FBI improperly used 702 surveillance powers on US senator

It's very common in both alternative/anti-idpol left wing (stuidpol/Redscare) and contrarian/non-MAGA right wing subreddits.

He provided one of the best and most relevant-to-today critiques of the progressive virtue-signalling strain of American liberalism that's very popular today.

> What specifically from him do you like the most?

These three parts in Chapter 1 always stuck in my head:

- THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MODERN LEFTISM - FEELINGS OF INFERIORITY - OVERSOCIALIZATION

Copied the first 2 below:

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THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MODERN LEFTISM

6. Almost everyone will agree that we live in a deeply troubled society. One of the most widespread manifestations of the craziness of our world is leftism, so a discussion of the psychology of leftism can serve as an introduction to the discussion of the problems of modern society in general.

7. But what is leftism? During the first half of the 20th century leftism could have been practically identified with socialism. Today the movement is fragmented and it is not clear who can properly be called a leftist. When we speak of leftists in this article we have in mind mainly socialists, collectivists, “politically correct” types, feminists, gay and disability activists, animal rights activists and the like. But not everyone who is associated with one of these movements is a leftist. What we are trying to get at in discussing leftism is not so much movement or an ideology as a psychological type, or rather a collection of related types. Thus, what we mean by “leftism” will emerge more clearly in the course of our discussion of leftist psychology. (Also, see paragraphs 227-230.)

8. Even so, our conception of leftism will remain a good deal less clear than we would wish, but there doesn’t seem to be any remedy for this. All we are trying to do here is indicate in a rough and approximate way the two psychological tendencies that we believe are the main driving force of modern leftism. We by no means claim to be telling the WHOLE truth about leftist psychology. Also, our discussion is meant to apply to modern leftism only. We leave open the question of the extent to which our discussion could be applied to the leftists of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

9. The two psychological tendencies that underlie modern leftism we call “feelings of inferiority” and “oversocialization.” Feelings of inferiority are characteristic of modern leftism as a whole, while oversocialization is characteristic only of a certain segment of modern leftism; but this segment is highly influential.

FEELINGS OF INFERIORITY

10. By “feelings of inferiority” we mean not only inferiority feelings in the strict sense but a whole spectrum of related traits; low self-esteem, feelings of powerlessness, depressive tendencies, defeatism, guilt, self- hatred, etc. We argue that modern leftists tend to have some such feelings (possibly more or less repressed) and that these feelings are decisive in determining the direction of modern leftism.

11. When someone interprets as derogatory almost anything that is said about him (or about groups with whom he identifies) we conclude that he has inferiority feelings or low self-esteem. This tendency is pronounced among minority rights activists, whether or not they belong to the minority groups whose rights they defend. They are hypersensitive about the words used to designate minorities and about anything that is said concerning minorities. The terms “negro,” “oriental,” “handicapped” or “chick” for an African, an Asian, a disabled person or a woman originally had no derogatory connotation. “Broad” and “chick” were merely the feminine equivalents of “guy,” “dude” or “fellow.” The negative connotations have been attached to these terms by the activists themselves. Some animal rights activists have gone so far as to reject the word “pet” and insist on its replacement by “animal companion.” Leftish anthropologists go to great lengths to avoid saying anything about primitive peoples that could conceivably be interpreted as negative. They want to replace the world “primitive” by “nonliterate.” They seem almost paranoid about anything that might suggest that any primitive culture is inferior to our own. (We do not mean to imply that primitive cultures ARE inferior to ours. We merely point out the hypersensitivity of leftish anthropologists.)

12. Those who are most sensitive about “politically incorrect” terminology are not the average black ghetto- dweller, Asian immigrant, abused woman or disabled person, but a minority of activists, many of whom do not even belong to any “oppressed” group but come from privileged strata of society. Political correctness has its stronghold among university professors, who have secure employment with comfortable salaries, and the majority of whom are heterosexual white males from middle- to upper-middle-class families.

13. Many leftists have an intense identification with the problems of groups that have an image of being weak (women), defeated (American Indians), repellent (homosexuals) or otherwise inferior. The leftists themselves feel that these groups are inferior. They would never admit to themselves that they have such feelings, but it is precisely because they do see these groups as inferior that they identify with their problems. (We do not mean to suggest that women, Indians, etc. ARE inferior; we are only making a point about leftist psychology.)

14. Feminists are desperately anxious to prove that women are as strong and as capable as men. Clearly they are nagged by a fear that women may NOT be as strong and as capable as men.

15. Leftists tend to hate anything that has an image of being strong, good and successful. They hate America, they hate Western civilization, they hate white males, they hate rationality. The reasons that leftists give for hating the West, etc. clearly do not correspond with their real motives. They SAY they hate the West because it is warlike, imperialistic, sexist, ethnocentric and so forth, but where these same faults appear in socialist countries or in primitive cultures, the leftist finds excuses for them, or at best he GRUDGINGLY admits that they exist; whereas he ENTHUSIASTICALLY points out (and often greatly exaggerates) these faults where they appear in Western civilization. Thus it is clear that these faults are not the leftist’s real motive for hating America and the West. He hates America and the West because they are strong and successful.

16. Words like “self-confidence,” “self-reliance,” “initiative,” “enterprise,” “optimism,” etc., play little role in the liberal and leftist vocabulary. The leftist is anti-individualistic, pro-collectivist. He wants society to solve everyone’s problems for them, satisfy everyone’s needs for them, take care of them. He is not the sort of person who has an inner sense of confidence in his ability to solve his own problems and satisfy his own needs. The leftist is antagonistic to the concept of competition because, deep inside, he feels like a loser.

17. Art forms that appeal to modern leftish intellectuals tend to focus on sordidness, defeat and despair, or else they take an orgiastic tone, throwing off rational control as if there were no hope of accomplishing anything through rational calculation and all that was left was to immerse oneself in the sensations of the moment.

18. Modern leftish philosophers tend to dismiss reason, science, objective reality and to insist that everything is culturally relative. It is true that one can ask serious questions about the foundations of scientific knowledge and about how, if at all, the concept of objective reality can be defined. But it is obvious that modern leftish philosophers are not simply cool-headed logicians systematically analyzing the foundations of knowledge. They are deeply involved emotionally in their attack on truth and reality. They attack these concepts because of their own psychological needs. For one thing, their attack is an outlet for hostility, and, to the extent that it is successful, it satisfies the drive for power. More importantly, the leftist hates science and rationality because they classify certain beliefs as true (i.e., successful, superior) and other beliefs as false (i.e., failed, inferior). The leftist’s feelings of inferiority run so deep that he cannot tolerate any classification of some things as successful or superior and other things as failed or inferior. This also underlies the rejection by many leftists of the concept of mental illness and of the utility of IQ tests. Leftists are antagonistic to genetic explanations of human abilities or behavior because such explanations tend to make some persons appear superior or inferior to others. Leftists prefer to give society the credit or blame for an individual’s ability or lack of it. Thus if a person is “inferior” it is not his fault, but society’s, because he has not been brought up properly.

19. The leftist is not typically the kind of person whose feelings of inferiority make him a braggart, an egotist, a bully, a self-promoter, a ruthless competitor. This kind of person has not wholly lost faith in himself. He has a deficit in his sense of power and self-worth, but he can still conceive of himself as having the capacity to be strong, and his efforts to make himself strong produce his unpleasant behavior. [1] But the leftist is too far gone for that. His feelings of inferiority are so ingrained that he cannot conceive of himself as individually strong and valuable. Hence the collectivism of the leftist. He can feel strong only as a member of a large organization or a mass movement with which he identifies himself.

20. Notice the masochistic tendency of leftist tactics. Leftists protest by lying down in front of vehicles, they intentionally provoke police or racists to abuse them, etc. These tactics may often be effective, but many leftists use them not as a means to an end but because they PREFER masochistic tactics. Self-hatred is a leftist trait.

21. Leftists may claim that their activism is motivated by compassion or by moral principles, and moral principle does play a role for the leftist of the oversocialized type. But compassion and moral principle cannot be the main motives for leftist activism. Hostility is too prominent a component of leftist behavior; so is the drive for power. Moreover, much leftist behavior is not rationally calculated to be of benefit to the people whom the leftists claim to be trying to help. For example, if one believes that affirmative action is good for black people, does it make sense to demand affirmative action in hostile or dogmatic terms? Obviously it would be more productive to take a diplomatic and conciliatory approach that would make at least verbal and symbolic concessions to white people who think that affirmative action discriminates against them. But leftist activists do not take such an approach because it would not satisfy their emotional needs. Helping black people is not their real goal. Instead, race problems serve as an excuse for them to express their own hostility and frustrated need for power. In doing so they actually harm black people, because the activists’ hostile attitude toward the white majority tends to intensify race hatred.

22. If our society had no social problems at all, the leftists would have to INVENT problems in order to provide themselves with an excuse for making a fuss.

23. We emphasize that the foregoing does not pretend to be an accurate description of everyone who might be considered a leftist. It is only a rough indication of a general tendency of leftism.

https://www.josharcher.uk/static/files/2018/01/Industrial_So...

Even in Communism there is class division (if not more). Powerful people find ways.

Perhaps we conscript our leaders via some random process?

I think that ship has sailed.

> Only the wealthy can afford to just take a 4-6 year break from their career.

Many elected political offices get paid a reasonably good salary, higher than median wages. Many people change careers after 5 or 10 years too. Even the commoners. So I'm don't buy this assertion.

Poor people spend MOST of their income on their primary residence, food, utilities, and a couple other staples. You could simply eliminate taxes associated withe residences under X amount, taxes on staple foods, residential utility bills under a certain amount, etc. At that point, poor people would be paying few taxes while rich people would be forced to pay for all the things that make it worth being rich.

Yep, 100%

How do you know that in order to make the claim?

Here is a list: https://www.axios.com/2019/11/15/trump-associates-convicted-...

The most serious was Manafort, and it was related to his previous work in Ukraine, before he was hired by the Trump campaign. Cohen was convicted for fraud and campaign finance violations, and then Papadopoulos, Flynn, and Gates were convicted of lying to law enforcement and got slaps on the wrist.

The Mueller investigation was a complete flop, and to top it all off they deleted their own cellphone records in potential violation of federal record keeping laws.

https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/doj-foia-...

Because you haven't answered the question as to why the Durham report was needed at all given the DOJ IG was doing his job. In fact, we know Durham was full of shit because he ended up with nothing except some whining. Everything concrete thing he found was already found by Horrowitz. So he was redundant there.

Where Durham was not redundant was in his "speaking indictments" which didn't actually result in a single conviction, but instead just speculated wildly outside of both fact and the law, but existed within court documents, so the patina of legitimacy was applied. But again, Durham never proved anything. We also know he's full of shit because in his final report, he tried to relitigate the cases he actually already had lost in court. Very unprofessional, worst SC since Starr. Just a lot of whining and complaining over nothing.

Trump incited Jan 6 and he will be imprisoned for it.

Trump stole national secrets and he will be imprisoned for that too.

Trump attempted to rig Georgia's election and he will be imprisoned for that as well.

Trump also, on top of all of that, colluded with the Russians in the 2016 campaign, and he will not go to jail for that, for it isn't a crime. But he did it, the Mueller report and Senate Intel Committee report proves it, and the Durham report failed to find improper predicate.

This is completely in the face of Trump-world lore, where Obama illegally spied on Trump, and the Clinton campaign caused the FBI to start a "witch hunt" investigation. No. It was found the Trump campaign colluded, and he was investigated because he did the thing. The investigation was not found to be improper by Horrowitz, fire was found where there was smoke.

And let's say you are correct, that there was "political bias" in opening the investigation. Does that mean instead, we should have just let Trump's collusion with Russia go uninvestigated? Meeting with foreign spies promising relaxed relations in return for dirt on your opponent? Turning over campaign data to the Russian GRU while they are waging a psyops campaign against Americans?

My god, might as well just invite the Russians into the oval office and just hand them them classified information. Oh wait, he did that too.

Come back to me once he's convicted and tell me again how the FBI shouldn't have investigated him. He's a career criminal and a psychopath. Also known as a fascist, and he should be nowhere near the presidency ever again. We should all be politically biased against such a person.

And if there were such clear political bias, how do we explain the repeated decisions by the Director to make public spectacles and admonishments of Clinton regarding the investigation into her handling of email?

yeah, for example I googled and found that corp tax dropped from 33 to 25 in last five years, so they literally took money from employees and gave to employers.

But trivial change could be to make pensions base on retirement age: someone can retire at 62, but get smaller pension, and another could retire at 78 but get much larger pension, plus have pension base on contribution.

this is false statement. Corp tax usually applied on profit after wages paid, thus doesn't impact cost of work.

There is no significant retirement fund in France's main pension scheme.

Because a significant effect is imparted by childhood deaths to the average life expectancy, especially for men, and those individuals never contribute to any pension fund nor taxes.

That has a massive impact on the results of the calculations.

actually this sounds reasonable, and Western countries obviously pay already through various programs.

If they have business interests in Africa, absolutely.

The world's biggest corporations are profiting massively from having access to the French market. But that access is not a given, it is being granted by the French people, and can be taken away at any time for any reason the French people consider valid.

2) Large companies either go bankrupt or leave the country

3) The economy is completely wrecked

4) Venezuela

All of these problems are due to population collapse, due to incredibly low birthrates.

Canada is choosing another method, with current targets of 500k/year, and talk of even higher numbers:

https://globalnews.ca/news/9836414/canada-immigration-aging-...

With 40M people, that's more than a 1% per year. And note, those are immigrants, not refugees, or other classes of new Canadians.

Just the housing and infrastructure needs alone, and initial support, as well as dealing with validation -> full citizenship is mind bogglng.

But beyond that, I believe it is too fast as a culture shift. I want new blood, new ideas, but I also want the ideals of a hoghly democratic nation, its openness to newcomers, its tolerance to not be lost in a voice of newness.

EG, I want newcomer input, but I don't want it to drown out what's here.

But that's how worrisome the population graph is. There are not enough young people to take care of the old, the old who have worked their entire lives, building what is around us, and paying for tgeir elders to retire, a social contract that is vital.

So we know we are doing a risky thing, as all fast change is risky.

But we must, or... what?

France chose another path. I can't say it is right or wrong.

But ... if nothing is done, it won't be good.

The stupid part is, everyone is dealing with this. China, Russia, the entire West, we all knew. We all knew the numbers, all of us, decades ago.

But we waited. For example, Canada could have ramped up immigration a decade ago, thus softening the social impact.

Most of the value produced by workers goes into the pockets of corporate overlords. For their bosses and managers, for the shareholders, and for the landlords of the corporate mafia who take in 30-70% of working people's income. By your own logic, abolish corporate profits and for-profit housing, and let every worker enjoy huge benefits and retirement.

> Now that the situation is not the same, it means each pensioner will get a little less.

This is not wrong. But it's entirely due to Macron reforming the pension system with a "point" system. Without such reform, pensioners would continue to get just as much money, adjusted for inflation.

Because wealth is immensely concentrated. There isn't nearly as much money in everyday individual bank accounts as in those of ultrawealthy individuals and corporates; and the trend since the 80s is for this to accelerate.

> Still peanuts comparing to the "global" economy or a country needs (in terms of pension or health). Also a significant portion of this wealth is paper money that will take a significant hit at sale.

> In 2017, Apple's cash reserves were $250 billion. That's just a single company, hoarding reserves that could clear the national debt of most countries. Think about that for a second.

> Why not then, dip into your bank account? By this logic, there are trillion of $$ in bank accounts all around the world. That's a lot of money.

Well they mentioned Apple's cash reserves that's traditionally easily accessible funds that do not take a significant hit at sale (although the number I read is $55 Billion), but if we talking about Apple's cash and cash equivalents, that was $20,535. That money would fix quite a few economies (and pension funds).

I'm not sure why you bring up peoples bank accounts. They were specifically talking about the worlds richest people and companies, you're average Joe doesn't count. The whole argument is that many economies are in this mess because the super-rich companies and individuals have not been paying their fair share of taxes (as sufficiently document by e.g. the Panama papers etc.).

My bank account is dipped into. It's called "tax". I pay it at a considerably higher rate than Apple does. Does that seem fair?

The government does it every time when it prints money. Note that with cryptocurrency or golden money that would become impossible. Maybe that is why government set up obstacles for buying gold or cryptocurrency.

> Usage of the term "aisle" comes from the United States Congress. In the Senate, desks are arranged in the chamber in a semicircular pattern and the desks are divided by a wide central aisle. By tradition, Democrats sit on the right of the center aisle (as viewed from the presiding officer's chair) while Republicans sit on the left.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aisle_(political_term)

I don't disagree, but by this standard i don't know any country that is governed by rule of law. France and USA are very famous for high-profile corruption and criminal cases in which politicians/cops/CEOs are either not found guilty (of proven crimes) or somehow never end up in jail despite being convicted (such as in the Balkany case).

As the cynical saying goes, make one crime for a million dollars, end up in jail. Setup a corporation that does thousands of crimes for billions of dollars, get rich.

However, it's important to note that the equation cannot be equated to euros and jobs. As i previously mentioned, due to the increase in productivity in the past centuries, it's now possible to feed and house the entire population with lesser people working these fields. If a government wanted to find a solution, they would at least study the emergence of bullshit jobs, what jobs are actually "essential" (as they said during COVID lockdowns) and how to better share the actual workload and benefits across society.

Second, because as they say, the government is supposed to bring the pension funds to balance... The same austerity government, who by destroying public service is defunding the pension system (p.5 synthesis): « It is a paradox that the austerity measures on public servants will negatively affect the balance of the pension system ».

> Regarding blue collar manual labour, that's why there's adjustments for such work (it counts more enabling faster retirement)

This is close to non-existent lately. Macron in his working law reform (2016) and pension reform (2023) made it much harder for work hardship to be recognized.

> unions and populist political parties flat out rejecting a reform and calling for bringing down the age of retirement. It made compromise impossible.

Well of course they did just that. We need to work less, not more. The government makes compromise impossible by repeatedly fucking over the poor and giving to the rich (taking from housing aids APL the same month they remove ISF tax on the rich). Then they send riot cops, imprison many and maim countless others. In the early 20th century it was common for workers to be killed by the boss or the government during a strike, so the workers gathered guns and dynamite... we are slowly moving back to this era.

> The amount and quality of labour that goes into providing all needs and amenities of modern life is much higher than before.

This is a non-argument. The "amenities of modern life" are provided by slave labor, mostly from Africa and Asia. Half of people who work in Europe are producing nothing of value to anyone. And those who try to find meaning in their work are prevented by the bureaucrats. I recommend reading David Graeber's Bullshit Jobs, and watching his talk from CCC called Managerial feudalism and the revolt of the caring classes.

> Where am I doing that, and what does a pension reform have to do with that? France is already one of the countries with the highest tax burdens for the well-off.

Well you're doing it right here in the next sentence. The rich have it super easy around here. To quote a friend of mine, who's only middle class, « we should pay more taxes ». And she's not even super rich! There's so many ways for the super rich and the powerful to escape any justice in France... Most multinationals do not pay any taxes, while well-known fortunes pay a very small amount due to various montages (see LuxLeaks/BahamasLeaks & others).

And that has to do with poor people breaking their backs producing the wealth of this country, making food and cleaning spaces and working the factories and building infrastructure... and the rich doing absolutely nothing but enjoying life. We french people have a tradition of chopping heads, the rich better start sharing soon or the guillotine will be put back up. Pensions are historically one part of the social contract that convinced people after WWII to stop hanging and chopping heads.

EDIT: Sorry my message was very impersonal. You should ask yourself: are you a billionaire with dozens of empty villas? If not, why defend a fascist government who's only concerned about the rich? There's good chances you are on the side of those who have everything to win and little to lose, but have been convinced otherwise by school and the media.

What's the point of democracy if you don't let people decide anything? (also what's the point of having a Parliament that doesn't decide anything). If people don't want to work, then lower the pensions to realistic figures.

From the linked Wikipedia page: "Historians have suggested since the 1980s that as McCarthy's involvement was less central than that of others, a different and more accurate term should be used instead that more accurately conveys the breadth of the phenomenon, and that the term McCarthyism is now outdated. Ellen Schrecker has suggested that Hooverism after FBI Head J. Edgar Hoover is more appropriate."