Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

[Vol]

Not too surprised. Last time we all took the political compass test, we were pretty much in a rough area of left-to-right moderate libertarianism, as I recall. Though that I am more fascist than most of you is odd, given how I should be less. It's confusing wanting to advocate radical reform, but also keeping the government's jackboot well away from our throats. Suppose you could frame it as having to use a strong state in order to stabilize the country, then deconstruct itself, though government's never seem to voluntarily act like Cincinnatus, only great men of principles do.

[TheodoricFriede]

The problem is, I dont really know how to answer some of those questions.

A common theme was "If a country has contributed nothing of note to society as a while, is it worth less than one that has."

Well...Yeah. It is inherently worth less. Greenland isn't worth a goddamned thing other than some nice views. That doesn't mean the people are worth less.

But the test's make it ambiguous whether or not a question is tinged with that meaning.

Another issue comes up when i am given levels of agreement. One that comes to mind was something to the effect of "A government has the right to intervene in peoples personal freedoms regardless of the legality, if it will protect the nation as a whole." I disagree... But what if we have reached a point where thousands can die because it is not legal to tap a suspected terrorist phone?

Sometimes there are times when the morally grey is for the greater good. So rather than 'Strongly Disagree' I pick 'Disagree".

The test can't factor in subtlety.

[Raga]

only great men of principles do.

And these are so rare as to be borderline mythological. The number of powerful people that could truly do what they wanted with little state constraint who didn't become tyrants is exceedingly small. Of course, most every tyrant in the history of tyrants could only do what they did because they had a powerful state or army or both. Irony is an asshole like that.

It's one reason I always end up coming back to a position of extremely boring and banal vaguely right wing liberalism. It's not so much that that's really a good thing to do so much as all the other paths seem almost guaranteed to end in something horrid. Heh, I guess I really am a cynic.

[Vol]

Huh. I guess the Democrats have skipped to "damning," "overwhelming," and "direct," evidence already. I missed the part where any evidence of anything existed, but hey, focus groups must've responded well to hyperbole. Also getting a chuckle out of the ones saying, "President Trump, provide proof of your innocence!" Ooh, new buzzword as I was typing this, "shakedown." I'll give them credit though, Biden and his son were clearly getting bribed, and he's been so skillfully defended that it's been turned into this.

The greater lesson here is that Congress is worse than useless and could be safely abolished. SCOTUS is on the edge, since they seem to punt on anything important unless it's getting gay marriage pushed through on flimsy pretense. But at least the court is small, Congress is huge, full of ueless fucks that suck up a lot of money, space, and then get wealthy for selling their seat once they're done. Wanna talk about welfare queens, you have a building full of them.

@Theo: Pretty much the flaw with all these test, they operate in a narrow band, unless you want them to be bloated with ultra-specific questions.
"If a country has contributed nothing of note to society as a whole, is it worth less than one that has?"->Define, "note," define "society as a whole," define "worth," and now you're into the weeds. Though that question can be pretty safely answered, as if you agree in principle that value is based on contribution, how many mitigating factors can exist to dispute that?

@Raga: Mhm. They're men to aspire to, but never expect our leaders to reach.

You're not wrong tho. That sort of platform is safe and stable, and moving the needle very easily leads to it going off the table. There's a word for that, something about inertia and momentum of extremely heavy objects.

[Sinekein]

It's just too funny because you (rightly) criticize democrats who go way further than the conclusions of the various investigations, but then you also pull that...

Biden and his son were clearly getting bribed

...out of I'd rather not know where.

So in the same paragraph you do the exact same thing you are criticizing the opposite side for doing.

[Vol]

Fair point. Instead, there is a strong appearance of potential bribery vis-a-vis Biden and co., and thus an investigation is warranted before conclusions.

[Mobius_118]

I still find it hilarious that the family that is the embodiment of nepotism and corruption is getting upset about the Bidens.

It's all distraction from actual crimes and corruption, of which trump and family are painfully, stupidly guilty of.

[Raga]

AT WAR WITH THE TRUTH
U.S. officials constantly said they were making progress. They were not, and they knew it, an exclusive Post investigation found.

On the Afghanistan War. This might have an inflated sense of self-importance, billing itself the "Afghanistan Papers" after the Pentagon Papers that blew the lid off the Vietnam War, but it doesn't mean the underlying marketing of the Forever War has been true.

[Vol]

Turned on the radio briefly before heading out for a bit, hear Schiff, Pelosi, and the other ghouls announcing the articles of impeachment for whatever high crime they've invented about the Ukraine thing, and obstruction.

Punting the election it is! Field's too weak, they'll prune and try again in 2024.

[Raga]

I'm willing to bet pretty much anything he won't be convicted, but I guess we'll see what it does to the election. It's a huge gamble for the Dems. It could completely overshadow all of their candidates because it's all the news talks about. It could cast an irreparable pall over Biden in particular now that Republicans more or less get control over the back half of the process and can start drilling on that.

My gut feeling at the moment is probably that it will end up doing next to nothing. In the spaces I occupy, nobody gave a rat's ass about the impeachment inquiry. The only people I've encountered who seem to actually care about it are hyperpartisans and I only know a couple of those in RL (both Trumpers who were always going to vote for Trump no matter what anyway).

We'll see I guess.

[Sinekein]

One of the main issues for the Democrats in 2016 was that they never controlled the narrative in any way and spent all their time reacting to Trump's latest tweet/insult/sexual assault boast. At least with the impeachment, they will get more of a say on what the topic is, especially if they are conducting it, I assume that there won't be any big vote in the Chamber near Super Tuesday, but when there is the kind of "low time" Trump usually uses to get all the attention by saying stupid and/or offensive as he is wont to, they can plan some new hearing/procedure to force him to defend himself. His skin is as thick as cigarette paper, he always reacts, he has never been above any kind of drama in three years.

I don't know if it will be enough but I don't think it can hurt them. It will probably end in a deadlock until Trump is either reelected or someone replaces him. At that point I'm honestly unsure anything will matter past the nomination of the dem candidate, Trump has historically been the president with the most stable support and opposition. He's been in the same 5% window of support (38-43) or opposition (50-55) since two months after he took the job. He's given people ample time to forge an opinion already, the only factor that will matter is whether the few who despise Trump but don't outright hate him might be frightened by whoever the Dems choose (and Biden is unlikely to scare many - Warren/Sanders is another thing entirely though).

The GOP must be really crossing everything they can that he pulls it because if he doesn't, ohboy, that party will turn into a giant smoking crater.

[Raga]

The main question I think is what it does or doesn't do to Biden. My opinion at the moment is still pretty much that as goes Biden so goes the whole election for Dems.

Bernie Sanders *might* could beat Trump, but I don't think Sanders can beat Warren and certainly not Biden if Biden carries on as he does now. Buttigieg I think would capsize under Trump assault because everything I've seen of him makes me think he's sort of a nice looking and nice sounding empty bag. Even Trump is at least full of hot air.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

The Democratic front runners are respectively. An increasingly senile old man who gets angry when potential voters question him.

A nearly 80 socialist.

And a Neoliberal Fake Progressive that freezes up under pressure.

None of those will beat an incumbent president sitting on a strong economy.

Theoretically Buttigeg might be able to pull it off, he's fairly sane, hasn't made his identity a political issue, and speaks and debates well enough to make him a serious threat. But he's never gained the kind of traction the train wreck candidates have.

This impeachment should the house manage to go through and vote on it will die in the senate. The longer it has gone on the more people have either tuned out because of a lack of any real flair or have actively turned against it. The disapproval rate for the Impeachment is now above Trump's disapproval rate.

Which leads to the interesting position of there being a fair few people out there who vehemently dislike Trump who find this whole affair unpalatable and would rather try and win a fair election in 2020 or wait till 2024 for a new hand at the helm.

[Mobius_118]

What I'm seeing here is that the rule of law as laid out in the Constitution doesn't matter in the GOP's eyes.

It's fucking embarrassing. The fact that trump's tweet about not being able to flush a turd takes up Fox news time while his illegal activities gets a pass shows how utterly retarded conservatives, libertarians, and fence sitting assholes are.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

Mobius here is an excellent example of someone who is utterly convinced of his world view to a fanatical degree.

He has counterparts on the other side just as religious about their own.

But most Americans are far more apathetic, disinterested, or moderate. That's why incumbents with a strong economy have such good odds at reelection no matter their opposition.

[Mobius_118]

Says the dude who thinks Nazi's were socialists, that public municipalities are not, and that trump is doing a good job despite reality.

Your head is so far up your own ass you qualify for a special needs program.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

Yes yes rabid hostility.

You've been absolutely certain every time the Media had a "Walls closing in" moment and it's never worked. Will you finally admit that your narrative wasn't perfect when he wins reelection? Or will you double down. You seemed so certain that he wouldn't finish his first year, then his second, then his third. You have consistently been wrong on expecting each new thing to be the TRUMP KILLER.

You're out in the wilderness and you never once took an honest look at why you lost 2016.

[Mobius_118]

Russian interference and rabid stupidity. GOP gerrymandering and voter purging, GOP voter fraud, I should go on.

This has boiled down to a party that defends him in the Senate. There's 250 bills sitting on Bitch McConnell's desk that he won't even look at because he refuses to do his job.

And sycophants like you pulling a human centipede. The fact that you'd rather ignore reality and embrace retardation speaks volumes about you.

[Sinekein]

The Democratic front runners are respectively. An increasingly senile old man who gets angry when potential voters question him.

You're mistaken, that's the Republican front runner you're talking about.

[TTTX]

Says the dude who thinks Nazi's were socialists, that public municipalities are not, and that trump is doing a good job despite reality.

Your head is so far up your own ass you qualify for a special needs program.

More like the Nazi started in a socialist party and then evolved into what they became, more or less what happened with the Communist party in Russia around the same time, because Socialist parties was all the rage back then.

Well Trump is an idiot and the left want safe spaces and other stuff that could evolved into something like Big brother and that thought scare me more then Trump does.

Pot meet Kettle.

[Mobius_118]

I'd rather not be gunned down on my own base like what's been going on in Pensacola and Pearl Harbor. Pensacola was because a Saudi that was ostensibly our ally decided to gun down personnel.

But they're supposed to be our allies. The dipshit in office said so. Who would've thought that the nation that funded and supplied 9/11, routinely violates human rights, kills journalists, etc. would keep sending sleepers into the US?

[Raga]

So this statue which is called "Rumors of War" and is a sort of protest statue against Confederate Equestrian Monuments was just unveiled:



What's struck me about this really has nothing to do with the context of the protest and more just the aesthetic appeal of the statue itself. The statue is apparently 3 stories tall.

I like the statue. If it was in a public square somewhere, I'd probably not give it much nuanced thought other than to consider it appropriate and suitably monumental.

It made me wonder how much of my distaste for protest art is really down to how hideous a lot of it is. Like how much of not wanting old white guy on horseback to go away is really because I dread him being replaced with plastic amoeboid on steel blob?

I think for me that's a lot of it.

But then does it fail as protest art because my initial reaction is that I really like it and you probably would never notice the difference unless you sat there and looked at it?

*edit*
@ Saudi shooting thing

I have no idea why anybody who can't prove citizenship should ever be permitted to buy a gun in the US. That makes 0 sense to me. Could I just hang out in the UK or France for a year and buy a gun? I have a feeling the answer is no. That should be like voting and serving on juries. Non citizens go away.

[Mobius_118]

The shooter was a Saudi air force trainee. The lax federal laws on gun purchasing is compounded by the fact that it's Florida, and trump has been allowing federal regulations to lapse.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

The Democratic front runners are respectively. An increasingly senile old man who gets angry when potential voters question him.

You're mistaken, that's the Republican front runner you're talking about.

Watch Joe Biden give speeches at rallies and receive questions. Go ahead. I'll wait.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

Russian interference and rabid stupidity. GOP gerrymandering and voter purging, GOP voter fraud, I should go on.

This has boiled down to a party that defends him in the Senate. There's 250 bills sitting on Bitch McConnell's desk that he won't even look at because he refuses to do his job.

And sycophants like you pulling a human centipede. The fact that you'd rather ignore reality and embrace retardation speaks volumes about you.

Uh huh. Literally none of it is your fault. Can ever be your fault. Your side is filled with saints and heroes and anyone who is against you is a villain. You are a very sad very angry person who will continue to be angry for the next four years and never once will you really understand how much of all this you brought on yourself.

[Mobius_118]

I voted for a candidate and watched my absentee ballot go into the trash. Literally.

You can go fuck yourself.

[Mobius_118]

If your boy wants to exonerate himself, he should go testify.

I'll wait.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

Do you think Pelosi is glad the Far Left wing of the party pushed her into this? You have to know that she didn't want to do this openly. A secret rumored investigation would have been so much more useful to their longshot chances in 2020. Now however they have to deal with the public at least those that care getting to see all the jack fucking shit they have on full display. You're weak Mobius and in your weakness you have shackled yourself to a false narrative for reality. Socialism is good to you. The Left has never indeed could never do wrong to you. You've made being a progressive your religion and nothing anybody says will ever shake that belief for you. You're a pathetic example of everything that can go wrong in a person. You're hateful, judgemental, extremely bigoted, and utterly defiantly unwilling to have your mind changed.

[Mobius_118]

You are going full single paragraph ramble. Gonna complain about yellow lighting and flushing 15 times next?

And you talk alot for someone with open racist remarks about Muslims.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

You are going full single paragraph ramble. Gonna complain about yellow lighting and flushing 15 times next?

And you talk alot for someone with open racist remarks about Muslims.

Muslim is not a race you moron.

Islam is a religion that I very very much oppose. It has followers from a LOT of different racial groups.

[Mobius_118]

Ok, whatever you say, racist.

It's funny how truly pathetic you are. I get a good laugh whenever you get this pissed.

Still waiting on trump and company to testify. That would clear all of this up.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

Hold up Mobius. In what fucking way is Muslim a Race? You don't get to dodge on this one. Explain it oh enlightened progressive. Explain how a religious group is a race.

And as for "Islamophobia" Yes. Fuck Islam. It's a cancerous barbarous religion that has lead to untold pain and misery. It should reform or be destroyed but idiots like you get in the way of that by trumpeting the religion of peace nonsense. Or attempting to shut down ANY criticism of it.

[Vol]

So this statue which is called "Rumors of War" and is a sort of protest statue against Confederate Equestrian Monuments was just unveiled:

What's struck me about this really has nothing to do with the context of the protest and more just the aesthetic appeal of the statue itself. The statue is apparently 3 stories tall.

I like the statue. If it was in a public square somewhere, I'd probably not give it much nuanced thought other than to consider it appropriate and suitably monumental.

It made me wonder how much of my distaste for protest art is really down to how hideous a lot of it is. Like how much of not wanting old white guy on horseback to go away is really because I dread him being replaced with plastic amoeboid on steel blob?

I think for me that's a lot of it.

But then does it fail as protest art because my initial reaction is that I really like it and you probably would never notice the difference unless you sat there and looked at it?

https://www.richmond.com/news/local/upd ... 312aa.html

Tarp gets stuck on the head.

The artist is the same man who did the Obama portraits from a few years back, has a habit of taking classical European art and redoing it with black people. Based on his own words about his work, he is a bigot, but an en vogue bigot, so it's fine. There's a comedy in that the people he dislikes are also the origin of his art and why he's relatively famous and wealthy.

Statue itself is fine. I get what it's going for, and it appears to be roughly on par in quality with the one he was inspired by. As art, and a cultural symbol, whatever makes those special people in Richmond happy. For $2,000,000, seems a fair deal to whoever paid for it.

Visually, it appears puerile, but in the absence of anything else to inspire public works of art, it'll have to do. I'm not sure if the young man on the horse is meant to look as silly as he does as a deliberate parallel and contrast with the original statue. The general is wearing archaic clothes and representing a lost cause, but is honored for his deeds despite it, a specific man who fought for a specific cause. And the new statue is nobody specific, just a young black man with a silly haircut and regular street clothes, fighting an abstract war, and yet it's still against the Union and his fellow citizens, to also be fawned over by them in the absence of fighting for him, just like how the old statue was admired by people who would not fight for him. Until it became trendy to hate seeing him and vice-versa for the new guy. Jamal is also trapped in metal and in the artistic style of his enemy, if you really want to get up your ass with symbolism. And he's being honored for continuing to exist, and to mock the old statue, in age and appearance, and everything it represented. That's how I read it, which is assuredly not how it was intended, ahyuck.

Also reminds of that little girl statue that some company paid to put in front of the Wall Street bull for good PR, which was also intended as a symbol of strength and changing times and rah rah diversity, but in practice was a monument to ignorance of what the bull meant, as the original sculptor pointed out in his lawsuit, and thus, hubris with their new installation.

Beyond all that, I'm coming around to the idea of removing all Confederate statues, and really any monument of historical note, from our cities. Better to put them somewhere safe and secure, and let the new people truly divorce themselves from everything that came before them. They can start anew, with whatever statues and installations they want, and I can know that, similar to how the retreat to Taiwan involved saving priceless Chinese artifacts that the Communists would otherwise have destroyed in the cultural purges, old American culture will exist in some form. We can watch this experiment in non-homogeneous, consumerist society play out without worry that future archaeologists will find only scraps of curved metal and placards to guess at what we were like!

[Vol]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/10/us/p ... &smtyp=cur

Well this is concerning for several reasons.

[Mobius_118]

Because, GAC, you are a fucking racist.

You accused me of exactly what you are doing. Projection, much?

I wouldn't be a good soldier if I were a racist, bigoted hate monger like you are.

Still waiting on trump and company to testify. Still waiting on you to make sense. Still waiting on you to justify sucking russian cock for the sake of whatever your aim is.

Your boy has no leg to stand on, and you know it. That's why you're so vehemently defending him. Like a battered wife.

[Sinekein]

The Democratic front runners are respectively. An increasingly senile old man who gets angry when potential voters question him.

You're mistaken, that's the Republican front runner you're talking about.

Watch Joe Biden give speeches at rallies and receive questions. Go ahead. I'll wait.

I've seen Trump do that for the last four years, and Biden is several degrees of magnitude less stupid than him. You don't even need to be a Nobel prize to look smart compared to Trump, having basic brain functions and decent vocabulary suffices.

[Sinekein]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/10/us/politics/trump-antisemitism-executive-order.html?smid=tw-nytpolitics&smtyp=cur

Well this is concerning for several reasons.

Rest assured that it's the same thing in Europe at the moment. There is a strong push to make any criticism of Israeli politics "antisemitism".

[Mobius_118]

Don't get too excited, Frenchie.

This is a nation of retards. If they really want trump to ruin their fucking lives they'll accept his tiny dick. This seems to be the case for 35% of the nation.

[Alienmorph]

Rest assured that it's the same thing in Europe at the moment. There is a strong push to make any criticism of Israeli politics "antisemitism".

Almost like ANY race-based political argument is inherently bullshit, no matter what side of the coin it comes from...

[TTTX]

I'd rather not be gunned down on my own base like what's been going on in Pensacola and Pearl Harbor. Pensacola was because a Saudi that was ostensibly our ally decided to gun down personnel.

But they're supposed to be our allies. The dipshit in office said so. Who would've thought that the nation that funded and supplied 9/11, routinely violates human rights, kills journalists, etc. would keep sending sleepers into the US?

Well USA have been allies with Saudi (long before President Trump became a thing) for very long time only because of the oil they have and you won't be president for very long if you aren't at least on friendly terms with Saudi as long as they have the oil, because there are powerful people who makes a lot of money of that oil and they will make your life hell or even probably end it if you come between them and that money and it doesn't matter if you are on the left or right that is a fact, at least until the USA either changes to cars that doesn't use gas or Saudi runs out of oil which they won't a few more decades.

That's not Trumps fault, he is basically doing what other presidents have done keeping Saudi content so we don't have a repeat of the oil crisis of the 70's where we had car free Sundays.

[Sinekein]

Rest assured that it's the same thing in Europe at the moment. There is a strong push to make any criticism of Israeli politics "antisemitism".

Almost like ANY race-based political argument is inherently bullshit, no matter what side of the coin it comes from...

Well yeah, but here it is a situation where race is pretty much always excluded from the equation. The Chinese government has criticized the support to Honk Kong protesters in various ways, but has never said that it came down to "anti-Chinese" or "anti-Asian racism". You can criticize the US foreign policies without being called "someone who hates on all Americans". And yet when you say that Israel shouldn't be allowed to build new colonies on foreign soil, you somehow hate Jews.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

Because, GAC, you are a fucking racist.

Something you have yet again failed to provide any proof for. You use my opposition to a barbaric religion to tar me with. "Buzzword the Left Hates #3"

You don't have substantive arguments and you never have. You'll link Left Wing Narrative approved sources and then act very smug and very self assured.

You aren't winning and haven't been winning. You are a pathetic example of what political indoctrination does to people. And the worst part, the absolute worst part is that you seem to have done it to yourself willingly.

[Mobius_118]

Uh huh, uh huh...

You're projecting and deflecting, again. You've been accusing me of the very same shit that you're guilty of. Just like your fuckhead leader.

Who should testify.

[TheodoricFriede]

I have no idea why anybody who can't prove citizenship should ever be permitted to buy a gun in the US. That makes 0 sense to me. Could I just hang out in the UK or France for a year and buy a gun? I have a feeling the answer is no. That should be like voting and serving on juries. Non citizens go away.

For context, you can't even do that in Texas.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

Uh huh, uh huh...

You're projecting and deflecting, again. You've been accusing me of the very same shit that you're guilty of. Just like your fuckhead leader.

Who should testify.

I called you a bigot. Which you are. You have virulent hate for people that fall outside your view of what a "Good person" is. Your intolerance of differences of opinion are legendary. You are bad person. A mentally sick person. You genuinely need treatment for your TDS. It's getting bad.

[Mobius_118]

Differences of opinion are one thing, blatant disregard for reality are another.

You disregard reality and substitute it for your own on an hourly basis. Something which is fully deserving of mockery. And the funny, absolute hilarious part is, you hate an entire religion for the actions of a few that are perfectly emulated by the christian evangelicals here. The idea that you're a racist is bound by your words here.

I dislike trump supporters because clearly they are incapable of rational thought and exceedingly capable of extreme violence. The true TDS is exemplified in the trump supporter. No matter how much he compromises the US, they, including you, will lap that shit up like ambrosia.

You calling me a bigot is beyond hilarious, because you are accusing me of that which you are guilty of. I wouldn't be a good soldier if I hated people, considering I have to work with a wide range of people with different backgrounds. I definitely wouldn't be a good Deputy if I did that.

But go ahead and clown around in your own delusions. Keep gaslighting people, and keep lying to yourself. All it shows is that you have no fucking idea what you're talking about.

[Sinekein]

I have no idea why anybody who can't prove citizenship should ever be permitted to buy a gun in the US. That makes 0 sense to me. Could I just hang out in the UK or France for a year and buy a gun? I have a feeling the answer is no. That should be like voting and serving on juries. Non citizens go away.

I've hanged out in France for 31 years and I can't buy a gun here.

I probably could get the required papers considering I have never been convicted of any crime and I don't suffer from any "red flag" psychological issues, but that would be a necessary first step before trying to buy one. Another option would be to get a hunting license if I wanted a rifle.

But in both cases it would be ridiculous because my eyesight is fucking terrible (I don't think it's enough to stop me from getting firearms however).

[Mobius_118]

Again, it was Florida, trump has lessened restrictions on firearm purchase and possessions, allowing undesirables to get access to firearms.

This time it was an actual terrorist who was able to buy a gun.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

You keep on keeping on Mobius. I'll laugh all the way to that election win in 2020 that's now all but certain. Do share your democratic candidate of choice. I'm dying to know who someone as special as you is throwing his weight behind.

[Mobius_118]

Only if you tell us why trump shouldn't testify if he's innocent.