American Politics Discussion Thread

[Charriu]

Just a thought, but work aka activities you get money for are not the only meaningful activities. Just think of all the community work which is unpaid or all the non-working people taking care of their children.

[T-hawk]

Ironically T-Hawk would probably be in favor of "coming for" communists, socialists, trade unionists and perhaps even the jews (since he's into those conspiracy theories, and they almost always include the jews as the cause of all evil).

Again you leftists don't get the most fundamental distinction between my positions and yours. I don't want or expect to force people into my opinions. The left wants to do that so naturally that they can't even comprehend differently, they automatically assume that favoring any position means getting rid of the opposition to it.

I don't want to "come for" or censor or purge or ban anyone, unlike your woke cancel-culture collectivist hive-mind mafia. Communists and socialists and everyone else get free speech and votes just like everyone else. You sort out the differences in the market of ideas and free speech and discourse. That's exactly the opposite of any conspiracy.

[Mjmd]

Cancel culture talk from the right is always funny to me, because I can always just kind of play a conversation in my head.

T-Hawk to conservative x, "That woke cancel culture Mjmd doesn't even want to argue and have a discourse. He wanted me to stop making an argument".
Conservative x, "Oh what was the argument?"
T-Hawk, "well I immediately made a holocaust argument".
Conservative x, "total cancel culture. How are we supposed to have a civil debate about ideas if we can't go straight to comparing something to the holocaust?"

There is of course some grain of truth to being careful with free speech, but most of the time conservatives bring it up its because of some platform choosing to not let someone say something on their platform. If a platform doesn't want to be associated with overthrowing American democracy, that should be that platforms choice.

I would also like to note there are some very loud people about all kinds of issues and that this is an issue that the non loud people should analyze. Some things really are too far. There have certainly been times when people fighting for civil rights haven't been able speak up about them.

[Amicalola]

Ironically T-Hawk would probably be in favor of "coming for" communists, socialists, trade unionists and perhaps even the jews (since he's into those conspiracy theories, and they almost always include the jews as the cause of all evil).

Again you leftists don't get the most fundamental distinction between my positions and yours.  I don't want or expect to force people into my opinions. 

You say that T-Hawk, and talk a decent amount about how much you hate the restrictions of the Left, but you vote for and vocally defend politicians who want to force their opinions onto, and restrict,all kinds of people. It's very difficult to take you seriously in that context, where it's blindingly obvious there are some people you don't want restricted, and some people you either don't care about, or actively want to restrict.

For example, the current Republican attacks on abortion rights aim to force conservative beliefs onto doctors by restricting their ability to perform the procedure, and onto women by removing the ability to. While you claim you have no issue with abortion, you continue to vote for the party in a country where voting is optional, and other parties exist. Even if your personal position has changed in the past year or two, your 'freedom' mindset should be screaming to keep the option available. For someone who supposedly doesn't like politicians forcing their opinions onto others, that's a pretty huge exception to make.

[T-hawk]

I'm very aware of that point, the right does freedom-destroying things too. I don't want them to. I'm libertarian, not really Republican or conservative (also I've never once said where I've actually voted on anything.) I end up aligning with the Republicans, because the areas where libertarians and Republicans overlap are on issues that affect me personally (economics, Covid garbage), while the areas of libertarian-Democrat overlap don't. I'm all for LGBTQ support and agree that legal abortion is preferable to banning it, but I don't need those personally and so they're a lesser priority. I do wish the Republicans could come around on those issues, and some are slowly.

[Mjmd]

Does that decision change since Republicans tried to overturn an election? It seems like supporting the lies and not denouncing should disqualify any Republican from getting ANY votes. Sadly, that isn't the world we live in.

[T-hawk]

We had this discussion before. They weren't trying to overturn democracy, they were trying to SAVE it, against the improper and illegal changes in voting procedures that the Democrats rammed through using Covid as an excuse.

The clear example was Pennsylvania. They openly admitted to counting invalid mail-in ballots that arrived after their (state) constitutional deadline. The court challenges resulted in dismissal because no entity (other states or federal) had any standing to force a state to follow their own rules. The fake news framed that as "courts found no fraud" when it was really "nobody has any oversight authority so they can just cheat." This is what Trump meant in the "make your voices heard" speech, to pressure Congress into recognizing only lawfully cast electoral votes and not these unlawfully cast ones.

The Democrats were the ones overturning democracy. The Democrats pushed recognizing illegally cast votes, when there was no question whatsoever about the illegality. Shouldn't supporting THAT lie and not denouncing disqualify that party from getting any votes? Nope, you don't care when it benefits your side.

[darrelljs]

I recommend reading the transcript of the call between Trump and the Georgia Secretary of State before taking the stance Trump was “fighting to save democracy”. Both sides only care to win.

Darrell

[Mjmd]

There is both sides want to win and one side overturning a democracy to win.

That call is just scary...... T-Hawk you aren't a libertarian if you believe those lies. Not even the non-independent audits have found evidence of fraud (as an accountant the fact that non independent auditors were used at all in multiple states is just anathema).

[Mjmd]

Here is a link to the call. I mean if you aren't willing to believe literally any outside logic, just listen to this and go "democracy held this time..... but damn I don't want to have another one of these calls ever occur again".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIJU3M-kKhI

Trump went FAR FAR beyond questioning mail in vote procedure.......(which I would argue was also fine and that is how it was ruled). Anyways, ignoring EVERYTHING else he said you are very much turning a blind eye if you don't recognize that.