A few thoughts about January 6, 2021

[gorfias]

That wasn't part of your initial argument. Your argument was that Nancy Pelosi ordering there to be less security (which in itself is already stupid, but that's what we're going with). Having less security or even no security is not entrapment. A lack of security is not an invitation to trespass.

But you know, keep moving goal posts and making up theories in your head until you finally make a senario where nothing was the Trump supporters' fault and it was all the evil Democrats/BLM/Antifa,

Remember though, it wasn't the democrats chanting to hang Mike Pence and building a gallows, no matter what other conspiracy theories you may cling to.

I've had lots of arguments, including that if team Biden stole the election, which I think they did, and the trespassers think they are trying to protect the government... would that be a defense from a charge of insurrection?

Have you considered that maybe they're all either lying themselves or repeating lies?

Yup. I try to keep an open mind.

 

[Buyetyen]

It’s an invocation of Godwin’s Law. Nazi Germany transported its decided undesirables to the Auschwitz and maybe Bergen-Belsen directly via train. They packed them into cattle carts. The showers thing is famously because that’s how they initially got compliance. The prisoners were processed (stripped of clothing and possessions) and directed to shower blocks which were in fact the infamous Zyklon-B gas chambers. After they were dead, that’s when they were divested of gold tooth caps/fillings etc.

So yeah, that’s broadly his analogy.

I get the Godwin's Law bit. What I don't get is what point he thinks he was making, because that wasn't analogy so much as it was just some words.

Nationalreview.com, Anncoulter.com, Frontpagemag.com, Matthew Lohmeier's, "Irresistible Revolution" are calling much of what is being taught outright lies.
As for student funding, I'd like families to be able to choose alternatives to public school with the $14K. School vouchers sort of thing.

1. They've been saying that shit for years so it means nothing to me.
2. How are you gonna pay for all those vouchers and still have a public school system to have alternatives to?

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I've had lots of arguments, including that if team Biden stole the election, which I think they did, and the trespassers think they are trying to protect the government... would that be a defense from a charge of insurrection?

So...let me get this straight. The insurrectionists are being tried by the federal government...for attempting to overthrow the government...that they think is illegitimate...and you think that same government...that they were trying to overthrow...is supposed to accept as a defense...that they believe the goverment's authority is illegitimate...so they should let them go...

That's what you're going with?

Do you actually understand how absolutely ridiculous you sound?

 

[Seanchaidh]

So...let me get this straight. The insurrectionists are being tried by the federal government...for attempting to overthrow the government...that they think is illegitimate...and you think that same government...that they were trying to overthrow...is supposed to accept as a defense...that they believe the goverment's authority is illegitimate...so they should let them go...

That's what you're going with?

Do you actually understand how absolutely ridiculous you sound?

if it were an acceptable defense, it would also be somewhat unavoidable to prosecute various right-wing media for incitement.

 

[Buyetyen]

So...let me get this straight. The insurrectionists are being tried by the federal government...for attempting to overthrow the government...that they think is illegitimate...and you think that same government...that they were trying to overthrow...is supposed to accept as a defense...that they believe the goverment's authority is illegitimate...so they should let them go...

That's what you're going with?

Do you actually understand how absolutely ridiculous you sound?

I believe that is the Sovereign Citizen argument, attempted by many douchebags shortly before going to prison.

 

[BrawlMan]

So...let me get this straight. The insurrectionists are being tried by the federal government...for attempting to overthrow the government...that they think is illegitimate...and you think that same government...that they were trying to overthrow...is supposed to accept as a defense...that they believe the goverment's authority is illegitimate...so they should let them go...

That's what you're going with?

Do you actually understand how absolutely ridiculous you sound?

Don't bother; lost cause. Too brainwashed to care.

 

[Seanchaidh]

I've had lots of arguments, including that if team Biden stole the election, which I think they did, and the trespassers think they are trying to protect the government... would that be a defense from a charge of insurrection?

Speaking philosophically, rather than legally, it might muddle some issues about intent, but it's not exactly going to negate the more concrete crimes that were committed.

Yup. I try to keep an open mind.

I think that the kerfuffle about Critical Race Theory is manufactured outrage about a concept that is not accurately described and a depiction of its influence over society and especially K-12 education which is almost wholly invented.

The right-wing outrage machine are people who don't care one jot about what Critical Race Theory actually is, the historical claims it makes or doesn't make, the legal and political remedies it suggests or doesn't suggest, the metaphysical claims it makes or doesn't make. What they want is for public schools to promote an understanding of US history that ignores the atrocities it has been built on and the enduring legacy of those atrocities, and glorifies the particular white, Christian, and capitalist culture that has dominated its politics and generally characterized its right wing.


Critical Race Theory, while it is a thing that has been around for quite awhile, has been distorted beyond recognition by what are very generously and somewhat absurdly called its critics-- absurdly because they generally can't even articulate what precisely Critical Race Theory even is. Indeed, they literally don't care what it is.


It's just a brand to them. A brand of their own making. They'd be calling it "cultural Marxism" or "cultural Bolshevism" if those two hadn't already been tried.

 

[tstorm823]

I did environmental science for my degree. I learned about a lot of ways we're fucked. Our soil is degrading, our oceans are choked in plastic, we are heavily dependent on fossil fuels that are running out, America has some of the worst urban planning in the world that has placed a lot of cities into inescapable debt spirals, and a lot of species are going extinct because we've facilitated the spread of invasive species. We are also steadily changing the climate which is going to have fairly catastrophic consequences in a variety of ways including higher sea levels, more extreme weather events, and the destruction of ecosystems. I wouldn't call it the end of the world, humans would almost certainly survive, but they would be surviving on a planet that would look radically different to the one we live on. I'm going to pretend you didn't post a link to a website operated by a man who has been widely derided by other more reputable climate scientists in articles you would have found by reading his Wikipedia page, because obviously you wouldn't be stupid enough to post a source without first verifying that it isn't partisan drivel.

a) I don't know of any reputable climate scientists. They're all effectively anonymous, which is not meant as an insult.
b) You didn't actually disagree with him.

I do not think it is safe to draw any firm conclusions.

So would you then dispute it if someone said with unwavering confidence that key attributes of conservative people are selfishness and the inability to think ahead? Would that not be an unsafe firm conclusion to make at best?

 

[Adam Jensen]

if team Biden stole the election, which I think they did

Fuckin' lol. Why aren't you on my ignore list too? Well, it's fixed now. I really don't have any patience for ridiculous conspiracy theorists anymore.

 

[Agema]

So would you then dispute it if someone said with unwavering confidence that key attributes of conservative people are selfishness and the inability to think ahead? Would that not be an unsafe firm conclusion to make at best?

Yes, that is also a deeply unsafe conclusion.

"Inability to think ahead" sounds like nothing but garbage.

"Selfishness" might be partly arguable. It could be seen as something of a natural offshoot of both individualism and capitalism, both heavily associated with modern conservatism. In the former case, the more than one must be self-reliant, the more one is going to prioritise looking after oneself first and foremost, and in the latter case remembering that Adam Smith points out that it is economic self-interest that drives a capitalist economy. Indeed, one might note the apotheosis of this concept represented by Ayn Rand's Objectivism, where selfishness is strongly touted as a central virtue. However, again, there are huge confounding factors here.

 

[Agema]

I think that the kerfuffle about Critical Race Theory is manufactured outrage about a concept that is not accurately described and a depiction of its influence over society and especially K-12 education which is almost wholly invented.

The right-wing outrage machine are people who don't care one jot about what Critical Race Theory actually is, the historical claims it makes or doesn't make, the legal and political remedies it suggests or doesn't suggest, the metaphysical claims it makes or doesn't make.

Absolutely. It's just the latest target in the complain train of the culture wars. The equally made-up "Cultural Marxism" has become passe, so it's time for the next left-wing boogeyman. And in a few years when CRT has been done to death, they'll find some new thing to keep the headlines flowing.

 

[Casual Shinji]

But you know, keep moving goal posts and making up theories in your head until you finally make a senario where nothing was the Trump supporters' fault and it was all the evil Democrats/BLM/Antifa,

I believe the youngsters call it copium.

 

[Adam Jensen]

"Inability to think ahead" sounds like nothing but garbage.

"Selfishness" might be partly arguable.

They're connected. If you have a bunch of people who are too stupid and too selfish to wear a mask during a global pandemic of a virus that transmits at an incredibly fast rate, and they get sick and die because of it, could anyone sane even attempt to argue that that they aren't short-sighted to a fault?

In reality, these are essentially just symptoms of a much simpler problem - stupidity. Some people are just stupid. Stupid people tend to be more socially conservative and more religious. It's an actual thing called the "conservative syndrome".

 

[Seanchaidh]

They're connected. If you have a bunch of people who are too stupid and too selfish to wear a mask during a global pandemic of a virus that transmits at an incredibly fast rate, and they get sick and die because of it, could anyone sane even attempt to argue that that they aren't short-sighted to a fault?

An alternative explanation is that they live in an entirely different epistemic reality. That could be characterized as a sort of blindness, I suppose, but it's not really a personality trait so much as it is a matter of who one trusts and to whom one listens.

In reality, these are essentially just symptoms of a much simpler problem - stupidity. Some people are just stupid. Stupid people tend to be more socially conservative and more religious. It's an actual thing called the "conservative syndrome".

Is that in the DSM?

 

[Adam Jensen]

An alternative explanation is that they live in an entirely different epistemic reality. That could be characterized as a sort of blindness, I suppose, but it's not really a personality trait so much as it is a matter of who one trusts and to whom one listens.

Is that in the DSM?

It's not a mental disorder, sadly.

 

[Seanchaidh]

It's not a mental disorder, sadly.

Hmm.

I suppose at the very least it isn't disturbing to those who have it.

 

[Adam Jensen]

Hmm.

I suppose at the very least it isn't disturbing to those who have it.

No, they tend to be disturbed by other things. Things like facts, especially scientific facts and statistics.

 

[gorfias]

Speaking philosophically, rather than legally, it might muddle some issues about intent, but it's not exactly going to negate the more concrete crimes that were committed.



I think that the kerfuffle about Critical Race Theory is manufactured outrage about a concept that is not accurately described and a depiction of its influence over society and especially K-12 education which is almost wholly invented.

The right-wing outrage machine are people who don't care one jot about what Critical Race Theory actually is, the historical claims it makes or doesn't make, the legal and political remedies it suggests or doesn't suggest, the metaphysical claims it makes or doesn't make. What they want is for public schools to promote an understanding of US history that ignores the atrocities it has been built on and the enduring legacy of those atrocities, and glorifies the particular white, Christian, and capitalist culture that has dominated its politics and generally characterized its right wing.


Critical Race Theory, while it is a thing that has been around for quite awhile, has been distorted beyond recognition by what are very generously and somewhat absurdly called its critics-- absurdly because they generally can't even articulate what precisely Critical Race Theory even is. Indeed, they literally don't care what it is.


It's just a brand to them. A brand of their own making. They'd be calling it "cultural Marxism" or "cultural Bolshevism" if those two hadn't already been tried.

Those twitter posts are pretty nuts but so is some of what I'm reading.
Did Teacher's Union Rep Elle Reeves really do a CNN report in which she asks a high school teacher to explain CRT to which the teacher explains, “Race and racism is literally the building blocks of this country!”? That's pretty crazy and hateful too.

Really odd responses to some of my posts. I don't think I've been mean or insulting... not nearly as abusive as what has been hurled at me. Yet some in this thread are so fragile I'm now on their ignore list. Really odd.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Did Teacher's Union Rep Elle Reeves really do a CNN report in which she asks a high school teacher to explain CRT to which the teacher explains, “Race and racism is literally the building blocks of this country!”? That's pretty crazy and hateful too.

Crazy and hateful? I wouldn't say so. It is a little vague and it is certainly provocative, but it is hardly hateful or weird. It might give a naive patriot a heart attack, but it's not even inaccurate despite being imprecise.

The legal division between white and non-white was ever present and instrumental in the settlement, growth and expansion of the United States such that we feel the legacy of that legal division even now. Indeed, we haven't fully accomplished the abolition of slavery yet; we simply have given it a moralistic rather than racial veneer by letting prisons do it. Acknowledging history is neither hateful nor 'crazy'.

 

[gorfias]

Crazy and hateful? I wouldn't say so. It is a little vague and it is certainly provocative, but it is hardly hateful or weird. It might give a naive patriot a heart attack, but it's not even inaccurate despite being imprecise.

The legal division between white and non-white was ever present and instrumental in the settlement, growth and expansion of the United States such that we feel the legacy of that legal division even now. Indeed, we haven't fully accomplished the abolition of slavery yet; we simply have given it a moralistic rather than racial veneer by letting prisons do it. Acknowledging history is neither hateful nor 'crazy'.

It can be. Even if correct. Imagine each morning you talk about stats regarding a minority (which US whites are on course to become in the USA. Some call this ethnic cleansing). Each day, you say, "Jews really are over represented in the 1%". Or, "The FBI has 30,000 annual reports of black men raping white women, virtually no white men raping black women." Or, 1/4 of all prison inmates are foreign born." I think you would reasonably believe there is something else going on here. Which I do.

The story of the US and its ideals are very positive. What that teacher said should not be exposed to young, impressionable children.