Progressives Gone Wild

[Nick Danger]

Can't stop laughing after reading this article - https://www.politico.com/news/2021/1...ica-dnc-522864.

It's about our nation's most at-risk special needs demographic (progressive college students) and how they can't find a leader for their national political organization because they keep canceling the people who get elected. Over...wait for it...racist texts and social media posts from the past! It is HILARIOUS, I know you guys will enjoy it.

!

[broncofan]

I read the article but I have a brain so I have a different take than you.

One of the biggest problems with the Republican party is that they claim they merely want to avoid excessive offense over insensitive words yet they defend overt racism. Your party seems to make excuses for the kind of dehumanizing racism that gets people killed. If for instance Marjorie Taylor Greene were able to get her way would she kill Muslims? I'd have trouble arguing that she wouldn't. Would she kill Jews? If believing Jews were evil and should be harmed were a Republican dogma I believe she'd happily go along with it. Afterall, she thinks we control lasers from outer space.

Paul Gosar recently posted a meme that threatened the life of AOC. This isn't merely insensitive. It's a threat to civilized society.

In this article you linked, the girl in question clearly subscribed to a worldview where Jews are not to be trusted and are behind everything she doesn't like including Hillary Clinton's debate performance. She engages in a conversation with someone who says "God will kill the Jews" repeatedly and she says nothing. She was young enough that she can redeem herself but how normal is it to engage in conspiratorial antisemitism or talk about exterminating people? Shouldn't we take that seriously? Is it an excuse if she implies that kind of talk is common in North Africa? I don't think dehumanizing speech should be relativized or normalized.

I think you're going to have a lot of trouble convincing civilized people that it should be normal to threaten people (like Gosar) or call people subhuman or subscribe to a worldview where specific people are considered agents of any misfortune you suffer. Without question there is a problem holding people accountable for past words (particularly when they're teenagers). At what point have they changed? But Republicans really seem to have gotten to the point where they think present racism and threats of violence are okay.

[Nick Danger]

I read the article but I have a brain so I have a different take than you.

One of the biggest problems with the Republican party is that they claim they merely want to avoid excessive offense over insensitive words yet they defend overt racism. Your party seems to make excuses for the kind of dehumanizing racism that gets people killed. If for instance Marjorie Taylor Greene were able to get her way would she kill Muslims? I'd have trouble arguing that she wouldn't. Would she kill Jews? If believing Jews were evil and should be harmed were a Republican dogma I believe she'd happily go along with it. Afterall, she thinks we control lasers from outer space.

Paul Gosar recently posted a meme that threatened the life of AOC. This isn't merely insensitive. It's a threat to civilized society.

In this article you linked, the girl in question clearly subscribed to a worldview where Jews are not to be trusted and are behind everything she doesn't like including Hillary Clinton's debate performance. She engages in a conversation with someone who says "God will kill the Jews" repeatedly and she says nothing. She was young enough that she can redeem herself but how normal is it to engage in conspiratorial antisemitism or talk about exterminating people? Shouldn't we take that seriously? Is it an excuse if she implies that kind of talk is common in North Africa? I don't think dehumanizing speech should be relativized or normalized.

I think you're going to have a lot of trouble convincing civilized people that it should be normal to threaten people (like Gosar) or call people subhuman or subscribe to a worldview where specific people are considered agents of any misfortune you suffer. Without question there is a problem holding people accountable for past words (particularly when they're teenagers). At what point have they changed? But Republicans really seem to have gotten to the point where they think present racism and threats of violence are okay.

You're missing the humor of the story, Bronco. I mean you've got this antisemitic (big surprise) Muslim girl who's being asked to resign, which then results in accusations of "rampant anti-Muslim bigotry" and sexism against HER accusers. Woke-ism is eating itself and O.Henry couldn't have written the denouement any better.

It's interesting you should bring up racism and threats of violence, Bronco, because the Democrats are the race agitators in every situation. And they don't stop at mere threats of violence, they burn cities to the ground. Not really clear on what your point is here, Bronco, but it sounds suspiciously like the pot calling everything else in the kitchen black.

As for that Gosar video, not sure what to tell you. Haven't seen it, don't find the story particularly interesting, but I got the gist of it from the news. I don't think you've got a firm handle on exactly how badly Joe Biden is fucking up, Bronco. He won an election by the narrowest of margins behind veiled threats of Democrat thugs tearing the country to shreds, and he's treating it as a mandate to turn this nation into a welfare state. Or at least that's what his handlers are doing, I doubt Sleepy Joe even knows what state he's in from one hour to the next. I can't believe we actually have a senile old fool for a PRESIDENT now. Thanks, Big Tech.

Anyway, it's no surprise to me that people are calling for his head, and that of AOC, a literal moron with zero capacity for critical thinking, who is using her substantial platform to try to sell socialism to capitalists. "Fidel Castro with tits" probably would have been dragged through the streets by now if this were 60 years ago. Polish mercenary Rafal Ganowicz, when asked what it feels like to take a human life: "I wouldn't know, I've only ever killed communists."

I'll end this by extending to you the same invitation I extended to Stavros, Bronco. I invite you to give me one single example of actual systemic racism in this country. Just one. I'm waiting. It's a horseshit media narrative is all it is.

[broncofan]

It's not that I don't see any issue with anyone's actions in the article you linked but it's far better than just turning a blind eye to racism. I don't think I'd want to hold someone accountable for things they said when they're 13. At the same time I would have appreciated a better apology from her. I don't think her being Muslim caused her to say what she said anymore than MTG's whiteness caused her delusions about practically everyone and everything.

How is the bickering outlined in the article more worrisome than Republicans inciting violence against their fellow lawmakers? I also don't see a problem condemning Kathy Griffin but I will point out that she's not a lawmaker. If she were I bet you more than two Democrats would have voted to censure her. The problem with your party is that specific threats of violence against other lawmakers have been sanctioned by almost all Republicans in Congress.


If you're interested in systemic racism you should probably look at our criminal justice system. The death penalty is more likely to be used in cases where there was a white victim than a black victim even when you adjust for rates of victimization. The numbers are more egregious for outcomes in drug cases. If you think white people are equally likely to be prosecuted for minor drug offenses as black people you should probably be drug tested. I'd be happy to provide you more info on this in the next few days. But this is where I'd start. I also think our healthcare system probably would provide a good example as well of unequal treatment producing significantly different health outcomes.

[broncofan]

"Fidel Castro with tits" probably would have been dragged through the streets by now if this were 60 years ago. Polish mercenary Rafal Ganowicz, when asked what it feels like to take a human life: "I wouldn't know, I've only ever killed communists."

I don't know who this Polish mercenary is but I couldn't disagree more strongly. I have nothing in common with Communists and if someone told me they were a Communist I probably wouldn't trust their judgment on most things. I would not however think they should lose personhood status or don't deserve basic civil rights. I don't even think the Neo-Nazis from your party who stormed our capitol should be treated as subhuman or denied civil rights. There's no excuse for threatening AOC or anyone else ffs.

[filghy2]

So, is this wilder that a party in which criticism of Trump's big stolen election lie or the events of January 6 is now forbidden on pain of political death? Is is wilder than Republican congressional leaders grovelling to a man who abuses them and was indifferent to their safety on January 6? Is it wilder than claiming that a President can't be investigated even after he's left office, as if he was some absolute monarch? Is is wilder than all the Republican supporters who approve of the QAnon cult?

We know how this works. The more extreme the party you support becomes, the more you have to double down to try to convince yourself that the problems are really on the other side.

[Nick Danger]

It's not that I don't see any issue with anyone's actions in the article you linked but it's far better than just turning a blind eye to racism. I don't think I'd want to hold someone accountable for things they said when they're 13. At the same time I would have appreciated a better apology from her. I don't think her being Muslim caused her to say what she said anymore than MTG's whiteness caused her delusions about practically everyone and everything.

How is the bickering outlined in the article more worrisome than Republicans inciting violence against their fellow lawmakers? I also don't see a problem condemning Kathy Griffin but I will point out that she's not a lawmaker. If she were I bet you more than two Democrats would have voted to censure her. The problem with your party is that specific threats of violence against other lawmakers have been sanctioned by almost all Republicans in Congress.


If you're interested in systemic racism you should probably look at our criminal justice system. The death penalty is more likely to be used in cases where there was a white victim than a black victim even when you adjust for rates of victimization. The numbers are more egregious for outcomes in drug cases. If you think white people are equally likely to be prosecuted for minor drug offenses as black people you should probably be drug tested. I'd be happy to provide you more info on this in the next few days. But this is where I'd start. I also think our healthcare system probably would provide a good example as well of unequal treatment producing significantly different health outcomes.

The word "worrisome" as applied to all this political banter doesn't sit right with me. Was anyone ever really "worried" that Kathy Griffin was going to chop off Donald Trump's head? Is anyone worried that Paul Gosar is going to turn into some kind of anime avatar and wreak havoc on his political opposition? Kathy Griffin was blacklisted. Paul Gosar was censured. End of story, no heads rolled and no Transformers transformed. It's all just hyperbole, but of course with (my estimate) 90% of the American populace being too intellectually under-served to vote on relevant issues in real time, hyperbole is what we have now.

I'm genuinely curious, Bronco, about your opinion on the Arab-Jewish thing. Most Arabs are raised from birth hating Jews. And vice versa. It's a hatred that extends back thousands of years, to before progressivism, to before the Anno Domini calendar, before the Roman Empire, before the Egyptian empire, before 99% of recorded history. It's a much more intense hatred than black vs white, these two groups want each other dead, they want each other's children dead, they want their pets, their beasts of burden, their livestock, dead, dead, dead, their homes and crops burned, their lands ravaged. It's a hatred from the very core of being that burns with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns.

Whites want blacks to get their collective shit together, and blacks want whites to...well, I don't know, I came to an impasse there. But we manage to get along, overall, within the same society. Arabs and Jews can't even live across a river from each other without bombing the other side.

So how is this, uh, little problem going to fit into the progressive agenda? So far it's fitting in just fine, they simply don't talk about it. But suddenly you've got young Arabs and Jews in the same political organizations. These are not seasoned adults here, they haven't learned yet how to keep their hatreds hidden. Their agenda is ostensibly battling "racism," but meanwhile they are the absolute most adamant and unforgiving racists in the history of the planet. You think they're going to start getting along? You think they're going to bury the proverbial hatchet? Yeah, a lot of people have thought that for a long, long time.

Far as the criminal justice system, that's a legitimate debate. Are more blacks being punished by the system because they're black? Or are more blacks being punished by the system because they commit more crimes? Statistics say it's the latter. I tend to agree with you that blacks are more likely than whites to be executed by the death penalty. Most juries are mostly white. Why? Well, first of all, more people in the USA are white than black, by far. And secondly, in order to be called for jury duty, you have to be a taxpayer and a registered voter. In a mostly black city like Baltimore or Memphis you're going to get a mostly black jury. In a mostly white city you're going to get a mostly white jury. This is an "issue" that is easily questioned, but also easily explained.

And you know something, Bronco? I have personally been arrested for drugs several times in my youth. A few times for marijuana, once for cocaine, once for LSD. Simple possession, I was never a drug dealer. And I remember the penalties being quite harsh - time in jail, large fines, and years of probation. Hell, there was a (very white) judge named Turner in Sumner County TN who once told me that if I ever appeared in his court again he was going to throw the book at me; then he proceeded to read to me, verbatim, an entire chapter of Dick Nixon's War on Drugs propaganda from the early 70's regarding the harmful effects of marijuana. Luckily, by the time I did find myself in front of him again, he'd forgotten me.

My point is I never got a break for being white, and this was in the early 80's, an era when the "N" word had just recently gone out of fashion. Special treatment for whites by the criminal justice system is a myth. They do you based on what you did, it's not more complicated than that.

I don't know who this Polish mercenary is but I couldn't disagree more strongly. I have nothing in common with Communists and if someone told me they were a Communist I probably wouldn't trust their judgment on most things. I would not however think they should lose personhood status or don't deserve basic civil rights. I don't even think the Neo-Nazis from your party who stormed our capitol should be treated as subhuman or denied civil rights. There's no excuse for threatening AOC or anyone else ffs.

That Polish mercenary is nobody, just a guy who said one quote that was so awesome his name will live forever.

You know, Bronco, there is a very fundamental dissonance between capitalism and communism. They are essential opposite philosophies of government, and communism has proved to be the lesser form without question. The big problem with communism is that it's an easy sell to children. "Yes, everything SHOULD be distributed equally," thinks the inexperienced and idealistic mind of the person who has never confronted poverty or studied the USSR. That's why killing communists is so widely accepted. They're incorrigible, so killing them is in some cases the only legitimate choice to protect one's children from their damaging influence. We don't do it here in the USA because our nation is strong enough to make the case against socialism/communism to our children, as they grow up and contend with the reality of life on Planet Earth. For someone like AOC, a sheltered, upper middle-class, socialist-educated suburbanite who's never faced a real problem in her life, the day of reckoning will never come. She lives in a separate reality. But in a lesser nation they'd have simply burned her down long ago.

[Nick Danger]

So, is this wilder that a party in which criticism of Trump's big stolen election lie or the events of January 6 is now forbidden on pain of political death? Is is wilder than Republican congressional leaders grovelling to a man who abuses them and was indifferent to their safety on January 6? Is it wilder than claiming that a President can't be investigated even after he's left office, as if he was some absolute monarch? Is is wilder than all the Republican supporters who approve of the QAnon cult?

We know how this works. The more extreme the party you support becomes, the more you have to double down to try to convince yourself that the problems are really on the other side.

You know why Jan. 6 happened Flighty? Because people absolutely could not accept that their fellow countrymen were stupid enough to elect Joe Biden as President. Cognitive dissonance, it didn't seem viable. Now me, I accept the results of the election. I'm not even sure there wasn't some shady business there, but if the Democrats did rig that election, I respect that. All's fair in politics.

[Stavros]

It's not that I don't see any issue with anyone's actions in the article you linked but it's far better than just turning a blind eye to racism. I don't think I'd want to hold someone accountable for things they said when they're 13. At the same time I would have appreciated a better apology from her. I don't think her being Muslim caused her to say what she said anymore than MTG's whiteness caused her delusions about practically everyone and everything.

Student politics, Broncofan -loud, hysterical, temporary. Rather than respond to this drivel, suggest you focus on issues more worthy of your intellect.

[Laphroaig]

You know why Jan. 6 happened Flighty? Because people absolutely could not accept that their fellow countrymen were stupid enough to elect Joe Biden as President. Cognitive dissonance, it didn't seem viable. Now me, I accept the results of the election. I'm not even sure there wasn't some shady business there, but if the Democrats did rig that election, I respect that. All's fair in politics.

Correction, Jan 6th happened because people were stupid enough to believe Trumps lies.