SlowBoy
9mo ago
Despite the fact that we said we won, you said we didn't win. That's fraud!
Your definitions have made a certain kind of political dissent a priori criminal. But our rights don't descend from the Constitution, they descent from nature, and it cannot be a crime to contest the political process.
SlowBoy
2mo ago
I think your thinking is choked with lazy cliches that prevent me from respecting it seriously.
There has been a pro-Russian undercurrent in the GOP for the past decade or so, but it was mostly limited to a few fringe individuals. It started becoming more mainstream when Trump feted Putin during his presidency
Trump did what, some diplomatic niceties? Said nice things about Putin personally? This is one of Trump's strengths, actually: he doesn't bloviate party line formulas, instead keeping his options open. This is in fact what forcing a TikTok sale is, a meaningless culture war distraction for the politicians to hage something to yell about to the base. (Who will buy TikTok? Probably another social media franchise that will procede to manipulate our discourse by algorithm.)
I accept that many posters will perhaps laugh at my characterization ofTrump:
Now here we are a decade later, with Tucker Carlson sniffing chocolate cake in a Moscow parking lot to prove the superiority of the Russian political system and how it’s a “bastion of conservative values”
Saying nice things about Russia isn't "proving the superiority of the Russian political system" to anybody. This is a low-effort bad-faith slur to avoid having to think about anything Tucker says. Chocolate cake in a parking lot? That's not disqualifying to anybody who can entertain an idea without accepting it. "Bastion of conservative values"? Is that a direct quote?
Kim Dotcom is against the bill, and repeats much of the “America is bad” rhetoric
If you can't refute or even summarize his arguments why are you bringing him up at all?
SlowBoy
2mo ago
The point in your favor for suggesting moderation is balanced by your politely-phrased smug tone. "When the people like you," "If you can manage to write a measured and polite post," "maybe this isn't the place for you". Do you think you're better than him?
SlowBoy
27d ago
The one actor responsible for this war is Putin, and all the kvetching about NATO expansion and Euromaidan elides the fact that Putin singlehandedly launched an expansionary war of aggression to conquer territory, massage his ego and restore the glory of the Russian empire. Putin was under no personal threat from the west, nor was Russia.
This is a really bad cliche by now. Putin represents a moderate faction within Russia compared to the hardliners who wanted to invade 10 years ago after Maidan. Putin did not single-handedly launch the war (if one single man is reaponsible, it would probably be Strelkov). And Putin is not irrational for feeling threatened by NATO and the US.
SlowBoy
2mo ago
so clearly I'm capable of having a decent conversation with people who hold very different beliefs
Good for you? I don't know who you are. This reads like you are trying to prove you're better than OP.
I think if you had stopped at your first two paragraphs ("Consider that [...] Orange Man Bad and TDS") you would have made a merited point and not sounded like you had something to prove.
SlowBoy
5mo ago
Russia is producing ammunition faster than the West is.
as a western european I’m happy to foot the bill
Don't worry, you will. Thanks! - American
SlowBoy
3mo ago
Trump made the mistake of building a personality cult instead of a party.
This is what passes for analysis, I guess. Question: How much of the GOP was amenable to MAGA in 2016 vs now?
SlowBoy
3mo ago
Politely, respectfully, courteously: Perhaps you have no taste?
Saying that poetry has been superseded by song is like saying that cooking has been obviated with fast food. They are often the same thing! It sounds like you like superstimulus. Do you goon?
At the same time, music is very different from poetry. The fact that poetry has no tune is a strength! The emphasis is on the flow and texture of the words themselves, not how they've been strung out along a series of notes. It's fine if you don't have the attention span, but come on, it's only broccoli, it's not going to kill you, I can deep-fry them if you want.
And music and poetry have always co-existed, so to say that one has "superseded" another makes me wonder if you think we only recently invented good music. Well, if you want to argue that Lizzo is the greatest musical artist of all time, it is bad bitch o'clock, yeah, it's thick-thirty.
Anyways, to prove my point, I have attached a poem of my own composition. Please now reconsider whether poetry, in your words, "truly" ""cannot"" """rival the Xbox Kinnect Virtual Reality Experience""":
Hickory dickory dock
The mouse was sucking cock
Hickory dickory cum
And two were up his bum
It's only considered fraudulent after the fact, when it's failed. How can they have known themselves to be fraudulent when it had never been tried before, and, in fact, was supported by many as a legitimate alternative?
SlowBoy
9mo ago
It's not actually a crime to send letters to Congress. Nor is it fraud to sign a piece of paper saying you believe.
SlowBoy
1yr ago
I'm willing to give the creators the benefit of the doubt here. Many Americans really are just that ignorant about basic history. In communities like The Motte or 4chan or internet forums and history twitter there will be a few smart guys who know everything about Rome. We have a background literacy, even if most posters don't know much or care. Pop culture doesn't have this. The average person doesn't know much and doesn't care much.
SlowBoy
2mo ago
Why else are there 85 different sects which have had (and still do have) their own violent confrontations?
Why do you assume violence is immoral?
SlowBoy
3mo ago
This is a glib argument. Donor influence is legendary in American politics, and Trump famously does not need their money. Are you suggesting that Trump's policies come from his donors? This is the charge levied at Haley et al.
SlowBoy
9mo ago
This is obviously a coordinated conspiracy.
What do you think politics is?
SlowBoy
27d ago
No doubt Putin did offer peace but I see no evidence it was anything less than the end of Ukranian nation/ethnicity (heavy Russian culturalization).
The terms as discussed to that point said no such thing.
SlowBoy
2mo ago
Why do you believe that "murdering people is wrong" eviscerates Christianity?
SlowBoy
3mo ago
Are you predicting that, if elected in 2016, Trump will go to war with Iran?
SlowBoy
2mo ago
Somebody who is not me has a position that is not mine. Looks like I have been totally eviscerated.
SlowBoy
3mo ago
The prior lawsuit did not reject anything. They concluded that Trump was liable in a civil case, a far lower threshold than proving he was guilty. Even then, many of the arguments I have just made were not admitted into court. And they still didn't find that Trump raped her -- that jury's compromise position was that he probably assaulted her by touching her vagina with his hands, but not with his penis. (Perhaps because her own story changed several times.)
As I said: Carroll has absolutely lied in ways that destroy her legitmacy. The idea that she is telling the truth is totally preposterous.
SlowBoy
8mo ago
Of course I made it up, it was a hypothetical! Backhanded sarcasm troll concern "I'm sure you wouldn't just..." Don't be rude!
SlowBoy
26d ago
Strelkov was important in 2014, but pretty marginal in 2022.
Strelkov started the chain of events that bubbled up to the war. It's a much bigger point: Putin didn't "just woke up" and create a war, there was already a war. It was started by other individuals, and Putin actually refused several earlier opportunities to escalate the war the way he did in 2022. The situation changed in 2022, which precipitated Russia's direct invasion. You can actually admit all of this without wanting Russia to win, or having to change any of your other opinions.
Nothing had changed in 2022 in terms of Ukraine's ability to join NATO
This is blatantly not true: The US refused to make a guarantee to Russia that Ukraine would not join NATO.
Amazing. It's as if four years of arguing about the 2020 election have left no impression on you, and you've made yourself totally impervious to what the other side actually believes. Vote counting stopped in several swing states simultaneously in the dead of night? Mail-in irregularities? Pandemic rules? Ballot "curing"? You must not have heard. I suppose, then, the only rational hypothesis is that everything other people believe is silly.
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