I notice that Democrats aren't forming white supremacist militias, plotting to kidnap state governors, attacking Congress specifically to overturn the results of a national election, etc.
Remember when Hillary's mentor (Mr. Byrd) was a former KKK Grand Dragon (and Democrat Senator)? Or when that democrat attempted to assassinate a dozen Republican lawmakers on a baseball field? How about the one who killed five cops in Dallas? Or the ones who engaged in (or cheered on) the 2020 riots that did billions of dollars in damage (including a months-long attack on a Federal courthouse in Portland, complete with firebombing!)?
All of this finger pointing bullshit is a distraction, intended to scare stupid people to the polls.
Not to excuse his actions at earlier times in his life, but by the time he was a “mentor” to Hillary Clinton he had renounced racism and and segregation and was the longest serving member in the US senate and an expert on its procedures.
Pointing out that the Democratic Party was full of southern segregationists in the early 20th century is pure laziness.
Additionally, the federal courthouse wasn’t “firebombed” some groups broke in and set fires. It was violent and destructive but you’re vastly exaggerating the scale.
Remember the accusations of racism that were used to shut down the lab leak theory? Or the demands to censor scientists with any dissenting viewpoints over Covid? The cover up of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal that resulted in journalists from the Post being banned?
The "war on disinformation" their obsessed with is not any different from a "war on fake news". Censorship is a tool of cowards and there are plenty of cowards in both parties that will use it to shut down any dissenting view points.
Letting them scape-goat and demonize unchecked doesn't help anything either.
For instance - I disagree with you on the lab leak theory and laptop comments. I understand you feel about them strongly, but I think you are smart and should reconsider the source material for those claims. Further, I feel the way you expressed it was regrettable: "blood on their hands" is unnecessary and inaccurate. You could have phrased that in ways that were more accurate, more effective, and less inflammatory.
Everyone is literally less intelligent, less capable of rational decision making, and more susceptible to manipulation when they are angry. I have certainly been guilty of this before, and I am just trying to share some of what I have learned.
One final comment: one thing that all social media including HN could do is remove user-visible up and downvotes. It engages the brain in a similar way to gambling (https://www.brainfacts.org/diseases-and-disorders/addiction/...) and creates self-reinforcing conflict that can be exploited.
Notice what you're doing though. The information content of this is effectively the polite version of "stop being mad and wrong, go read a book."
It contains no actual rebuttal of anything. You present no new facts or reasoning, only an assertion that you disagree which was already implied.
That is correct and intentional. My core point is that everyone can benefit changing how we disagree and when we choose to disagree. In what you quoted, I was just trying to make the point less abstract with a concrete example. I wasn't trying to be persuasive or reach some sort of resolution. I could have been more effective, thank you.
I don't see how pointing how both parties are guilty of engaging in censorship is wrong. I am advocating for the position that censorship is a tool used unfairly by both parties when they are given the chance, I don't like conservatives or republicans either for how they treated Edward Snowden and Juliane Assange.
Hunter Biden has gone on record saying that laptop might have been his.
Don't presume a persons sources without asking first. You strike me as a smart person as well and should check these sources out with an open mind before dismissing them.
Social media already has a big problem with filter bubbles. If you go to a place where 99% of people there are one party's partisans and try to rebut their misinformation, you get dogpiled. People insult you and sling baseless accusations of racism, which deters people from attempting to debate when they're highly outnumbered. So any place which has any partisan bias gets an even bigger one until everything is totally polarized.
Platform censorship makes it even worse because the platform's censors will be in one bubble or the other, their censorship decisions will be biased in that direction and push anyone on the other team onto other platforms and we end up with entirely partisan platforms that never talk to each other, and are thereby both highly misinformed about different sets of things.
The problem is that most are convinced that it’s all “fake news” and their preferred source is the “least fake”, all while getting pulled deeper down the rabbit hole.
I see the same dynamic with my teenage kids and the YouTubers /etc they watch on topics they’re interested in. They hear something, get overly excited about it, and then fixate/share/etc. I almost feel it’s a part time job to show enough interest to where they’ll talk about it so I can try and help build the reflex of distill out fact/assumption/inference, and reframe narrative to a set of possibilities that for facts. It’s actually been a challenge b/c often things sound stupid if I'm too reductionist and they shut down. But TBH usually sounds stupid b/c it is stupid manufactured drama that sells YouTube ads. Same dynamic whether some Roblox gamer drama, MLB lockout drama, or politics — all “news” eventually optimizes to maximize ad revenue, competing with creative entertainment for attention.
lol, Rise of the Moors super invested in universal healthcare and social safety nets now?
I'm going to go out on a limb and say supposed sovereign citizens aren't very active in local party politics.
Democrats encourage anarchist militias who openly advocate for violence and arson, try to de-legitimize election results through "Russia-Gate" conspiracies, openly cheered on the fire bombing and attacking of police officers and government buildings(court houses), spread misinformation about the Kyle Rittenhouse despite all expert legal analysis saying they were misinformed.
US intelligence confirmed that Russia tried to swing an election, so this isn't a "conspiracy." As for the rest of your points, those positions were never embraced by mainstream Democrats.
(FWIW I don't like trump but I still believe he would have won 2016 with or without Russia, its a cop out to blame Russia for that)
We literally had Democrat senators saying "rioting is the voice of the streets"(AOC), and calling Kyle Rittenhouse a domestic terrorist, whole portions of cities in democrat run cities were given to anarchist militias like in CHAZ and were flippantly calling these groups "peaceful" while they engaged in looting, arson, and attacking police officers.
The Democrats have the election as either a sham or the most secure election ever based on if their side won.
No, of course it isn't. But many people I know, myself included, are afraid to speak out against what we see as new forms of hate levied in their name. The CHAZ or the hijacking of this brutal war against Ukraine into a commentary on care only being bound to race or the evacuation of cisgendered women and men from their own bodies by way of language so that everyone is "just" a vagina-haver or penis-possessor are just a few examples of where I see these pushes become the very weapons of the forces its proponents profess to fight.
> Do you notice, how much people, who stand for those issues, get attacked in the public discussion?
As a liberal (or what was liberal 10 years ago), I mostly notice how much people who stand for these issues attack others who have a different opinion and try to silence them.
This is the first time I'm giving voice to some of these deeply unpopular opinions in the new liberal left spaces like HN, for which I fully expect to be downvoted and potentially flagged into oblivion.
I don't think the oft-violent rhetoric and deplatforming crusades of the new left is the right way of effecting positive change on the world.
Framing it this way is misleading. "push back" that entails violent, harmful and illegal behaviour maybe wrong with total irrelevance to what you are trying to achieve.
> Do you notice, how much people, who stand for those issues, get attacked in the public discussion?
No, I see the opposite, to the extend that extreme virtue-signalling on these topics is met with no opposition, because no-one wants to be labelled an *-ist.
Isn’t it an issue of framing? E.g. it appears that some think that the solution to racism appears to be implementing institutional racism indefinitely until racism is cured.
This is distracting from the real issue of class warfare which is what psyops relies on to divide prior arguing past each other.
Democrats think Republicans are evil racists for trying to shut down diversity mandates. Republicans think Democrats are evil racists for trying to impose diversity mandates. They both want to eliminate racism, but their worldviews cause conflict on how to do that.
There are some legitimate fundamental differences on LGBT rights, I'll admit. Not so much on LG, but as you get further into the abbreviation, it increases.
The thing is, those are all non-issues now, and have been for a while. The reason the MSM is known as fake news in the US, is that they keep trying to push these as current issues, even though they've been settled.
The Texas right-leaning lege just got through passing a bill that was designed to be hard to assail in the courts that hands out money for turning in anyone who assist someone in seeking an abortion, robbing people of their rights over their own bodily autonomy.
Florida gov't is trying to pass bills that prohibit talking about gender orientation and identity, racism, and equality in the workplace and classroom.
This isn't a "non-issue". This isn't "settled". We're still fighting for our rights and freedoms, and those of our children. I'll be damned if I'm gonna let some greedy nutjob politician deny my children (or anyone's children) the right to be who they are or want to be.
If they don't like gender transitioning, then they shouldn't transition, but don't tell me or mine that they can't!
“ He and his pals are flat-out pushing anti-trans agendas that accuse parents of children seeking gender-affirming treatment of child abuse.”
Isn’t this, by definition, a very debatable topic with pros and cons that have to be weighed. Where one comes down, I.e. their preference for policy on this, will be informed by their background and biases.
E.g. it isn’t entirely obvious that we should give minors, who legally can not consent to many activities, access to ethically untestable non-reversible treatments.
These issues are actually the purpose of politics. E.g. it is a feature of the system that there is debate on implementing the preferences of a democracy.
Studies show that gender-affirming treatments and care can reduce thoughts of suicide and self-harm.
No one is pushing these treatments on unwilling minors. To take away peoples' rights to these treatments is unconscionable. And to direct people to be charged or investigated for child abuse is even more so. It's just another point that puts people in fear of the authorities.
Honestly, you're voicing for support of the person you're responding to, here. These aren't "non-issues" as GGP claimed.
But, puberty blockers, the medical treatment under fire, aren't non-reversible.
By your argument chemotherapy is assassination by poison and setting a broken bone is assault.
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/florida-s-don-t-...
https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/judg...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-transgender-care-lawsuit-...
That's just not true.