"Mah freedumbs" types have become convinced that masks don't work and it's only used a sign of compliance, while they claim that the only reason for lockdowns is for governments to exercise their power of the population and no other reason.
Conservatives have largely been taught to distrust the government. (To wit: Reagan and his “most terrifying words” quip.) But what they weren’t taught were the critical thinking skills necessary to help them discern when—and why—to distrust the government. That’s how you end up with people who think measures meant to protect public health and curb a national pandemic that has killed over 600k Americans in a year-and-a-half are one step removed from “the next Holocaust”.
(Side note in regards to this conversation thread: “face diapers”? Really? Well, at least it’s appropriate, given all the bullshit coming from their mouths…)
Ironically, given the way Republicans have packed federal courts with conservatives over the past few years, the chances of such a judge being a conservative instead of a liberal/progressive are higher than you’d likely care to admit.
you are responsible for your own health, not me. my vaccination status is irrelevant to your health.
I’m vaccinated, but assume for a moment that I couldn’t get the vaccine due to underlying health conditions. Your vaccination status is relevant to my health because it could determine whether I contract COVID-19—and whether I could die from it if I did.
The same logic applies to the flu: If you’ve been vaccinated against it, the chances of you catching and spreading it go down dramatically. (But it’s never 100%; I speak from experience.) That means you present less of a risk to those around you, be they complete strangers or family members.
COVID-19 is a public health crisis—a pandemic. Your being vaccinated isn’t only a safeguard for your health. It helps protect others by neutralizing the spread of the disease. That you think your health is the only health that matters during a pandemic is selfish to the point of sociopathy.
i simply said that the public can and should be able to make their own decisions about what is true.
And they are absolutely free to decide that the vaccine is effective based on all available data and get the jab themselves…or to become a potential vector for the Delta variant. Similarly: If their job requires them to be vaccinated, they can decide whether to get the vaccine or find a new job.
If they want to risk their own lives, fine. So be it. I just wish they’d think about all the other lives they’re risking in the process.
Yes or no: Do you believe the government should have the legal right to compel any privately owned interactive web service into hosting legally protected speech that the owners/operators of said service don’t want to host?
We could also look to the Pulse nightclub shooting, the Las Vegas mass shooting, the untold number of school shootings over the past two decades, and any other bit of gun violence brought on by both the easy availability of firearms and the willingness of conservative politicians to fight against even the most popular and base-level forms of gun control.
We could also look at the murder of George Tiller, the Oklahoma City bombing, the murder of Heather Heyer, and any other form of right-wing violence/terrorism.
I don’t know who to feel worse for: the business owner, who thought suing over a bad review was a good idea; or the lawyer hired to file the lawsuit, who lost a case and ruined his own career in the span of a single interview.
…oh wait, they’re both shitheads. I’m free to partake in some schadenfreude!
That’s also what Trump all but begged Pence to do on the 6th of January: declare the vote counts for the “battleground” states invalid and hand Trump a second term for no valid reason.
Trumpist Republicans have embraced fascism. God help everyone.
I’ve better things to do after this, so this is my last reply to you.
it wasn’t an attempt to overthrow the government
A not-zero number of insurrectionists literally chanted “hang Mike Pence” while inside the Capitol, likely knowing that a hangman’s gallows waited outside. Mike Pence, then the Vice President, was tasked with certifying the vote counts and the final result of the presidential election. If a violent mob chanting for the hanging of the man tasked with completing the most vital task in American democracy isn’t either an attempt to prevent American democracy from going forward or a threat to make that attempt should they find the Vice President, what the fuck else would you call it.
Look at what Texas Democrats just did. They attempted to stop the [d]emocratic process. Is that not the same result by different means?
No. They didn’t leave Texas to subvert American democracy by way of stopping an election from being certified. They left Texas to deny quorum to the Texas legislature so several bills the Texas Democrats felt were bullshit—primarily a voting restrictions bill—couldn’t be passed along partisan lines. I may or may not agree with their tactics, but I sure as shit believe in their intent.
[Chris Cuomo video]
Two things.
He’s right, you know.
When he talks about “polite and peaceful” protests, he is not referring to the idea of violent protests. He is referring to how conservatives view any “leftist” protest regardless of any violence. To a conservative, people marching in the streets for racial justice are “impolite” and should learn “the right way” to protest. (Spoilers: there is no “right way”; just ask Colin Kaepernick.)
[Maxine Waters video]
Not that I agree with the way she worded what she said, but I agree with the general sentiment: If the system fails the people it’s supposed to serve, people should keep saying the system failed until the system is corrected. And by the by, “confrontational” doesn’t necessarily mean “violent”.
intervention was (almost, can’t say what I don’t know) always warranted
No, it wasn’t. And—as numerous other commenters and I have said before—police intervention in largely peaceful protests were the root cause of those protests turning violent far more often than not. Showing up to a peaceful protest wearing SWAT gear and driving MRAPs is not going to inspire a reaction of “hey, they’re just here to help” from protestors who are protesting against police violence/brutality.
Just most major cities.
[citation needed]
Portland is in ruins.
Really~? The entire city of Portland was burned to the ground, and no one is living there now~? Nothing remains of the whole entire city of Portland, Oregon—absolutely nothing at all whatsoever—except “ruins”~?
I don’t know whether you think I’m intellectually disabled or as gullible as you are. Neither option speaks well of you.
Chicago’s most historic shopping district was devastated.
Yes, yes, you’re pissed that property was hurt. We don’t care about your fetish here, fam.
Hundred+ year old monuments are destroyed.
If they were monuments to racists, bigots, and traitors to the United States—i.e., monuments to the Confederacy—I don’t give a fuck. Losers don’t get participation trophies, and bigots don’t deserve monuments. I’ll need a citation for anything else.
People are dead.
How many people died as a direct and attributable cause of the riots you’re talking about? Be specific.
How many people did the capital rioters kill? Look that up closely.
Technically? Zero. Ashley Babbit was killed by Capitol Police while trying to reach members of Congress that the police were protecting. Officer Brian Sicknick died of two strokes, and he died the day after the insurrection. The other three deaths that day were not caused by any direct and intentional actions on the part of the insurrectionists. And two police officers committed suicide after the insurrection.
But here’s the question that’ll gnaw at you tonight: If the insurrection hadn’t happened, how many of those people would still be alive today?
No, the insurrectionists didn’t directly kill anybody. But their actions still led to seven deaths. That nobody can be charged for those deaths is…unsatisfying, but it doesn’t make the insurrection any less violent than it was.
No[w] what’s the BLM death toll.
By all means: Tell me exactly how many people are known to have been killed through intentional and direct actions attributable specifically and exclusively to the Movement for Black Lives.
I’ll wait.
The “rights” bill is not a solution.
Neither is trying to prevent people of color and poor people from voting. But try telling that to the Republicans who keep pushing (and passing!) laws that do exactly that.
If the dems would actually act American and vote American
And there is one of the telltale signs of an American conservative fascist: the “othering” of those deemed insufficiently unpatriotic.
See, I’ve no doubt that Republicans love America. But they love a fantasy version of it. They love the America where evil immigrants don’t simultaneously take jobs away from “real Americans” and subsist on tons of welfare, where Black people “know their place”, where queers stay in the closet and women stay in the kitchen between pregnancies.
They love the America where slavery was only an oopsie-daisy and racism ended when a Black man was shot in the fucking face. They love the America where the Founding Fathers were demigods instead of bigots, slaveowners, and—verifiably, in the case of Thomas Jefferson—rapists. They love the America where poverty is a moral failing and economic inequality is caused by laziness instead of unregulated capitalistic greed.
Conservatives would absolutely love America if it wasn’t the real America. That’s why they’ve done everything they can to punish the poor and the marginalized while they reward the greedy and the sinful. And anyone who disagrees with their policies—anyone who protests against inequality, who believes immigration and diversity are net positives, who thinks we need to do more to ease suffering rather than increase it—is “un-American”.
That you see Democrats as “un-American” for not going along with the entirety of the Republican/conservative platform is your problem, Lostcause. And by the by, if the Dems did do that, you know what that would make the government? A one-party government. You think shit is bad now? Let conservatives rule the roost without dissent, and you’ll see how much worse things can get.
Not create a continuous loop of poverty by raising the taxes on goods and services to the point where the lower income can no longer make it.
Democrats don’t generally support raising taxes on anyone but the wealthiest Americans. That the wealthiest Americans still find loopholes is both a failing of government in general and the work of Republicans whose own personal greed ultimately drives the party’s reverence of the obscenely wealthy.
I don’t like the religious right. But at the moment they offered a better choice.
Living in a Christian theocracy is a “better” choice than living in a country with religious freedom? What the fuck are you smoking and where the fuck did you buy it from.
I knew before the election he wouldn’t be the president.
I’m sorry to disappoint you, but he is the current sitting President of the United States, regardless of whether you like that fact. (And Biden wasn’t my first choice, either, but he’s still better than another four years of Donald fucking Trump.)
And if the Hillary machine was willing to fix the system to crush someone on her own platform ticket, was she really worthy of office either?
She was still a better option than Trump.
Obama was a beacon of hope in 08. By 12 it was obvious the D machine was crushing his vision.
ahahaha, you think the Dems did that shit
No, what crushed his “vision” was Mitch McConnell—who famously said in 2010, after Republicans took control of the Senate, that he would do everything in his power to make Obama a “one-term president”. Mitch failed in doing that, but throughout the back half of Obama’s first term and the entirety of his second term, McConnell and his Republican cronies did everything in their power to stop the Obama agenda from getting anywhere. Democrats didn’t crush the Obama vision—Republicans did, and they did it with brutal efficiency. Hell, you wanna know why Obama had to use so many executive actions after the 2010 midterms—and why Trump largely had to do the same during his term? It was because Congress was, and still is, fucking broken.
I hope someone worth voting for runs in 24. But I’m not holding my breath.
A riot is a riot, no matter the reason. But the events of the 6th of January were an insurrection; the people who stormed the Capitol did so with the intent of disrupting the certification of votes. They attempted to subvert democracy by stopping the process by which Congress would certify Joe Biden as the rightful, lawful, and actual winner of the 2020 presidential election. Some of them even went so far as to chant for the hanging of the sitting Vice President, who was tasked with certifying the vote count and sworn to his duty by the Constitution.
You can throw all the “leftist” riots you want in my face. They’re ultimately irrelevant. Biden didn’t encourage those people to do any of that, explicitly or implicitly. No Democratic politician or pundit did. And none of those riots attempted to stop an election result from being certified.
Martin Luther King Jr. called riots “the language of the unheard”. What were the unheard saying with the riots you bring up? “We’re tired of racial injustice. We’re tired of cops killing Black people with no accountability. We’re so fucking tired of all this bullshit, and nobody in power seems to care.” And as has been pointed out multiple times before (which you have ignored every time), the protests from which those riots spawned were largely peaceful before police intervention. And the riots were not nearly as widespread as you and your conservative brethren want us to think they are. (No, America as a whole was not “burning”. No, entire cities were not “burned to the ground”.)
Contrast that with the unheard of the insurrection. Their message was one of false justice: “Donald Trump won the election! We have to stop the steal! We’re the only people who can save the country from communist social justice attack helicopters!” They rioted because their guy lost fair and square, but their guy had said—for months leading up to the election and basically every day since the election—the election was “stolen”.
As I said before, Trump didn’t have to directly ask his followers to riot. All he needed to do was say “you’re the only people who can stop this bullshit” and gin them up further with language designed to inflame their grievances and make them feel empowered. With that done, he needed only to step aside while the mob he fomented marched on their target—all with his implicit approval.
To this day, Donald Trump continues to tell his Big Lie—the same lie that he told months before the 2020 election, the same lie he trotted out before even the 2016 election(!), the same lie that continues to split the country despite its obviously being a lie (a conclusion with which even you agree). He continues to foment unrest and anger and fear in his cult-like political base; he wants people to think democracy is dead so the GOP can cheat even more—especially if they grab more power in the midterm elections. Donald Trump is a fascist, and without stronger repudiation from the same party that denies Congress even the chance to vote on important legislation such as voting rights bills, the party looks more and more like a party of fascists as well.
And so do his supporters, whose thirst for “liberal” blood—whose longing to inflict suffering upon their political “enemies” regardless of the cost—is driving the creeping fascism of the Republican party and American conservatism in general. Combine that with the long-standing push by the Religious Right to turn America into a Christian theocracy and…well, it’s not hard to see how the GOP is anything but fascist at this point, “moderates” like Liz Cheney notwithstanding.
The events of the 6th of January were an insurrection. Every attempt to whitewash those events as a “riot” or refuse the truth of what the video clearly shows (a violent mob trying to stop democracy in action) is a victory for Donald Trump. Every time you say the insurrection was anything but, you both embolden fascists and deny an actual objective truth.
Don’t be a sucker. Be better than a fascist bootlicker, Lostcause. Call Trump and his cohorts for what they are—fascists—and the insurrection for what it is: a trial run for an actual fascist takeover of the United States government. Modern American conservatives don’t want a president to govern them, Lostcause—they want a king, an emperor, a god to rule over them…and, more important, to make the “other” suffer.
The ouroboros of fascism always eats itself. How long do you think it’ll be before you’re the “other”—an “undesirable”, if you will—in the eyes of those you helped put in power? How long do you think they’ll let you live under their rule?
If that question makes you uncomfortable, too bad. You voted for a fascist. And he’d sooner kill you than thank you if he thought it would put him back in power.
The following are quotes from Donald Trump himself; they come from his speech on the 6th of January, just before the insurrection:
Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore and that's what this is all about. And to use a favorite term that all of you people really came up with: We will stop the steal.
We will not let them silence your voices. We're not going to let it happen, I'm not going to let it happen.
We're gathered together in the heart of our nation's capital for one very, very basic and simple reason: To save our democracy.
You're stronger, you're smarter, you've got more going than anybody. And they try and demean everybody having to do with us. And you're the real people, you're the people that built this nation. You're not the people that tore down our nation.
Republicans are, Republicans are constantly fighting like a boxer with his hands tied behind his back. It's like a boxer. And we want to be so nice. We want to be so respectful of everybody, including bad people. And we're going to have to fight much harder.
[Y]ou'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated.
We will not be intimidated into accepting the hoaxes and the lies that we've been forced to believe.
You will have an illegitimate president. That's what you'll have. And we can't let that happen.
The radical left knows exactly what they're doing. They're ruthless and it's time that somebody did something about it.
The Republicans have to get tougher. You're not going to have a Republican Party if you don't get tougher. They want to play so straight. They want to play so, sir, yes, the United States. The Constitution doesn't allow me to send them back to the States. Well, I say, yes it does, because the Constitution says you have to protect our country and you have to protect our Constitution, and you can't vote on fraud. And fraud breaks up everything, doesn't it? When you catch somebody in a fraud, you're allowed to go by very different rules.
We must stop the steal and then we must ensure that such outrageous election fraud never happens again, can never be allowed to happen again.
The Democrats are hopeless — they never vote for anything. Not even one vote. But we're going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones because the strong ones don't need any of our help. We're going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.
Now, I’m sure you want to mention all the times he brought up marching peacefully and whatnot. Don’t bother; I’ve skimmed enough of the transcript to know those parts exist. Instead, I want you to read each of those quotes, and notice some of the verbs/verbal phrases he uses: “stop”, “save”, “fight”, “take back”, “get tougher”, “show strength”, “protect”. Then look at the overall gist of those quotes: “we’re fighting to stop the steal”, “we have to get tougher on the fraudsters”, “we’re here to save democracy”, “we need to do something about this”.
He isn’t explicitly calling for violence, no. But between his planting the idea that his “patriots” must stop the steal by showing strength and doing “something” about the Democrats/“weak Republicans” to save the country, his talking for months about how the election would be fraudulent only if he lost, and his continual(ly rebuked) efforts to overturn an election he lost both electorally and popularly, those quotes—his words—become a form of his mob boss–esque stochastic terrorism. He didn’t need to directly call for violence; all he needed to do is make his wishes known and let his followers do the rest.
Take a bunch of people who have already been manipulated by right-wing media and Donald Trump into believing the election would be/was stolen. Tell them that the literal last line of defense against the stolen election is a Vice President who has already sworn himself to the duty of his office (i.e., to confirm Joe Biden as the President-elect). Gin them up further by referring to them as true patriots, telling them to toughen up and show strength, and implying that they alone can save American democracy itself. What do you get as a result of all that?
Knowing whether a potential president has any financial issues—including debts to foreign nationals who could use those debts as leverage against the president—is, in fact, the business of the American people. We deserve to know whether our president is free from foreign influence and paying their fair share to the public treasury. We also deserve to know if our president stands to profit from his time in office. I mean, Jimmy Carter sold his peanut farm, for fuck’s sake.
Third-party speech doesn’t become first-party speech because it was moderated after it was published. Show me the law, statute, or “common law” court precedent that says otherwise.
They were either coerced or they acted of their own accord.
That’s kind of my point here: Did the FBI’s informants/agents coerce these chumps into doing something they otherwise wouldn’t have done? If the answer is “yes”, the punishment those chumps get should be less severe than what they would get under normal circumstances. If the answer is “no”, the punishment should be typical of such cases.
We’ve all seen the stories of the FBI manufacturing terrorists they can later arrest. I’m inclined to think this is another one. The FBI doesn’t have a shortage of right-wing terrorists to go after; alls I want to know is if these chumps were self-made or government-made.
On the post: Senator Klobuchar Proposes An Unconstitutional Law That Would Kill Legions Of People If Trump Were Still President
Conservatives have largely been taught to distrust the government. (To wit: Reagan and his “most terrifying words” quip.) But what they weren’t taught were the critical thinking skills necessary to help them discern when—and why—to distrust the government. That’s how you end up with people who think measures meant to protect public health and curb a national pandemic that has killed over 600k Americans in a year-and-a-half are one step removed from “the next Holocaust”.
(Side note in regards to this conversation thread: “face diapers”? Really? Well, at least it’s appropriate, given all the bullshit coming from their mouths…)
On the post: Senator Klobuchar Proposes An Unconstitutional Law That Would Kill Legions Of People If Trump Were Still President
Ironically, given the way Republicans have packed federal courts with conservatives over the past few years, the chances of such a judge being a conservative instead of a liberal/progressive are higher than you’d likely care to admit.
On the post: Senator Klobuchar Proposes An Unconstitutional Law That Would Kill Legions Of People If Trump Were Still President
Do you want facts that discomfort you or “facts” that fellate your biases?
On the post: Senator Klobuchar Proposes An Unconstitutional Law That Would Kill Legions Of People If Trump Were Still President
I’m vaccinated, but assume for a moment that I couldn’t get the vaccine due to underlying health conditions. Your vaccination status is relevant to my health because it could determine whether I contract COVID-19—and whether I could die from it if I did.
The same logic applies to the flu: If you’ve been vaccinated against it, the chances of you catching and spreading it go down dramatically. (But it’s never 100%; I speak from experience.) That means you present less of a risk to those around you, be they complete strangers or family members.
COVID-19 is a public health crisis—a pandemic. Your being vaccinated isn’t only a safeguard for your health. It helps protect others by neutralizing the spread of the disease. That you think your health is the only health that matters during a pandemic is selfish to the point of sociopathy.
On the post: Senator Klobuchar Proposes An Unconstitutional Law That Would Kill Legions Of People If Trump Were Still President
You’re just mad because you can’t get an MRAP as easily as Sheriff Buford T. Justice can, aren’t you, Squidward?
On the post: Senator Klobuchar Proposes An Unconstitutional Law That Would Kill Legions Of People If Trump Were Still President
And they are absolutely free to decide that the vaccine is effective based on all available data and get the jab themselves…or to become a potential vector for the Delta variant. Similarly: If their job requires them to be vaccinated, they can decide whether to get the vaccine or find a new job.
If they want to risk their own lives, fine. So be it. I just wish they’d think about all the other lives they’re risking in the process.
On the post: Senator Klobuchar Proposes An Unconstitutional Law That Would Kill Legions Of People If Trump Were Still President
I have One Simple Question for you.
Yes or no: Do you believe the government should have the legal right to compel any privately owned interactive web service into hosting legally protected speech that the owners/operators of said service don’t want to host?
On the post: Senator Klobuchar Proposes An Unconstitutional Law That Would Kill Legions Of People If Trump Were Still President
We could also look to the Pulse nightclub shooting, the Las Vegas mass shooting, the untold number of school shootings over the past two decades, and any other bit of gun violence brought on by both the easy availability of firearms and the willingness of conservative politicians to fight against even the most popular and base-level forms of gun control.
We could also look at the murder of George Tiller, the Oklahoma City bombing, the murder of Heather Heyer, and any other form of right-wing violence/terrorism.
Your whataboutism is boring. Try a new song.
On the post: Streisand Effect Still Works: Vancouver Roofing Company Hit With Negative Reviews After Suing Over A Negative Review
Pride is a hell of a drug.
On the post: Senator Klobuchar Proposes An Unconstitutional Law That Would Kill Legions Of People If Trump Were Still President
Would you have preferred to see each company do full years-long clinical trials while thousands of people died in the meantime?
On the post: Streisand Effect Still Works: Vancouver Roofing Company Hit With Negative Reviews After Suing Over A Negative Review
You forgot the last line: “This is an excellent plan.”
On the post: Streisand Effect Still Works: Vancouver Roofing Company Hit With Negative Reviews After Suing Over A Negative Review
Even the King of the Koopas is a more competent villain than that lawyer.
On the post: Streisand Effect Still Works: Vancouver Roofing Company Hit With Negative Reviews After Suing Over A Negative Review
Commence to facepalmin’.
I don’t know who to feel worse for: the business owner, who thought suing over a bad review was a good idea; or the lawyer hired to file the lawsuit, who lost a case and ruined his own career in the span of a single interview.
…oh wait, they’re both shitheads. I’m free to partake in some schadenfreude!
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
That’s also what Trump all but begged Pence to do on the 6th of January: declare the vote counts for the “battleground” states invalid and hand Trump a second term for no valid reason.
Trumpist Republicans have embraced fascism. God help everyone.
On the post: Judge Ignores First Amendment, Misreads Town Law, While Ordering Resident To Remove 'Fuck Biden' Signs
I’ve better things to do after this, so this is my last reply to you.
A not-zero number of insurrectionists literally chanted “hang Mike Pence” while inside the Capitol, likely knowing that a hangman’s gallows waited outside. Mike Pence, then the Vice President, was tasked with certifying the vote counts and the final result of the presidential election. If a violent mob chanting for the hanging of the man tasked with completing the most vital task in American democracy isn’t either an attempt to prevent American democracy from going forward or a threat to make that attempt should they find the Vice President, what the fuck else would you call it.
No. They didn’t leave Texas to subvert American democracy by way of stopping an election from being certified. They left Texas to deny quorum to the Texas legislature so several bills the Texas Democrats felt were bullshit—primarily a voting restrictions bill—couldn’t be passed along partisan lines. I may or may not agree with their tactics, but I sure as shit believe in their intent.
Two things.
He’s right, you know.
Not that I agree with the way she worded what she said, but I agree with the general sentiment: If the system fails the people it’s supposed to serve, people should keep saying the system failed until the system is corrected. And by the by, “confrontational” doesn’t necessarily mean “violent”.
No, it wasn’t. And—as numerous other commenters and I have said before—police intervention in largely peaceful protests were the root cause of those protests turning violent far more often than not. Showing up to a peaceful protest wearing SWAT gear and driving MRAPs is not going to inspire a reaction of “hey, they’re just here to help” from protestors who are protesting against police violence/brutality.
[citation needed]
Really~? The entire city of Portland was burned to the ground, and no one is living there now~? Nothing remains of the whole entire city of Portland, Oregon—absolutely nothing at all whatsoever—except “ruins”~?
I don’t know whether you think I’m intellectually disabled or as gullible as you are. Neither option speaks well of you.
Yes, yes, you’re pissed that property was hurt. We don’t care about your fetish here, fam.
If they were monuments to racists, bigots, and traitors to the United States—i.e., monuments to the Confederacy—I don’t give a fuck. Losers don’t get participation trophies, and bigots don’t deserve monuments. I’ll need a citation for anything else.
How many people died as a direct and attributable cause of the riots you’re talking about? Be specific.
Technically? Zero. Ashley Babbit was killed by Capitol Police while trying to reach members of Congress that the police were protecting. Officer Brian Sicknick died of two strokes, and he died the day after the insurrection. The other three deaths that day were not caused by any direct and intentional actions on the part of the insurrectionists. And two police officers committed suicide after the insurrection.
But here’s the question that’ll gnaw at you tonight: If the insurrection hadn’t happened, how many of those people would still be alive today?
No, the insurrectionists didn’t directly kill anybody. But their actions still led to seven deaths. That nobody can be charged for those deaths is…unsatisfying, but it doesn’t make the insurrection any less violent than it was.
By all means: Tell me exactly how many people are known to have been killed through intentional and direct actions attributable specifically and exclusively to the Movement for Black Lives.
I’ll wait.
Neither is trying to prevent people of color and poor people from voting. But try telling that to the Republicans who keep pushing (and passing!) laws that do exactly that.
And there is one of the telltale signs of an American conservative fascist: the “othering” of those deemed insufficiently unpatriotic.
See, I’ve no doubt that Republicans love America. But they love a fantasy version of it. They love the America where evil immigrants don’t simultaneously take jobs away from “real Americans” and subsist on tons of welfare, where Black people “know their place”, where queers stay in the closet and women stay in the kitchen between pregnancies.
They love the America where slavery was only an oopsie-daisy and racism ended when a Black man was shot in the fucking face. They love the America where the Founding Fathers were demigods instead of bigots, slaveowners, and—verifiably, in the case of Thomas Jefferson—rapists. They love the America where poverty is a moral failing and economic inequality is caused by laziness instead of unregulated capitalistic greed.
Conservatives would absolutely love America if it wasn’t the real America. That’s why they’ve done everything they can to punish the poor and the marginalized while they reward the greedy and the sinful. And anyone who disagrees with their policies—anyone who protests against inequality, who believes immigration and diversity are net positives, who thinks we need to do more to ease suffering rather than increase it—is “un-American”.
That you see Democrats as “un-American” for not going along with the entirety of the Republican/conservative platform is your problem, Lostcause. And by the by, if the Dems did do that, you know what that would make the government? A one-party government. You think shit is bad now? Let conservatives rule the roost without dissent, and you’ll see how much worse things can get.
Democrats don’t generally support raising taxes on anyone but the wealthiest Americans. That the wealthiest Americans still find loopholes is both a failing of government in general and the work of Republicans whose own personal greed ultimately drives the party’s reverence of the obscenely wealthy.
Living in a Christian theocracy is a “better” choice than living in a country with religious freedom? What the fuck are you smoking and where the fuck did you buy it from.
I’m sorry to disappoint you, but he is the current sitting President of the United States, regardless of whether you like that fact. (And Biden wasn’t my first choice, either, but he’s still better than another four years of Donald fucking Trump.)
She was still a better option than Trump.
ahahaha, you think the Dems did that shit
No, what crushed his “vision” was Mitch McConnell—who famously said in 2010, after Republicans took control of the Senate, that he would do everything in his power to make Obama a “one-term president”. Mitch failed in doing that, but throughout the back half of Obama’s first term and the entirety of his second term, McConnell and his Republican cronies did everything in their power to stop the Obama agenda from getting anywhere. Democrats didn’t crush the Obama vision—Republicans did, and they did it with brutal efficiency. Hell, you wanna know why Obama had to use so many executive actions after the 2010 midterms—and why Trump largely had to do the same during his term? It was because Congress was, and still is, fucking broken.
No, please, hold your breath until 2024.
I insist.
On the post: Judge Ignores First Amendment, Misreads Town Law, While Ordering Resident To Remove 'Fuck Biden' Signs
A riot is a riot, no matter the reason. But the events of the 6th of January were an insurrection; the people who stormed the Capitol did so with the intent of disrupting the certification of votes. They attempted to subvert democracy by stopping the process by which Congress would certify Joe Biden as the rightful, lawful, and actual winner of the 2020 presidential election. Some of them even went so far as to chant for the hanging of the sitting Vice President, who was tasked with certifying the vote count and sworn to his duty by the Constitution.
You can throw all the “leftist” riots you want in my face. They’re ultimately irrelevant. Biden didn’t encourage those people to do any of that, explicitly or implicitly. No Democratic politician or pundit did. And none of those riots attempted to stop an election result from being certified.
Martin Luther King Jr. called riots “the language of the unheard”. What were the unheard saying with the riots you bring up? “We’re tired of racial injustice. We’re tired of cops killing Black people with no accountability. We’re so fucking tired of all this bullshit, and nobody in power seems to care.” And as has been pointed out multiple times before (which you have ignored every time), the protests from which those riots spawned were largely peaceful before police intervention. And the riots were not nearly as widespread as you and your conservative brethren want us to think they are. (No, America as a whole was not “burning”. No, entire cities were not “burned to the ground”.)
Contrast that with the unheard of the insurrection. Their message was one of false justice: “Donald Trump won the election! We have to stop the steal! We’re the only people who can save the country from communist social justice attack helicopters!” They rioted because their guy lost fair and square, but their guy had said—for months leading up to the election and basically every day since the election—the election was “stolen”.
As I said before, Trump didn’t have to directly ask his followers to riot. All he needed to do was say “you’re the only people who can stop this bullshit” and gin them up further with language designed to inflame their grievances and make them feel empowered. With that done, he needed only to step aside while the mob he fomented marched on their target—all with his implicit approval.
To this day, Donald Trump continues to tell his Big Lie—the same lie that he told months before the 2020 election, the same lie he trotted out before even the 2016 election(!), the same lie that continues to split the country despite its obviously being a lie (a conclusion with which even you agree). He continues to foment unrest and anger and fear in his cult-like political base; he wants people to think democracy is dead so the GOP can cheat even more—especially if they grab more power in the midterm elections. Donald Trump is a fascist, and without stronger repudiation from the same party that denies Congress even the chance to vote on important legislation such as voting rights bills, the party looks more and more like a party of fascists as well.
And so do his supporters, whose thirst for “liberal” blood—whose longing to inflict suffering upon their political “enemies” regardless of the cost—is driving the creeping fascism of the Republican party and American conservatism in general. Combine that with the long-standing push by the Religious Right to turn America into a Christian theocracy and…well, it’s not hard to see how the GOP is anything but fascist at this point, “moderates” like Liz Cheney notwithstanding.
The events of the 6th of January were an insurrection. Every attempt to whitewash those events as a “riot” or refuse the truth of what the video clearly shows (a violent mob trying to stop democracy in action) is a victory for Donald Trump. Every time you say the insurrection was anything but, you both embolden fascists and deny an actual objective truth.
Don’t be a sucker. Be better than a fascist bootlicker, Lostcause. Call Trump and his cohorts for what they are—fascists—and the insurrection for what it is: a trial run for an actual fascist takeover of the United States government. Modern American conservatives don’t want a president to govern them, Lostcause—they want a king, an emperor, a god to rule over them…and, more important, to make the “other” suffer.
The ouroboros of fascism always eats itself. How long do you think it’ll be before you’re the “other”—an “undesirable”, if you will—in the eyes of those you helped put in power? How long do you think they’ll let you live under their rule?
If that question makes you uncomfortable, too bad. You voted for a fascist. And he’d sooner kill you than thank you if he thought it would put him back in power.
Are you with fascism, or are you against it?
On the post: Judge Ignores First Amendment, Misreads Town Law, While Ordering Resident To Remove 'Fuck Biden' Signs
Re: "inciting a riot without evidence"
The following are quotes from Donald Trump himself; they come from his speech on the 6th of January, just before the insurrection:
Now, I’m sure you want to mention all the times he brought up marching peacefully and whatnot. Don’t bother; I’ve skimmed enough of the transcript to know those parts exist. Instead, I want you to read each of those quotes, and notice some of the verbs/verbal phrases he uses: “stop”, “save”, “fight”, “take back”, “get tougher”, “show strength”, “protect”. Then look at the overall gist of those quotes: “we’re fighting to stop the steal”, “we have to get tougher on the fraudsters”, “we’re here to save democracy”, “we need to do something about this”.
He isn’t explicitly calling for violence, no. But between his planting the idea that his “patriots” must stop the steal by showing strength and doing “something” about the Democrats/“weak Republicans” to save the country, his talking for months about how the election would be fraudulent only if he lost, and his continual(ly rebuked) efforts to overturn an election he lost both electorally and popularly, those quotes—his words—become a form of his mob boss–esque stochastic terrorism. He didn’t need to directly call for violence; all he needed to do is make his wishes known and let his followers do the rest.
Take a bunch of people who have already been manipulated by right-wing media and Donald Trump into believing the election would be/was stolen. Tell them that the literal last line of defense against the stolen election is a Vice President who has already sworn himself to the duty of his office (i.e., to confirm Joe Biden as the President-elect). Gin them up further by referring to them as true patriots, telling them to toughen up and show strength, and implying that they alone can save American democracy itself. What do you get as a result of all that?
You get an insurrection.
(And yes, I will repost this as often as is necessary.)
On the post: Judge Ignores First Amendment, Misreads Town Law, While Ordering Resident To Remove 'Fuck Biden' Signs
Knowing whether a potential president has any financial issues—including debts to foreign nationals who could use those debts as leverage against the president—is, in fact, the business of the American people. We deserve to know whether our president is free from foreign influence and paying their fair share to the public treasury. We also deserve to know if our president stands to profit from his time in office. I mean, Jimmy Carter sold his peanut farm, for fuck’s sake.
On the post: Senators Klobuchar And Lujan Release Ridiculous, Blatantly Unconstitutional Bill To Make Facebook Liable For Health Misinformation
Third-party speech doesn’t become first-party speech because it was moderated after it was published. Show me the law, statute, or “common law” court precedent that says otherwise.
On the post: Court Docs Appear To Show FBI Informants Contributed Two-Thirds Of The Conspirators To The Michigan Governor Kidnapping Plot
That’s kind of my point here: Did the FBI’s informants/agents coerce these chumps into doing something they otherwise wouldn’t have done? If the answer is “yes”, the punishment those chumps get should be less severe than what they would get under normal circumstances. If the answer is “no”, the punishment should be typical of such cases.
We’ve all seen the stories of the FBI manufacturing terrorists they can later arrest. I’m inclined to think this is another one. The FBI doesn’t have a shortage of right-wing terrorists to go after; alls I want to know is if these chumps were self-made or government-made.
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