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roronoa79
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06 Nov 2020, 10:43 pm

cyberdad wrote:
America seems to allow crazy far right nutters into the mainstream of their society? the reason why this happens might explain why Trump won the 2016 election.

We know the symptoms but not addressing the disease.

It's because the left was under intense scrutiny over here during and even before the Cold War. The Reagan years and the fall of the USSR gave american conservatives a massive ego boost. From then on, if you were any further to the left than centrist Bill Clinton, you were a radical leftist.

Far right conspiracy theories really entered into public consciousness in the 90's after incidents at Ruby Ridge and Waco involving federal law enforcement. Right-wingers really started picking up steam, anti-government conspiracies spread like wildfire, and right-wing militias sprang up across the US. The gist of these conspiracies was roughly that academics and the UN were infiltrating the federal government to destroy american values or something like that.

As for how these things entered the mainstream, well. The right has been rhetorically coasting since the Cold War, while the left is stigmatized. If the mainstream media tries to give neutral attention to the most moderate of socialist views, it's a sign of the MSM's anti-conservative conspiracy. If the mainstream media refuses to give neutral attention to radical right-wing views, it's a sign of the anti-conservative conspiracy. The msm has been packpedalling for years from accusations of anti-conservative bias, so now nationalist and white supremacists views should apparently be treated with respect or else you're a rabid partisan who can't tolerate disagreement or something.

I have to ask. Does it not seem wild to you Europeans/Australians/Kiwis that Americans get called radicals if they support universal healthcare? Good thing you guys aren't in Latin America or we might have decided you needed some pro-market regime change.


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Last edited by roronoa79 on 07 Nov 2020, 12:03 am, edited 1 time in total.

cyberdad
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06 Nov 2020, 10:54 pm

I think the far-right in the US is in contact with other right wing movements in Europe and even in Australia feeding and reinforcing each other.

For example the right wing of the Australian conservative party has been peddling two conspiracy theories since the 1990s that i) the left is attacking free speech by classifying racism as "hate speech". In order to justify i) they resort to ii) left wing academics have taken over government broadcasters (TV and radio) and institutions for higher learning.

A common denominator in nearly all right wing movements is they are anti-intellectual. So when science is used to explain climate change, COVID-19 or poverty invariably the right will turn around and say climate change is a left wing conspiracy, COVID-19 is an excuse for the government to vaccinate the population and poverty is caused by laziness and socialist governments want to give rich people's money to the poor for doing nothing.



auntblabby
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07 Nov 2020, 12:54 am

cyberdad wrote:
auntblabby wrote:
because djt will not "don" his big boy pants and concede already, this is gonna be tied up in the courts until at least jan. 20, 2021. i fear what SCOTUS will do.


Yeah I think that's Trump's plan to drag the counting in the hope the supreme court will agree with his lies. Almost all his conspiracy theories that subscribes to (like voter fraud) he is parroting far right groups (in this case QAnon). Trump lacks the imagination to come up with these whack theories himself.

it needs to be spread far and wide that what the right considers "voter fraud" is in reality any non-rightie deigning to actually cast a vote in his own behalf.



roronoa79
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07 Nov 2020, 1:04 am

auntblabby wrote:
cyberdad wrote:
auntblabby wrote:
because djt will not "don" his big boy pants and concede already, this is gonna be tied up in the courts until at least jan. 20, 2021. i fear what SCOTUS will do.


Yeah I think that's Trump's plan to drag the counting in the hope the supreme court will agree with his lies. Almost all his conspiracy theories that subscribes to (like voter fraud) he is parroting far right groups (in this case QAnon). Trump lacks the imagination to come up with these whack theories himself.

it needs to be spread far and wide that what the right considers "voter fraud" is in reality any non-rightie deigning to actually cast a vote in his own behalf.

Voter fraud is when anybody votes who couldn't vote before the Voting Rights Act. The Dixiecrats always feel so victimized when they have to find more creative ways to keep undesirables from casting ballots.


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Δυνατὰ δὲ οἱ προύχοντες πράσσουσι καὶ οἱ ἀσθενεῖς ξυγχωροῦσιν.
Those with power do what their power permits, and the weak can only acquiesce.

- Thucydides


auntblabby
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07 Nov 2020, 1:15 am

with ACB on the SCOTUS, the VRA is on its last legs.



Tempus Fugit
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07 Nov 2020, 1:20 am

uncommondenominator wrote:
Tempus Fugit wrote:
2016: There must have been Russian interference, Trump is Putin's puppet, collusion with the enemy is what got Trump elected.

This time around for some reason Russia doesn't seem to exist and rather the highly unpresented dragged out vote counts in the swing states is being called into question.

If it's okay for folks to believe that a huge foreign enemy conspiracy put the last president in office and required a three year investigation, then it's okay to question the current situation.

Or put another way, if you believed in the 2016 election conspiracy, you're being a hypocrite to put anyone down for thinking there's a 2020 election conspiracy.


That's a lovely false equivalency you've got there. It's even got a gooey strawman filling, and a flakey ad hominem crust. These layered fallacy cakes seem to be all the rage these days. By combining multiple flavors of misdirection, untangling it becomes more akin to opening a combination lock than simply counter-arguing a point. It also gives the ability to claim the counter argument is "absurd" based on the number of corrections (which they will call "assumptions", and claim it makes too many of them for it to be plausible) necessary to illustrate its fallacy.


How can there be an ad hominem when it's not directed at an individual?

uncommondenominator wrote:
The issue in 2016 was never "russian voter fraud". It was whether or not trump cooperated with russia regarding their actual attempts to sway the election via propaganda. Russia did run a misinformation campaign, the collusion is just determining whether trump had any part in it.



I didn't say the issue was "russian voter fraud". You're coming up with something I didn't say in order to knock it down, and that's what a strawman is.

uncommondenominator wrote:
And since we know that russia was playing those games, regardless of trump involvement, we know to look for it now. You don't play the same trick twice, least of all when people are looking for it.

If you're making the argument that if it's ok to assume russia helped trump, then its ok to assume russia is helping biden, then why did / would russia help trump only to turn around and help biden *against* trump?


That's another strawman.

uncommondenominator wrote:
Right now, trump is trying to tell people to stop counting votes. Nobody in 2016 said STOP counting. Recount perhaps, but not STOP counting. Nobody was saying "don't count votes". There was one person I remember making a big fuss about illegal votes in 2016. Trump. Even after he won, claimed that clinton only won the popular vote due to illegal votes. He won, "if you only count the legal ones".

Most types of voter fraud are extremely difficult, and rarely have any effect. The more significant forms of voter fraud exist in the form of destroying ballots, or electronic tampering with voting equipment. The former reduces actual votes, not adds fake ones. The latter can do whatever it wants. Both are typically done exclusively by those who have direct access to the ballots or voting equipment. It's not something any random person can do. Polling locations typically have a bipartisan mix of redundant overseers which does it's best to ensure nobody can just wander on in and waltz out with a sack of ballots, or uninterruptedly tamper with an electronic machine.


Do you have any citations to offer regarding all that?

My premise is simply that if it's okay to have a conspiracy theory regarding the 2016 election, then it's okay to have a conspiracy theory regarding the 2020 election. If it's okay for the democrats to make claims and launch investigations regarding the election they lost, then it's okay for the republicans to make claims and launch investigations regarding the election they lost.



Biscuitman
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07 Nov 2020, 2:54 am

IMO this pantomime is being pushed to create a narrative for the 2024 election. The more they relentlessly go on about this the more they can refer back to it as 'the stolen election' when campaigning starts next time. And that kind of thing has an effect on some people.



cyberdad
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07 Nov 2020, 3:00 am

Speaking of fraud....Trump is demanding money from his supporters.

All the dumbos who given him money better check that Trump inc. is not lining his pockets with poor people's money before he jumps ship.



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07 Nov 2020, 3:01 am

auntblabby wrote:
cyberdad wrote:
auntblabby wrote:
because djt will not "don" his big boy pants and concede already, this is gonna be tied up in the courts until at least jan. 20, 2021. i fear what SCOTUS will do.


Yeah I think that's Trump's plan to drag the counting in the hope the supreme court will agree with his lies. Almost all his conspiracy theories that subscribes to (like voter fraud) he is parroting far right groups (in this case QAnon). Trump lacks the imagination to come up with these whack theories himself.

it needs to be spread far and wide that what the right considers "voter fraud" is in reality any non-rightie deigning to actually cast a vote in his own behalf.

The "true believers" are falling hook line and sinker for the false narrative



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07 Nov 2020, 3:05 am

in this regard, as MLK said, "there is no force in the world today more dangerous, than that of sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."



uncommondenominator
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07 Nov 2020, 3:14 am

Tempus Fugit wrote:
Or put another way, if you believed in the 2016 election conspiracy, you're being a hypocrite to put anyone down for thinking there's a 2020 election conspiracy.


You mean THAT ad hominem? I can see how it's easy to miss, since' it's not aimed at a specific individual, but rather anyone who takes that position. It's of the same nature of argument as "anyone who disagrees with me kicks puppies".

uncommondenominator wrote:
The issue in 2016 was never "russian voter fraud". It was whether or not trump cooperated with russia regarding their actual attempts to sway the election via propaganda. Russia did run a misinformation campaign, the collusion is just determining whether trump had any part in it.


Please show me where I'm saying that YOU said that. I'm not saying YOU said that. I'M saying that, to point out one difference between the issue then, and the issue now. Details matter. You want to compare them, I'm contrasting them. You making it out as though I'm saying that is a clever reversal though, in an "I know you are, but what am I", kinda way.

uncommondenominator wrote:
And since we know that russia was playing those games, regardless of trump involvement, we know to look for it now. You don't play the same trick twice, least of all when people are looking for it.

If you're making the argument that if it's ok to assume russia helped trump, then its ok to assume russia is helping biden, then why did / would russia help trump only to turn around and help biden *against* trump?


Nice of you to not clarify which part you are claiming is a strawman, or in what way. We do know that russia was playing games with troll farms and propaganda campaigns, and we know what to look for now. How is that a strawman? Not using the same move twice is basic entry level tactics. How is that a strawman? The last sentence is a *question* that assumes you are *right*. How is that one a strawman?

Your premise is "simply" oversimplified. By all means, please correct me if I am mistaken, but it seems like you're implying that all "conspiracies" are equally valid or invalid, and that if someone accepts one conspiracy as true, then they must accept all conspiracies as equally true (or else they're a "hypocrite") - or the inverse, that if you find one conspiracy implausible, then you should find *all* conspiracies implausible - both of which are all-or-nothing fallacies - which, again, correct me if I am mistaken, also seems to assume that conspiracies are either things you believe in, or don't believe in, and completely ignores the difference between a conspiracy THEORY, and an actual *proven* conspiracy, while falsely equating the two as though believing Watergate happened (lots of proof, that's how they got caught, even if the exact details are sketchy) is exactly equal to believing the earth is flat (not a lot of proof, lots of contrary proof).

I could give you all the "proof" in the universe - I can't make you believe it or accept it. I could say "liquid water is wet", and nothing stops you from saying "no it isn't", or coming up with some clever way to argue it. And while it's true that, in a formal debate setting, the burden of proof logically belongs to the person making the claim. But again, nothing prevents you from hopping onto google and finding contrary "proof" that says the opposite to use as a rebuttal - which yes, would contradict my "proof", but not DISprove it. As long as it casts doubt, it's done its job. Whatever proof you provide is "real" and whatever "proof" I provide will be "fake" in some way.

To be clear, I'm not saying you ARE doing that - I'm merely saying that these are things that anyone can do, and that I cannot prevent you, or anyone else, from doing, in theory, that can easily undermine any argument or "proof", no matter how solid or true the argument or "proof" is.

If I may be presumptuous, I don't think you want proof. I think you want me busy defending and explaining and "proving" myself - conversationally "pinned down", beholden to the things you want me to talk about, instead of pressing my own line of questioning. That's just my impression.



cyberdad
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07 Nov 2020, 4:01 am

auntblabby wrote:
in this regard, as MLK said, "there is no force in the world today more dangerous, than that of sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."


Alas he never lived to see the fruits of sincere ignorance or stupidity elect an idiot to the highest office. Caligula would have been impressed.



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07 Nov 2020, 4:07 am

cyberdad wrote:
auntblabby wrote:
in this regard, as MLK said, "there is no force in the world today more dangerous, than that of sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."


Alas he never lived to see the fruits of sincere ignorance or stupidity elect an idiot to the highest office. Caligula would have been impressed.

"... when a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or count himself lost. … All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. ..." [H.L. Mencken in a 1920 book, "On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe"]



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07 Nov 2020, 4:37 am

The shoe is on the other foot.



magz
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07 Nov 2020, 4:55 am

auntblabby wrote:
in this regard, as MLK said, "there is no force in the world today more dangerous, than that of sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."
Apparently, little has changed since his time...


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cyberdad
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07 Nov 2020, 5:41 am

auntblabby wrote:
All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.


That about sums up the type of men who rule the planet. We should focus on the few who break the mould.