Prelude to the Apocalypse

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Iran War. When.

2021
3
6%
2022-2025
15
28%
2026-2030
7
13%
2031-2040
3
6%
2041-2050
0
No votes
Never
25
47%
 
Total votes: 53

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quash
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Re: Bush: 2017 Edition

Post by quash »

BulletMagnet wrote:He said they impersonated them (his exact word was "parroted")


Do you not stop and think about what this entails? If Russian agents were, as he said verbatim, parroting a movement wholeheartedly endorsed by the Democrats in an attempt to divide the country, does that not mean the Democrats were trying to do the same thing?


I really don't want to use the "did u even reed the article u linked" card, but honestly; there is nothing in there that actually proves a word they printed.

"At least $100,000 in Facebook ads" lol. If that's really all it takes to beat the Democrats, they fucking deserve to lose.
Ah, the umpteenth return of the "if you criticize Trump and/or the right it automatically means you're never, ever critical of Dems or the left" canard


That's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that it's quite pathetic how a Democratic politician can tacitly admit on camera that this whole thing is a fraud and all you do is flippantly dismiss it.
Sure there is, if you're either 1) Filthy rich and morally bankrupt, or 2) More concerned with pissing off people you don't like than actually having a minimally competent, or even minimally coherent, government in charge of your country.


I'm none of those things and I still find reasons to like this administration.
You mean the radical notion that putting a lifelong, unrepentant, and belligerent swindler, ignoramus and uber-plutocrat into the nation's highest office might not turn out terribly well for most folks? Yeah, the spooks had to dig deep to implant that particular mind control chip. :lol:


No more than the Russians had to reach to convince people that perhaps a notoriously opportunistic career politician with an axe to grind may not have been a great choice, either.
Once again, you're not even pretending to take this shit seriously, and neither are any of the crystal-chandelier cannibals you voted for. Fuck off.
That's rich coming from someone who is still willingly falling for domestic propaganda. Keep believing everything you read from the same billionaires you claim to be against.
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Re: Bush: 2017 Edition

Post by BulletMagnet »

quash wrote:Do you not stop and think about what this entails? If Russian agents were, as he said verbatim, parroting a movement wholeheartedly endorsed by the Democrats in an attempt to divide the country, does that not mean the Democrats were trying to do the same thing?
My first instinct was to simply throw up my hands and head back to the bench with my usual "'fraid I've reached my limit, anyone else who wants to keep pretending there's an actual conversation happening, be my guest" but this - this was nothing short of fucking pitiful. :lol: I'm talking "alternative facts is a legal term" territory. :lol:

So, apparently "supporting", in any capacity, a "controversial" or "divisive" group that Russian trolls impersonated before the election in order to get people arguing is enough to make any entity, in its entirety, just as guilty of deliberately sowing discord as the Kremlin, is it? (But wait, I thought the entire Russian thing was a whole-cloth fake excuse invented by the Dems for why they lost? Whatever!) As was previously noted, in that very same one-minute clip Schiff also names various pro-gun groups as among the trolls' aliases, which they were (that article also addresses your "all it took was 100K in ads" snark, not that you care). So, by your "logic", that means that the right's existing and continued "wholehearted endorsement" of these groups also amounts to borderline treason! My god, they really have infiltrated everything! :lol:

You're not even trying. Fuck off.
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Re: Bush: 2017 Edition

Post by quash »

BulletMagnet wrote:So, apparently "supporting", in any capacity, a "controversial" or "divisive" group that Russian trolls impersonated before the election in order to get people arguing is enough to make any entity, in its entirety, just as guilty of deliberately sowing discord as the Kremlin, is it?
First of all, you have yet to provide any actual proof that there were foreign government agents from Russia interfering in the election, or that Trump had colluded with said agents. Yet again, you link an article of nothing but accusations with no evidence and try to pass it off as the smoking gun. Since this is so difficult for you to grasp, let's go over what is and isn't actual proof.

Actual proof: Intercepted COMINT (internet traffic, phone calls, etc). Bank statements between involved parties. Any documents that show a direct influence of Russians over Trump and/or the election, so long as it isn't doctored (it is well known that the IC can easily manipulate digital forensics to seemingly change the source of traffic, among other things).

Not actual proof: Accusations from politicians and journalists, no matter how convincing they may sound to you.

The burden of proof is on you, not me, so get to it.

Secondly, you are still dodging the implications of what Schiff said. Parroting BLM implies that they simply took what was already out there and signal boosted it. It is funny to see you say that they just said stuff that was even crazier than the normal BLM propaganda, because not only are you tacitly admitting that it is largely a movement of crazed people, but because the baseline level of BLM propaganda is already crazy enough as it is!

While I know you love to conveniently ignore things like who funds progressive movements and Democratic campaigns, it is well known that George Soros gave at least half a million dollars to the movement, and the DNC had it front and center because they thought it was a winning strategy. Thus, it doesn't make much sense for a group opposed to the Democrats to do their work for them, especially when they did a good enough job of making sure everyone in the world knew about it themselves. Unless there's some grand Machiavellian strategy I'm missing here, this accusation doesn't pass the sniff test. Moreover, neither you nor anyone else has provided any actual proof to this end.

Additionally, I seem to remember you not only denying that the Democrats were running on racial division, but flipping the accusation on the Republicans. Where do you stand on that now?
As was previously noted, in that very same one-minute clip Schiff also names various pro-gun groups as among the trolls' aliases, which they were (that article also addresses your "all it took was 100K in ads" snark, not that you care). So, by your "logic", that means that the right's existing and continued "wholehearted endorsement" of these groups also amounts to borderline treason! My god, they really have infiltrated everything! :lol:
Not quite. You see, there's a distinct difference between the causes themselves, let alone how they conduct themselves. One group resorts to violent methods and civil disruption on behalf of progressive billionaires, the other has some (greatly overstated) political power as a means of limiting gun control.

I don't think it's necessary to get in to the cost of BLM in terms of damages done to property public and private, public trust in law enforcement, and, ironically enough, black lives. Compared to pro-2A groups, who mostly keep themselves under control when demonstrating in public, no doubt because shooting people in large groups isn't the smartest thing to do when trying to convince people that the right to bear arms is worth keeping.

Even if Russia did promote the 2A during the election (which, again, that pesky process of providing proof of your accusations has yet to substantiate), it wouldn't immediately make it a Russian cause, just as it wouldn't immediately make BLM a Russian cause if they promoted that. It really is amusing to see you reach new heights of intellectual dishonesty in a desperate attempt to avoid having to defend your positions, but at the same time it's disheartening to see someone so invested in such blatant bullshit. I do pity you, even though I shouldn't.
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Re: Bush: 2017 Edition

Post by quash »

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Re: Bush: 2017 Edition

Post by BryanM »

Matt Bors has a comic illustrating how nonsensical that entire affair was to begin with. From five years ago.

Image

No wonder a more honest Trumpy style "Let's murder them and take their oil" resonates better for war mongers. (Bill Maher prefers "let's murder them and take their land.")

Anyway, the stock markets are closed on the weekend and can't collapse in real time and that makes me sad. Fingers crossed for Dow -1,500 on Monday. Let's make dreams become reality, people.
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Re: Bush: 2017 Edition

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quash wrote:The burden of proof is on you, not me, so get to it.
See, this is why the Alex Jones crowd - and the results of their clout - never ever "loses" an argument, let alone admits it got anything wrong (tax cuts for rich people pay for themselves!) - you say "see, I'm reasonable, just show me xyz, what are you waiting for?" even as the other side of your mouth screams that every single possible source of, and outlet for, xyz is hopelessly corrupted and/or biased, and hey, that xyz can be easily faked anyway, no matter who unearths it. There is literally always an escape hatch to allow you to insist that "this proves nothing" and send the whole "conversation" back to square one, in hopes that all involved have forgotten every item of interest that emerged along the way except what you're ready to dust off and re-squawk as if nothing had happened.

As I've said a million times by now, I don't even follow the Russia thing all that closely, because if Trump and his ilk are removed from office for any reason other than "people realize how god-awful their policies are for almost everybody" we'll be repeating this same pathetic dance before long, but hell, let me ask you directly: Assuming that "hard" evidence of Russian meddling and/or Trump's use of it does exist - heck, forget Russia if you want, and substitute Trump University, the sexual assault accusations, ripping off contractors, anything at all from the massive pile of cases in which Trump is accused of having broken the law - in what form and via what channels would it need to appear for you to even consider the possibility that it might be legitimate?

And y'know, while we're at it, if you truly believe that there's nothing at all to any of this, why aren't you and the rest of the Trumpskis loudly calling on Daddy to release his tax returns and help put the kibosh on this whole charade once and for all? Oh, and if you sneer that "watching the libtards tie themselves in knots over this is more than worth all the uncertainty", guess what - you've proudly taken up the mantle of the More concerned with pissing off people you don't like than actually having a minimally competent, or even minimally coherent, government in charge of your country Trump supporter. Even more openly than you already have countless times, that is. :lol:
It is funny to see you say that they just said stuff that was even crazier than the normal BLM propaganda, because not only are you tacitly admitting that it is largely a movement of crazed people, but because the baseline level of BLM propaganda is already crazy enough as it is!
And here's the other reason there's no such thing as a "debate" with someone like you - let me quote precisely what I said in my previous post:

He said they impersonated them (his exact word was "parroted"), among other groups, and made it seem like said groups were posting particularly incendiary shit to get people even more riled up about this stuff than they already were.

As noted therein, BLM pisses a lot of people off - nobody with working sensory organs disputes that, and before you start ranting about how that statement somehow "condones violence" (enduring double standards notwithstanding), no, I don't think rioting helps any cause, though under the definition of "inciting violence" that the right likes to use for everyone except themselves (yeah, those well-behaved Second Amendment types have nothing whatsoever to do with the militias stockpiling military-grade weaponry because they somehow came to believe that Obama was going to take all their guns away and then send coded messages to the inner cities to unleash the armies of blacks to put white genocide into effect :lol:), it's all but inevitable, which works out rather well for you, now as it did then, wouldn't you say?

But notice where the obligatory filter is applied: in acknowledging that BLM, like the pro-gun groups, is controversial (another word I used verbatim), you take the opportunity to automatically assume in your response that I, and Schiff, in the process somehow "let slip" that all of the controversy they court, including that which springs forth directly from the "they're paid thugs who want to kill cops and rob hard-working people when they're not lazing around and popping out welfare babies" narrative being deliberately pushed by the well-heeled right (and the Russian doppelgangers), the NRA very much included (though they hardly stop there), is also true (or, at the very least, "feels true" or "hints at a larger truth"), and thus that any attempt to "legitimize" such a movement is a consummate fraud.

On the flipside, of course, the pro-gun groups' controversial nature is - must be - incidental or undeserved, since (new rule!) they don't frequently turn out in such numbers (not that they have to). And by extension, of course, folks who support them are instantly absolved of association with any and all "behavioral anomalies" the latter might commit, not to mention the same knee-jerk "see? see? he just admitted it!" insinuations of any such controversy. Again, not a bad starting point upon which to hinge any "argument", wouldn't you say, especially since any other take on the matter at hand can be quickly dismissed as either "biased" or "brainwashed"?

Even in light of all this, what the hell, for whatever it's worth, no, I'm not terribly comfortable with very rich people of any particular stripe pulling the strings of any such effort (even though it didn't happen the way you suggest); you and the rest of the Trumpskis (with the big guy himself leading the parade, I'm sure) can join me in calling for publicly-funded elections as a first step in addressing their oversized influence over our lives, whenever you're ready. And if you want to argue that the tangible record of police killings by race is woefully incomplete (in large part due to the fact that police departments frequently refuse to release the records they have, if they even bother to keep them at all), go ahead, I'm right there with you. However, I would offer the same basic follow-up question to you (and "All Lives Matter" types in general) here as I did on Trump's tax returns: Do you even believe that this is an issue worth putting time and money into getting a more solid picture of at all? Why or why not?
Even if Russia did promote the 2A during the election (which, again, that pesky process of providing proof of your accusations has yet to substantiate), it wouldn't immediately make it a Russian cause, just as it wouldn't immediately make BLM a Russian cause if they promoted that.
I would like to see you try to point out precisely where I - or Schiff - so much as unintentionally suggested any such thing. :lol:

And once again, before we forget - notice how any and all discussion of what a steaming pile of open-faced bullshit the Nunes memo is - with more on the way! - has mysteriously vanished, let alone the conclusions to be drawn when the Commander-in-Chief doesn't skip a beat, neither in somehow claiming Total Vindication due to it, nor in, despite previous promises, abruptly refusing to release a Dem rebuttal, supposedly due to (new rule! new rule!) security reasons (which is in itself, of course, yet another conspiracy :lol:), but also managing to slip in suggestions that it's somehow "political" (and loooong and boooring :lol:) in a way that the Nunes memo somehow just plain wasn't, while pretty much everyone under his umbrella, as ever, is perfectly content to yeeaahhh fuck yooouuu yeaahhh right along with him. But hey, you know the routine - you don't get a fucking word out of the contemporary right unless you're willing to check your attention span at the door and hop aboard the endless merry-go-round! :lol:
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Re: Bush: 2017 Edition

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if Trump and his ilk are removed from office for any reason other than "people realize how god-awful their policies are for almost everybody"
Oh, BM... Such unfounded optimism. If we lived in a world where a president could be removed for bad policies, do you think Trump would be there in the first place?
More concerned with pissing off people you don't like than
Ah, but that's the whole point of the "two" party system. Pissing people off means ratings. It means campaign donations. It means distraction. The plebs waste their time and energy on bickering, until they tire of it and resign to apathy. The elites continue doing whatever they want. That is how the system works, and they are going to make sure it stays working.

When anyone associated with US politics or media accuses Russia of promoting "divisive" material, it's the same thing as China accusing you of using too many disposable chopsticks. The sheer scale of the hipocracy renders the truth or falsehood of the accusation irrelevant.
join me in calling for publicly-funded elections as a first step
So when next contest between plutocrat 1 and plutocrat 2 takes place, you would like them to be able to spend your tax money at Fox News instead of their own money?

How about this for a first step: Get rid of FPTP voting, shutdown the rogue TLAs, shutdown the R and D parties, seize their assets, and prosecute their leadership for corruption, bribery, mail fraud, tax fraud, perjury, money laundering, embezzlement, improper handling of classified info, war crimes, human rights violations, deprivation of rights under color of law, and violating their oaths of office.
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Re: Bush: 2017 Edition

Post by BryanM »

Their money comes from us, so we're already funding elections for them.

There is no one magic bullet that will instantly fix everything. For example, removing first past the post doesn't make a huge impact in and of itself. California has multiple tier elections, most of them come down to Democrat v Democrat. And they keep electing extreme right winger Diane Feinstein to our senate. France similarly elected Macron as PM, whose approval rating immediately tanked to the mid-high 30's after the election, as he began to stomp on the poor.

Things change one birthday and one funeral at a time.
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Re: Bush: 2017 Edition

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I admit that my plan, even as a first step, has some holes, namely that it would never happen (and I forgot a few crimes in my list too), but this criticism is weak sauce. A system with multiple tiers of FPTP has the same problem that plain FPTP has. The voters, clever as they are, seek out and vote for the 2nd worst candidate to make sure the worst candidate doesn't win. Didn't Macron and Le Pen get something like 29% and 21% of the votes in the wider field? So why would you expect more than a 30% approval rating, especially when you figure how many votes for Macron were "against" Le Pen (the corporate media warned everyone not to let Le Pen win)? Primaries, "top two," runoffs, etc. these things are all rubbish. I'm sure you're aware that alternatives exist.

Also on the subject of the impending collapse of the empire, maybe one problem is that democracy doesn't scale this big. Maybe voters shouldn't be asked to decide the fate of the whole world when they don't have the capacity to know what is going on in the whole world. In other words, a later step in my plan would involve cutting the massive federal government down to size and letting the states run their own shit.
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Re: Bush: 2017 Edition

Post by Zen »

The gulf between human predator and human prey, is far too large a chasm to ever be overcome with systems, politics, education etc,.

The predators, faced with a world of borderline retarded prey, are not pushed to much effort.
Push them and they will simply adapt their farming methods.

If intelligence alienates you from the herd and ethics from the predator, this best you can hope for is to remain unseen . . . by both.

Outside some ethical evolutionary leap or some other (outer?) pressure, this dynamic is not about to change.
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Re: Bush: 2017 Edition

Post by BulletMagnet »

Zen wrote:If intelligence alienates you from the herd and ethics from the predator, this best you can hope for is to remain unseen . . . by both.
This is why it's such a treat when the right - especially the far right - attempts to pass itself off as populist.

Unlike the establishment, we work for the little people...you know, the shit-covered masses who are too fucking pants-on-head stupid to even realize how deluded and helpless they all are, far past the point that our tiny, enlightened and superior minority (but a totally separate one from The Elitists, of course!) should feel obligated to do anything except openly mock them and take bets among ourselves how many of them will still fall for our sales pitch anyway (which, again, is not the same thing that The Elitists are doing!). :lol:
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Re: Bush: 2017 Edition

Post by Zen »

BulletMagnet wrote:
Zen wrote:If intelligence alienates you from the herd and ethics from the predator, this best you can hope for is to remain unseen . . . by both.
This is why it's such a treat when the right - especially the far right - attempts to pass itself off as populist.

Unlike the establishment, we work for the little people...you know, the shit-covered masses who are too fucking pants-on-head stupid to even realize how deluded and helpless they all are, far past the point that our tiny, enlightened and superior minority (but a totally separate one from The Elitists, of course!) should feel obligated to do anything except openly mock them and take bets among ourselves how many of them will still fall for our sales pitch anyway (which, again, is not the same thing that The Elitists are doing!). :lol:
I inferred no moral stance. I just stated facts.

How is being a vegan shark working out for you, BulletMagnet?
Is your guilt assuaged? Or, are you going insane with dissonance? Is this why you must see everything through the anaesthetic of politics?

When you inevitably run out of charity packages for your unsustainable petting zoo, you do realise that they will . . . eat you, don't you?
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Re: Bush: 2017 Edition

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The voters, clever as they are, seek out and vote for the 2nd worst candidate to make sure the worst candidate doesn't win. Didn't Macron and Le Pen get something like 29% and 21% of the votes in the wider field? So why would you expect more than a 30% approval rating
Macron's approval rating during the election was over 60%. Their television media probably didn't educate the old people about his "destroy all unions" plan, for some mysterious reason.

Further, four divided blocs that are around 25% of the electorate are standard across all nations and all times. You can care about the class war, and be on the side of the powerful or the side of the powerless. Or you can care about the culture war, and be on the side of accepting the "outsiders", or you can be on the side of caring about keeping tribal trophies up in the town square.

Certainly it's possible to care about both of these things, but almost universally one must matter the most. Keith Olbermann cares about the culture war, his personal well being has nothing to do with the minimum wage. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet care about the economic war - their personal power is proportionally higher the more desperate people are. A guy obsessed with immigrants at the exclusion of all else is a culture warrior.

Even during the election of FDR, where the choice was between "hey let's maybe make things better" and "let's all fucking die together", never has there been a more cut and dried choice in the history of man, still, in many states 40% of the electorate voted for the mass suicide option.

In real world proportional elections, it still usually comes down to 2 huge parties, with a small margin of seats for the next 1 or 2 most popular parties. And these 2 parties are always very similar to our own, with two significant internal factions that completely hate one another:

Democrats - Egalitarians + Mr.Smithers
Republicans - People who want to preserve the dominant culture of their childhood + Mr.Burns

Which means we kind of do effectively have four political parties... even if two of them are only cosmetic and not allowed to have any power.

It's not carved in stone that this is how the factions are aligned - it is possible to have Mr.Smithers and Mr.Burns officially be on the same team, while more of the dominant tribe concedes they're poor as shit and could use a raise.

What it takes to do that is power, however. Television has been the absolute core mechanism through which power has been held. It replaced radio which replaced the newspaper. For this era, the internet is the emerging medium through which power is consolidated.

Without it, we wouldn't have a prayer of changing a single thing.
People who want to preserve the dominant culture of their childhood
(An example of how culture always changes is how many young people would call themselves "conservative" on the issue of gay marriage. The conservative stance being, of course, that gay people should be allowed to marry one another if they want to. That's the way it's been for these kids' entire lives, after all.)
This is why it's such a treat when the right - especially the far right - attempts to pass itself off as populist.
It's not a "treat", it's called a strategy. Republicans want to win elections. Unlike democrats, who are paid to lose elections.

What's the better strategy? "I'm gonna cut taxes only for rich people" or "I'm gonna make your life better"?

Fake populism is how they win. From Nixon, to Reagan, to Bush, to Trump. Instead of laughing about what a zany farce this ancient trope is, maybe you should be furious that democrats are institutionally dedicated to putting up disgusting Mr.Burns types that are super weak to this sort of tactic.
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Re: Bush: 2017 Edition

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Zen wrote:I inferred no moral stance. I just stated facts.
You're seriously the only person on here (since Opus apparently returned to the underside of his rock, anyway) who can be even more hilariously, deliberately "what me worry" than quash. :lol:

As per your own "stated facts", there are only three types of people in the world: the horizon-to-horizon herds of hapless retards, the "predators" taking advantage of them, and the blessed elite (but not Elite!) few who are Just Too Damn Smart to associate with the former and Just Too Damn Moral (but just as dismissively contemptuous of their inferiors) to (openly) count themselves among the latter, and have in their wisdom determined that the only true and wise course of action is to turn up their squeaky-clean noses at the whole thing and just take as much under-the-radar advantage for themselves as they can, until it all blows up and they're able to say "we told you idiots so!", fingers wagging in unison, before it ends for good.

Riddle me this...which of those three groups do you consider yourself a part of, and what course of action, and attitude towards anyone you don't consider part of said group, does such an association entail? Boy, what a mystery! :lol:
Instead of laughing about what a zany farce this ancient trope is, maybe you should be furious that democrats are institutionally dedicated to putting up disgusting Mr.Burns types that are super weak to this sort of tactic.
Until we get our shit together enough to realize that it won't matter who we nominate until we have a population actually equipped to participate in a functioning democracy - which requires effort on our part to build and maintain (waiting around for demographics to change doesn't count!), just as it's taken decades upon decades of effort by conservatives to leave most of the public barefoot and naked on the most basic facets of how the country and the world actually work - I'm frankly not convinced we could get the second coming of Gandhi elected even if he 1) Exists, and 2) Could be convinced to run in a climate so finely tuned to crush anyone remotely like him.
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Re: Bush: 2017 Edition

Post by Zen »

BulletMagnet wrote:
Zen wrote:I inferred no moral stance. I just stated facts.
You're seriously the only person on here (since Opus apparently returned to the underside of his rock, anyway) who can be even more hilariously, deliberately "what me worry" than quash. :lol:

As per your own "stated facts", there are only three types of people in the world: the horizon-to-horizon herds of hapless retards, the "predators" taking advantage of them, and the blessed elite (but not Elite!) few who are Just Too Damn Smart to associate with the former and Just Too Damn Moral (but just as dismissively contemptuous of their inferiors) to (openly) count themselves among the latter, and have in their wisdom determined that the only true and wise course of action is to turn up their squeaky-clean noses at the whole thing and just take as much under-the-radar advantage for themselves as they can, until it all blows up and they're able to say "we told you idiots so!", fingers wagging in unison, before it ends for good.

Riddle me this...which of those three groups do you consider yourself a part of, and what course of action, and attitude towards anyone you don't consider part of said group, does such an association entail? Boy, what a mystery! :lol:
As you say, Predator and Prey but really, BulletMagnet, did you have to load up the third option like a freight train? :D

The way I see it is this; go from cradle to grave, causing the least amount of harm possible, to oneself and others.

Everything else? . . . . "Politics".
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Re: Bush: 2017 Edition

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Zen wrote:The way I see it is this; go from cradle to grave, causing the least amount of harm possible, to oneself and others.
I can't read your mind any more than anyone else's, but taking into account that just a few posts ago you called most of the rest of the world so borderline retarded (and quite possibly insane with dissonance) that they pretty much deserve what they get from the bloodthirsty wolves (at least to the point that you certainly won't be caught getting off your enlightened duff on their behalf), color me highly skeptical that you, or anyone else with an outlook fleetingly similar to yours, even think enough of the rest of humanity to follow through on blessing us with your benign indifference (by the by, being the devotee of superior Western moral tradition [one daren't call it "Christian" :lol:] that you are, feel free to familiarize yourself with the term "sin of omission").
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Re: Bush: 2017 Edition

Post by Zen »

Just for one moment, lay down your weapons of politics and consider it thusly;
You appear to view things from an ethical perspective.
I, do not.
Only the moral perspective concerns me. I have no use for ethics.

This difference, is why you are political and I am not.
BulletMagnet wrote:(by the by, being the devotee of superior Western moral tradition [one daren't call it "Christian" ] that you are, feel free to familiarize yourself with the term "sin of omission").
As I have said before, I am not religious. I am well aware of the concept of "sin of omission". You are familiar, of course, with the saying "The road to hell is paved with good intentions"?
I think that interfering for the greater good is a conceit and dangerous, to boot. Either way, I have no mass on the notion of "sin".

Ok, you can put your armour back on for the last bit;
BulletMagnet wrote:just a few posts ago you called most of the rest of the world so borderline retarded (and quite possibly insane with dissonance)
I did not call most of the rest of the world "insane with dissonance". That was a question that I posed to you, re. being a vegan shark :wink:
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Re: Bush: 2017 Edition

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Zen wrote:Only the moral perspective concerns me. I have no use for ethics.
In otherwords, only my personal take on any matter is ever worth taking into consideration; everyone else's collective conclusions are shit, and you ovine morons can all kiss my ass.

That's not a matter of being "non-political", it's just good ol' borderline sociopathy. :lol:

Not that it matters; you've long proven how confident you are that you've got everything figured out, to the point that anybody (and any group) that thinks differently is objectively inferior to you and whatever causes of convenience you happen to currently attach yourself to. Which, naturally, means that there's no such thing as genuine "discussion" when you're involved, just a lecture whose recipient never signed up for it and moreover keeps rudely interrupting. :lol:

To quote my recent self from the "Non-Shmup" thread, am I seriously still doing this? :lol:
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Re: Bush: 2017 Edition

Post by BryanM »

BulletMagnet wrote:Until we get our shit together enough to realize that it won't matter who we nominate until we have a population actually equipped to participate in a functioning democracy - which requires effort on our part to build and maintain (waiting around for demographics to change doesn't count!), just as it's taken decades upon decades of effort by conservatives to leave most of the public barefoot and naked on the most basic facets of how the country and the world actually work
Is this not an oxymoron?

You're saying that we need to convince people we're right. But it doesn't matter who we choose to be our voice.

The presidential nominee is the loudest voice in the room possible. It doesn't matter that we'd choose a man who'll patiently educate people, instead of telling them they're shit racists, is what you're saying here. It doesn't matter that an elected president would be able to change the DNC overnight, as the Clintons did when they wiped out the old guard.

It's not the democrats who are at fault, it's humanity that is to blame, you're saying.

An entire movement begs you to join us. Continue to deny it's happening, and obsess over how humanity (correctly) assessed Hillary to only be about 2% better than Trump. It's impossible that you might be wrong on that issue, because it's embarrassing to be wrong, right.
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Re: Bush: 2017 Edition

Post by Zen »

BulletMagnet wrote:
Zen wrote:Only the moral perspective concerns me. I have no use for ethics.
In otherwords, only my personal take on any matter is ever worth taking into consideration; everyone else's collective conclusions are shit, and you ovine morons can all kiss my ass.

That's not a matter of being "non-political", it's just good ol' borderline sociopathy. :lol:

Not that it matters; you've long proven how confident you are that you've got everything figured out, to the point that anybody (and any group) that thinks differently is objectively inferior to you and whatever causes of convenience you happen to currently attach yourself to. Which, naturally, means that there's no such thing as genuine "discussion" when you're involved, just a lecture whose recipient never signed up for it and moreover keeps rudely interrupting. :lol:

To quote my recent self from the "Non-Shmup" thread, am I seriously still doing this? :lol:
You are a hard person to talk with, BulletMagnet :wink:

No to all of the above.

What I am trying to get across (and failing, it seems), is that ones (everyone's) moral perspective, is primary.
Ethics, on the other hand get applied. That is to say forced onto others "for the greater good", which, of course, is not moral at all.
So, while morally against taking advantage of the herd and intellectually outside of the herd, I see no logic in, or feel no moral imperative to, buoy up "the Mean".

In the history of politics, the predator has never been bested. And never will.

An intellectual change would have to occur within the herd and a moral one within predator, for the type of change that you seem to want.
Nature and indeed the history of man, gives zero indication that this is likely to happen.
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Re: Bush: 2017 Edition

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BryanM wrote:The presidential nominee is the loudest voice in the room possible. It doesn't matter that we'd choose a man who'll patiently educate people, instead of telling them they're shit racists, is what you're saying here.
I dunno, for all his faults Obama did take pains - beyond the point he should have, it can be strongly argued - to not alienate anybody (ill-advised "guns and religion" comment notwithstanding, but of course that was the only thing he ever said that was made to matter), and moreover put out a lot more numbers not pulled out of his backside for his policies than any modern Republican ever has (can you imagine the shitstorm if his administration had put out as sick a joke as the Nunes memo, and proudly announced more to come? :lol:). And how does half the country remember him? As the anti-American President who divided the nation more than any other, to the point that they were willing to send Trump to the Oval Office in his place. Why do they believe this? Because for eight straight years they were very deliberately told, every single day, that Obama is divisive, and took it to heart in spite of all available evidence to the contrary, because by now the latter simply doesn't matter, and it'll take a lot of work, no matter who's in office, to reverse that trend.

Now that we're in the situation we're in, I can only wonder 1) Who do the Dems have lined up who's in half as advantageous a position to "patiently teach" the public as Obama was (and, more importantly, be listened to without any notable civic groundwork having been laid beforehand, because liberals would apparently rather drink battery acid than make an honest effort at the latter), and 2) Especially with the protest-happy college campus set constantly (and, again, deliberately) in the limelight, would he have enough disciplined support from the rest of us to actually make an impression?
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Re: Bush: 2017 Edition

Post by Mischief Maker »

1) Bernie Sanders.
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.

Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
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Re: Bush: 2017 Edition

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His impact has still been like a meteor even if he doesn't make it. Gillibrand and Booker sure as hell wouldn't be rejecting corporate campaign donations in order to help their 2020 presidential bids otherwise.

Just like Goldwater is the progenitor of the current status quo, Sanders defines the future political power structure, regardless if he ever personally takes the throne or not.
BulletMagnet wrote:And how does half the country remember him?
I remember him as the guy who won two elections and would have won a third if not for term limits.
be listened to without any notable civic groundwork having been laid beforehand, because liberals would apparently rather drink battery acid than make an honest effort at the latter
I like how you constantly dismiss the groundwork we've built over the last three years as nothing whatsoever.

It's a trait similar to the kind of thing you see partisan right wingers do all the time - projection. Perhaps it isn't "the left" that doesn't want to win. Maybe, it's just that you, personally, don't want to win.
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Re: Bush: 2017 Edition

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BryanM wrote:Just like Goldwater is the progenitor of the current status quo, Sanders defines the future political power structure, regardless if he ever personally takes the throne or not.
One can only hope the country at large is moving in that general direction behind the scenes, but considering what's constantly happening right out on stage I'm afraid I'll have to believe it when I see it. Heaven knows I'm stubborn enough to fecklessly bash my head against Trump trolls far past the point I should, but the left has had the rug pulled from under it so many times by now that there's only so much stock I can put in the next "sure thing" that'll finally make a real difference. Once we reach the minimal baseline of any politician with the sickening gall to hang their hat on tax cuts for rich people at everyone else's expense being roundly and permanently laughed out of public life I'll start celebrating; unfortunately that day remains a very long way off.

By the by, I've said it before, but my head still spins at how fast you can go from "The Dems are institutionally dedicated to nominating people so horrible that even Trump can beat them, they're paid to lose, the world will burn before they wise up" to "we still win even if Bernie loses".
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Re: Bush: 2017 Edition

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"The Dems are institutionally dedicated to nominating people so horrible that even Trump can beat them, they're paid to lose, the world will burn before they wise up"
Yes. That's why we're going to replace them. And put in place democrats that will represent their voters, not huge donors. In this thing called "a primary".

Thank you again for voting for, advocating for, and donating time and money to, actual flesh and blood primary candidates. (After all, if you don't vote in primaries you're an un-person when it comes to politics. Those people have no voice and no power - and it'd be a bit of a waste of my time if I were talking to an irrelevant ghost here.)

That's certainly a better use of your time than telling the 35% of the population who're chaotic evil that they eat dicks on the internet. That's fun on occasion, but it doesn't change who has power.

Is this too complicated? I don't feel like I'm drawing up a complicated Xanatos Gambit or Rube Goldberg machine here. "We are fighting them. They are fighting back. It seems hard. We will win."

Tell me again how did women get the privilege to vote. How'd they manage to do that, after hundreds of years of not being able to? They must be pretty crafty geniuses.
Once we reach the minimal baseline of any politician with the sickening gall to hang their hat on tax cuts for rich people at everyone else's expense being roundly and permanently laughed out of public life I'll start celebrating
Okay, so now you're agreeing with me that Hillary Clinton was not remotely acceptable?

Welcome to the resistance. The one against Goldwaterism. Not the one that's against progress. Those are different people doing a different thing.
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Re: Bush: 2017 Edition

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I have a response for BM, but for now, just enjoy watching the tapestry of bullshit getting torn apart.

Did you all hear about the shooting today? No, not the one at the school in Florida, the one at Ft. Meade.
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Re: Bush: 2017 Edition

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quash wrote:I have a response for BM, but for now, just enjoy watching the tapestry of bullshit getting torn apart.
Um, I'm pretty sure no authority ever actually claimed that Russia managed to manipulate the vote count itself, but I might as well be talking to a (Mexican-funded) wall. :lol: It's past time I started saving my keyboard some unnecessary wear and tear in earnest.
No, not the one at the school in Florida
You mean the false flag that we're not allowed to criticize you for calling a false flag because you didn't technically call it a false flag? Shucky darn, you little "just asking questions here" poindexters are just too darn clever. :lol:
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Re: Bush: 2017 Edition

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You know, some weirdos ran into the NSA compound entrance three years ago, too. Looks like we found a new glitch in the matrix.
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Re: Bush: 2017 Edition

Post by ED-057 »

Further, four divided blocs that are around 25% of the electorate are standard across all nations and all times. You can care about the class war, and be on the side of the powerful or the side of the powerless. Or you can care about the culture war, and be on the side of accepting the "outsiders", or you can be on the side of caring about keeping tribal trophies up in the town square.
Caring or not caring, taking this side or that side is too simplistic. Just because parties exist straddling an ideological divide, doesn't mean that any of them have any intelligent ideas with which to accomplish their stated goals. Having your politicians coalesce into four active parties instead would be slightly less primitive than two parties, but it still doesn't give voters much of a voice on particular issues. Which party in the class/culture war is in favor of free speech? in favor of Orwellian mass surveillance? in favor of huge military spending? in favor of simplifying tax law? I would like to get past giving people only a choice between ideologies, because ideology doesn't answer many real world problems.
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Re: Bush: 2017 Edition

Post by ED-057 »

Thank you again for voting for, advocating for, and donating time and money to, actual flesh and blood primary candidates. (After all, if you don't vote in primaries you're an un-person when it comes to politics. Those people have no voice and no power - and it'd be a bit of a waste of my time if I were talking to an irrelevant ghost here.)
Why would anyone want to join with the Democratic party and be complicit in their crimes? I can only conclude that people who are doing this are doing it because they're oblivious. People who are oblivious aren't going to accomplish anything. They are the irrelevant ghosts.
Um, I'm pretty sure no authority ever actually claimed that Russia managed to manipulate the vote count itself
No, they just implied it over and over with their coordinated onslaught of misleading headlines.
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