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User ID: 442
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2mo ago
I'll bite: The 2020 election was 'stolen' in the same way that the 2016 election was 'stolen'; or in other words the election was basically business as usual for United States politics and future elections are going to be equally 'stolen' as long as the current status-quo remains.
Bing Copilot -- Disputed Results:
In both elections, there were allegations that the results were unfair or rigged. Supporters of the losing candidate claimed that the election outcome did not accurately reflect the will of the people.
External Influence: Foreign interference played a role in both elections: In 2016, there was evidence of Russian meddling, including hacking and disinformation campaigns. In 2020, concerns arose about foreign interference, although the focus shifted to other countries as well (not just Russia).
Legal Challenges: After both elections, legal challenges were filed: In 2016, some lawsuits questioned the legitimacy of the Electoral College process and voting restrictions. In 2020, numerous lawsuits were filed by supporters of the losing candidate, alleging widespread voter fraud and irregularities.
Public Perception: A significant portion of the American population believed that the elections were stolen: In 2016, some Democrats questioned the legitimacy due to external factors. In 2020, approximately 40% of Americans believed the election was rigged or stolen, with claims of fraudulent vote counting.
Impact on Trust: Both elections had repercussions on public trust in the democratic process: Claims of election theft can erode confidence in the system. Open dialogue and transparency are crucial to maintaining trust.
In both instances there are strong cases to be made that motivated actors on both a smaller scale and a larger scale tipped the balance in favour of their desired outcome. Whilst the degree of interference and dirty politics was high by United States standards, the practice of dirty politics has been ongoing for decades at this point, so it represents an increase in an already increasing trend. Given the even greater stakes in the upcoming election to many foreign powers, as well as domestic reversals such as Roe V Wade due to the Supreme Court, all interested parties in the election are likely to have even greater motivation to influence the results by whatever means necessary.
Looking more broadly at the future, the current polls seem to indicate a status-quo election for Congress at 204 vs 207, with 24 seats being 'toss ups' at this point: https://www.270towin.com/2024-house-election/
The issue with your question in general is that if you apply a broader definition to the term 'stolen' then it becomes a both sides issues; and if you apply a narrower definition with respect to whether particular constitutional or electoral laws were broken, that argument simply hasn't borne fruit despite numerous challenges. With a broad definition, what kind of argument can be made that doesn't come down to 'their side stole the election more than my side', and with a narrow definition the argument is already settled.
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2mo ago
Simple answer: People driving bigger trucks and giving even fewer fucks.
Longer answer:
Pedestrian deaths are up by thousands and:
In 2016, cars hit and killed nearly 6,000 pedestrians. That’s a serious spike from the historic low—below 4,000—in 2009.
See: read://https_www.wired.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wired.com%2Fstory%2Fpedestrian-death-rates-climb%2F
Also statistically,
Key findings from 2019 to 2020:
• Fatalities increased and injured people decreased in most categories. • Speeding-related, alcohol-impaired-driving, and seat belt non-use fatalities increased. • Urban fatalities increased by 8.5 percent; rural fatalities increased by 2.3 percent. • Older drivers 65 and older involved in fatal crashes decreased by 9.8 percent; drivers under 65 involved increased. • There were fewer fatalities among people 9 and younger and people 65 and older from 2019 to 2020. Most fatality increases were people 10 to 64, with the 25-34 age group having the largest increase of 1,117 additional fatalities. • Male fatalities increased by 8.6 percent, and female fatalities increased by 1.9 percent. • Nighttime (6 p.m. to 5:59 a.m.) fatalities increased by 12 percent; daytime (6 a.m. to 5:59 p.m.) traffic fatalities increased by 1.4 percent. • Forty-two States and the District of Columbia had increases in the number of fatalities.
Caused by:
38,824 people died on U.S. roads in 2020. Fatalities compared to 2019: ↑6.8% overall ↑21% rate per 100 million VMT ↑14% in alcohol-impaired-driving crashes ↑17% in speeding-related crashes ↑11% motorcyclists ↑3.9% pedestrians ↑14% unrestrained passenger vehicle occupants ↑21% ejected passenger vehicle occupants
↑9.4% in single-vehicle crashes ↑8.5% in urban areas ↑12% during nighttime ↑9.5% during weekend
See: https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813266
Basically, people driving faster, more impaired and fewer people wearing seat belts.
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2mo ago
Y'all know I love my hobby horse, even if it's beaten into an absolute paste, and I admit at having ongoing puzzlement as to why 2020 stolen election claims retain so much cachet among republican voters and officials.
It is because they are unified in their collective belief in sacred beliefs in opposition to facts and logic. It's like a social acid trip, people who cannot believe in the world around them clustering around sacred beliefs and the rejection of a crazy reality that they cannot accept. They want someone to tell them that no they aren't crazy, it's the other side that is truly crazy and that they are the sane ones. They go through the motions, maybe they enjoy some good 'belief theatre' whereby they can see a sick person wheeled on stage and then 'healed' to walk off it again; but when they get sick they usally don't rely on merely prayer as they take full advantage of advanced medical science instead.
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2mo ago
The biggest issue with Libertarianism actually wielding power is that they cannot control the keys to power in a society. Any attempt by them to actually wield the keys to power leads to dilution of the ideals of the ideology itself, as by its very nature it is about minimising the cost of government and therefore the 'treasure' that anyone in power can use to bring others to their side. Conversely, the stronger and more powerful government already is, the greater the number of people that would be actively opposed to the ideology as they stand to lose considerable power and wealth in that kind of power transition.
Socialism has the Soviet problem along with being unable to counter the efficient market theory of economics; but Libertarianism has the Somalia social problems and 'freedom', also bears. The issue with an unregulated society in general is that it becomes extremely difficult to deal with bad actors of all types, a kind of societal distributed gish gallop, whereby what 'can be done in civil society' is overwhelmed by the outcomes already burnt into institutional memory like so many Chesterton's fences. We not remember lead laced tin cans, and snake oil salesmen, but I'm sure the FDA hasn't forgotten the reason for its existence.
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2mo ago
Feminism and standard liberalism are now the conservative position; 'conservative' in these days means reactionary. Progressives and social activists can put up a big stink, and this forum does like to talk endlessly about them, but their positions are just 10-30 years ahead of the mainstream. The kind of society that was futuristic in the 90s with Star Trek: TNG is now considered the default with respect to the mainstream of society. They are the ones that define what is acceptable, they are the social censors and define what is considered wholesome. The current age of mainstreaming of feminism and political correctness has outlasted the time that reactionaries want to call back in their idealism -- 50's and early 60's. Eventually all the people who lived back then will die out and kids will grow up with absolutely no social context of anything different.
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3mo ago
The right thinks systemically when it comes to HBD, the left thinks individually. The left thinks systemically about privilege, the right thinks individually about privilege. If you define "the right" as people who think individually, you are drawing a line that excludes a lot of people who both self-define as "right wing" and would be identified as such by a vast majority of people.
HBD is such a niche concept that I would hazard a guess that fewer than 1/100 self-identified right wing people would even know what the initialization means.
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3mo ago
The left thinks systemically and the right thinks individually or on a personal level. Concepts like 'privilege' tend to fall apart when applied on an individual basis because people on an individual level are much more complex and nuanced than some B level student's take on theories that they don't understand. On the other hand you cannot scale what an individual can achieve to a systemic level analysis of society as a whole, so whilst some people can achieve great things, it cannot account for the structural element that skews the 'playing field'.
Calling it jealousy creates a straw man argument in my opinion, because much of the left-wing side that you likely don't hear about rests on very different arguments. Only a fraction of a fraction of even the most progressive people are what could be described as hardcore 'intersectionalists'. One of the most significant differences between a democracy and a dictatorship is that a democracy is accountable to a wider range of stakeholders, so their personal and economic interests must be taken into consideration and that overall leads to a more prosperous society. Wealth inequality and power concentration damanges democracy, so by extension it makes society as a whole less prosperous even if certain individuals in that society can become incredibly wealthy within it.
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3mo ago
I watched that or something similar quite a while ago, and the major difference between the attempted execution that didn't go to plan and the one proposed is to use a chamber with the atmosphere replaced rather than the mask that failed to achieve the purpose it was meant to.
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3mo ago
That has been my sense as an outsider from New Zealand comparing our own indigenous politics to American. It seems that the well meaning attempts have done more to 'erase' the culture than to protect it. Overall the welfare of indigenous Americans seems to have been pretty well ignored by the mainstream liberal/progressive left whilst at the same time they have spent the majority of their attention on the plight of African Americans.
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3mo ago
Is the purpose of welfare to support the deserving poor (like those born with disabilities through no fault of their own, widows raising children, and perhaps the elderly who never made enough to save for retirement), or is it to provide a minimum standard of living for everyone, no matter how objectionable?
Society has a level of structural unemployment of around 5%, so from a pragmatic perspective if society is designed in such a way that by design a large number of people are going to be structurally without jobs they should also not risk starving to death in the process? If some degree of unemployment is desirable then ensuring the people who are made unemployed don't starve to death in the process just kind of makes sense.
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3mo ago
roughly 80% of divorces are initiated by the wives c) in cases where the wife is college-educated, that figure is 90%. In other words, in cases of marriages that fail, modern women are more likely than not to voluntarily put themselves in a disadvantageous life situation.
Why do you frame it as a disadvantage? Marriage on average raises a man's self reported happiness level and on average lowers the woman's. It's an institution that on the face of it benefits men's happiness over women; and the reverse is true whereby divorced women are significantly happier than divorced men. In terms of gender dynamics the 'bicycle needs the fish more than the fish needs the bicycle', men need women more than women need men. The fundamental cause of this divorce disparity is that men aren't bringing enough into their relationships on average and they are incapable or unwilling to bridge this gap, hence leading to a greater number of women filing for divorce. Men as a collective simply haven't adjusted to the new reality where they need to bring more than a decent paycheck to a relationship.
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4mo ago
It's in a bit of a lull in terms of battlefield developments. In the first half of 2024 for Ukraine we are looking into how the aid situation develops with two 50 billion dollar aid packages being held up in both Europe and America respectively, and the effect of the arrival and deployment of F16 aircraft. Right now we are in a holding pattern with not much going on, but situationally Russia is at the advantage both in terms of resources and battlefield capacity for the time being.
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4mo ago
One of the most significant differences between men and women is that women appear to able to be significantly more content and happy outside of relationships and are better able to have fulfilling platonic relationships; whereas men are both less happier and purposeful, and suffer far greater loneliness and isolation from being single. Men as a whole have not evolved culturally to the new playing field, and women are often preferring to be in no relationship than be in a bad relationship -- bad sex, more chores and less freedom. We can argue absolutely that society as a whole has left boys behind in so many ways; but the solutions proposed by the online right are more like willful regression than a genuine means to fix things.
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4mo ago
One of the major reasons for progressives to take up both causes is due to resource constraints. As an Indian you'd surely have to acknowledge the relative unsustainability of 1.3 Billion Indians living anything remotely like a westerners lifestyle. It simply cannot scale up, and India lacks the ability to take resources from distant parts of the globe to sustain its lifestyle. Even in the West, we have a stark choice between living a relatively resource constrained lifesytyle that would still make the average Indian person jealous; which unfortunately would be considered an affront on the non-negotiability of the American way of life. It's the inconvenient truth, our lifestyles are unsustainable and we are approaching multiple eco-system limits with a blissful disregard for the sheer terror we might have unleashed upon ourselves. We can culture war all day every day about the relative decline of our own lifestyles and who is truly to blame for that, but relative lifestyle adjustments for us are an inconvenience; whereas in the third world they carry a body count.
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4mo ago
I think the difference is made by the 'fact' that people like their hedonistic overlords more than their puritanical peers. Moral righteousness and asceticism just don't quite hit the same as a cheese burger, fries and a beer. It's for this reason that the arguments themselves are immaterial, because the decisions are not made on a logical level. The basic argument is the same <You would be uncomfortable if you understood / saw X, Y, Z> vs <I don't want to know> and this kind of sums up the basic left vs right argument. The right understands and responds to the limbic systems of their 'clients' to the benefit of their overlords; whereas the left faces an uphill battle pretty much everywhere outside of professional or academic contexts.
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4mo ago
It's an interesting tidbit, but at the same time it doesn't really tell us much more than pointing to the idea that many of our assumptions about crime and income may be incorrect in an area where the social safety net eliminates most cases of extreme material deprivation.
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4mo ago
That is absolutely insane. I don't know what else to say...
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4mo ago
I think one fundamental core issue at the heart of the trans debate is who or whom ought to have the authority to define key cultural concepts such as gender and sex. Is it the experts who have taken the time to clearly delineate the particular issues or the visceral/emotional reactions of the people who have to live in and with the consequences of the expert's decisions?
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5mo ago
That could be worth a shot. +1
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5mo ago
80% of the difference is pornography in my opinion, and briefly: Dopamine/addiction effects mean they don't seek it out and perform badly when they get it; they get bad ideas from porn which affects their partners and these are sexual mores that used to be considered 'out there' such as choking/anal/facials/etc; masturbation aids being normalised for women mean they are often happier by themselves than with a partner and finally this all compounds because it causes women to raise their standards whilst many men fall through the floor.
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5mo ago
Off the top of my head I saw one study ages back that suggested 4 point advantage for gay people. I think this is possibly a selection effect as people who never realised they were gay probably skew lower iq.
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5mo ago
They do use decoys, but you’re not going to fool your modern drone operators. They usually use two drones, one for observation and one for the attack. It’s unlikely that after observation at >720p for a few minutes that anyone bar the drunkest Russian would be fooled.
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5mo ago
Yeah that doesn’t sound like very appealing accommodation, what are you looking to do in the country? Anything I can help with?
Congratulations, you have won the debate without even having to debate. Now that your opposition seems to have retreated back to their bailey, so you can go and do your victory lap around it.
Seeing as others have pointed out that you're considered to be in the stronger position, as a defense lawyer and podcaster -- could you defend the election stolen viewpoint? That is possibly the only way a debate on this issue is ever going to move forward seeing as so far nobody is game to take up the losing side, but this is the kind of fight you're probably used to undertaking.
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