US Politics: Red Whine Hangover

[Serious Callers Only]

There isn't going to be history after the party takes over and Emmanuel Goldstein's the corpse of Hillary Clinton. Honestly, you'd think private prisons, concentration camps, militarized police, 'i think torture should be legal and the president can pardon himself' rapist 'justice', the purging of 700.000 registrations (at least) in a single state where they're looking for it because of judicial discovery, russian hacks and fox fucking news would have clued you in.

They're all in, fraud and suspended elections are a certainty now. Still, vote anyway. If you're on a Democratic state, it'll be harder to get purged and the civil war might be 'won' after the nukes fly.

[Serious Callers Only]

Another traitor decides to open his mouth after his previous multiple flipflops on Trump because he's part of a endangered species of semi-relevant GOP black useful idiots.

 

https://www.newsweek.com/colin-powell-donald-trump-america-we-people-madeleine-albright-constitution-1157119

Did you keep that 'anthrax' vial Powell? If it wasn't chalk, you could do a bit of good waving it around unplugged at a RNC convention.

[Chaircat Meow]

40 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

An interesting read:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/5/17940610/trump-hitler-history-historian

 

  

Hmm. And here I wonder, after Hitler proved to be a disaster for the world and for Germany itself, if conservative aristocrats like Hindenburg said to themselves,"We can wash our hands of this whole affair. Hitler didn't do the true conservatism."

 

I wonder how much you really read or thought about that before posting. Or did you read the article from Browning at all or just the Vox piece?

Although the actual article does raise some interesting and valid points the author is so sunken in liberal folly he sees nothing absurd with the below.

The very first legislation decreed by Hitler under the Enabling Act of 1933 (which suspended the legislative powers of the Reichstag) authorized the government to dismiss civil servants for suspected political unreliability and “non-Aryan” ancestry. Inequality before the law and legal discrimination were core features of the Nazi regime from the beginning. It likewise intruded into people’s private choices about sexuality and reproduction. Persecution of male homosexuality was drastically intensified, resulting in the deaths of some 10,000 gay men and the incarceration and even castration of many thousands more. Some 300,000–400,000 Germans deemed carriers of hereditary defects were forcibly sterilized; some 150,000 mentally and physically handicapped Germans considered “unworthy of life” were murdered. Germans capable of bearing racially valued children were denied access to contraception and abortion and rewarded for having large families; pregnant female foreign workers were often forced to have abortions to prevent the birth of undesired children and loss of workdays.

Nothing remotely so horrific is on the illiberal agenda, but the curtailment of many rights and protections Americans now enjoy is likely. Presumably marriage equality will survive, given the sea change in American public opinion on that issue. But the right of businesses and individuals to discriminate against gays is likely to be broadly protected as a “sincerely held religious belief.” Chief Justice John Roberts’s favorite target, affirmative action, is likely to disappear under his slogan that to end racial discrimination, one must end all forms of racial discrimination. And a woman’s right to abortion will probably disappear in red states, either through an outright overturning of Roe v. Wade or more likely through narrower rulings that fail to find any “undue burden” in draconian restrictions that in practice make abortion unavailable. And equal protection of voting rights is likely to be eroded in red states through ever more insidiously designed voter suppression laws and gerrymandering once the Supreme Court makes clear that it will not intervene to curb such measures.

So one of the disturbing similarities between the Third Reich and the possible future America of Trump is that, on the one hand, the Nazis slaughtered homosexuals, the ill and the handicapped and forced people to have abortions and on the other that the Republicans want to prevent the massacre of the unborn (and this only in red states). 

Really??? Does this strike you as a strong argument (not just the bolded) making the case for meaningful similarity? How is this not just ludicrous?

Anyway passages like this suggest to me that there is no sensible similarity to be drawn here, and that most people who make such comparisons are indeed cranks and trolls.

 

 

[OldGimletEye]

18 minutes ago, Chaircat Meow said:

I wonder how much you really read or thought about that before posting. Or did you read the article from Browning at all or just the Vox piece?

Although the actual article it does raise some interesting and valid points the author is so sunken in liberal folly he sees nothing absurd with the below.

The very first legislation decreed by Hitler under the Enabling Act of 1933 (which suspended the legislative powers of the Reichstag) authorized the government to dismiss civil servants for suspected political unreliability and “non-Aryan” ancestry. Inequality before the law and legal discrimination were core features of the Nazi regime from the beginning. It likewise intruded into people’s private choices about sexuality and reproduction. Persecution of male homosexuality was drastically intensified, resulting in the deaths of some 10,000 gay men and the incarceration and even castration of many thousands more. Some 300,000–400,000 Germans deemed carriers of hereditary defects were forcibly sterilized; some 150,000 mentally and physically handicapped Germans considered “unworthy of life” were murdered. Germans capable of bearing racially valued children were denied access to contraception and abortion and rewarded for having large families; pregnant female foreign workers were often forced to have abortions to prevent the birth of undesired children and loss of workdays.

Nothing remotely so horrific is on the illiberal agenda, but the curtailment of many rights and protections Americans now enjoy is likely. Presumably marriage equality will survive, given the sea change in American public opinion on that issue. But the right of businesses and individuals to discriminate against gays is likely to be broadly protected as a “sincerely held religious belief.” Chief Justice John Roberts’s favorite target, affirmative action, is likely to disappear under his slogan that to end racial discrimination, one must end all forms of racial discrimination. And a woman’s right to abortion will probably disappear in red states, either through an outright overturning of Roe v. Wade or more likely through narrower rulings that fail to find any “undue burden” in draconian restrictions that in practice make abortion unavailable. And equal protection of voting rights is likely to be eroded in red states through ever more insidiously designed voter suppression laws and gerrymandering once the Supreme Court makes clear that it will not intervene to curb such measures.

So one of the disturbing similarities between the Third Reich and the possible future America of Trump is that, on the one hand, the Nazi slaughtered homosexuals, the ill and the handicapped and forced people to have abortions and on the other that the Republicans want to prevent the massacre of the unborn (and this only in red states). 

Really??? Does this strike you as a strong argument (not just the bolded) making the case for meaningful similarity? 

Anyway passages like this suggest to me that there is no sensible similarity to be drawn here, and that most people who makes such comparisons are indeed cranks and trolls.

 

 

Here is your argument in a nutshell:

Nazis forced people to have abortions. Republicans don't like abortions. Ergo, all of all Browning's points are invalid.

That's pretty weak. I wonder how much thought you put in this argument before for you posted it.

Allowing women to make the decision about abortion for themselves is one thing. Forcing them to have abortions is quite another.  I thought that would be pretty obvious.

Sounds to me like the case of the conservative that thought he made a point, but not really.

[ljkeane]

21 minutes ago, Chaircat Meow said:

Republicans want to prevent the massacre of the unborn (and this only in red states). 

 

‘Massacre of the unborn’? Really? Isn’t that a little 19th century?

Are you really British? I didn’t think we had any of that sort of conservative anymore.

[TheKitttenGuard]

 

25 minutes ago, Chaircat Meow said:

I wonder how much you really read or thought about that before posting. Or did you read the article from Browning at all or just the Vox piece?

Although the actual article does raise some interesting and valid points the author is so sunken in liberal folly he sees nothing absurd with the below.

The very first legislation decreed by Hitler under the Enabling Act of 1933 (which suspended the legislative powers of the Reichstag) authorized the government to dismiss civil servants for suspected political unreliability and “non-Aryan” ancestry. Inequality before the law and legal discrimination were core features of the Nazi regime from the beginning. It likewise intruded into people’s private choices about sexuality and reproduction. Persecution of male homosexuality was drastically intensified, resulting in the deaths of some 10,000 gay men and the incarceration and even castration of many thousands more. Some 300,000–400,000 Germans deemed carriers of hereditary defects were forcibly sterilized; some 150,000 mentally and physically handicapped Germans considered “unworthy of life” were murdered. Germans capable of bearing racially valued children were denied access to contraception and abortion and rewarded for having large families; pregnant female foreign workers were often forced to have abortions to prevent the birth of undesired children and loss of workdays.

Nothing remotely so horrific is on the illiberal agenda, but the curtailment of many rights and protections Americans now enjoy is likely. Presumably marriage equality will survive, given the sea change in American public opinion on that issue. But the right of businesses and individuals to discriminate against gays is likely to be broadly protected as a “sincerely held religious belief.” Chief Justice John Roberts’s favorite target, affirmative action, is likely to disappear under his slogan that to end racial discrimination, one must end all forms of racial discrimination. And a woman’s right to abortion will probably disappear in red states, either through an outright overturning of Roe v. Wade or more likely through narrower rulings that fail to find any “undue burden” in draconian restrictions that in practice make abortion unavailable. And equal protection of voting rights is likely to be eroded in red states through ever more insidiously designed voter suppression laws and gerrymandering once the Supreme Court makes clear that it will not intervene to curb such measures.

So one of the disturbing similarities between the Third Reich and the possible future America of Trump is that, on the one hand, the Nazis slaughtered homosexuals, the ill and the handicapped and forced people to have abortions and on the other that the Republicans want to prevent the massacre of the unborn (and this only in red states). 

Really??? Does this strike you as a strong argument (not just the bolded) making the case for meaningful similarity? How is this not just ludicrous?

Anyway passages like this suggest to me that there is no sensible similarity to be drawn here, and that most people who make such comparisons are indeed cranks and trolls.

 

 

Abortion was not created by Roe vs. Wade as much as this is now a deeply held belief among the right to show how noble they are. What you get are greater use of unsafe means of abortion which will be of greater danger to women. You also will get higher maternal mortality due to the force of pervented or dangerously delay access to the procedure. 

People have provided examples were Republican state legilsator introduce measures to force sterilization of people they deem as "unfit".

One of the strongest phrase of the Anti-Abortion movement was " Life what a beautifil Choice" and the story people tell use of how they Choosed not to have a abortion. That there is glee that this will be taken away is a real sad irony that will harm many people.

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, OldGimletEye said:

An interesting read:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/5/17940610/trump-hitler-history-historian

 

 

Hmm. And here I wonder, after Hitler proved to be a disaster for the world and for Germany itself, if conservative aristocrats like Hindenburg said to themselves,"We can wash our hands of this whole affair. Hitler didn't do the true conservatism."

 

Very serious historians have been writing about this very subject and all the related ones for a long time, at least since the tea party, and before.  But they were the ones called cranks and crackpots and conspiracists.

[Zorral]

37 minutes ago, Chaircat Meow said:

I wonder how much you really read or thought about that before posting. Or did you read the article from Browning at all or just the Vox piece?

Although the actual article does raise some interesting and valid points the author is so sunken in liberal folly he sees nothing absurd with the below.

The very first legislation decreed by Hitler under the Enabling Act of 1933 (which suspended the legislative powers of the Reichstag) authorized the government to dismiss civil servants for suspected political unreliability and “non-Aryan” ancestry. Inequality before the law and legal discrimination were core features of the Nazi regime from the beginning. It likewise intruded into people’s private choices about sexuality and reproduction. Persecution of male homosexuality was drastically intensified, resulting in the deaths of some 10,000 gay men and the incarceration and even castration of many thousands more. Some 300,000–400,000 Germans deemed carriers of hereditary defects were forcibly sterilized; some 150,000 mentally and physically handicapped Germans considered “unworthy of life” were murdered. Germans capable of bearing racially valued children were denied access to contraception and abortion and rewarded for having large families; pregnant female foreign workers were often forced to have abortions to prevent the birth of undesired children and loss of workdays.

Nothing remotely so horrific is on the illiberal agenda, but the curtailment of many rights and protections Americans now enjoy is likely. Presumably marriage equality will survive, given the sea change in American public opinion on that issue. But the right of businesses and individuals to discriminate against gays is likely to be broadly protected as a “sincerely held religious belief.” Chief Justice John Roberts’s favorite target, affirmative action, is likely to disappear under his slogan that to end racial discrimination, one must end all forms of racial discrimination. And a woman’s right to abortion will probably disappear in red states, either through an outright overturning of Roe v. Wade or more likely through narrower rulings that fail to find any “undue burden” in draconian restrictions that in practice make abortion unavailable. And equal protection of voting rights is likely to be eroded in red states through ever more insidiously designed voter suppression laws and gerrymandering once the Supreme Court makes clear that it will not intervene to curb such measures.

So one of the disturbing similarities between the Third Reich and the possible future America of Trump is that, on the one hand, the Nazis slaughtered homosexuals, the ill and the handicapped and forced people to have abortions and on the other that the Republicans want to  force women to have babies everywhere. 

Really??? Does this strike you as a strong argument (not just the bolded) making the case for meaningful similarity? How is this not just ludicrous?

Anyway passages like this suggest to me that there is no sensible similarity to be drawn here, and that most people who make such comparisons are indeed cranks and trolls.

 

 

Fixed that for ya, as ya glossed over the vital historical informational parts of these nazi policies.  The nazi state did everything it could to get "white aryan women" to reproduce as much as possible. Getting rid of reproductive rights for women, forcing gay people to behave like straight people, etc. was all part of that.

[Chaircat Meow]

16 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Here is your argument in a nutshell:

Nazis forced people to have abortions. Republicans don't like abortions. Ergo, all of all Browning's points are invalid.

That's pretty weak. I wonder how much thought you put in this argument before for you posted it.

Allowing women to make the decision about abortion for themselves is one thing. Forcing them to have abortions is quite another.  I thought that would be pretty obvious.

Sounds to me like the case of the conservative that thought he made a point, but not really.

Funny, I thought it was very strong (not the all-of-the-points bit, which I didn't say). The argument is quite absurd because it turns out when social policies are compared the Third Reich and the future America of Trump are totally different. The absurdity casts doubt over the meaningfulness of the comparison as a whole.

 

[OldGimletEye]

1 minute ago, Chaircat Meow said:

Funny, I thought it was very strong (not the all-of-the-points bit, which I didn't say). The argument is quite absurd because it turns out when social policies are compared the Third Reich and the future America of Trump are totally different. The absurdity casts doubt over the meaningfulness of the comparison as a whole.

 

Maybe I should say, I'm Pro Choice and I really mean it!!!!!

Pro Choice doesn't mean I'd favor forcing women to have abortions. And I really, really, really mean it!

Nazis forced women to have abortions. Republicans want to take that choice away.  Both want to make choices for women, that women should make for themselves.

[Chaircat Meow]

21 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

‘Massacre of the unborn’? Really? Isn’t that a little 19th century?

Are you really British? I didn’t think we had any of that sort of conservative anymore.

If interested, UK attitude to abortion is about 65/70% in favour (not counting scenario where woman's health is in danger). 

[Martell Spy]

11 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Maybe I should say, I'm Pro Choice and I really mean it!!!!!

Pro Choice doesn't mean I'd favor forcing women to have abortions. And I really, really, really mean it!

Nazis forced women to have abortions. Republicans want to take that choice away.  Both want to make choices for women, that women should make for themselves.

And I would add, they want to take birth control away.

[Chaircat Meow]

17 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Maybe I should say, I'm Pro Choice and I really mean it!!!!!

Pro Choice doesn't mean I'd favor forcing women to have abortions. And I really, really, really mean it!

Nazis forced women to have abortions. Republicans want to take that choice away.  Both want to make choices for women, that women should make for themselves.

Both believed/believe in car ownership too but that is not a relevant comparison. 

In any case, the article really falls between two stools. It's deriving a lot of appeal by appearing to say we're witnessing a recrudescence of the events that led to Nazi Germany, while really pointing out how in terms of 'methods of control', social and foreign policy the new 'anti-democratic' forces are actually totally different from Nazi Germany. The second point rather undermines the first, unless you're one of these liberals who prides himself on his oneness with science and data and macroeconomic jargon, in which case I'm sure it all makes perfect sense.

[OldGimletEye]

7 minutes ago, Chaircat Meow said:

Both believed/believe in car ownership too but that is not a relevant comparison. 

Then what is the "relevant comparison"?

9 minutes ago, Chaircat Meow said:

Both believed/believe in car ownership too but that is not a relevant comparison. 

In any case, the article really falls between two stools. It's deriving a lot of appeal by appearing to say we're witnessing a recrudescence of the events that led to Nazi Germany, while really pointing out how in terms of 'methods of control', social and foreign policy the new 'anti-democratic' forces are actually totally different from Nazi Germany. 

Does it do that? I think the article is making comparisons about how democracy eroded in Germany and in the US, while saying it won't necessarily go down exactly as it did in 1930s Germany. This isn't being contradictory.

15 minutes ago, Chaircat Meow said:

The second point rather undermines the first,

I don't think so, for reasons I've explained.

Quote

unless you're one of these liberals who prides himself on his oneness with science and data and macroeconomic jargon, in which case I'm sure it all makes perfect sense

Well not all of us are cool enough to have "The Bush Boom" and "Bullish on Bush" in our personal libraries.

Tell us about Trump fired up the economy with your most learned opinion on these matters?

[Chaircat Meow]

37 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Then what is the "relevant comparison"?

There wasn't one, that was the point. The social policies as described were totally different (indeed they appeared to be diametrically opposite). There was no relevant comparison.

If the question is actually why the comparison you came up with wasn't relevant, the answer is that it doesn't seem to be a relevant comparison because 'state that took away women's rights to make their own decisions' picks out lots of different countries in lots of different times not Nazi Germany specifically.* It would, for instance, also pick out Britain and the USA at this time. Presumably we can agree these were not fascist countries.

So we can't really go onto to say 'denies women the right to make their own decisions' makes Trump's future America reminiscent of the Third Reich. Or, if we can, it would make it as reminiscent of the Third Reich as it would be of the US or Britain in the 1950s, which, while maybe not good, is not the dire conclusion the liberal hysterics want us to draw.

*Granting for the sake of argument that an unborn child does not have rights.

[Cas Stark]

2 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

An interesting read:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/5/17940610/trump-hitler-history-historian

 

 

Hmm. And here I wonder, after Hitler proved to be a disaster for the world and for Germany itself, if conservative aristocrats like Hindenburg said to themselves,"We can wash our hands of this whole affair. Hitler didn't do the true conservatism."

 

The moral of the story seems to be that hyperpartisanship is bad.  It leads to gridlock and loss of confidence in institutions.  This can eventually lead to an authoritarian take-over to 'get things done'.  

That suggests the cure here is not 'Trump is like Hitler' and 'McConnel is like Hindenberg' but a dialing back of hyperpartisanship.

[OldGimletEye]

18 minutes ago, Chaircat Meow said:

snip.

You think the comparison isn't valid because the social policies are different.

But, if we think in terms of the state making abortion decisions for women then the comparison holds.

Also, the author's argument doesn't just hinge on abortion rights being curtailed. He list that as one of many things that will happen under what he calls the illiberal democracy, which he clearly states how he thinks things will  likely go down, rather than a totalitarian ideology which declares its hostility to democratic regimes outright.

[Chaircat Meow]

Just now, OldGimletEye said:

You think the comparison isn't valid because the social policies are different.

But, if we think in terms of the state making abortion decisions for women then the comparison holds.

Yea but I explained in the previous post why was such a comparison was vacuous, didn't I?

 

18 minutes ago, Chaircat Meow said:

There wasn't one, that was the point. The social policies as described were totally different (indeed they appeared to be diametrically opposite). There was no relevant comparison.

If the question is actually why the comparison you came up with wasn't relevant, the answer is that it doesn't seem to be a relevant comparison because 'state that took away women's rights to make their own decisions' picks out lots of different countries in lots of different times not Nazi Germany specifically.* It would, for instance, also pick out Britain and the USA at this time. Presumably we can agree these were not fascist countries.

So we can't really go onto to say 'denies women the right to make their own decisions' makes Trump's future America reminiscent of the Third Reich. Or, if we can, it would make it as reminiscent of the Third Reich as it would be of the US or Britain in the 1950s, which, while maybe not good, is not the dire conclusion the liberal hysterics want us to draw.

*Granting for the sake of argument that an unborn child does not have rights.

 

2 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Also, the author's argument doesn't just hinge on abortion rights being curtailed. He list that as one of many things that will happen under what he calls the illiberal democracy, which he clearly states how he thinks will go down, rather than a totalitarian ideology which declares its hostility to democratic regimes outright.

It is true that there is a reasonable case to be made that a kind of illiberal democracy has risen up in places like Hungary and maybe there are some comparisons with Trump's America. The article by Browning tries to bolt onto this theory its poorly made Nazi Germany angle and thus loses credibility.

[OldGimletEye]

24 minutes ago, Chaircat Meow said:

Yea but I explained in the previous post why was such a comparison was vacuous, didn't I?

Lets say you attempted to explain that it was vacuous.

And let's say your explanation wasn't quite convincing.

24 minutes ago, Chaircat Meow said:

It is true that there is a reasonable case to be made that a kind of illiberal democracy has risen up in places like Hungary and maybe there are some comparisons with Trump's America. The article by Browning tries to bolt onto this theory its poorly made Nazi Germany angle and thus loses credibility.

Hmm. Well it seems to me that the author makes the argument that would be authoritarians have figured out how to be authoritarians, without openly admitting their hostility to liberal democracy, as opposed to old school fascist who prided themselves in openly hating democracy.

He then explains how certain sorts of people help to undermine Democracy because they flout certain norms and think they can make deal with the devil, without getting their fingers burned or the country burned in the process. In the case of Germany, it was Hindenburg. In the US, the author thinks it's McConnell. And the author compares their respective roles in each country.

I don't see how these things are contradictory or undermine each other.

[Bonnot OG]

3 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

An interesting read:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/5/17940610/trump-hitler-history-historian

 

 

Hmm. And here I wonder, after Hitler proved to be a disaster for the world and for Germany itself, if conservative aristocrats like Hindenburg said to themselves,"We can wash our hands of this whole affair. Hitler didn't do the true conservatism."

 

I found that to be a sanctimonious pile of shit written by a daft liberal that has been living under a rock.

Lol what an ignorant fucking pud the writer is. "Usually, comparisons between Donald Trump’s America and Nazi Germany come from cranks and internet trolls" lol, what a pile of trash. 

Guess he missed how WWII veterans from Europe talked about the similarities 2 years ago when the campaigning was going on, or how Holocaust survivors said the same thing. 

I guess they are just internet cranks and trolls. 

And maybe the trolls / cranks the writer is whinig about know history better than they do? 

Needed an "authority" to show it to them. This country is fucked. Always looking for someone in a position of authority to help.