Polite Politics

[Andie]

Well, there have been protests and some fires but I doubt the city is burning.  

Also, if they do arrest Trump they’d better be prepared for backlash.   And the proof best be iron clad.   
This would be another Presidential benchmark and rough on any seeking re-election on the Right. Man, they really hate (or fear) him.  

[Rubus Leucodermis]

11 hours ago, roadtonowhere08 said:

Also, here is your daily misleading headline

Paris is burning: Protesters set city ablaze

https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2023/03/17/paris-france-street-protests-pension-retirement-cnntm-kiley-intl-vpx.cnn

It is because the French working class is willing to raise holy hell whenever their ruling elite tries to game the system more in favor of the most powerful and wealthy that the French working class enjoys the above-average share of the national wealth, and the guaranteed access to social services, that it does.

Quote

Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.

This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both….

— Frederick Douglass

 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

11 hours ago, Mr Marine Layer said:

In socialism, everyone is forced to share whether they want to or not. That is not giving out of love. It also requires some sort of regulation to prevent hoarding, and all too often the government or whoever is in control of the wealth distribution begins to abuse their power.

One can say the exact same thing about capitalism. There is not an advanced capitalist economy on the face of the Earth that exists without the services of a government to provide a currency, enforce private property rights (at gunpoint if necessary, whether or not the individuals involved actually prefer capitalism), defend against the possibility of foreign invasion, etc.

If it is the existence of a coercive State itself that one is objecting to, neither capitalism nor state socialism but some form of anarchism is the ideology most compatible with that belief.

[SilverFallsAndrew]

14 hours ago, Chewbacca Defense said:

If he is arrested, I think he can still run, it's not until he gets convicted (if that were to happen)....if he were convicted of a felony, maybe not?  In theory a felon cannot vote (though I think states are starting to change that unfortunately), so I would venture to guess they would not be able to hold federal office, but I am too tired to go diving into the constitution tonight.

 

As for "DC will do anything to eliminate him"  I am sorry but I am going to have to call complete bullsh*t on this.  It's becoming increasingly evident that a VAST majority of Republican want him gone, have wanted him gone, and recognize that their life would be so much easier without Trump.  Just go back to the interviews right after Jan 6, were the only people supporting Trump were the wingnuts like MTG and Boebert and worthless sacks of sh*t like Jim Jordan, Josh Hawley, and Matt Gaetz.  I'm still recovering from the whiplash from trying to keep track of McConnell, McCarthy and Graham's extreme flip-flopping on Trump.

 

And....they had their chance to be rid of him....if they had impeached him or invoked the 25th amendment, he would be out of their hair.  But the Republican leadership were too scared of Trump's supporters and showed their true spineless colors. 

Felons have had their voting rights restored in Florida. Remember when that was supposed to make the state permanently blue? 

[Iceresistance]

3 hours ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

One can say the exact same thing about capitalism. There is not an advanced capitalist economy on the face of the Earth that exists without the services of a government to provide a currency, enforce private property rights (at gunpoint if necessary, whether or not the individuals involved actually prefer capitalism), defend against the possibility of foreign invasion, etc.

If it is the existence of a coercive State itself that one is objecting to, neither capitalism nor state socialism but some form of anarchism is the ideology most compatible with that belief.

Speaking of Anarchy, there is a Minnesota teacher that is trying to teach her kids to promote Anarchy in an Elementary School!

[Anti Marine Layer]

16 hours ago, roadtonowhere08 said:

One could sum it up thusly:  If you hate socialism so much, why don't we get rid of Medicare, Medicaid, social security, the military, the FDIC, any infrastructure project, and any form of bailout to any failing company no matter what?

Most people would say things like no government is truly 100% capitalist or 100% socialist, and it also seems that different people mean different things by socialism.

Yes we need taxes, but there should also be private ownership of property. Some say socialism agrees with Christianity, as Christians are supposed to give to the poor, but the Bible also says that you should not covet the possessions of another person (which implies private ownership), and that you must work if you want to eat.

What I am against is government taking full control of industries such as healthcare. Today under Medicare, you can get private insurance if you want, but Medicare for All would end all private health insurance completely. I am also against people abusing welfare and living off it rather than getting a job. Welfare should only be temporary unless a person is truly unable to work.  Also people who contribute more to society should make more money, just like people who perform better in school get better grades and GPAs.

Some people also want to get rid of merit-based systems, testing requirements, etc. due to identity politics and disadvantaged groups not having the same access to resources and study programs. I actually think the SAT sucks for evaluating your performance in college, but life is not totally fair and there also have to be some sort of merit based requirements to ensure people perform well in school and in work.

 

[Anti Marine Layer]

Also from the right-wing politics article on Wikipedia

The original use of the term "right-wing", relative to communism, placed the conservatives on the right, the liberals in the centre and the communists on the left. Both the conservatives and the liberals were strongly anti-communist. The history of the use of the term right-wing about anti-communism is a complicated one

 

 

[Anti Marine Layer]

Chat GPT

[Iceresistance]

8 minutes ago, Mr Marine Layer said:

Most people would say things like no government is truly 100% capitalist or 100% socialist, and it also seems that different people mean different things by socialism.

Yes we need taxes, but there should also be private ownership of property. Some say socialism agrees with Christianity, as Christians are supposed to give to the poor, but the Bible also says that you should not covet the possessions of another person (which implies private ownership), and that you must work if you want to eat.

What I am against is government taking full control of industries such as healthcare. Today under Medicare, you can get private insurance if you want, but Medicare for All would end all private health insurance completely. I am also against people abusing welfare and living off it rather than getting a job. Welfare should only be temporary unless a person is truly unable to work.  Also people who contribute more to society should make more money.

Some people also want to get rid of merit-based systems, testing requirements, etc. due to identity politics and disadvantaged groups not having the same access to resources and study programs. I actually think the SAT sucks for evaluating your performance in college, but there also has to be some sort of merit based requirements to ensure people perform well in school and in work.

 

Yeah, people have weaponized the Bible to promote their ideologies.

 

Also, one of the reasons why I will never take the SAT is that you will receive a penalty for guessing an answer to a question!

[Andie]

I have to agree on the testing sentiment 

I was a Psych major and my major professor was a Doctorate in counseling and testing.  He loved to test (torture) his majors et nauseam….so we learned a lot about ourselves AND testing.  
Apparently, I’m not able to be hypnotized.  Many people can’t be.  They just aren’t suggestible.  Had several pros try and suggestions just wouldn’t work on me. Am also a creative problem solver/ co built a chemical recycling company. One of the few.

SATs are developed for main stream students. Creative thinkers and problem solvers tend to have trouble with tests like that.  If it’s any comfort, they’re the entrepreneurs, artists, complex problem solvers, scientists….Rogues. Welcome to the Club!!

[Rubus Leucodermis]

4 hours ago, Mr Marine Layer said:

Yes we need taxes, but there should also be private ownership of property. Some say socialism agrees with Christianity, as Christians are supposed to give to the poor, but the Bible also says that you should not covet the possessions of another person (which implies private ownership), and that you must work if you want to eat.

I have yet to meet a communist who is against all private ownership. Private ownership of personal possessions (clothing, furniture, toothbrushes, etc.) is something communists tend to have no issues with. The issue is with owning things outside the scope of one's own immediate life, and often within the scope of other people's lives, such as, say, a factory on the other side of the continent that one has never even visited. Oftentimes distinctions are made of possessions versus property in general.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

4 hours ago, Mr Marine Layer said:

Chat GPT

That’s a pretty good summary of an ideology that spans the spectrum from Clement Attlee to Josef Stalin.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

4 hours ago, Iceresistance said:

Speaking of Anarchy, there is a Minnesota teacher that is trying to teach her kids to promote Anarchy in an Elementary School!

Whatever that means. Care to elaborate?

[Anti Marine Layer]

1 hour ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

I have yet to meet a communist who is against all private ownership. Private ownership of personal possessions (clothing, furniture, toothbrushes, etc.) is something communists tend to have no issues with. The issue is with owning things outside the scope of one's own immediate life, and often within the scope of other people's lives, such as, say, a factory on the other side of the continent that one has never even visited. Oftentimes distinctions are made of possessions versus property in general.

I've posted this before. It's supposed to be a parody, but then there are some accounts from real people who experienced communism in the comments.

What about land ownership? How can we live on "stolen land" if you don't own the land you live on?

 

[roadtonowhere08]

8 hours ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

It is because the French working class is willing to raise holy hell whenever their ruling elite tries to game the system more in favor of the most powerful and wealthy that the French working class enjoys the above-average share of the national wealth, and the guaranteed access to social services, that it does.

 

I think that while it is a given that the elite class' raison d'être is to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else, the case can be made that the French retirement system does in fact need to be tweaked a bit in the name of long term viability due to lower birth rates and an aging population.  I am trying to find an objective analysis on the topic (news articles are either void of analysis or biased) but I am coming up empty on first pass.  I'd be interested in your take.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

42 minutes ago, roadtonowhere08 said:

I think that while it is a given that the elite class' raison d'être is to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else, the case can be made that the French retirement system does in fact need to be tweaked a bit in the name of long term viability due to lower birth rates and an aging population.  I am trying to find an objective analysis on the topic (news articles are either void of analysis or biased) but I am coming up empty on first pass.  I'd be interested in your take.

I mean, sure, it’s theoretically possible that they are running into a case of not being able to pay the bills, and in that case there’s really only three solutions: cut spending, increase revenue (i.e. taxes), or some combination of the first two. Would have to see the details. Just going on how elites are always saying that the non-elites are getting too big a share of the wealth, and claiming that things like pensions and retirement systems are always on the brink of collapse and will have to be dramatically scaled back Real Soon Now.

[roadtonowhere08]

4 hours ago, Andie said:

I have to agree on the testing sentiment 

I was a Psych major and my major professor was a Doctorate in counseling and testing.  He loved to test (torture) his majors et nauseam….so we learned a lot about ourselves AND testing.  
Apparently, I’m not able to be hypnotized.  Many people can’t be.  They just aren’t suggestible.  Had several pros try and suggestions just wouldn’t work on me. Am also a creative problem solver/ co built a chemical recycling company. One of the few.

SATs are developed for main stream students. Creative thinkers and problem solvers tend to have trouble with tests +like that.  If it’s any comfort, they’re the entrepreneurs, artists, complex problem solvers, +s

cientists….Rogues. Welcome to the Club!!

I will say this though from being an educator: while deemphasizing standardized testing does have its merits, it also intensifies the flame under teachers to inflate grades due to bulldozer parents.  Parents these days at some schools are frigging' insane expecting their kids to be the next big thing and expecting teachers/admin to fulfill their every demand.  Having a standardized test at least adds some numerical objectivity to the overall metric.  That is not to say I like testing, but it is incredibly hard to try to objectively measure the subjective.

[Andie]

I can understand that. Many parents think their offspring is the Einstein.  
They just won’t let the child find his gifts.  
My mother pushed me in directions I was unsuited for. It drove her crazy I was a natural engineer like my dad.  

[roadtonowhere08]

1 hour ago, Andie said:

I can understand that. Many parents think their offspring is the Einstein.  
They just won’t let the child find his gifts.  
My mother pushed me in directions I was unsuited for. It drove her crazy I was a natural engineer like my dad.  

Oh the horror!  An engineer! 

 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

Quote

What about land ownership? How can we live on "stolen land" if you don't own the land you live on?

I assume other rhetoric would have to be developed. “Stolen land” is effective in a capitalist context, because it points out a hypocrisy of a capitalist society built upon transfers of land that the normal rules of property rights would regard as illegitimate. As the old quip about real estate goes: to prove clear title to a piece of land, you have to trace every transaction back to when the land was last stolen.

[Iceresistance]

12 hours ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

Whatever that means. Care to elaborate?

She wants her students to promote riots and anarchy, there is a News Source that spotted her TikTok's promoting it!

[roadtonowhere08]

1 hour ago, Iceresistance said:

She wants her students to promote riots and anarchy, there is a News Source that spotted her TikTok's promoting it!

Dear lord, post the link, foo!

[Anti Marine Layer]

15 hours ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

I have yet to meet a communist who is against all private ownership. Private ownership of personal possessions (clothing, furniture, toothbrushes, etc.) is something communists tend to have no issues with. The issue is with owning things outside the scope of one's own immediate life, and often within the scope of other people's lives, such as, say, a factory on the other side of the continent that one has never even visited. Oftentimes distinctions are made of possessions versus property in general.

Also the original John Lennon song does actually say "Imagine no possessions"

[Rubus Leucodermis]

5 minutes ago, Mr Marine Layer said:

Also the original John Lennon song does actually say "Imagine no possessions"

Well, OK then.

 

[Anti Marine Layer]

16 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

Well, OK then.

 

Why is it always the rich and famous who have the loudest voices protesting against income inequality? 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

38 minutes ago, Mr Marine Layer said:

Why is it always the rich and famous who have the loudest voices protesting against income inequality? 

Because it is always the rich and famous that have the loudest voices, period. Welcome to the natural ramifications of class society.

Fun fact: Friedrich Engels was a capitalist who inherited ownership of some textile mills, and that passive income is both why he had leeway to criticize the system and how could afford to pay his friend Karl Marx (who was not born into great wealth) generous stipends to do same.

But back to my point about Lennon: he wasn't very careful about either optics or rhetoric, and I don't really regard him as a serious theorist. He wrote a song based loosely on the Communist Manifesto, good for him, but that doesn't make him the absolute last authority on radical left ideology.

[Iceresistance]

4 hours ago, roadtonowhere08 said:

Dear lord, post the link, foo!

I am very sorry about that!

 

Anti-capitalist teacher promotes anarchy, 'loves' when students have 'no respect for authority' | Fox News

[Rubus Leucodermis]

40 minutes ago, Iceresistance said:

I am very sorry about that!

 

Anti-capitalist teacher promotes anarchy, 'loves' when students have 'no respect for authority' | Fox News

A TikTok video the teacher produced on her own free time? That is a totally different thing from classroom pedagogy done on the public dime. You DO understand that, do you not?

I will point out that the linked article contains essentially nothing about what that teacher is saying or presenting in the classroom. It does say that she has expressed pleasure that her students are not afraid to challenge her own authority, and her frustration at how some of her students project the capitalist boss-worker relationship onto that between a cellular nucleus and its other organelles. But again, on her own time, on her own TikTok channel.

Be careful. If it's OK to demand a teacher be fired because she has expressed anarchist and socialist sentiments on her own free time, it suddenly also becomes OK to demand a teacher be fired because s/he has expressed conservative or pro-Trump ones.

Moreover that article is crap journalism, because it then goes on to conflate that Minnesota teacher with what another teacher has done in a completely different school in Maryland. Or should I say purportedly done, because something makes me suspect that the other story is a bunch of smoke being blown about basically nothing as well.

[Iceresistance]

8 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

A TikTok video the teacher produced on her own free time? That is a totally different thing from classroom pedagogy done on the public dime. You DO understand that, do you not?

I will point out that the linked article contains essentially nothing about what that teacher is saying or presenting in the classroom. It does say that she has expressed pleasure that her students are not afraid to challenge her own authority, and her frustration at how some of her students project the capitalist boss-worker relationship onto that between a cellular nucleus and its other organelles. But again, on her own time, on her own TikTok channel.

Be careful. If it's OK to demand a teacher be fired because she has expressed anarchist and socialist sentiments on her own free time, it suddenly also becomes OK to demand a teacher be fired because s/he has expressed conservative or pro-Trump ones.

Moreover that article is crap journalism, because it then goes on to conflate that Minnesota teacher with what another teacher has done in a completely different school in Maryland. Or should I say purportedly done, because something makes me suspect that the other story is a bunch of smoke being blown about basically nothing as well.

You will also understand a majority of kids are on TikTok, and a teacher doing it is very troublesome. When the students of her class find out, they will follow her.

 

And besides! TikTok is unfortunately #1 in Misinformation! It's really bad with the fake news and claims about the Coronavirus!

[Rubus Leucodermis]

9 minutes ago, Iceresistance said:

You will also understand a majority of kids are on TikTok, and a teacher doing it is very troublesome. When the students of her class find out, they will follow her.

So a teacher can’t do anything of consequence off the clock because her students might hear about it? Is that the standard now?

Does this applies to teachers who express right-wing sentiments off the clock? Should they be demonized and targeted for dismissal as well?

[Iceresistance]

1 minute ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

So a teacher can’t do anything of consequence off the clock because her students might hear about it? Is that the standard now?

Does this applies to teachers who express right-wing sentiments off the clock? Should they be demonized and targeted for dismissal as well?

It depends on how extreme they go, "That Vegan Teacher" is an extreme leftist and she got banned from a lot of platforms.

 

Unfortunately, Karens who like to report content that does not deserve to be flagged get away with it because they take down the video when it should never be!

 

I'm one of the minority that will never get TikTok, the main reason is toxicity.

[Anti Marine Layer]

2 hours ago, Iceresistance said:

I am very sorry about that!

 

Anti-capitalist teacher promotes anarchy, 'loves' when students have 'no respect for authority' | Fox News

Wouldn't she consider herself to be an authority? 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

18 minutes ago, Mr Marine Layer said:

Wouldn't she consider herself to be an authority? 

If you read the article, she does!

[Rubus Leucodermis]

2 hours ago, Iceresistance said:

It depends on how extreme they go, "That Vegan Teacher" is an extreme leftist and she got banned from a lot of platforms.

So cancel culture is just fine as long as it’s your team that’s doing the cancelling?

[Anti Marine Layer]

6 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

If you read the article, she does!

So why should anyone respect her?

[Rubus Leucodermis]

2 minutes ago, Mr Marine Layer said:

So why should anyone respect her?

The same reason anyone should respect anyone else: because of the content of their character. Their knowledge, honesty, ethical principles, etc. But not just because they hold a position of arbitrary power and authority.

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8903060-does-it-follow-that-i-reject-all-authority-perish-the

[Anti Marine Layer]

Even conservatives have special cases for civil disobedience, as some were suggesting that others ignore mask mandates.

[Iceresistance]

1 hour ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

So cancel culture is just fine as long as it’s your team that’s doing the cancelling?

No, Cancel Culture needs to be wiped out.

 

The only justification for someone who gets banned from basically every platform is if they are a threat with their extremism. That Vegan Teacher made the stupid move going after MrBeast by saying along the lines of "You are hurting animals by being too rich"

[Rubus Leucodermis]

2 minutes ago, Iceresistance said:

No, Cancel Culture needs to be wiped out.

The only justification for someone who gets banned from basically every platform is if they are a threat with their extremism. That Vegan Teacher made the stupid move going after MrBeast by saying along the lines of "You are hurting animals by being too rich"

I am afraid you are contradicting yourself.
If you support cancelling individuals you believe are “a threat with their extremism,” then you support cancelling. Full stop.

That is, in fact, the exact reason cancelling is typically done: because the cancellers believe those being cancelled to be too extreme and therefore a danger.

[Anti Marine Layer]

So Dr Seuss and Abraham Lincoln are considered too extreme for some people on the left.

[Rubus Leucodermis]

2 minutes ago, Mr Marine Layer said:

So Dr Seuss and Abraham Lincoln are considered too extreme for some people on the left.

Link?

[Rubus Leucodermis]

6 minutes ago, Mr Marine Layer said:

So Dr Seuss and Abraham Lincoln are considered too extreme for some people on the left.

Antifascism is considered too extreme for many on the right.

[Iceresistance]

43 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

I am afraid you are contradicting yourself.
If you support cancelling individuals you believe are “a threat with their extremism,” then you support cancelling. Full stop.

That is, in fact, the exact reason cancelling is typically done: because the cancellers believe those being cancelled to be too extreme and therefore a danger.

I may have gotten ahead of myself here...

[Anti Marine Layer]

40 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

Antifascism is considered too extreme for many on the right.

Some antifa were protesting against Biden too.

[Anti Marine Layer]

56 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

Link?

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/six-books-nix-books-dr-seuss-works-halted-racist-images-n1259256

https://www.forbes.com/sites/evangerstmann/2020/10/14/abe-lincoln-is-next-on-the-cancel-culture-chopping-block/?sh=4d3f08af6224

 

[SnarkyGoblin]

Meatball Ron is wrong about Ukraine.

Quote

Finally, Zelensky posed a third question. During the war, Ukraine has been attacked by rockets, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles—“not hundreds, but thousands”:

So what will you do when Russia will use rockets to attack your allies, to [attack] civilian people? And what will you do when Russia, after that, if they do not see [opposition] from big countries like the United States? What will you do if they will use rockets on your territory?

And this was his answer: Help us fight them here, help us defeat them here, and you won’t have to fight them anywhere else. Help us preserve some kind of open, normal society, using our soldiers and not your soldiers. That will help you preserve your open, normal society, and that of others too. Help Ukraine fight Russia now so that no one else has to fight Russia later, and so that harder and more painful choices don’t have to be made down the line.

“It’s about nature. It’s about life,” he said. “That’s it.”

 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

14 hours ago, Mr Marine Layer said:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/six-books-nix-books-dr-seuss-works-halted-racist-images-n1259256

https://www.forbes.com/sites/evangerstmann/2020/10/14/abe-lincoln-is-next-on-the-cancel-culture-chopping-block/?sh=4d3f08af6224

The first is the copyright owners (Dr. Seuss’s estate) choosing to not publish or to revise existing works. They are “cancelling” themselves! LOL! This stretches “cancel culture” so far that the term is basically a meaningless smear phrase. The right to free speech entails the right to remain silent, or to revise ones statements in light of progress.

 

[Rubus Leucodermis]

14 hours ago, Mr Marine Layer said:

Some antifa were protesting against Biden too.

I think protesting against Biden is legitimate free speech. You?

[Anti Marine Layer]

41 minutes ago, Rubus Leucodermis said:

I think protesting against Biden is legitimate free speech. You?

Yep, I guess he's not far left enough for them. I wonder who would be able to enact a policy that would stop ALL police brutality. Ideas?

[roadtonowhere08]

3 hours ago, SnarkyGoblin said:

Meatball Ron is wrong about Ukraine.

 

Of course he is, but he has to be in line with his big orange daddy.