The high black crime rate has also been inflated by our bogus war on drugs. Crimes that shouldn't even be crimes.

Some reading comprehension would do you some good, bud. Maybe also learn to not build a strawman.

Did you miss where I said he's not my flavor of politics? I don't like Obama. He's the only Nobel Peace Prize winner to bomb another Nobel Peace Prize winner for god's sake. He's absolutely a war criminal and I'm not arguing that. But that's also not what I was talking about either.

What I was talking about is how he speaks and addresses the American people. What I said is true. Obama did not ramp up domestic terrorism or stoke the fires of racial violence with how he talked to the American people. Obama still showed compassion towards our people during times of tragedy (Sandy Hook comes to mind,) which is what a leader is supposed to do. He's still a war criminal, but that doesn't take away from the point I made either.

Yeah, if that's how you want to frame it. In any case, good bye again.

Why? He was actually backing up his statements with sources and certainly not being openly abusive towards anyone. It got to the point where I could actually see his logic.

This thread is the ultimate echo chamber. Why is any opposition silenced immediately? Are you just afraid that the other side might actually have something to say that makes sense? I'm genuinely curious.

I didn't read all of his other posts but he certainly didn't present his claims about Michael Brown in good faith as he conveniently neglected to mention that the deadly shots were fired after Brown backed off and walked away, no longer posing a threat.

His claims probably seemed like they were making sense to you because he maintained a relatively civil tone, which is all it takes sometimes. Didn't help the fact that he was flat out wrong about the things he was saying or was extremely misleading. The exact thing he got banned for the first time was talking about how the black guy who got shot in the back seven times had priors (or an active warrant, genuinely can't remember) and wasn't listening to the cops so they were justified in shooting him in the back seven god damned times BUT CNN WON'T TELL YOU THAT!!

If we seem irritable and short tempered it's because we've been dealing with this shit for years and it never gets better. Take it from me, somebody who actually was pretty racist as a teenager, I can smell these fucks a mile away and know exactly how these arguments work.

Then debunk the arguments. Don't just silence them. Try to change people's minds about things instead of just giving them the boot. Open up some conversation.

This is the very reason I stay away from posting in this thread, unless I have something to say that conforms to the opinion of the people who run this place. If I say for even a split second something in the vein of what MaleficDevilry said (even though I agree that seven shots in the back is overkill and tasers or other less-lethal weapons should be used in situations that require subduing of the target), I know I'll get booted. And I've gotta admit, a lot of my political stances are the kind that people here like to call "concern troll centrist nonsense".

I just have an open mind, that's all I'm saying. And I think the world would be a better place if we all did.

DOn't know where you live, but here punching a cop isn't a death sentence. Even "trying to grab an officer's gun" isn't a blanket excuse for extrajudicial killings. Only in America does it seem like every suspect suddenly tries to grab a cop's gun and in doing so is apparently so dangerous it warrants death by cop. And unless you're a career criminal, having 10+ guns pointed at you isn't normal and it's fucking sad that you're apparently brainwashed into thinking it is.

The fact that you apparently tie "not being respectful and obeying orders" (which has been shown isn't even a guarantee of safety!) to excusing shooting people... If it were me, I'd perma-ban the fuck out of you and nothing of value would be lost.

You learn pretty quick that debunking doesn't do anything because you can't logic somebody out of a position they didn't logic themselves into. They get the boot because everybody runs out of patience trying to calmly show why somebody is spewing bullshit the fiftieth time that bullshit is spewed by the fiftieth person. That's purely for the benefit of the audience, and if the audience is swayed by whoever seemed the calmest then it wouldn't have ever mattered anyway. It's a hell of a lot easier to say wrong shit at a rapid clip than it is to carefully and calmly refute it with sources, and that's why Tim Pool can put up six hours of content a day and lefty youtubers do one a month at best.

I have to admit that I still, deep down, hold an idealistic viewpoint that people can change with the right facts and arguments. Even though I know it's usually not true, I still instinctively gravitate towards this notion. And I do think it's a lot easier to change minds in real life than online.

But that said, most people when arguing about politics aren't arguing from a place of facts and reason. The battle of ideas is usually a fantasy battle. It's often a battle of egos and who can out talk the other side and maintain a better appearance to outsiders.

Slightly related but a bit tangential, I also find the outrage rhetoric highly annoying. Not talking just here, but social media in general. Some people I've seldom seen post without a very snarky/mean/rude attitude that's intertwined with what they're saying. It gets tiring. I may even agree with the point someone is making but I'm cringing because of how repulsive they're coming across.

The problem here is that left-leaning people base their beliefs on facts, research, studies, and then foolishly assume that that is how non-educated or right-leaning people filter knowledge and select beliefs. You can say people should get their beliefs the way you do, but they don't, tough shit. Bigoted beliefs are usually not arrived at using actual science or logic, and so using science and logic to attempt to uproot them is obviously going to be a fruitless endeavor most of the time. Most bigoted beliefs are arrived at through values (conservatism, religious faith), and that is the lens through which people with bigoted beliefs have arrived at them, so making arguments to these people through the lens of conservatism or religion is always going to be more effective than citing a research paper that proves your point.

I agree with most of your post, but I want to push back slightly.



Some do some don't. And, some do as a form of post hoc rationalization to whatever their preconceived notion was on a particular subject. Certainly has been the case whenever gulag-apologists are sourced to back up some wacky idea.

I also think all political discussions are, for the most part, value discussions. Sure- facts and data really do help make an argument better, but it's a serious problem that people can't identify their personal values before rationalizing them. For example, if I value having a population that's healthy, then that should be the basis of my argument that I then build my facts on. Giving out charts and studies about why single payer or a multi tiered healthcare system is better is meaningless until I lay down this premise. Some right wingers don't care about having a healthy population, but they put their carelessness under the guise of 'free healthcare is socialism'. It would be much easier for them to state that they don't care about having healthy people in their country.

With Malefic, he infers that he doesn't value human life over law and order. As seen here:


It's much easier to start from the basis that Empyreal values human life and Malefic values law and order. But since this is not established, they basically talk past one another and assume both have the same values.

Also, I think if you told Malefic 'you clearly don't value human life', he wouldn't find that characterization very appealing. But it's stunningly clear based on the evidence that this is where his value structure is. So it's much better to characterize him along his values, because it leads to a bit more reflection.

Either way, both are making value claims (which are typically inferred), and the facts are built off of those.

I don't think I disagree with any of what you said, good post. Yes, me saying "left = fact and logic, right = feels" was not entirely accurate; I was using it as a bit of shorthand to say that many leftist values tend to be backed up by science and factuality, whereas right-wing values usually have their ultimate source of truth solely in the overarching value systems themselves (Christianity, individualism, freedom, self-determination). It's certainly not the case that leftists only care about what science says - I doubt the progressives of the 19th century were leaping to support phrenology because it appeared to have scientific support, since its conclusions were in conflict with their value structure; likewise, I don't think leftists today would suddenly be A-okay with systemic racism if there emerged incontrovertible scientific proof that one of the races was demonstrably more or less intelligent. But yes, either way, people's value structures are fed by different sources of truth depending on the nature of their beliefs, and understanding the sources of truth valued by people you disagree with is key to actually changing their minds, or at least fostering empathy. It's the same reason why a fundamentalist Christian wouldn't get anywhere in trying to persuade me of the evils of homosexuality by citing the Bible, since the Bible (their ultimate source of knowledge for values) means diddly-squat to me.

Educating over insulting doesn't go very far when the other side refuses to listen. Bear in mind that conservatives rallied around the term "fake news".

"Values" don't have any existence independent of the methods by which they are derived.

Also known as West Wing Syndrome. This is why left-wingers use lib as a pejorative.

UD definition fits several frequent posters in this thread to a t

Did you notice that some users were taking that approach with him? How did it seem to be working in your estimation? We have no responsibility to educate people who are spreading hateful, racist agenda, nor give that kind of message any benefit of doubt. You're falling to the classic "two sides" dichotomy of this kind "debate". We don't "listen to both sides", when the other side is abjectly bigoted.

Or actually, that he wasn't orignally banned permanently is giving some benefit of doubt. Evidently, there was no need.

On that note, if you feel like you can't keep yourself from saying bigoted shit like MaleficDevilry was in this thread, then you're making the right call by not posting here.

Any more questions I'll be happy to answer via PM. Now let's move on.

So how long can Trump and his administration possibly drag these court battles out for? With the exception of the one suit they won in Pennsylvania (where the votes in question had already been segregated from the official count for the issued they filed suit for anyway), all of the other cases have been outright laughed out of the court room due to a complete lack of credible evidence.

Nah, he was a fucking clown. If you think he deserves the benefit of the doubt, you're a clown too.

Exactly. If he's so obviously wrong then it shouldn't be hard at all to prove him wrong immediately.

Banning someone for a conversation you don't like, or don't feel is factual leaves a bad taste in my mouth. If you don't like what he's saying just don't read it, or you can block him. I enjoy hearing two sides of everything and while I may not have agreed with him there are a lot of people in this country that do. Also, I enjoy reading Empyreal's thoughts on topics like this.

I don't understand why people feel like this board needs to have all thought that isn't like theirs silenced.

You're also forgetting the fact that he was proven to be misleading and just flat out wrong, and was pointed out as a repeat offender who just got off a temp ban for doing the exact same shit.

This shit worries me because you saw his nonsense get shot down and him come back with more wrong bullshit without missing a beat, and still think we were wrong for telling him to take a hike when it was clear he wasn't approaching this in good faith and was just gonna spin us in circles forever. It's not our job to entertain his obviously wrong bullshit and I'd argue that it's our responsibility to make sure he doesn't use our platform to spread that kind of shit. If you still think it's wrong to just remove people who are spreading hate, then you are either hopelessly naive and think that letting bad actors run rampant is good so they can be "exposed" (which is nonsense because white supremacy has existed forever but it wasn't nearly this widespread before social media) or you just agreed with him anyway and also think everybody showing how he was full of shit were wrong. There really aren't any other options.

Every key state must have their election certified by December 1st. The electors formally choose the next president on December 14th. Georgia certifies on November 20th, so by then it should be pretty clear how things are going to play out.

As a side note, the belief that faithless Biden electors will switch their vote to Trump and elect him is as wild and embarrassing a claim as saying "stop counting in the states I'm ahead, keep counting in the states I'm behind." I find it hilarious though because Hillary voters were saying literally the EXACT SAME THING in 2016 and Trumples responded by saying "haha these butthurt losers are willing to violate our standards and norms just to overturn an election they lost."

Trump and his people continue to think the Supreme Court is just going to 2000 the election, but what they can't grasp is that 2000 was literally just a battle over one state, with preposterously tight margins that make Biden's victory in Arizona look like a landslide. The chances of that happening here aren't slim, they're none.


Relatedly, does anyone have a quick way to shut down accusations of voter fraud?

Like during arguments? Eh, I'd ask them why the deep state democrats would rig the presidential race but not the senate race. Seems like if they had the means to rig one, they would have the means to rig the other. And why only rig the presidential race when the senate is just as important?

Yeah, conspiracy nuts always get flustered when confronted with the level of competence they're assuming in people that normally they'd be calling morons / useless / stupid / etc.

Just out conspiracy them. "Lol wait, you guys believe the Senate exists? I mean really??? Next thing you'll tell me there's such a thing as the Moon!"

Anyway, is anyone rather nervous about Biden says "America is back in the game"? If I could say one good thing about Trump, it was that at least he didn't ruin a country that wasn't already ruined. No Libya, no Syria, no Iraq, no Afghanistan, no Yugoslavia, etc etc etc.

The idea that Trump's foreign policy has been less hawkish than his predecessors' has already been brought up and debunked here but also... Syria? Yugoslavia? America didn't have anything to do with 'ruining' those countries. Syria was disintegrating into civil war long before the US got involved and Yugoslavia definitely didn't need any external help to collapse into ethnic conflict and violence.

Trump had Soleimani killed for no real reason other than he wanted to do it. That alone should dispel any idea that he was not a brutish war hawk.

There's degrees of war hawkishness, fellas. Trump should be in the Hague with the rest of the US presidents, for sure, don't get me wrong on that.

Cas, please refer to this article to understand why Trump looks comparatively like a dove.

alright, I'll have a read later on. It's not a hill I'm willing to die on or anything so I'm willing to concede im wrong.

Yeah I'm confused by this as well? A few Western hotel companies did exacerbate economic problems in Yugoslavia to a small extent (those economic problems were pretty much the fault of the way Yugoslavia basically pursued social democracy with communist aesthetics reliant on loans and ended up being a country with extremely low economic output), and IMO the bombing of Belgrade is a war crime, but there's zero evidence of the US actually causing the conflict or ruining the region forever.

Exactly. Every single POTUS in the XX and XXI centuries has been the same. US is a war fueled country and is looking for new wars to keep up the $$ flowing from and to weapons. That's something every POTUS has to defend and even enforce.

On a lighter note...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-ousts-homeland-security-cyber-001635199.html

Trump just fired Christopher Krebs, the guy who presides over election security and preventing voter fraud. He's seriously trying to cause as much damage as possible as he goes out the door

The most lasting impacts of this administration will be on the federal judiciary and in the gutting of the executive department bureaucracy. Another reason to temper expectations for the Biden administration is that Trump hasn't left many buttons to push behind. Whole tiers of administrative capacity have been wiped out pretty much everywhere except at DHS, DoD, and the intelligence agencies. It will take years, possibly even the work of multiple administrations, to reconstitute the bureaucratic apparatus necessary to administer even the very modest programs Joe Biden supports, much less what the progressives caucus promotes.

And because he such a beacon of peace the other day he wanted to bomb Iran's nuclear facility but ofc they talked him out of this insane idea.
From where i am sitting it looks like he risked escalating major conflicts , but he knew that no one dares to strike back at US, but those where high risk moves, and with regards to Soleimani case, the Iranians in their response hitting an empty american base downed a civilian airplane , but all was quickly forgotten. Maybe the mullahs had a reason for wanting him dead as he was popular hero for a chunk of iranians, but he also the commander of the forces that where shooting protesters in Iran. Before Soleimani shooting people on the streets where protesting against the regime but after his death the people oon the streets praised him as a hero and stopped rioting.

The military expenditure per year for the US risen during his term , and total of all other countries of the planet is lower than the USA's
The swamp drainer & president of peace also striked and killed hundreds of Russians in Syria, Massive missile strike to Damascus , and during his term Turkey did 3-4 operations invasions to Syria targeting Kurds which are the only reliable ally for the US vs ISIS
He praised Putin & Erdogan every chance he got, he blocked Turkeys punishment by the US government, and during his term Turkey has invaded Iraq, Libya, Armenia, and threatening NATO ally Greece.
A pattern where Turkey and Russia, supporting opposing fronts but they are the ones who benefit the most on the peace deals they promote so that they maintain a seat at table and presence in the that country.
What Trump did about all that ? Nothing only praised Erdogan as master chess player, its obvious to me by now that Rus and TR is allied and they are entrenching in positions around Europe with long term goal to control the energy and trade routes to Europe. People in the US may think that they do not have to care about all that, its far from them but they are fooling themselves just like those who thought axis invading Europe and Asia was none of their business.

By the way he boasts a lot about his trade war with China, and blame the Dems(aka republicans-lite) as sold to China, but this week China signed trade union deal with Japan,South Korea, Singapore, Australia , New Zealand and several other south -east Asian countries. Import tariffs will go down 80%-90%. It is the biggest trade bloc in history. Dlufmp literally pushed traditional allies of the US to the lap of China.

US foreign policy is designed by bipartisan committees, senate, congress, pentagon, then passed as law. The dlumpf did not care about that , he thought his failed business tactics will work in politics because in his narcissism he thinks they are the best.So he considered all allies as customers with no other option, and focused to please those who aren't his customer yet. The experienced and crafty autocrats played him like a fiddle.

Biden will try to save face repair the damage, but even if he could be perfect he cannot guarantee that America won't vote another Trump and cancel all deals.

In a sense humanity is in war vs covid, but he did not care, he knew about the need to take measures , but because stock market numbers where up he did not want a lockdown so that economy looks goods and he gets re-elected.
He is a main reason that a big chunk of people from all ideologies have fallen for conspiracy theories. He does not even believe all those theories but he knows a crowd that does

The material conditions that have developed in the post-Cold War world have kind of made those developments re: realignment toward China inevitable. Reversing that trend is a major reason the entire American ruling class is united in its pursuit of "great power" confrontation with China. Trump just accelerated a process already well under way.