JarJarJedi
Streamlined derailments and counteridea reeducation
User ID: 1118
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
The stuff that I previously described as subject to political football - all kinds of deductions or special taxes meant to subsidize or hurt certain categories of people, for political reasons. Taxes in the US is very actively used in politics.
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
Nobody can stop White Flight.
Don't confuse people who want to escape a shithole, ruined by woke policies, with people who want to found a rebirth of Pureblood Aryan Nation. There are a lot of the former that won't want anything to do with the latter. Even wider - a lot of people who object to child transitions, kid drag shows and other insanities don't actually mind if two adult dudes fuck each other, if they'd like so. The interests of these groups can be aligned while the environment is so insanely skewed that their differences are immaterial, but that doesn't mean they share the same core values with regard to aryan stuff.
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
the average gay man doesn't have anywhere near 100 sexual partners in his life
What's the right number? I suspect the distribution is bimodal, with one peak around where hetero males are, and another peak way out there - maybe over 100, if tales told on the internet to be believed (yes, I know, but these tales are way different from hetero men tales, by orders of magnitude).
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
US tax code is huge, byzantine and confusing. It's on purpose, because taxation is used as political football, and taxing or de-taxing various things (depending on whether enemies or friends do the things in question) is a favorite pastime among Congressmen.
Employer does usually deduct your taxes, but it's not where it ends, unless you are either rather poor or live very simple life. At the end of the year, you are supposed to check how much you owe, either by reading IRS instructions purposefully made as confusing as possible without rendering them in ancient Egyptian, or pay somebody to do it for you (most people choose the latter). Then you include various additions (e.g. if you own savings account, stock, had side income, etc.) and deductions (charity donations, secondary taxes - property, state, etc., and the football stuff). Then you send them a special form to the IRS, and if you owe the man, you must pay, if the man owes you, they'll eventually send you the money. Not submitting the taxes is a crime, especially if you owe the man (I am not sure they'd aggressively go after you if they owe you).
The whole system has some nice ideas in it (e.g. charity deductions make the US citizens one of the most prolific charity givers in the world) but, as a lot of other systems in the US, with time it grew into unholy monstrosity, and since so many political interests are baked into it, nobody can do any reasonable change, but only add more and more monstrous tentacles to it.
Russia has a lucky chance to reset its system pretty recently, and as far as I remember, banking/taxation were one of very small number of areas in Russia taken over by professionals who were listened to by the Powers That Be. I am genuinely surprised they ended up with the system that actually makes sense.
Let's say I am offered a salary of $100k, what's the rule of thumb to estimate my take-home pay?
There are multiple calculators online, but: a) take home pay doesn't mean you don't owe more on the tax day b) it depends on your state of residence (US is a federal republic, remeber?) and sometimes also city c) it also depends on whether you are married and how much your spouse makes, and how many kids you've got d) it also depends on crapton of other things. So the online calculators will only give you the ballpark figure, if you want something better, you pay an accountant or learn IRS's version of ancient Egyptian.
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
In the US, unlike almost every other developed country, taxes aren’t (edit: universally) deducted by employers.
That's not accurate - most employers certainly deduct taxes, and at least some legally obligated to do so. Well, at least each one I have been employed with did. But, if they under-deduct or over-deduct, it's not their or taxman's problem - it's yours.
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
I always thought hard S-W has been long recognized as bunk, while soft S-W is kinda wishy-washy area depending on definitions of "influencing" and "changing". Sure, framing is a thing. Pretty big thing actually, even if you discount non-reproducible studies. But it's not an ironclad barrier, it's just a hue in the big palette of things.
A while ago I read this: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18579574-the-language-hoax which is very anti-SW. I liked it. I'm not sure I am qualified to judge whether the arguments expressed there are the scientific truth (actually I am pretty sure I am not) but it's surely was illuminating for me.
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
This article is huge and longwinded, and the design of the page (at least as my browser shows it) is really hostile to reading long texts. Can someone TLDR what views it is expressing? Doesn't need to fit into a tweet, but maybe more of a short story than Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace?
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
I'm probably too far away to see minor differences, but I don't think I have seen/heard/read a lot of "progressive democrats" criticizing leftist dictators and their approach to elections. I mean, when did I have the last opportunity to see a leftist protest demanding to hold free elections in Cuba? Venezuela? North Korea? China? Anywhere where a leftist or islamist dictator holds power? I mean, a lot of Americans have opinions, as we recently found out, about how Israel's democracy must be managed, but none have any opinions on any of those? Doesn't it look a little bit weird?
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
I'm not sure how the second part follows from the first. It's like saying "we desperately need the cure for common cold, so I am using charmed bracelets and pyramid power". The proposition that something is sorely lacking does not imply logically acceptance of something that is clearly inadequate for that purpose.
I mean, one can hope "he's clearly a grifter but may be he will fool some of the most stupid of Dems" but one can't rely on this as a plan for anything?
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
The reason why Democratic views used to be more pro-Israel, is because the Israeli population used to reflect a more liberal view of the conflict, and now it really doesn't
Erm, what? What timeframe are you talking about? Israel has been moving towards more conciliatory and liberal view of the conflict for decades now. It evacuated Gaza in 2005 (forcibly uprooting many Jewish communities) and tolerates Hamas shelling the southern cities for 18 years since, with only sporadic limited response carefully calculated to punish Hamas, but not endanger their rule. One of the main reason of the current catastrophe is that Israel got so immersed in the liberal concept of "peace is inevitable, Hamas is just representing the last throes of retrogrades that can not tolerate the inevitable coming of peace, but they are weak and dying off" - that's why such thing as "peace festival" on the border with Gaza with virtually no protection beyond token security guards meant to handle people who got over their norm of mind-altering substances - became possible. That's why most of the smaller towns and villages had no armed guards and had weapons locked up - something one couldn't imagine in the vicinity of Gaza some years ago, before "peace process". Israel has been moving to the liberal side since early 90s, at least, and the more they moved there, the more the Left hated them. It's just American Jews and Israeli Left made titanic effort not to notice it, but now it became a bit hard not to notice.
we believe even terrible have the right to vote, and self-government
Do you really? The left never seems to have any problem with leftist dictatorships (too long to list here). Sure, they may recognize Kim is taking it too far, and maybe Pol Pot made a goofie or two, but otherwise dictatorship of the proletariat doesn't seem to represent any serious problem. If there are some staged "elections" where the ruling junta always wins, then everything is completely perfect. The treatment of the Islamic dictatorships seems to be very situational - while some Islamic dictatorship get some critique, most of them are silently ignored (especially the rich ones donating amply to Left's Places of Power) and surely absolutely none of them gets as much hate as Israel does.
Now, if said Palestinian government passes anti-LGBT laws or whatever
If??? If??? Are we talking about real Palestinians under Hamas (or Fatah) rule or some Celestial Palestinians existing only in Harvard classrooms? Of course, since most Palestinians that are discernibly gay are either dead or fled to Israel years ago, this is more of a theoretical question. Hamas does not "pass laws" - it just throws you off a building.
then we'll treat them like we do other countries with no leverage on us - sanctions and such until they embrace the loving arms of deviancy, or whatever
Not only this is a lie, you know this is a lie. Many Muslim countries have such laws, and there are no sanctions.
In the long run, if this is all old news by Election Day 2024, it'll likely be forgotten
I'm not sure how it matters if it isn't. I see no group on the Left that even theoretically could switch their vote or stay home (in significant numbers) except one - American Jews. For some of them, it has been really shocking how much their parteigenossen hate them. But, unfortunately, I do not see any way that would move them to vote for Trump. It's just not something decent people do. Maybe some of them will stay home, but given that most of them live in deep blue areas anyway, it won't change anything. So, some Democrat will be elected with 70% of votes instead of the usual 89% - who cares. So, my prediction - absolutely nothing will change in 2024.
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
I've been reading a lot about "humanitarian aid" sent into Gaza (by now hundreds of trucks). Does anybody know any source that lists what exactly is being sent? Like this amount of flour, this amount of insulin, this amount of water, etc.? The corporate press is being its usual useless self, resorting to facts only when they absolutely have no other choice, but maybe somebody knows some more obscure, but useful publication, that track what and how many is being sent?
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
That Egypt scenario is a complete nonsense. Egypt doesn't want the war no more than Israel wants the war, especially a war for Hamas which Egypt has very little use of, besides the obvious joy of making Israel suffer. It wants Israel to have all the troubles in the world, but so that it ends on the Egyptian border. The time where Egypt sponsored the Fedayin was 70 years ago.
And this turn of phrase:
As of writing Drone strikes have just exploded in Egyptian Taba by the red sea. Israel claims to have shot down the drones and blames Iran Aligned Houthi rebels in the region, claiming they were targeted towards Israel’s southernmost towns near Elat
Implying like it's just "Israel claim" which is super suspect, all while the Houthis themselves admitted they did it, and bragged about it profusely. Really, this can't be serious.
you think this is bad, Israel funded Hamas in its early days
People really should stop mentioning this in 2020s as something that is highly relevant to what happens today. It was a very brief episode in the 1980s, and treating this as - which is clearly implied here - that Israel created Hamas from the ground up and there wouldn't be any Hamas if not Israel - is just stupid and counter-factual. Yes, Israel briefly considered using (then younger and weaker) Hamas to fight Fatah, that was 40 years ago, and that idea didn't last long and was soon abandoned. Treating it as it was definitive episode in the history of Hamas and Israel is like saying "US created the USSR" because they were allies for a while in the fight with the Nazis. Even order of magnitude sillier because the ties between Hamas and Israel were never even order of magnitude that close as between US and USSR.
The Jordan angle is bullshit too, unless there's a complete collapse of Jordanian government (not mere "instability") - which they are very determined not to let happen, and are willing to kill a lot of Palestinian Arabs for that, as they amply proved in the past, exactly nothing would happen there. And to achieve such a collapse would take a direct military action from somebody like Iran. Which would a) require them to somehow cross Iraq without Saudis noticing and doing anything, not to mention Iraqis, and b) do that all right under the nose of US air carrier group stationed next door, and also them not doing anything. I don't see how it's a possibility.
The problems of fighting the tunnels are real, and the fact Hamas has been building it for 16 years is real too. But Israel also knew about them for all these years, and they consider it doable. The main problem would be time - the more Israel stays in Gaza with boots on the ground, the more pressure there will be from the Kind People of the World. And if they can easily afford to tell Europe to take a long hike off a short peer, that wouldn't fly with the US, especially not with Dems in power who has their own sizeable pro-Hamas wing to placate. That would be the main problem for Israel for the middle term.
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
he could still be impeached under the theory that his actions didn't help
Technically, he could be impeached for having a bad haircut. There's no requirement of legal court conviction, only the vote of Congress, so whatever Congress votes for is the grounds enough. Well, the Constitution says "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors", but you can always declare a bad haircut "disturbing the peace" and count it as a misdemeanor. As we were reminded many times, it's not a legal process. But, it has always been understood before that the requirement is to be serious crimes, not mere "didn't help" (which isn't a crime at all). But if we pretend it's still the case, then this destroys the "crowd can't be manipulated" proposition.
Who "caused" what will remain a philosophical question wherever you're dealing with this many variables.
The impeachers didn't consider it philosophical, they squarely put blame on Trump. So either we declare them utter clowns for blaming Trump for something no man can be blamed for (which btw I don't object because they are clowns, for many reasons), or we have to admit the "inherent violence" argument is destroyed. I think it's a nice irony when blue-tribe actions serve as a basis for red-tribe conspiracy theories.
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
- Does it? Not if you ask any real conspiracy theorist worth his tinfoil hat at least
- Dem. party has been corbynizing itself for over a decade now, starting with Obama at least. You don't need Mossad to explain that. Moreover, if Mossad had dirt on people via Epstein, and used it for influence, wouldn't that dirt still be dirty? It didn't become less dirty because Epstein is dead. I mean if you know, say, certain senator was a client of Epstein, revealing it now would be as bad for him as it was 5 years ago. Maybe they don't get the new dirt, but given how few new faces are there at the top, it shouldn't matter much. I don't think this stands even within its own framework.
how exactly would the deep state have known about the protestors potential to take things too far on J6
Any sizeable crowd on a political event has this potential, especially if hot controversy is involved. Given that this particular crowd was convinced their opponents just stole the election, I don't think you need to be guessing for too long whether it could be further inflamed into action. I mean, those not a bunch of buddhist monks on their annual inner peace retreat, they are bunch of people who has been just brazenly cheated out of electoral victory. Of course they have the "potential", any such crowd has. Given the "too far" they achieved - fighting with the police, breaking into the building, doing some minor property damage - it's not something we haven't been seeing through the whole 2020, and much more (e.g. no arson attempts, no firearms, no firebombs, no serious protective gear or shields, etc.) - so you don't have to go far out of the observed experience to assume you can get some presentable and marketable violence out of it. Taking over buildings is a routine thing, happens all the time - latest happened just days ago, in defense of Hamas of all things.
Interestingly enough, Trump's second impeachment provides a strong argument against your position. If the violence has been inherent in the crowd, for whatever reason, then Trump is at worst negligent, but he was not the main cause of the events. However, if he has been criminally culpable on the level that warrants impeachment charges, then that means his actions were one of the primary and main causes, that he knew that would happen, he foresaw it happening and he purposely made it happen. But if we assume that is the case - in fact, if we even assume this might be the case, that this accusation is not 100% baloney but has at least some legal weight, then we must also conclude some other persons could have foreseen that could happen and acted to make it happen, and entered in the same causal relationship with the violence that occurred as the Trump was accused of. Trump is not a wizard and not some uniquely gifted phenomenon - if he could do something, some other person or persons also could do the same, and if he could be blamed in that happening, then it is only natural to assume some other persons could be as possibly blamed in that as well. One can not call that theory kooky at least without calling the whole second impeachment story, and all the current indictments connected to it, a complete circus. I mean, if you do, then you still could have your argument, but you can't have both.
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
This looks implausible to me for the following reason: Mossad is known to be doing things worse then keeping dirt on people, which is bread and butter of every intelligence agency on Earth, and unless Mossad is found to be directly facilitating Epstein crimes (which they wouldn't have much reason to - there are so much dirt on elites than creating a massive pedophile operation ex nihilo and then risk exposure would be massive overkill), if Mossad got dirt of somebody from Epstein, it's not a huge blemish on Mossad's reputation. Everybody knows spooks deal with dirty people, that's how spooking is done, and people mostly accept it. On the other hand, Mossad murdering somebody on US soil in US federal custody is a very risky thing. It's not like Mossad haven't done international assassinations - they have, but doing it in the US is very tricky, because US does not take kindly to anybody intruding on their soil (see Pollard), and any leak of anything like that could cost Israel way way more than anything Epstein could ever deliver. Such things sometimes go wrong (Mossad history has several examples) and each time the shitstorm is sizeable, but it always has been either hostile or neutral countries. Putting a thumb directly in the eye of the US law enforcement is not something Israel would do lightly. Certainly not to cover something that pretty much wouldn't hurt them at all.
a generational political talent who actually manages to achieve a socialist revolution with such force and fervor the effects end up boomeranging all the way back to Germany
I think more accurate statement would be "manages to take over the socialist revolution and ensure it is not suppressed by either domestic opponents or outside intervention". Lenin had surprisingly little role at all in overthrow of Tzarism (we do know there actually was two revolutions in Russia in 1917, not one, do we?) and even his role in the October coup was not as towering as it has been later presented. There were many other people and movements that took part. He was a tactical genius though and he managed to take over the whole enterprise and simultaneously push out and destroy all the competition and not let his power fall apart (being both very smart and complete psycho probably helped some). The Germans actually didn't get so bad a deal from it as such - the conditions of the peace treaty of 1918 have been an utter humiliation for Russia. Quoting Wikipedia:
Under the terms of the treaty, Russia lost control of Ukraine, Poland, Belarus, its Baltic provinces (now Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia), and its Caucasus provinces of Kars and Batum. The lands comprised 34% of the former empire's population, 54% of its industrial land, 89% of its coalfields, and 26% of its railways. The Soviet government also confirmed the independence of Finland, which it had recognized in January 1918, and pledged to end its war with the Ukrainian People's Republic, which the Central Powers had recognized under the prior Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (9 February 1918).
(as a side note, here you see the source of the claim Ukraine was "invented by Germans" and such)
Too bad for Germans they had only a few months to enjoy the fruits of their labor, after which they lost the war themselves and it was their turn to be humiliated.
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
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I was referring to "Cultural Marxism", I thought I made it pretty obvious but maybe I didn't. It is commonly referred to, especially by the left, as "conspiracy theory", and sometimes even as a sign of racism and/or antisemitism (though I personally fail to see the connection).
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The fakery (according to the theory) has happened when Obama became the Democratic presidential candidate. Prior to that he was (that's a fact not a theory) sometimes referred to as born in Kenya, because that made him more "diverse" (it is debatable whether or not he personally made it happen, though he certainly didn't object too loudly), but in general nobody gave a rat's behind where he was born, until the requirements for Presidency came into play. Presumably, according to the theory, there should exist his "original" birth certificate - unless, of course, it was destroyed by the conspirators.
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Presumably, there were some serious tensions between CIA and the President, and the disaster at Bay of Pigs was one of the outcomes of it (conspiracies within conspiracies!). So, the tensions boiled over to the point where the CIA decided the President is out of control and needs to be gone. The how is a bit more murky here indeed, but the most coherent version I've heard is that they psychologically manipulated LHO into the assassination attempt, but not being sure he can actually succeed, performed certain actions to ensure that by the end of it, JFK was really and truly dead.
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Why is obvious - to not let them talk about his clients. Who is also both obvious and immaterial - I mean, if that were true, it'd be some kind of black ops murder team, but their specific identities are not interesting, the interesting part is who hired/ordered them to do it. That would be the same people from the client list, I presume. The how is the hard part - probably bribing the guards, sabotaging the records and then drugging/strangling/etc. him?
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Again, who is easy - the political establishment needing to support the narrative. Why is easy too, see above, there is a lot of political careers heavily invested in the notion of "structural racism" and the need to combat it. How - by pressuring the judicial system into supporting the required decision I presume?
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Who - the Chinese scientists. Why - well, why countries manufacture bioweapons? It obviously happened, so they had some reasons. I personally don't think bioweapons make much sense, except as terror weapon, but many governments seem to think otherwise.
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Who is the US federal government. Why is the immigrants tend to vote Democratic, and tend to be more dependent on government services, which again makes them lean Democratic.
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It is listed on Wikipedia as "conspiracy theory" so I included it with the rest.
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Selling more vaccines? Also not being sued and bankrupted by the claims of those to whom they already have sold the vaccines. E.g. like tobacco companies.
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The claim is they benefit from more vaccines sold, and the side effect is not intended, but since it happened to be there, they decided it's better to suppress the knowledge of it than to lose all that nice business and expose themselves to billions is claims.
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The claim is that Trump sought out or at least knowingly accepted Russia's help, and that the following investigation was based on the attempt to genuinely discover whether or not it is the case. The counter-claim is that there was never any evidence to support that claim, and that the whole story was fabricated for political reasons, contrary to claims of the involved parties that they are interested in investigating the matter, they were actually interested on finding any dirt they can on Trump, or, failing that, keep him under the cloud of suspicion as long as it is possible. That's the conspiracy part.
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Overcounting would be counting somebody as dying because of COVID infection while they died for causes that are not attributable to that infection. Reasons would be political power gained under the premise of the necessity of emergency measures.
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This is kinda hard to unpack, because in general political finance in the US works in ways that are extremely hard to unpack. I'd say the claim is that some money, coming from Soros or alike rich people, are intentionally, through certain network of financing institutions, arrive into the pockets of violent leftist groups, and this is done on purpose, to effect certain changes in US politics that Soros, etc. want to achieve (such as make the society move more to the left). This was called "conspiracy theory" in Wikipedia - at least I think this is what they meant.
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I'm not sure it's possible to figure out why somebody is a pedophile? I think the theory is more like if you are both a member of the elite and a pedophile, then there's a club for you that will cater for your illegal needs and ensure that indulging your passion would not lead to undesirable consequences. The latter part is the conspiracy, and also the fact that presumably the pedophilia is more common for the elites than widely recognized, but this fact is suppressed, since it'd make the respect for the elites to diminish (the optimistic part of this theory is that there's still really some respect that can be further diminished).
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I feel like this makes an unwarranted assumption that every crowd has a fixed quality that can be called "proclivity for violence" and this quality can not be meaningfully changed. I think the experience suggests that it can - moreover, one of the charges against Trump has been that this is exactly what he did! I think if it is plausible to assume Trump could do it, it is also plausible somebody else could do the same. As a side note, I myself a very non-violent man, but I can imagine a situation where there could be enough provocation that I would be tempted to resort to violence, and maybe even succumb to that temptation (thankfully, I haven't found myself in such situations for many years, but it could happen, in theory). I don't see why that couldn't happen with members of the crowd (crowds always make people dumber) manipulated by very skilled operatives (I assume somebody in the FBI could be skilled?)
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Presumably, the ETs they have in evidence are dead, or possibly they have just technological evidence, not actual ET organisms, and the other ETs for some reasons (maybe in collusion with the government?) are reluctant to communicate with the members of the public. Maybe they have the Prime Directive? The reasons to hide it is a) to gain the exclusive use of alien technologies and b) to prevent the massive uncontrollable panic which will be caused by this knowledge.
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
Anatoly Vorobey (whose Russian blog I follow - I suspect Hebrew is his strongest language,
I doubt it. His native language is Russian, even though he lives in Israel, and while his Hebrew must be pretty decent now (I knew him a while ago, but only read his texts for more than a decade since) I have never seen a text from him in Hebrew, so I don't think it's his strongest. Probably his Russian and his English are better.
For myself, I find that while English is not my native language, it feels easier to write in English on many subjects, such as politics or technical matters, because so much of the terms and the books I've read on those subjects are in English anyway. Not that I consider myself some sort of a brilliant writer, in either language, but it just feels more natural for me.
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
I feel like moon landing or flat earth is a kinda weak conspiracy theory examples. For the method to be powerful it needs to be tested on something real and strong, not some fringe lizardman conspiracy theory that is proclaimed more for lulz than anything else. Let's go to Wikipedia and get some fresh, pungent conspiracy theories and see how many you can knock out with OCH. Note for the purposes of this experiment I trust that anything that Wikipedia would call a conspiracy theory actually is. Full disclosure: I personally believe some of these are proven facts, some of them are very likely to be facts but can't be proven, at least for now, some I have no slightest idea whether they are true or false, and for some I am convinced they are false, and only a kook could believe in them. I am not going to disclose which are which.
So, in no particular order, which of these could you knock out:
- There is a concerted sustained multi-generational effort from the leftists in academia, entertainment and other institutions to subvert and transform Western society to undermine traditional Western values and make the society accept Marxist values instead. Identity politics, political correctness, and other culture war phenomena are part of this effort.
- Obama have been born outside the US and his birth certificate was faked, and this fakery is supported by government officials for partisan political reasons
- North Steam gas pipeline has been blown up by Ukrainians or the CIA (or both in collusion)
- JFK was assassinated by the CIA, either controlling Lee Harwey Oslwald or murdering him by other means and framing LHO.
- DNC emails were leaked by somebody from inside of DNC and not stolen by Russians, but Russia was blamed in service of the political narrative.
- Epstein did not kill himself
- George Floyd died of drug overdose, but for political and ideological reasons his death was presented otherwise, and the following legal proceedings were heavily influenced by political pressure to produce necessary convictions.
- COVID originated from Wuhan Virology Institute, where it has been either engineered as bioweapon or modified for research and has inadvertently leaked out.
- Biden family had extensive corrupt business in Ukraine, China and/or other foreign countries, and Joe Biden has been personally aware and participated in it.
- 2020 election has had sufficient cases of electoral fraud to meaningfully influence the results
- Bin Laden was not actually killed but the whole operation was staged to benefit Obama politically.
- The federal government is purposefully sabotaging immigration enforcement in order to change the demographic composition of the country
- White farmers in South Africa are systematically targeted and attacked, to drive them out from their land
- COVID mRNA vaccines have dangerous side effects well beyond recognized by current medical establishment consensus, and the reason for this lack of recognition is political or financial
- Global warming is not as big of a threat as presented by most climate scientists, and its threat is being exaggerated for political and ideological reasons, while any research suggesting otherwise is being actively suppressed.
- Vaccines have meaningful casual connection to development of autism but the medical establishment is concealing this fact, for either pecuniary or other reasons.
- Accusation about Trump being in collusion with Russia has been fabricated by Clinton campaign with no evidence, and has been supported by the intelligence community for partisan political reasons.
- COVID deaths were systematically overcounted to create the atmosphere of panic and enable drastic measures the politicians wanted to take
- There exists a phenomenon called "deep state", where most of top federal government officials do not represent the will of the electorate and do not serve the interests of the people and the good governance, and are largely out of control of elected nominal leadership, but instead are concerned with extending their power and their political influence, and perpetuating and enhancing their control over every aspect of the society. The "deep state" is generally aligned with Democratic party and largely hostile to the Republican party policies.
- Antifa is an organized violent leftist movement with cohesive political goals, organizational structure, financing, recruiting and support networks, membership, goals, and not a vague idea of "opposing fascism" that anybody could use - and routinely does - as a mask.
- Violent leftist movements are funded by certain very rich people (such as George Soros, but not exclusively) in order to affect massive political transformation in the US.
- There exists a massive pedophile network encompassing large number of members of the political elite, which use pizza symbols to communicate and are involved in child sex trafficking. Discussion if this fact is forcefully suppressed by the members of the elite.
- On January 6, there was a large number of FBI (or other law enforcement) agents in the crowd, which played significant role in instigating the violence and provoking the protestors into lawless actions.
- US or some powers within US (e.g. CIA) purposefully provoked Russia to instigate Ukraine invasion and begin a large war, in order to profit from it and increase its political influence.
- UFOs - or at least some of them - are of extra-terrestrial origin, and certain officials in the government are in possession of the conclusive evidence of that fact but are hiding it, for selfish or political reasons.
- There exist governmental projects for clandestinely implanting RFID chips or similar technology into humans, without their consent, for purposes of tracking, identification or others.
JarJarJedi
6mo ago
Again, these are very vague "billions are being spent". Which billions we are talking about? There are military aid packages. There are non-military aid packages. There are US money. There are World bank money. There are European money. If you want to audit that and point out certain spending you object to - fine, but you can't seriously discuss it in the format "our children are starving while Ukraine gets billions" - because children wouldn't benefit neither from stopping HIMARS shipments to Ukraine (children, even very hungry ones, can't eat a HIMARS rocket [citation needed]), not from stopping World Bank programs - because those programs, if not going to Ukraine, wouldn't be directed to the starving children you care so much about. If there's specific objection to specific spending - fine, it's completely OK to discuss it, but talking about all the financial help altogether as an amorphous blob of "billions" that can be freely converted and directed to any purpose is exactly what I call misleading. It doesn't work this way.
JarJarJedi
7mo ago
Of course, if Ukrainians gave up immediately, most of their lives - except those who Russian would execute, torture to death or otherwise "disappear", but how many could they realistically kill? probably not too many, right? - would be saved, and they would live happily ever after under the benevolent rule of Putin. Too bad they are too stupid to realize that and give up finally...
JarJarJedi
7mo ago
...I'm not sure where to even begin with this statement. I cannot form a sensible model of a thought-process that would have this statement as its output. Could you elaborate?
Elaborate what? You pre-declare that US intervention must be a failure and the only question is when we recognize that failure. In that model, of course it'd be a failure. I just don't accept that model as something having to do with the reality.
Do you agree that the american occupation of Afghanistan was a failure?
Irrelevant for the question being discussed.
That if we had only pushed harder, been willing to commit more, worthwhile outcomes could have been secured?
No, I think if they pushed smarter, and been willing to do different things, then yes, they could be. It's not a direct function of dollars spent or boots standing on the ground. At least not that alone. But again, this is irrelevant for the question discussed.
That is a pretty wild response to someone pointing to three decades of extremely ruinous policy failure.
Again, policy failures in Afghanistan are not relevant here, as we're not talking about Afghanistan.
If no one knows anything,
I didn't say "no one knows anything", I said exact picture years ahead is not possible to predict right now. That's not the same thing at all. If you demand "before we do anything, tell me and guarantee me you can exactly predict what would happen in a multi-factor hyper-complex event 10 years ahead" - then of course you won't be able to do a single thing. That's not how things are done. You have a general goal, and general means of achieving it - in this case, trim Russia's ambition of territorial conquest in Europe, and giving Ukrainians the weapons - and then you adapt your tactics depending on the circumstances arriving.
you criticizing the people who don't want to spend a lot of money and resources escalating this war
The war is already "escalated". That choice is past us. The question is - does the "collective security" arrangement in Europe survive, or do we go back to "every little country for themselves" and the inevitable endless bloodbath that follows that. There's still a chance to preserve that order, but it is going away fast. And more we talk about "when we already recognize we lost everything and should give up?" the sooner we lose everything, including all this nice cushy civilization we enjoy so much. It's much more fragile than commonly thought.
Is politics literally nothing more to you than good fucking vibes?
I can't even begin to understand what you mean here, but let me assure you in one thing. Contrary to the belief popular on many college campuses, adding swearing to your argument does not make it more convincing, it just makes you look more unhinged.
Prove it. Support that statement. Why is it better? On the basis of what data? What leads you to this conclusion?
Observation of the existing facts. When somebody literally proposes as a solution for the war the situation from which the war started, I conclude he's either ignoramus or is lying to my eyes. When somebody proposes a bunch of non-sequiturs as a supposedly logical argument to a goal - I assume he is either bad at logic or is lying. Carlson has been proposing wildly illogical concept of if we let Russia consume Ukraine, Putin somehow would be friendly to the US (this is laughable to anyone who listened for the last 5 years of Russian propaganda, which has been full of mouth-foaming anti-Western paranoia, and their whole geopolitical concept is rooted at opposition to the West, which is weak and decadent and soul-less) and somehow commit himself to fighting China (despite Russia having zero motive for that and tons of motives to the contrary) - and doesn't even bother to support his fantasies with anything but other wild stories (like the stupid biolab shit). That makes about as much sense as saying if only we helped Hitler to introduce common sense banking regulations, he'd be off the whole Jews thing - about that level of silliness. Vivek is simpler, he's just playing ignorant. He's proposing a solution which he must know - since he is not actually dumb - is not solving anything because that's where the war started. But it sounds nice to people who are ignorant in the matter, and makes him sound like he has solutions for everything to people that want somebody to have solutions. And also to the people who think "fuck Ukraine, better give that money to me!" but are ashamed to say it aloud, so they are looking for someone to say the same but in a smart way, so it doesn't sound asshole-ish but geopolitically smart. That's all his play, the whole con. Fortunately, he's also irrelevant since there's no chance he'd be anywhere near any real power anytime soon.
JarJarJedi
7mo ago
Our current plan is to give Ukraine every weapon we have
This is obviously false. On the contrary, the plan is explicitly not to give many weapons - such as long-range rockets, planes, and many other things - or at least delay giving them as long as possible. If the plan really were "to give Ukraine every weapon we have" it's impossible to explain why ATACMS rockets or modern planes were not given or why modern tanks were only given late this year - we certainly had them way before that, they weren't created this year.
regardless of whether or not the Ukrainians are able to win the war
"Win the war" is a very vague thing - and the extent of how much Ukrainians win right now is a direct function of how much weapons (and what kind of weapons) they have. Right now, their air capabilities are minuscule, and they long-range strike capabilities are such that they can only do sporadic one-off hits, after months of preparation. This is way short of "every weapon we have", unless US military has been lying to us for years about all those advanced weaponry they are supposed to have, and somehow instead spent all those billions on building mocks of all that weaponry that doesn't exist in reality. I don't think even the most committed conspiracy nuts go that far.
letting the war drag on while we essentially use up our weapons in Ukraine
Giving enough weaponry not to lose but not enough to decisively win - which was the actual plan for the last 1.5 years - is a great way to let the war drag on. You concept does not offer any explanation why we're discussing long-range rockets today and not in February 2022. Mine explains it perfectly. I think the concept that explains the available facts
I think it would be better to cede Donbas
Did you wake up yesterday from a 20 year coma? Ukraine has been "ceding Donbass" since 2014. That's when it came under Russian control (fun fact: the guy who organized it, Igor Girkin, is now being slowly tortured to death in Russian prison, because that's how Russian "thank you" looks like) and since then, Ukraine didn't have any control there and could do nothing about it. Just as they could do nothing about Russia owning Crimea (besides completely toothless and impotent "sanctions"). Presenting it as some kind of a "solution", while this was exactly the starting point of the war, is completely bewildering - it's like saying "we could avoid WW2 if only we let Hitler arm himself and signed a peace treaty with him and given him Sudetenland". And it didn't happen in the last century - it happened less than 10 years ago! And still you feel free to completely ignore it. Astonishing.
build NATO bases in West Ukraine as a deterrent to further incursions.
So, your solution is instead of having Ukrainians fight Russians with Western weaponry, is to have Western troops do the same? That would go just fine with German, French and Belgian voters. They dream about their soldiers dying on Ukrainian soil, I am sure, and despite now willing to send about 1 tank per month as soon as the war is out of TV screens, they will surely be glad so send hundreds of them and live bodies in the harm's way because... what? I am not sure how this makes any sense.
Interesting question: how many people actually live in Gaza Strip?
I mean yes, I know how to use Wikipedia. Or Google. Or CNN or whatever. But all these numbers ultimately rely on either UN or Gaza government (read: Hamas) numbers. UN obviously has budgets relying on the number of "refugees" etc. so it is interested in inflating and overcounting the numbers. Hamas are serial fabulists and also are interested in inflating the numbers since they rely heavily on outside financing, and more people means more financing - moreover, while help for real people must be at least partially shared, since those need to eat, 100% of "help" for fake people goes directly into Hamas coffers. Israel has had opposite motivations, so the numbers between UN and Israel likely could be closer to correct, but since 2005 Israel does not have any capacity to count populations in Gaza. Last estimate I heard was around 700-800k (back then, not now). Now, due to the continuing genocide and ethnic cleansing, it's claimed to be almost triple that. Are there any other sources or estimates that are not hopelessly contaminated about how many people are actually living in Gaza Strip?
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