Lengthy comment with a conservative viewpoint disclaimer.
I remember a few years back there were stories running that had claimed Russia supported neither candidate, or both, depending on your take. The story was that they were simply sowing discontent. That story was backed by then head of the FBI.
Fast forward a few years. Go to ZeroHedge and read the comments, or to Brietbart. Go to The Hill, or The Times, or Vanity Fair.
Notice the broken English, the ad hoc attacks, the deflective answers?
What if all this "public discourse" wasn't really public discourse at all? I built my wife's gaming PC but I'm not a techie, you guys are and would know more than me the capabilities that exist.
Could a foreign power aggregate, somehow, a network of user accounts to post conflicting viewpoints to stir the pot? The FBI thought so, as did Twitter and Facebook.
Did that ever stop happening? What would years of fake hyper partisanship actually look like when a real and actual crisis hit? People lose their jobs, fear for their lives, fear for government overreach, and maybe all that hyperbole starts looking like truth.
Maybe some cop, who knew George Floyd and worked with George Floyd for a decade (bet you didn't know that), settles an old perceived beef with him in a horrific way, unknowingly providing the gasoline to the tinderbox that was America. Maybe the news runs the story as "racist cop" because that sells more papers than "personal beef." Who knows. I'm certainly not pretending racism isn't out there, and I agree it's atrocious, I'm just floating a scenario.
Let me ask a question. Do any of you personally know any extremists? I work in rural Kentucky at an automotive plant. I'd say I'd qualify as about as stereotypical country as it gets. I don't hate democrats. I don't hate black people, or liberals either. I don't agree with most Democrat policies, I don't partake in most "black culture," and I can't relate to liberals at all. But I don't hate them, and moreover I respect their right to think and talk and vote however the hell they want.
Do any of you personally know any far right extremists? I rather doubt it.
Until we can admit that CNN and FOX both have an agenda, and that agenda is to SELL news, then there's no way forward for us. That's a tragedy because we're not talking about the real elephant in the room.
We live in an age when we have to decide if "hate speech" is even a term, or is it just speech that someone doesn't like? If it is a term, is it or ought it to be illegal? If it's illegal, then why is it not protected under the constitution and should we amend it?
How can a free and open society combat hostile foreign powers in a digital age without also trampling civil liberties? These are the conversations we need to be having. Instead, we're looting Target and arguing about masks.
Terrorist may be a stretch but he certainly is, or at least was, a communist. The man was from the Tigray province, which was the support base for the communist party up until I believe 1995. He was in government as early as 1991, so to say he was not a communist is simply not accurate.
That communist party saw major financing from the Chinese communist party. That's not necessarily damning, nations help like-minded nations all the time.
I'm only replying to point out that the man was in fact a communist, and a member of a communist party with financial ties to China, and then as head of the WHO certainly seemingly, and I stress seemingly, softened any pandemic related press releases with China in mind.
We could also get into WHO treatment of places like Hong Kong and Taiwan. So, I think having a rational discussion about the mans motives is not out of the question. It's natural.
For my part I'm against Tedros. Not because of his politics, but because of the office he holds. States rights is where I stand in all things, and I do not believe that organizations like the UN and WHO can coexist with national identity. It has to be one or the other, and I choose national identity.
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Trying times
Lengthy comment with a conservative viewpoint disclaimer.
I remember a few years back there were stories running that had claimed Russia supported neither candidate, or both, depending on your take. The story was that they were simply sowing discontent. That story was backed by then head of the FBI.
Fast forward a few years. Go to ZeroHedge and read the comments, or to Brietbart. Go to The Hill, or The Times, or Vanity Fair.
Notice the broken English, the ad hoc attacks, the deflective answers?
What if all this "public discourse" wasn't really public discourse at all? I built my wife's gaming PC but I'm not a techie, you guys are and would know more than me the capabilities that exist.
Could a foreign power aggregate, somehow, a network of user accounts to post conflicting viewpoints to stir the pot? The FBI thought so, as did Twitter and Facebook.
Did that ever stop happening? What would years of fake hyper partisanship actually look like when a real and actual crisis hit? People lose their jobs, fear for their lives, fear for government overreach, and maybe all that hyperbole starts looking like truth.
Maybe some cop, who knew George Floyd and worked with George Floyd for a decade (bet you didn't know that), settles an old perceived beef with him in a horrific way, unknowingly providing the gasoline to the tinderbox that was America. Maybe the news runs the story as "racist cop" because that sells more papers than "personal beef." Who knows. I'm certainly not pretending racism isn't out there, and I agree it's atrocious, I'm just floating a scenario.
Let me ask a question. Do any of you personally know any extremists? I work in rural Kentucky at an automotive plant. I'd say I'd qualify as about as stereotypical country as it gets. I don't hate democrats. I don't hate black people, or liberals either. I don't agree with most Democrat policies, I don't partake in most "black culture," and I can't relate to liberals at all. But I don't hate them, and moreover I respect their right to think and talk and vote however the hell they want.
Do any of you personally know any far right extremists? I rather doubt it.
Until we can admit that CNN and FOX both have an agenda, and that agenda is to SELL news, then there's no way forward for us. That's a tragedy because we're not talking about the real elephant in the room.
We live in an age when we have to decide if "hate speech" is even a term, or is it just speech that someone doesn't like? If it is a term, is it or ought it to be illegal? If it's illegal, then why is it not protected under the constitution and should we amend it?
How can a free and open society combat hostile foreign powers in a digital age without also trampling civil liberties? These are the conversations we need to be having. Instead, we're looting Target and arguing about masks.
Re: Re: Re:
Terrorist may be a stretch but he certainly is, or at least was, a communist. The man was from the Tigray province, which was the support base for the communist party up until I believe 1995. He was in government as early as 1991, so to say he was not a communist is simply not accurate.
That communist party saw major financing from the Chinese communist party. That's not necessarily damning, nations help like-minded nations all the time.
I'm only replying to point out that the man was in fact a communist, and a member of a communist party with financial ties to China, and then as head of the WHO certainly seemingly, and I stress seemingly, softened any pandemic related press releases with China in mind.
We could also get into WHO treatment of places like Hong Kong and Taiwan. So, I think having a rational discussion about the mans motives is not out of the question. It's natural.
For my part I'm against Tedros. Not because of his politics, but because of the office he holds. States rights is where I stand in all things, and I do not believe that organizations like the UN and WHO can coexist with national identity. It has to be one or the other, and I choose national identity.
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