Tony_Tarantula on 23/1/2018 at 02:09
Quote Posted by Renzatic
Tony, and how many Republicans voted for that bill, whatever it was? Going by the fact that Democrats couldn't even pass a ham sandwich without Republican support these days, it seems rather strange that you and yours all pointing at them specifically, blaming them for their alleged hypocrisy by supporting this terrible bill, when you think you'd be blaming both sides of the aisle for letting it pass.
Isn't that what you like to call "whataboutism"?
Difference is the Republicans have always been proudly pro "war on terror" and surveillance state. It's expected and consistent with their branding. Rumor(well..more, but I don't have a written source handy) is Trump was apparently going to veto those provisions until Paul Ryan had a meeting with him over it and convinced Trump to sign it.
There's also something else you might be interested in:
(
https://twitter.com/katestarbird/status/954805298652332032?s=17)
Isn't this what you like to call "whataboutism"?
Read the fine print. It says "over the last decade". The radicalization of the left is a far more recent phenomenon than the last decade. From 2016 until now we've seen large scale, organized violence. Their claim that the left is "just reacting to the right" is patently false such as when they organized violent protests and began doing things like beating people at Trump events.
From Vice (starting to notice a trend with my sources? They're all left wing):
[video=youtube;sX4UTnL6Sao]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX4UTnL6Sao[/video]
And now you have shit like this that's literally advocating arming up with rifles and training to go kill racists: (
https://www.redneckrevolt.org/)
But you know what?
I'm willing to make a deal and I'll do it with you live on video. $50 will be the stakes. I go to a right wing rally wearing a Hillary support shirt, you go to a left wing rally wearing a Trump cap.
Whoever gets physically attacked first (measured from the time we show up) loses the bet.
I'm extremely confident in this bet because
Literally every single time anyone I know in a right leaning group gets together, someone shows up and physically assaults them. Just this weekend Mike Cernovich got together with some people here in NYC (he's center-right at most) and somebody got punched by a dweeby antifa.
Renzatic on 23/1/2018 at 02:30
That isn't whataboutism, since I'm not making a contrasting comparison. If Greenwald is, in fact, blaming the Democrats solely for passing this bill, pandering to the Trump base, then he's playing into gross partisanship. Not to say that lets them off the hook for expanding the surveillance state, but put blame where it's due. If the bill passed, the Republicans had a hand in it.
Now if he's calling them out for not living up to their own standards, that's an entirely different kettle of fish.
Though considering today's political clime, it's usually more the former rather than the latter.
Tocky on 23/1/2018 at 02:43
Awww is hims worried the violent KKK and Nazis might get what they deal out? Poor guys getting their hoods pulled off and all. It's just not fair they might get exposed for the pieces of shit they are is it? Helpless little racist turds. It makes my heart bleed for them. Well guess what? All the violence against racists has yet to appear in any organized form unlike the racists themselves who have a long history of doing it. The last was Charlotte. Remember how the president said they were good people? They just can't drive well can they? What do we lose when a few left wingers get run over anyway right? Why they might have called those nice white boys what they were or something and we couldn't have that.
Did you even read this? (
https://www.wired.com/story/free-speech-issue-antifa-data-mining/) NO. If you did you could not have made the claims you did. You thought you knew what it said and just posted it. READ IT. It's good. This lady is just exposing the names and faces of Nazis and KKK to those who will have to deal with them. Read the whole thing. I did. Check out the information she withholds. Check out that unlike the racists she does no doxing.
Oh and your latest link? Oh noes they might fight back by defending themselves. How horrible that would be if the alt right assholes couldn't just kill them at will? The horror. Read the things you post.
Tocky on 23/1/2018 at 03:35
Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula
But you know what?
I'm willing to make a deal and I'll do it with you live on video. $50 will be the stakes. I go to a right wing rally wearing a Hillary support shirt, you go to a left wing rally wearing a Trump cap.
Whoever gets physically attacked first (measured from the time we show up) loses the bet.
I'm extremely confident in this bet because
Literally every single time anyone I know in a right leaning group gets together, someone shows up and physically assaults them. Just this weekend Mike Cernovich got together with some people here in NYC (he's center-right at most) and somebody got punched by a dweeby antifa.
I missed your edit. No. You couldn't pay me enough to wear a hat with the name of that racist violence bating and supporting piece of crap on it. (
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiZrf7-kO3YAhUFXK0KHbmODUsQ3ywIMTAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2Fvideo%2Fus%2F100000004269364%2Ftrump-and-violence.html&usg=AOvVaw1AEiS_kezHEZ5RgWzV4rPU) I would say you need to watch that every day but then again you would just beat off to it.
I don't doubt the types of meetings you go to draw antifa. It's what they do. It's in the name. I do doubt all the violence is on their side though.
heywood on 23/1/2018 at 19:50
A lot of this is just youth venting anger and acting like dickheads, which is what a lot of them do when they become politically active.
I see generational swings in the political activity of young adults, with peaks in the 1930s, the late 60s/early 70s, and now. I'm embarrassed to say I co-founded a Teen Age Republicans chapter, but we could hardly find anyone to join and there wasn't a Young Democrats of America chapter in town either. My generation just wasn't into politics when we were young. Times were calm.
It seems like whenever young people are politically active there's always a bunch of nonsense and thuggery. That makes it really easy to use whataboutery to dismiss criticism rather than reflecting on what your side is doing wrong. I'm worried about rising white nationalism, but also not thrilled about the response. Let's just de-humanize the other side a little more and we'll get some real violence going.
Fundamentally, I think nativism rose out of rising economic inequality and declining economic and social mobility. We need to fix the problems with inequality and structural and regional unemployment/underemployment and nativism will go away. Religious fundamentalism will decline too. Real, hardcore white supremacists are a bit different, but it will be easy to push them back into the fringe once you take away the wedge they're using to attract people to their movement.
Tocky on 24/1/2018 at 02:24
Quote Posted by heywood
Fundamentally, I think nativism rose out of rising economic inequality and declining economic and social mobility. We need to fix the problems with inequality and structural and regional unemployment/underemployment and nativism will go away. Religious fundamentalism will decline too. Real, hardcore white supremacists are a bit different, but it will be easy to push them back into the fringe once you take away the wedge they're using to attract people to their movement.
Lets think about this. We have a president and republican dominated congress out to widen the economic gap by cutting programs which help the poor and give the rich huge tax breaks paid for with massive deficits. What part of that says the income inequality will get better?
Republicans have made way more out of antifa than it is while refusing any introspection into their own behavior. What part of that says it will get any better?
Apparently they don't care that things will get worse. I think they welcome it. They might get to use those guns they have a carry permit for.
heywood on 24/1/2018 at 15:38
My answer to both of your questions is... nothing. I can't defend the Republicans. Trump is obviously a blithering idiot who has gotten in way over his head. Most of the Republicans in Congress are either bought and paid for, or too intellectually bound by simplistic principles to address our economic problems.
My point was that young lefties focus too much on the social symptoms rather than the economic disease.
Medlar on 24/1/2018 at 16:22
I personaly believe that the political party system of government is broken in both the UK and USA. In the USA it's the money it takes to win that's the problem, only political parties can presently raise the funds to get a chance of a majority. In the UK the class system rules. I wonder if a system of conscription could work? If your social security/national insurance number is picked then you get the call up to sit in government for a fixed period... Probably not...
Renzatic on 25/1/2018 at 03:59
Direct democracy? Oh hell no.
Think about how every issue is split perfectly among two camps. Think about how these two camps came to be. Think about how civilly these two camps tend to interact with each other.
Now imagine these two camps arguing policy on the internet. You think things are bad in congress/parliament now? Imagine our governments run like a Youtube comments section.
Yeah, you don't even...
edit: just read Nicker's post. You know, I don't think it's a terrible idea, but it'll probably come standard with a host of issues we won't be aware of until it's put in practice.