2020 Election Commentary

[oggsmash]

Hardline right wing groups do not get infiltrated.  At least not the couple I know of.

Fricking *Atomwaffen* is a leaky boat. Nazis are, as they say, messy bitches.

No idea who they are.  I only know of one that is hard line right wing.  They do not get infiltrated.   A couple of the others, myabe.  I think if you hear a whole lot about them on the internet, they are that hard line, and they are infiltrated.  aka stormfront nazi posting about meetings on the interwebs.  Maybe the one I feel has not been infiltrated has been, but when you engage in a bunch of norse pagan rituals, and demand hand to hand combat from all the people coming to the meetings (yes, like fight club) it makes it tough for a fed to slide in.   But those crazy bastards are not looking to build an army.  More like a motorcycle gang, and 1 percent gangs do not get infiltrated too often, legit ones never get infiltrated.  But these dudes are the real right wing crazy people leftists see at every turn.

[oggsmash]

   I can not own them.  I would have to be right wing, and since I do not even at this point know what in the world is a centrist stance about anything I have no idea what I am.  I guess with the neck jarring shifts the country is trying to make to the left on some things I am far right on them at this point?

There's still a significant moderate middle, it's just the people on the left and the right no longer believe it exists. So you if say anything critical to anyone on the left, you're called an extreme right wing lunatic. And if you say anything critical to anyone on the right, you're labeled an extreme progressive whackjob. If you correct them, and state what you actually believe, they'll say you're lying, and they know you don't believe what you believe. This also applies if you don't easily fit on the left-right axis at all.

  Oh I know they exist, I was referring to the rhetoric that gets tossed around about positions that were centrist or even leftish 20 years ago, and now are considered right wing, or hard right.  Most of the population lives most of their lives most of the time in the middle. 

[Ratman_tf]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCzxR-vo9nA

Honeymoon's over.   

[consolcwby]

THE PARTY OF PEACE AND PROGRESS purposefully misspells words to deflect from the REAL AGENDA:
https://twitter.com/tracybeanz/status/1337860197461667840
https://twitter.com/TomFitton/status/1337750599769665538

THE ANSWER:
https://twitter.com/CodeMonkeyZ/status/1337779444933558277
https://www.globalresearch.ca/rex-84-fema-s-blueprint-for-martial-law-in-america/3010
https://www.veteranstoday.com/2020/02/29/trump-and-jade-helm-ii-trainloads-of-shackles-shipped-in-as-20-million-hillbillies-to-enter-walmart-basement-death-camps/

Remember, I warned you all!

fnord.
===============================

You can see a real lack of maturity in many of those that continue to support Trump's idiotic post-election antics. These are the people that adamantly claim to see something of substance in the Emperor's New Claims when those in their right minds (which includes the heavily conservative Supreme Court) keep saying there's nothing there. For some reason, they just can't get enough of those orange circus peanuts dangling over their faces.

Did the Supreme Court say there's nothing there?  Do you have a quote from them saying that?

Yeah, saying your case is so weak it doesn't even rise to the level where they think it could conceivably be worth listening to it, that's a pretty clear declaration there is nothing there. Which is what 7 of the 9 justices said.

Wrong. The SCOTUS stated Texas did not have standing to a suit against other states in which Texas has no say in HOW those states conduct their election. Texas can STILL refile. They did NOT say what you claim. You are a liar and are acting AGAINST your own self interests here (see above). Listen to what a LAWYER states: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXgz0rjt7-g

=====================

Also, here is a breakdown of the FINAL DECISION on the Flynn Case:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIaabsZ9H-8

=====================

[Pat]

How many posts did you state that "your vote doesn't matter" with no qualification or indication that you had any belief that voting was nevertheless important?

The problem for you is that I'm not reading things that aren't there but that you later pretend were.

Not expressing yourself well is what makes you a Pat.

No, the problem is you're another Jeff. You keep on insisting on reading things into my posts that aren't there.

I said "your vote doesn't matter". Your vote. The vote of an individual. That's a specific claim, and I justified that by explaining how the chance is effectively zero that your vote will flip an election. In other words, my specific claim was followed by a logical argument that justified my specific position.

I never said votes don't matter, collectively. That's something very different. I never said that voting isn't healthy for a democracy as a whole. Also different. And the argument I made in support of my position, i.e. that your vote won't flip an election, has no bearing on whether voting, in the collective, is a good or a bad thing. So the ancillary evidence supports what I said, not what you said I said, as well.

Incorrectly interpreting someone else's post, like you did, is fairly easy to do. After all, if you skim something quickly, spot something you superficially disagree with, and immediately react, it's easy to miss the nuance. You can miss the precise way they they phrased that particular statement, and fail to fully absorb the rest of what they said, so you don't see how their claim and supporting arguments gel into a coherent position. It's lazy reading, but it's easy to do.

I'm used to being called right wing by left wingers, and left wing by ring wingers. It's been happening my entire adult life, and even back into my adolescence. When there are two popular positions, and you hold one of them, it's easy to assume that someone who disagrees with one of your positions belongs to the other wing of thought.

The difference is I used to be able to just say "no, that's not what I said" or "no, that's not what I believe", clarify my position, and people would believe me. People sometimes were incredulous that I held a position that doesn't easily fit into that bipartite orthodoxy, but they'd accept I probably know more about what I believe than they do, and they'd come to accept it. It sometimes made them curious and they asked questions, they sometimes argued against my beliefs, and they sometimes (most commonly) dismissed my beliefs as not worthy of consideration. But they wouldn't deny that I believed what I said I believed.

That's a new phenomenon. You, Jeff, and others have started to insist that I really believe X, not Y, even if what I said contradicts X, and fully supports Y. From my perspective, it's the bizarrest thing. Because to make that claim, not only do you have to miss what I really said in the first place, but you have to reject my clarification. And since we're talking about what I believe, that's not just an attempt to refute my arguments. You're literally telling me I don't believe what I say I believe. It's the strangest thing, when someone like you sets themselves up as the expert on my mind.

It's never based on extensive knowledge of me, after all. You're not my family, a close friend, or even something like a psychoanalyst who has conducted a deep dive into all that makes me me. Instead, you're basing your conclusions on a few sentences. Usually just one narrow statement. For instance, I started looking into the financing of BLM, and corrected your Jeff persona's claim that the money from ShareBlue was being funneled into the Biden campaign. It was a false claim, because ShareBlue simply isn't set up that way. It's more like a payment processor than a general fund that can distribute money at will. But based solely on that objection, your tubesock Jeffwa decided that I was defending BLM, and therefore I was a Biden supporter. Which is completely absurd. I was digging into where the money went because I'm not a fan of BLM. (I also did not fill in the oval next to Biden/Harris on my ballot this year, not that it's any of your business.)

You did exactly the same thing in this thread, Rawmeff. I said that the mainstream media produces a lot of misleading or just plain false news. Based almost entirely on one that one narrow statement, you decided I was right wing, and imputed I supported Trump. And you kept insisting on that, even when I corrected you. (I'm sure you'll tell me otherwise, but I didn't fill in the oval next to Trump/Pence on my ballot either.)

But it didn't matter what I really believed. No matter what I said, you keep insisting you know my mind, and that I don't. That even though I didn't say it, and nothing else I said supports it, I believe what you say I believe, not what I really believe. It's surreal.

And it's not just restricted to political orientation. You're doing it now, on voting. And to be fair, it's not just you and Rawma, Jeff. It's becoming widespread. I blame polarization, and the internet. People have hardened their positions in a grand war of X vs. Y, and so are blind to the rest of the alphabet. And since it's become a total war, it's easier to shoot first and ask questions never.

The internet also encourages skimming, bouncing from one thing to next, and quickly jumping to conclusions. People seem to have lost the ability to bury themselves in a book, blocking out the rest of the world to become absorbed a story, or someone else's worldview. Instead, they've become hyper-critical, reading everything with the aim of objecting. So the first time they see something that, on first blush, seems at odd with what they believe, they react. Since it's about the war and immediate reflexive attacks, not truly grokking what's being said, they rely on dogwhistles nee litmus tests, stereotypes cum strawmen, and blast away with a hair trigger against imagined enemies.

tl;dr people have lost the ability to read posts like this

[Shasarak]

You can see a real lack of maturity in many of those that continue to support Trump's idiotic post-election antics. These are the people that adamantly claim to see something of substance in the Emperor's New Claims when those in their right minds (which includes the heavily conservative Supreme Court) keep saying there's nothing there. For some reason, they just can't get enough of those orange circus peanuts dangling over their faces.

Did the Supreme Court say there's nothing there?  Do you have a quote from them saying that?

Yeah, saying your case is so weak it doesn't even rise to the level where they think it could conceivably be worth listening to it, that's a pretty clear declaration there is nothing there. Which is what 7 of the 9 justices said.

Wrong. The SCOTUS stated Texas did not have standing to a suit against other states in which Texas has no say in HOW those states conduct their election. Texas can STILL refile. They did NOT say what you claim. You are a liar and are acting AGAINST your own self interests here (see above). Listen to what a LAWYER states: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXgz0rjt7-g

I always thought that Mistwell was supposed to be a Lawyer in real life?

[Shasarak]

tl;dr people have lost the ability to read posts like this

Normally I would say just another poster suffering from Pat Derangement Syndrome.

[SHARK]

How many posts did you state that "your vote doesn't matter" with no qualification or indication that you had any belief that voting was nevertheless important?

The problem for you is that I'm not reading things that aren't there but that you later pretend were.

Not expressing yourself well is what makes you a Pat.

No, the problem is you're another Jeff. You keep on insisting on reading things into my posts that aren't there.

I said "your vote doesn't matter". Your vote. The vote of an individual. That's a specific claim, and I justified that by explaining how the chance is effectively zero that your vote will flip an election. In other words, my specific claim was followed by a logical argument that justified my specific position.

I never said votes don't matter, collectively. That's something very different. I never said that voting isn't healthy for a democracy as a whole. Also different. And the argument I made in support of my position, i.e. that your vote won't flip an election, has no bearing on whether voting, in the collective, is a good or a bad thing. So the ancillary evidence supports what I said, not what you said I said, as well.

Incorrectly interpreting someone else's post, like you did, is fairly easy to do. After all, if you skim something quickly, spot something you superficially disagree with, and immediately react, it's easy to miss the nuance. You can miss the precise way they they phrased that particular statement, and fail to fully absorb the rest of what they said, so you don't see how their claim and supporting arguments gel into a coherent position. It's lazy reading, but it's easy to do.

I'm used to being called right wing by left wingers, and left wing by ring wingers. It's been happening my entire adult life, and even back into my adolescence. When there are two popular positions, and you hold one of them, it's easy to assume that someone who disagrees with one of your positions belongs to the other wing of thought.

The difference is I used to be able to just say "no, that's not what I said" or "no, that's not what I believe", clarify my position, and people would believe me. People sometimes were incredulous that I held a position that doesn't easily fit into that bipartite orthodoxy, but they'd accept I probably know more about what I believe than they do, and they'd come to accept it. It sometimes made them curious and they asked questions, they sometimes argued against my beliefs, and they sometimes (most commonly) dismissed my beliefs as not worthy of consideration. But they wouldn't deny that I believed what I said I believed.

That's a new phenomenon. You, Jeff, and others have started to insist that I really believe X, not Y, even if what I said contradicts X, and fully supports Y. From my perspective, it's the bizarrest thing. Because to make that claim, not only do you have to miss what I really said in the first place, but you have to reject my clarification. And since we're talking about what I believe, that's not just an attempt to refute my arguments. You're literally telling me I don't believe what I say I believe. It's the strangest thing, when someone like you sets themselves up as the expert on my mind.

It's never based on extensive knowledge of me, after all. You're not my family, a close friend, or even something like a psychoanalyst who has conducted a deep dive into all that makes me me. Instead, you're basing your conclusions on a few sentences. Usually just one narrow statement. For instance, I started looking into the financing of BLM, and corrected your Jeff persona's claim that the money from ShareBlue was being funneled into the Biden campaign. It was a false claim, because ShareBlue simply isn't set up that way. It's more like a payment processor than a general fund that can distribute money at will. But based solely on that objection, your tubesock Jeffwa decided that I was defending BLM, and therefore I was a Biden supporter. Which is completely absurd. I was digging into where the money went because I'm not a fan of BLM. (I also did not fill in the oval next to Biden/Harris on my ballot this year, not that it's any of your business.)

You did exactly the same thing in this thread, Rawmeff. I said that the mainstream media produces a lot of misleading or just plain false news. Based almost entirely on one that one narrow statement, you decided I was right wing, and imputed I supported Trump. And you kept insisting on that, even when I corrected you. (I'm sure you'll tell me otherwise, but I didn't fill in the oval next to Trump/Pence on my ballot either.)

But it didn't matter what I really believed. No matter what I said, you keep insisting you know my mind, and that I don't. That even though I didn't say it, and nothing else I said supports it, I believe what you say I believe, not what I really believe. It's surreal.

And it's not just restricted to political orientation. You're doing it now, on voting. And to be fair, it's not just you and Rawma, Jeff. It's becoming widespread. I blame polarization, and the internet. People have hardened their positions in a grand war of X vs. Y, and so are blind to the rest of the alphabet. And since it's become a total war, it's easier to shoot first and ask questions never.

The internet also encourages skimming, bouncing from one thing to next, and quickly jumping to conclusions. People seem to have lost the ability to bury themselves in a book, blocking out the rest of the world to become absorbed a story, or someone else's worldview. Instead, they've become hyper-critical, reading everything with the aim of objecting. So the first time they see something that, on first blush, seems at odd with what they believe, they react. Since it's about the war and immediate reflexive attacks, not truly grokking what's being said, they rely on dogwhistles nee litmus tests, stereotypes cum strawmen, and blast away with a hair trigger against imagined enemies.

tl;dr people have lost the ability to read posts like this

Greetings!

Excellent commentary, Pat. I agree that people often seem to like arguing against some image in their heads rather than actually discussing what someone actually said--or means--and in this case, you in particular.

I interpreted your earlier commentary as what is the word--a dichotomy, or paradox? The one where two statements are seemingly contradictory, while being true at the same time?--I know on some level that an individual vote doesn't matter--but collectively, voting matters, is valuable, and in some circumstances can be decisive. *Shrugs* I think I understood you correctly.

On another note, somewhat related--I think some people often like to get *pedantic*. While it can be important to read what someone specifically says--in my view, a deeper and more fulfilling exercise is understanding what a person *means*--which is not always a precise map to what they happened to have said. If that makes any sense.

None the less, though, your assessment about how many people engage in interweb arguments is accurate. I see that often, and even sometimes correcting friends of mine that *didn't* read something fully, but instead skimmed, and then embraced a conclusion. Their conclusions often miss nuance and a greater comprehension of what was said in whatever article.

I think it is always important to actually listen to what the other person is saying. Too often, people arguing on the interwebs don't do that, unfortunately.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

[rawma]

Did the Supreme Court say there's nothing there?  Do you have a quote from them saying that?

Burden of proof is on those who say there is something there; they've failed. You're approaching Ron "show me the evidence that there's no evidence" Johnson level of cluelessness.

[Trond]

To be fair, fracturing has been going on in the Democratic party for some time too. Some might say even more than the Republicans.

81 million people said otherwise not that long ago.

Even European news have caught on to have fractured the Democratic Party is, and you're denying it?

[VisionStorm]

Did the Supreme Court say there's nothing there?  Do you have a quote from them saying that?

Burden of proof is on those who say there is something there

Such as people claiming that the courts specifically said there's nothing there, when back in the real world courts can dismiss a case for any number of reasons (ranging from judge bias to improper presentation of the claims), not necessarily because there's nothing there.

To be fair, fracturing has been going on in the Democratic party for some time too. Some might say even more than the Republicans.

81 million people said otherwise not that long ago.

Even European news have caught on to have fractured the Democratic Party is, and you're denying it?

This is what you get when you deal with disingenuous people who argue strictly on the basis of gotchas and tribalism, rather than the merits of what's being discussed.

[HappyDaze]

Did the Supreme Court say there's nothing there?  Do you have a quote from them saying that?

Burden of proof is on those who say there is something there

Such as people claiming that the courts specifically said there's nothing there, when back in the real world courts can dismiss a case for any number of reasons (ranging from judge bias to improper presentation of the claims), not necessarily because there's nothing there.

To be fair, fracturing has been going on in the Democratic party for some time too. Some might say even more than the Republicans.

81 million people said otherwise not that long ago.

Even European news have caught on to have fractured the Democratic Party is, and you're denying it?

This is what you get when you deal with disingenuous people who argue strictly on the basis of gotchas and tribalism, rather than the merits of what's being discussed.

I'm the real world, none of Trump's post-election bullshit has accomplished anything in courts that will change the election's outcome. That's the only fact that matters.

[rawma]

To be fair, fracturing has been going on in the Democratic party for some time too. Some might say even more than the Republicans.

81 million people said otherwise not that long ago.

Even European news have caught on to have fractured the Democratic Party is, and you're denying it?

Trump allies are attacking other Republicans over the election nonsense, but it's the Democratic party that is fractured? Believe harder, people, Tinkerbell is still dead.

[rawma]

Did the Supreme Court say there's nothing there?  Do you have a quote from them saying that?

Burden of proof is on those who say there is something there

Such as people claiming that the courts specifically said there's nothing there, when back in the real world courts can dismiss a case for any number of reasons (ranging from judge bias to improper presentation of the claims), not necessarily because there's nothing there.

Coincidentally, I was just reading this:
https://reason.com/volokh/2020/12/13/another-court-loss-for-trump-campaign-in-wisconsin/

On Saturday, a federal district court judge in Wisconsin issued an opinion explaining why, on the merits, Texas's substantive arguments were without merit. And, as occurred on the Supreme Court, a judge appointed by President Trump, Brett Ludwig, ruled against him.

...

Dozens of election suits have been filed, and dozens of judges of all political stripes and judicial philosophies have ruled against the claims put forward by the Trump campaign and its allies.

Dismissing a case is saying there's nothing there. What do you think the courts should have found?

[VisionStorm]

Did the Supreme Court say there's nothing there?  Do you have a quote from them saying that?

Burden of proof is on those who say there is something there

Such as people claiming that the courts specifically said there's nothing there, when back in the real world courts can dismiss a case for any number of reasons (ranging from judge bias to improper presentation of the claims), not necessarily because there's nothing there.

To be fair, fracturing has been going on in the Democratic party for some time too. Some might say even more than the Republicans.

81 million people said otherwise not that long ago.

Even European news have caught on to have fractured the Democratic Party is, and you're denying it?

This is what you get when you deal with disingenuous people who argue strictly on the basis of gotchas and tribalism, rather than the merits of what's being discussed.

I'm the real world, none of Trump's post-election bullshit has accomplished anything in courts that will change the election's outcome. That's the only fact that matters.

In the real world none of that addresses or refutes what I said.

To be fair, fracturing has been going on in the Democratic party for some time too. Some might say even more than the Republicans.

81 million people said otherwise not that long ago.

Even European news have caught on to have fractured the Democratic Party is, and you're denying it?

Trump allies are attacking other Republicans over the election nonsense, but it's the Democratic party that is fractured? Believe harder, people, Tinkerbell is still dead.

And the Democraps were attacking their "progressive" wing (which has been trying to coopt the party for years now) over losing house seats. But keep being a disingenuous shitbag tossing gotchas.