As Usual... · 3:36pm Dec 12th, 2020
>>5414146
Implying? I'm outright stating it. Your position at this point requires the level of mental gymnastics that flat-Earthers use. Every time reality comes knocking, you go making the supposed conspiracy bigger instead of even considering the idea that reality disagrees because you're wrong. If there is a civil war, every death will be on your heads. But it's still preventable. All that needs to be done is for you and people like you to stop thinking in terms of "how can we reinterpret what happened to continue to support our position" and start asking "is our position grounded and sane".And if you honestly think marginal effects to Canada and direct endangerment from fricking war are equivalent, I don't know how you think you're kidding.
In response to TittySparkles encouraging Civil War in the United States. That was a fascinatingly quick block. Not used to that from conservatives; they generally like to argue a bit longer.
If you're reading this, and you're in favor of a civil war, regardless of what "side" you would want to fight on... Please leave. I won't block you, but I'm not in the mood to tolerate people who don't understand the value of human life.
Edit: A reply to Huk from the same thread:
That said, the fact that SCOTUS can just say 'we won't even look into that!' when multiple states are rising, their concerns is... well, not something I would expect as a citizen, that's for sure
That's not what happened. What happened is that SCOTUS considered the claim, and rejected that it had any merit. The narrative that it was dismissed on some technicality, or frivolously, or whatever, is a straight up lie being propagated by people who either don't know or don't care how the legal system works. I would ask you to not go spreading it. The concerning part here isn't that the Supreme Court refused to have a full hearing on a case with no legal merit; the concerning part is that so many members of Congress and State Attorneys General would push a case that had no legal merit. Not a single legal scholar worth their degree thought the case stood a chance. This was the expected outcome. You're right that there are people disturbed by it, but when people are disturbed by the expected and reasonable outcome, the goal should not be to convince them that their concerns about evil conspiracies somehow have merit.
Edit 2: Every time I've looked back at the original thread, my one pre-block comment has had an equal number of up- and down-votes. I find this increasingly amusing.
Edit 3: Darn, now it's lopsided.
Edit 4: It's fixed!
I mean, sure it’s extreme, but is it totally out side the realm of possibility? I don’t think so, at least not in the next ten years. The USA has two increasingly different cultures carving out territory and economic models in an effort to gain political supremacy. That sure sounds like the last civil war to me. And yeah, it would lead to a huge loss of life, but if you think the other side is evil, as both sides increasingly do, then living together becomes increasingly untenable. Honestly I’m not sure when the USA is supposed to go from here. Even though they lost the election, conservatives aren’t going away. Maybe the culture will die off, but I’ve been hearing that my whole life and it hasn’t happened yet. I increasingly feel like the USA is trapped in a marriage between two parents that hate each other (liberals and conservatives), but have chosen to stay together for the kids (the economy). At what point do we admit this isn’t working anymore?
5414177
I do not believe a civil war to be unlikely. On the contrary, I see it as nearly inevitable. But I will not stomach people cheering it on. The thing about a war, is that the result is massive death and strife... and nothing else. Yeah, the reigns of power shift around a bit, but as you mention, this looks a whole lot like the last civil war, and look where that got us... right here, about to have another one.
5414181
What do you think about an amicable break up then? Until now I’ve kept my opinion that the USA should break up into smaller nations to myself, but recently I’ve been quietly bringing up the topic in political conversations.
5414185
It sounds like a great idea, until you ask how it would work. It's not like there's a line you can draw where all of the liberals are on one side and all of the conservatives are on the other. With as much as people like to talk about the "urban-rural divide", the political mix is mostly homogenous throughout the country.
To put it into perspective, they tried the "split up into two countries due to irreconcilable differences" thing over in Asia. The result is Pakistan and India, and look how well that's working out. Drawing a border doesn't stop the fighting; if anything, it makes it worse because now there's a physical objective to fight over. And that's not even considering the suffering of the members of the minority position inevitably left on the wrong side of the new national boundaries. Once the split is official, it's an easy excuse to just strip human rights from the people who "decided" to "stay behind"; after all, they can just leave if they don't like it, right? No matter that some of the first rights lost in such situations are financial and travel related, limiting the ability to actually leave. The result is two oppressive states that hate each others' guts, persecute each other's people, and are stuck sharing a border.
5414190
The only reason to even entertain the breakup of a nation is to avert a civil war. Will human rights abuses against the remaining political opposition occur? Probably, but that’s the reality of avoiding war. Not that I’m in favor of that, but it makes no sense to split the country and then immediately declare war over human rights violations.
As for the divisions, rather then splitting it in two, it would be better to split into four or five countries, then normalize relations between them. As for your India-Pakistan example, there are other nations that have split that had much better outcomes, several Eastern Europe countries for example. We can hope such a spilt would be closer to them then India-Pakistan.
I am not for a civil war, but nor am I against it. While the loss of life that would come from it would be tragic, maybe it will also remove some of the stupidity from the gene pool too (that was mostly a joke)
Honestly? The scale of the “War” will be wholly dependent on where the Allegiance of the US Military will land.
There are three options here and dependent on which one holds true, will determine the length and cost of the war.
Option 1) the military sides with the people as a whole, rather then with one side or the other. This is the shortest and least bloody option.
Option 2) the military sides with the Federal Government, this option is short, but far bloodier as it will be the US Military vs the Civilian population mostly.
Option 3) the military splits, this is the longest and most bloody option of the three. It could last years and see the most interventions by other nations.
Note I am basing this off history, the Civil war of 1861-1865 was a bloody four years simply due to Defections and patriotism to each cause. The US split down the middle in identity and notion of what was right and the military of the time followed, it wasn’t just a division of state ideology but one of morality and individual ideology as well and that split the common soldier and militia man in the division of supporting their home state and their home country.
Am I saying that a Civil War is right? No, no I am not, but I like many know that unless something is done it will happen at some point, either by extremists actions or by patriotic idiots seeking glory and “self determination”
5414197
The precise circumstances and particular harped issues are different, but the general disagreement is the same as in the 1860s. If a war happens, it will be option 3.
5414192
I'm not exactly a scholar of European history, but weren't those countries generally split as a result of war, and the places that particular factions happened to control when the peace treaties were signed? There's also the question of what the division was about: Bottom-up ideological splits are very different from top-down governing disputes. The problem here is deeply ideological, and so more comparable to the India/Pakistan split than any government-level factional dispute.
Titty really banned you
? That's messed up... Anyway...
Does that mean that rejecting this case is 100% legally equal in outcome to taking it on and dismissing it later on? In other words:
SCOTUS voting to not take on a case = SCOTUS taking on a case and then dismissing it later on
? If so, and the repercussions are 100% the same, I retract my claims. However, if there are legal differences between these two, and the validity of the claim remains unknown in the view of the law (and it can be challenged again, later on), you have a problem.
So, which one is it from a legal POV?
Unless the article I read was a misprint... two SCOTUS judges - one of the best 'legal scholars' you have - voted against the dismissal. I'm not gonna argue WHY they voted the way they did because I don't know, but it sure cast a shadow of doubt on the above claim
. And on this:
Man, with respect, but... if you want a civil war and/or unrest, this kind of talk is how to do it
. If you want ANY democracy to work, you CAN'T deny ANYONE the right to have his case heard just because you - or even 99.99% of lawyers think it has no merit. Especially when the stakes are as high as in this case. Moreover, the way you formulated that statement has a very bad connotation to me, as if asking the court for a ruling is in itself somehow dangerous and wrong. Others go even further, calling it fascist and/or authoritarian... It sure smells like our current polish scenario here, and I don't like it 
.
Here is a crazy thought... For the sake of argument, consider for a moment that the people you mentioned sincerely believed there was something wrong. That they sincerely believed that the constitution was violated. What were they supposed to do? Stay quiet about it because the majority of lawyers/experts were against them
?
5414239
Some, not all. Some were due to post ww2 nations being created during the peace agreements and then breaking up as the Soviet Union lost control. However, you do make a good point in that the current political situation in the USA is closer to that of India-Pakistan then those nations, so I concede the argument
5414240
The answer requires understanding a bit about how the Supreme Court of the United States actually works. Their purpose isn't just to look at a case and go "yeah" or "nay". The purpose of the Supreme Court (and to a lesser extent, the mid-level courts) is to clarify disputed law. That is, if different parties are interpreting a passage of law (or novel intersection of different passages) in fundamentally different ways, the Supreme Court looks at it, reviews the arguments from both sides, and then issues a ruling that establishes the "official" interpretation of the disputed passage or combination, with a focus on explaining by reference to other laws (most significantly the Constitution) what the reason is for their ruling. Generally, if the Supreme Court doesn't take a case, it's because there isn't a dispute over interpretations to clarify at all. Rejecting a hearing is the Supreme Court's way of saying "if we did have a hearing for the case, we'd end up with a very wordy ruling about how nothing was clarified, nothing needed to be clarified, and the people who brought the case here are full of it".
From the view of the law, anything can be challenged again later on (except in the case of a criminal trial of an individual over a particular crime; that's expressly forbidden). Imagine if the Supreme Court applied your reasoning that every case needs to be fully laid out before any decisions can be made. They wouldn't be able to get to them all. The Supreme Court already has to carefully curate what it deliberates on, what it sends back to lower courts, and what it dismisses; it's made up of just nine people, major cases take all of them at the same time, and they're doing this for a country of hundreds of millions. They have to dismiss cases that don't have merit; it just isn't possible to have a full hearing for all of them. More than that, if they signaled that they would hear any case, that would encourage frivolous cases.
Now about the particular issue at hand: This particular case was not, in fact, the only hearing on the issue. There have now been dozens of lower court cases on the same claims that the case in question brought forth. The sole difference was in who was bringing the case. The "evidence", or lack thereof as it turns out, has been heard in courts across the country at this point, and it's been thrown out every time. Often with the judges expressing exasperation at just how worthless the supposed case was.
The idea that the Supreme Court didn't consider the merits of the case before dismissing it is a lie, propaganda from the GOP. The idea that the evidence from the case hasn't had its time in court is a profound lie. In fact, the lawyers themselves are lying: The evidence they claim to have while on news programs is mysteriously absent when they go to a courtrooms, which, I repeat, they have been in repeatedly over the last month, with plenty of time to present their case.
The reality is that this case was never about legal problems, or election problems. There were none of substance. This is about propaganda, and an attempt at a literal coup, and unfortunately you're helping when you give credence to the lies that the propaganda seeks to spread. The goal is to convince the American public that the government is irresolvably corrupt and only Donald Trump is capable of fixing it by ignoring the results of the Constitutionally sanctioned election. It doesn't matter who is legally in charge if you can confound enough people about what "legal" even is.
I'd like to know what article that was and what the phrasing entailed. It is true that two of them took the position that they were legally required to hear the case in full (due to the nature of it being brought by a state attorney general against another state), but they also said they would ultimately reject the case anyway. (It's worth noting at this point that the justices themselves are the ones who would get to decide the question of whether they're legally required to hear any state-state challenge through, so they essentially ruled 7-2 on that question by making this dismissal; it's part of legal precedent now.) This wasn't a dissent in the sense of "we think the case has merit". If it had been, they would have said so.
I don't think you understand the full issue, here. Imagine somebody brought up a case that was patently absurd, like "the Moon is made of cheese and therefore our clients the dairy farmers own it". Would it be healthy for society or the legal system to have a full, serious court case on the merits of the moon being made of cheese? No. That would turn the court into a circus, diminishing the status of their rulings in other cases. It would also elevate the question of whether the Moon is made of cheese to a serious question by simple virtue of having the hearing. Courts cannot simply hear every case regardless of how ridiculous it is. It might sound nice just saying that, but the reputation of the courts matters, and simply whether a case gets a hearing has a profound effect regardless of the ultimate ruling on it due to the implication that it must have some merit if they're hearing it out.
They did ask the court for a ruling. The court said no. There's a massive difference between "we can't hear this so we don't know whether it has merit" and "we won't hear this because it's a waste of time".
Here's an alternate scenario to chew on: Say, for the sake of argument, that the case was brought intentionally dishonestly by a party who's goal is to overthrow a legitimate election and who has decided the way to do that is to convince a sufficient number of people that the election was invalid. Which would be worse, here: A full hearing of the intentionally dishonest suit at the highest court with the implication that it had merit, or a short dismissal by that same court stating that it wasn't worth even hearing?
Yes, there's fascism going on, here. But you're confused about where it's coming from.
It's a serious question how to deal with people who believe gaslighting, but "let's consider the gaslighting on its merits" misses the point of gaslighting, which is to confuse, not clarify.
5414291
I agree with most of the points you make here, my problem is that it’s not just the Republicans who have engaged in delegitimization. The last four years have been filled with allegations of Russian collusion that have not panned out, and the consistent insistence that Republicans in general and Trump in particular are engaged in voter suppression. That is, in fact, a delegitimization of an election. Never mind the fact that voter turnouts are some of the highest they’ve ever been. Never mind that the things that Democrats constantly point to as voter suppression have been going on for years or even decades without either side throwing a fit about it until someone decided to create some political capital. Never mind that the voter ID laws pushed by Republicans are less stringent then most western nations, a comparison Democrats often make in regards to healthcare or speech laws. Never mind that Democrats routinely engage in gaslighting and fascistic behavior; no, it’s one sides fault.
The current political crisis is absolutely a result of political malfeasance from both parties, and if that cannot be acknowledged then there will be no healing in the USA.
5414313
Except for the dozens of charges brought against people who engaged in that collusion and the Mueller report which essentially read "we suspect Trump did it, but don't have the legal power to fully investigate him while he's in office".
...Which they are. They literally have spent the last two months, both before and after the election, attempting to disqualify millions of legitimate ballots.
Civic engagement in the US has always been extremely low compared to other democracies. That it was a little higher this year isn't evidence against voter suppression (of which numerous particular instances can be pointed to, such as closing numerous polling places without alternative provided means, which makes general claims about data trends moot anyway), but it is an indictment of just how engrained voter suppression is in the United States. The way the election is run (no federal holiday, short times that the polls are open) prevents large numbers of people who would otherwise vote from going to the polls. Generally lower class people and minorities, due to the types of jobs they tend to hold.
News flash: Voter suppression has been a problem for years, and activist groups have been pointing it out for years. Just because you haven't been paying attention doesn't mean it wasn't there.
1. Voter ID laws are not the only issue, here.
2. In regards to those, in Europe, generally, every citizen is issued an ID as a matter of course. In the US, there are various financial and bureaucratic barriers to obtaining such. If Republicans would get behind a comprehensive plan to give everybody a free ID, then I, and nearly everybody else, would be for it. Notice that's not what they try to do.
I don't recall claiming that Democrats never did anything bad, which means your argument entails conflating "Republicans are doing bad things" with "Democrats are angels". I assume I don't have to explain just why that is a ridiculous argument.
I would agree, except healing comes from acknowledging truth, not just saying "both sides did bad stuff". There's a difference between blindly believing all accusations that one side makes against the other and actually parsing the valid from the invalid.
5414327
There was nothing in the report that implied the trump team engaged in collusion. All of the charges that were brought against people in the course of the investigation were for crimes unrelated to the accusations that were discovered during the investigation. By all means, take them to court, but the allegations of collusion themselves were not substantiated.
The second half of the report did imply that the investigation could have been obstructed, but considering they found no evidence of collusion to begin with, it is dubious that the possible obstruction was material to the case, which is required in order to be charged with obstruction. This doesn’t even get into whether the investigation was carried out properly, something I do not take at face value.
Every lawsuit has targeted ballots that may, in fact, not be legal for one reason or another. It’s not enough to turn in a ballot, there is a process that has to be followed in order for that ballot to be counted. All the allegations so far are around ballots that may or may not follow that process. Call me crazy, but seeking to make sure that the law is followed does not sound to me like voter suppression. Do I think that most of the allegations were correct? No. Do I think it is voter suppression or fascistic to file a lawsuit to make sure? No, I do not.
Unfalsifiable thesis. There is no way to prove or disprove the claim, short of evidence of someone physically preventing people from entering polls. Removing some balloting areas is not proof of suppression, there are real world considerations around polling stations such as the number of suitable locations, people available, funding, this year there were health concerns, etc. In addition, if voter suppression is a valid concern, then any negative advertising focused on driving down turnout for your opponent is, by definition, voter suppression.
Just because they have been claiming it doesn’t make it true
Voter ID laws are a massive issue here. Better ID and registration laws would go a long, long way to dissuading claims of election interference.
You lay blame at the feet of the Republicans, while failing to mention that Democrats do not have a serious plan to provide free ID to the general public either. In fact, to do so would go against the Democratic platform on several levels, which is why the current ID system has been mostly unchanged for decades. I’m all for universal ID, make a realistic proposal.
Fair. I over reacted.
“Both sides did bad stuff” is the truth. Trying to lay more blame on one side or the other is a chicken and egg problem. Ask a conservative who started the political malfeasance, and they’ll say the liberals started it. Ask a liberal, they’ll say the conservatives started it. Nobody is objective enough to completely parse the valid from the invalid, and that includes you and me. I’m less interested in what started the fight and more how to fix the system, and the more I see the less confident I am that it can be fixed.
5414291
OK, ShiningBeacon explained to me on TT's thread that SCOTUS has been avoiding these sorts of questions for years. Adding your explanation to the mix, I think both of you have changed my mind on the matter... to a point. Let's leave it at that
I have to agree with this 100%. This is why I have steered clear of the US political news for the last month, to be honest. It worked quite well for a while...
I help propaganda to spread by... asking questions
? Have you ever considered the alternative, like, not asking questions and just going on with what you know (which is - and always will be - limited)? I think it's better to have people asking things than assuming things...
The one I read (it was on Google News, not sure which newspaper it was - wasn't really paying that much attention, to be honest) had just the number 7-2. I don't recall comments from the judges themselves being quoted there. Therefore, I will assume that what you're saying is accurate, and let's leave it at that
.
To give you an example of why you should always hear a case even when you believe it has no merit... Are you aware of what's been going on in Poland for the last few months? Maybe you heard of women protest after our Constitutional Tribunal (the equivalent of your SCOTUS) voted that certain types of abortion are not allowed anymore? If not, long story short:
Here is the fun part - according to our lefties, our CT - aside from being a puppet of the government, which, sadly is more or less accurate
- should have never decided that because... While the constitution has the article 38, it also has article 40, which says:
'No one may be subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. The application of corporal punishment shall be prohibited.'
Both sides claim that it's 'obvious' that the constitution favors THEM. Again, I'm not a lawyer, and personally, I'm pro-abortion (to a point), but... I must say that for an average Kowalski, article 38 seems as straightforward as you can get, and our CT agrees with that. Still, the leftists claim otherwise...
Just to be clear - I'm NOT saying that this situation is 100% equivalent to what is happening in the States right now. What I am saying, however, is that it's very easy to imagine a situation in which both sides will claim that 'it's obvious that we're right!' and both will 100% believe it, too. When that happens, the worst thing you can do is assume that one side 'must have' nothing but bad intentions and ignore it - or worse - try to punish it for even challenging something they believe is not right. This will not lead to anything good...
The perfect scenario for me here is simple:
It's really THAT simple. I'm 100% sure that some of the republicans would be like 'SCOTUS is pro-democrat, and Trump won
!' but judging by what I read, I believe that most of them would be like: 'OK, even the SCOUTS said it's legal. We don't like it, but we accept it... 
'
Of course, I'm not from the States, and I may be wrong here, but... judging by the things most Trump supporters say online, I believe they would go with it. They would be pissed and try to do something about it in the future, though, but that's democracy. You're pissed you try to change stuff. As long as you follow the law, there is nothing wrong here.
Again with respect to you, but I really don't want to go into a 'dick measurement' contest about who knows more about fascism and who is more confused. Suffice it to say I live in a country that was almost wiped out due to fascism older/younger brother - Nazism, and then plowed through by commies. I've read about both ideologies. I've seen the outcome of what they can do. I've been to Auschwitz, and I've read the journals. Believe me, I know a thing or two about fascists. But... ever since our conservative government - which I don't support - was elected, I've also seen how easy it is to label someone who doesn't like to follow the modern 'rules,' or... is just an a-hole, as a fascist these days...
I would urge you and everybody else in the States NOT to use that word too lightly. Trump is many things, but he's NOT a fascist, not by any stretch of the imagination. One day you may need to use that word for real against someone who will be ten times worse than the 'Orange Man.' If that day comes (hopefully it won't, but...) then, if you overuse it now, people will just shrug it off then. You really don't want that...
As long as they use courts and the LAW, gaslighting is hardly an appropriate term
.
5414358
Unfortunately, that's how propaganda often functions. To minimize being a vector for it requires getting your facts straight as best as you can before you start asking questions. Going into a conversation with only partial knowledge of the topic risks giving unfair weight to nonsense positions.
It seems something has been lost in my explanation of how the Supreme Court functions, and that is that this case wasn't about interpretation of law. The substance of the case was numerous specific allegations of fraud, many of which had already been reviewed and dismissed by other courts. It was dismissed because it was a matter of evidentially disproven claims. The legal theory it was wrapped up in was immaterial, and the court treated it as such.
It's not remotely comparable. There's a difference between making evidentially false claims (of election fraud, here) and interpretive disputes based on moral differences. Two people with different views on abortion can legitimately disagree on whether a ruling was correct because things like "human being" mean different things in different moral frameworks. But whether fraud occurred in an election isn't a matter of interpretation. You're getting lost in the theoretical weeds, which is, again, the point of gaslighting.
This is a case of people outright lying. Not even "saying stuff that we don't think they believe", but actually saying one thing in one place and something completely different in another. Most conservatives here are being confused by effective propaganda, but the people actually leading these cases are provably dishonest.
The perfect scenario for me here is simple:
That is literally what happened, except the dismissal came at the first pass rather than the final one. It's like going to register a vehicle, and being frustrated when the official dismisses you out of hand rather than going through their checklist. "How can you be so sure it fails if you didn't actually take the time to go through the process!"
"Sir, it's a horse."
As for fascism, I may have misinterpreted your initial use of the term, which informed how I was using it. I generally don't use the term at all, because like most political labels, its meaning is ambiguous at best. That said, the official Republican Party of Arizona a few days ago asked their followers on Twitter if they were willing to "give their lives" for the cause, and yesterday the Republican Party of Texas sent out a press release suggesting that the next step was secession... that is, treason. The blog this came from before I was booted out has someone literally saying "I'm starting to realize I've been radicalized to the point that I am ready to physically fight with the bootlickers," Seems pretty close to the line to me.
If blatantly lying in official press releases and television interviews about what the court cases are even about isn't gaslighting, then what counts as gaslighting?
5414414
Texas...
5414357
The above is the actual conclusion statement of the Mueller report. Perhaps you haven't read it. But if you don't feel like reading that, then there's that thing where Trump literally asked, on live television, for Russia to interfere in the 2016 election. This is the part where you go "oh, that was a joke", and I ask you to provide proof for that nonsense assertion, and then you claim that the burden of proof is on showing that it wasn't a joke, and I ask how you figure that considering it goes against the evidence presented, and you... I don't know what your response would be, at that point, because I've never gotten that far. Usually devolves into insults before then.
I'm reading this argument as "if obstruction prevents an investigation from finding relevant evidence, then both the obstruction and the evidence that way hidden are irrelevant to the case". I hope I'm reading that wrong; could you help me here?
1. No, in the sense that many of the lawsuits were in fact about things that demonstrably didn't happen, not procedures which could be disputed in their legality.
2. No, in the sense that some of these lawsuits, including the big one that spurred this back-and-forth about the Supreme Court, asked for the remedy of all ballots, of an entire city or even an entire state, to be discarded, not just the specific ballots of legal questionability.
There have been polls and studies on election accessibility.
Not in and of itself, no. But it can be evidence of suppression, taken in context. This is one of those times when the word "proof" is a nasty little obfuscator that allows someone to imply that anything even a drip below 100% certainty is equivalent to no certainty at all. This simply isn't the case.
That would depend on, well, how you define voter suppression. Would you agree there is a fundamental difference between convincing somebody that they shouldn't vote, and preventing somebody who wants to vote from successfully voting? If so, then I would propose we define "voter suppression" as the latter case to make the term useful. If not... then I'm not really sure where to go with that.
In that case, I wasn't presenting the fact that advocacy groups have been saying it for years as evidence of it occurring for which you would be correct that it does not follow, I was presenting it as a falsification of your claim that nobody cared until recently, for which it absolutely matters.
You say this in response to me pointing out that they aren't the only issue. Notice that my claim was of number, while your response was on magnitude. I hope I don't have to explain the difference.
Democrats aren't the ones who want to require such IDs to vote. You don't need to plan to groom a cat if you don't plan on buying a cat.
Remember when you tried to claim that something I said was unfalsifiable? This is that, but actually. Perhaps you mean something else, but it would seem that you're conflating "the Republican boogeyman of what the Democratic platform is" with "the actual Democratic platform". It's worth noting, however, that there is a substantial movement against national ID of this sort. It's headed by the libertarians, who allege, potentially with some merit, that it would be an expansion of government control over the individual, as well as a violation of privacy.
I'd call back to the paragraph-before-last, but I'm just struck by the absurdity of you seemingly asking me, specifically, to produce a full proposal for universal ID right now. I just... what?
No. Laying blame proportional to actions is essential. You're arguing against the very concept of nuance here, in favor of intentional oversimplification.
As usual, the solipsist argument is self-defeating. If we're truly, fully incapable of parsing objective truth, then there's no point in continuing this conversation, because neither of us have reason to believe the other even exists. Getting out of bed in the morning is pointless, because you might actually be a petunia living in a teapot, and have no bed to get out of. As soon as you accept that these things can be rejected, at least provisionally, on evidence and logical analysis, solipsism retreats into its little corner and we can consider methods of assessing objective truth even in complex scenarios like politics.
I'm pretty confident at this point that it can't be fixed, but that might just be my chronic depression talking. But what I do believe, is that if it can be fixed, that path will necessarily require understanding objective truths, because that is an essential requirement of all functional actions in reality... so your solipsism from before objectively does not help.
5414414
We will have to agree to disagree on that one. But, since most people will never try to prepare themselves the best they can before asking something (because it would take too long - especially in today's world), I doubt it will change in the near future. I'm not gonna stop asking questions about things I don't know. Even if - like everyone - I have my own opinions and biases, it's still better to ask than to not ask
.
Apologies for the misunderstanding, but I was answering generically here - not referring to SCOTUS's case anymore since - as I said - I think that matter is closed.
That said, there is still a matter of how you want your citizens to feel about it. And while I agree that in most cases, the 'lower courts route' should be sufficient, in case of something as fundamental as the elections, IMHO, it would be better to just take the complaints out to the highest court instance possible and dismiss them there. And to add to that - I don't know how it works in the States, but in Poland, we don't have precedence laws, and courts of different levels VERY often disagree. So you have:
This happens quite often as far as I'm aware - maybe in the States, the disagreement between courts is a rare occurrence? If so, that could explain why we see it differently. Here, appealing all the way to the Supreme Court is standard practice.
Do you believe that every person who claimed there was a fraud - lied on purpose?
Again, legally it may be 100% valid - but this is not just about the law but also about how people will feel about it. Or... put it this way - I'm your average Joe, someone who is not educated enough to care about how precisely the law works. When I heard that SCOTUS rejected something, I'm outraged and pissed because 'they ignored my concerns
!' Even if my reasons are faulty, and I lack the proper knowledge, my rage is still there. Now, imagine they are tens of millions of me - pissed off, resentful Joes... Not a pretty picture, is it?
Now imagine the alternate - that SCOTUS actually humored me and others like me, took the case, and then dismissed it soon after because there was no proof, or said that what the states did was 100% legal. Some of us Joes will still feel pissed - and you can be sure there will be politicians who will say 'SCOTUS is corrupt!' - but most of us will shrug it off and accept it.
Think of it as a multi-filter - each court will filter out some anger from some Joes. The more filters you put it through, the less anger will remain in the end.
So, was SCOTUS decision legal and lawful? It seems so. Was it the best damage control strategy they could have chosen? I'm not so sure... It looks more as if giving ammunition to all those who think that the election was stolen. Even if that's not their job, they should at least consider the impact of their actions. At least that's the way I see it, and it's over now...
Again, look above and ask yourself why people are reacting like that
. From comments I read on the net over the last year, some people are just fed up with what is happening, and even if 100% level - the SCOTUS decision is not helping. Ironically, before the election, I heard that some lefties were calling for California to secede if Trump wins, now you have the reveres. Neither is good, but neither had anything to do with fascism, and all with polarization.
Four years ago, people were pissed and elected Trump. And... for four years media feed them that he is the next Hitler, and everyone supporting him is not far behind. Sadly, that's what you get for polarizing the scene to the point where people - on both sides - are willing to use violence (physical, or emotional).
That's the other reason why I urge people not to use strong words - because there is not much that can beat calling someone a fascist/Nazi/whatever. And once you push someone to the wall with words, the only way to top that is with violence. And we both know where that leads...
... I would have to ask you what you understand as gaslighting in case of politics, first
.
5414454
Appealing to higher courts is a thing you can do in the US, but the implication that having that system invalidates lower court rulings is misplaced. Lower court rulings stand unless a directly superior court actively disagrees. The Supreme Court refusing to hear a case already adjudicated in the lower courts is legally equivalent to the Supreme Court agreeing with that lower court's ruling.
Every single one? No. All of the big ones, like the lawyers running the cases? Yes.
I disagree with the hypothetical. There may be fringe people who would change positions in that scenario, but for the most part, the response of the public was decided before the case was even submitted to the court. The reaction of "SCOTUS is corrupt" doesn't stem, for most people, from the way in which it was rejected, it stems from the fact that the ruling wasn't what they wanted.
Great hypothesis, and we can test it by asking how many people have peeled off from "it was rigged!" as each election lawsuit has failed in the courts. The answer is "practically nobody". Hence, the hypothesis has been disproven.
A reminder that this isn't just about this case, but the future as well. If the Supreme Court gave more weight to a frivolous case than said case deserved, their reputation would suffer, and that would impact the subsequent trust in their rulings.
Intentionally dishonest tactics designed to spread confusion. Does it have another meaning?
For the matter of harsh words not helping... I'm well aware. I'm kind of lost on what would help, though, and that produces an overwhelming sense of frustration that feels like it has to come out somewhere. Curse words exist for a reason: Wielding a sharp tongue feels satisfying, at least in the moment. It's not a real justification for hostile phrasing, though. That's something I'm admittedly struggling to work on.
5414443
Just a side note here: Muller didn’t have to decline to state if Trump himself committed a crime. He could have chosen to do so, there was just no remedy other then impeachment. The best case I see here is for there to be an investigation after trump leaves office and then bring charges if the evidence supports it.
Just jump to the point were you present the evidence it wasn’t a joke and we’ll go from there, because I haven’t seen anything yet to convince me it wasn’t just a joke.
I mean, kinda? Obstruction is an interesting criminal charge. If you do it successfully, then the prosecution is unable to prove you obstructed the investigation. If you are unsuccessful, then you can fall back on the defense that it didn’t impede the investigation and thus wasn’t obstruction. Most obstruction charges brought before a court rely on evidence that was destroyed after being subpoenaed or lying to investigators. It’s not enough to just lie, though, generally your lies have to be materially relevant, else it can’t be obstruction. That raises the question of relevance and... it’s outside the scope of this conversation, but basically I haven’t seen anything to convince me that there was material obstruction, anything that could be prosecuted in a court of law, outside of a few people who lied under oath and were subsequently prosecuted (on a somewhat relevant note, some of those court cases are still working their way through the justice system, so we’ll see how that turns out)
As for the actual collision part... I hate to pull from Wikipedia, but this was by far the easiest way to get a clear quote:
As far as collision goes, the result is clear as crystal, there was not enough evidence to establish collusion between the trump campaign and Russia. Does that mean it didn’t happen? No, but it’s good enough for me. You can believe otherwise, I’ll accept the evidence from the investigation.
As for obstruction... look, if there wasn’t an underlying crime, then I’m not that interested in obstruction. I looked up the ten examples in the Muller report of “obstruction or attempted obstruction” that were presented. One included pleading the 5th. If that constitutes obstruction, then anything other then a guilty plea does.
The Republicans disagreed. The remedy was to file a lawsuit, which either resulted in a recount, further hearings, or the lawsuit being thrown out, which is what should have happened. I fail to see the disenfranchisement.
There have been polls and studies on election accessibility.
I’ll have to save the link and go though them. Suffice to say before looking that I’m skeptical but I’ll give it a chance. Maybe I’m wrong.
I would never describe proof as “obfuscation”.
Is the person who wants to vote but doesn’t want to wait in line for more then 30 minutes a “suppressed voter”? Were they prevented? Not to me. To me voter suppression would be poll volunteers not providing ballots, or people standing outside a polling location preventing people from going inside. More votes does not necessarily equal better votes, and this election has clearly demonstrated that.
Fair enough.
We’ve kept this very civil so far, which makes me quite happy. Let’s not let it become uncivil. I’m not the smartest person by any means, but I’ve lived a little.
As for magnitude vs numerics, yes, you did point out there were a number of issues, and yes, I brought up ID because that’s the biggest one in my mind.
The Democrats complain about requiring ID to vote, and yet seem to have no problem with the fact that you require it to buy alcohol, drive a vehicle, hold a legal job, go to college, receive non-emergency medical care, pay taxes, all of which are at least as important in the average persons daily life. Please excuse me if I don’t take their claims seriously.
Yes, “platform” was the incorrect word. “Political Interests” would be a better descriptor.
It seems absurd because it is. I was just caught up in the moment when I wrote that. You can ignore it. If you do have an idea for how it could work, though, I’m interested in hearing it.
But different people lay different weight on what constitutes a political grievance. What some find unacceptable others find trivial. I may not like the Republican Party, but I’m disgusted by the Democratic Party because of my personal biases. I’m not against nuance, I just don’t see the point in getting into the minutiae, because we won’t agree on who is “more wrong”.
That’s fair, I’ll partially retract my statement. However, I stand by what I said above.
Again fair, but then that raises the question of what is true and what is political spin. And I feel that, though we both sense something terribly wrong in the system, you and I would disagree on how to fix it, which compounds the problem.
5414527
Except for the part where he had the view that he legally was not in a place to judge whether the sitting president could commit a crime:
Again, from the report itself. Parts bolded for emphasis.
You... might want to reread the paragraph, with special focus on the concept of burden of proof. I literally spelled out what I knew your response would be and gave a preemptive counter, and you just made the response anyway, without addressing the counterpoint at all.
This response tells me that you probably didn't understand what I said, there.
1. Why? Why is the result "indeterminate due to potential obstruction" "good enough" for you, here? Are you not interested in the truth?
2. More importantly, this started as you asserting that collusion clearly didn't happen, as necessarily implied by the claim that asking about collusion was a Democratic delegitimization of the election, and further emphasized by your insinuation that related Democratic actions have amounted to "gaslighting and fascistic behavior". If you wish to hold the position you now claim to hold, that you just personally don't feel it's worth continuing to pursue the question, you must, to be consistent, retract your original, much stronger position.
And now you're back to assuming there wasn't a crime and using that rabbit hole of "if the obstruction works..." as cover. Would you honestly, sincerely, apply this same standard in all situations? Say, an investigation of Hillary Clinton? "We failed to find the hard drive that we suspect she destroyed, so we should just assume she didn't do it."
That doesn't follow. Pleading the 5th implies, by the nature of the plea, that a crime was committed. It is a claiming of the right against self-incrimination, not a generalized excuse for just not saying things. Is it itself a crime? No. But it is pretty clear evidence that a crime has occurred and that there is an attempt to cover it up. If you find yourself trusting somebody who's pleaded the 5th... Your trust is severely misplaced.
"Telling black people that they can't vote because blackness constitutes voter disenfranchisement."
"The people telling black people that they can't vote because blackness disagree, therefore it's not."
This is known as "reductio ad absurdum". Your argument as presented can be used to defend a patently ridiculous position; as such, the argument itself is flawed and must be rejected.
Neither did I. Again we come to an entire paragraph that you appear to have misinterpreted.
So you are of the position that in the hypothetical situation that the local availability and timing of polling stations was intentionally restricted in order to create untenably long lines, that this would not count as voter suppression? Because that's what it appears you are saying.
Whether someone is prevented from voting is a true or false statement, not an opinion. In this case, your understanding is simply false. Whether it's suppression requires examination of the intents and motivations of those who created the scenario, but the reality that long lines prevent people from voting is just true. There are many people who simply can't stand on long lines due to frailty, and many more who have time restrictions due to work that prevent them from standing on long lines lest they lose their job.
Your premise is incorrect. Voting is, in a democratic republic such as ours, the most basic legal right, on which all other rights are necessarily based. It is infinitely more important than any of the things you have listed. I agree that people who just straight up oppose the idea of IDs to vote without nuance are of questionable mindset... but I point out, again, that this is not the position of most Democrats; it is the systemic problems with the ID system itself which leads to that opposition.
I wasn't interested in the term you used, but in your broad, sweeping allegation of bad faith towards the entire Democratic party in insinuating the perennial nonsense that Democrats supposedly just want to be able to vote illegally, despite the substantive evidence from every election of the past several decades demonstrating that not having ID requirements does not, in practice, result in illegal votes.
This is a confusion of judgement and substance. Moral judgement itself is admittedly a tricky issue, although I would argue that it is not untenable given some standard to work off of. But the facts on which judgement is to be directed aren't a matter of moral ambiguity. Whether Trump or Biden or whoever committed a particular crime is a question of fact, not of comparative morality.
And that question can only be answered, although with great and continued effort, by people who are willing not just to acknowledge their biases, but actively fight against them. There is a fundamental difference between "I'm inclined by my situation to like X, so I'm okay with giving it the benefit of the doubt when it comes into question" and "I'm inclined by my situation to like X, so anything pro-X should be treated with extra scrutiny". The former is an embracing of personal bias, which only increases its weight and moves you further from truth. The latter is part of the standard toolbox of critical thought: Always put extra caution towards the things that you know you are emotionally inclined to believe, because those are the things that you can end up believing falsely.
You may wish to ask yourself into which mindset you fall.
They blocked me too, it’s hilarious. media.discordapp.net/attachments/304461522460213249/788491695351267378/EpPAEnNXUAQdjUP.png
5416057
You do realize that the "Political Compass" site is an index that compares apples to oranges (answers on a quiz compared to assessment from press reports), has no documentation of its methodology in either case, and hides its owner (who, with a bit of digging, turns out to be a political activist)?
And that's not even going into the systemic problems with a 2-axis political classification system in the first place. The site isn't trustworthy, and it very much bothers me how so many people have just decided that it's not only okay, but somehow the Internet authority on political measurement. I guess it looks authoritative. I fell for it too when I was younger.
5416062
Dude, it’s just a meme. Of course politic is more complicated. Seriously describing a party on only two axis would be like describing a meal only based on saltiness and sweetness.
5416072
"It's just a meme", a variant of "it's just a joke", is a defense of a statement that reveals something about someone's beliefs and biases which attempts to assert that people's humor, and the statements they make in association with their humor, are not grounded in their own beliefs and biases. This is a provably false defense.
5416077
Based on the meme, what are my beliefs?
5416104
Based on the meme alone, you likely believe that Biden is pretty close to Trump politically, and is both right-wing and authoritarian. In other words, you believe that the political compass information is accurate. If you didn't believe it was accurate, then the joke wouldn't be funny, and you wouldn't have considered posting it.
5416107
I believe that biden is socially different from trump but won’t change anything much economically. I think it’s hilarious that people are claiming he’s bringing communism.
5416117
So let's review this:
1. I pointed out that you used a picture sourced from an untrustworthy website.
2. You reacted defensively by going "it's just a meme".
3. I pointed out this defense is invalid due to how what people find funny is intrinsically tied to their beliefs.
4. You challenged me to demonstrate that this by predicting your beliefs through the meme.
5. I met that challenge.
6. You admit I was correct in my assessment of your beliefs through "meme" analysis.
7. I recap the conversation.
Additional point: There were plenty of ways for you to express the sentiment of your last sentence, both meme and non-meme, without using the Political Compass website as a source.
5416123
I got it from discord. No meme should be treated as a trusty source. I don't get why you believe it's an argument. It's a caricature.
yes. I also added that it doesn't represent the complexity of american politics.
You are not correct. Thinking that biden won't change much and isn't a communist doesn't mean that he's the same or even pretty close of trump politically. Biden isn't an autoritarian as far as i'm concerned but he's right wing. Both sides are not the same.
I didn't use the website you reference. the political compass is used as a meme format and you can write anything on it without respecting reality. I was simply making light of the ridiculous opinion that biden is bringing communism to america. Humour isn't cross referenced, cited and published in a trusty scientific journal.
I don't get why you make such a big deal out of it, you're aggro af. Are you a contrarian over the smallest thing? Do you seek to debate so much you'll jump on anything? Do you think my comment is harmful? how?
5416137
And liked it enough to save it and reuse it, hence forging a connection that you can't simply deny.
Again, the success of a joke relies on the beliefs of the person making it. If you didn't believe the basic points on which it was based on, you wouldn't have thought it was funny and wouldn't have used it. The sentiment of a meme can therefore be treated as an accurate approximation of the sentiment of the person using it. I never claimed you were presenting it as literally true; otherwise I would have made some obnoxious observation about how the cartoon figure doesn't directly represent a real person.
The initial possibility space for how you thought of Biden in comparison to Trump was the entire political spectrum. Your statements in that previous comment served only to close the space to a small area comparatively closer to Trump than further away from him, remaining consistent with the image and failing to contradict the analysis I had given.
So a contradiction of part of the assessment I made, a confirmation of another part of the assessment, and an absolute statement regarding lack of congruency that is in agreement with the assessment but would like to pretend it's a contradiction by forgoing the gradient nature of the relation in question. The first is the only interesting bit, and leads to the question: Why would you use a picture of a political compass that has Biden clearly in the authoritarian section if you don't consider him authoritarian? How could you expect to use the image to make a point about something if you disagreed with the basis on which the image was premised? You have already admitted that you used it to make a point, remember, so the question of how it makes that point and what assumptions are required for that point to apply is valid.
The website is both the original source of the format and the source of the approximate position of the Trump and Biden marks in the picture you used. If you didn't know that, that illustrates a deeper problem of using things without understanding what they are or where they come from. Memes are a form of communication; to use one without understanding its context is like throwing a word into a conversation without knowing what the heck it means.
By implying that Biden is politically close to Trump in the right-authoritarian corner. That's what the meme in question is saying, and therefore it is what you are saying when you use the meme. This is a very simple concept: When you communicate, what you say or post is your message. If it's something you don't actually mean, then you are failing at communication and any misunderstandings that stem from that are very much on your own shoulders. It is up to you to understand how communication works if you want to avoid those misunderstandings; telling other people that what you post is unrelated to what you mean will never be effective, because that's not how talking functions.
I have a thing about truth, and consider inaccuracies or an attitude uncaring of inaccuracies to be a form of harm, yes.
I'm aggressive because problems, large and small, are everywhere, and pretending that I don't see them feels like lying just to make other people more comfortable; a feeling I don't care for. Otherwise known as being a grump. As for being contrarian, again, it takes two to argue; if you do not wish to argue with someone you have only to stop arguing with them. As long as you continue to attempt to counter the points they make with your own, you are consenting to the continuation of the dispute.
5416164
I don’t feel like arguing about this so you’re right about everything goodbye.