But you are conflating being anti-government with being hypocritical about also being a socialist, which is straight up incorrect and bad faith arguing.

When I was about four years old my dad was trying to teach me how to play Chess. Of course, since I was so young all I wanted to do was just fuck around, so in order to get me to learn the game my dad made a rule- if I played a game his way, he'd then play the game however I wanted. In other words, we'd play a game of Chess with the real rules, and then we'd play the game my way. MY version of the game was called "Bullet Chess" (I have no idea why) and the rule was that I could move the pieces however I wanted but my dad would still have to play by the regular Chess rules lol. So, as you can expect, I won every game because I'd just fuck around with my dad until I got bored and just annihilated his entire army with queen or whatever piece in one turn haha.

TO THIS DAY, whenever I play a game with my dad he always asks me if we're doing regular Chess or Bullet Chess lol. Anyway, it finally occurred to me over the course of the last few years especially that Bullet Chess is the perfect metaphor for what Methuen and other sophists have been doing to progressives for a very, very long time now (bad faith arguments essentially), and obviously people are catching on.

Unfortunately, the only way to "win" against a Bullet Chess player takes a tremendous amount of willpower- politely refuse to play. Same concept as "Don't feed the trolls", non-violent resistance, etc. You can't tell the Bullet Chess player that you know that they're playing Bullet Chess with you because then you'll just end up getting into a game of Bullet Chess because you'll be debating with them about whether or not they're playing Bullet Chess.

Well the Capitol thing was very telling for the arguments in between the black and the white... the prison system in general is barbaric and unhelpful, but also, the system is friendly to white nationalist knuckle draggers like these Capitol rioters, and so the whole thing kind of leaves you with the feeling that nothing, really, would be a perfect solution.

In the first place, PSL is not opposed to government; we're opposed to this government and this political, social, and economic system. In the second, politics isn't some weird game where the goal is the maintenance of abstract purity. Politics is an exercise in the practical application of power. We're always going to be in favor of seeing power exercised in ways that meet the needs of poor, working, and oppressed people, and the application of state power to suppress open fascism is that in spades. It is no more hypocritical of socialists to be in favor of the state suppression of fascism than it is for us to support Medicare for All.

The woman who asked to go on a Mexico vacation was apparently authorized to do so: https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/05/politics ... index.html

I'm not sure what to quote; that the judge is a Trump appointee, that even though she was charged with misdemeanours, she was then charged with more srious charges; that the court finds her unrepentant; or that she was fucking allowed to vacation to Mexico.

I don't want to sound like a radical anything or a crazy, but fuck, seems like the US gov should do a purge of all Trump appointees. Hell, I'd say it's downright dangerous to keep Congress as is, there are freaking lunatics and downright traitors in there. I really hope some high ranking heads will roll. So many assholes are seemingly getting away with slaps on a wrist, if even that.

Everyone is playing "bullet chess" in these political arguments at some point.

Being right on the internet is always the highest law and EVERYONE bends the rules, or argues in bad faith. This isn't just something that has been done to progressives that people are finally catching on about.

Yes, leave it to the person spouting soul-sucking centrist spiel to go "everyone else is being dishonest, too!"

Yes, 100%! Also, I'd like to make a quick distinction- "Bullet Chess" as I see it isn't just someone dissembling or getting a little tunnel vision with their arguments... Bullet Chess is a specific tactic used by abusers. For example, it's quite obvious that after the attack on the Capitol that "Blue Lives Matter" is really just code for "Black Lives Don't Matter"; after the Trump presidency the party of "family values" doesn't actually give a shit about any of that stuff. I lost my sister, cousin, and close friends because of QAnon and Tucker Carlson and right wing conspiracy bullshit. I now realize many years ago that they never actually cared about any of the stuff they were arguing about, they just wanted permission to openly hate liberals (among other things). It's been Bullet Chess this entire time, and I'm not sure how far back it actually goes but I can tell you that in Ancient Greece they were called "sophists".

I see the argument that both sides are the same a lot regarding the 2 political parties in America and the 'Mainstream Media" vs "Right wing Media," particularly from people who claim they are centrists, libertarians or conservatives. This couldn't be more of a false equivalency in my mind. There are major differences. A lot of people like to advertise themselves as thinking for themselves, and judging both sides equally and convince themselves they are not partisan when they are. There is a self-righteousness about it. It feels like to me only one political party, and media side capitalizes on the addiction of outrage, and victimhood, which has helped lead to the growing problem of right-wing extremism.

The ideas about hypocrisy and "both sides having bad points" is like rudimentary baby blocks stuff when it comes to politics. It's really not that insightful, helpful or interesting.

Definitely! It's just more Bullet Chess, of course.

If they had spent the time using those outdated tactics and used it on much better things (like finding a good solution both parties can agree on), then we would got a lot more progress done.

https://www.blabbermouth.net/news/iced- ... quit-band/

Stu Block and Luke Appleton have both quit Iced Earth. I guess they figured out that this band is never gonna reactivate and Jon's going to prison for a bit, so might as well quit to save face in the, well, face of an inevitability.

I imagine Jake and Brent aren't too far behind either. The band is definitely sunk at this point.

Didn't Demons & Wizards split up also because of Jon? There's too much risk being associated with him at this point. I think he's done for.

I mean to be fair what's Hansi gonna do? Even if it has nothing to do with Jon's politics Hansi isn't going to keep stuff together with Demons and Wizards AND BG.

Must be something to watch a 30-year band go up in smoke because you couldn't accept something as mundane as election results.

Can Alex Jones play bass? Just wondering.

Aaand Dreyer's out.

https://blabbermouth.net/news/iced-eart ... itherfall/

Well as he said himself he was just a hired gun between 2016 and 2018, so he wasn't a member of the band when Jon stormed Capitol Hill anyway. Regardless, at least he clarified things so he can move on. I imagine Brent Smedley is out as well, so IE is done.

Imagine ruining your music career defending an idiotic narcissistic game show host.

So many people have done that. Fucking cult fervor is what it is. I'm sure Jon will get out of all this eventually and reform the band with some new randos - but man did he fuck it up.

Or Shapiro?

Supposedly it worked with Tau Cross.

To be fair, Messengers of Deception went completely unnoticed.

I mentioned it before way earlier in this thread, but how much do you wanna bet that Jon and his fellow terrorists had absolutely no fucking idea that this would be their fate? These people are so wrapped up in their own bullshit that they genuinely thought they'd be able to stage an attempted insurrection of Congress and get away with it. Joke's on them, I guess.

Supposedly Mr. Shaman thought that Mr. Wig would do everything in his power to pardon them, really Mr. Wig?

So is the band gonna be considered split up or "on hold" when Jon comes out?

Nope, easily a Tau Cross situation.

Iced Earth might fare ever so slightly better but he'll be relegated to the status of a Dagon or a Louis CK where the fanbase will be notably reduced.

Ah, but those fewer fans of his will be LOUD about how much they love him and Iced Earth, possibly as a way to try and shut up anybody else who presents legitimate criticism of Jon as a person, as has become the case with Dagon/Inquisition (I don't follow stand up comedy, but I'm guessing this is the case with Louis CK as well).

Did he really have any fans that haven't stuck with him. He always seemed to be controversial.

Iced Earth is big enough to sell records in numbers that many mid-sized labels would wish to see. Someone will sign them anyway and their followers will act just like they act with Trump: with serious zealotism. See Inquisition: even if many people decided to not listen or buying their albums again, the edgelord crew went hard to support them and the new album seems to be doing really good.

And they can always tour South America, Greece and Eastern Europe. Those countries/continents are filled to the brim with similarly deplorable people.

Nice consideration you have of those countries. You should be ashamed of what you just said

*liked*

What an absolute waste. At the same time, a guy that goes into the capitol carrying bear mace doesn't seem like the kind of guy that admits fault very easily.

agreed. that's a pretty bigoted thing to say for somebody claiming to be as "progressive" as you do. have you been to any of these countries/continents?

Not really. I'm not saying that every single person living there is like that, but Greece, Poland, Ukraine, Russia and the like are well known to have big neonazi/overreligious-conservative people that actively support deplorable artists. South America has also huge pro fascism and "redneck-like" conservative groups - see Argentina, Brazil and Chile; those countries even had official nazi parties involved in politics for decades with their own military tyrannical regimes in their recent history. Ask everybody living in those places and will confirm it.

(I do know people from some of those countries and I've been in several of those places as well). Some of the metal scenes and those countries are well known to be prolific in NSBM, for example.

I'm not generalizing the entire population of those countries. Chill out.

For real could we like, not blame colonized people for systems of belief and practice forced on them at bayonet point and maintained by genocide?

That did make me laugh, always good to see these keyboard warriors out themselves. There was an NS music festival in New Jersey, for Christ's sake ! I'm sure it wasn't largely patronised by fresh-off-the-boat Greeks, Brazilians, and Poles

I'm not blaming them for living through such terrible history, but the sad reality is that, most (if not all) of those countries that went through those regimes and forced cultural changes were affected by them in a sorta permanent basis and the fact that, for example, Greece is big in people following NS ideologies (Golden Dawn everyone?) and that metal has been a sort of haven for such deplorable views it's hardly deniable. Do we need to mention Ukraine in that sense?

US is not the exact same thing, but I guess the Civil War left this redneck culture which has endured until now. "Confederates and hard Republicans aren't that different from nazis; racists, white supremacists with an astonishing hatred towards blacks, asians, latinos, etc:; religious zealots - even pro slavery. Stating this doesn't mean that USA is a racist country, but no one can deny that white supremacism in America is well known and well spread.