Right Wing Terrorism

[sarge]

Originally Posted by mgidm86

Great:



Mysterious ways? Gawd is an ******* and this bitch's existence is proof. I resisted in saying that the most recent gay nightclub shooting was right wing terror but I do blame the rhetoric for all of this. I guess it is, and wow it seems to be coming fast.

Shooting up a power station (actually two I believe) to stop a drag show is insane. I don't want to buy a gun because there are too many people I'd like to shoot, but...I dunno.

I need to spell this out for myself... People who believe in a pretend god are killing other people because they think this god wants them to.

Religion is nothing more than a mental disease. What part of it isn't? **** this.

I made the choice to never carry a firearm because I knew there was at least a chance that I would use it when my temper got the better of my judgement.

The vast majority of open carry loons are right wingers and most open carriers actively wish for a chance to use their gun. In Castle Law and Stand Your Ground states, the laws conspire to give them the greatest opportunity to join the ranks of right-wing terrorists. Our gun culture does not create right wing terrorists, but it certainly gives them greater opportunity to be successful.

[wareyin]

Originally Posted by Cain

"Face value" here is meaningless if you're including the subtext.

Yeah, including the subtext does tend to harm your belief that her tweet proves anything, doesn't it? One has to pretend that this one tweet was made in a vacuum to actually take her at her word.

Originally Posted by Cain

I make a habit of not commenting on those posts, but the best of them, mostly from the early years, are what would now be called "self-owns." I want to say they were based primarily on a lack of self-awareness, usually highlighting some form of hypocrisy. Not attributing to malice what can be explained by stupidity. Despite being obviously self-refuting, posters on this forum could not resist being the first to identify a reasoning error (now they "dunk" on famous Twitter morons).

Overwhelmingly, conservatives were the people who would conflate motive and effect. Democrats WANT people to be ignorant and dependent upon the government so that they can get more votes. The Left WANTS the predictable chaos that comes with taking God out of public life because it will help them seize more power. So much power. All of the power. Democrats know exactly what they're doing, which is why they want to disarm us. Cultural Marxism. The Frankfurt/Franklin School. George Soros. Ze Jews. I see similarities to the temperament of the more obnoxious right-wingers by non-right-wingers in this thread. Denying a person's common humanity, believing their political rivals are motivated by pure wickedness. Mundane explanations are traded for the exotic. I saw similar things in the police shooting thread that we participated in. Human weakness was swapped out for conspiracy.

The problem you're having here is one of a false equivalence. The "predictable chaos that comes with taking God out of public life" was not true, while the predictable deaths that come from the right wing demonization of LGBTQ+ people are actually happening. But you can't tell the difference, apparently.

[mgidm86]

Road rage, domestic, drunken, suicide and other types of shootings are often by people who are normally fine. Turns out they shouldn't have been around guns either.

Most humans are capable of losing control, I'm just being honest. I don't trust anyone else with guns either for the exact same reason.

Most people are perfectly fine until they aren't.

[Stacyhs]

Originally Posted by mgidm86

Road rage, domestic, drunken, suicide and other types of shootings are often by people who are normally fine. Turns out they shouldn't have been around guns either.

Most humans are capable of losing control, I'm just being honest. I don't trust anyone else with guns either for the exact same reason.

Most people are perfectly fine until they aren't.

Exactly. We are all human and sometimes, we lose it. We all have a breaking point, some reach that point more easily than others. Having a gun can be, and often is, the difference between screaming or even hitting someone and killing them.

[Stacyhs]

Originally Posted by Warp12

So, by that logic, we should not judge terrorists who shoot people, too harshly.

It was really access to the weapon that enabled this crime. Otherwise, no problem.

No, not by "that" logic because terrorists plan attacks; they know exactly what they're doing.
[quote]

Originally Posted by Warp12

I think that is ****. Having a gun in your hand is not the difference between screaming, hitting, or killing someone.

Really? Try shooting and killing someone without a gun in your hand.

Quote:

Being emotionally unhinged is the root cause of all of those.

We can all become temporarily emotionally unhinged if pushed far enough, but shooting someone is permanent. All you've got it illogical and irrational excuses.

Quote:

Lord help us, and also the political terrorists.

WTF?

[Cain]

Originally Posted by tyr_13

You just argued simultaneously that you weren't talking literally about lunatics in your use of the phrase, and that I should take it to mean literal lunatics who are not competent to hold accountable to differentiate them from the clowns and 'window lickers'.

You've been at pains to impose lunacy, recently rationalizing there's not much of a difference between a clown and a lunatic. If we mean a literal lunatic, then, yes, there is a significant difference.

Quote:

You think that being dumb and other motivations are more likely, great, fine opinion to have. That doesn't mean they aren't capable of simple lies about violence.

I never suggested being stupid obviates their ability to lie about violence. The claim at the heart of the discussion is that they desire mass shootings and purposefully act to make them more likely. We know that politicians are capable of killing tens of thousands of people, but are nevertheless genuinely horrified by other forms of violence.

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Fine hypothesis; how many times after finding out Jocasta is his mother does Oedipus get to bang her before you question his stated motives?

You're making the same mistake again. If Oedipus "finds out" -- i.e,. believes Jocasta is his mother -- then banging her even one more time shows intent to engage in incestuous relations. But how do we know what he knows? There's a similarly false inference in the old street joke about a bear and a hunter, culminating in the punchline, "Be honest; you ain't here for the huntin', are ya?"

[quote] You consider their current deniability plausible by claiming they are just that stupid. Smartcooky, and to a less degree I, claim that even being so stupid they know it's causing violence and want that (or in my case, a combination of some wanting it and other being fine with it). Nevermind that sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice, believing their motivations string from stupidity doesn't mean they're incapable of the malice needed. Your argument that they're too stupid is simply ridiculous. Stupid people can be malicious.[quote]

Stupid people can certainly be malicious, but it's going to require significant evidence that these people desire and engineer mass shootings. That said, I do want to revise my argument by removing a rhetorical stupidity:

The competing hypothesis is that they're stupidly motivated for attention, so they stupidly engage in inflammatory rhetoric (often chasing their audiences rather than leading them), and stupidly fail to see a connection between their words and someone else's actions.

Failure to appreciate this connection is not a matter of sheer jackassery, and I'd revert back to the other posts that invoked normal cognitive biases. It's understandable a person would not see causality. Yesterday, for example, Matthew Yglesias tweeted about trans issues. Someone replied, "Seriously, your dedication to contrarianism is gonna get more people killed. Please stop."*Her response had hundreds of likes. Yglesias and others hear this criticism often enough, yet continue to weigh in with more of the same on the topic. I do not think he's stupid or a moral monster. While his comments are not as inflammatory as right-wingers, so a causal relationship would be less clear, he is a whole lot smarter and has repeatedly been put on notice about what he's allegedly doing.

Re: Eliminating non-cis-het people from public life:

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Why not both [attention seeking and desire for violence]?

I'm trying to summarize your (and wareyin's) views. If you agree they're motivated in large part by self-interest and attention-seeking, then it becomes that much easier to explain what remains with regular stupidity rather than evil.

Quote:

You want evidence then just handwave it.

This is tinfoil hat stuff -- a series of tenuous inferences that are not worth my time. Again, more mundane explanations are superior: Behavior is contagious, group-think, Twitter is not real life, performative demagoguery etc etc etc rather than it is Boebert's/Greene's considered view that LGBTQ nightclubs should be shot up.

[Cain]

Originally Posted by wareyin

Yeah, including the subtext does tend to harm your belief that her tweet proves anything, doesn't it? One has to pretend that this one tweet was made in a vacuum to actually take her at her word.

You're always welcome to cite the many other comments where she urges her followers to commit mass shootings. Instead, you chose to assume the truth of your position, and add winks.

Quote:

The problem you're having here is one of a false equivalence. The "predictable chaos that comes with taking God out of public life" was not true, while the predictable deaths that come from the right wing demonization of LGBTQ+ people are actually happening. But you can't tell the difference, apparently.

Other than demonstrating a poor understanding of false equivalence, you're still missing an essential point: What matters is what one believes is true. Assuming a clear causal relationship between... "right-wing demonization of LGBTQ+ people" and terrorism, a person can unwittingly fuel as much violence (and more) as a person who makes it their intended goal.

[wareyin]

Originally Posted by Cain

You're always welcome to cite the many other comments where she urges her followers to commit mass shootings. Instead, you chose to assume the truth of your position, and add winks.

Ah, yes, in this discussion where you ignore Boebert's many contrary public statements to pretend the owner of the "Shooters" restaurant is really anti-gun violence, it's me who is assuming the truth of my position. Here, instead of a wink, I'll give you an eye-roll.

Originally Posted by Cain

Other than demonstrating a poor understanding of false equivalence, you're still missing an essential point: What matters is what one believes is true. Assuming a clear causal relationship between... "right-wing demonization of LGBTQ+ people" and terrorism, a person can unwittingly fuel as much violence (and more) as a person who makes it their intended goal.

The highlighted certainly does seem to be to conservative position nowadays. I think it stems from everything they "believe to be true" being false in reality. But hey, you stick in your little bubble where your demonstrably wrong beliefs are just as good as actual reality. It's really helping your argument. In fact, as an award here's another eye-roll:

[ZiprHead]

Originally Posted by mgidm86

Road rage, domestic, drunken, suicide and other types of shootings are often by people who are normally fine. Turns out they shouldn't have been around guns either.

Most humans are capable of losing control, I'm just being honest. I don't trust anyone else with guns either for the exact same reason.

Most people are perfectly fine until they aren't.

There is research that shows that just carrying a gun changes attitudes. It makes people more aggressive. It explains the huge surge in road rage involving guns in Texas.

[Checkmite]

Originally Posted by ZiprHead

There is research that shows that just carrying a gun changes attitudes. It makes people more aggressive. It explains the huge surge in road rage involving guns in Texas.

It's true. When you have a gun in your pocket, every dispute starts to look like an imminent threat to your life.

[Stacyhs]

Originally Posted by ZiprHead

There is research that shows that just carrying a gun changes attitudes. It makes people more aggressive. It explains the huge surge in road rage involving guns in Texas.

Especially with men. When women get angry, we generally tend to be verbally aggressive rather than physically aggressive. And when we do get physical, it's mostly hair pulling and bitch slapping. Of course that's not 100% true; nothing is. My grandmother shot and killed her husband but she was also drunk. Still, if she hadn't had a gun.....But men turn physically aggressive and violent more than women. Put a gun on them and they're much more likely to use it than a woman. How often has a man shot and killed his wife/girlfriend during a domestic dispute or a neighbor over some silly testosterone driven, chest thumping male display of dominance? More often than we'd like to admit.

[Suddenly]

Originally Posted by Checkmite

It's true. When you have a gun in your pocket, every dispute starts to look like an imminent threat to your life.

Doesn't it actually become more of a threat? If I'm not carrying a gun there is a lot less chance someone mad at me will take it off of me and shoot me with it.

It's a lousy defensive weapon if someone knows you have it and just bashes you over the head from behind. So if someone wants to do you harm and knows you are armed all you are really carrying is something valuable for them to take off your body.

[tyr_13]

Originally Posted by Cain

You've been at pains to impose lunacy, recently rationalizing there's not much of a difference between a clown and a lunatic. If we mean a literal lunatic, then, yes, there is a significant difference.



I never suggested being stupid obviates their ability to lie about violence. The claim at the heart of the discussion is that they desire mass shootings and purposefully act to make them more likely. We know that politicians are capable of killing tens of thousands of people, but are nevertheless genuinely horrified by other forms of violence.

You literally said that the plot outlined exceeded their capabilities. The plot was to rile up violence and claim they are against violence.

People are capable of all sorts of rationalizations, like that specific people would not be motivated by malice to lie about wanting violence when they clearly would, but that doesn't mean that a specific rationalization is being employed in a given situation.

If the argument was over if it is hypothetically possible, that would be a good basis.

Quote:

You're making the same mistake again. If Oedipus "finds out" -- i.e,. believes Jocasta is his mother -- then banging her even one more time shows intent to engage in incestuous relations. But how do we know what he knows? There's a similarly false inference in the old street joke about a bear and a hunter, culminating in the punchline, "Be honest; you ain't here for the huntin', are ya?"

You could try reading people by incorporating things like their other statements, actions, and those of the people they've demonstrably agreed with. But those ways to understand what a person is capable of and is motivated by would be 'tinfoil hat' and 'not worth your time'.

This is the basic stuff you claimed you were superior to me at while here you don't think it is knowable. It is almost certain you have done this exact thing in other places.

How did you conclude Trump wanted violence on Jan 6th? Or do you hold that because he literally said he didn't want violence, that he did not.

How is this different from the people who made a lot of the same arguments about the same event, but are under discussion now?

You have to have criteria, right? Some standard or method to figure out if someone is saying something but motivated by malice or just straight up lying?

Quote:

Stupid people can certainly be malicious, but it's going to require significant evidence that these people desire and engineer mass shootings. That said, I do want to revise my argument by removing a rhetorical stupidity:

The competing hypothesis is that they're stupidly motivated for attention, so they stupidly engage in inflammatory rhetoric (often chasing their audiences rather than leading them), and stupidly fail to see a connection between their words and someone else's actions.

Wilful ignorance is malice. At some point, even you would agree that old Oedipus was knowingly committing incest, and absent some extraordinary explanation wanted to, when presented with reason to think that was happening.

Quote:

Failure to appreciate this connection is not a matter of sheer jackassery, and I'd revert back to the other posts that invoked normal cognitive biases. It's understandable a person would not see causality. Yesterday, for example, Matthew Yglesias tweeted about trans issues. Someone replied, "Seriously, your dedication to contrarianism is gonna get more people killed. Please stop."*Her response had hundreds of likes. Yglesias and others hear this criticism often enough, yet continue to weigh in with more of the same on the topic. I do not think he's stupid or a moral monster. While his comments are not as inflammatory as right-wingers, so a causal relationship would be less clear, he is a whole lot smarter and has repeatedly been put on notice about what he's allegedly doing.

Oh, so there are ways to show intentional, bad faith, ignorance? And that would be based on the strength of the evidence?

Not knowing who that is, it's entirely possible he is wrongly contributing to getting people killed and the longer it goes on or the better evidence of it he ignores, the more malicious that claimed ignorance is.

There have always been the 'reasonable' progressives or 'left' who give unreasonable credence to the same bad arguments for 'divisive' things like racial integration of the military, racial civil rights, women's suffrage, interracial marriage, women serving in the military, interracial marriage, gay rights, gay marriage, gay service in the military, and on and on. Most will come around when the obviously bad arguments, the same exact ones in many cases, get proven to be false again. Some descent to crankhood. I know as I was one of those briefly with gay marriage. I feel for the 'well just call it civil union, same thing right?' until it was pointed out that it actually wasn't in addition to being insulting.

Do you think someone arguing against racial integration of the military is telling the truth when they say they have nothing against black people? Why would that not be a reasonable assertion to take at face value?

Quote:

Re: Eliminating non-cis-het people from public life:


I'm trying to summarize your (and wareyin's) views. If you agree they're motivated in large part by self-interest and attention-seeking, then it becomes that much easier to explain what remains with regular stupidity rather than evil.

Those things being a factor does not mitigate their maliciousness. It certainly doesn't give them primacy. If they want to force non-cishet people out of public participation, it doesn't become less of an evil because they're also attention seeking or whatever. Falling for other cognitive pitfalls, no matter how human, also isn't actually mitigating.

Quote:

This is tinfoil hat stuff -- a series of tenuous inferences that are not worth my time. Again, more mundane explanations are superior: Behavior is contagious, group-think, Twitter is not real life, performative demagoguery etc etc etc rather than it is Boebert's/Greene's considered view that LGBTQ nightclubs should be shot up.

It is not tinfoil hat to say these people agree with the people they're agreeing with. You're working very hard to pretend there is some insanity to conclude the people might be closer to the beliefs of the people whose beliefs they agree with than outlier statements like disclaimers about being opposed to violence.

[tyr_13]

In case anyone didn't notice, the shooter of Club Q was indeed charged with hate crimes, and the defense's filings have changed back to referring to the shooter with 'he/him' pronouns.

Almost like there was zero reason to do anything differently with the self-identification besides typing different pronouns for a brief time. Shocking. Thing that doesn't matter ended up not mattering.

[Cain]

I've been away. Frankly, dealing with more important things.

Originally Posted by wareyin

Ah, yes, in this discussion where you ignore Boebert's many contrary public statements to pretend the owner of the "Shooters" restaurant is really anti-gun violence, it's me who is assuming the truth of my position. Here, instead of a wink, I'll give you an eye-roll.

This is daft. While I believe the NRA has blood on its hands, I'm not also going to say that people in the group want to see more gun homicide or mass shootings. They have nutty views about the way the world works. If you can't see that, then you're just lost.

Re: What one believes to be true...

Quote:

The highlighted certainly does seem to be to conservative position nowadays. I think it stems from everything they "believe to be true" being false in reality. But hey, you stick in your little bubble where your demonstrably wrong beliefs are just as good as actual reality. It's really helping your argument. In fact, as an award here's another eye-roll:

Except it's not a conservative position. That's just part of being human. You're seeing things through a distorted, partisan lens. You might want to read Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind. He helped conduct a study indicating conservatives (and moderates) understand liberals better than liberals understand conservatives. I don't think you could pass an ideological Turing test.

[Cain]

Originally Posted by tyr_13

You could try reading people by incorporating things like their other statements, actions, and those of the people they've demonstrably agreed with. But those ways to understand what a person is capable of and is motivated by would be 'tinfoil hat' and 'not worth your time'.

Belief is proportioned to evidence. We have something here that seems to approach certainty coupled with "Tim Pool posted a series of tweets calling for violence as well!" I did look at it. I'm reminded that Tim Pool is the type of person who makes me regret knowing how to speak English (and some of your painfully tortured posts make me regret knowing how to read it). You mis-characterized his concern-trolling, which, if I recall correctly, started with him responding to "some [ahole] shot up a gay bar." You then played the association card. How many comms people does Boebert have in her office? She's the only one who manages her Twitter account?

Quote:

How did you conclude Trump wanted violence on Jan 6th? Or do you hold that because he literally said he didn't want violence, that he did not.

You have to have criteria, right? Some standard or method to figure out if someone is saying something but motivated by malice or just straight up lying?

I could believe that Trump did not want violence. Trump wanted to continue to be president, and he would have been thrilled with a non-violent series of events that produced such an outcome. Ultimately, it does not matter what he believed; violence occurred, and he failed to defend the Capitol building. Focus on what can be demonstrated. In this case, a dereliction of duty.

Quote:

Do you think someone arguing against racial integration of the military is telling the truth when they say they have nothing against black people? Why would that not be a reasonable assertion to take at face value?

If we're talking about the present day, then I'd be inclined to believe that the person has racist motivations because they must contend with over 70 years of history. If we're seriously talking about this as a policy, then a person's motivation is a fallacy of irrelevance. It does not matter if they harbor racist or non-racist motivations, the policy is what it is. Similarly...

Quote:

Those things being a factor does not mitigate their maliciousness. It certainly doesn't give them primacy. If they want to force non-cishet people out of public participation, it doesn't become less of an evil because they're also attention seeking or whatever. Falling for other cognitive pitfalls, no matter how human, also isn't actually mitigating.

It does not matter what they harbor homicidal motivations because they advocate policies that restrict people from engaging in areas of life that are deeply personal and meaningful. Calling someone murderous might play well on one's own side, but in the realm of pure reason, it's a losing non-argument. In the realm of politics, it can help rally the troops but produces a lot of dumb culture war negative externalities.

[wareyin]

Originally Posted by Cain

I've been away. Frankly, dealing with more important things.



This is daft. While I believe the NRA has blood on its hands, I'm not also going to say that people in the group want to see more gun homicide or mass shootings. They have nutty views about the way the world works. If you can't see that, then you're just lost.

Speaking of daft, if the NRA/Boebert/other gun nuts work to prevent any chance of stopping gun homicides or mass shootings, it takes someone really daft to argue that they don't want those gun homicides and/or mass shootings they work so hard to keep the option for.

Originally Posted by Cain

Re: What one believes to be true...


Except it's not a conservative position. That's just part of being human. You're seeing things through a distorted, partisan lens. You might want to read Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind. He helped conduct a study indicating conservatives (and moderates) understand liberals better than liberals understand conservatives. I don't think you could pass an ideological Turing test.

Yeah, yeah, we've had actual conservative trolls here for years who are frankly way better at the whole 'nuh uh, you're the partisan ones!' than you are.

[Cain]

Originally Posted by wareyin

Speaking of daft, if the NRA/Boebert/other gun nuts work to prevent any chance of stopping gun homicides or mass shootings, it takes someone really daft to argue that they don't want those gun homicides and/or mass shootings they work so hard to keep the option for.

So it's Jocastas all the way down. Gun nuts do not generally believe that firearm regulations will prevent homicides/mass shootings. If cornered -- forced to bite the bullet -- they might concede that even if gun control did reduce the homicide rate, gun ownership is necessary because of freedom or keeping the government in check, or whatever else. This is something a 9th grader should be able to understand.

Quote:

Yeah, yeah, we've had actual conservative trolls here for years who are frankly way better at the whole 'nuh uh, you're the partisan ones!' than you are.

Cool, but it's primarily about being monolingual vs. bilingual.

[Thermal]

Originally Posted by mgidm86

Road rage, domestic, drunken, suicide and other types of shootings are often by people who are normally fine. Turns out they shouldn't have been around guns either.

Most humans are capable of losing control, I'm just being honest. I don't trust anyone else with guns either for the exact same reason.

Most people are perfectly fine until they aren't.

*looks pointedly at armed American police*

[mgidm86]

Originally Posted by Thermal

*looks pointedly at armed American police*

Yes, when I say I don't trust anyone with guns I absolutely include police.

[bruto]

Originally Posted by Cain

So it's Jocastas all the way down. Gun nuts do not generally believe that firearm regulations will prevent homicides/mass shootings. If cornered -- forced to bite the bullet -- they might concede that even if gun control did reduce the homicide rate, gun ownership is necessary because of freedom or keeping the government in check, or whatever else. This is something a 9th grader should be able to understand.



Cool, but it's primarily about being monolingual vs. bilingual.

I don't know about Boebert, but I think your argument gets shaky with regard to other gun nuts, such as MTG, whose advocacy of gun violence (armed insurrectionists, the shooting of those she considers traitors, etc.) is harder to sweep away. Or, for example, Trump, who suggested a "second amendment" solution to justices he doesn't like. You can, of course, play the Becket card and note that he did not say "shoot them" outright, but it's getting a bit worn at the edges.

[Stacyhs]

Originally Posted by bruto

I don't know about Boebert, but I think your argument gets shaky with regard to other gun nuts, such as MTG, whose advocacy of gun violence (armed insurrectionists, the shooting of those she considers traitors, etc.) is harder to sweep away. Or, for example, Trump, who suggested a "second amendment" solution to justices he doesn't like. You can, of course, play the Becket card and note that he did not say "shoot them" outright, but it's getting a bit worn at the edges.

Are you sure it was the Justices? He definitely suggested the '2A' solution for Hillary Clinton at a rally back in 2016.

[bruto]

Originally Posted by Stacyhs

Are you sure it was the Justices? He definitely suggested the '2A' solution for Hillary Clinton at a rally back in 2016.

You could be right, but I thought it was in relation to the possible nomination of justices, and I don't remember if it was prevention or remedy.

[wareyin]

Originally Posted by Cain

So it's Jocastas all the way down. Gun nuts do not generally believe that firearm regulations will prevent homicides/mass shootings. If cornered -- forced to bite the bullet -- they might concede that even if gun control did reduce the homicide rate, gun ownership is necessary because of freedom or keeping the government in check, or whatever else. This is something a 9th grader should be able to understand.

Choosing to not believe what is true doesn't make you correct, nor does it absolve you of the consequences of actions you take despite the facts you are aware of. This is something I taught my children well before they hit the 9th grade, but apparently your parents were more concerned with letting you learn that facts don't matter, only what you believe matters.

The fact of the matter is that Boebert has a long history of anti-LGBTQ+ hate (and Muslim hate, and immigrant hate, etc) and violent rhetoric which you wish to ignore because once she realized she looked bad she half-heartedly gave her thoughts and prayers, once.

Originally Posted by Cain

Cool, but it's primarily about being monolingual vs. bilingual.

No, accusing your critics of being partisan as you flail so wildly in your unbelievably ignorant attempts to make Boebert look anti-violence has no bearing on how many languages you push partisan propaganda in.

[tyr_13]

Originally Posted by Cain

Belief is proportioned to evidence.

That isn't what you're doing though; you weigh the statements of being against violence as stronger than all the other evidence. More on that below.

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We have something here that seems to approach certainty coupled with "Tim Pool posted a series of tweets calling for violence as well!" I did look at it. I'm reminded that Tim Pool is the type of person who makes me regret knowing how to speak English (and some of your painfully tortured posts make me regret knowing how to read it). You mis-characterized his concern-trolling, which, if I recall correctly, started with him responding to "some [ahole] shot up a gay bar." You then played the association card. How many comms people does Boebert have in her office? She's the only one who manages her Twitter account?

Tim Pool literally said the shootings will continue until the grooming stops. We know what he means by grooming. You weigh his calling the shooter an ******* as more important to understanding his view of the violence more than his arguments identifying the violence as reasonable because...why? He's one step away from 'great place you've got here, be a shame if it got shot up again'.

Your infantilizing removing of agency from these people isn't, in any way, consistent with some deeper understanding of their motives. It's just a handwave. 'Oh she doesn't know she's advocating violence by agreeing that the violence is reasonable and it probably wasn't even her.' Naw, she is still responsible for those agreements. It's her association (I'm focusing on LB but this applies to the other people cited as well). Do you know if she even has someone else managing her twitter? Hypothetical handwaves are the best!

His use of 'concern trolling' isn't inconsistent with being fine with, and even endorsing, violence. All you've done is assert he's not. This is consistent with your refusal to see the violence being endorsed by others because they put in a, often feeble, disclaimer.

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I could believe that Trump did not want violence. Trump wanted to continue to be president, and he would have been thrilled with a non-violent series of events that produced such an outcome. Ultimately, it does not matter what he believed; violence occurred, and he failed to defend the Capitol building. Focus on what can be demonstrated. In this case, a dereliction of duty.

This is set seeking. You object to people describing their motives one way, and to support this you move the set to one where the motives don't matter. Trump's motives are not a defense of actions, but likewise the actions don't speak against his motives. The motives don't matter for holding his actions to account, but they definitely do with how to deal with his movement.

And this is even more ridiculous when one tries to apply this standard broadly and finds that it means that many, even most, people who were murderous can't be described so because their murderous ways were in service to another goal. It would be equally accurate to say that a wife who hired a hitman to kill her husband was not murderous because she would have been happy to get the insurance money another way.

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If we're talking about the present day, then I'd be inclined to believe that the person has racist motivations because they must contend with over 70 years of history. If we're seriously talking about this as a policy, then a person's motivation is a fallacy of irrelevance. It does not matter if they harbor racist or non-racist motivations, the policy is what it is. Similarly...



It does not matter what they harbor homicidal motivations because they advocate policies that restrict people from engaging in areas of life that are deeply personal and meaningful. Calling someone murderous might play well on one's own side, but in the realm of pure reason, it's a losing non-argument. In the realm of politics, it can help rally the troops but produces a lot of dumb culture war negative externalities.

If you want to understand why these people act as they do then you have to understand their embrace of violence. That it makes them look horrible is not, in any way, a reason to doubt the truth of it. You're not operating in the realm of reason, pure or even diluted, to triangulate the truth of a statement based at all in 'how it plays'. That's just 'reasonability theater'.

You've closed off being reasonable in order to seem reasonable.

[tyr_13]

For those who are curious, part of the Libs of TikTok lies were indeed fake captions to a Boston Children's Hospital video. There are several articles on it from places like The Washington Post, but here is a free article from USA Today about it as well.

Boston's Children Hospital does not perform the claimed bottom surgeries on minors. To qualify for the ones Libs of TikTok claimed a person must be at least eighteen years of age, been living as their gender for more than a year, been on hormonal treatments for a like time (meaning they must have socially and medically transitioned already), and have three letters signed by medical professionals who have been treating them. It is an incredibly high bar, and so no, Boston Children's Hospital is not just cutting children's genitals off or out. Obviously.

[Stacyhs]

Originally Posted by tyr_13

For those who are curious, part of the Libs of TikTok lies were indeed fake captions to a Boston Children's Hospital video. There are several articles on it from places like The Washington Post, but here is a free article from USA Today about it as well.

Boston's Children Hospital does not perform the claimed bottom surgeries on minors. To qualify for the ones Libs of TikTok claimed a person must be at least eighteen years of age, been living as their gender for more than a year, been on hormonal treatments for a like time (meaning they must have socially and medically transitioned already), and have three letters signed by medical professionals who have been treating them. It is an incredibly high bar, and so no, Boston Children's Hospital is not just cutting children's genitals off or out. Obviously.

Somehow....just somehow...this isn't surprising at all.

[kookbreaker]

Originally Posted by tyr_13

For those who are curious, part of the Libs of TikTok lies were indeed fake captions to a Boston Children's Hospital video. There are several articles on it from places like The Washington Post, but here is a free article from USA Today about it as well.

Boston's Children Hospital does not perform the claimed bottom surgeries on minors. To qualify for the ones Libs of TikTok claimed a person must be at least eighteen years of age, been living as their gender for more than a year, been on hormonal treatments for a like time (meaning they must have socially and medically transitioned already), and have three letters signed by medical professionals who have been treating them. It is an incredibly high bar, and so no, Boston Children's Hospital is not just cutting children's genitals off or out. Obviously.

Thanks for the info. I knew that post was mostly stuff taken grossly out of context but the BCH stuff I didn’t know about. No surprise, I don’t think Libs of TikTok has ever told the truth about anything,

[smartcooky]

Originally Posted by Cain

She's the only one who manages her Twitter account?

This is irrelevant. She alone is responsible for EVERYTHING posted on her Twitter account, indeed, anything said or written anywhere in her name by her staff. That is what comes with the territory. If a staff member makes a blunder such as invoking violence in her name, she should immediately distance herself from such a comment, and give the staffer the DCM.

If the sort of violence-endorsing, anti-gay, anti trans, anti-Semitic, racist crap she, Taylor-Greene, Madison Cawthorn, et al, spout, had been posted to Social media by a NZ government politician, that politician would have had their resignation demanded by the Prime Minister forthwith, and if they refused to resign, their party leadership would eject them from the party.

[mgidm86]

Originally Posted by smartcooky

This is irrelevant. She alone is responsible for EVERYTHING posted on her Twitter account, indeed, anything said or written anywhere in her name by her staff. That is what comes with the territory. If a staff member makes a blunder such as invoking violence in her name, she should immediately distance herself from such a comment, and give the staffer the DCM.

If the sort of violence-endorsing, anti-gay, anti trans, anti-Semitic, racist crap she, Taylor-Greene, Madison Cawthorn, et al, spout, had been posted to Social media by a NZ government politician, that politician would have had their resignation demanded by the Prime Minister forthwith, and if they refused to resign, their party leadership would eject them from the party.

It's an outrage that we have little recourse. The party has some but there are too many of them who like what she says apparently. A 2/3 house vote would get her removed.

But they won't because the Republicans don't want to admit they were wrong. They feel that doing so would be caving to the Dems. Haha ya it's ludicrous.

This whole thing is very stressful for me. It's traumatizing seeing how stupid and evil so many of my fellow citizens are, and not just the ones in control.

How is it we even have a Republican party still? They are against everything that America stands for, like everything! A second party that is at all sensible would be such a relief. It's like a sizeable portion of our country is Russia. The divide is ******* insane.

Thanks FOX News! If any media are the "enemy of the people" it is them.

[The Don]

Originally Posted by mgidm86

How is it we even have a Republican party still? They are against everything that America stands for, like everything! A second party that is at all sensible would be such a relief. It's like a sizeable portion of our country is Russia. The divide is ******* insane.

Thanks FOX News! If any media are the "enemy of the people" it is them.

You still have a Republican Party because they really do represent the views of 30%-40% of the US electorate. FOXNews has had a significant role in developing those view and/or enabling people to feel confident about expressing them but when you have a significant minority of people (and elected representatives at a national level) believing in young Earth creationism, IMO there are major issues with education and/or critical thinking.

When religious fundamentalism gets a firm grip of a legislature, whichever religion that is, then education, science and knowledge go out of the window.

[smartcooky]

https://abcnews.go.com/US/3-militia-...ry?id=95361769

Three members of a militia group who were convicted of several crimes in relation to a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer were given yearslong prison sentences Thursday.


Pete Musico, 44 - minimum 12 years.
Joseph Morrison, 28 -minimum 10 years.
Paul Bellar, 23 - minimum 7 years.

The plot leaders, Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr. were convicted in federal court of the most serious charges and will be sentenced on Dec. 27 and Dec. 28, respectively.

Bloody good. At last, some severe consequences for being a racist, anti-democracy douchebag.

[Stacyhs]

They got exactly what they deserved.

[bruto]

Originally Posted by Stacyhs

They got exactly what they deserved.

Quite so. It's not illegal to be a racist, antidemocratic douchebag, of course, some of our best friends are...well, whatever. But I cannot imagine how anyone, from the flighty mush-headed stragglers of the new left to the gun-toting right-wing yahoos, could make a case for kidnapping a governor. No excuse there. Lock-em up.

[smartcooky]

Originally Posted by bruto

Quite so. It's not illegal to be a racist, antidemocratic douchebag, of course...

No disgreement there. All racist, antidemocratic douchebags would commit this kind of crime, but all people that would commit this crime are racist, antidemocratic douchebags.

[mgidm86]

Originally Posted by The Don

You still have a Republican Party because they really do represent the views of 30%-40% of the US electorate. FOXNews has had a significant role in developing those view and/or enabling people to feel confident about expressing them but when you have a significant minority of people (and elected representatives at a national level) believing in young Earth creationism, IMO there are major issues with education and/or critical thinking.

When religious fundamentalism gets a firm grip of a legislature, whichever religion that is, then education, science and knowledge go out of the window.

I will just add that a lot of the views they hold are based on complete fantasy (including religion). They may not have developed those views without FOX and the Republican hate machine, especially in more recent years.

I saw the light finally...the Republican lies, FOX. I just had to open my eyes. I changed my mind on so many things. My views were largely based on lies and fear.

But I also have learned over the last 19.5 years here that I cannot ignore facts that are inconvenient. But even then it was tough to break my political bias.

Accepting the truth changed my mind. Being anti-abortion is one thing, believing lies that are constantly fed to you can be remedied. Maybe **** I dunno LOL

[Trebuchet]

Originally Posted by smartcooky

https://abcnews.go.com/US/3-militia-...ry?id=95361769

Three members of a militia group who were convicted of several crimes in relation to a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer were given yearslong prison sentences Thursday.


Pete Musico, 44 - minimum 12 years.
Joseph Morrison, 28 -minimum 10 years.
Paul Bellar, 23 - minimum 7 years.

The plot leaders, Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr. were convicted in federal court of the most serious charges and will be sentenced on Dec. 27 and Dec. 28, respectively.

Bloody good. At last, some severe consequences for being a racist, anti-democracy douchebag.

They'll be the new leaders of skinhead prison gangs. For about a week, when the skinheads realize what losers they are.

[Darat]

Originally Posted by bruto

Quite so. It's not illegal to be a racist, antidemocratic douchebag, of course, some of our best friends are...well, whatever. But I cannot imagine how anyone, from the flighty mush-headed stragglers of the new left to the gun-toting right-wing yahoos, could make a case for kidnapping a governor. No excuse there. Lock-em up.

When an ex-POTUS has campaigned on "lock her up" and "2nd amendment solution" it really isn't as far out there as it should be.

[Warp12]

Originally Posted by bruto

Quite so. It's not illegal to be a racist, antidemocratic douchebag, of course, some of our best friends are...well, whatever. But I cannot imagine how anyone, from the flighty mush-headed stragglers of the new left to the gun-toting right-wing yahoos, could make a case for kidnapping a governor. No excuse there. Lock-em up.

I agree with this 100%. Extremes of any ideology typically do not lead to good.

[mgidm86]

Originally Posted by smartcooky

https://abcnews.go.com/US/3-militia-...ry?id=95361769

Three members of a militia group who were convicted of several crimes in relation to a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer were given yearslong prison sentences Thursday.


Pete Musico, 44 - minimum 12 years.
Joseph Morrison, 28 -minimum 10 years.
Paul Bellar, 23 - minimum 7 years.

The plot leaders, Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr. were convicted in federal court of the most serious charges and will be sentenced on Dec. 27 and Dec. 28, respectively.

Bloody good. At last, some severe consequences for being a racist, anti-democracy douchebag.

I thought these guys were let off the hook due to supposed FBI entrapment? Am I thinking of another case?