U.S. Politics: The (Debt) Ceiling's the Limit

[Yukle]

A new thread to compile our musings...

 

This seems like an odd political play:

Trump is demanding money to build a wall (that Mexico will pay for... ?) or he will shut down the government. To which the Democrats have presumably, in unison, cried, "Good deal! We'll take it!"

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/24/us/politics/trump-wall-government-shutdown-congress.html

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

Great title! 

[Yukle]

2 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Great title! 

Hehe, thanks!  

[karaddin]

On Milo and the Berkerly thing - I love how every fucking time that comes up the people who would have had their lives enormously disrupted by what he was going to do are utterly irrelevant. Like they don't even warrant a mention as victims, they're just nothing, part of his rhetorical flourish as he was handed this astonishing PR victory. You know what shutting that shit down did? It fucking stopped him from ruining those people. And that's worth something.

On the 2A - Its hard to take the comments of McAuliffe after Charlottesville on the inaction of the police - the Nazis were too heavily armed, it wasn't safe for us to get involved - as leading to anything other than that the protestors on the left need to have the ability to access equivalent arms if need be. "Well look at what the police do to BLM in Ferguson, then look at how the Nazis get treated - arm the fuck up" basically AND "well the police aren't going to protect you, so you need to arm up to protect yourselves" both seem like conclusions that can be drawn from it. And that's fucking terrifying.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

9 minutes ago, karaddin said:

On Milo and the Berkerly thing - I love how every fucking time that comes up the people who would have had their lives enormously disrupted by what he was going to do are utterly irrelevant. Like they don't even warrant a mention as victims, they're just nothing, part of his rhetorical flourish as he was handed this astonishing PR victory. You know what shutting that shit down did? It fucking stopped him from ruining those people. And that's worth something.

He's a hateful asshole no doubt, and a talentless hack to boot, I'm not discounting the damage he's done or the hate he has spread. That said, all this action did was give him a larger platform to spread hate. This was not a victory for LBGTQ or anyone on the left. That could not have gone better for him had he scripted it.

[Shryke]

22 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

He's a hateful asshole no doubt, and a talentless hack to boot, I'm not discounting the damage he's done or the hate he has spread. That said, all this action did was give him a larger platform to spread hate. This was not a victory for LBGTQ or anyone on the left. That could not have gone better for him had he scripted it.

Did it give him a larger platform?

His profile outside his little hate circle seems exactly the same as it was before.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

2 minutes ago, Shryke said:

Did it give him a larger platform?

His profile outside his little hate circle seems exactly the same as it was before.

Briefly yes, but as I said, he's a talentless hack, so yeah he managed to basically piss it away thankfully.

[karaddin]

You're still erasing it right there, this isn't an abstract larger group thing. It was individuals who got to continue their university degrees because his speech got shut down. That is an individual win for them regardless of the overall picture and it shouldn't be ignored. You can't just analyse the immediate, personal impact of something like that from the remote big picture perspective, there are individual victims who have their lives ruined by this shit. And I'm with Shryke, I don't think he's gotten a larger platform as a response, and I think his flirtation with Milo wound up getting Bill Mahers fingers burnt.

The most relevance Milo has had in the last few months is his interview with the douche that got fired from google which is really saying something. There is a reason those two found each other.

[Bonnot OG]

57 minutes ago, karaddin said:

On Milo and the Berkerly thing - I love how every fucking time that comes up the people who would have had their lives enormously disrupted by what he was going to do are utterly irrelevant. Like they don't even warrant a mention as victims, they're just nothing, part of his rhetorical flourish as he was handed this astonishing PR victory. You know what shutting that shit down did? It fucking stopped him from ruining those people. And that's worth something.

On the 2A - Its hard to take the comments of McAuliffe after Charlottesville on the inaction of the police - the Nazis were too heavily armed, it wasn't safe for us to get involved - as leading to anything other than that the protestors on the left need to have the ability to access equivalent arms if need be. "Well look at what the police do to BLM in Ferguson, then look at how the Nazis get treated - arm the fuck up" basically AND "well the police aren't going to protect you, so you need to arm up to protect yourselves" both seem like conclusions that can be drawn from it. And that's fucking terrifying.

Yup. The lives of the marginalized >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> property damage. 


 

[Shryke]

36 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Briefly yes, but as I said, he's a talentless hack, so yeah he managed to basically piss it away thankfully.

It gave him nothing but a brief spotlight in the Conservative Victimhood economy which is never worth giving a shit about cause they'll pull that card for any reason.

There was literally zero downside to shutting his ass down.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

6 minutes ago, Sword of Doom said:

Yup. The lives of the marginalized >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> property damage. 

Sure, only no one brought up property damage. It was about a huge P.R. win for a guy who makes a living destroying the lives of the marginalized.

[Bonnot OG]

10 minutes ago, Shryke said:

It gave him nothing but a brief spotlight in the Conservative Victimhood economy which is never worth giving a shit about cause they'll pull that card for any reason.

There was literally zero downside to shutting his ass down.

Yup. It's just a shame he didn't get his ass kicked that night, or every night really.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

39 minutes ago, Shryke said:

There was literally zero downside to shutting his ass down.

But that didn't shut him down, it blew him up. 

[karaddin]

But it did shut him down, his speech that night didn't happen. He didn't get to fucking call out individual students and ruin them. That. Fucking. Matters. His overall profile is arguable, you clearly think it got bigger, I don't think it did - assholes who already liked him continued to like him, Bill Maher decided to interview him and that's about it, his book deal got cancelled, he's gone nowhere and he's irrelevant. A win on the night, arguable for the rest. I'll take the win for the individuals thanks.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

8 minutes ago, karaddin said:

But it did shut him down, his speech that night didn't happen. He didn't get to fucking call out individual students and ruin them. That. Fucking. Matters. His overall profile is arguable, you clearly think it got bigger, I don't think it did - assholes who already liked him continued to like him, Bill Maher decided to interview him and that's about it, his book deal got cancelled, he's gone nowhere and he's irrelevant. A win on the night, arguable for the rest. I'll take the win for the individuals thanks.

But none of his downfall can be attributed to the Berkeley incident. He was all over the press for a week after that incident. He got the book deal on the back of that incident. Granted, he did nothing with the Maher interview, but he got it on the back of that incident. Outside of the fact that he didn't get to out anyone on that night, that was not a win. That was a coup for him. He couldn't have generated that much publicity if he had committed suicide on a livestream.

[karaddin]

But you consistently refuse to acknowledge the alternative, which is sacrifice the people he would have destroyed for the sake of this nebulous PR victory he supposedly 'won' that he then did nothing with anyway. The sacrifices are always being asked of other people and that's fucked.

ETA: You say you're in favour of self defence and defending others - that WAS self defence.

[Kalbear]

He didn't get the book deal because of that. The book deal was long done. 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

14 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

He didn't get the book deal because of that. The book deal was long done. 

I stand corrected. 

 

19 minutes ago, karaddin said:

But you consistently refuse to acknowledge the alternative, which is sacrifice the people he would have destroyed for the sake of this nebulous PR victory he supposedly 'won' that he then did nothing with anyway. The sacrifices are always being asked of other people and that's fucked.

ETA: You say you're in favour of self defence and defending others - that WAS self defence.

I'm not discounting the importance of that. You're right that he didn't manage to turn it into a real win.  

[Centrist Simon Steele]

Disagree about dems and their support (of anything) Shryke. They've been largely silent in the media aside from Sanders and a few others. They've been playing the "let Trump and the Repubs sink themselves" game, and that hasn't ever worked. 

[Wethers]

I live in San Francisco, specifically in the Preisdio area of the city.  It's a fairly large wooded parkland owned by the federal government that used to be a military base and now leases to private residents (like me), just adjacent to the SF end of the Golden Gate Bridge.

An alt-right group, "Patriot Prayer" got a "first amendment permit" to hold an event in the Presidio this weekend, along with a few other groups that I believe hold opposing views to them:  https://www.nps.gov/goga/first-amendment-permits.htm.

The restricted areas are shown here, with the edge of zone B being a half mile from where I Iive, with not too many homes between me and them.  They are restricting entry/egress to one location, the Marina Gate on the northeast corner, thankfully on the other side of the park from us.

A few of my co-workers are going to be among the "counter-" groups (i.e. NOT Patriot Prayer, but rather the groups opposing them).  If I were still young and single, I would probably be among them.  But I am old and married and have a young kid.  We had already planned a 3-day weekend out of town.  And thinking about it now, it's probably for the best.  I am non-white (though male/straight and lucky to be fairly privileged), my wife is white/olive-skinned, and my kid, other than having black hair and brown eyes, looks fairly white.  Either way, I feel better not having them or myself nearby when this goes down.

I am glad that the permit specifically prohibits ""firearms or anything that could be used as a weapon."  Hopefully the Presidio (federal/national park service) and San Francisco police won't be Nazi sympathizers as I feel some were in Charlottesville and no one will be hurt.  I am lucky enough to live in a place where I think these assholes will be severely outnumbered, as they were in, say, Boston, and hopefully unable to attack or intimidate anyone.  Given that, I hope the "counter" groups stay peaceful too, since this is San Francisco, and if even one counter-protester even threatens, let alone hurts a white supremacist, the narrative for the whole event nationally will of course be about the lawless alt-left running wild in San Francisco, or whatever.