A new US Republican thread 2016

[cookie]

I'd throw in the following statement to make this thread even more interesting:

"Superior Topre is in every possible way better than inferior Beam Spring or terrible MX, ALPS are just a design flaw"

[Wodan]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opini ... eptic.html

The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic
By RICHARD A. MULLERJULY 28, 2012
Berkeley, Calif.

...
My total turnaround, in such a short time, is the result of careful and objective analysis by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, which I founded with my daughter Elizabeth.
...

It's a nice read and sounds a lot less hysterical than most of the shock news you read about climate change but he'd basically just doing marketing for a project he's founded for his daughter.

I am still having trouble with the parts where he CLAIMS that anything was proven but at least see enough locations where he admits that they were just drawing conclusions.

The core of his conversion to a true believer is:

Our result is based simply on the close agreement between the shape of the observed temperature rise and the known greenhouse gas increase.

So we're seeing two seemingly values and BELIEVE that one is the cause of the other. Makes me wonder why they need a whole institute to put these two graphs together and call it man-made. I am missing the proof. And here's what I really like ... unlike most other sources, he doesn't even predict the apocalypse. Thanks a lot because things get even more bizzare when it comes to that. Remember Club of Rome in the 70s?

I'd throw in the following statement to make this thread even more interesting:

"Superior Topre is in every possible way better than inferior Beam Spring or terrible MX, ALPS are just a design flaw"

Well I will draw another target in my forehead ... I am also a Gateron sceptic.

[cookie]

I am ready

[Wodan]

I am ready

Spoiler:

Always avoid a fair fight

[cookie]

How dare you!

[n__dles]

Ad hominem attacks are so boring and it means you are not capable of discussing the issues instead. Like, OMG, someone on the Internet has a different opinion, let's not counter-argue the opinion, but attack the person instead. Yawn.

Really?? I thought you were a reasonable person. I guess I was wrong :/ The table was obviously (or maybe not) satirical. The only thing remotely serious about it was trying to get you to apologize for your ad hominems and points that I proved to be incorrect.

Spoiler:

But I like the fucks.Don't take away the fucks. Should it have more killing and nudity in these videos instead, which seems to be more acceptable in your culture?

Your bias towards America is pathological, so normally I wouldn't waste my time replying. However, some of the things you said are so unorthodox and detached from reality that I have to point them out.

Should it have more .. nudity .. which seems to be more acceptable in your culture?

That's the opposite of both the stereotype (we're prudes remember?) and reality. The first sentence of the Wikipedia entry for Nudity in American television is "Nudity in American television has always been a controversial topic. Aside from a few exceptions, nudity in the United States has traditionally not been shown on terrestrial television."

Page 3 girls haven't been gone for long, and on British television, standard television you get by paying the TV tax, regularly has nudity on it. Never mind continental Europe, some countries show hardcore porn after midnight.

Aside from living and working with Britishers and maintaining friendships with some for more than a decade, the cumulative time I've spent in England adds up to the better part of a year. I've also lived 2/3rds of my life in America. I'm not trying to share my personal life with you, but the above is because I don't have any citation for the next point.

Without empirical evidence, but without any doubt whatsoever, 'fuck', especially when used as an adjective is incredibly more common in the US. There's not even a comparison, 'fucking' is as quintessentially American as 'Have a good day.'

You did get the violence part right.

Now baby don't be sad
don't be sad
Cuz one out of three aint bad
- Meatloaf (a stereotypical fat American!) with noodles

I could troll you more, but it's too easy with the "victim" type, especially when in tantrum. Although you do deserve it for this random rant against imagined anti-American racism. What the fuck.

Totally imagined: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Americanism

edit:

imagined anti-American racism

I'm anti-US. It is a fascist country. A country which commits murder from drones. War criminals. F**k the US, f**k your president, and f**k his voters. Any bombings of weddings lately?

You attacked my countries culture out of the blue, then said I had a victim mentality. Besides for saying you had a pathological hatred towards America, which I subsequently provided a quote to show that you yourself admit to being anti-American, where I did make one attack on your character?

The last post was me trying to make sure you knew that all my posts in this thread about you weren't serious, and to try to not leave things on bad terms, yet you somehow respond to that accusing me of what you did: not having any counter arguments and insulting my character.

Not an ad hominem: The third result when searching for Deskthority in DuckDuckGo is a GH thread which in part talks about your rants, maybe you should take a look in the mirror.

Either way, I think I'll stay away from OT threads for a while..

[vivalarevolución]

Spoiler:

I know some others will disagree but I tend to find about the same amount of irrational thought, bigotry, close-mindedness, bull-headedness, and unkindness pretty evenly distributed among political groups. I think it has more to do with the individual than the side of the issue they take. The worst examples have preconceived notions of the "enemies" motives and even assume how they must be behaving before they even see it themselves.

I heard Sam Stein of the Huffington Post (both left leaning) recently comment on how shocked he was to see how decent and civil the people at a Trump rally were, after finally attending one himself. He had bought into a stereotype that had been fed to him by others in the media and expressed both surprise and regret for having labeled "those people" in an unfavorable way in the past.

We all have a right to our own opinions, but even if we didn't, just try not to have one. My recommendations are twofold: first to base them on your own observations and reasoning, not something you heard online or from a source with an ax to grind. And second, to recognize that an improper response you receive from another may have as much to do with their reaction to your bad attitude.

I confess that I voted for Trump. He was a bad choice, but in my opinion, the best choice of the two. Because of my close friendship with several people with alternative lifestyles, my understanding and appreciation of the struggles of the illegal immigrants (yes, I said it) I've gotten to know, as well as the many friends I have of different races, I have to chuckle at the statement "Everyone that voted for Trump is a homophobic, xenophobic, hateful, bigot. By first impulse is to get defensive and draw certain conclusions about anybody that would say that, but I'll try not to.

I think what you described is an indictment of our political system and how we choose consume information, question that information, listen to each other, and understand each other.

If you had the opportunity for a ranked choice voting system, like Maine just voted for, you would not have to vote for Trump. I can really understand why people favored Trump. I'm here in the Midwest, the region of the country that shifted and gave him the victory. The conditions and viewpoints that shifted votes are very real to me. Yet lots of exaggeration, misinformation, misunderstanding were being tossed around by supporters on both sides, to an unbearable degree.

The reason I personally find Trump and his electoral college victory (not popular or majority vote) so repulsive is the world view that is prevailing right now and how it affects human relationships and conditions. It's a message of fear, polarization, insults, anti-science, anti-environment, anti-immigrant, sexism, intimidation, ridiculous promises without plans, empowering of those speaking from a place of hate...we've heard the story. This certainly does not embody all of his supporters, but those are the messages that I heard from the campaign directly and not the media. For the things the supporters did not agree with in his words and behavior, I observed lots of justification while not holding him accountable for the things they did not agree with. And the same goes for those that supported Hillary, they looked the other way on many things.

We were duped and divided by the exact same methods have been used by political operatives on both sides for every election. Here's the thing I can't stand about these methods in political campaigns: they serve to divide and vilify people that have mostly the same interests, and want the same things out of life. The real enemy is not the supporters of the other candidates, or liberals or conservatives, or whatever duality we are presented with. The real enemy is the power structure that continually gives us questionable candidates, stalled and wasteful government, and treats us as pawns for their own advancement. All they have to do is package their message to target certain populations in 10 states or so, and ignore the rest of us.

Hillary most certainly was not an agent of change. Trump to me is not that agent of change, either, just look at all the good ole boys and girls that followed him around on the campaign trail and will fill his appointed positions. I'm seeing a lot of elitist super rich guys, slimy politicians, 90's throwbacks, and...gasp...people currently in Washington! Who saw that coming?!

The way that we will react to Trump will create the actual changes. Paul LePage, a miniature Trump, inspired ranked choice voting in Maine. The electoral college once again failed to align with the popular vote, perhaps the movement to assign electoral votes to the popular vote will continue gaining traction. Maybe we will consider how we communicate with each other, especially those with differing viewpoints, and question how we consume and interpret the overwhelming amount of information throw at us. Maybe we will question on own assumptions. Maybe we'll discuss more what is best for a healthy political system and government, and what is best for humanity, rather be caught up in biting off the heads of decent people that mostly have the interests and want the same things out of life.

Or not, and we have more ineffective politics and governing, widening divides over petty shit, and revolution on the doorstep. Let's be honest, we're talking about human beings here.

[webwit]

Snowden had some pretty interesting opinions in his interview yesterday. Like the particular president doesn't mater, we shouldn't expect the change to come from them (like Obama and his promise to end mass-spying and other promises), and that the changes should come from the people.

Hmm, change from the people. In other words, revolt!

Ok, he was just hoping for built-in end-to-end encryption for everything mixed with anonymous sending and receiving (the last like radio).

[seebart]

Snowden had some pretty interesting opinions in his interview yesterday. Like the particular president doesn't mater, we shouldn't expect the change to come from them (like Obama and his promise to end mass-spying and other promises), and that the changes should come from the people.

Hmm, change from the people. In other words, revolt!

Ok, he was just hoping for built-in end-to-end encryption for everything mixed with anonymous sending and receiving (the last like radio).

Well from what I see there are quite a few protests going on right now.

https://theintercept.com/2016/11/09/hig ... ald-trump/

http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-37946231

[webwit]

Not that kind of protest, they are just disappointed their guy didn't get in.

[seebart]

Not that kind of protest, they are just disappointed their guy didn't get in.

I know, your talking about anarchy. Give it some time...

[webwit]

[vivalarevolución]

We got a big anti-Trump protest brewing for downtown tomorrow. At least a few thousand. LGBT community actually organized this one, and then it snowballed. Should be a good show.

[jacobolus]

On the other side, KKK planning a celebratory parade in North Carolina.

[vivalarevolución]

On the other side, KKK planning a celebratory parade in North Carolina.

Okay, here's the thing. I don't like that this victory allows certain groups of people motivated by hate to feel more empowered. There are perfectly decent people that now feel very scared of becoming a target, or already have been targeted, simply for being who they are.

On the other hand, the silent Trump supporter is a real phenomenon and many of those perfectly decent people felt scared of voicing their support as they would be lumped with the worst of Trump supporters. They did not want to be attacked or criticized for voicing their opinion. They were scared.

And now anti-Trump protesters are developing a bad name because a couple protests got violent while the majority have been peaceful. Similar to Black Lives Matter protestors and attendees of Trump rallies.

Meanwhile, the 1% is gearing up to throw a different team out there to run the government. Who should we be pissed off towards again? Our fellow average citizen, or the people using us for their own power games?

[fohat]

Who should we be pissed off towards again?

The ultra-wealthy puppet masters who have been indoctrinating and nurturing the ignorant right-wing masses for at least a couple of generations now. Reagan was their first huge victory, and they have taken and held control of the American government at every level since that time.

The way to "Make America Great Again" is to unwind everything that the Republican party has done since Reagan took office, starting with the tax structure and financial regulation.

[vivalarevolución]

Jonathon Pie, anyone? Just found out about this guy. Love it.

[jacobolus]

Meanwhile, the 1% is gearing up to throw a different team out there to run the government.

This is not an accurate summary. Military, foreign policy, intelligence, economics, etc. experts are extremely reluctant to join the Trump administration (for various reasons, including that Trump spent the whole campaign calling them idiots and liars, and that they don’t want his stench anywhere near their reputations). Most of the very wealthy were very skeptical of Trump, because they are afraid of potential instability.

See e.g. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... -jobs.html

Trump doesn’t really have much of a “team” at all. Instead he’s been recruiting discredited hacks and extremist also-rans who couldn’t make it in previous administrations where some credit was given to a basic connection to reality. Even in the notoriously fact-free Bush Administration there were a good number of serious and devoted public servants willing to work for what they considered civic duty. Those folks are mostly “never-Trumpers”, and so Trump has to scrape the bottom of the barrel. You end up with Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, John Bolton, and fucking Pam Bondi (the Florida AG Trump outrageously illegally bribed to drop any investigation of Trump University).

The part of the 1% who wants Trump is a small handful of super-billionaires, oil/gas/coal company executives, military contractor lobbyists, and of course owners of for-profit prisons.

[vivalarevolución]

Meanwhile, the 1% is gearing up to throw a different team out there to run the government.

This is not an accurate summary. Military, foreign policy, intelligence, economics, etc. experts are extremely reluctant to join the Trump administration (for various reasons, including that Trump spent the whole campaign calling them idiots and liars, and that they don’t want his stench anywhere near their reputations). Most of the very wealthy were very skeptical of Trump, because they are afraid of potential instability.

See e.g. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... -jobs.html

Trump doesn’t really have much of a “team” at all. Instead he’s been recruiting discredited hacks and extremist also-rans who couldn’t make it in previous administrations where some credit was given to a basic connection to reality. Even in the notoriously fact-free Bush Administration there were a good number of serious and devoted public servants willing to work for what they considered civic duty. Those folks are mostly “never-Trumpers”, and so Trump has to scrape the bottom of the barrel. You end up with Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, John Bolton, and fucking Pam Bondi (the Florida AG Trump outrageously illegally bribed to drop any investigation of Trump University).

The part of the 1% who wants Trump is a small handful of super-billionaires, oil/gas/coal company executives, military contractor lobbyists, and of course owners of for-profit prisons.

Okay, you're right about some of them, but there are lots of positions to fill. Maybe the 1% wasn't nuanced enough. I'll go with moneyed elite, lobbyists, current and former residents of Washington, 90's has beens, fringe right-wingers that at least had some stature at some time, and the like. Basically people that are hardly outsiders or anti-establishment or whatever buzzword. As the appointments fill up, I hope some supporters might realize they were duped.

And I've heard that Sarah Palin might be Secretary of Interior. Fuck me. I'm gonna have to start chaining myself to trees. FUCK ME. When I'm chained to a tree.

Also, as predicted, Pence is doing all the hard work, Trump is the celebrity.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/pl ... inions_pop

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/12/us/po ... abc-region

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/12/us/po ... binet.html

Of course, the NY Times and Wash Post have an axe to grind, so they may not be the best source.

[vivalarevolución]

Regardless of the creatures that will refill the swamp, I only can anticipate a further selling off of our federal government to corporate individuals and mostly people looking out for their own interests rather than "voices of the people" or whatever bridge Trump sold his supporters to win the vote. I also anticipate further violations of privacy and human rights both here and abroad.

[webwit]

The right vs the left used to be the haves vs the have-nots. Now (after Brexit, the US elections, and more) it's the reverse. The right won that demographic, the left demonized them by strategy. Of course the right (or the left) will not represent these people, they just use them to win. But it's a pretty damning loss for the left - or may I say the new right.

The UK situation is even more hilarious. Theresa May, a fucking tory (not exactly the champions of the have-nots), was against Brexit, but perfectly gets it where she will be getting the votes from, and keep pushing for Brexit. She's smart. The left, except Corbyn, is still bickering and fighting and demonizing. They don't get it at all.

[jacobolus]

Well worth reading:
http://www2.nybooks.com/daily/s3/nov/10 ... vival.html

[jacobolus]

Don't Be a Sucker (1947) | U.S. War Department

[Kurplop]

Jacobolus, I hope you and your friends aren't to disappointed when these predictions that you are suggesting never come to pass. I know the heady sense of importance a person can get when they think that they are resisting certain doom; when I was your age I felt it. I think it's a common phase that many young men feel.

I am sometimes brought back down to earth remembering this saying. Things are rarely as bad as they seem... or as good. I hope it helps you.

In the meantime, please be careful with your words. A lot of innocent people are getting hurt responding to reckless insinuations.

[jacobolus]

Trump literally campaigned on gathering up ten million people who he called “criminals” and “rapists”, sending police door to door to inspect the papers of every brown-looking person, gather them in camps, and then ship them out of the country. He has promised to build a massive wall. He has called for every American Muslim to be added to a national registry, and suggested that we will do “extreme vetting” of immigrants, finding out their religion when they come to the country and rejecting them if they are Muslim. He said that women who get abortions should be “punished”. He said he would jail his opponent, and silence journalists who questioned him. He has praised Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin, Muammar Gaddafi, Benito Mussolini, and the Chinese crack-down on the Tiananmen Square protests, among others. He argued that we should target families of terrorists for assassination, said we should bring back torture even if it doesn’t work because they deserve it, argued that many more countries should have nuclear weapons (and repeatedly asked “why don’t we use our nukes”), and said that when sailors on an Iranian ship made rude gestures at American sailors on a passing ship, we should “blow them out of the water”. He made the beatings of protestors at his rallies a point of pride.

I am not making idle predictions. I’m just talking about what Trump himself has promised and said.

I sincerely hope that you are right about “well, he couldn’t possibly be serious about the overtly fascist nonsense he promised on the campaign trail; he was just playing to racists to get their votes” or whatever. On the other hand, I personally consider voting for Trump to be an extremely irresponsible act, even if you thought all his campaign promises were flat-out lies. An act of profound betrayal to American ideals and to the American country. I hope for all of our sakes that Trump does not carry out his promises and forever shame his supporters, but frankly they should feel ashamed even if he does an about-face, simply for taking the chance.

If you’re curious about all the things Trump has done and said which fly in the face of centuries of American tradition and values (not to mention basic human decency), I recommend Jim Fallows’s “Trump Time Capsule” blog, which has spent months chronicling what we knew as the campaign went along, http://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2016/0 ... /?oldest=1

> I hope you and your friends aren't to disappointed when these predictions that you are suggesting never come to pass

I would love nothing better than for Trump to prove everyone wrong. Or at the very least turn out to be just be an incompetent bumbler, and not a fascist dictator who starts wars, jails huge numbers, silences his critics, and dismantles all of our democratic traditions and institutions.

Even an incompetent bumbler will do massive damage to American democracy and to the planet (again: climate change is a tremendous threat to the future of the world), but hopefully at least the country will remain nominally livable for the next few years. Yes it will be tragic when they strip-mine the national parks, and tragic when millions of people lose their healthcare and retirement savings, and tragic when public universities are further defunded, and tragic when more women die in pregnancy, and tragic when the economy is damaged by incompetent monetary policy, but at least I can sit in a comfortable San Francisco bubble where people are tolerant and friendly and strange and the adults set a good example for my kids.

Our best hope may be that Trump is an obese 70-year-old with a family history of Alzheimer’s who subsists on a diet of fast food, is profoundly lazy and has no attention span. His health and disinterest might not support a robust authoritarian program. That will leave his sinister staff of discredited hacks in charge, but hopefully there will be significant internal conflict and confusion.

I fear however that you greatly underestimate the ability for systems to collapse when a significant portion of the society decides that they won’t preserve and uphold them, and instead work to undermine them. Turkey was until recently a reasonably robust secular democracy. People in Syria were peacefully going about their day-to-day lives. In late-1980s Sarajevo, no one imagined they’d soon be under genocidal siege by their former compatriots. Before the Chinese Cultural Revolution, my wife’s urban teenager parents never expected that they and all their friends would be shipped off to live in the countryside to be agricultural laborers between the ages of 17–27. In the run up to WWI, people were convinced that the era of large-scale conflict in Europe was over. Life can blow up very fast. Everything we create is fragile and contingent, and must be tended and guarded closely.

I hope if Trump turns out to be the fascist he threatens to be, that you Kurplop will join the resisters instead of the appeasers and apologists.

[seebart]

> I hope you and your friends aren't to disappointed when these predictions that you are suggesting never come to pass

So do I, but having lived the USA for eleven years I know that a large portion of the population does not "tick" that way, remember the vote was close. Does that help us right now...nope. I have talked about this at lengths with friends and family over the last couple of days and the grimm summary is a unknown JOKER was voted to lead...

0914c762cc.jpeg (22.82 KiB) Viewed 4366 times

[jacobolus]

Note, that was a quotation, not me writing that.

[jacobolus]

For anyone who missed it a few years ago:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/ne ... h-20120719

[webwit]

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

wingtrump.jpg (278.52 KiB) Viewed 4325 times

[jacobolus]

It strikes me that Trump is pretty much what happens when you take this – http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/2 ... t-23/?_r=0

And give it unlimited money and no consequences.