American Politics Thread: Orange is the new POTUS (Archive)

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by DuffMan

If you're going to preach hate speech and you're not expecting to get punched in the face, you might be in the wrong business.

Is it okay to punch an atheist who preaches hatred of religion?

[Senator Clay Davis]

And there's Kellyanne just telling people to go buy Ivanka's stuff (possibly violating the law). The White Trash House is starting to have a nice ring to it.

https://twitter.com/AndrewKirell/sta...79277033394176

[photon]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Is it okay to punch an atheist who preaches hatred of religion?

That's like asking if it's ok to punch a person who preaches hatred of Sony Playstation lovers. Hate speech is such because it's directed at people, not a concept.

If the atheist hates all Christians/Jews/Muslims/Whatevers (and not just he religion) then maybe.

Though I think punching in general is animal behaviour, punching to enforce a viewpoint is just 'might makes right', but that's a whole other discussion.

[FlamesAddiction]

That last string of Trump tweets is insanity. He can't even stay on a steady line of thinking for more than a few tweets in a row.

His way of communicating is so destructive. He can't build anything positive so he just uses kitchen sink psychology to try and destroy everything around him.

[2Stonedbirds]

Originally Posted by New Era

Exactly. This is a term created by the extreme right to do what the do best -project and build false equivalence. No one embraces this term except the racists and extremists on the right, and the only reason they use it is to give impression of there being a balancing perspective to their horse####. When you see terms like this leaking into conversations you really begin to gain insight as to where people get their information and what they themselves believe in.

The extreme right, of course being TIME magazine and the National Post.

[KootenayFlamesFan]

If that Yemen raid was 'winning' what the heck does losing look like?

[photon]

Yeah it's hard to not think that trying to delegitimize the judicial branch like he's done with the press is an intentional thing when it's probably just his authoritarian instincts and default reaction to any criticism.

[DuffMan]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Is it okay to punch an atheist who preaches hatred of religion?

religion is a choice, skin color is not.

[DuffMan]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

That last string of Trump tweets is insanity. He can't even stay on a steady line of thinking for more than a few tweets in a row.

His way of communicating is so destructive. He can't build anything positive so he just uses kitchen sink psychology to try and destroy everything around him.

Time for the US to get smart and start winning? that's how he defines a botched raid, wtf?

[photon]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

And there's Kellyanne just telling people to go buy Ivanka's stuff (possibly violating the law). The White Trash House is starting to have a nice ring to it.

https://twitter.com/AndrewKirell/sta...79277033394176

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Madness.

As time ticks along, we seem to be forgetting the lessons of history. We don't understand why we have the freedoms and laws we have. We fail to see the terrible peril in suppressing speech and and tolerating political violence.

Read about the ACLU defence of the Nazi march through Skokie, a Jewish neighbourhood full of holocaust survivors. This analysis of the court decision that upheld the right to march outlines why it's intolerable in a liberal democracy to prevent marches and meeting of that kind:



Too many people today fail to recognize how tolerating institutional suppression of speech they hate could (and inevitably will) be turned around to suppress their own speech. If it's okay to punch a Nazi, how about punching a Marxist? After all, they're defending an ideology responsible for the deaths of tens of millions. Their aim of mandating an even distribution of property and wealth has only ever been achieved at the end of a gun. So I guess the next time some campus Marxist opens her mouth about equality of outcome, the grandson of a Lithuanian massacred in the bloodlands of Eastern Europe should punch her in the face. That's where we're headed.

Stop being children. Read some history. The struggle of the 20th century that culminated in World War Two wasn't just a struggle between fascists and anti-fascists. It was a struggle for liberal* democracy to survive when under assault from both the far right and the far left. The left's response to fascism was as bad as the disease, and where liberal democracy was weak or failed, the war between the fascism and communism shed rivers of blood and left the victor of each struggle as a totalitarian state ruling with contempt for liberal democratic values.

Part of me wonders if subconsciously a lot of people really do want an open, violent struggle to sort out politics today. Us against Them. Left vs Right. Fight to the finish, with only one group left standing. Because that's where this type of encouragement of political violence leads us. Think polarisation and political hatred are bad today? It can get worse. Much, much worse.

* The etymological root of liberal is "freedom." Liberalism is hard. It means trading away security in exchange for freedom. It means never really getting your way. Never living in a society where everyone shares your values. It means being exposed to people and ideas and speech that you despise. It means overcoming your instincts to silence those people and figuring out a way to share a society with them. It means being strong enough to let your intellect master your emotions.

It's tremendously hard. But the alternatives are worse. We don't have speculate about that - we know what they are. If we can be bothered to remember our history.

First of all, very well articulated, Cliff. Really well stated. From a theoretical perspective, I don’t disagree with you at all. All ideas and beliefs are free at the table of discourse. In a vacuum, this is wonderful. We should all be able to discuss issues by looking through the lens of each perspective and engage issues of the merit of the ideological position. The problem is there is no purity in ideological positions. All of them have been bastardized in some way, making it difficult to view many issues from that position. It is easy to say, “give the fascist a chance to explain his position,” but when their position is based on the pure subjugation or elimination of others, their perspective is pretty much disqualified from sitting at the big table with the adults.

Pragmatically, I don’t see fascists, especially Nazis, being any different from Islamists who are intent on creating their own Caliphate, and subjugating any other culture that dare stand in their way. If we expect Muslims to eliminate these behaviors from their culture, should we not be doing to the same? If we demand that Muslims eradicate the extremist elements in their culture, should that same expectation not extend to ours?

I don’t buy this line that everyone should have the right to say or do what they want. If that is indeed true, then pedophiles should have the right to molest children. This is the way these people are. This is the way they are wired. This is not some learned behavior, like hatred and racism is. Should we not then be accepting of the way they are and let them be? Not a god damn chance!!! Pedophiles should be removed from society and everything done to prevent them from damaging others. Nazis are the same. We should be going out of our way to eliminate this scourge from our society and never allow it raise its ugly head again. You know, just like we expect brown extremists to be eradicated in similar ways.

[OMG!WTF!]

Originally Posted by photon

It says "HIS private gain". Kellyanne can do whatever SHE wants.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by 2Stonedbirds

The extreme right, of course being TIME magazine and the National Post.

Time to possibly go clean that M14. The receiver / ejector seems a little clogged up.

Who on the left is using this term to classify themselves? The term being used by the media does not make it movement, or representative of anyone, or anyone owning the term. The right has dreamed it up and injected it into the discussion.

No one on the left came up with the term or has assumed ownership of it. If you really want to know what the alt-left it, it's part of the alt-right movement, just people who believed the ultracomservatives have gone too far. So they are still extreme RWers, just not as extreme as those on the alt-right. The fact that there are some in the media who have picked up the narrative to try and make people believe that there is a LW counter to the alt-right are just lazy and didn't bother to do their homework. The alt-left is a made up term by the alt-right to describe a component of their own movement.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by OMG!WTF!

It says "HIS private gain". Kellyanne can do whatever SHE wants.

Read the whole passage. She is definitely in conflict. President Comacho is also in contravention of this clause when he defended Ivanka's line and attacked Nordstrom from decideding to no longer carry her products.

[DuffMan]

Originally Posted by KootenayFlamesFan

If that Yemen raid was 'winning' what the heck does losing look like?

If Trump is making America Great again, what the heck does America being a complete mess look like?

[OMG!WTF!]

Originally Posted by New Era

Read the whole passage. She is definitely in conflict. President Comacho is also in contravention of this clause when he defended Ivanka's line and attacked Nordstrom from decideding to no longer carry her products.

Yeah I know. Just trashing 1970's era technical writing.

[Drak]

Just a quick topic shift - But isn't it interesting that the Russian ties story has pretty much disappeared now that everything is in place?

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by OMG!WTF!

Yeah I know. Just trashing 1970's era technical writing.

Ah, now I see what you did there. Clever girl!

[DuffMan]

Originally Posted by New Era

Ah, now I see what you did there. Clever girl!

It's time for a couple of pages of semantics arguments.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Drak

Just a quick topic shift - But isn't it interesting that the Russian ties story has pretty much disappeared now that everything is in place?

The press be like -