Monday Open Thread

Comments

[Kazinski]

Despite all the gnashing of teeth when McCarthy first released all the J6 video to Tucker Carlson, and now it appears to other outlets, there is some important information the public deserves to know coming to light. The J6 committee fabricated some of the evidence it presented at its hearings and released to the media:

"In at least two instances identified by Just the News, the panel's sizzle reel that aired live and on C-SPAN last June failed to identify that it had overdubbed audio from another, unidentified source onto the silent footage. Multiple current and former Capitol Police officials as well as key lawmakers and congressional aides confirmed that the closed-circuit cameras that captured the video do not record sound and that it was added afterwards."

https://justthenews.com/government/congress/jan-6-select-committee-added-audio-silent-capitol-police-security-footage

[Brett Bellmore]

I may think the J6 committee was a travesty, and they did fabricate some things, (Mostly they just buried any evidence contrary to their chosen narrative.) but whether that qualifies as "fabricated" kind of depends on the source, doesn't it?

I will admit refusing to reveal the actual source of the audio makes fabrication rather more likely, though. It's just not established yet to be genuinely fabricated, or 'just' manipulated.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I'm reminded of the infamous 1986 UMass World Series Race Riot which was a few radical Black graduate students seeking to stir up a racial incident or two and getting a whole lot more than they'd bargained for.

My guess is that various Federal agencies -- who never have managed to play nicely with each other -- all sought to stir up a little trouble to justify their budgets without realizing that all the other agencies were going to do the same thing. And like children playing with matches, they actually got a real fire going.

And then collectively said "Oh, Bleep..."

And much like Nixon being somehow unable to admit that some overly-enthusiastic individuals had done something rather stupid, various folks compounded the stupidity by trying to cover it up. It doesn't matter where the audio came from, did they honestly believe that it wouldn't come out that the cameras weren't capable of recording audio?

Or that someone wouldn't eventually use technology similar to that used to detect the location of gunfire (i.e. "shot spotter") to prove that the audio couldn't have come from where the cameras were? (I don't know how much of the exact measurement of the Capitol are public, but if they are, you probably could do quite a bit with the triangulation of echos.)

Reagan got it right with Iran Contra -- he did what Barry Goldwater initially told Nixon to do -- go on national TV and "tell everyone what the hell happened."

So too here -- the price being we don't trust our government anymore. And then there is the plane that crashed in Virginia yesterday. What the government is saying is probably what happened, but trust i important here.

[Nige]

‘all sought to stir up a little trouble’

Weird that the actual proven, loud, visible and unrepentant trouble-stirrer gets skipped over for a ‘guess.’ Or not 'weird,' just typical.

[Brett Bellmore]

You mean Epps?

[Nige]

It’s a real puzzler who I meant, isn’t it? Just an enigma wrapped in a mystery etc. Poor Brett is stumped.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Why not cut Brett some slack on sketchy understanding? Part of his attention is still devoted to finding former Pres. Obama's Muslim Kenyan social birth certificate.

[Stephen Lathrop]

From the linked article:

"The police video, both in terms of surveillance video and body-cam video, was synced with the D.C. Metropolitan Police and US Capitol Police radio transmissions going on at the same time," the spokesperson said, replaying the response from the select committee staffer. "And the source of the audio was clearly identified in the video clips shown during the hearings and in the transcripts of the proceedings, where the audio is clearly marked as 'Police Radio Transmission' or 'USCP Radio Transmission or 'MPD Radio Transmission'." At press time, Just The News has been unable to determine whether the overdubbed police transmissions contained the crowd noises in the background audio.

Just the News followed up and asked for the audio source of the two clips but did not receive a response.

In short, the conclusory part of the story is made up. Just the News did not get confirmation of what it alleges happened. It may still be that criticism is justified. But the term, "fabricated," ought to have been withheld until proof of deliberate or reckless misconstruction was in hand.

In a context like this one, in normal parlance, "fabricated," more often equates to lying than it does to any implication of a reconstruction from multiple sources of an accurate representation. Until evidence of inaccuracy is in hand, thanks Kazinsky, for opening to view this unresolved sideshow question about politics.

Nothing involved here seems to relate to evidence in court, upon which basis one convicted seditious conspirator after another are being marched off to serve lengthy prison terms.

[Brett Bellmore]

If the alternate source of audio is legitimate, then the term "enhanced" or "reconstructed" might be more accurate than "fabricated", which requires that the audio have been made up.

Which, with modern technology, IS a possibility, by the way. My position here is that they haven't established that it was fabricated, not that it couldn't be fabricated.

The Democrats burned a LOT of good will, or at least presumption of normality, to create a J6 committee that consisted entirely of people who hated Trump, had absolutely nobody on it who would be motivated to expose any underhanded behavior. And they included some people, like Adam Schiff, who have a track record of proven lies.

So you can't rule out fabrication, these were people who very well might have fabricated evidence if they thought they wouldn't be caught.

But that doesn't mean it's been proven.

[JasonT20]

The Democrats burned a LOT of good will, or at least presumption of normality, to create a J6 committee that consisted entirely of people who hated Trump, had absolutely nobody on it who would be motivated to expose any underhanded behavior. And they included some people, like Adam Schiff, who have a track record of proven lies.

The Democrats refused to seat people like Jim Jordan with all the motive in the world to undermine the whole effort, given his own proximity to what the committee would investigate. I would think that McCarthy could have kept Schiff off of the committee in exchange for not putting such blatant Trump loyalists up for it. But a committee that moderate Democrats and Republicans could accept was not what he wanted. He wanted to try and scuttle the whole effort or make it 100% Democrat. But Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger were willing to never be elected as Republicans again. That gave us the committee we ended up with. It was full of people already convinced of Trump's loathsomeness, recklessness in service of his own interests and ego, and his moral responsibility for those events, even if not in legal terms.

But then again, there were already a lot of people, including other elected republicans that thought that already. McConnell and even McCarthy were laying blame squarely on Trump in the days afterwards. It was only the steadfastness of the Republican base in support of Dear Leader that turned most Republican leaders into cowards. They were afraid of the monster that they worked years to create.

[Brett Bellmore]

In 230 years, the majority had NEVER, not ever, refused to let the minority pick their committee members. It is utterly irrelevant why the Democrats didn't like the Republicans' selected members: Minority committee members aren't there to be who the majority wants, those are the majority committee members. They're there to be who the minority party wants.

So stop trying to pretend that it was business as usual. It was utterly unprecedented, and done to engineer a committee that wouldn't have anybody on it who would get in the way.

[Nige]

'It is utterly irrelevant why'

Oh no it isn't.

[David Nieporent]

Also, to be clear: Brett has made this up. He has no idea whether it's actually true.

[Commenter_XY]

It is a matter of public record that Team D did refuse several Team R minority members from the J6 committee. That hasn't happened in a long time (Congress did refuse to seat several members, post Civil War - not an exactly analogous situation), if ever. That was wrong. The minority party gets to pick their committee members; that is(or was) the rule.

When the shoe is on the other foot, it won't be a problem for you, right?

[Sarcastr0]

It is a norm. *Not* a rule. Congress can make rules to bind itself, it has not here.

If the minority party offers bad-faith Jan 06 Truthers, there is zero obligation to let them fuck this up.

Those trying to delegitimize the Jan 06 Committee because the GOP didn't get away with their pro-insurrection bullshittery are just enabling more.

[Josh R]

When the shoe is on the other foot, it won’t be a problem for you, right?

If those who are denied are “truthers” like Jordan, no problem. Without regard to party, “truthers” are not eligible (that applied to the 9/11 commission as well).

[David Nieporent]

It is a matter of public record that Team D did refuse several Team R minority members from the J6 committee

No, of course I realize that. I meant he has made up the claim that it has never happened in 230 years. He has no idea. He just wants it to be true, so he proclaims it.

[not guilty]

Fish gotta swim
Birds gotta fly
Brett gotta make shit up

[bernard11]

If you are a detective investigating what seems to be a mob hit, do you let a couple of mobsters participate in the investigation?

No. You don't.

Jordan had zero interest in getting at any facts. He had two objectives: screw up the investigation and leak everything to Trump.

And I'm curious whose goodwill the Democrats burned. Not your, surely, since there never was any there, and that goes for pretty much anyone interested in a real investigation.

[David Nieporent]

And I’m curious whose goodwill the Democrats burned. Not your, surely, since there never was any there, and that goes for pretty much anyone interested in a real investigation.

Right. Notice how they never say that McCarthy burned goodwill by proposing Jordan and Banks. It's always a one way street with them.

[Sarcastr0]

They didn't refuse, Brett. This has been explained to you many, many, times. I know you love the story of Dems made it political, but in fact Dems said people who had made it political already and argued 2020 was stolen were being offered as *bad faith saboteurs.*

It's not an alternate perspective they offered, but grandstanding, bullshitting, and leaking to Trump.

Also, you can't stop saying that Trump's OK because he only broke norms no laws. Suddenly norms matter? No, this is you overdetermining because you gotta deligitimize this thing that looks bad for your side.

You keep inching towards defending Jan 06 as a good thing. Alongside lynching judges. You know, get ahead of the upcoming Dem push to put conservatives in camps with a bit of preemptive political violence.

[Life of Brian]

They didn’t refuse . . . but in fact Dems said people who had made it political already and argued 2020 was stolen were being offered as *bad faith saboteurs.*

So they didn't refuse -- they just said "nope, we're not seating them!"

And with that, we're off to the races with a new week of Sarc pissing on our legs and telling us it's raining.

[Brett Bellmore]

They didn't refuse, they just... refused. I'm starting to stop being shocked by just how little effort you put into these excuses.

[Sarcastr0]

They didn’t refuse, they just… refused. I’m starting to stop being shocked by just how little effort you put into these excuses.

You try and ignore that part - the part that is the utter fuckers the GOP offered up. Jim Jordon is an awful person on plenty of levels, not the least of which is his open neglect for our republic in his bomb-throwing.

An investigation of Jan 06 should not include assholes arguing Jan 06 was an FBI false flag/just tourists/a good thing actually and that the 2020 election was stolen. There is no obligations to let trolls into the business of the American People.

You never talk about this part, only try and argue that why doesn't matter. Which is utterly bullshit. You just wish Jan 06 wasn't the indictment of the GOP that it is.

[Frank Drackman]

Hard to take any committee seriously with Uncle Remus chairing it and Gloria Stivik as rank Repubiclown.

[not guilty]

Let´s see now. On the comment threads here ¨Uncle Thomas¨ is a vile racial slur, but ¨Uncle Remus¨ is not?

[JasonT20]

Now I remember why I used to have Frank muted. I don't remember why I ever unmuted him, but I can correct that now.

[Mr. Bumble]

No you've gone and done it Frank. You got JasonT20's panties in such a twist he's MUTED you. Oh the humanity.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Like anyone gives a shit about T20 and his butthurt list.

[JasonT20]

So, should I assume that Mr. Bumble and BCD don't see a significant problem with Frank referring to a black congressman as "Uncle Remus"? If they don't think that using blatant racial stereotyping bordering on a slur is a reason to mute someone here, then they don't have to mute him. I mentioned my desire to mute him again in case anyone else that has a problem with racist bullshit might want to do the same.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Jason, you''re not gonna believe how people around here refer to St. Clarence Thomas.

[not guilty]

As a Protestant, I am all for Clarence Thomas being canonized as a saint -- the sooner the better. Samuel Alito, too. (RoCaMBLA does not canonize living persons.)

[Brett Bellmore]

What part of “The minority picks the minority members” do you not understand? I don't talk about the part you want to talk about because it doesn't matter.

Yes, for 230 years it was utterly irrelevant why the majority didn’t like who the minority picked. You’re just taking the position that “Our objections are too important to not break the norms!”

And then Pelosi found the two Republicans who hated Trump the most to be the nominal 'minority' members. Because no other Republicans were going to legitimize her rigging the committee that way.

[Sarcastr0]

There is no requirement that the majority blindly accept members being offered in bad faith.

You are ignoring bad faith, because you're kinda into what they're trying to do. Because you suck.

for 230 years
You invoke that blindly, like a talisman. Because you want to ignore what's really going on, which is that the GOP was trying to sabotage an investigation of Jan 06. Which the Dems are in no way obligated to blindly let go through.

You KNOW your scope is tendentious. You've been told it many many times. You have in the past said norms are not inviolate.

And yet here you are, inconsistent, ignoring bad faith, and supporting Jan 06 in all but name.

What a shameful display.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

How would you describe Adam Schiff? Good faith or bad faith?

[Life of Brian]

You KNOW your scope is tendentious. You’ve been told it many many times.

I mean, how many times does this poor man have to instruct Brett what and how to think before he's finally going to get it straight?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Weird how you apply that standard only to one side and not to the Democrats.

As if Schiff wasn't Jim Jordan * --1.

"They didn’t refuse, Brett. " Sure they did. You've spent two hours telling everyone why they refused.

[David Nieporent]

and done to engineer a committee that wouldn’t have anybody on it who would get in the way.

Except, of course, for the three McCarthy suggestions that Pelosi accepted, and the two others McCarthy could have named in place of Jordan and Banks.

[Life of Brian]

Except, of course, for the three McCarthy suggestions that Pelosi accepted

Because she knew enough about them to know they wouldn't get in the way.

and the two others McCarthy could have named in place of Jordan and Banks.

And if they were troublesome, lather/rinse/repeat as needed.

You can lipstick it all you want, but at the end of the day that's letting Pelosi choose the minority members.

[David Nieporent]

Because she knew enough about them to know they wouldn’t get in the way.

What the fuck does that mean? McCarthy picked them. One of them was Troy Nehls, who voted against certifying the election on 1/6.

[Life of Brian]

What the fuck does that mean? McCarthy picked them.

McCarthy picked all five. Hopefully you're just pretending to be dense.

[David Nieporent]

Are you capable of following a logical train of reasoning?

The claim was that Pelosi rejected those two so the committee "wouldn’t have anybody on it who would get in the way." I pointed out that in fact it would still have three people suggested by McCarthy. What does the fact that McCarthy also suggested Jordan and Banks have to do with the fact that McCarthy suggested the other three? Pelosi didn't choose them; McCarthy did.

[Life of Brian]

OK, small words and short sentences:

1. McCarthy picked five people.

2. Pelosi vetoed the two she found problematic.

3. Thus, she didn't feel like the other three were problematic.

4. If she had, she would have vetoed them as well.

Not at all complicated unless you're bending over backwards trying to make it so.

[Josh R]

In what way would Jordan and Banks be "problematic", "troublesome" and "get in the way" that the other three would not?

[bernard11]

In what way would Jordan and Banks be “problematic”, “troublesome” and “get in the way” that the other three would not?

I know little about the other three. As for Jordan and Banks, they had, as I said above, only two objectives: screw up the investigation and leak everything to Trump.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Can you believe Trump disqualified himself for running for president by lying in a civil deposition?? Everyone knows the one thing Republicans will not tolerate is lying in a civil deposition.

[not guilty]

Why is Donald Trump running for another term as president while continuing to claim that he won the 2020 election? The Twenty-second Amendment states that no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.

[Mr. Bumble]

So you agree he really won in 2020.

[Magister]

Who could dispute that he and his followers claim he won in 2020?

[not guilty]

No, I don´t agree. I said that Trump claims to have won in 2020.

If Donald Trump told me ¨good morning,¨ I wouldn´t believe it unless I could verify it apart from his saying so.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Trump also has cancer from visiting East Palestine…sux.

[SRG]

On what basis do you think that Just the News is a reliable source?

[Kazinski]

On what basis do you think they are unreliable other than you disagree with them?

[bernard11]

John Solomon.

[SRG]

You're the one making the implicit claim of its reliability.

Still, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Solomon_(political_commentator)

And before some cunts complain about my citing Wikipedia, note that Wikipedia itself provides citations - and those are interesting, e.g., https://www.propublica.org/article/how-a-veteran-reporter-worked-with-giuliani-associates-to-launch-the-ukraine-conspiracy

[DaveM]

Donald Trump is entirely responsible for the mess that is J6. He did not cause it directly, but he is responsible for it: the buck stops at the President's desk.

So go ahead, my Republican friends, if you want more of this kind of thing, re-elect this weak-minded person who has already demonstrated that he runs from accountability. How can he even sleep at night, knowing that hundreds of his supporters are under threat of conviction or languishing in jail cells? He sleeps, eats, and plays golf in comfort, while they suffer. He has no shame.

But what of the Democrats? The Democrats missed a huge opportunity here. They have had every conceivable advantage placed right into their laps. It would have been the simplest of matters to show the American people that they are worthy of being put in charge.

But no.

No, they just had to run the J6 investigation like a political hatchet job, "reconstructing" evidence and making a Hollywood production out of what should have been a cut-and-dried, serious process. And now they are a national joke, their credibility arguably in a worse place than even Donald Trump's.

This entire generation of federal government leadership is like rotted fruit. Odious at its core.

Trow da bums out.

[Nige]

'if you want more of this kind of thing'

They do want more of this kind of thing. They're not really shy about it, either.

[Darth Buckeye]

Trump was bad; but the Dems/Elites/Govt Bureaucracy response was even worse.

[Sarcastr0]

Weird, I only hear this from people whose position is consistently:

"Trump is bad, now I will defend him against every attempt to hold him accountable in any way."

[Life of Brian]

Surely someone as wise and sophisticated as we all know you are is able to grok the concept of the least-worst choice. Particularly when that's the very structure of the comment you're responding to.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Life of Brian — The least worst choice? The choice you want now is the worst choice in the history of the United States. That is not a close or difficult judgment to make. You would be wise to reconsider.

What history will do to Trump's defense is already foreseeable. First, it will strip him of his ability to run out the clock. None of his temporizing and delaying tactics will avail him anything in history's time frame. The view of history will also discount to zero the deference Trump gets now. The view of history will put to rest the fears which constrain so many of Trump's institutional adversaries, who now work in reasonable fear of their lives during the short term, and under threat of retaliation if Trump gets back into power in the longer term.

In the view of history, Trump will finally get the judgment he would get today if it were really true that no one is above the law. That judgment will be based, as it always is in history, on a more complete record than is available now.

Many, many Trump associates who know bits and pieces of what has happened do not yet dare to speak out, or even to compare notes with each other. No matter how damning the publicly available information about Trump's malfeasance and criminal conduct may appear in today's media, that reticence from close associates to come forward hampers legal process, and makes prosecutors cautious.

Later, after the passage of years, dozens of those now-unavailable witnesses will be discovered to have committed to writhing their experiences, and thus to have made a record which historians will read better than anyone can read it now. That record will be read without deference, and without fear. It is a record which will show beyond reasonable doubt that Trump was the only U.S. President to commit treason as defined by the Constitution.

Prosecutors already know now that Trump has committed actual treason. But consider the many mutually reinforcing advantages Trump enjoys against prosecution: as mentioned above, continuing deference from some witnesses, and well-warranted fears felt by others; a Supreme Court packed with his own appointees, with an evident taste for outcome-based decision making; vociferous public support from some in Congress; Trump's ceaseless anticipatory jury tampering; Trump's public dangling of pardons for supporters convicted of crimes; Trump's prospective power (if he finds his way back to office) to retaliate against all who prosecuted him, or bore witness against him; a jury system where one partisan hold-out defeats prosecution; a requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt; and wide-spread public fear of unconstrained violence from Trump supporters if he should be convicted.

It is no wonder that wise observers pronounce it folly to expect Trump will get equal treatment under the law. Few suppose prosecutors will muster confidence even to charge Trump with serious crimes. Almost no one expects Trump will ever see the inside of a prison.

But in the view of history, every bit of that protective apparatus will disappear. Except among the most self-deluded Trump supporters, a picture of plain treason is already visible in the media. Years from now, that will be bolstered by overwhelming evidence in the historical record—including a great deal of evidence which no one expects to become available to prosecutors now, or ever.

But younger people alive today will certainly live to see much of that evidence. Of course, it is by no means obvious that the future from which they will regard today's events will not have been violently re-shaped by what Trump continues to attempt now. There has never been a worse choice than Trump, nor a more reckless one.

[BrotherMovesOn]

SL, I know you're talking somewhat abstractly about time horizons, but how long do you expect this historical record re: Trump and his present circumstance, to fully form, and take its place as historical 'truth'?
Everything Nixon did was well known in about a decade or less.
I don't think you need to wait out 'reticent' witnesses for decades.

[Stephen Lathrop]

BrotherMovesOn — I would be surprised if everything noteworthy which Nixon did is known now. For historical events significant enough to involve a large cast of actors, the time necessary for largely complete historical insight to develop is typically at least multi-generational. A lot of historical discoveries come after private custodians of relevant records die. Not a few of them come after descendants of the initial custodians die.

Consider the history of Benjamin Franklin's papers. The largest and most significant trove of them became generally known to historians circa 1959, when a private collector's archives came to the attention of scholars at Yale, which later received most of that entire collection. Franklin was a prolific writer and correspondent. The effort to read and curate his enormous output, and put it in shape for publication, is not yet complete. It is expected to comprise more than 50 volumes, with about 40 of them complete as of 2022.

It will take nowhere near that long for a notably more-complete assessment of Trump's activities to come into sharp public focus. But plenty of new information will likely still be forthcoming 30 years hence.

[BrotherMovesOn]

Thanks SL.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

These people won't be held accountable for their actions.

That's why they keep doing what they are doing and for some very very dumb reason the State Bootlickers think it's good that those with power over them can do fuckall without any accountability. It's like they never opened a history book or are so blinded by the worship of the State that they can't see any harms caused by it.

[Martinned]

The Old Bailey just published the sentencing remarks in R. v. King (which seems like a paradox to me, but sure.)

The defendant got a discretionary life sentence, with a minimum term of 6 years plus a deduction for time served, for terrorism offences. It's a nice example of someone who was clearly up to no good, but who hadn't actually done a whole lot yet.

https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/R-v-Matthew-King-sentencing-remarks-020623.pdf

[Dr. Ed 2]

Here's a fun one for the law professors to play with -- lighting strikes are generally considered an "act of God" and hence not negligence.

But what if one makes a lightning strike more likely?

New England has a lot of 19th Century wooden churches with tall steeples that are very popular with cell phone companies because they can put a cell phone tower inside the wooden steeple without people complaining, and the churches like the revenue because the congregations have shrunk from what they once were. And the wooden steeple is invisible to radio waves

And like with school shootings, lightning strikes to church steeples (with the subsequent total loss of the church) are rare enough that you really can't get good statistics for either. But it does seem like there are more of these now than there were BC (Before Cellphones).

See: https://nypost.com/2023/06/04/video-shows-historic-mass-church-on-fire-after-being-struck-by-lightning/

Churches have always burned, and a church fire is very difficult to fight because of all of the wide open spaces inside it, and many of these 19th Century churches are replacements of 18th Century ones that burned down -- from fires caused by all sorts of reasons. Historically, fire departments didn't have the ability to get water high enough to do any good, and before smoke/heat detectors and automatic fire alarm systems, fires got a good start and were impossible to extinguish.

What we are seeing now are steeple fires that are immediately reported by both automated alarms and eyewitnesses, modern ladder trucks that are taller than the steeples and hence even able to spray water *down* onto the fire, and yet the lightning-ignited steeple fire being so massive that it spreads to the entire church.

Are the cell towers a factor? And how does that relate to "Acts of God"?

[apedad]

"And like with school shootings, lightning strikes to church steeples (with the subsequent total loss of the church) are rare enough that you really can’t get good statistics for either."

What kind of school shooting data do you think are missing?

[Brett Bellmore]

I think the point there is that if something isn't very common, then even if you identify every last instance of it, you still don't have a large enough data set to do reliable statistics.

[apedad]

Then I guess we'll have to disagree on what "rare" means.

"Since the Columbine massacre (1999), there have been a total of 304 fatal school shootings and counting.

School shootings and gun incidents have become so common that the news coverage of these events has fundamentally changed, with the Columbine massacre getting months of press and current events only getting a fraction of Columbine’s coverage. Some, like the Santa Fe shooting, which had ten fatalities, have gotten less attention due to the fact that other shootings, like the Parkland shooting, which had 17 fatalities, dwarf them."

https://www.security.org/blog/a-timeline-of-school-shootings-since-columbine/

[Brett Bellmore]

304 in 24 years? Yeah, that's pretty darned rare, in a country of over 300 million people. Certainly not enough to do good statistics on.

And what changed the coverage wasn't the frequency, it was the realization that the media were making the problem worse, because a lot of the incidences were copycat crimes. Even the media will change their behavior when they realize something like that.

[apedad]

". . . the media were making the problem worse . . . . "

Starting the crazy early I see.

[Brett Bellmore]

Mass Killings Inspire Copycats, Study Finds

Note, they say the killings themselves, but it's the coverage; A killing you never hear about isn't going to inspire squat.

You can see it pretty clearly in the statistics, they come in waves, as an incident happens, a series of copycat incidents exhausts the supply of school shooters for a while, and then there's a lull before the next cycle.

I give the media some credit for moderating their coverage in response to this realization.

[Nige]

The shootings inspire more shootings, but you're blaming the media for reporting the news.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, I'm blaming the media for deliberately taking a very specific type of local crime, and plastering it across the headlines, nation-wide, for weeks at a time.

It was a practice they adopted deliberately, in an attempt to produce public support for gun control. And when they started doing it, the rate of school shootings increased a lot.

I will give them credit for eventually realizing they were making the problem worse, and scaling it back a bit. Just a bit.

[Nige]

It was a practice they adopted because a school shooting was and is national news, no matter how you'd prefer to see them downplayed.

(I don't think this is a conspiracy theory, QA, it's just blaming the hated media because it makes guns look bad, actual right-wing mass-shooting conspiracy theories involve false flags and crisis actors.)

[Nige]

'in an attempt to produce public support for gun control'

Oh yeah, I skipped that bit. Conspiracy theory it is!

[Brett Bellmore]

Probably the most annoying rhetorical tic on the left, is the way you insist we're conspiracy theorists for just remembering what you said in the past. It actually was, quite publicly, a deliberate attempt to promote gun control.

It's the usual: First you brag that you're going to do something, and then, ten years later, we're 'conspiracy theorists' for thinking you did it deliberately.

[Nige]

Inventing motivations to explain away outcomes you don’t like is still low-key conspiracy theorising. School shootings causes people to support gun control, that must be why the media covers them! Quickly switched from concern about copy-cats, too.

[Michael Ejercito]

How is a school shooting national news?

https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/how-the-gun-control-debate-ignores-black-lives/80445/

In 2012, 90 people were killed in shootings like the ones in Newtown and Aurora, Colorado. That same year, nearly 6,000 black men were murdered with guns.

Were each of the murders of those 6,000 Black men "national news"?

If not, why not?

What makes school sjhootings so special?

[Nige]

‘What makes school sjhootings so special?’

Any rational human who found themselves asking this question would surely have to pause and question their life choices.

‘Were each of the murders of those 6,000 Black men “national news”?

If not, why not?’

Racism.

(Do you think more coverage of so many violent shootings would do less or more to promote gun control?)

[bernard11]

Brett at his best:

304 in 24 years? Yeah, that’s pretty darned rare, in a country of over 300 million people. Certainly not enough to do good statistics on.

A few minutes later:

You can see it pretty clearly in the statistics,

[Nige]

It's not 'rare' for something that should never happen at all.

[hoppy025]

You're now dishonestly moving the goal posts. In any country where firearms are readily available, there will be mass shootings, unless you are willing to institutionalize all of our mentally ill, which the left has demonstrated that it is not.

To say that something shouldn't happen at all, and thus that all firearms should be banned (which is what you are arguing for) is dishonest.

[Nige]

'unless you are willing to institutionalize all of our mentally ill, which the left has demonstrated that it is not.'

Didn't Reagan kick the mentally ill out onto the streets and close the mental institutions? Thatcher did the same, as a point of interest. Now you want to lock them up, which, considering, you lot refuse to recognise that being trans is no longer classed as a mental illness for one thing, seems to fill you with glee.

Yes, we know mass shootings come with mass gun ownership, or mass gun availability, that is a problem some people don't want to acknowledge or confront, just demand everyone else accept it and move on.

[hoppy025]

No, the institutions were closed based on some liberal ACLU lawsuits in the 1970s.

And when I say "mentally ill," I don't mean based on the liberal APA's determination, but based on reality. Trans are mentally ill, regardless of what the leftists in charge of the institutions say.

"Yes, we know mass shootings come with mass gun ownership, or mass gun availability, that is a problem some people don’t want to acknowledge or confront, just demand everyone else accept it and move on."

No, we're demanding you be honest. You people always dishonestly claim that we can eliminate mass shootings with some minor changes around the margins while leaving the right largely intact.

Now you're saying that it comes with the territory with mass ownership, which you now say you shouldn't have to "accept." The only logical conclusion one can draw from that is that mass gun ownership should be banned, and thus gun ownership limited to a highly regulated privilege to be exercised by the few.

That's not compatible with its status as a Constitutional right, and you know it.

[Nige]

Don't think Reagan really cared what the ACLU said.

'Based on people who I don't like.'

'The only logical conclusion one can draw from that is that mass gun ownership should be banned'

This seems to be YOUR argument, not mine. Bit of a self-own, really.

[hoppy025]

No, it's yours. Stop the lies.

[Nige]

You literally make the argument in your comment. Your position is, 'we have to accept mass shootings because of guns because the only way to reduce mass shootings is a complete ban.'

[hoppy025]

No, your side claims that we can implement "reasonable" gun control to eliminate mass shootings. I claim that it will not.

[Nige]

No, you claim that they won't work, that only complete banning would work.

[Michael Ejercito]

In that sense, no crime is rare.

[Martinned]

In my day job, our rule of thumb is that a sample size of 150 (for any crosstab, of course) is sufficient. Whether the sample and/or the population are in any other sense "large" is irrelevant.

[hoppy025]

Not to mention that there haven't been anywhere near 304 school shootings in the last 24 years, at least not the type that is mentally conjured up with "school shooting."

Many of those 304 include a gang banger shooting a rival gang banger in a high school parking lot, often not even during school hours.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

304 in 24 years? Yeah, that’s pretty darned rare, in a country of over 300 million people. Certainly not enough to do good statistics on.

A statistician now, too?

And not, apparently, a good one.

[hoppy025]

While we're on the topic of statistics, why don't you take a look at how gay men, comprising 1-2% of the population, make up 75% of new HIV cases.

[Frank Drackman]

and the other 25% are in the closet.

[Michael Ejercito]

Howm many Black men were murdered in the past twenty-four years?

[Nige]

By guns? The mighty all-powerful freedom-enhancing civilisation-protecting gun? Too many.

[Michael Ejercito]

They were all murdered by humans.

[Nige]

Using guns. But not dehumanising the criminals is a humane development on your part.

[not guilty]

Guns don´t kill people.

Gunshot wounds kill people.

[Frank Drackman]

Not enough, obviously

[Nige]

edgebot feelin tough

[Dr. Ed 2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance

[Michael P]

"And the wooden steeple is invisible to radio waves"

Someone should tell that to the radio waves. https://www.nist.gov/publications/electromagnetic-signal-attenuation-construction-materials found losses over 25 dB for some lumber (figure 4.16d -- 3.4 GHz and 3.7 GHz 5G towers are being deployed).

Granted, that's a lot less than concrete or masonry, but wood attenuates more than glass or drywall and comparably to brick(!).

[John F. Carr]

Modern houses with modern furnishings are also prone to burning much faster than old houses.

[bernard11]

Are you sure about that? There is often a strong survivorship bias in this sort of thing.

An old house that is still standing is possibly less likely to burn than a modern one, but lots of the shoddy old ones aren't around, in some cases because they burned.

[John F. Carr]

It is said that fires grow faster than they used to. The change is blamed on materials used in construction and furnishing. A solid oak beam, a plaster wall, and a solid oak chair will not burn easily. Plastic and particle board do burn easily.

[Krayt]

When Ben Franklin invented the lightning rod, preachers said how dare you use it! See, lightning bolts were thrown by Zeus, Yahweh, whoever your local god was. And how dare you thwart his will!

Soon, church steeples were the only buildings not using them, and so were the only buildings getting hit by lightning, and God’s disapproval was bad for business. So...

About a hundred years later humanity went through another similar situation. Once pain killers were invented, people...used them, including during child birth. How dare you! In the Bible, it says in pain shall ye labor! A direct punishment from God.

Then the Queen used it, and nobody said shit.

[Dr. Ed 2]

A lot of cows used to get hit by lightning -- probably because they stood under trees...

[BrotherMovesOn]

This is the useful information I come to the VC for, and Dr. Ed seldom disappoints.
Still waiting for you to post a link to your photo of Old North Church taken from School Street.
Don't you want to collect the hundred bucks?

[apedad]

There was a sonic boom over DC and the surround regions yesterday due to fighter jets scrambling to intercept an aircraft heading towards DC.

Fortunately it appears it wasn't a hostile action but unfortunately the plane crashed in southern VA and all aboard died.

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/loud-boom-heard-across-dc-area-homeland-security-says-there-is-no-threat/3360569/

We heard the boom in NoVA but I thought it was a crash or a large container had fallen off a truck.

[Dr. Ed 2]

IF you trust the government's version.

Hypoxia is real, but I want to know why the plane turned back.

[Frank Drackman]

Pilot probably forgot something.

[Brett Bellmore]

People do strange things when they're hypoxic.

[Moderation4ever]

I suspect that is the answer. The pilot likely did not pass out immediately but may have been confused or attempting to save the plane before passing out.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Note that before it crashed the plane seemed to be accurately on course to return to its point of departure. What remains mysterious is why the turnaround was made so far north, near its original intended destination. Seems like there might be a lot to investigate with an eye to understanding what happened, but not much to be concerned about as a matter of policy.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Does autopilot have a "return to origin" function?

Marine LORANS and now GPS is quite different, but memory is that there is/was a "return" function that kept track of how to get back, although that may have been programmed in manually.

And for all the talk of hypoxia, it's bleed air off a jet engine and there is always the possibility of Carbon Monoxide. Sadly, I doubt there is enough left to figure out what actually went wrong -- although the observations of the F-16 pilots may help, i.e. if windows fogged over.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Brett, that's why you have TRAINING -- so that you instinctively try to do the right thing, or something that will lead toward the right thing. And other pilots will often help -- I remember hearing one ATC tape of a garbled transmission where the pilot of another airplane jumped in and told ATC "he's hypoxic, get him down -- NOW!"

Saved the guy's life -- and heaven knows how many people on the ground.

[Estragon]

Don’t worry Dr Ed, I’m sure you can use your knowledge of modern sonar technology gleaned from watching “TV shows of cops chasing perps” to unravel this nefarious cover-up in no time. It’s probably the same people who got Seth rich!

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

So should sonic air travel be allowed across America??

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Supersonic

[Dr. Ed 2]

In an emergency, absolutely!

I'm just wondering why there was only one boom from two aircraft, although I have never understood why the shock wave off the first aircraft doesn't screw up the flight abilities of the second one.

Remember that it is a continuous shock wave as long as the plane is supersonic -- so what happens when the plane slows down and the wave catches up to it? I'm thinking like getting hit from behind with a snow plow...

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

What about commercial air travel? Is the boom too much? Where I live I can hear train whistles all night outside while inside I don’t really hear them.

[shawn_dude]

No need to ask. The Concord existed. It boomed. Look up news reports.

[Dr. Ed 2]

It only flew supersonic over the ocean -- but the booms sometimes came ashore.

[John F. Carr]

To a first approximation a supersonic airplane's shock wave is a cone. A two dimensional surface, not a volume. At barely supersonic speed the cone has a wide angle, nearly a plane. The cone is narrower at higher mach numbers.

If your airplane is in another airplane's shock wave at close range it may behave oddly. If you are a mile away and not at the right angle, no problem.

[Moderation4ever]

When I was a kid supersonic flight was still allowed and we would hear then as military jets practiced on training flights. I don't remember them being to bothersome, but I was just a kid.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Sweden has one of the highest rates of immigrants in Europe, especially notably for its immigrant population that came from outside Europe.

Unfortunately, that appears to have come with a downside. It now has one of the highest rates of gun violence in the EU.

https://www.politico.eu/article/sweden-stockholm-gang-violence-eropean-union-vision/

[Dr. Ed 2]

Doesn't it have a high rape rate as well?

[Michael P]

Sweden had a very broad definition of rape even before a 2018 change in law, to remove any requirement of force. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/rape-statistics-by-country says (based on data from before that change):

When the data was recalculated using Germany's narrower guidelines, for example, Sweden's average reported rapes per 100,000 people fell from 64 to 15, a decrease of 326.7%.

[Krayt]

That makes for some sweet rhetoric, but is terrible for crime analysis and understanding.

It's like lumping together kids who steal a couple of Bazooka Joes with Bernie Madoff for "theft destroying society."

[arch1]

It doesn’t inspire confidence when a statistics-centric outlet styling itself “World Population Review” know less about computing percentages than a random retail store.

[Michael P]

I've mostly given up on explaining to people why "200 percent more" is not synonymous with "twice as much".

[bernard11]

I think Eugene has posted on this issue.

I don't remember what he said, but I agree with you.

[arch1]

I guess what he said is that “percent change” is defined as the size of the change divided by the original (as opposed to the changed) value. Which everyone knows when they’re shopping (half price means a 50% discount, not 100%; and a discount of e.g. 326.7% would cause most customers to burst out laughing, while a few might demand that the store honor the promised discount by *paying them* over double the original price to take the items). But put those same figures in a less familiar context, and we somehow forget what we know.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Indeed, it has the highest rate of many European countries for sexual violence.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1268551/sexual-violence-rate-europe-country/

[Frank Drackman]

My, my
I tried to hold you back, but you were stronger
Oh, yeah
And now it seems my only chance is giving up the fight
And how could I ever refuse
I feel like I win when I lose
Waterloo
I was defeated, you won the war
Waterloo
Promise to love you for ever more
Waterloo
Couldn't escape if I wanted to
Waterloo
Knowing my fate is to be with you
Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Waterloo
Finally facing my Waterloo

[Nige]

That's odd the linked article makes no connection between the two.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Here's another one for you.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/swedish-pm-says-integration-immigrants-has-failed-fueled-gang-crime-2022-04-28/

[Martinned]

Well yes, that's what happens when you form a coalition with fascists. You get fleas.

[Nige]

'after a Swedish-Danish politician burned the Quran'

Dumb and dangerous all round, but not gang-related. Seems like Sweden has had a massive drug-gang violence problem for a while and since immigrants have been drawn into it they want to blame immigration.

[Armchair Lawyer]

In 2018, Swedish Television investigative journalism show Uppdrag Granskning analysed the total of 843 district court cases from the five preceding years and found that 58% of all convicted of rape had a foreign background and 40% were born in the Middle East and Africa, with young men from Afghanistan numbering 45 stood out as being the most next most common country of birth after Sweden. When only analysing rape assault (Swedish: överfallsvåldtäkt) cases, that is cases where perpetrator and victim were not previously acquainted, 97 out of 129 were born outside Europe.[172]

[Armchair Lawyer]

"In March 2018, newspaper Expressen investigated gang rape court cases from the two preceding years and found that there were 43 men having been convicted. Their average age was 21 and 13 were under the age of 18 when the crime was committed. Of the convicted, 40 out of the 43 were either immigrants (born abroad) or born in Sweden to immigrant parents.[187] Another investigation by newspaper Aftonbladet found that of 112 men and boys convicted for gang rape since July 2012, 82 were born outside Europe. The median age of the victims was 15, while 7 out of 10 perpetrators were between 15 and 20.[188"

[Nige]

Ok, you're switiching to sexual assault, but you haven't linked the sources you're quoting.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Direct quotes means google is your friend.

[Nige]

Links are friendlier.

[Armchair Lawyer]

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – As once-peaceful Sweden is grappling with a major crime wave that includes murder, gun violence and bombings, at a level unwitnessed by its peers and neighbors, the country's police chief Anders Thornberg admitted that "this is a society we don't want".
In 2022, fatal shootings in Sweden hit a record high of 61 - six times more than Denmark, Finland and Norway combined. As the country struggles to contain the soaring crime rate, in neighboring countries, a recently coined term "Swedish conditions" has become an insult in political debate.

According to the Nordic country's top cop, the reason for such a drastic decline is impossible to fathom, Sputnik reported.

Nevertheless, he cautiously admitted that "there are those who claim" that immigration could have a hand in the game.

[Nige]

Yeah, again, migrants have been coming in to a country that already has a high incidence of gun and gang violence, a high incidence of sexual assault reporting, and getting blamed for it?

[Armchair Lawyer]

In fact, Sweden had one of the lowest rates of gun violence in the EU in the early 2000s. That has...dramatically reversed itself.

[Nige]

So immigrants were coming in to a country that had a rising problem of gun violence.

[Michael Ejercito]

They caused it.

[Nige]

No proof of that. He’s not even trying to prove it, he’s just driving a supposed correlation.

[Sarcastr0]

What's your upshot, AL? Diversity is bad, actually? White countries should stay white? Only native born are good?

Your shallow assumption of causation sure looks like it's an overdetermined anti-immigration outcome. Which is bigoted.

Have you checked the crime rates of immigrants versus non-immigrants in America?

[Armchair Lawyer]

"What's your upshot"

There are arguments made that immigration, unlimited and unrestricted, in an unfettered "good thing" with no downsides.

That argument is incorrect. When an immigrant population, especially of a separate cultural group, reaches a certain magnitude, one begins to see fracturing of the population. The necessary integration of the immigrant group slows down (or stops), as sub-cultures within the new country begin to dominate. This can (and often does) lead to increased crime, violence, and more.

That percentage of the population tends to be right around 15% (although there are shifts either way depending on various factors, it's not a hard bound). Sweden has crossed to the other side, and has begun to see epidemics of gun violence and sexual violence, as the divisions within its society become more prominent. This is occurring in a previously "safe" society.

Integration and assimilation with the local population is a critical element of immigration. But that requires time and numbers. It is possible to overwhelm integration and assimilation if too many immigrants (especially of a different culture) are let in, over a given period of time.

[Nige]

You're leaning heavily on a lot of correlation for all of this.

[bernard11]

I don't know what he's leaning on, since I see no support for his claims.

The only data he's provided at all has to do with Sweden.

[Sarcastr0]

There are arguments made that immigration, unlimited and unrestricted, in an unfettered “good thing” with no downsides.

No new goalposts. Telling you switched our your shitty ones for something more agreeable.
You're not arguing against that superlative thesis with your correlation-is-causation nonsense - you're arguing immigrants mean increased rates of rape and sexual violence.
With no real support, or actual in-depth look at mechanisms other than an undercurrent of 'Muslims and Africans are rapey'.

That percentage of the population tends to be right around 15%
Made up number.

Nativism is bigotry. If you want to make an argument, you should examine your priors and quit jumping to the conclusions you want.

[hoppy025]

No, nativism is not bigotry. There's nothing wrong with wanting to keep a nation culturally, genetically, and ethnically cohesive.

[bernard11]

I think he picked 15% because the US immrant population is around that number.

Bullshit theory used to back up his anti-immigrant bigotry.

I wonder if we could find a country where over, the past 30 years, crime has decreased while the immigrant population has increased.

[Armchair Lawyer]

"I wonder if we could find a country where over, the past 30 years, crime has decreased while the immigrant population has increased."

Sure you can. As long as you're below that 15% of the native population thresh hold. There also may be some border areas with city states, or countries that have highly similar cultures immigrating in.

But there are many other examples out of
Europe correlating excessive immigration with increased crime

[bernard11]

You're a joke.

15% is some sort of magic number that you pulled out of your ass.

[Armchair Lawyer]

I'm glad you asked Bernard about the 15% number.

If you look at the share of the US immigrant population as a % of the total population, you'll note during the high period of immigration (1870 - 1910), it hovered...just below that magic 15% number. During this time you really started to see the ethnic enclaves really form within the major cities. It didn't "quite" cross over into major violence. But there were definite issues of minor ethnic violence. From 1920 to 1970 as the immigrant share dropped, this allowed the time for assimilation within those high immigrant decades.

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/immigrant-population-over-time

[Martinned]

1920-1970, a notoriously peaceful period for US inter-ethnic violence. Imagine how peaceful it could have been without all that pesky immigration!

[Armchair Lawyer]

Oh StrawmanO...

Only you could ask what my argument was, then respond that I was making "new goalposts" when it's the first time the argument was stated.

Then proceed to strawman a new argument to rail against.

Only you Strawman0. Only you.

[Sarcastr0]

Your 15% made up number showed up after your initial anti-immigration posts.

You can claim you had it in mind this whole time and didn't post it. I will not believe you.

[Armchair Lawyer]

This is why argument with you are so fun Strawman0. You can just decide what the other person is thinking or arguing.

[Sarcastr0]

I can note how you introduce new elements to you argument and not allow you to piss on my leg and tell me it's raining.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Our nation has experienced successive waves of intolerance and ignorance, customarily associated with skin color, religion, ethnicity, immigration, and/or perceived economic pressure.

Those targeted by America's lesser voices have included Catholics, blacks, the Irish, Jews, women, Asians, Italians, native Americans, atheists, Germans, Hispanics, Muslims, eastern Europeans, other Asians, agnostics, other Hispanics . . . most of America, at one time or another. Some members of the disfavored groups have, as the bigots who bullied them receded, become the tormenters of other groups.

The beauty of America is that our lesser voices do not win, not over time. And our latest batch of bigots -- the MAGA-QAnon-conservative xenophobes; the right-wing white nationalists and Christian dominionists; the gay-bashing Republican drag queen police -- seems nothing special, its reliance on the charms and insight of Donald Trump, the Freedom Caucus, the Federalist Society, and the Heritage Foundation notwithstanding.

You can't reason with bigotry, superstition, or belligerent ignorance. It is pointless -- perhaps even counterproductive -- to try. It also seems immoral to enable bigots to hide behind political correctness and euphemisms ("traditional values," "conservative values," "family values," "heartland," "color-blind"). The way to deal with these culture war losers who cling to the wrong side of history is to call a bigot a bigot and to continue to defeat them at the marketplace of ideas.

[Theendoftheleft]

How are you going to normalize Islam in America, AIDS?

How will you do so for Islamic consanguinity practices? Do you think you are culturally and intellectually stronger and craftier than the religion’s adherents, such that you will be able to successfully nudge them away from it (and then towards secularism)? They will outbreed you, AIDS.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage_in_the_Middle_East

Over a billion people believe that the Prophet (pbuh) was, although not divine, a man of superlative virtue. The noble Quran and Hadiths tell us that he married Aisha at age six and consummated that marriage when she was nine. Literally millions upon millions of adherents deem that to be legitimate. Indeed, 90% of America’s recent male Afghan refugees had child brides. How will you normalize this?

Moreover, you accuse people of bigotry, even though you think Islam and all other faiths are superstitious nonsense. Your ‘public’ expression of your values contradicts your ‘private’ beliefs. The whole world, especially the Islamic one, knows that about you. What does that tell you about the cogency, let alone strength, of your own ideology? You say we must ‘call a bigot a bigot’. YOU are a bigot, AIDS, and you’re totally unfazed by the fact because you are NOT actually opposed to bigotry — or, rather, you don’t think it’s bigotry when YOU know the truth, ie, about such belief systems and yours’ being superior. (It’s thus YOU who hides behind ‘politically correct’ labels to mask your true politics, your true social and global aspirations, and your real values.) But that’s precisely why people can see through your hypocritical ideology, why it’s losing potency, AND why you’re losing the global culture war. Other people can see the clear inferiority of other cultures, of other faiths, and yet you LABEL them as bigots whilst ‘privately’ believing the same thing. You’re a farce.

YOURS is an evolutionarily inferior meme, anyway. You will be outbred by people with stronger, superior value systems than yours — in your own country too!

To that end, the Global South is finally powerful enough to engage in an intifada and overthrow your cultural, legal, economic, and political imperialism. You do NOT treat the world as equals, AIDS, and they despise you for it. YOU are bigoted: you think you have the right to tell others how to live, what to think, how to organise their states, etc. YOUR ‘liberal-libertarianism’ is just the latest version of white man’s burden bullshit. You’re fucking ruined.

Additionally, EVERYONE in the rest of the West can see as bright as day that your culture, as found in the leading cities of the blue states, is patently inferior to our own. Your culture has, and will (so long as the USA remains as a going concern) be a race to the bottom in terms of cultural output. It’s a function of your faux-egalitarianism, in fact, and not your market economy.

Your country is ruined, AIDS, and it’s your fault. Your greed, your hubris, and your pretensions to knowledge and skills (particularly in terms of culture craft) that you don’t actually possess, have pushed your country to the breaking point. Just like the old left, you American libtards — and the libertarians must be included therein — are the Elizabeth Holmeses of social engineering. We have most likely seen the high water mark of American power. It’s horrifying too, since you’ve left the world a far worse place, one where you've empowered totalitarians to rule for centuries.

[hoppy025]

Yes, diversity is bad. White countries should stay white, just like Japan should stay Japanese, Kenya should stay Kenyan, and so forth.. No one has been able to make a solid argument as to why white countries that want to remain white should be forced by their leaders to accept diversity.

Race matters for a number of reasons.

And yes, I have checked the crime rates of immigrants versus non-immigrants in America. Mestizo Hispanic immigrants have a much lower crime rate than blacks, but a much higher crime rate than white Americans. Asian immigrants have a much lower crime rate than everyone, including whites. I'm not sure what point you are trying to make, but I do know you are being disingenuous.

[John F. Carr]

The Swedish death rate from gun homicide is about 4 per million per year. The U.S. rate is about 67 gun homicides per million.

If you look up statistics, make sure you compare deaths to deaths and homicides to homicides. About half of gun deaths in America are suicides.

[Martinned]

Even then, you'll probably want to keep an eye out for negligent homicides, which wouldn't get reported under homicide in Dutch crime statistics (I assume). Under Dutch law negligent homicide is called "culpable death", and doesn't really go in the same bucket as homicide. It doesn't even sit in the "crimes against life" chapter of the Penal Code, but in the chapter on "culpably causing death or injury". It may well be the same in Sweden.

[Armchair Lawyer]

What's important to look at is the rate of increase in Sweden.

In January 2018, police statistics reported an increase in gun homicides from 8 in 2006 to 43 in 2017.

That's pretty dramatic.

[Ed Grinberg]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivers_of_Blood_speech
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pim_Fortuyn
They should've listened ...

[Martinned]

Yesterday it was Ed number 2 arguing we should listen to Hitler, today it's Ed (presumably number 1) arguing we should listen to fascists. What is it with you people?

[Ed Grinberg]

Considering that it was Mr. Fortuyn that was killed for his political views, maybe he wasn’t the fascist …

[shawn_dude]

Huh?

Fascism is a political view. Being shot because you're a fascist was the whole theme of WWII.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

I see that as a feature…yippy ki yay, MOTHERFUcker!

[Sarcastr0]

Listening to the Great Courses Turning Points in Modern History.

Number 2 was the fall of Constantinople.
Number 3 was the printing press.
4 was Columbus
5 is the founding of the English East India Company.

Number 1 was the most interesting one – the turning back of the Chinese tribute fleets. They would probably have reached a fragmented and lower tech and economy Europe should they have continued their trajectory.

They turned back due to court politics and the growth of domestic trade within China. But that’s a fun alternate history!

[Martinned]

5 is the founding of the English East India Company.

Why the *English* East India Company???

Speaking of which, here is an interesting argument about whether India mattered for UK prosperity. Personally I don't think they did the dif-in-dif with sufficient (any?) controlling variables, but it's an interesting question all the same: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2023/05/orwells-falsified-prediction-on-empire.html

[Brett Bellmore]

I assume so that the historically ignorant won't think it was an Indian company?

[Martinned]

The Dutch East India Company is much more important than the English one, both from a legal/economics POV (it was the first public listed company) and because it was much more successful than the British East India Company. Not nearly as many government bail-outs, and a lot more conquering of things you might actually want to own.

[Mr. Bumble]

Will they be paying reparations?

[Martinned]

The Dutch East India Company was liquidated in 1799, but the Dutch state will definitely pay reparations for colonial crimes, yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rawagede_massacre

[Bob from Ohio]

"Only 9 relatives are still alive and will receive 20,000 euros ($27,000) compensation each, but there is no schedule for these payments.[6]"

So generous.

[Martinned]

Whose fault is it that they didn't bring this lawsuit while more plaintiffs were still alive?

[Bob from Ohio]

Whose fault it was only $27,000?

[Martinned]

The legal system and the low levels of economic development in rural Indonesia. Dutch law doesn't do punitive damages.

[Sarcastr0]

The PoV was *turning points*, not general importance. Failure doesn't matter; the lodestone is the changing of national perspectives worldwide.

Being first, being so involved in national politics, outlasting the Dutch (and then tangling with the French EIC), I get your importance argument, but turning point is a bit different; the Dutch Republic was already doing what it was doing, and the Dutch EIC just made it do that harder.

[Brett Bellmore]

Fair point; Inflection points don't tend to be particularly spectacular.

[Nige]

Or, y'know, the Dutch East India Company. That's the joke, cause Martinned's Dutch.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Why the *English* East India Company???"

1. India is much more important than the Dutch areas, then and now,
2. Holland stopped being an important country no later than 1688 when their ruler became King of GB
3. GB was the dominant economic and military power for 250 years, Holland a second rate one.

[Martinned]

India is more important than Indonesia, the region that produces the stuff that all those Europeans went to Asia for in the first place???

As for 2 and 3, I'm not sure what that has to do with either East India Company.

(Although describing William III as the "ruler" of the Dutch Republic seems quite generous. The whole reason why he could do a deal with the English Whigs is that he had experience getting his way in a system where he was *not* the ruler.)

[Bob from Ohio]

Yes, India was a richer, more important area.

It produced spices too. [cumin, coriander, clove, cinnamon, turmeric, fenugreek and cardamom] Plus many other things.

"I’m not sure what that has to do with either East India Company."

Because those companies were just proxies for their countries.

[Voize]

There was great demand in Europe for nutmeg, mace and cloves, all native to the Dutch-controlled Moluccas. Of these cloves were also grown in Mauritius and Zanzibar, but not in British India until later.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

People ate a lot of porridge and gruel…it was the best of times and the worst of times.

[Dr. Ed 2]

How much of the spice trade would have existed had refrigeration existed?

[Kazinski]

Actually India was most important to England as a market for English manufactured goods, not raw materials.

[Kazinski]

The Netherlands was still a great power until at least the peace of Utrecht in 1715, they provided the largest army in the coalition that invaded France and ended Louis IVX's dream of conquering the Netherlands (until Napoleon a century later). Even though the commanding General John Churchill was English, the Dutch were at least equal partners in the coalition with the Hapsburgs bringing up the rear.

[Martinned]

Some day, when I'm retired or something, I'm going to write a book to understand what happened in the Netherlands in the 18th century. They went from being arguably the most powerful country in Europe to a complete backwater without anything obviously bad happening. No invasions, natural disasters, economic crises, nothing. Just the slow creep of economic mismanagement and corruption.

[Kazinski]

It's a good question, after all the Spanish had the worlds largest empire, and were the world's preeminent power, but it didn't last long.

The Spanish could buy anything they wanted with all their new world silver and gold, but because it never translated to productive power, they bought the things produced by Northern Europe, in the end it just brought inflation. Prices sextupled over 150 years. It was an early lesson of what happens when you increase the money supply without increasing productive capacity, allthough in this case the money supply was silver and gold, not a fiat currency.

[John F. Carr]

No industrial revolution?

[Martinned]

Indeed. The fall of Constantinople (presumably the 2nd time) seems pretty insignificant compared to the invention of the steam engine.

[Mr. Bumble]

"...compared to the invention of the steam engine."
which of course started "climate change".

[Martinned]

It did. That's one of the reasons why it's significant.

[Mr. Bumble]

Have the Dutch converted any of their historic windmills to generate electricity rather than grinding grains?

[Martinned]

What would be the point of doing that?

[Nige]

Rather cleverly, they opted for building new ones.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/421525/total-wind-power-in-the-netherlands/

[Kazinski]

Yeah, there haven't been any ice fairs on the Thames since the invention of the Steam Engine, well at least since that era, the last Frost Fair on the Thames was 1815 and lasted 5 days, James Watt died 1819.

But if you are going to ascribe the end of the Little Ice Age to the industrial revolution, what caused it to start and end the Medieval Warming period where temps were at least as warm as today?

[Nige]

Nobody ascribes the end of the little ice age to the industrial revolution. They're arguing about what is causing our current climate fluctuation, not past ones. The medieval warming period is reckoned a regional not a global phenomena. The global average temperature remained well below 0.5. We're currently above 1, and rising.

[Sarcastr0]

The 'cast argues that it 1) created a power vacuumed, 2) supercharged European imperialism to fund the subsequent crusades, 3) caught the imagination of everyone from the Russian Empire through Napolean, causing them to make...suboptimal military choices.

[Martinned]

There was no power to be vacuumed in Constantinople since 1204 at least. So if you're going to go that route, pick the first fall of Constantinople not the second. But either way, I wouldn't describe the 15th century to 18th century Ottoman empire as a power vacuum. They had that region pretty well sown shut during this period.

subsequent crusades

Huh? There were crusades after 1204, but hardly any of significance.

[Sarcastr0]

Gutenberg printed stuff on crusades against Turkey. Maybe not militarily significant, but culturally wrt Europe's point of view on its place in the world, and how important Christianity became to foreign policy choices (the Pope dividing of the Americas between Spain and Portugal was something that was news to me).

Remember, this is turning points, not important points. The shaking of Europe's self-image had lasting consequences. And the echoes of Byzantium were felt in German, Russia, and France, (and American architecture, though meh).

I do think it was pretty important as a shock point, in decline though it was.

[Martinned]

turning points, not important points

I don't think I follow the distinction.

[Sarcastr0]

A change of course, versus, say a culmination or exemplar of the current course.

[Kazinski]

And the first fall of Constantinople were the crusaders, not the Turks, then the there was a crusader regime for a few decades before the Greeks got control again.

Their was some noise about new crusades after the Ottomans took Constantinople, but that ended quickly when the first army that came that tried to do anything got decimated, or worse. By the time Constantinople fell most of the Balkans had already been under the Turks for generations.

[bernard11]

And the first fall of Constantinople were the crusaders, not the Turks,

But IIRC they did it because they owed the Venetians lots of money. Venice more or less agreed to let them off if they attacked Constantinople, their rival.

[Sarcastr0]

That does seem an oversight.

1433-The Great Voyages of Admiral Zheng He
1453-The Fall of Constantinople
1455-Gutenberg's Print Revolution
1492-The Columbian Exchange
1600-The British East India Company
1648-The Treaty of Westphalia
1676-Van Leeuwenhoek's Microscope
1751-Diderot's Enlightenment Encyclopedia
1787-The American Experiment
1789-The French Revolution
1838-The British Slavery Abolition Act
1839-The Opium War in China
1859-Darwin and the Origin of Species
1869-Binding Continents
1893-First Women Voters in New Zealand
1896-The Invention of Motion Pictures
1903-Kitty Hawk and Powered Flight
1904-The Russo-Japanese War
1928-The Discovery of Penicillin
1942-The Dawn of the Atom
1969-Walking on the Moon
1972-China Enters the World Balance
1989-The Fall of the Berlin Wall
2004-The Rise of Social Media

[Bob from Ohio]

"1893-First Women Voters in New Zealand" doesn't belong. They obviously just wanted a female turning point.

[Sarcastr0]

Nonsense - women voting required a huge change in national attitudes towards half the population, and subsequently changed politics notably worldwide.
Thus, as a turning point it reflected a change and caused a change, both of worldwide magnitude.

I don't know Diderot’s. That, the Russo-Japanese War, and Nixon going to China are the ones I have my eye on.

[Bob from Ohio]

It was New Zealand, a little populated backwater. They could vote but were not allowed in parliament.

Affirmative action turning point.

[Sarcastr0]

This is a new thesis. You first wanted to argue that this was a sop to women. If so, any suffrage segment would not have belonged.

Now you're quibbling with the choice country.
That's irrelevant with your original thesis.

Is women's suffrage not worth a turning point?

[Bob from Ohio]

"Is women’s suffrage not worth a turning point?"

Is male universal suffrage?

[Sarcastr0]

That didn't happen all at once.

The British Slavery Abolition Act is in there.

[Bob from Ohio]

"That didn’t happen all at once. "

Neither did female suffrage.

What does the slave ban have to do with suffrage? Certainly a major turning point but the ex slaves were not allowed to vote.

[Sarcastr0]

Quit being cute - in each country some men started with suffrage, some did not. It was given to men piecemeal over centuries.

With women it was all at once. That's a bigger turning point

This is not some men being oppressed thing, quit trolling.

[Bob from Ohio]

"With women it was all at once."

It didn't happen in France until 1945.

Its not really accurate to say that "given to men piecemeal over centuries" either. Its basically a 19th century thing. The English had the same highly restricted suffrage for almost 400 years!

[Nige]

It was the start of women's suffrage. Not all that hard to understand, unless you're being obtuse.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Why is that date the turning point? Wyoming and Utah both allowed women to vote 20+ years earlier, and Colorado also recognized women's right to vote in 1893.

[Sarcastr0]

I presume the granularity is nation-by-nation.

I'm listening to the Treaty of Westphalia now, and for better or worse that seems to be the lens.

But when I get to it, I'll be sure and post what the rationale is.

[Ridgeway]

I'd also argue that WWI was just a smidge more consequential than the Russo-Japanese war. You can argue that a lot of the really bad stuff that happened in the 20th Century (the Bolshevik takeover in Russia, WWII and the Holocaust) dont happen without WWI coming out the way it did. And WWI doesn't happen, at least in the catastrophic manner it did, without the inventions of TNT/dynamite and the machine gun.

The R-J war was important for Japan, but mostly for the really lessons the Japanese took from it.

[Sarcastr0]

I agree.
The presenter seems to try and stay away from wars (but see: Opium Wars), but if any war meets it, WWI meets all the criteria in spades; what it changed goes well beyond national boundaries.

WW2 was also seminal. Or the Civil War, for the rise of a certain sort of nationalism (and no, I don't mean the South).
but WWI is the one I would pinpoint.

[Martinned]

Which Civil War? The Spanish one?

[arch1]

I would have included cars & trucks. And replaced “social media” with the integrated circuit, whose impact over six decades has been broad and profound and continues to accelerate.

[Sarcastr0]

Ohh, integrated circut is a great one.

[Ridgeway]

The internal combustion engine is really what made cars, trucks and airplanes possible.

[arch1]

Fair enough.

[Dr. Ed 2]

No, the transistor. integrated circuit is just multiple transistors.
Remember that before this it was vacuum tubes.

[arch1]

Yup vacuum tubes with their size, power demands, heat dissipation and failure rate would never have gotten us anything approaching an iPhone. So transistors were an essential step towards ICs. But without the radical scalability, performance, manufacturability, reliability, and power improvements enabled by photolithography (kinda the defining characteristic of integrated circuits), we would not have seen anything like the billionfold increase in -well, pretty much every computing metric you’d care to name over the last 60 years. So I just take it as given that what an IC chip integrates is mainly a Big Freaking Shitload of transistors, where 1 BFS (c. 2023) can be as large as 15 billion or so in the most advanced processors (90% of which are fabricated by a single Taiwanese chipmaker, btw).

[Stephen Lathrop]

Maybe include electrification on there somewhere?

[bernard11]

Galileo's telescope?

[Kazinski]

The fall of Constantinople might have been symbolically important but by the time the Turks captured it, it hadn't been other than a minor regional power for centuries.

[Sarcastr0]

Regional power-plays are not really what the course focuses on. Rather, it's stuff that changes how lots of people view their world. Maybe all at once, maybe little by little.

One of the things the presenter talks about is the attitude of modernity - the embrace of change as good versus tradition. The idea that 'all new' is a virtue over and above 'tried and true' and how that came to be.

The fall of Byzantium certainly got a lot of people questioning the divine status quo.

[John F. Carr]

The Washington Post looks back at Reagan era sex education. Thirty-five years ago the ostentatious Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop, got a $20 million congressional earmark to mail a pamphlet on AIDS to every household in the country. It's OK to hold hands with a gay man, a drug user, or a Haitian, but do use a condom if you start inserting body parts.

I did not get the mail that day. I never saw the pamphlet.

The $20 million figure is as stated in the article. Only 11 cents per item. It strikes me as an order of magnitude too low to print, handle, and mail several pages.

[Dr. Ed 2]

First class mail was 20 cents in 1985, bulk rate about a third of that, a national mailing even less -- 11 cents was doable.

But the country wasn't ready for it. It wasn't ready for heterosexual sexual education -- even in school districts with teen pregnancy problems. It's amazing how much the country changed...

I don't think it went out, at least not nationally.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Now we teach young men how to tuck and dress like a girl…at least they aren’t impregnating teenage girls. 😉

[Reallynotbob]

You went to a weird school. I'm unaware of this alleged curriculum.

[Dr. Ed 2]

There is no way -- NO WAY -- that anything along those lines went out in the State of Maine in the 1980s. Do not forget that there was the 1986 obscenity referendum that wanted to CRIMINALIZE (jail term) distribution of pictures of naked body parts. See https://www.nytimes.com/1986/06/10/us/obscentiy-debate-focuses-attention-on-maine-where-voters-weigh-issue.html

I found a copy of it a while back -- it was displaying pictures of specific body parts, including female breast, would be a felony. This was when Rev Buddy Franklin was at the height of his power, a couple of years before the sex scandal that did him in (affair with woman in choir -- both were married but not to each other...

There is NO WAY that went out -- postmasters would have refused to permit it.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

The $20 million figure is as stated in the article. Only 11 cents per item. It strikes me as an order of magnitude too low to print, handle, and mail several pages.

Common Core math? According to Statista.com there were 91.07 million U.S. households in 1988. That comes to about 22 cents per pamphlet, which is about 2 cents more than it actually cost to print and mail them at the time.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1580336/

[John F. Carr]

I misremembered the number of copies. My math was accurate. My input data was not. Re-reading the article it says 114 million copies were stored, while your link says 126 million were distributed.

According to your link,

The impact of “Understanding AIDS” by itself on AIDS-related behavior was not fully assessed.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

My math was accurate.

Even allowing for the errors with your input data, the conclusion that the $20 million in question was "an order of magnitude too low" was not even close to accurate.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Did it say HIV is spread from uncircumcised HIV infected top to bottoms? And that most gay men are strictly bottoms?? So that means we just needed to test tops and then require they make a top use a condom when they are a bottom.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

And just exactly what does that have to do with anything I said?

[John F. Carr]

Henry Kissinger turned 100 a week and a half ago. He has outlived most of his critics. New critics pop up, but they hate a figure in a history book the same way they might hate Vlad Tepes or Edward VIII.

[Krayt]

Finalist: You can win this argument by dancing on my grave.

[John F. Carr]

Kissinger to critics: We will bury you.

[Nige]

He already caused a lot of burials.

[Dr. Ed 2]

America circa 1944, when he was 21 years old, the adult threshold of the time — the USA the most powerful country the world had ever seen -- And he threw it all away.

We are NOT better off because he has held power….

And the world is not better off…

[Illocust]

So I saw a BudLight commercial this weekend while watching a hockey game. Half the commercial was focused on a harleydavidson, I actually laughed when I saw it.

[apedad]

I bought some Bud Light this past weekend - real cheap.

Could you Maggats also boycott Dominoes too?

[Mr. Bumble]

You think Dominoes is pizza? No wonder you drink Bud Light.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I generally do not purchase beer -- I get so much free beer that disposing of it properly is sometimes a stretch -- but I purchased a couple of Bud Light drafts recently, mostly because I dislike gay-hating, gullible, obsolete culture war casualties.

The beer was -- as that style is intended to be -- unobjectionable.

[Mr. Bumble]

There you go. A new advertising slogan for Bud Light.
The beer that's "unobjectionable". What you've always wanted in a beer.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Most beer brewed and consumed by Americans is designed to be unobjectionable. As are most pasta sauces, baked goods, dairy products, and the like. Nearly all fast food.

Like Miller Lite and Coors Light, Bud Light tastes the way it does -- crafted by brewers who can make a beer taste (with remarkable precision and replicability) like a hot fudge sundae or a pepperoni pizza -- because it is a very popular taste.

In this context, you don't know what you don't know.

I do not expect that to curtail your commentary.

Carry on, bigoted clinger.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Did you know beer being objectionable is a feature?? Because it makes it less likely kids will drink it. So one of the things that killed wine coolers was apparently MADD. The only reason I think hard seltzer will make it now is because people are waiting longer to have children and so a lot more 20 somethings live in households without children. Plus we have pretty much reduced drunk driving as much as it is going to be reduced. And the real reason I hate Big Alcohol is because they didn’t use their license to print money to develop Uber and outlaw bar parking lots.

[Mr. Bumble]

Sure Arthur, everyone advertises their product as unobjectionable to boost sales.
Would anyone substitute that line in this commercial and expect it to sell the product?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jFO8qfSFvg

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I did not contend anyone advertises a product as unobjectionable.

I asserted they intend to make products unobjectionable.

You seem very confused.

[John F. Carr]

A few weeks back I brought up the classic SNL ad parody for "Schmitts Gay beer". It featured scantily dressed men around a pool. Back then it was a parody. What it parodied was ads that showed scantily dressed women rather than the product.

Trying to associate your product with things your customer base likes, like Harleys and bikinis, is marketing. Silly marketing, perhaps, but not stupid marketing. Trying to associate widely disliked things with your product is a mistake.

It's not about right or wrong, but who your customers are. A Babylon Bee headline understands the difference: "Companies Strangely Silent On Pride Month In The Middle East".

[Nige]

https://twitter.com/bradheath/status/1664634500343529472

'Twitter's lawyers told a federal court yesterday that nothing in the "Twitter Files" cited by Donald Trump actually show that the social media platform was a tool of government censorship.'

[Ed Grinberg]

Laughable. You (and Twitter's lawyers) need to gaslight better.

[Nige]

These things always evaporate in venues where there are consequences for lying.

[ReaderY]

This one is for Rev. Kirkland.

The history of Ireland is replete of members of the Protestant Ascendancy asserting the superiority of their enlightened, rational beliefs over the peasants’ primitive, superstitious ones, and those same Protestant Ascendants subjecting the peasants to starvation conditions. And dare I mention that a key and very common justification for slavery was that members of the superior race were benefiting their slaves by bringing enlightenment, civilization, and reason to benighted, barbarous savages who had been living in dark superstition?

Historically speaking, people who loudly proclaim a firm belief that their own viewpoint represents enlightenment and reason while the other guy’s represents darkness, savagery and superstition have had a pretty strong track record of exploiting the other guy and taking him for all he has, and then some. Their belief in their moral righteousness seems to somehow justify this. It just seems to be a human trait. It seems trendy these days to regard claims of Western intellectual superiority of various kinds as a sugar-coating for racism. But the Irish history, where the exploiters and the exploited had the same race, suggests that it’s a stronger tendency than race, or at least race doesn’t fully explain it.

Based on this history, if I heard somebody as confident as you’ve been that their view represents enlightenment and mine darkness, I’d run. Where that sort of view gets expressed, chains very often seem to follow. Frankly, many of the things you say could be lifted directly from Protestant Ascendancy or white supremacy tracts over the last few centuries.

Have you ever considered a little humility? It might do you some good. If you’re just a wee bit less supremely confident in your rightness and superiority, you might treat the other guy just a wee bit better.

Just a thought.

[Nige]

Arguably the fact that Irish society was divided into wealthy upper and subjugated lower classes based on religion is more supportive of Kirkland’s repetitive claims. Subjugating people based on religion is fairly primitive and superstitious, no matter how superior and rational you claim your own religion is, though it was more complicated than that since a) it was also in their political and economic interests and b) they were genuinely terrified of violent uprisings, in itself a chicken/egg situation. In terms of race, though there were native Irish land-owning families that benefitied from conversion – or half the family converting the rest remaining Catholic to hedge the bets and prevent confiscations – most of the Ascendancy were settlers from Britain. Hence the Anglo Irish Ascendancy.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Weren't they actually from Scotland -- deported to Ireland?

[Nige]

In Ulster, yes, hardcore Presbyterians, where sectarianism lives on in zombie form.

[apedad]

"Historically speaking, people who loudly proclaim a firm belief that their own viewpoint represents enlightenment and reason . . . . "

"Historically speaking, people who loudly proclaim a firm RELIGIOUS belief that their own viewpoint represents enlightenment and reason . . . . "

FTFY

Secular humanism only came about in the early 20th century.

[ReaderY]

Plenty of secular humanist variants. The leaders of the Eugenics movement, many of them prominent scientists, described opposition as primitive superstition. Then there was social Darwinism. And Communism. Naziism was not a religious movement. Scientific justification of racism. Plenty of 20th century secular humanist movements fit the mold. Plenty of scientists and secular-oriented intellectuals did the same things.

[Nige]

Be more accurate to describe it as 'colonialism' or 'imperialism,' though. When societies became more secular, they had to find scientific rationales for the inferioirity of other races to justify their subjugation and exploitation. Communist Russia had plenty of bad science and hyper-nationalism, but the subjugation and opression was driven and justified by promoting fears of political and economic subversion.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Secular humanism only came about in the early 20th century.

Secular humanism didn't just spring into being at that time, and actually began in the late 18th century with movements like Ethical Humanism, all of which held that things like morality were independent of religion.

[Moderation4ever]

Looking from today's perspective the Irish and their English master appear to be the same race. That was not the case when many of the things you describe happened. The fact is that the Irish were seen as different not by religion but by birth. Ireland was not treated as a colony like American, but more of a colony like India.

Race is a very subjective criteria for differentiating people.

[Nige]

Even today saying they're the same race would earn you an eyeroll in most of Ireland and put you in actual danger in certain Belfast pubs. The Irish were always viewed as dirty subhuman savages by the English.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Have you ever considered a little humility?

Would it surprise you to learn that I have been asked for advice and help by Republican officials at least as much as by Democratic officials during the most recent 10 or 15 years?

The reason I seem (am) so forceful at this site is that I am responding to flat-out bigots, disingenuous conspiracy theorists, and disaffected people who forget that competent adults neither accept nor advance supernatural arguments in reasoned debate. You can't reason with bigotry, superstition, or belligerent, ill-intentioned ignorance. It's pointless, and often counterproductive, to try.

Neither party has a monopoly on wisdom, patriotism, goodwill, or the like. As an elected and appointed official of the Democratic Party, I have spent plenty of time opposing Democrats and countering liberals' bad (although often well-intentioned) ideas. There isn't much opportunity to do so at this blog, though.

Thank you for your thoughts.

[Theendoftheleft]

Then why can’t you face your own bigotry head-on, AIDS?

Why, additionally, is it so difficult for you to recognize your own authoritarian tendencies? Pride? Hubris? I suspect it’s primarily a function of your stupidity.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Disliking bigots does not constitute bigotry.

Bigots tend to disagree, of course.

[Theendoftheleft]

You have repeatedly demonstrated that you are bigoted against people of faith, and against the working class & poor.

You seem to think that it doesn't count as bigotry because you think you know that those belief systems are inferior, that they’re merely superstition. Yet you won’t countenance, ‘publicly’, peoples’ recognition and deeming of cultures to be inferior to, and incongruent with, Western values on wholly rational grounds. In ALL such cases, you label such folks bigots. (Which is itself an instance of bigotry.) Example: you bandy about the term 'Islamophobia' when you yourself don't respect the faith at all, deem it inferior, and wish to eradicate it.

You’re a duplicitous hypocrite, AIDS. Regardless of what the American right thinks, the whole world can see that about you American liberal-progressive-libertarians.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I believe people should be entitled to believe and worship (within reason, as with most things) as they wish, and that this right is worth working hard to defend.

To the extent religious belief provides comfort or inclines good works, I believe religious belief can be good. To the extent religious belief precipitates dogmatic intolerance, sacred ignorance, or nonsense-based violence, I believe religious belief to be disgusting.

I do not support limitless special privilege for religion-based claims. I do not support nonsense-teaching schools. I believe religious institutions and personnel are freeloaders far more than they should be.

I believe competent adults neither advance nor accept superstition-based arguments in reasoned debate.

If you figure that constitutes bigotry, you might be a clinger.

[Theendoftheleft]

If you can't see the contradictions in your own post, then you're incompetent.

Further, by your own metric, you accept superstition-based claims for equality. They aren't empirically grounded at all.

Nor have you ever looked at empirical work establishing the congruency of various cultures for the sake of advocating your multicult American future; as for all adherents of your political cult, it's ENTIRELY a priori for you, entirely a function of your normative priors, ie, your prejudices.

Choose reason, AIDS: you also have no empirically-grounded-or-proven knowledge or skill set for culture craft, for social engineering -- be it through law or other means. It's just an obnoxious conceit expressed by libtarded Americans (typically expressed these days via the idea that their values are, or track, science).

You are a bigot, a fool, and a fraud. Fortunately, the world can not only see through your bullshit, but also now has the power to do something about it.

You're not equal, AIDS, and you don't deserve to be treated as such.

[Frank Drackman]

You keep klinging like that you'll go blind, Jerry.

[not guilty]

The Department of Justice has reportedly closed its investigation into Mike Pence´s possession of government documents after leaving office, having determined that no charges will be sought. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/06/02/pence-classified-documents-charges/

Pence´s conduct after discovering the subject documents stands in marked contrast to Donald Trump´s obstruction.

[Longtobefree]

Wait and see what happens if Pence's poll numbers come up.

[Mr. Bumble]

Won't happen because Pence's poll numbers will never go beyond single digits.

[John F. Carr]

The only reason this is news is because of Trump. Otherwise the cases of Pence and Biden would have been handled quietly and there would have been no question of criminal charges.

[John F. Carr]

I keep thinking about Pence: This paragon of virtue, this hero of the resistance, earned that status by doing what in 2015 would have been considered the bare minimum. No, he can't throw out electoral votes. Yes, he has to return classified documents if the government wants them back. That used to go without saying.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

I’m not a fan of the carelessness regarding classified information, but Pence went looking for “misplaced” documents and immediately turned them over once found.

He didn’t steal, lie, and obstruct about it, so not charging him seems fine to me.

[Bored Lawyer]

Secty. of State Anthony Blinken gave a speech in which he stated there would be no cease-fire in the Russian-Ukrainian war, unless it was part of an overall settlement that includes complete Russian withdrawal from Ukraine territory and partial reparations by Russia.

Since Russia is very unlikely to agree to this, this seems like a recipe for perpetual war. Which, of course, would cause the most suffering to Ukraine and its people.

Query: Should the US or NATO be setting policy for Ukraine to end the war? It sounds like the US is willing to sacrifice the last drop of Ukraine blood for the principles of international law. Those principles are important, but are they more important than ending death and suffering?

[Sarcastr0]

You think NATO is setting Ukrainian policy? Any proof of that, or just supposition?

The world does not revolve around the US, or NATO. This is not a proxy war, and it's buying the RT narrative to treat it that way.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

The world does not revolve around the US, or NATO. This is not a proxy war, and it’s buying the RT narrative to treat it that way.

Do you ever stop gaslighting?

[OtisAH]

Once again, “gaslighting” does *not* mean “speaking the truth to stupid people.”

[BravoCharlieDelta]

What's your definition of proxy war and why isn't the Ukraine war one?

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Was the American War for Independence a proxy war between Great Britain and France?? We were fighting for a cause we believed in and France just helped us because it was in their interests but France didn’t manipulate us to die for our country. Ukraine believes in the cause they are fighting for and we are helping them like France helped us.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Which, of course, would cause the most suffering to Ukraine and its people."

A lot of people in Ukraine think Russia winning is what would cause them the most suffering.

Perpetual war, of course, is not on offer; All things end in time. Sooner or later one side or the other will just get too worn down to continue.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Wow, I think we agree about something?!? I hate Putin more than ever because he made McCain prescient as McCain spent 30 years promoting NATO expansion even as most Americans didn’t care about the issue. I now support NATO more than ever and am happy to admit I was wrong not to care about it. I’ve still be right about pretty much every other thing this century with the exception of Terry Schivo. 😉

[John F. Carr]

When it becomes clear how the situation on the ground will turn out then a cease-fire will be in play. Meanwhile the parties and their supporters puff their chests and declare victory inevitable.

If Ukraine is willing to give up territory for a promise of peace the West can do little to stop them.

[Brett Bellmore]

The reason they don't want to do that, obviously, is that everybody knows Russia would break the promise in a few years. You basically can't reach an agreement with somebody whose word is totally worth less, all you can do is win or lose.

[Bob from Ohio]

"everybody knows Russia would break the promise in a few years"

Once the borders are settled by treaty, you make Ukraine a NATO member and send a US brigade, a Polish division and a couple of Western air squadrons.

Then no promise will be broken.

[Brett Bellmore]

Or we could just do that now, without Russia getting the territory.

The point is, the agreement isn't doing ANY of the work there. Not the tiniest bit of it. Because Russia's behavior won't be influenced by it, and Russia is the aggressor.

They ALREADY had an agreement with Ukraine to respect their borders. Did you forget that? The Budapest Memorandum of 1994.

Heck, they'd reached an agreement with Chechnya, the Khasavyurt Accords, in '96, too, and invaded them again in '99.

Russian peace treaties, historically, have been totally worthless.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Or we could just do that now, without Russia getting the territory. "

No we cannot. They would immediately invoke Article 5 triggering immediate armed intervention. You can't let a country become a NATO member during an active war!

Perhaps its too early but sooner or later there has to be a peace treaty. I guess we will see what happens in the imminent summer offensive first.

[grb]

Yep. Ukraine in NATO without peace & stable borders means instant world war. It’s kinda hard to ignore the obviousness of that. As for peace, the one immediate scenario I see is a real threat to retake Crimea. I don’t know if Zelensky would trade reconquest of Crimea for a peace treaty, but I suspect he’d see real U.S. and European pressure to negotiate if sitting on the the Crimean peninsula’s doorstep. You’d probably see real Russia negotiation then too. That’s not the perfect solution for anybody, but it’s the quickest way I see out of this quagmire.

And who believes they’ll EVER be a unanimous vote for Ukraine to enter NATO anyway? That means Turkey, Hungry, the Germans, the French, and every other bit player. Who believes Putin ever saw that as the remotest possibility despite all his spittle-spraying rhetoric? Some kind of security guarantee, yes. Membership in the EU, yes.

NATO membership? Not a snowball’s chance in (a non-Dante) Hell.

[David Nieporent]

Once the borders are settled by treaty, you make Ukraine a NATO member and send a US brigade, a Polish division and a couple of Western air squadrons.

Russia is not agreeing to any treaty that doesn't forbid Ukraine from joining NATO.

[Martinned]

You basically can’t reach an agreement with somebody whose word is totally worth less, all you can do is win or lose.

Iran would like a word.

[Martinned]

Secty. of State Anthony Blinken gave a speech in which he stated there would be no cease-fire in the Russian-Ukrainian war, unless it was part of an overall settlement that includes complete Russian withdrawal from Ukraine territory and partial reparations by Russia.

You mean that Blinken said exactly what Zelenskyy has said in upwards of 20 sets of microphones a day for the last year? I can see why you'd consider that controversial...

[grb]

Bored Lawyer : “It sounds like the US is willing to sacrifice the last drop of Ukraine blood….”

Four Points :

1. Whether from the Left or Right, the “blame America first, exclusively, and always” crowd gives no agency to anyone else in this conflict. Why do Ukrainians fight & die for their country? It’s not the obvious: That they prefer to be part of Europe rather than a vassal of Putin’s mafia-style regime. Instead it’s all the “fault” of the U.S.

2. Whether from the Left or Right, the “blame America first, exclusively, and always” crowd makes regular token comments on Ukrainian suffering. However they never listen to Ukrainians or give the slightest damn about what they think. At best they see them as an irrelevant inconvenience. More often, they view them with contempt (token comments notwithstanding).

3. Neither the Ukrainians or Russians are prepared to stop fighting. The United States has only one card to play: Halting aid to force Ukraine to accept the partial occupation of their country. It would be nice if people who espouse this did so openly.

4. Everyone involved in this conflict is making maximalist speeches. This is obvious. Yet Putin’s maximalist rhetoric is seen as just that, while talk on the other side is relentlessly analyzed as some final truth.

[Bored Lawyer]

1. Since the US is the one supporting Ukraine, which would collapse without US Aid, then the US is very much a causing force here.
2. You have no basis to impute tokenism. The pro-war side does not seem all that concerned with suffering, either, except as a means to score political points.
3. Both Ukraine and Russia have suffered immensely. They may go on suffering, or they may not.
4. The speeches may be overblown posturing, but that's not how the US is behaving.

IMO, the solution is to offer Russia a choice -- withdraw and we won't let Ukraine into NATO (and it would have to be treated as Austria was during the Cold War, a non-aligned middle country), or keep what you conquered, and Ukraine joins NATO.

[Sarcastr0]

"grb: The United States has only one card to play: Halting aid to force Ukraine to accept the partial occupation of their country.
BL: Both Ukraine and Russia have suffered immensely. They may go on suffering, or they may not."

So you are advocating for part of Ukraine to go to Russia, in order to get peace.

To be clear, that is what you want the US to force. In the name of peace.

This does not have a history of being a solution to the problem of wars of aggression.

[Frank Drackman]

worked pretty well with Germany

[grb]

Bored Lawyer : “IMO, the solution is to offer Russia a choice — withdraw and we won’t let Ukraine into NATO…..”

Ukraine in NATO was & remains the reddest of herrings. You only need to look at the current situation with Sweden struggling to get in. There was zero chance Ukraine would ever get NATO membership before Putin’s invasion. There’s barely more than zero now.

Even if (for example) you convince Turkey and Hungry to vote yes, I doubt any French government of any party agrees. The same is true of the Germans. Despite all the talk after a year-plus of brutal war, that arithmetic hasn’t changed. Putin knew that. He knows it still. The man may be a delusional arrogant thug, but he can count.

The issue wasn’t NATO membership then or now, but the overall orientation of Ukraine west or east. Putin demands a servile government like that of Belarus.

[OtisAH]

Dumbass, all of NATO is supporting Ukraine. You dopes struggle with the most basic facts of literally every discussion.

[Martinned]

Really? All of NATO? https://www.politico.eu/article/tensions-mount-behind-closed-doors-as-hungary-blocks-ukraine-aid/

[grb]

OtisAH : "Dumbass, all of NATO is supporting Ukraine"

Right-wingers are so ignorant. Yes, NATO is supporting Ukraine – but that doesn’t remotely mean there’s a unanimous vote to bring the country into NATO. Is it possibly you don’t understand that? Turkey and Hungry wouldn’t support Ukraine’s entry because they use Russian as a hedge against their erstwhile allies. Germany and France wouldn’t support Ukraine’s entry because they believe Russia will eventually be brought back in to some balance of European order. The French in particular are big on that long, long, range view.

Of course the old SSRs would easily vote yes because they loath Russia, but the most established and powerful states in the alliance will always vote no or put the decision off with endless delay. It’s already been that way for decades. The war isn’t going to change that.

Why are you so damn stupid, OtisAH?

[Sarcastr0]

OtisAH may be wrong, but he's not a right-winger.

[Nige]

More crucially, Ukraine is unlikely to agree to anything else.

[Aunt Teefah]

Nikki Haley, one of the supposedly "reasonable" Republicans, has blamed the presence of trans kids in locker rooms on the rise of teen girls suicides (without a shred of evidence, of course). https://www.thedailybeast.com/nikki-haley-blames-teen-suicides-on-transgender-kids-in-locker-rooms-during-cnn-town-hall. An utterly despicable slander rivaling anything said by Trump or Desantis.

[Ed Grinberg]

The presence of “trans kids” in locker-rooms (of the opposite sex) is part & parcel of the whole gender-norms-bending campaign so ferociously promoted by “liberals” / “progressives.” The (quite real) rise in teen-girl suicides is indeed a direct result of this campaign.
If Ms. Haley makes it out of the Republican primaries, I’m voting for her.

[Aunt Teefah]

"The (quite real) rise in teen-girl suicides is indeed a direct result of this campaign."

Just completely made-up nonsense. Where's your proof? Do you actually not understand the difference between correlation and causation? Or do you just pretend not to when its convenient for you to bully children that you hate?

Either way, you're not a serious person. No wonder you'd vote for her.

[hoppy025]

I don't want to bully trans, and I don't hate them. I want them locked up in mental hospitals until they're cured.

[Aunt Teefah]

Good for you. Your opinion is noted and given the consideration it is due.

Now what the hell does that have to do with the topic under discussion?

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Now what the hell does that have to do with the topic under discussion?

That you're too stupid to figure out what...

I don’t want to bully trans, and I don’t hate them.

...has to do with your question...

Or do you just pretend not to when its convenient for you to bully children that you hate?

...that he directly responded to explains a lot.

[Aunt Teefah]

You're too stupid to figure out that halfwit Ed Grinberg and fascist hoppy are different posters. So when I accuse Ed of bullying children, hoppy's denial of that charge isn't much relevant, now is it?

Regardless, none of you three scientific luminaries have produced a scrap of evidence to support the assertion that the increase in teen suicides has anything at all to do with trans kids in locker rooms.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

You’re too stupid to figure out that halfwit Ed Grinberg and fascist hoppy are different posters.

Given that I never said/implied that they were the same posters (which is why I said, "the question you asked" rather than "the question you asked HIM"), and his answer was very much with regard to that question (regardless of who you originally directed it at) the stupidity here remains entirely in your court.

[Aunt Teefah]

No, the stupidity remains with all of you who don't understand the difference between correlation and causation, and who make spurious allegations without a shred of proof.

Feel free to continue to fixate on irrelevant bullshit to try to dodge this point though.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

No, the stupidity remains with all of you who don’t understand the difference between correlation and causation, and who make spurious allegations without a shred of proof.

You must be awfully proud of your illiteracy to keep putting it on display like that.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I don’t want to bully trans, and I don’t hate them. I want them locked up in mental hospitals until they’re cured.

Should victims of adult-onset superstition be treated similarly? The ones who speak in tongues, for example?

[hoppy025]

I think adult "men" like you who like to erupt into little boys, exposing them to diseases, should be locked up.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Why does a white, male, disaffected, right-wing blog operated by Federalist Society members attract this audience?

Other than by design, I mean.

[Theendoftheleft]

'If Ms. Haley makes it out of the Republican primaries, I’m voting for her'.

Why? The GOP establishment either secretly supports these gender identity developments, or is indifferent to them. (Haley has been groomed to be one of the establishment candidates for years now.) Haley et al will do nothing, at a federal level, to try to stop it.

Want evidence? They don't even try to engage with the gender theory/ideology to try to debunk it. They're not even remotely interested in showing young people HOW to critically challenge with this stuff, how to win over hearts and minds, etc.

More generally, how can you still believe in your colour team (or either colour team) at this stage?

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

She held off endorsing Rubio in 2016 out of respect for Jeb!…she is worthless.

[Nige]

The conservatives being serious about mental health, ladies and gennlemen.

[bernard11]

If a blind mole make sit out of the Republican primaries you'll vote for it.

Meanwhile neither you nor Haley has offered a shred of evidence.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

has blamed the presence of trans kids in locker rooms on the rise of teen girls suicides

She claimed that trans kids are in locker rooms due to the rise in suicide among teenaged girls?

[Martinned]

Or maybe, given the well-established fact that trans people commit suicide at much higher rates than cis people, the idea is that some of those trans people who commit suicide are teen girls, and that some of the trans teen girls who commit suicide do so in locker rooms?

I don't know, I'm trying here.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

I’m trying here

Try harder, as you completely missed the point.

[Bob from Ohio]

"trans people commit suicide at much higher rates"

Like all mentally ill groups.

[Nige]

Even in the face of teenage suicide, the hatred is just rank.

[Kazinski]

I thing the rise in teen girls suicides is the result of the rise in social media. It was hard enough on girls to compete in their own social circle, but competing with all the influencers and tik tokkers too is a lot of stress for some girls.

The phenomenon of trans-contagion is probably a minor side effect, not a cause.

[Nige]

Trans contagion isn't even a phenomenon.

[JasonT20]

I never understood why trans people in bathrooms or locker rooms is supposed to be a big deal. I've been changing in locker rooms, including fully naked after a shower, for decades. I am fairly certain that the odds are that some gay man or boy has seen my naughty bits as I did so at least once. I am not bothered by this at all. Why should a trans person being in a locker room or bathroom be any different?

The answer is that people that still find gays icky have realized in the last few years that equating being gay with being perverted, especially with being a pedophile, is going to make them look like the bigots they are. But being trans is even 'weirder', so they think that they can get away with making them out to be perverts that are just looking for any excuse they can to creep on little kids. Any acknowledgement that they are human beings, just like them, trying to figure out how to live their lives happily without hurting anyone is unacceptable to them.

[David Nieporent]

Are you not aware of the existence of women who do not want men in their locker rooms? "I am not bothered; therefore, nobody else should be, and if they are they're just bigots" is not a compelling argument.

[Bored Lawyer]

It's more than that. Not long ago, a man walking naked into a women's locker room would have been the basis for a harassment complaint, if not a criminal arrest. Now we are told that because the man identifies as a woman, it's ok, and if they are bothered by it, they are just bigots.

[Nige]

Trans women have been using female locker rooms and bathrooms for decades, it only suddenly became a big issue when the right decided that with all the problems facing America and the world what was really needed was a good old-fashioned fake panic.

[David Nieporent]

Trans women have been using female locker rooms and bathrooms for decades

Bullshit.

I mean, they might have done so surreptitiously, but all that proves is that you can do stuff if you don't get caught.

[Nige]

Well who pops into the bathroom with grand announcements about their gender identity? They did so without any fuss, negative consequences, and without anyone particularly caring, not least because most people know that a trans woman going into a male toilet or locker room was and is risking a violent attack. Now at least one consequence of this scare is cis women being challenged in bathrooms and accused of being trans.

[David Nieporent]

Well who pops into the bathroom with grand announcements about their gender identity?

Nobody? But it's pretty hard to hide one's sex in a locker room.

[Sarcastr0]

BL, the examples of this hypothetical 'I'm trans not harrassing' remain quite rare. And often are anti-trans activists trying to 'make a point.'

Until this is an actual problem, it's just fearmongering.

[Josh R]

I’m fine with not permitting pre-surgical trans women to be naked in front of cis women or for them to see cis women naked. Thus, full access to locker rooms can rightly be restricted (*). On the other hand, I suspect many cis women would object to a pre-surgical trans man who looks like a man (thanks to hormones) from being in their locker room. So, what constitutes a “man” or “woman” is hardly clear.

(*) But note, that does not apply to using the toilet. Full access to non-locker room restrooms should be allowed.

[JasonT20]

Are you not aware of the existence of women who do not want men in their locker rooms?

I am not bothered by the existence of gay men (or trans men) being in the same locker room with me, when they are just there for the same reason that I am - to change before or after a workout. Women that don't want men in their locker rooms creeping or perving on them isn't the issue. The issue is that people with these anti-trans attitudes are arguing as if trans women are men that would go into women's locker rooms because they want to spy on them while they change. I don't see any evidence that this happens or that there are really that many cis women concerned about this. Frankly, given what I see women commenting on about going to the gym, I suspect that vastly larger numbers of women are concerned about straight, cis men oogling them on the gym floor than worry about trans men in locker rooms.

Everyone that commented on my post focused entirely on my analogy and completely dodged and ignored the second paragraph. It is obvious to me how much all of this is about people that are disgusted by anything LGBTQ finding someone to punch down on now that gays are not acceptable targets for that anymore to a large majority of American society. (Especially among younger people.)

Within my ~50 year lifetime, it once was that people could express disgust about homosexuals without worrying about a majority of the public considering them to be bigots. Back then, a business owner that didn't want to serve a same sex couple wouldn't have to justify that with anything, as it wasn't illegal anywhere to discriminate on that basis. Those people are now upset that they have to find excuses that conservative judges will accept in court. Then they still face backlash from a large segment of the population that doesn't buy that it is really just about their religious beliefs and not prejudice against homosexuals.

All that they've done here is take the exact same playbook they used then of equating gay men with pedophiles and apply it to trans people. "We can't give gays equal rights because that will endanger the children!" Some of us remember that well enough to recognize this move for what it is. It has nothing to do with children or protecting women for those people. It is only their own disgust motivating them. Politicians, of course, also see how useful this is at motivating their base and distracting voters from issues that actually have a direct impact on their lives.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Thank goodness women have a sensible man like you around to let them know what they do and don't have permission to be uncomfortable with.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

While it's only Monday I think JasonT20's blathering above is going to be a strong contender for Most Braindead Comment of the Week.

[Michael Ejercito]

If sex is just a state of mind instead of a substantial characteristic related to physical traits, then why bother having sex segregation at all?

[hoppy025]

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/05/us/colorado-white-women-sit-in-gun-ban/index.html

"The executive order Here4TheKids has proposed for Polis to sign calls for the governor to “ban the use, loading, possession or carrying of all firearms in Colorado, including but not limited to firearms for personal protection, hunting, law enforcement or any otherwise lawful purpose” and create a statewide gun buyback program."

"Both Rao and Strawn said lawmakers have failed to curb gun violence and when asked if the new gun control laws in Colorado were a start, Rao said “no” because despite current state laws aimed to prevent them, gun deaths still persist."

So as long as one "gun death" "persists" somewhere, current gun laws are not a start.

This gives you an idea of what the left means when they say "reasonable" and "common sense" gun regulation. A full and complete ban.

[Brett Bellmore]

We've known that for years. They blew what deniability they had when they freaked out over Heller overturning the most restrictive gun law in the entire country. That told us what they meant when they said 'reasonable'.

[hoppy025]

Yes, of course, but the left constantly mocks and laughs at us saying things like "Nobody is trying to take your guns." It's important to demonstrate, with evidence, that this is exactly what they're trying to do.

[Nige]

Sure, if you leave out assorted mass shootings, and lots of murdered kids that's exactly how it was.

[hoppy025]

What exactly are you responding to?

[Jerry B.]

The voices?

[Martinned]

the most restrictive gun law in the entire country

You realise that’s like talking about the shortest guy on the basketball team, right?

[VinniUSMC]

What do you have against Muggsy Bogues?

Racist.

[Martinned]

TIL that there was once a 1.60m tall point guard in the NBA. Cool, thanks!

[Brett Bellmore]

Pfft. DC's laws managed to be more restrictive than Japan's.

The point is, if they didn't think DC's gun laws were unreasonable, then "reasonable" has no meaning in an American context. DC permitted you to have a handgun, if you had already owned one when the law was passed, and you kept it disassembled in a safe.

I mean, if DC is reasonable, what wouldn't be reasonable? The death penalty for chewing a pop tart in the the shape of a gun?

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Demanding that someone do something that is not even remotely in their power to do isn't a demonstration of concern, it's a demonstration of abject stupidity.

[hoppy025]

Perhaps, but it gives one a view into how these people operate and what they actually think.

[Michael Ejercito]

Never forget this.

The same side that accused cops of habitually hunting down and gunning down unarmed Black men, the same side that the criminal justice system is systemically racist…

…is the same side that wants stricter gun control laws to be enforced by these very same cops in this very same system.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

And also argue that system can't possibly be biased against conservatives.

[Nige]

Tells you they're more scared of weirdos with gun fetishes than cops.

[Michael Ejercito]

I notice you did not use the term "street thug" nor "gangbanger".

[Nige]

Observant, aintcha.

[Michael Ejercito]

Indeed.

It is quite revealing about you.

[Nige]

I should hope so.

[VinniUSMC]

Tells you they’re more scared of weirdos with gun fetishes than cops.

How many people have "wierdos with gun fetishes" killed in the past, say 40 years compared to cops?

Hoplophobia is more real than transphobia or homophobia.

[Ed Grinberg]

I'd say that the whole idea that you can reduce violent crime by banning guns is a sufficient "demonstration of abject stupidity." (I mean, won't criminals still have their guns? By disarming the law-abiding, won't you make it easier for criminals to victimize them? This isn't rocket science.)

[Michael Ejercito]

The argument is that it makes it easier to put away the street thug and the gangbanger.

Can't provea street thug a mugging?

Bust him for possessing an unregistered pistol.

Can't prove a gangbanger gunned down a bunch of kids in a drive-by shooting in front of a school?

Bust him for carrying a high-capacity magazine.

The thing is, the same side pushing for stricter gun control laws is the same side that has proven that they do not want to put away the street thug and the gangbanger.

[hoppy025]

No, they want to put away ordinary whites only. They really want white conservatives in gas chambers, but this is the next best thing for them.

[Harvey Mosley]

The California legislature that has never seen a gun that doesn't need to be banned has removed sentencing enhancements for violent criminals who use a gun in the commission of their crimes. It is obvious that the real target of California's hoplophobic laws are the law abiding citizens that aren't the people we need to be worried about.

[grb]

Ed Grinberg : “I’d say that the whole idea that you can reduce violent crime by banning guns … (ranting)”

Fact One : In 2000, according to the ATF, there were 1,397 guns manufactured for every 100,000 people in the U.S.. By 2020, that figure had jumped to 3,410.

Fact Two : Americans purchased nearly 60 million guns between 2020 and 2022

Fact Three : America’s gun population is growing more than three times faster than our human population.

Fact Four : The number of guns in America has more than doubled since 1968.

Fact Five : We are the only country in which guns outnumber people — a fact that became true in 2009.

It’s “abject stupidity” to believe this insanity has no effect on gun crime. Of course belief hardly has to factor in this. The states with the worse gun violence per capita are Mississippi (33.9 per 100,000 people), Louisiana (29.1), New Mexico (27.8), Alabama (26.4) and Wyoming. The best states are Massachusetts, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island. It’s kinda like those covid death numbers, where you could almost plot the nation’s political divide exactly by who’s on the top or bottom of the chart.

[hoppy025]

Those numbers include suicides, you dishonest piece of shit.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

It’s “abject stupidity” to believe this insanity has no effect on gun crime.

Only if you ignore that fact that, statistically speaking, only a vanishingly tiny percentage of the total number of firearms you’re so apoplectic about are ever used in any type of “firearm violence”, making those numbers irrelevant. Also, bluer-than-blue D.C. has BY FAR the highest murder rate of any U.S. state/district/territory, with Puerto Rico coming in at a distant second place. And save for Louisiana, deep-blue states like Maryland and Illinois are virtually indistinguishable from the states you’re prattling on about…with New Mexico actually trailing those 2 by about 17%, on a par with blue Delaware.

[JasonT20]

Only if you ignore that fact that, statistically speaking, only a vanishingly tiny percentage of the total number of firearms you’re so apoplectic about are ever used in any type of “firearm violence”, making those numbers irrelevant.

I'm glad you look at it in terms of percentages. That makes the reply easier. Take that "vanishingly tiny percentage" of the total number of firearms being in hands that end up using them for violent crime, unjustified force, or don't store or handle them safely and someone is injured or killed in an accident. The larger that the total number of guns available becomes, there will be more instances of guns being used in those ways, right?

It's really simple proportional reasoning. More guns available = more injury and death from guns. The argument that guns are necessary for self defense then becomes circular. There are so many guns out there, that people need to be armed to protect themselves, which results in there being more guns out there, resulting in even greater need for everyone to arm themselves, ...

[VinniUSMC]

So many guns! The streets must be rivers of blood by now!

Plot those state numbers by county. Lets see how those blue islands in red states contribute to the vast majority of the gun violence. I dare you. Dishonest lefty turds.

[Martinned]

Where do you think those blue islands get their guns from?

[Michael Ejercito]

If they get what they want, will it be their sons, brothers, husbands, and fathers going to prison?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Postal Service Releases Final Report – Contract Driver Jesse Morgan Vindicated – Report CONFIRMS He Hauled Trailer of Ballots from NY to PA in Late October 2020

That’s the guy who had the Postal Inspectors on tape trying to intimidate him and trying to get him to change his story.

What's to be done about stolen elections and soft-coups?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

These are your fans, Volokh Conspirators . . . and the reason your deans (those at legitimate schools) would gladly volunteer weekend shifts to clear your offices.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

When you look at things like the Bud Light Backlash and the Target Tailspin, do you say to yourself, things like “boy, the cultural betters are still winning!”?

[hoppy025]

He wonders why the boys he penetrates tell him it hurts.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Have any of the Federalist Society law professors who operate this white, male, right-wing blog said a word about the Bud Light and Target issues?

Or are they sticking with a steady stream of transgender parents, drag queens, Muslims, lesbians, transgender sorority drama, and transgender rest room issues?

Cowards.

Hypocrites.

Partisan hacks.

Bigot-huggers.

[Frank Drackman]

Drop and give me 20 Jerry!!!!
Pushups!! Pushups!!!

[Reallynotbob]

Shucks, the Gateway Pundit article doesn't link to the "Final Report." Do you think you could provide a link so we can read it?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Shucks, others seem to have found it in the article,awww shucks maybe you're just stupid? Golly gee willakers!

[JasonT20]

Postal Service Releases Final Report – Contract Driver Jesse Morgan Vindicated – Report CONFIRMS He Hauled Trailer of Ballots from NY to PA in Late October 2020

I just read a USPS report linked in an article referencing this. I doesn't say anything at all like what this headline is claiming. It doesn't vindicate this guy in anything that I can see. I can only assume that people spreading this shit are assuming that people that want to believe their take on it won't look any further.

[David Nieporent]

BCD is quoting the man universally known as the Dumbest Man on the Internet, Jim Hoft. In fact, the USPS report expressly refutes the guy's allegations.

[David Nieporent]

Also, BCD is conflating two different conspiracy theories. The guy who recanted his story after being talked to by postal inspectors was a different one, that was Richard Hopkins, who claimed that he overheard supervisors discussing a plan to backdate mailed ballots.

This Jesse Morgan guy is a guy who claimed that his truck with mail in ballots was stolen before they could be delivered. (Given that Republicans think mail in votes are all fraudulent anyway, this would've benefitted Trump.)

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Given that Republicans think mail in votes are all fraudulent anyway

Your image as a pathetic partisan tool has been cemented for some time now, so there's no need to run it into the ground.

[Estragon]

Were these the same postal inspectors who murdered Seth rich on behalf of the deep state?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Like Jeffrey Epstein's murderer and the J6 pipe bomber, another unsolvable mystery beyond the power of the FBI to uncover!

[Mr. Bumble]

TODAY IN HISTORY:

Ronald Reagan dies at age 93 in 2004.

RFK shot and killed by Sirhan Sirhan in 1968.

Six Day War begins between Israel and Egypt, Syria and Jordan 1967.

[John F. Carr]

In 2004 Republican appointees dominated the leadership of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority. When Reagan died the electronic signs over the Turpike read "Godspeed Ronald Reagan."

[Mr. Bumble]

...and he'd need it if he was on the Mass Turnpike.

[not guilty]

Just Security has published a detailed and comprehensive model prosecution memo compiled by Andrew Weissmann, Ryan Goodman, Joyce Vance, Norman L. Eisen, Fred Wertheimer, Siven Watt, E. Danya Perry, Joshua Stanton and Joshua Kolb regarding Donald Trump´s handling of the documents he took to Mar-a-Lago. https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/just-security-model-prosecution-memo-trump-classified-documents-second-edition-june-2023.pdf It is lengthy, but interesting reading.

Several media are reporting that a grand jury in the District of Columbia resumes meeting this week after a few weeks hiatus. Here´s hoping we will see indictments sooner rather than later.

[Michael Ejercito]

Reemmber Sandy Berger?

[not guilty]

Whenever I get a tu quoque reply, it confirms that I have hit an exposed nerve.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

When your entire posting history is nothing but partisan blathering noting the one-sidedness of that blathering doesn't qualify as tu quoque.

[Krychek_2]

Refresh my memory. When was the last time you posted a comment favorable to Democrats or unfavorable to Republicans?

[not guilty]

WuzYoungOnceToo, is that as true as everything else you have said?

I am indeed a proudly partisan Democrat. How does that change the definition of tu quoque?

Apologies to Lewis Carroll´s Humpty Dumpty, who famously harrumphed ¨When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.¨

[grb]

Michael Ejercito : “Remember Sandy Berger?”

Sure. Quote :

“In April 2005, Berger pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material from the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Berger was fined $50,000, sentenced to serve two years of probation and 100 hours of community service, and stripped of his security clearance for three years”

Of course Trump’s crimes are more extensive, warranting a much harsher penalty. Where Berger stole a handful of papers, Trump stole boxfuls. And Berger’s attempts at coverup were minor compared to the months of illegal behavior from Trump. Given this disparity, I’m sure Michael Ejercito agrees jailtime is justified in the current case – even essential. We can all thank him for providing this parallel example of criminality and (just) punishment.

Of course one thing I don’t recall is hoards of Berger cultists trying to excuse his lawlessness. Trumpian lickspittles might think back on that example with profit.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

When Trump is charged criminally for his documents-related misconduct, the whines and sputtering of his Volokh Conspiracy fans will provide solace, and probably fuel more self-incriminating bluster to lather these rubes.

Blackman and Tillman are, of course, already at work on several pieces explaining why 17th century religious precepts, a dictionary definition from 1821, and a semicolon in a tangentially related provision of the United States Code work in harmony -- when properly understood -- to prevent any legitimate prosecution of Trump.

Carry on, clingers. But, if this blog is genuinely an indication of the best you can do, without much effect in modern, improving-against-your-stale-and-ugly-wishes America.

[John F. Carr]

I smell the work of deceptive lawyers. For example, on page 21 this statement by Trump is painted as an admission:

“There seems to be confusion as to the ‘picture’ where documents were sloppily thrown on the floor and then released photographically for the world to see, as if that’s what the FBI found when they broke into my home. Wrong! They took them out of cartons and spread them around the carpet, making it look like a big ‘find’ for them. They dropped them, not me - very deceiving.”

I do not consider that an admission. Nor is "I had a small number of boxes in storage at Mar-a-Lago" an admission of the contents of those boxes.

I have no emotional investment in Trump's guilt or innocence. I see sufficient evidence to indict. Based on the public evidence I am not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that he had the requisite knowledge and intent.

[not guilty]

The quoted language admits that the subject documents were in cartons on the premises in the first place. The presence of these documents during August 2022 means that they were not produced in response to the May 2022 grand jury subpoena.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Trump authenticated that evidence nicely. Maybe there is a sliver of patriot in him after all!

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Andrew Weissmann - Russia Collusion Hoaxer
Norman L. Eisen - Russia Collusion Hoaxer & Color Revolution Creator.

Those are two people who deserve some severe justice, not accolades.

[not guilty]

BCD, have you actually read the model prosecution memo I linked to? Do you have any substantive criticism, or is ad hominem the only arrow in your quiver?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

I genuinely do not give a shit what fraudulent, goal-seeking arguments these evil twisted monsters come up with.

The only thing I will read with their names in it is their obits.

[not guilty]

So you have no substantive criticism. Why am I unsurprised?

[not guilty]

Andrew Weissman is predicting that Trump will be charged this week in D.C. Other people may be charged in D.C. or possibly in Florida. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rqv5xHDul1A

Dare we hope that he is right?

[John F. Carr]

If you have a betting pool on timing make sure you anticipate the possibility of a sealed indictment.

[John F. Carr]

Former Harvard professor and opinionated guy Cornell West is running for president as a member of the People’s Party to "reintroduce America to the best of itself — fighting to end poverty, mass incarceration, ending wars and ecological collapse, guaranteeing housing, health care, education and living wages for all!"

I wish the presidential debates were not dominated by major party interests. We could use West and a Libertarian to stir things up. Imagine a debate where a fly landing on a head or a scripted improvised comeback was not the most interesting event. Unlike professor Warren he comes across as having a brain. Lenora Fulani struck me the same way. I wouldn't vote for West or Fulani, but I welcome them to the process.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

I support having multiple football stadium size parking lots for homeless people open at various times of the year based on weather. For example we would have one near Orlando open from November through April and then have some up north open during the other six months. Americans without children should have free places to live…they just shouldn’t be on city sidewalks and they shouldn’t be permanent.

[ducksalad]

I support an electric power grid supplied mainly by clean fusion reactors. They should be small reactors (<50MW) geographically distributed to reduce transmission losses and reduce the risk of large scale outages. They should be privately owned and operated, but by individual proprietors and family companies rather than large corporations. Around the cooling ponds there should be petting zoos with ponies and therapy goats. Within these idyllic parklike areas, we could house your homeless families and host John's multiparty debate.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

I have the goats. Someone else is going to have to deliver on the fusion though.

[Life of Brian]

I wouldn’t vote for West or Fulani, but I welcome them to the process.

Yeah, I like Cornel West. I think he's a bit on the eccentric side for the presidency, but definitely would enhance the dialogue in the runup.

[bernard11]

IMO West is just a BS artist - a successful one, admittedly - but a BS artist all the same.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Well, then, he is certainly unqualified for the respectable world of politics!

[Life of Brian]

I don't agree with most of his viewpoints either, but appreciate his ability to debate them respectfully and constructively.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"The People’s Party currently has ballot access only in Florida. Based on numbers in the June 1, 2023 edition of Ballot Access News, The People’s Party and the West Campaign (assuming he receives the party’s nomination) will need to obtain 674,072 valid signatures in 45 states and the District of Columbia, plus pay filing fees or become organized in four states, in order to appear on the November 2024 ballot in all 50 states and DC."

https://ballot-access.org/2023/06/05/cornel-west-announces-candidacy-for-potus/

[not guilty]

Former Harvard professor and opinionated guy Cornell West is running for president as a member of the People’s Party to “reintroduce America to the best of itself — fighting to end poverty, mass incarceration, ending wars and ecological collapse, guaranteeing housing, health care, education and living wages for all!”

Please refresh my memory. How´d that work out for Ralph Nader?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Wikipedia:

"In 2015, after a decade planning, Nader founded the American Museum of Tort Law in Winsted, Connecticut. The opening ceremonies were emceed by Phil Donahue. Nader personally donated $150,000 to the establishment of the museum, which was sited on two parcels of land rezoned by the town of Winsted to host it."

The museum:

https://www.tortmuseum.org/

[ducksalad]

[BravoCharlieDelta]

In 2018 the Federal Government spent $4T. In 2023 the Federal Government will spend $6.5T.

Whose lives are better off with a 50% bigger Federal Government? Other than the Administrative State and the Ukranian Elites, that is.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

America arranged a period of reflection and opportunity for self-improvement for another insurrectionist today -- Jorden Mink was sentenced to 51 months of incarceration, followed by three years of supervised release.

If nothing else, this gets a delusional, violent, right-wing asshole off our streets for a while.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

When do you think Ray Epps will be arrested? There are several videos of him calling for a charge on the capitol to insurrect.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Why is it okay for the Democrat FBI to ignore Congressional subpoenas?

[Moderation4ever]

Let me ask a broader question about when is it acceptable to ignore a Congressional subpoena? Recent years have seen that subpoenas are in some cases ignored, is that ever acceptable? When subpoenas are ignored there is the court system to enforce the subpoenas but that can take years and so should government subpoenas, DOJ or Congress, have a quicker path to resolution and enforcement?

[Martinned]

Congress should use its own powers and hold the person in question in contempt.

[Martinned]

Here's a nice, bemused write up of a lecture Adrian Vermeule gave in Berlin recently: https://verfassungsblog.de/an-american-in-the-antique-store/

Vermeule reminds of an American tourist rummaging in the antique stores of Europe for things that will make an impression at home. Meanwhile, the locals are raising their eyebrows at his choices.

[M L]

Donald Trump on policy is basically a 1990s Democrat, with a pinch of Ross Perot or something.

So personally, I can't really take any hysterics too seriously as far as policy issues.

Now, his general behavior and antics are another story.

I will say, though, a lot of normal, average people (who tend to be rather apolitical) are freaked out and fatigued by Trump. But a lot of these people aren't freaked out by Trump per se, but by the reactions to Trump, starting with the matching ridiculous antics and hysterics of leftwing media, the leftwing encouraged street violence, and the nasty authoritarians who ramped up their efforts with COVID.

Then you have things like J6. First, J6 was of a drop in the bucket of course, not coming close to one thousandth of the leftwing violence and destruction that summer that was encouraged and downplayed by leftwing politicians. Second, I can't think of a person who changed their overall disposition toward Trump due to J6 or anything related to the 2020 election. Maybe a few. People saw more outworkings of the flaws they were already aware of, and saw more instances of Trump taking dubious positions with respect to the Constitution. But all the rabid "treason" and "insurrection" clowns just felt exactly the same way they already expressed previously.

[JasonT20]

But a lot of these people aren’t freaked out by Trump per se, but by the reactions to Trump, starting with the matching ridiculous antics and hysterics of leftwing media...

That's some amazing projection you got going. Enough to show a movie at a drive in theater. At noon.

[Armchair Lawyer]

4% is notable. Also notable is the country of origin for the immigrants. There's a difference if someone from Iceland immigrates to Norway, versus someone from a far different culture immigrating to Sweden.

[Nige]

Less likely to experience racism, for one thing.

[hoppy025]

In slow enough numbers that they can assimilate without creating ethnic pockets, sure.

[Mr. Bumble]

Sure, as long as they don’t get uppity and demand being admitted to select universities.

[Illocust]

Nope, BudLight's sin was not focusing on their customers. If the only way your current marketing team can imagine bringing in new customers is with campaigns that would alternate your current customers, you need to fire their ass and bring in a new marketing team.

[hoppy025]

It is, because you're dishonestly inflating the numbers by including instances that are not ones that are thought of as "school shootings" by the average person.

[hoppy025]

Yes, why not?

[hoppy025]

Yes. I also hear that Nazis ate hearty breakfasts, so I suggest starving yourself until lunch every day to prove you're not like them.

[hoppy025]

No.

[Ed Grinberg]

QA (replying to hoppy025):

“Asian immigrants have a much lower crime rate than everyone, including whites.”
So shouldn’t we welcome more Asian immigrants? ... [W]ouldn’t shifts to their culture be good things?

Ask Amy Wax.

[hoppy025]

Ed, that's why I think it's important to do so slowly, so that immigrants don't come in thinking the evil and stupid Democrat Party is a good thing.

[Ed Grinberg]

Sure:
“Hey, I’m depraved on account I’m deprived experiencing racism!”

[Dr. Ed 2]

The fact you have to ask shows how out of touch you are.

[Brett Bellmore]

Because most people find the 'trans' to be disturbing weirdos, and want nothing to do with them. Sure, in a tolerant, "You be you, just somewhere else where I don't have to watch it, please!" sort of way. But, still, disturbing weirdos.

So having them continually, relentlessly thrown in our faces pisses us off. We don't WANT to celebrate those freaks, we want them to go away and leave us normal people alone!

And why anyone selling a product for normal people would think associating it with mentally ill freaks would help sell it is beyond me.

But, they didn't really think it would help sell the beer, did they? They just thought they could look all progressive and tolerant, and ride out the hit to their sales.

[Illocust]

Alienated, I'm typing on my phone.

It doesn't matter why your customers are Alienated. It matters that there is a continuous topic and it is trivially easy for your marketing team to avoid it. They just have to not make an Ad bringing the topic up. If they don't bring it up neither side gets mad at them and they can continue to sell to both.

It's easy to do, and a marketing team is literally paid to understand their audience well enough to know what topics are continuous. If they can't you need to for them and how someone who can do their job.

[Ed Grinberg]

from Wikipedia:

In August 2014, [Gavin] McInnes [wrote] an essay about transphobia titled “Transphobia is Perfectly Natural”

I’d give you some of his substantive arguments, but I can’t -- the essay has been memory-holed.

[Nige]

Not what I said, but go off.

[Reallynotbob]

Extra points for quoting a musical that criticized racial stereotyping generally, and specifically in the quoted line criticized judgmental ivory-tower social work that failed to account for juvenile offenders' actual needs, trauma, or circumstances.

[hoppy025]

I don't care what they're "literally." If you ask a person what they think of when they think of "drug related violence" they think of a dealer shooting another dealer.

If you include an instance where a person at CVS throws a bottle of aspirin at their friend during an argument as "drug related violence," you'll get a much higher count, but you're doing so dishonestly, and you know it.

[Michael Ejercito]

Well, if s particular school shootong happens to be a gangbanger killing a rival gangbanget at 2 A.M., it is not like we can bring the victim back to life if we gathered all seven dragon balls and summoned ShenRon.

[hoppy025]

You'd think wrong.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Nope, BudLight’s sin was not focusing on their customers.

Which customers do you have in mind?

The half-educated racists?

The superstitious gay-bashers?

The backwater immigrant-haters?

The Volokh Conspiracy fans?

The old-timey misogynists?

The deplorable bigots?

The knuckle-dragging QAnon and MAGA fans?

Which customers, in particular, did they lose focus on with the few thousand dollars they devoted to a shout-out to someone some Americans see as a target for hatred and intolerance?

Carry on, clingers. Until your betters decide otherwise.

[Sarcastr0]

most people find the ‘trans’ to be disturbing weirdos, and want nothing to do with them

This isn't just ignoring them, this is targeting anyone who associates with them.
It's absolutely speech to do so. And it's also a reflection that this isn't just 'leave me alone' it's 'I will take trouble and attention to make your life worse.'

[Aunt Teefah]

Pedophile groomer Brett Bellmore delusionally believes he is among the "normal people", slanders trans people doing nothing more than live their lives as "disturbing weirdos" and "freaks." Absolutely vile husk of a man.

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : “Because most people find the ‘trans’ to be disturbing weirdos, and want nothing to do with them”

Surprisingly close to the truth for a Brett comment. In fact, the anti-trans thing is the last form of bigoty the Right can exalt in. It wasn’t that long ago that gay folk were comfortable targets for them too, but the public abandoned conservatives there. These days they can put their hair down & wildly let go on the wee-tiny number of people who are trans. That’s why they’ve produced hundreds and hundreds of bills to harass and torment them. Like the National Socialists discovered in the Thirties, a group everyone dislikes is a valuable commodity

Brett Bellmore : “So having them continually, relentlessly thrown in our faces pisses us off”

This is more of a “who are you trying to kid?” Brett comment we’ve come to expect. Because for every one mention of trans folk by a Lefty, there are hundreds of shrieking diatribes from the Right. Indeed, when the Right gets bored of playing sadistic games with this particular Culture War playtoy, trans folk will go back to being barely noticed as they were before. .

[Nige]

'So having them continually, relentlessly thrown in our faces pisses us off.'

A forty second tiktok video. Just existing is enough to trigger your bigotry.

[Noscitur a sociis]

So having them continually, relentlessly thrown in our faces pisses us off.

The "ad" at issue here was one sponsored video posted on Dylan Mulvaney's TikTok page. How was it being thrown in the face of anyone who wasn't already seeking out that content?

[Dr. Ed 2]

More than that, your beer is who you identify with, and it ain't trannies.

[Theendoftheleft]

'Carry on, clingers. Until your betters decide otherwise'.

Any American who took you seriously about this would find you and blow your brains out.

[Ed Grinberg]

there is a [contentious] topic

As I said before, the whole current tenor of the “liberal” establishment is that nothing is contentious / controversial. There’s only ONE way to see things. Anyone who disagrees is a “deplorable” (who must be deplored, ostracized, excluded, eliminated).
How very liberal!
(Of course, this approach doesn’t work with one’s paying customers, provided they have a choice.)

[Brett Bellmore]

" If they don’t bring it up neither side gets mad at them and they can continue to sell to both."

Well, that's the problem, isn't it? It's actually a case of one side getting mad if you bring it up, and the other side getting mad if you don't. With the latter side being in charge of "ESG" ratings, their getting mad means a lot.

[Bored Lawyer]

Do they have a choice? Without the US and NATO, Ukraine would be a goner.

And even if Ukraine agrees, is this a wise or moral policy?

[apedad]

They would do that because they think they're . . . better?!?

[Frank Drackman]

He's at https://www.cor.pa.gov/Facilities/StatePrisons/Pages/Greene.aspx

[Sarcastr0]

You are correct, the DoD could if it so chose put a lot of pressure on Ukraine.

That doesn't mean the DoD is setting Ukraine's policy.

is this a wise or moral policy?
Yes, it is. Ask Chamberlain what seeking peace above all else gets you.

[Moderation4ever]

" is this a wise or moral policy?"

It is the only policy Ukraine can accept at this time in the absence of some guaranteed safety from Russia. A ceasefire or peace treaty is useless if the Russians simple come back in a year or two after they have regained strength. For the Ukrainians it is fight the Russians now or fight them later.

[Mr. Bumble]

Would any of this have been happening if the US hadn't convinced Ukraine to give up its nukes?

[bernard11]

Do they have a choice? Without the US and NATO, Ukraine would be a goner.

Wait.

If they don't go along with Blinken, they are a goner. So why shouldn't they go along?

[Noscitur a sociis]

Do they have a choice? Without the US and NATO, Ukraine would be a goner.

I can certainly see how the US could leverage its support to make Ukraine accept a peace offer even if they wanted to keep fighting. I'm not sure I understand how we would use it to make them keep fighting if there was a peace offer on the table that they want to accept.

At any rate, if (as everything. I've seen indicates) Ukraine does in fact want to keep fighting until they expel the invaders, an American commitment to continue support until they achieve their goal seems like the best message to be sending to Russia.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

The Biden administration told Zelensky unequivocally that Putin was invading their country. If we wanted to trick Zelensky into waging war with Putin then we wouldn’t have told them Putin was definitely invading for months prior to the invasion. So the only way Zelensky was going to cut a deal with Putin is if he knew without a doubt that Putin was invading…because why cut a deal with him if you don’t think he is invading?

[Ed Grinberg]

It’s absolutely speech to do so.

Yeah, so? We are talking about me not wanting to spend my money on a particular product, not the government punishing the company in some way. (But I suppose you knew that, and are just trying to "win" the argument in a typically dishonest way.)

[Brett Bellmore]

Right, and Bud Light was pioneering this sort of thing, so we hadn't already gotten tired of it. [/sarc]

[Ed Grinberg]

A not wanting B to rule over him = A thinking he's better than B?
You're as bad as the Rev.

[Sarcastr0]

You think the left would have stopped buying Bud if they didn't include a trans spokesperson???

That's...quite a supposition.

[Illocust]

The ESG rating isn't a customer base. Not getting involved would not have resulted in any noticeable loss of sales. The LGBTQIA+ community just isn't big enough to effect sales directly, and it is much harder to start a movement against a brand because they aren't creating something.

Loss in banking privileges are a legitimate concern.

[Mr. Bumble]

Just curious as to what you would accept as proof?

[Frank Drackman]

It's Ass-burgers

[Nige]

No more a mental illness than being trans, QA, though you'd think someone who was neorodivergent would empathise with other people outside the norm. I wouldn't go further than that, though, assholishness comes from within, not from neurodevelopmental conditions. (Also, it's not known as Asperger's any more, it's been merged with ASD as part of the autism spectrum, which is just as well, Dr Asperger was a bit of a Nazi.)

[Brett Bellmore]

That's quite a weird take on what I actually wrote. Illocust understands: Bud had a choice between pissing off customers, and pissing off people who controlled their access to capital.

[Martinned]

Let's find out: What have you got?

[Aunt Teefah]

I think we all know that a scientific study showing any statistically significance will not be forthcoming (due to the assertion being absolute hokum).

But for starters, how about you show a single instance, anywhere in the world, of a teen girl's suicide being caused by the presence of a trans child in her locker room?

[Theendoftheleft]

Oh no, I’m definitely better than AIDS (the ‘rev’): it’s easy to run intellectual circles around him, which is why he cannot respond on the merits.

My point above, though, was merely to point out that people who take him seriously will recognize that he poses a totalitarian threat to the USA (and elsewhere) -- regardless of how he labels his politics.

[Illocust]

Yes, ESG scores are used to deny companies credit lines. ESG scores require a company to embrace the latest craze among the ultra woke in their marketing and public face or face a loss of score.

It's really fucked up, and apparently legal despite the harm to bottom lines.

[Sarcastr0]

ESG scores are used to deny companies credit lines

Is there any proof this is happening? And if it is, is there any proof this is anything more than private entities engaging in commercial decision making?

If you have an issue with choices by private company, seems like the solution is regulation by the US Government, rather than these shadowy credit companies without accountability or transparency.

(See also: Porn regulation).

[Illocust]

"This happened to Bud here?"

Yes, Bud has had their ESG score slashed for staying quiet during the controversy instead of loudly insulting the boycotting customers as the only US LGBTQIA+ ESG rating group wanted them to. They’ve now partnered with the LGBTQIA+ group that slashed their rating and are spending large sums of money on this partnership to get their rating back, despite how much this is hurting their bottom line.

[Nige]

Maybe they have some vestigial sense of right and wrong after all.

[Illocust]

Queen almathea, what exactly do you think the consequences of losing your ESG score are? It’s not a loss of sales, companies have been pursuing the score for longer than the public has known they exist.

Why do you think a corporation in panic mode because their customers are staging the most effective boycott in a decade, would turn around during that boycott and spend large amounts of money partnering with the only recognized LGBTQIA+ ESG rating group and risk that boycott continuing? Why do you think their ESG rating is of such critical importance to them?

https://connect.sustainalytics.com/scs-ebook-how-sustainable-finance-shaping-banking

A quote for you “Most major banks screen their lending portfolios against specific ESG risks as per the OECD Due Diligence guidance, and many embrace negative or positive screening for potential corporate lending transactions or project finance transactions. Screening strategies filter potential transactions using predetermined ESG criteria to rule companies in or out of contention for financing. Negative screening and norm-based screening involve the exclusion or avoidance of transactions not aligned with environmental, social and ethical standards. Exclusion criteria often include issues like weapon manufacturing, tobacco sales or production of fossil fuels. While negative and norm-based screening are the most popular techniques used for ESG asset management, these practices have been losing traction since 2015.

Positive screening, on the other hand, selects corporate borrowers that score highly on ESG factors relative to their peers. This can include best-in-class screening, or the inclusion of investments in companies and sectors with higher ESG scores as compared to their peers or companies that are actively improving their ESG performance. This screening method does not necessarily exclude ESG laggards but rather focuses on those performing best with regards to ESG in relation to comparable companies or industries. In comparison to corporate lending transactions, the intensity of screening is often higher for project finance transactions given due diligence requirements under the Equator Principles.”

[Sarcastr0]

Illocust, you are declaring a bunch of facts that are new to a number of us but providing no sources where we might look into this.

Where did you learn this?

To be clear - I am aware of credit companies and reputational risk assessments. I'm not sure that's being applied to choices of who is featured in ads. I'm not sure this was applied to Bud.
I'm further not sure why companies when getting slapped don't *mention this thing you claim to be true* it would seem a great way to pass off the heat. Malpractice not to, really - if what you say is true.

And even if it is the case, the remedy is what? A law telling raiting agencies not to consider diversity pushes in their evaluations?

[Illocust]

Removal of rating https://news.yahoo.com/lgbtq-group-suspends-bud-light-210603885.html

[Illocust]

Attempt to get rating back despite harm to bottom line:
https://www.anheuser-busch.com/newsroom/bud-light-and-the-nglcc-continue-to-empower-lgbtq-owned-small-businesses-across-america

Can we please move on from the "it isn't happening" phase now?

[Sarcastr0]

ESG scores are used to deny companies credit lines
No one is denying ESG scores exist, my dude.

You've still provided no proof they are causing denial of credit.

Nor have you talked about what your proposed solution is, if private companies are choosing to make their decisions in a way you don't like.

[David Nieporent]

Yes, ESG scores are used to deny companies credit lines. ESG scores require a company to embrace the latest craze among the ultra woke in their marketing and public face or face a loss of score.

I'll take "Things that only delusional people think" for $1,000, Alex.

[Illocust]

You know what. It doesn't matter if you don't want to read the links I'm providing. Any third parties reading the thread will read the provided links, and that is what is really important at the end of the day.

The conversation will move on with or without y'all.

[Sarcastr0]

I read your links. They do not establish ESG scores are used to deny companies credit lines.

[David Nieporent]

I read your links. They do not establish ESG scores are used to deny companies credit lines.

This. The notion that AB InBev, a multinational corporation with more than $50 billion in revenues, was having trouble or would have trouble getting credit, is insane.

[Mr. Bumble]

Not my comment, not my point other than to agree with the first part of the sentence, "The (quite real) rise in teen-girl suicides",
is a fact.
I assume there are multiple reasons and not just "a direct result of this campaign."

[apedad]

Sez the guy wanting to shoot people.

[Nige]

The last form? It's a fantastic wedge to role back lgtbq rights all along the board, and then they're coming for women.

[bernard11]

the anti-trans thing is the last form of bigoty the Right can exalt in.

Nah. When anti-trans bigotry becomes unacceptable they will find a new hate object.

[shawn_dude]

This isn't just about transgendered persons. This is about enforcing white Christian gender norms across the board. The drag bans are intended to keep CIS men from wearing women's clothing which has nothing to do with transgendered persons. Just as abortion bans are intended to force women into their own narrow gender roles. They're also taking aim at other communities with their anti-DEI and anti-CRT hissy fits.

All we're seeing here is just the same B.S. we had in the 70s and 80s: gays as pedophiles (now "groomers") and "don't shove it down my throat" as a rallying cry for shoving the LGBT community back into the closet. They've got a conservative Catholic majority in the Supreme Court and they're looking to send us back to the 1950s.

[Nige]

'who must be deplored, ostracized, excluded, eliminated'

Like trans people? For appearing in forty-second videos endorsing a beer?

[Nige]

It's a bit like choosing to piss of Nazis, though, a proper brave moral stance, though obviously they're too much of a soulless corporation to stick with.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

the beer company's handling of the hate-filled and transphobic backlash

For anyone who still thinks Associated Press is an actual news source and not a left-wing propaganda outlet.

[bernard11]

Who exactly was going to deny Anheuser-Busch credit over this?

Nobody.

They have about $80B in debt, by the way, and both Moody's and S&P upgraded their credit in the first quarter.

[Theendoftheleft]

Says the guy named apedad…

What’s your point? Why shouldn’t people take legitimate measures to prevent others from attempting a totalitarian putsch? That’s, at least in part, what your 2nd Amendment is for; it's not just to stop the government, but those who would seize it.

The gun rights in the English Bill of Rights were there to help Protestants protect themselves and their country from Catholics, not just another Catholic (or otherwise authoritarian) king.

[apedad]

Since when does democracy equal a 'totalitarian putsch?'

If the Constitution was amended tomorrow and 2A was removed via the constitutional process, how is that a putsch?

Are people trying to do that?

Yup.

Are people trying to move to a weaponless society?

Yup.

Are you going to lose?

Prolly not; you'll prolly die before 2A is rescinded.

But you and I both know that's the way our society is headed.

[Theendoftheleft]

I’m not American and don’t live in the USA, thank all the gods old and new.

If you can’t see how what AIDS wrote (‘Until your betters decide otherwise’) constitutes a direct threat to democracy, to freedom of speech and association (and to academic freedom), then you are a fool. Note, too, that AIDS regularly ends his comments with a variation on that theme. Otherwise, Yes, I know which way your society is heading: authoritarianism. We in the rest of the West, across the political spectrum, are becoming increasingly mortified by you and your government. You have discredited yourselves.

Don’t pester me about gun rights, either. Like a sizable portion of the globe, I think your country’s going to collapse over the next couple of decades. So it won’t make a lick of difference whether you amend your constitution or not; only a fool would forfeit his arms now.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

if you live in the West odds are you owe whatever paltry freedoms and democracy you have to my country.

That's a bingo!

[Theendoftheleft]

I don't fuck queens or consider evolutionary duds to be equals.

[Moderation4ever]

Yes, it probably would be happening. The reason for wanting Ukraine to give up the nukes were concerns that they would not be safe in the country. Would Ukraine be safer if its nukes had been sold off to terrorists? If both sides had nukes it might have been a stand-off, but it might be that both ended up using them. Generally speaking it is better if neither side has nukes, but when only one side has the devices it does raise the bar for use.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Haha yeah, if you don't like trannies and other assorted characters in womanface, you're a Nazi!

That's so totally true, guys!

[Nige]

Comparable to Nazis, yes. They weren't half bad at organising boycotts of businesses related to the sorts of people they hated, either.

[Brett Bellmore]

Aspergers has never been considered a mental illness, though. Why should it be? It doesn't lead to self-mutilation, it doesn't involve any delusions. We're just lousy at interpersonal relations, but we tend to actually be better than average at other stuff, like math.

It's actually more of a personality type than a mental illness.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

If I could show you data that males that tuck are less likely to procreate…could I change your opinion on all of this?

[Sarcastr0]

Aspergers was a handicap requiring accommodations back when I was in grad school.

Slicing mighty thin between mental illness and mental handicap.

we tend to actually be better than average at other stuff, like math.
This is, I understand, still an area of academic inquiry. Studies go both ways.

[Nige]

‘Why should it be?’

How often do you reckon it’s been mistaken for one before there was a better understanding of what it is? ‘lousy at interpersonal relations,’ but good at math is a milder form of ASD, though it isn't being 'good at math' per se, it's being lucky enough to have an exploitable hyperfixation. Try to acknowledge that there are people who have more severe and even debilitating forms of the condition.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Just a few years ago transgenderism was a mental illness.

What new science did they discover that made them realize they were wrong for so many centuries?

If they were wrong then, could they be wrong now?

[Josh R]

It’s the relatively recent empirical data of the clinical outcomes of people with gender dysphoria that have led us to conclude that transitioning is part of the cure, not the disease.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

What question are you answering? Surely not mine.

The DSM-5 invented "gender dysphoria". I was talking about up until the DSM-5 was released and transgenderism was a mental illness.

[Josh R]

Yes, I am answering your question. DSM-5 changed the term in response to new empirical, clinical evidence.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Your claim as about gender dysphoria and treatment for it. It wasn't about transgenderism itself not being a mental disorder. This isn't that nuanced, surely you understand the difference between the two. Further, you're pretending as if sex changes were recently discovered.

Here was what really happened. A trans activist was on one of their committees and they argued that transgenders wouldn’t suffer if stigma was removed from being a tranny. They modeled this treatment hypothesis off the same theory as to why they removed homosexuality as a mental disorder.

In essence, they put the treatment of these transgenders upon society instead of upon themselves and their therapists. So they first removed it completely, BUT, they found out they made an oopsie. Without an ICD-9 code, transgenders can’t get insurance coverage for their treatment. So what a conundrum they had. How could they declare transgenderism perfectly normal and healthy, while simultaneously diagnosing them with something so insurance would cover their treatments?

So, they invented “gender dysphoria”. Transgenderism is totally absolutely natural and normal, BUT if you are some how suffering from it, well that’s “gender dysphoria” and you can get diagnosed, not for being a tranny, but for suffering from being tranny!

That’s what happened. There wasn’t any new scientific evidence that they discovered that made them conclude that transgenderism itself was a normal, healthy mental state. It’s entirely a treatment hypothesis.

Sadly, they didn’t bother checking up on the homosexuals, since they still have significantly poorer outcomes than normal people. So “reducing stigma” didn’t help the homo’s, and it surely isn’t helping the trannies.

[Nige]

Reduced it enough that Nazis like yourself are still mad about it.

[Nige]

Well thank Christ the problem of teen suicide is serious enough for you not to completely absorb it onto your culture war framework. But to be clear there isn't a shred of evidence it has anything to do with trans kids, them being one of the more at-risk groups. Her horrific false claim is tantamount to a hate crime.

[Bored Lawyer]

That's my point.

[Bored Lawyer]

Right. Which might mean, as I indicate below, admission to NATO after a peace settlement.

[JasonT20]

My understanding is that the nukes in Ukraine were not usable by the newly independent military of Ukraine. It seems likely that whatever codes and authorization that is required to arm the nukes was centralized in Moscow, much like the U.S. has the "nuclear football" that is always near the President. Thus, Ukraine keeping the nukes wouldn't have been really about Ukraine having a credible nuclear deterrent. At least, not without the time and expertise necessary to get around whatever those security measures were.

So, yes. It was in everyone's interest at the time to ensure that the nukes were completely secured. Ukraine (and two other newly independent republics that had nukes in their territory, iirc) was supposed to get recognition of their sovereignty over their borders at that time in return. The agreement stopped just short of language using the word "guarantee" which seemed to be diplomatic code for direct intervention by the U.S. and the U.K., but that agreement should have made clear to Russia that the kind of support that we have given Ukraine was called for in the event of violations of their sovereignty. Putin just calculated poorly and believed that a) they would get to Kiev and topple the government quickly, and b) Europe would be too scared to lose Russia's natural gas to oppose their action strongly enough to matter.

[Moderation4ever]

I have also said that the only meaningful peace settlement at this point would have to allow Ukraine to be admitted to NATO. A direct confrontation with NATO is the only thing that will stop another Russian attack down the road.

[Commenter_XY]

We do not, do not, do not want Ukraine in NATO. Corrupt AF, no thanks. Ukraine is not America's fight.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

We know from the first Trump impeachment that Zelensky was gung ho about receiving lethal aid. Zelensky doesn’t trust Putin and his argument so far has been any deal with Putin will simply be a ruse for Putin to reload and take all of Ukraine. Obviously this will have to end in negotiated settlement…but Zelensky is the party that will get to make that decision.

From my perspective Ukraine and NATO have already won and Putin has already lost even if Ukraine ends up ceding territory to Russia…I think John McCain deserves credit for this win and the individual that best reflects McCain’s views from the grave is Ben Domenich as he is married to McCain’s daughter. I also believe McConnel and Graham got Tucker Carlson fired and Graham has endorsed Trump because he is fine with Biden being president.

[Theendoftheleft]

You just switching accounts?

Regardless, Queenie, notice how you didn’t respond to my point (and, indeed, misrepresented it): you don’t have empirically-grounded knowledge and skills to socially engineer and culture craft. Instead, you just have experience with mass immigration from Europe that involved strong pressures for social conformity plus a little spontaneous ordering as to how the American culture would turn out. That’s not at all the same thing, and certainly nothing that could lend credence to your more recent claims about yourselves and your values now.

[shawn_dude]

Triggered conservative snowflakes demanding safe spaces?

[shawn_dude]

And only endorsing that beer to their pre-existing, niche community. It's not like they made Dylan the national face of Bud Lite. They sent a small payment to an influencer with a large audience to flog their product to a specific group of potential customers. If you weren't a subscriber, you were unlikely to see the sponsorship piece.

Neither Budweiser nor Dylan shoved this in anyone's face. Bigots did that. Probably no one on this site would have seen the ad were it not for bigots getting triggered and melting down.

[not guilty]

The hatred of transgendered folks became virulent after societal tolerance of gays and lesbians became more widespread -- which I posit correlated to more heterosexuals realizing that someone meaningful to them is same sex attracted. The transgendered are less numerous than gays and lesbians and likely less likely to live their lives as openly trans. That makes them a preferred hate target.

I recall an observation that then-Senator Lyndon Johnson made to Bill Moyers regarding the appeal of Jim Crow in 1960:

I'll tell you what's at the bottom of it. If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1988/11/13/what-a-real-president-was-like/d483c1be-d0da-43b7-bde6-04e10106ff6c/

[Dr. Ed 2]

NAMBLA *was* doing that -- but if we'd held a line then, we wouldn't be dealing with this crap now.

[Sarcastr0]

your beer is who you identify with

LOL not it's not.

[StellaLink_the dog]

I don't know why you can't find the article, because I can. But, just as you can't, I can't give you any of his substantive arguments, because there are none.

Here's the concluding couple of paragraphs:

By pretending this is all perfectly sane, you are enabling these poor bastards to mutilate themselves. This insane war on pronouns is
about telling people what to do. It may empower you to shut down a school’s computer system because they phrased your gender
wrong, but that’s just a game to you. To them, it’s a life-changing event that fucks them up. To fight against transphobia is to justify
trannies. To justify trannies is to allow mentally ill people to mutilate themselves. When your actions are getting people mutilated, you’re
at war with them.

It’s not great for women, either. Buying woman parts from a hospital and calling yourself a broad trivializes what it is to be a woman.
Womanhood is not on a shelf next to wigs and makeup. Similarly, being a dude is quite involved. Ripping your vaginal canal out of your
fly doesn’t mean you are going to start inventing shit and knowing how cement works. Being a man is awesome. So is being a woman.
We should revere these creations, not revel in their bastardization. Being gay is a weird quirk that happens at birth. It’s like being an
albino. If you’re born that way, you shouldn’t fight it. You don’t need to change who you are. In fact, doing so is sexist, misandrist,
homophobic, and further damages the lives of the mentally ill.

[Theendoftheleft]

You were responding to MY claim and missing the mark. But feel free to delude yourself otherwise.

Yes, you insist that you’re the leader of the free world — even though there was NEVER a democratic vote on the matter, and even though most of us in the rest of the free democratic world don’t approve of what you do.

Moreover, your recent efforts to multicult, over the last generation, involves dumping millions of unskilled illiterate labour illegally into your country. People vote against it, a super-majority of the population wants something done about it, but the US government will do nothing because it isn’t AT ALL a government ‘of the people, by the people, for the people’. Instead, the people are wholly fungible commodities for when it suits the government’s interests, not the people’s. Your system is a corrupt oligarchy. People, across the political spectrum, and across the world, can see that clearly now.

[David Nieporent]

Yes, you insist that you’re the leader of the free world — even though there was NEVER a democratic vote on the matter, and even though most of us in the rest of the free democratic world don’t approve of what you do.

Was there a democratic vote to elect you as spokesperson for the rest of the free democratic world?

[Nige]

It’s perfectly accurate. You can hardly deny that a massive reactionary backlash over a trans person making a 40 second tiktok video is anything other than hateful and transphobic and that the Target backlash is anything othe than hateful and homophobic.

[Nige]

After all the gloating that transphobic hate has driven down stock prices and sales, now you're concerned the poor old coporation might lose banking priveleges, highly unlikely though that might be?