 14 2023 16:25 GreenHorizons wrote:
I obviously disagree with your perspective/assessment of my perspective, but considering the US is in a statistical coinflip (against someone that literally tried to forcibly and illegally keep power, ostensibly for the first time in US history) for fascism, you might at least want to temper your own confidence about it "getting less shitty". Trump is awful, of course. But is he historically awful? The US has had some real monsters in charge. Plus that time it broke into two countries because half of them wanted to own people. Trump mainly just wants to force the media to suck his dick because he’s a narcissist with a gaping void where you’d expect a soul. He’s motivated entirely by ego, he lives for the rallies and the Twitter arguments and the petty name calling. Bush 2 also stole an election and then he killed a quarter million people. America is getting better. That you could see Trump win the coinflip in 2024 and sincerely tell people "don't worry, this is evidence the US is getting better" might be the scariest thing I've seen you say, depending on how you rationalize it (I don't want you to attempt to thread that needle no matter how potentially amusing it might sound, though The American Civil War is a fun bar I don't think you can be sure we'll clear anyway lol). + Show Spoiler +I do hope we can at least agree that China's work in Africa through the BRI has demonstrably been less exploitative than Europe's and the US's through the IMF and the like according to the evidence provided/available thus far (this is even with slavery, King Leopold II, their legacies, etc. notwithstanding)?
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On April 16 2025 09:29 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On April 16 2025 08:37 KwarK wrote:On April 16 2025 08:07 Nebuchad wrote:On April 16 2025 07:57 BlackJack wrote:On April 16 2025 06:30 Nebuchad wrote:On April 16 2025 06:06 BlackJack wrote:On April 16 2025 04:20 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 16 2025 04:13 KwarK wrote:On April 16 2025 04:07 GreenHorizons wrote:
Looks like KwarK wins again Nice to see you here GH. Thanks for your support. You still making up quotes and ascribing them to other people as your main form of debate? I've learned a trick or two from you. You realize I didn't make up the quote that I included the full text and linked the original of, or have you completely lost touch with reality? Except the quoted text is not what you ascribed him saying. He said "America is getting better." You said he said "Trump winning the election is a sign America is getting better." It's not even close to the same thing. He even explained your error in his next post. This pisses me off because it's an incredibly simple point to understand. It's a "two steps forward one step back" kind of thing. An 8 year old could understand this point. It doesn't mean every step is in the right direction but in the long run you're moving in the right direction. The only reason to misunderstand this is through ignorance or malice, so take your pick. This happens way to often on this forum (usually to me tbh). No matter how obvious the misinterpretation is more people will jump in and agree with the uncharitable interpretation just to win internet arguments, I guess. But the one person that I never see doing this is Kwark. Maybe he just grasps the English language better than most people here. We often disagree but the one thing I can be sure if I'm arguing with him is that the disagreement will be an ideological one and not because he has done a shit job at understanding my point. I suspect the reason why this happens to you a lot is because people expect other people in general to post with some sort of objective in mind. Like, we're in this context in which Trump is fucking everything up, and the large majority of your posting is still about how Democrats are slightly unfair in their Trump criticism when it comes to this point of detail or that point of detail, or how there's this DEI scandal about some woke thing somewhere; the natural inclination for a lot of people is that you must be doing it for a reason, and then they search for that reason. Is it because you support this, or that; they're trying to figure it out. Drone made a good point yesterday that you were probably not doing it with an objective, that you were just nitpicking for the sake of it, and that made sense to me. I would then add that you've spent so long on team "Democrats are bad" and it feels comfortable to continue being on that team no matter what happens now. But I could be wrong too! There's no way to tell, really. Or as someone who grasps the English language better than most people once said, On March 26 2025 08:10 KwarK wrote:
Blackjack isn’t arguing that it wasn’t a Nazi salute, he’s clear that it was. He’s arguing for the sake of arguing. His point is that it’s possible for someone, but not him, to be really bad at identifying salutes or something and for that person, who isn’t him, to be confused. You’ve got to remember that blackjack’s posts are essentially meaningless. In general, yes. If you saw an isolated comment on Reddit of someone challenging claims like "there are no upsides to tariffs" or "there is zero risk of adverse events from the COVID vaccine" then 9 times out of 10 that person is going to be someone that supports Trump's tariffs or opposes taking the COVID vaccine so you can make some assumptions about positions they hold. But surely you see how incredibly stupid it is to think that Kwark, of all people, is making the point that Trump getting elected is a sign that America is getting better. It's even more stupid when he immediately clarifies what he meant and instead of being like "oh okay" to be like "nah... bro... no take backsies." Making the faulty assumptions is one thing. Doubling down on the faulty assumptions after they've clarified their statement is a whole other ballgame. Sure yeah that makes sense (except the part about thinking that America is getting better). Wait, what? What I originally said was that America had gotten better since the days of the Confederacy. That was the specific example I used. The US has had some real monsters in charge. Plus that time it broke into two countries because half of them wanted to own people. GH misquoted that to pretend I said that Trump was preferable to Hillary when in fact I was saying that Trump was preferable to the Confederacy. + Show Spoiler +But now that all the misquotes have been cleared up at exhausting length and it's clear that this is just an outright statement of preference between Trump and the Confederacy you're landing on team Confederacy. That's a weird take boy. Since you're crashing out so hard I don't know if this is you being confused or intentionally obtuse. It had nothing to do with Hillary Clinton lol? The context was that you were arguing China is getting worse (from some unspecified time/reference) and the US is getting better. Show nested quote +On August 14 2023 15:52 KwarK wrote:+ Show Spoiler +The US today isn’t doing the same stuff as your historical examples and a unipolar world has been extremely good for world peace. The world has never been more peaceful than it has been under US hegemony. The US is far from a perfect hegemon but it hasn’t annexed anywhere in a few decades and doesn’t plan to. Your problem seems to be that you’re confused by the linear passage of time. The US has been getting less shitty over time, China more shitty. + Show Spoiler +I expect this trend to continue. You point to US boarding schools for the indigenous as if you think they’re about to bring them back. You point to Hawaii as if the US is on the verge of colonizing the Philippines again. It’s not. Whereas China’s historical trend of weakness is very clearly reversing. Looking at China’s previous inability to turn its imperial ambitions into military victory and projecting that forwards is as absurd as assuming the US is on the verge of setting up boarding schools in the Philippines.
Perhaps you could take a minute to listen to the nations who have borders with China before deciding that you, as an educated western intellectual, must know better than them. Perhaps you’re not the best qualified to address the issue of whether China’s claims to Taiwan have merit. You cheer for the Chinese tiger to be unleashed on the people of east Asia without the slightest notion of what it means for those people. But you don’t care because you, as an American, believe you know better. Not because of how you feel about China either, simply because of how it makes you feel better about America’s place in the world. If they must suffer for you to see America humbled then that’s a price you’re willing to pay.
It’s pure horseshoe with you. You arrive in the exact same arrogant western mindset as those you despise because ultimately these places only exist in your mind insofar as they’re relevant to American hegemony.
The US (and the other western imperial powers) were extremely shitty in East Asia in 1930. Would you cheer for Imperial Japan? Hence me including Gors' post about the world relying on China to keep the US in Check. Show nested quote +On April 10 2025 20:17 Gorsameth wrote:On April 10 2025 19:59 Silvanel wrote:Well. EU tarrfis are paused, while US 10% remain in place... https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cn4jjw30d5qtDon't know how I feel about that. On the one hand I like that we are being mature about that, but on the other I dont like being bullied. Nothing mature about it, Trump got to place 10% blanket tariffs without a reciprocal response. Sad that the world is having to look to China of all places to teach America not to fuck around. Contrary to your assertion that such an expectation made no sense. Show nested quote +On August 14 2023 15:13 KwarK wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Your anti Americanism is showing. China is worse than the US on all of those factors you named. Your theory that they’ll act as a check against the US makes no sense. + Show Spoiler +It’s like believing that adding a leopard to the lion you’re sharing a raft with will somehow make things better because at least then it’ll be a multipolar raft.
China is an expansionist imperialist power that has territorial disputes with literally all of its neighbours, constantly exchanges fire with several of them, and has recently annexed a previously free democratic territory. Following that annexation it imported its own government loyalist police, contrary to its agreements, and ruthlessly cracked down on the populace. In the next 50 years you’re far safer as a Mexican living next to the hegemonic American empire than as a Vietnamese citizen living next to China.
China is dangerous and is largely constrained by a current inability to achieve its most violent ambitions. Cheering for China’s increasing power is cheering for the next war. It’s not just not perfect, it’s an actively negative force for the world in general. You could argue the US is too, though I would disagree with that, but even then, why would you want a younger, more vigorous, more imperialist, second US thrown into the mix. I think Neb is spot on with this and I join him in that solace: Show nested quote +On April 16 2025 05:03 Nebuchad wrote:On April 16 2025 04:20 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 16 2025 04:13 KwarK wrote:On April 16 2025 04:07 GreenHorizons wrote:
Looks like KwarK wins again Nice to see you here GH. Thanks for your support. You still making up quotes and ascribing them to other people as your main form of debate? I've learned a trick or two from you. You realize I didn't make up the quote that I included the full text and linked the original of, or have you completely lost touch with reality? He does realize it, yeah. All I know from KwarK tells me that it kills him that he doesn't have a good argument and he has to stoop down to doing shit like this. I take some solace in that.
And yes, I understand how US politics work.
On February 26 2024 13:29 GreenHorizons wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On February 26 2024 11:56 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2024 10:53 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 26 2024 09:05 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 26 2024 08:29 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 26 2024 07:50 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 26 2024 06:51 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 26 2024 06:19 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 26 2024 05:53 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 26 2024 04:25 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 26 2024 03:26 GreenHorizons wrote:[quote] Not so much apparently. Voting "uncommitted" in Michigan's primary is actually a vote supporting Trump according to Michigan's Democrat Governor. [quote] edition.cnn.comI'm increasingly believing the implied odds that give Biden just a ~33% chance of winning. Bad time for Democrats to have picked an avowed Zionist as their leader. That gambling website clearly can't be taken seriously. Looks at who's in third place, supposedly with a 14.3% chance of becoming president (despite it actually being a 0% chance). Michelle Obama. There's really a 1-in-7 chance that she wins the presidential election? Really? lol. Placing a bet on the November results, especially in February, doesn't mean that those odds actually comport with reality. The earliest polls seem to indicate a very slight lead for Trump over Biden, ranging around 1-5%, but even the polls are going to be inaccurate this early in the election cycle. (Source: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/ ) Maybe things progress to 60-40 or 70-30 in favor of Trump over time, or maybe Biden ends up with a respectable lead. We can speculate in a variety of different directions, using different criteria as our justifications. For example, Biden's primary victories were around 90%, whereas Trump's primary victories were only at around 60%. Those numbers certainly don't favor Trump. There are also pockets of Never-Trump Republicans saying they would either stay home or actually vote for Biden, if (when) Trump becomes the official Republican nominee. Additionally, we need to see the impact that Trump's continuous losses in the courts have on his supporters, over the next half-year. It may be the case that Trump loses more voters than Biden does. We really don't know how things are going to shake out. The site itself isn't really relevant, those are the ~implied odds across all gambling websites. It's true that the "true odds" are likely different, but still apparently favor Trump. As for polling, Biden's problem isn't just that he's 1-5% behind Trump (and has been for months), it's that he's 6-10+% behind where he was polling in 2020 nationally when he squeaked out a win. Perhaps more pressing than that, is that Biden is also ~ 10% behind his 2020 Michigan polling vs Trump, and Democrats need to win Michigan to win the presidency. Comparing their primary victories thus far is silly, For example, Trump got more votes in SC than Biden has in all his primaries combined (Nikki Haley almost did too). Biden got less than half as many primary votes in SC in 2024 compared to 2020. Hell, Biden barely got more votes in SC's 2024 primary than Bernie did in their 2020 primary. en.wikipedia.orgBiden still has higher disapproval than Trump had at this point in his presidency (no one has ever won with it so high) and Trump currently has better favorability than BidenIt's true we can't know how it will shake out with certainty (likely not until some time after election day really), but it's abundantly clear Biden's in worse shape than he was in 2020 vs Trump when he barely won. Hence Whitmer (and rank and file types like Sadist) trying to shame/threaten people for even considering voting "Uncommitted" in Michigan's primary. You're not making accurate comparisons with those links either. You're comparing February 2024 (half a year before the election) to October/November 2020 (right before the election). Feb 2020 is just as irrelevant as Feb 2024, and just because there happened to be consistency from Feb 2020 to Nov 2020 doesn't mean 2024 will have the same consistency. As I said before, we need to see how the next few months play out, so that we can compare October/November 2024 to October/November 2020. If Biden in Oct/Nov 2024 is polling significantly worse than Oct/Nov 2020, then the comparison will be justified. We can't know yet if this election's final polling will put Biden ahead, equal to, or behind last election's final polling for Biden - and we also know that polling doesn't guarantee an outcome. Last election, Biden polled ahead of Trump by a few points right before the vote, and he won. This election, Biden could poll behind Trump and still win, or ahead of Trump and still lose. Last election was pretty close to a coinflip, and 55-45 or even 60-40 in either direction for this election is still practically a coinflip. Also, I think if you consider the populations of the states that have voted in the primaries so far, and just how deep red South Carolina is, you won't be surprised at the SC data you cited. South Carolina isn't even a swing state, but it may be interesting to see how the Republican primary plays out in swing states (if Haley stays around that long). But either way, a lot can happen in the spring, summer, and fall of 2024 to affect the November vote. Well, I'm comparing Biden vs.Trump in Feb 2024 with Biden vs Trump in Feb 2020. It says: " This Day In History: February 25, 2020: Biden +4.3" to make the point that he's inarguably in worse shape now than he was at this point in the race in 2020, particularly in Michigan where " This Day in History: February 25, 2020: Biden +5.2" but today Trump is +4.6. Things can certainly change between now and the election, but Biden's clearly struggling against Trump compared to 2020 where he barely squeaked out a win with much more favorable polling (including favorability/approval). As I said before, comparing Feb 2020 to Feb 2024 is comparing an irrelevant data point from last election to an irrelevant data point from this election. You're right that Biden is doing worse right now than he did at the same point in time last election, but such a comparison doesn't legitimize either one as having predictive power. We should be patient instead of rushing to conclusions based on premature information (or gambling odds). Polling is not irrelevant . For example, decisions about how and where to spend campaign resources and political capital is in part based on contemporary and historic polling. If Democrats treat the polls as irrelevant, they can't strategize a reasonable path to 270 and apply their efforts accordingly. The notion that Biden is just as likely to win 2024 as he was at this point to win in 2020, or that him being so far behind his 2020 position at this point is irrelevant (nevermind no president ever being reelected with so high a disapproval rating), is dangerously oblivious imo. While I appreciate your perspective on the odds and polling, what I was interested in was your take on the assertion from Gov. Whitmer (D-MI) that what we thought was a reasonable compromise for a primary voter opposed to genocide, she says is actually supporting Trump. Do you mean this excerpt from the article you posted: "Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer tells CNN's Dana Bash "I understand the pain that people are feeling" over the war in Gaza but warns that "any vote that's not cast for Joe Biden supports a second Trump term."" https://edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2024/02/25/sotu-whitmer-on-michigan-primary.cnn Here are my thoughts about that quote: 1. I think it's important for her to not be dismissive of the concerns of voters, including how people feel about Gaza and the Israel-Palestine conflict. After watching the entire 2.5-minute video clip from that article, she seems to be a little more sensitive to the situation than that quote suggests. 2. I think her message is probably aimed for the general election, as the primary is essentially decided already (Biden vs. Trump, unless one of them dies or is forcibly removed). 3. I think it's important to note that Trump would be worse than Biden for Palestinians, and so hopefully voters are keeping in mind the big picture (Biden vs. Trump in regards to Palestine, and Biden vs. Trump in regards to everything else domestic and foreign) when they're deciding who they'll vote for in November. 1. Not really. 2. She literally said "any vote that isn't for Joe Biden" in response to and the context of a question about people voting uncommitted in the primary. A sentiment/threat that was immediately recognized and echoed/amplified by Sadist. 3. ~ Half of Joe Biden's voters believe Israel is committing genocide. Their problem isn't that they don't know Trump is even more genocidal. One of my overarching points: There are a variety of ways for Biden/Democrats and their supporters to win in November. But doing anything they can to avoid demanding Biden be better and instead focusing on demanding his voters support what they themselves identify as genocide is deplorable. EDIT: More than deplorable, I genuinely believe it can be systemically catastrophic, not just domestically but globally too. 2. What I'm saying is that she answered a question about the primary with a response more relevant to the general election, since obviously Trump isn't part of the Democratic primary (and so "not voting Biden = helping Trump" makes a lot more sense in the context of the general election, especially for a swing state). 3. I think that 50% statistic misses the point I was trying to make: Believing (as you and I both do) that Israel is committing genocide, does not necessarily equate to disqualifying Biden from being elected president over Trump for another term. It's disqualifying for you, but not for me, and I haven't seen any data suggesting that those 50% of Biden voters in the poll blame Biden so much so that they would prefer Trump to handle things in 2024. 2. What I'm saying is that it's basically the Democrat version of a dog whistle that allows the plausible deniability you're expressing and is heard by the Sadists of the party and evokes the intended reaction. 3. Hence the efforts to shame and blame the people advocating to vote uncommitted to show that it might be and pressure Biden to do more to stop the genocide (even if the vast majority will vote Biden with the gun to their head in November). Instead demanding voters to fall in line, even if it means their complicity in what they themselves identify as genocide. All with seemingly no consideration for the long-term and systemic ramifications of such compromises and contradictions. Trump is also an effective heel (Biden not such a great babyface), but it's not like there's any Republican or Democrat in either party (except maybe Bernie EDIT: I suppose you could include some of "The Squad" too) that would change the calculus of those demanding voters fall in line behind the Democrat to prevent Trump. Trump being so obnoxiously abominable certainly makes it seem more reasonable though. Show nested quote +On February 26 2024 13:17 KwarK wrote:On February 26 2024 12:21 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 26 2024 11:48 KwarK wrote:
As has been explained to you countless times, you don’t have to support a candidate to vote for them. It’s absurd, naive, and childish to expect that a candidate representing 300m people agrees with your specific stances. And if they did then that would mean most other people wouldn’t find the candidate agreeing with them.
You keep repeating this fundamental misunderstanding of how simple plurality elections works. You keep accusing people of supporting Biden or agreeing with Biden just because they say we should vote for him. At a certain point it’s just a you problem. You don’t get how elections work. You should get it as a grown up living in America. And you should get it because it’s been explained to you. Either you’re mentally deficient or you’re choosing not to get it.
In any case your “demanding his voters support” is just as much of a miss this latest time as it was the last hundred. We don’t have the luxury of only voting for politicians we support. Grow the fuck up. You're indignance at the notion that voting for someone is in fact supporting them should be aimed at the system that forces you to make such absurd contortions to rationalize it, rather than someone confronting you with this reality. You know that our issue isn't that I don't know how US elections work. It's not even that we disagree that they lack the capacity to address problems that need to be addressed in a necessary timeline. It's that you've picked up your baton for the decimation of Palestinians and others Voting isn’t supporting. If the choice was between reimposing chattel slavery on African Americans or holding a giant ham and pineapple pizza party you’d be withholding your vote because you want pepperoni and insisting that I love pineapple on pizza based on my vote. You don’t get how this works and that causes you to misattribute views to people who don’t hold them. + Show Spoiler +No. I'd support a ham and pineapple pizza party with my vote, but genocide isn't a pizza party. Though for some I suppose it's somewhere between a child's birthday party and a carnival. I do get how this works, you just want the same exemption as Trump voters that want to say they aren't supporting him or his bigotry with their vote and it's comparably ridiculous to me.
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On July 21 2025 22:48 Billyboy wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2025 21:32 Liquid`Drone wrote:
No, if anyone has gotten preferential treatment, it's several different people and you are near the top. (Serm) I don't think a single poster is more guilty of inventing opinions or stances among other posters and that, honestly, is the main area I wish we had moderated in a more strict and stringent manner. I don't mind the occasional insult, but claiming that people are holding positions they deny holding because you think you know better than they do is cancerous for fruitful discussion.
Wouldnt hold my breath expecting change, but this is where I wish we could see some improvement.
Anyway, the idea that GH is a right wing troll is fucking idiotic. There's plenty of legitimate criticism to throw his way, that is not it. You are almost right on this, just you have a absolutely huge blind spot regarding your "fairness". The reality is you are just as biased towards the posters you like and do not like the only thing that makes you different than most is that who you like and do not like does not follow political lines. I've had to ask over 10 times in fairly short order for people to provide a quote of what they say I've said or think, not a single one has, never have you stepped in. And this is not unique to me, there are plenty of us on your shit list. On the other hand your golden boys get non stop protection because you have decided they are being picked on in spite of them constantly picking fights and often being the bigger dicks. Overall I'm OK with this no moderation style in the sense that it is more fair , but the quality of discussion is sure the shit. It is more often than not a bunch of shitty one liners and attempted gotcha's with people talking about what they think some one really means rather then what they want and then an argument about the clarification is actually a lie.
Billy my dude I don't want to start an argument in here with you but there was a period of about 3 years there where every single personal argument that went over the top and ended up with mods involved was you vs someone else, often GH but not always.
You're very good at spotting when other people have gone over the line, but absolutely blind to when you do it yourself, which used to be a very regular occurrence.
Now it seems to a periodical post that just generally complains about all the people who disagree with you being terrible human beings with no morals but I think everyone's numb to it now.
Don't confuse this with me trying to insult you, I'm just being direct about how its been from where I'm sitting.
These days I just don't care any more tbh, you can do your thing, and I'll do my thing, which more and more is just taking the piss out of how nuts everyone can be in those threads, and superiority posting about my morally superior hard left viewpoint.
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United States42973 Posts
GH you literally don't understand how two party simple plurality systems work. You always say you do and then you say something incompatible with an understanding of it. You can't keep providing so much evidence that you don't understand while demanding we accept you at your word that you do.
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On July 22 2025 01:56 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 22 2025 01:18 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 21 2025 18:20 KwarK wrote:On July 21 2025 18:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 21 2025 17:52 KwarK wrote:+ Show Spoiler +In general my posting style is to meet people where they're at. Different posters get a different levels of effort and goodwill. For example with Jimmi it's general amusement at his quirks but I don't actually reply to his posts anymore. When he brings up the miracle on ice or Pierre Trudeau or whatever I think there might be legitimately something going on with him so I'm just letting him be. With GH I'm making zero effort at all because he routinely changes my words to suit the narrative of the day so there's literally no point. + Show Spoiler +There's a poster called stilt and every time he sees one of my posts he calls me a negationist and every time he does I say "no I'm not". I don't think he's worked out the joke there yet. In this instance I think I tailored the response perfectly to where he was at. On July 19 2025 16:48 Magic Powers wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2025 07:06 KwarK wrote:On July 19 2025 01:25 Magic Powers wrote:On July 10 2025 23:46 KwarK wrote:
The population growth has been exponential KwarK claims that Gazans show no restraint and breed like rabbits. You're the one calling them rabbits. You're the one doing that. If not "no you" then what? I'm very happy to engage in discussions of political theory with people who are interested in doing so. But it'd be ridiculous to approach every poster in the same way, posters get the KwarK they deserve. I don't recall doing that. Certainly not "routinely" lol. I remember you doing that to my posts during your crashout, but that's about it. I once said that the working class Americans you’re trying to mobilize would sooner beat you with a baton to maintain the current social structures than join your revolution. They just don’t like you and your ideas. You then spent a year telling me over and over that I was planning to beat you with a baton. The first few times I responded with denial and requests for any kind of citation but you wouldn’t provide one. + Show Spoiler +The next few times I just went with negation. Eventually, and keep in mind I had literally no idea why you kept saying that I had a baton and planned to beat you with it, I started simply reversing it and insisting that you had a baton and planned to beat me with it. One of many examples of you simply deciding I said something and then bringing it up over and over. And never providing any opportunity to clarify because you wouldn’t make the effort to tell me which post of mine you’d decided to interpret in the stupidest possible way. Without knowing what you’d failed to read all I could do was say “I didn’t say that” and eventually just start putting words in your mouth. Incidentally putting words in your mouth did actually get you to stop doing it. Something about a golden rule. Edit: you actually quoted an example of yourself doing it there. In 2023 I said America under Trump was better than it was during the time of literal slaveowners, the trail of tears, and the Confederacy. Because it is. I hate Trump with a passion but I’m not looking at his presidency and wishing we could go back to the good old days of slavery. There’s a general historical upward trend and while Trump is an aberration he’s not bringing America back below the very low historical low points. I was very clear on this. Historical trend. Slaveowners. Monsters. Confederacy. Specific examples I called out to illustrate that the trend was away from those things. On August 14 2023 16:44 KwarK wrote:
Trump is awful, of course. But is he historically awful? The US has had some real monsters in charge. Plus that time it broke into two countries because half of them wanted to own people. Two years later you, completely out of the blue and with no reference to the 2023 post, asserted that I supported Trump over Hillary in the 2016 election because I thought Trump was part of an upward trend. On April 12 2025 00:50 GreenHorizons wrote:
Kwark was trying to convince people Trump winning the election [over Hillary in 2016] would be a sign of how the US is getting better There is absolutely no reading of “Trump’s America was better than the confederacy” that could lead you to believe that I supported Trump’s election victory over Hillary. None. It’s just not there. The preference order is Hillary, Trump, Confederacy. Trump winning the election was a bad thing because Trump was worse than Hillary. The Confederacy did not run in the 2016 ejection so I could not possibly have supported Trump’s campaign over the Confederacy. But for you that was enough. I said something completely different two years earlier and so you decided that I was a Trump supporter and no amount of denials would be enough. You still owe me an apology for that shit. Okay, so no. I said: On February 26 2024 12:21 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 26 2024 11:48 KwarK wrote:
As has been explained to you countless times, you don’t have to support a candidate to vote for them. It’s absurd, naive, and childish to expect that a candidate representing 300m people agrees with your specific stances. And if they did then that would mean most other people wouldn’t find the candidate agreeing with them.
You keep repeating this fundamental misunderstanding of how simple plurality elections works. You keep accusing people of supporting Biden or agreeing with Biden just because they say we should vote for him. At a certain point it’s just a you problem. You don’t get how elections work. You should get it as a grown up living in America. And you should get it because it’s been explained to you. Either you’re mentally deficient or you’re choosing not to get it.
In any case your “demanding his voters support” is just as much of a miss this latest time as it was the last hundred. We don’t have the luxury of only voting for politicians we support. Grow the fuck up. You're indignance at the notion that voting for someone is in fact supporting them should be aimed at the system that forces you to make such absurd contortions to rationalize it, rather than someone confronting you with this reality. You know that our issue isn't that I don't know how US elections work. It's not even that we disagree that they lack the capacity to address problems that need to be addressed in a necessary timeline. It's that you've picked up your baton for the decimation of Palestinians and others As to this bit about your Hillary Clinton crashout, I explained to you at the time, that it had nothing to do with Hillary On August 14 2023 17:37 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 14 2023 16:44 KwarK wrote:On August 14 2023 16:25 GreenHorizons wrote:
I obviously disagree with your perspective/assessment of my perspective, but considering the US is in a statistical coinflip (against someone that literally tried to forcibly and illegally keep power, ostensibly for the first time in US history) for fascism, you might at least want to temper your own confidence about it "getting less shitty". Trump is awful, of course. But is he historically awful? The US has had some real monsters in charge. Plus that time it broke into two countries because half of them wanted to own people. Trump mainly just wants to force the media to suck his dick because he’s a narcissist with a gaping void where you’d expect a soul. He’s motivated entirely by ego, he lives for the rallies and the Twitter arguments and the petty name calling. Bush 2 also stole an election and then he killed a quarter million people. America is getting better. That you could see Trump win the coinflip in 2024 and sincerely tell people "don't worry, this is evidence the US is getting better" might be the scariest thing I've seen you say, depending on how you rationalize it (I don't want you to attempt to thread that needle no matter how potentially amusing it might sound, though The American Civil War is a fun bar I don't think you can be sure we'll clear anyway lol). + Show Spoiler +I do hope we can at least agree that China's work in Africa through the BRI has demonstrably been less exploitative than Europe's and the US's through the IMF and the like according to the evidence provided/available thus far (this is even with slavery, King Leopold II, their legacies, etc. notwithstanding)? . On April 16 2025 09:29 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 16 2025 08:37 KwarK wrote:On April 16 2025 08:07 Nebuchad wrote:On April 16 2025 07:57 BlackJack wrote:On April 16 2025 06:30 Nebuchad wrote:On April 16 2025 06:06 BlackJack wrote:On April 16 2025 04:20 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 16 2025 04:13 KwarK wrote:
[quote]
Nice to see you here GH. Thanks for your support. You still making up quotes and ascribing them to other people as your main form of debate? I've learned a trick or two from you. You realize I didn't make up the quote that I included the full text and linked the original of, or have you completely lost touch with reality? Except the quoted text is not what you ascribed him saying. He said "America is getting better." You said he said "Trump winning the election is a sign America is getting better." It's not even close to the same thing. He even explained your error in his next post. This pisses me off because it's an incredibly simple point to understand. It's a "two steps forward one step back" kind of thing. An 8 year old could understand this point. It doesn't mean every step is in the right direction but in the long run you're moving in the right direction. The only reason to misunderstand this is through ignorance or malice, so take your pick. This happens way to often on this forum (usually to me tbh). No matter how obvious the misinterpretation is more people will jump in and agree with the uncharitable interpretation just to win internet arguments, I guess. But the one person that I never see doing this is Kwark. Maybe he just grasps the English language better than most people here. We often disagree but the one thing I can be sure if I'm arguing with him is that the disagreement will be an ideological one and not because he has done a shit job at understanding my point. I suspect the reason why this happens to you a lot is because people expect other people in general to post with some sort of objective in mind. Like, we're in this context in which Trump is fucking everything up, and the large majority of your posting is still about how Democrats are slightly unfair in their Trump criticism when it comes to this point of detail or that point of detail, or how there's this DEI scandal about some woke thing somewhere; the natural inclination for a lot of people is that you must be doing it for a reason, and then they search for that reason. Is it because you support this, or that; they're trying to figure it out. Drone made a good point yesterday that you were probably not doing it with an objective, that you were just nitpicking for the sake of it, and that made sense to me. I would then add that you've spent so long on team "Democrats are bad" and it feels comfortable to continue being on that team no matter what happens now. But I could be wrong too! There's no way to tell, really. Or as someone who grasps the English language better than most people once said, On March 26 2025 08:10 KwarK wrote:
Blackjack isn’t arguing that it wasn’t a Nazi salute, he’s clear that it was. He’s arguing for the sake of arguing. His point is that it’s possible for someone, but not him, to be really bad at identifying salutes or something and for that person, who isn’t him, to be confused. You’ve got to remember that blackjack’s posts are essentially meaningless. In general, yes. If you saw an isolated comment on Reddit of someone challenging claims like "there are no upsides to tariffs" or "there is zero risk of adverse events from the COVID vaccine" then 9 times out of 10 that person is going to be someone that supports Trump's tariffs or opposes taking the COVID vaccine so you can make some assumptions about positions they hold. But surely you see how incredibly stupid it is to think that Kwark, of all people, is making the point that Trump getting elected is a sign that America is getting better. It's even more stupid when he immediately clarifies what he meant and instead of being like "oh okay" to be like "nah... bro... no take backsies." Making the faulty assumptions is one thing. Doubling down on the faulty assumptions after they've clarified their statement is a whole other ballgame. Sure yeah that makes sense (except the part about thinking that America is getting better). Wait, what? What I originally said was that America had gotten better since the days of the Confederacy. That was the specific example I used. The US has had some real monsters in charge. Plus that time it broke into two countries because half of them wanted to own people. GH misquoted that to pretend I said that Trump was preferable to Hillary when in fact I was saying that Trump was preferable to the Confederacy. + Show Spoiler +But now that all the misquotes have been cleared up at exhausting length and it's clear that this is just an outright statement of preference between Trump and the Confederacy you're landing on team Confederacy. That's a weird take boy. Since you're crashing out so hard I don't know if this is you being confused or intentionally obtuse. It had nothing to do with Hillary Clinton lol? The context was that you were arguing China is getting worse (from some unspecified time/reference) and the US is getting better. On August 14 2023 15:52 KwarK wrote:+ Show Spoiler +The US today isn’t doing the same stuff as your historical examples and a unipolar world has been extremely good for world peace. The world has never been more peaceful than it has been under US hegemony. The US is far from a perfect hegemon but it hasn’t annexed anywhere in a few decades and doesn’t plan to. Your problem seems to be that you’re confused by the linear passage of time. The US has been getting less shitty over time, China more shitty. + Show Spoiler +I expect this trend to continue. You point to US boarding schools for the indigenous as if you think they’re about to bring them back. You point to Hawaii as if the US is on the verge of colonizing the Philippines again. It’s not. Whereas China’s historical trend of weakness is very clearly reversing. Looking at China’s previous inability to turn its imperial ambitions into military victory and projecting that forwards is as absurd as assuming the US is on the verge of setting up boarding schools in the Philippines.
Perhaps you could take a minute to listen to the nations who have borders with China before deciding that you, as an educated western intellectual, must know better than them. Perhaps you’re not the best qualified to address the issue of whether China’s claims to Taiwan have merit. You cheer for the Chinese tiger to be unleashed on the people of east Asia without the slightest notion of what it means for those people. But you don’t care because you, as an American, believe you know better. Not because of how you feel about China either, simply because of how it makes you feel better about America’s place in the world. If they must suffer for you to see America humbled then that’s a price you’re willing to pay.
It’s pure horseshoe with you. You arrive in the exact same arrogant western mindset as those you despise because ultimately these places only exist in your mind insofar as they’re relevant to American hegemony.
The US (and the other western imperial powers) were extremely shitty in East Asia in 1930. Would you cheer for Imperial Japan? Hence me including Gors' post about the world relying on China to keep the US in Check. On April 10 2025 20:17 Gorsameth wrote:On April 10 2025 19:59 Silvanel wrote:Well. EU tarrfis are paused, while US 10% remain in place... https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cn4jjw30d5qtDon't know how I feel about that. On the one hand I like that we are being mature about that, but on the other I dont like being bullied. Nothing mature about it, Trump got to place 10% blanket tariffs without a reciprocal response. Sad that the world is having to look to China of all places to teach America not to fuck around. Contrary to your assertion that such an expectation made no sense. On August 14 2023 15:13 KwarK wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Your anti Americanism is showing. China is worse than the US on all of those factors you named. Your theory that they’ll act as a check against the US makes no sense. + Show Spoiler +It’s like believing that adding a leopard to the lion you’re sharing a raft with will somehow make things better because at least then it’ll be a multipolar raft.
China is an expansionist imperialist power that has territorial disputes with literally all of its neighbours, constantly exchanges fire with several of them, and has recently annexed a previously free democratic territory. Following that annexation it imported its own government loyalist police, contrary to its agreements, and ruthlessly cracked down on the populace. In the next 50 years you’re far safer as a Mexican living next to the hegemonic American empire than as a Vietnamese citizen living next to China.
China is dangerous and is largely constrained by a current inability to achieve its most violent ambitions. Cheering for China’s increasing power is cheering for the next war. It’s not just not perfect, it’s an actively negative force for the world in general. You could argue the US is too, though I would disagree with that, but even then, why would you want a younger, more vigorous, more imperialist, second US thrown into the mix. I think Neb is spot on with this and I join him in that solace: On April 16 2025 05:03 Nebuchad wrote:On April 16 2025 04:20 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 16 2025 04:13 KwarK wrote:On April 16 2025 04:07 GreenHorizons wrote:
Looks like KwarK wins again Nice to see you here GH. Thanks for your support. You still making up quotes and ascribing them to other people as your main form of debate? I've learned a trick or two from you. You realize I didn't make up the quote that I included the full text and linked the original of, or have you completely lost touch with reality? He does realize it, yeah. All I know from KwarK tells me that it kills him that he doesn't have a good argument and he has to stoop down to doing shit like this. I take some solace in that. And yes, I understand how US politics work. On February 26 2024 13:29 GreenHorizons wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On February 26 2024 11:56 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2024 10:53 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 26 2024 09:05 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 26 2024 08:29 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 26 2024 07:50 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 26 2024 06:51 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 26 2024 06:19 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 26 2024 05:53 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 26 2024 04:25 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 26 2024 03:26 GreenHorizons wrote:[quote] Not so much apparently. Voting "uncommitted" in Michigan's primary is actually a vote supporting Trump according to Michigan's Democrat Governor. [quote] edition.cnn.comI'm increasingly believing the implied odds that give Biden just a ~33% chance of winning. Bad time for Democrats to have picked an avowed Zionist as their leader. That gambling website clearly can't be taken seriously. Looks at who's in third place, supposedly with a 14.3% chance of becoming president (despite it actually being a 0% chance). Michelle Obama. There's really a 1-in-7 chance that she wins the presidential election? Really? lol. Placing a bet on the November results, especially in February, doesn't mean that those odds actually comport with reality. The earliest polls seem to indicate a very slight lead for Trump over Biden, ranging around 1-5%, but even the polls are going to be inaccurate this early in the election cycle. (Source: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/ ) Maybe things progress to 60-40 or 70-30 in favor of Trump over time, or maybe Biden ends up with a respectable lead. We can speculate in a variety of different directions, using different criteria as our justifications. For example, Biden's primary victories were around 90%, whereas Trump's primary victories were only at around 60%. Those numbers certainly don't favor Trump. There are also pockets of Never-Trump Republicans saying they would either stay home or actually vote for Biden, if (when) Trump becomes the official Republican nominee. Additionally, we need to see the impact that Trump's continuous losses in the courts have on his supporters, over the next half-year. It may be the case that Trump loses more voters than Biden does. We really don't know how things are going to shake out. The site itself isn't really relevant, those are the ~implied odds across all gambling websites. It's true that the "true odds" are likely different, but still apparently favor Trump. As for polling, Biden's problem isn't just that he's 1-5% behind Trump (and has been for months), it's that he's 6-10+% behind where he was polling in 2020 nationally when he squeaked out a win. Perhaps more pressing than that, is that Biden is also ~ 10% behind his 2020 Michigan polling vs Trump, and Democrats need to win Michigan to win the presidency. Comparing their primary victories thus far is silly, For example, Trump got more votes in SC than Biden has in all his primaries combined (Nikki Haley almost did too). Biden got less than half as many primary votes in SC in 2024 compared to 2020. Hell, Biden barely got more votes in SC's 2024 primary than Bernie did in their 2020 primary. en.wikipedia.orgBiden still has higher disapproval than Trump had at this point in his presidency (no one has ever won with it so high) and Trump currently has better favorability than BidenIt's true we can't know how it will shake out with certainty (likely not until some time after election day really), but it's abundantly clear Biden's in worse shape than he was in 2020 vs Trump when he barely won. Hence Whitmer (and rank and file types like Sadist) trying to shame/threaten people for even considering voting "Uncommitted" in Michigan's primary. You're not making accurate comparisons with those links either. You're comparing February 2024 (half a year before the election) to October/November 2020 (right before the election). Feb 2020 is just as irrelevant as Feb 2024, and just because there happened to be consistency from Feb 2020 to Nov 2020 doesn't mean 2024 will have the same consistency. As I said before, we need to see how the next few months play out, so that we can compare October/November 2024 to October/November 2020. If Biden in Oct/Nov 2024 is polling significantly worse than Oct/Nov 2020, then the comparison will be justified. We can't know yet if this election's final polling will put Biden ahead, equal to, or behind last election's final polling for Biden - and we also know that polling doesn't guarantee an outcome. Last election, Biden polled ahead of Trump by a few points right before the vote, and he won. This election, Biden could poll behind Trump and still win, or ahead of Trump and still lose. Last election was pretty close to a coinflip, and 55-45 or even 60-40 in either direction for this election is still practically a coinflip. Also, I think if you consider the populations of the states that have voted in the primaries so far, and just how deep red South Carolina is, you won't be surprised at the SC data you cited. South Carolina isn't even a swing state, but it may be interesting to see how the Republican primary plays out in swing states (if Haley stays around that long). But either way, a lot can happen in the spring, summer, and fall of 2024 to affect the November vote. Well, I'm comparing Biden vs.Trump in Feb 2024 with Biden vs Trump in Feb 2020. It says: " This Day In History: February 25, 2020: Biden +4.3" to make the point that he's inarguably in worse shape now than he was at this point in the race in 2020, particularly in Michigan where " This Day in History: February 25, 2020: Biden +5.2" but today Trump is +4.6. Things can certainly change between now and the election, but Biden's clearly struggling against Trump compared to 2020 where he barely squeaked out a win with much more favorable polling (including favorability/approval). As I said before, comparing Feb 2020 to Feb 2024 is comparing an irrelevant data point from last election to an irrelevant data point from this election. You're right that Biden is doing worse right now than he did at the same point in time last election, but such a comparison doesn't legitimize either one as having predictive power. We should be patient instead of rushing to conclusions based on premature information (or gambling odds). Polling is not irrelevant . For example, decisions about how and where to spend campaign resources and political capital is in part based on contemporary and historic polling. If Democrats treat the polls as irrelevant, they can't strategize a reasonable path to 270 and apply their efforts accordingly. The notion that Biden is just as likely to win 2024 as he was at this point to win in 2020, or that him being so far behind his 2020 position at this point is irrelevant (nevermind no president ever being reelected with so high a disapproval rating), is dangerously oblivious imo. While I appreciate your perspective on the odds and polling, what I was interested in was your take on the assertion from Gov. Whitmer (D-MI) that what we thought was a reasonable compromise for a primary voter opposed to genocide, she says is actually supporting Trump. Do you mean this excerpt from the article you posted: "Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer tells CNN's Dana Bash "I understand the pain that people are feeling" over the war in Gaza but warns that "any vote that's not cast for Joe Biden supports a second Trump term."" https://edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2024/02/25/sotu-whitmer-on-michigan-primary.cnn Here are my thoughts about that quote: 1. I think it's important for her to not be dismissive of the concerns of voters, including how people feel about Gaza and the Israel-Palestine conflict. After watching the entire 2.5-minute video clip from that article, she seems to be a little more sensitive to the situation than that quote suggests. 2. I think her message is probably aimed for the general election, as the primary is essentially decided already (Biden vs. Trump, unless one of them dies or is forcibly removed). 3. I think it's important to note that Trump would be worse than Biden for Palestinians, and so hopefully voters are keeping in mind the big picture (Biden vs. Trump in regards to Palestine, and Biden vs. Trump in regards to everything else domestic and foreign) when they're deciding who they'll vote for in November. 1. Not really. 2. She literally said "any vote that isn't for Joe Biden" in response to and the context of a question about people voting uncommitted in the primary. A sentiment/threat that was immediately recognized and echoed/amplified by Sadist. 3. ~ Half of Joe Biden's voters believe Israel is committing genocide. Their problem isn't that they don't know Trump is even more genocidal. One of my overarching points: There are a variety of ways for Biden/Democrats and their supporters to win in November. But doing anything they can to avoid demanding Biden be better and instead focusing on demanding his voters support what they themselves identify as genocide is deplorable. EDIT: More than deplorable, I genuinely believe it can be systemically catastrophic, not just domestically but globally too. 2. What I'm saying is that she answered a question about the primary with a response more relevant to the general election, since obviously Trump isn't part of the Democratic primary (and so "not voting Biden = helping Trump" makes a lot more sense in the context of the general election, especially for a swing state). 3. I think that 50% statistic misses the point I was trying to make: Believing (as you and I both do) that Israel is committing genocide, does not necessarily equate to disqualifying Biden from being elected president over Trump for another term. It's disqualifying for you, but not for me, and I haven't seen any data suggesting that those 50% of Biden voters in the poll blame Biden so much so that they would prefer Trump to handle things in 2024. 2. What I'm saying is that it's basically the Democrat version of a dog whistle that allows the plausible deniability you're expressing and is heard by the Sadists of the party and evokes the intended reaction. 3. Hence the efforts to shame and blame the people advocating to vote uncommitted to show that it might be and pressure Biden to do more to stop the genocide (even if the vast majority will vote Biden with the gun to their head in November). Instead demanding voters to fall in line, even if it means their complicity in what they themselves identify as genocide. All with seemingly no consideration for the long-term and systemic ramifications of such compromises and contradictions. Trump is also an effective heel (Biden not such a great babyface), but it's not like there's any Republican or Democrat in either party (except maybe Bernie EDIT: I suppose you could include some of "The Squad" too) that would change the calculus of those demanding voters fall in line behind the Democrat to prevent Trump. Trump being so obnoxiously abominable certainly makes it seem more reasonable though. On February 26 2024 13:17 KwarK wrote:On February 26 2024 12:21 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 26 2024 11:48 KwarK wrote:
As has been explained to you countless times, you don’t have to support a candidate to vote for them. It’s absurd, naive, and childish to expect that a candidate representing 300m people agrees with your specific stances. And if they did then that would mean most other people wouldn’t find the candidate agreeing with them.
You keep repeating this fundamental misunderstanding of how simple plurality elections works. You keep accusing people of supporting Biden or agreeing with Biden just because they say we should vote for him. At a certain point it’s just a you problem. You don’t get how elections work. You should get it as a grown up living in America. And you should get it because it’s been explained to you. Either you’re mentally deficient or you’re choosing not to get it.
In any case your “demanding his voters support” is just as much of a miss this latest time as it was the last hundred. We don’t have the luxury of only voting for politicians we support. Grow the fuck up. You're indignance at the notion that voting for someone is in fact supporting them should be aimed at the system that forces you to make such absurd contortions to rationalize it, rather than someone confronting you with this reality. You know that our issue isn't that I don't know how US elections work. It's not even that we disagree that they lack the capacity to address problems that need to be addressed in a necessary timeline. It's that you've picked up your baton for the decimation of Palestinians and others Voting isn’t supporting. If the choice was between reimposing chattel slavery on African Americans or holding a giant ham and pineapple pizza party you’d be withholding your vote because you want pepperoni and insisting that I love pineapple on pizza based on my vote. You don’t get how this works and that causes you to misattribute views to people who don’t hold them. + Show Spoiler +No. I'd support a ham and pineapple pizza party with my vote, but genocide isn't a pizza party. Though for some I suppose it's somewhere between a child's birthday party and a carnival. I do get how this works, you just want the same exemption as Trump voters that want to say they aren't supporting him or his bigotry with their vote and it's comparably ridiculous to me. GH you literally don't understand how two party simple plurality systems work. You always say you do and then you say something incompatible with an understanding of it. You can't keep providing so much evidence that you don't understand while demanding we accept you at your word that you do.
I have to admit that I'm unsure where one is supposed to learn this Kwarkian idea that endorsing, voting for and advocating that others vote for a candidate isn't supporting them. Presumably it comes after AP US gov?
Supporting candidates refers to the actions taken by individuals, organizations, and political groups to endorse, promote, and help elect a specific candidate during an election.
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On July 22 2025 01:22 Jockmcplop wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2025 22:48 Billyboy wrote:On July 21 2025 21:32 Liquid`Drone wrote:
No, if anyone has gotten preferential treatment, it's several different people and you are near the top. (Serm) I don't think a single poster is more guilty of inventing opinions or stances among other posters and that, honestly, is the main area I wish we had moderated in a more strict and stringent manner. I don't mind the occasional insult, but claiming that people are holding positions they deny holding because you think you know better than they do is cancerous for fruitful discussion.
Wouldnt hold my breath expecting change, but this is where I wish we could see some improvement.
Anyway, the idea that GH is a right wing troll is fucking idiotic. There's plenty of legitimate criticism to throw his way, that is not it. You are almost right on this, just you have a absolutely huge blind spot regarding your "fairness". The reality is you are just as biased towards the posters you like and do not like the only thing that makes you different than most is that who you like and do not like does not follow political lines. I've had to ask over 10 times in fairly short order for people to provide a quote of what they say I've said or think, not a single one has, never have you stepped in. And this is not unique to me, there are plenty of us on your shit list. On the other hand your golden boys get non stop protection because you have decided they are being picked on in spite of them constantly picking fights and often being the bigger dicks. Overall I'm OK with this no moderation style in the sense that it is more fair , but the quality of discussion is sure the shit. It is more often than not a bunch of shitty one liners and attempted gotcha's with people talking about what they think some one really means rather then what they want and then an argument about the clarification is actually a lie. Billy my dude I don't want to start an argument in here with you but there was a period of about 3 years there where every single personal argument that went over the top and ended up with mods involved was you vs someone else, often GH but not always. You're very good at spotting when other people have gone over the line, but absolutely blind to when you do it yourself, which used to be a very regular occurrence. Now it seems to a periodical post that just generally complains about all the people who disagree with you being terrible human beings with no morals but I think everyone's numb to it now. Don't confuse this with me trying to insult you, I'm just being direct about how its been from where I'm sitting. These days I just don't care any more tbh, you can do your thing, and I'll do my thing, which more and more is just taking the piss out of how nuts everyone can be in those threads, and superiority posting about my morally superior hard left viewpoint.
Massive exaggeration aside, basically nothing that you said was related to what I said. If this was just a personal critique, I'm aware I have blind spots, have often referenced that I do and even on your negative take towards me you seem to recognize some improvement in my posting.
What I complain about, is one liner BS like this that add absolutely nothing to the conversation and when you hold the non cool thread position you get shit tons of.
On July 18 2025 04:49 Jockmcplop wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2025 04:47 Billyboy wrote:On July 18 2025 04:37 Jankisa wrote:On July 18 2025 03:04 Billyboy wrote:On July 17 2025 22:28 Jankisa wrote:
It's not hard to categorize people on this issue, you might think of yourself as neutral but your instincts are, every time, be it because of your media diet or inherent biases to, after some new developments like this one happen come here and provide explanations for Israel's actions that frame them as pragmatic and reasonable.
It's a pattern, another pattern is that you get very annoyed when people point this out.
My speculation is that's because deep down you feel that you are on the wrong side of history here and that's why calling you out on it gets such a strong emotional response.
**If people ever bothered to call me out on things I actually said then you might be onto something.** Everyone thinks they have a balanced opinion, otherwise they would not hold that opinion., I do not think I'm immune to bias quite the opposite. I do think I do better then most on this issue because I actually put in time and effort to make sure my media diet is balanced. What upsets people on this thread for being "pro-Israel" upsets actual pro-Israel elsewhere. I fail the purity tests of both extremes and I'm completely OK with that. If I ever find myself agreeing with oBlade or GH on any issue I instantly get concerned. People that have concluded that Israel is completely evil and every action they miss are never going come close to understanding what my position is because my position is no binary. But that also gives me a much better chance of keeping up with what is going on, because the situation is not binary. Over this thread I've basically answered every question asked of me regardless of its tone or intention or difficulty. When I have asked questions of people generally they either disappear or insult and disappear. And ya, anyone who is not wholly in Israel being the great Satan camp is going to come off as pro-Israel in here, actual pro-Israel people can not last because of the hate. Rjgooner will tire shortly and you will lose the opportunity to actually learn what people with a different opinion then you think. I don't personally agree with a lot of what he says, but he is still less extreme than many of you, just in the opposite direction. It is also just a nice change of pace. A few pages back I explained this exact thing to you but you decided to ignore it (weird for someone who brags about answering everything and accusing people of not doing the same): On July 11 2025 01:52 Jankisa wrote:On July 11 2025 01:23 Billyboy wrote:On July 10 2025 23:22 Jankisa wrote:On July 10 2025 22:39 Billyboy wrote:On July 10 2025 18:05 Jankisa wrote:To reply to RJ who is perplexed how could someone come to a conclusion that hostages are important to Nethyanahu: Netanyahu: Return of hostages important, but war’s ‘supreme goal’ is victory over enemiesThis, after the reports of his aide being arrested for leaking information and sabotaguing negotiations really pissed the families of hostages off, because when you say something like this you are basically giving a free hand to Hamas to kill them, since they don't really mean much to IDF, according to their leader. As far as BillyBoy's incredibly obtuse statement where he knows how Gazans should be happy to be ethnically cleansed to somewhere else, I wonder how he'd react if I kept throwing bombs at his house for almost 2 years and then offered him a tent somewhere in a desert to relocate since "his house is clearly not safe", I'm sure he'd be supper happy and would consider that a big win! That is not at all what I said, why go full asshole on me? It is so tiring. Do you really think everyone in Gaza wants to stay there? How many times do we here it is a large open air prison and you think no one wants to leave? Tons of them want what every human wants. What does sicken me is that people, who consider themselves the righteous ones, won't take the refugees because the Syrian ones cause the rise of the right and made it more difficult on them. Selfish self righteous cunts in my opinion. This is their home. This is the only place they have known. They have an absolute right to stay there. The reason why they might want to leave is because Israel through their policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide made it impossible for them to stay. In a just world they would be provided reparations and their city would be rebuilt, what Israel is offering is to put them in a concentration camp. What happened in Gaza is not the fault of Egypt or Jordan, or any of the other countries around them that are "supposed to take them because they are also brown". The country that is the most complicit in the destruction of Gaza after Israel is the US, are you down with a plan for Israel and US to pay to relocate 2 million people to Texas? As someone who's family was driven from their home which was subsequently looted and they were never able to return there I can tell you that the people who are selfish cunts in this hypothetical are people like you who both don't care about these people enough to be on board a humane solution which lets them stay in their home as well as calling for countries that had nothing to do with this whole fucking mess to take 2 million refugees because Israel decided that their security means flattening a city. What is tiring is that you can't see that you went full asshole the moment that you decided that Israel is unimpeachable and
everyone else is responsible for fixing their mess. Germany didn't fuck up Syria, neither did Turkey. It wasn't Lebanon or Jordan either. They most certainly didn't occupy Gaza in 1967 and they for sure didn't decide that a normal reaction to a terrorist attack that was only this successful because Israel's security forces were focused on taking more land in the West bank instead of protecting their citizens was to destroy or render uninhabitable 80 % + of buildings in a city of 2+ million while killing 60 + K people. This is what you are defending and this is who you are explaining should shoulder the burden of fixing it, otherwise they are selfish cunts, gotcha, how very righteous of you. I did not decide the bolded part, and for the 1000 time go try to find me saying it. I get that you have to say it because otherwise you would have to deal with what I'm actually saying and that is way harder, but it does not make it any less frustrating. I'm also not suggesting that people should be forced to go, I'm just not some self righteous asshole that is forcing them to stay in a hell hole. Everyone who decided it was a good idea to send all the Jews to Israel shares some of the responsibility along with all the assholes along the way that decided the best policy was to try to kill each other instead of getting along. But here we are and someone needs to start thinking about what is an actual go forward plan for the 6 million people living in various levels of hell. **You are communicating exactly as a person who decided exactly that, I'm sure I couldn't get or find GH admitting he's a tankie, but he reacts to news, writes and communicates exactly as a tankie would, so as far as I'm concerned he's a tankie.** You aren't suggesting people should be forced to go, just saying that them "voluntarily" leaving after their homes got wrecked is a huge win because all choices are bad, well, the choices are bad because Israel never attempted or considered any good choices, and this is the part of the responsibility Israel has that you keep ignoring. On top of that you refuse to acknowledge that Israel has bad intent, going into a densely populated area and deciding to kill, regardless of amount of collateral damage every Hamas member as their stated war goal on which they didn't really specify how that would actually work, without any attempt of presenting an alternative to Hamas (except arming street gangs) and by any means necessary, including refusing to let aid in is evidence enough of genocidal intent to anyone who hasn't decided that Israel just "wouldn't do that". Also interesting how you expanded the population to basically all Palestinians, not just Gazans, so you are already OK with Israel expelling all of them. Very Laura Loomer aligator alcatraz 65 million tweet vibes. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and swims like a duck, it might be a duck. I don't think my views are nearly as extreme as yours, my view is that Israel has a bad, genocidal government (as evidenced by their genocidal statements and actions) and Israeli people should remove them. Your view is that Israel has the right to kill as many people as they want, bomb as many countries as they wand and relocate any population if it feels threatened by them. That seems much more extreme. None of that is related to things that I have said. People on the thread get annoying at back and forths so it seemed silly to respond. I'm saying that people should be allowed to go and that the western world should provide them a good place to stay since the western world is the ones who decided on this great plan to begin with. Not all will go but some will and that will be better for everyone because the current situation even without bombs falling is unsustainable (and is so on purpose). I've also many times on repeat said that the IDF actions in Gaza are immoral and awful. Killing civilians because you think one fighter is there horrible. Even non war crimes like attacking a hospital because it has a missile depot or base under it is still morally reprehensible. What separates me from people on this thread is I put lots of the blame also on Iran and Hamas. Just because I don't 100% blame Israel means I 100% blame Hamas. What is always telling is once in a while I tell someone they support Hamas because they talk a bunch of shit about Israel, never once has it clicked that holy shit when this other guy talks shit about Hamas that does not mean he supports everything Israel does. I do not say nearly the awful things about you that you say about me, so just maybe I'm not actually the problem here and you and others need to figure out how to have a conversation with people that don't 100% agree with you on everything. The purity test shit is bullshit and leads you to many many false conclusions. I'm taking a break for a while so do not expect a response from me until next week. Absolutely DRIPPING with nuance.
The this is the type of of crap that Drone says is the worst type of posting, but that he only holds people he doesn't like accountable/only stands up for those he does like.
No, I'm not some evil mastermind who is tricking people into accusing me of thinking things I've never said but I actually do believe them. The simple explanation is true, I meant what I said not your assumptions. If people would stick to that and ask clarifying questions then actual discussion could happen.
But the big problem with conspiracy theories (and basically everyone loves and believes em these days) is there is no way I can 100% prove that I do not actually think what you (and others) accuse me of, even though you can never bring up a quote to dispute my complaints. And no matter how many times I point this out you (and others) are just waiting for the next time you think you finally "got me" to land that oh so sweet (usually low effort and unfunny) one liner, or longer accusatory post.
At some point (sometimes even right away) people get frustrated lash out and then the other people who were mad at that person in the first place feel justified because of the lash out.
There was a time when Drone was seen as the voice of reason and his statements carried weight, sadly when it became clear that there were different rules for different posters that changed.
On July 18 2025 22:52 Jockmcplop wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2025 16:54 Jankisa wrote:
I have quoted posts from billyboy who was calling me a raging asshole, hypocrite and many more things, but sure, no one is attacking me.
A few pages back I pushed back on someone saying that what IDF did against Hesbolah and Hamas was all unjustified, providing specific reasons why it's not and why it actually contributes to security of Israel.
Just a few posts back I specified I think Hamas and Hesbolah, Jihadists and Islamists are horrible, how all I wish for is to get the warmongers at the head of Israel to get out.
None of that is good enough for you guys, because you see red when someone criticizes Israel, I think that they are conducting a genocide so I am now a caricature straw man you constructed in your heads.
I explained my stances quite a few times, I presented what I think yours are, and instead of explaining how they aren't all billyboy and you can do is say "well I didn't say exactly that, find where I did" and "why are you attacking me".
Even if we put genocide aside, the things that I 100 % believe to be true and which make me dislike posters who defend them, and you do defend them are:
1. Ethnic cleansing as a strategy for Gaza
2. The extend to which Israel is disrespecting sovereignty of their neighboring states
3. Complete disregard of Israel for civilian casualties
4. Disingenuous reasons for Israel's actions (not letting aid in, taking over distribution of aid, bombing Damascus over tribal conflict, bombing Iran under false pretenses)
In the end, it all boils down to one thing, dehumanization. Israel is acting as if thinks that one Israeli life is worth at least 50 Palestinian, Syrian, Iranian, Lebanese life.
They think that everything is justified in order for them to feel secure, from destroying 90 % of buildings in Gaza, to bombing and killing political prisoners in broad daylight in Iran, bombing a TV station, bombing a ministry of defense building with high ordinance in a center of a Syrian city, bombing churches, hospitals, ambulances, it just doesn't matter.
I want this killing to stop because i think all lives are worth the same, I also think that long term this is horrible for Israel because asymmetrical terrorism will be the response to this sooner or later, they aren't making Israel safer, they aren't making Druze safer, they aren't making the Middle east safer, and we will all suffer consequences, not just them. They haven't accidentally turned you into a strawman, they've been doing the same thing for years in here. You say hamas are bad, everyone agrees so no discussion happens. You say Israel are bad and all of a sudden there are a million asterisks and maybes and also you are an antisemite for saying Israel are bad without ever having a discussion about how Hamas are bad. Don't let them trick you into thinking this just happens naturally, it's strategic posting.
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I love it when the response to some genuine criticism is "Shit, better criticize them back as hard as I can"
That's called not being able to handle it.
Its okay, being unable to self reflect is common place on the internet.
Like I said I know I shitpost, and as much as you 'waah' about it not adding to the conversation, which it probably doesn't, you make it very easy sometimes to have a little laugh at your expense and the more you feel justified in your outrage at me posting a 3 word post, the funnier it is to me. Not my greatest personality trait but you have to get your kicks somehow, eh?
As for that final quote, well you keep repeating the exact same cycle with this issue and its gone on for years now so either you aren't very good at learning and remembering or you are doing it on purpose.
As for blaming drone for my shitposts, well that's just silly. I would never ask for someone to be banned in those threads unless they are being extremely openly racist/nazi and usually not even then tbh.
I think trying to get other people moderated on the forum because you don't feel their posting standard is up to your incredible standards pretty much sums everything up about how you post.
And in fairness, when i do post inane stupid shit in the politics threads, its usually limited to one or two posts, not pages and pages of pointless arguing.
I await your fury and personal attacks in response 
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On July 21 2025 21:32 Liquid`Drone wrote:
No, if anyone has gotten preferential treatment, it's several different people and you are near the top. (Serm) I don't think a single poster is more guilty of inventing opinions or stances among other posters and that, honestly, is the main area I wish we had moderated in a more strict and stringent manner. I don't mind the occasional insult, but claiming that people are holding positions they deny holding because you think you know better than they do is cancerous for fruitful discussion.
Wouldnt hold my breath expecting change, but this is where I wish we could see some improvement.
Anyway, the idea that GH is a right wing troll is fucking idiotic. There's plenty of legitimate criticism to throw his way, that is not it.
GH admitted that he was a right-wing Troll in the thread. Hes never not been an anti-left shit stirrer that has provided nothing but criticism for getting anything done while refusing to engage in any debate to make things better. Every conversation he has begins with him demanding pre-conditions that everyone agree with him before he gives them the respect of actually engaging with them.
You can't give me shit saying I'm a cancer in the thread for insisting on what other people's positions are and then immediately say that things would be better if people just responded to me by clarifying their positions. I'm explaining the implications of what people's positions are, the thing that should generate the discussion you say you think would make the thread better. I am clarifying their positions for them and if they disagree with that clarification, they're more than free to use their agency to explain themselves why I'm wrong. The problem is when people keep digging down and repeating themselves as if that will carry the conversation anywhere productive.
You can't carry water for the people you like and then wonder why they never carry water for themselves. The benifit of the doubt you extend some people and not others is insane.
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On July 21 2025 21:32 Liquid`Drone wrote:
No, if anyone has gotten preferential treatment, it's several different people and you are near the top. (Serm) I don't think a single poster is more guilty of inventing opinions or stances among other posters and that, honestly, is the main area I wish we had moderated in a more strict and stringent manner. I don't mind the occasional insult, but claiming that people are holding positions they deny holding because you think you know better than they do is cancerous for fruitful discussion.
Wouldnt hold my breath expecting change, but this is where I wish we could see some improvement.
Anyway, the idea that GH is a right wing troll is fucking idiotic. There's plenty of legitimate criticism to throw his way, that is not it.
Not that I would ever consider myself above being a "fucking idiotic", but what in the world makes you believe GH isn't a right wing troll? And more importantly, what would you categorize him as? Troll is a given, given his multitude of various personas, and he is certainly not left leaning
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Norway28689 Posts
Yes he is left leaning, arguably the furthest left of any regular poster.
I mean there are all sorts of valid reasons why the left-right dichotomy is a flawed way to describe people's political affiliation, partially because people aren't fully in agreement in terms of how to place authoritarian/totalitarian regimes, partially because nowadays political parties have become much more mixed, in the sense that you see economically right wing and socially left or socially conservative coupled with strong redistributive policies to a much bigger degree than you did 20 years ago, but everyone still agrees that socialism and communism are left wing ideologies. GH is one of those two.
Like, if GH was Norwegian, he would be on the left fringe of 'Rødt'.
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Norway28689 Posts
Tbh Excludos you might get a pass because presumably you've seen more of him in the Ukraine thread than the USpol thread. But even then you could look at the Norwegian political spectrum: Aiding Ukraine with weapons has had nearly unianimous support in among the political parties with parliamentary representation in Norway, all the way from FrP on the right to SV on the left. One party has been hesitant - because of their opposition to NATO and the American hegemony (not their support of Russia) - that party being Rødt, which I am sure you recognize as the 'considered most leftwing party we have'. The stuff you see GH stating about this conflict is stuff you'll see from internal discussions within that party.
Like for fuck's sake the guy has a blog called 'socialism, anyone?'
He's been posting about social democracy not being good enough because it still works within a capitalist (thus exploitative) framework for like, hundreds of posts over a decade? There's honestly no way to be polite about this - if you've read a lot of GH's posting and you conclude that he's a right-winger, either your reading comprehension or your understanding of political ideology is way off. Of course, for Serm, stating that he's a right winger is kind of on brand, as, as I just stated, there's no other poster more guilty of inventing opinions among his fellow forumers than he is, but christ. This isn't even me defending GH, it's just me being appalled. It's like, when Nicaragua initially refused to sign the paris agreement, that wasn't because they didn't believe in climate change, it was because they thought it didn't go far enough and was basically a path to failure. That's GH compared to the other american posters here.
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On July 22 2025 05:12 Jockmcplop wrote:I love it when the response to some genuine criticism is "Shit, better criticize them back as hard as I can" That's called not being able to handle it.
Its okay, being unable to self reflect is common place on the internet.Like I said I know I shitpost, and as much as you 'waah' about it not adding to the conversation, which it probably doesn't, you make it very easy sometimes to have a little laugh at your expense and the more you feel justified in your outrage at me posting a 3 word post, the funnier it is to me. Not my greatest personality trait but you have to get your kicks somehow, eh? As for that final quote, well you keep repeating the exact same cycle with this issue and its gone on for years now so either you aren't very good at learning and remembering or you are doing it on purpose. As for blaming drone for my shitposts, well that's just silly. I would never ask for someone to be banned in those threads unless they are being extremely openly racist/nazi and usually not even then tbh. I think trying to get other people moderated on the forum because you don't feel their posting standard is up to your incredible standards pretty much sums everything up about how you post. And in fairness, when i do post inane stupid shit in the politics threads, its usually limited to one or two posts, not pages and pages of pointless arguing. I await your fury and personal attacks in response
Ahh yes your criticism is genuine, and mine is lashing out, but somehow I was the one with receipts and the one not remotely upset.
Of course it is easy to come up with shitposts when you make up what the person is saying. I'll do a better job of learning and since you like one liners I'll throw your way whenever I feel like kicks.
The bolded part is just hilarious projection. The old throwing stones from a glass house comes to mind.
I do not blame Drone for your shit posts, you own those everyone does. Drone just simply lost his credibility with everyone not in special class, so him asking people to do better is not going to work unless he asks everyone to do better. I also have not tried to get others moderated, I even said I think this new system is better because it is more fair. I'm OK with the actual rules of the political threads being enforced as well, as long as everyone gets fair treatment. You would have much better burns if you bothered to read the words I actually wrote, but maybe you can't?
Hope I delivered what you asked for!
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On July 22 2025 07:42 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Tbh Excludos you might get a pass because presumably you've seen more of him in the Ukraine thread than the USpol thread. But even then you could look at the Norwegian political spectrum: Aiding Ukraine with weapons has had nearly unianimous support in among the political parties with parliamentary representation in Norway, all the way from FrP on the right to SV on the left. One party has been hesitant - because of their opposition to NATO and the American hegemony (not their support of Russia) - that party being Rødt, which I am sure you recognize as the 'considered most leftwing party we have'. The stuff you see GH stating about this conflict is stuff you'll see from internal discussions within that party.
Like for fuck's sake the guy has a blog called 'socialism, anyone?'
He's been posting about social democracy not being good enough because it still works within a capitalist (thus exploitative) framework for like, hundreds of posts over a decade? There's honestly no way to be polite about this - if you've read a lot of GH's posting and you conclude that he's a right-winger, either your reading comprehension or your understanding of political ideology is way off. Of course, for Serm, stating that he's a right winger is kind of on brand, as, as I just stated, there's no other poster more guilty of inventing opinions among his fellow forumers than he is, but christ. This isn't even me defending GH, it's just me being appalled. It's like, when Nicaragua initially refused to sign the paris agreement, that wasn't because they didn't believe in climate change, it was because they thought it didn't go far enough and was basically a path to failure. That's GH compared to the other american posters here.
Here is what is going on, those that think GH is right wing troll are looking at what he asks for not his reasoning. For example repealing the ACA, people see this as moving right not left and can not fathom how someone truly left would be for this. They see his reasoning that you believe "it is not left enough" as not making sense, because the action he wants moves the country right. With GH everyone of his posts is actually not supporting the left or hating the right, it is hating the US. Anything the US does is bad, and furthermore any ally of the US is bad and its enemies good. That is the actual consistent (to the point of boredom) theme of his posts. The socialism stuff just comes off as window dressing.
This is not a one time thing, but rather the norm. GH agrees with the the rightwing posters often, like way more then the left wing ones. I do not really ascribe to the right wing troll theory on GH, I'm not sure if it is the horseshoe theory of politics or if just far right and far left are more susceptible to the Russian miss information because they do not require any facts or proof to believe things.
The other thing is he condescending, rude , insults peoples morality, is not at all helpful to those looking to learn, and this is to basically everybody but like 3 people he has deemed worthy. His socialism blog is a great example of this because for the most part is people who are open and interested and it quickly died, not out of lack of interest, but because he actually had nothing to discuss.
Given how he treats others it is not surprising that people dislike him and this conversation keeps happening.
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EPT
