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US Politics: Speak Into the Microwave


Fragile Bird

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10 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

 

Troll or no troll, it's fun to play when drunk.

Easiest game ever.

If it disagrees with you and doesn't shut up after multiple attempts to ridicule and shame then it's an obvious troll. This holds true anywhere on the internet, no matter what the subject is. 

Ironically, people that purposefully try to get people angry on the Internet are rarely called trolls anymore.

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Just now, OldGimletEye said:

Well, I'm not sure its a bad word either. And if somebody wants that term to describe me, you know, it doesn't bother me. What bothers me more is that they think they can shut down an entire argument, as if this were the 1950's, by using that word.

Which, hilariously, featured a, uh, somewhat noticeably higher marginal tax rate.  Eisenhower was a commie traitor, apparently.  

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It is interesting to note this kind of person. There are a number of people I've run into who are absolutely philosophically opposed to any kind of government entitlement programs of any kind because precisely this - they are absolutely terrified of socialism. Like someone dressed up as Trotsky when they were a kid and proceeded to steal their candy while evangelizing about the bourgeois. 

For these people, repealing the ACA is a must and replacing it with anything is good, and particularly replacing it with something that covers fewer people is actually a good thing. This, to them, is an actual value add to the plan. They don't care about the savings of the government all that much, and they don't care about more choice - they simply want to ensure that the US gets as far away from any kind of redistribution policies as humanly possible, because for them it isn't a pragmatic issue or an economic one or even a political one - it is a matter of life and death and the fate of the world rests on whether or not we have social security.

 

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1 minute ago, DunderMifflin said:

Easiest game ever.

If it disagrees with you and doesn't shut up after multiple attempts to ridicule and shame then it's an obvious troll. This holds true anywhere on the internet, no matter what the subject is. 

Not sure if this was meant as criticism or just a general statement, but hey, I originally gave the potential-troll a substantive response about the AMT - and even spent a few minutes googling to provide support.  Would be happy to engage in a discussion on that.  Otherwise, in my experience ridicule is the best disinfectant.

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16 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Not sure if this was meant as criticism or just a general statement, but hey, I originally gave the potential-troll a substantive response about the AMT - and even spent a few minutes googling to provide support.  Would be happy to engage in a discussion on that.  Otherwise, in my experience ridicule is the best disinfectant.

It was more of a personal complaint of mine about how the meaning of troll has been bastardized and hijacked since the early days of the internet. Now it's been so abused to the point I think troll just means someone that is saying something I don't care for.

trolling once had a form of reverence much like satire. Now it's just basically a meaningless putdown for people to toss around.

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Just now, DunderMifflin said:

Socialism is probably seen as bad to some because of the historical instances of it turning out very very bad.

Well sure it doesn't seem that complete command and control economies have worked out well.

But, I'd say, there is a strong argument to be made that the strong welfare states that arose during the 20th Century, and particularly after WW2, was an improvement for large majorities of citizens. Now if people want to call that "socialism" well okay. But, who gives a crap. I'm sure most people are better off under those kind of welfare states than the the complete laissez-faire capitalism of the late 1880s that libertarian sorts like to wank about.

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1 minute ago, DunderMifflin said:

Socialism is probably seen as bad to some because of the historical instances of it turning out very very bad.

Just throwing that out there.

Possibly? But when they compare something like Sweden or Denmark to something like the USSR or Cuba it shows the relative lack of intellectual weight and any degree of fairness. They might as well be saying because Somalia is a functional libertarian paradise it means limited government should never be tried either. Or because Democracy turned into fascism we should never practice any kind of Democracy. 

There are plenty of reasonable criticisms to be leveled at pure socialist policies, but it's being leveled at a strawman. Sanders doesn't want to nationalize all the industries any more than Trump wants to. Similarly, every time pure capitalism has been tried without government intervention it has led to either insane unhappiness and bad economies or economic disasters that affected the entire world. The best systems of government involve checks and balances; the same is true for the same systems of economics. 

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3 minutes ago, DunderMifflin said:

Socialism is probably seen as bad to some because of the historical instances of it turning out very very bad.

Just throwing that out there.

Attributing Mao, Stalin, or even the Nazis to socialism simply because they are associated with a bastardization of the term is entirely unfair.  It's a type of reductivism that is the logical equivalent of being against "democratic people" because of North Korea.

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17 minutes ago, DunderMifflin said:

Socialism is probably seen as bad to some because of the historical instances of it turning out very very bad.

Just throwing that out there.

That's like saying government is bad because of historical instances. It's a non-point, and an almost exclusively American one.

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14 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Attributing Mao, Stalin, or even the Nazis to socialism simply because they are associated with a bastardization of the term is entirely unfair.  It's a type of reductivism that is the logical equivalent of being against "democratic people" because of North Korea.

I agree which is why I was so against the -Trump supporters are Nazis- and the Orange Stalin narratives. It reduces what these people actually did when those comparisons are thrown onto anyone that doesn't align with one's politics.

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1 minute ago, DunderMifflin said:

I agree which is why I was so against the -Trump supporters are Nazis- and the Orange Stalin narratives. It reduces what these people actually did when those comparisons are thrown onto anyone that doesn't align with one's politics.

To be fair, there is a reasonably sizeable nonzero set of Trump supporters who are, literally, nazis. 

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2 minutes ago, DunderMifflin said:

I agree which is why I was so against the -Trump supporters are Nazis- and the Orange Stalin narratives. It reduces what these people actually did when those comparisons are thrown onto anyone that doesn't align with one's politics.

I agree entirely.  The Nazi card is thrown out way too much, out of bounds in characterizing any presidency, and offensively insensitive.  I've also clashed with @Kalbear for my distaste with much less radical rhetoric in the past.  However, his point that neo-nazi groups have been galvanized by Trump's candidacy and victory is an empirical fact.

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8 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

I agree entirely.  The Nazi card is thrown out way too much, out of bounds in characterizing any presidency, and offensively insensitive.  I've also clashed with @Kalbear for my distaste with much less radical rhetoric in the past.  However, his point that neo-nazi groups have been galvanized by Trump's candidacy and victory is an empirical fact.

IMO, anti Trump people deserve at least some of the credit for that galvanization. Literally EVERY instance of me being introduced to any sort of white supremacy/nazi Trump supporter has come from people against Trump, going "see, Trump supporters are racists" in turn making dirtbags like Richard Spencer into far bigger celebrities than they ever deserve to be.

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3 minutes ago, DunderMifflin said:

IMO, anti Trump people deserve at least some of the credit for that galvanization. Literally EVERY instance of me being introduced to any sort of white supremacy/nazi Trump supporters has come from people against Trump, going "see, Trump supporters are racists" in turn making dirtbags like Richard Spencer into far bigger celebrities than they ever deserve to be.

Not sure what you're trying to say here.  Is it that anti-Trump people popularize Trump's most notable white supremacist supporters, thus increasing their popularity among other Trump supporters?  I suppose that may be true, but it doesn't say anything good about those that are inclined to support such people once being exposed to them.

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5 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Not sure what you're trying to say here.  Is it that anti-Trump people popularize Trump's most notable white supremacist supporters, thus increasing their popularity among other Trump supporters?  I suppose that may be true, but it doesn't say anything good about those that are inclined to support such people once being exposed to them.

I don't know how many the white supremacy people were able to convert. But they sure got a shit load of publicity from people that wanted to push the Trump supporters are are racist narrative. 

 

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11 minutes ago, DunderMifflin said:

I don't know how many the white supremacy people were able to convert. But they sure got a shit load of publicity from people that wanted to push the Trump supporters are are racist narrative. 

 

Well, that's pretty much the objective - to shine a spotlight on the sick views such people are propagating.  If/when there are equivalents on the left, you damn well know conservative media shines the light on them at least - and usually much more - as hard.  That's politics.

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4 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Well, that's pretty much the objective - to shine a spotlight on the sick views such people are propagating.  If/when there are equivalents on the left, you damn well know conservative media shines the light on them at least - and usually much more - as hard.  That's politics.

Yep and that's why some people see socialism as a bad word. Doesn't matter if it's true, it's politics.

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