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ForumsDiscussion Forum → Inauguration Day, Inauguration Hooooooraaay!
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Inauguration Day, Inauguration Hooooooraaay!
2017-08-10, 1:08 PM #3481
In case you're paywalled, this is the data I'm referring to:

[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DG3-gcxWAAAqC86.jpg]
2017-08-10, 1:58 PM #3482
Originally posted by Reid:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-trump-won-in-two-dimensions-1502320256

Completely destroys the "socially liberal, economically conservative" title people give to themselves. Or at least, shows that's not representative of American voters.


People did actually use that term back in the 90s and the early 2000s to identify themselves politically. I don't think the paradigm had yet proven itself to be so destructive, and the American economic system seemed much better at distributing wealth efficiently to larger portions of the population than it does now. The positions of the parties haven't always been so at odds with what Americans think and believe.
former entrepreneur
2017-08-10, 9:05 PM #3483


I found Peter Thiel!
2017-08-14, 3:11 PM #3484
Originally posted by Wookie06:
Okay, so what I consider to be the Power 4 of "conservative talk radio" that cover 12 hours of the weekday are Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Mark Levin with Glenn and Mark being the "bookends". The absolute worst example of what you are referring to is Sean Hannity. The man is an absolute sell out, loves Trump, literally hates anybody that disagrees with Trump on anything. I knew he was combative but Trump exposed him as fanatical and certainly not conservative.

Rush is very pro-Trump but he's locked into parties. He very subtly implied that he endorsed Cruz but he doesn't endorse during primaries so you had to read between the lines. Anyway, Rush will pretty much always back Republicans rhetorically except when their cowardly, which is often.

Glenn is very critical of Trump period. Mark on the other hand doesn't spend most of his time criticizing Trump because he chooses to spend most of his time addressing the inaccurate and targeted attacks on Trump. That's not to say at all that any criticism of Trump is inaccurate but the blood is in the water and the politically motivated left and media are going to keep going with the false attacks and attempt to neuter the administration. BTW, none of my comments is meant to be a defense of Trump because there are plenty of valid criticisms. It's just that the real and fake criticisms already have nonstop coverage. If one host wants to spend his time dismantling the fake criticism, that's actually a very good thing. Hell, they're still trying to discredit him for presenting the case that the previous administration was surveilling (rightly or wrongly) the Trump campaign.



This is kind of how you lose me. Originalism doesn't need any "legal theories". It's just a plain, common sense understanding that the words in the constitution should be understood as they were written. And how do you get from Trump to "right wingers in government"?



Yeah, some do that. Levin doesn't. Beck doesn't. Hannity does. Limbaugh does. I have certainly gravitated further towards the ones that don't.


I'll have to read more of this later, but one thing I can say is that I only level critique at Levin specifically because he is literally the only one on the AM band who is intellectual enough to keep my attention (of course I haven't listened for a long time but I read the summaries now and then). So I may be unfairly laying all the problems of the right at his doorstep, but only because someone with his intelligence should know better. He is clearly partisan and is able to combine wit with bluster in order to garner ratings, objectivity be damned. I hope the Trump presidency shows the limitations of rationalizing your side of the isle with intellect and ridicule.

Things probably went off the rails when the fairness doctrine went the way of the dodo.
2017-08-15, 12:21 AM #3485
Did you protest Trump's inauguration? If you said yes, the Justice Department wants your IP address! Seems rather unconstitutional to me.

Quote:
The Department of Justice has requested information on visitors to a website used to organize protests against President Trump, the Los Angeles-based Dreamhost said in a blog post published on Monday.

Dreamhost, a web hosting provider, said that it has been working with the Department of Justice for several months on the request, which believes goes too far under the Constitution.

ADVERTISEMENT
DreamHost claimed that the complying with the request from the Justice Department would amount to handing over roughly 1.3 million visitor IP addresses to the government, in addition to contact information, email content and photos of thousands of visitors to the website, which was involved in organizing protests against Trump on Inauguration Day.

“That information could be used to identify any individuals who used this site to exercise and express political speech protected under the Constitution’s First Amendment,” DreamHost wrote in the blog post on Monday. “That should be enough to set alarm bells off in anyone’s mind.”

When contacted, the Justice Department directed The Hill to the U.S. attorney's office in D.C.

The company is currently challenging the request. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for Friday in Washington.

“In essence, the Search Warrant not only aims to identify the political dissidents of the current administration, but attempts to identify and understand what content each of these dissidents viewed on the website,” the company’s general counsel, Chris Ghazarian, said in a legal argument opposing the request.

The web provider published a purported search warrant issued by the Superior Court of the District of Columbia that asks for records and information related to the website and its owner, along with information that could be used to identify subscribers of the website.

This includes “names, addresses, telephone numbers and other identifiers, e-mail addresses, business information, the length of service (including start date), means and source of payment for services (including any credit card or bank account number), and information about any domain name registration.”

The warrant, dated July 12, says that authorities will seize any information constituting violations of D.C. code governing riots that involve individuals connected to the protests on Inauguration Day.

More than 200 people were indicted on felony rioting charges in connection with the protests in Washington on Jan. 20.


http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/346544-dreamhost-claims-doj-requesting-info-on-visitors-to-anti-trump-website
2017-08-15, 12:24 AM #3486
By the way, speaking of fourth amendment violations by dragnets, I will hand it to Mark Levin that he was super critical of the NSA's mass surveillance as a clear violation of the fourth amendment.
2017-08-15, 12:28 AM #3487
A neo-Nazi site (which I will not name here) has now been kicked off both Godaddy and now Google domains.

It would be funny every single potential host refused them and they had to shut down.
2017-08-15, 1:50 AM #3488
If only there were some sort of service which was legally required to provide internet access and carry information without discriminating on the basis of content or audience. Some kind of... internet service provider, except more like a utility, that needs to carry all data under some sort of common terms.

Oh well.
2017-08-15, 2:14 AM #3489
This could also backfire of they turn to the anonymous / encrypted web (Tor, etc.), pushing them even further from mainstream scrutiny, and into the underground where illegal activities are the norm rather than the exception. Kind of like what happened with the drug war.
2017-08-15, 2:17 AM #3490
Hate to say it, but both the drug war and political correctness run amok seem to me to be longterm consequences of women's suffrage. I know this is incredibly toxic to try and point out and I'd like to be disabused of it, but it seems so clearly true. Of course I would still support women's suffrage even if this were true. And we could say that slavery was probably the consequence of male only suffrage....
2017-08-15, 2:25 AM #3491
Annnnnnnyway, virtue signalling time (although I mean this sincerely):

I am amused at this James Damore guy. He seems to have lacked the genetic traits that would have helped him realize that HR is not an academic referee for undergraduate term papers proposing its own dismantling.
2017-08-15, 2:32 AM #3492
The funny thing is that management probably likes to exploit nerdy young (healthy), largely male workers who are all too eager to sign up for slavery (edit: this is an unfortunate hyperbole but I can't think of a better word).

That, and lack of maternity leave, makes women a little less likely to sign up to be exploited while pretending to enjoy it.
2017-08-15, 2:58 AM #3493
Originally posted by Reverend Jones:
Hate to say it, but both the drug war and political correctness run amok seem to me to be longterm consequences of women's suffrage. I know this is incredibly toxic to try and point out and I'd like to be disabused of it, but it seems so clearly true. Of course I would still support women's suffrage even if this were true. And we could say that slavery was probably the consequence of male only suffrage....


I have to say before someone else does: this was a really stupid post.
2017-08-15, 5:26 AM #3494
Been reading some Peter Thiel during your self-imposed ban? :p
former entrepreneur
2017-08-15, 8:54 AM #3495
Originally posted by Reverend Jones:
Hate to say it, but both the drug war and political correctness run amok seem to me to be longterm consequences of women's suffrage. I know this is incredibly toxic to try and point out and I'd like to be disabused of it, but it seems so clearly true. Of course I would still support women's suffrage even if this were true. And we could say that slavery was probably the consequence of male only suffrage....


wtf
2017-08-15, 9:10 AM #3496
What reasons do you have to think that's true?
former entrepreneur
2017-08-15, 9:53 AM #3497
Yeah that's so ****ed I can't tell whether it was some obtuse joke or not.
2017-08-15, 11:19 AM #3498
Well obviously prohibition was related to women's suffrage, so prohibition now must also be.

Seems watertight to me.
Epstein didn't kill himself.
2017-08-15, 11:37 AM #3499
  1. I was tired, which has been shown to resemble inebriation
  2. Women successfully lobbied for prohibition. I probably got things mixed up in my mind when I imagined Nancy Reagan being a huge advocate for D.A.R.E, but I am now remembering all the ulterior motives the government had for cracking down on "dangerous" drug users (e.g., Nixon wanting to throw in jail the hippies and blacks who would be likely to oppose him politically). I think that women seem to care more about people who would be vulnerable to using drugs (in the case of prohibition, I am guessing their husbands and sons), but unless this translates into women voting for drug criminalization in other countries, this has more to do with the path of history in the US than anything fundamental about female voting preferences. From what I understand the United States is fairly unique among mostly non-authoritarian countries in that it does not take a rehabilitative point of view.
  3. I would be surprised if we couldn't draw a straight line from feminist thought to the advent of political correctness. Now, as for why certain folks from more recent times cannot seem to be trusted to have ideology of equality without abusing the power of the language police (whose origin I imagine can be traced to the important and necessary goal of shutting out an endemic culture of unprofessionalism and outright harassment in the workplace) beats me, but laying the blame for this at the foot of feminism is about as stupid as blaming farmers for milling flour that I used to make the batch of pancakes that I happened to choke on. And uh, that women's suffrage does not equal some very specific offshoot of some later generation of academic feminism.
2017-08-15, 11:42 AM #3500
So unfortunately not a joke, but just a super cringy embarrassingly poorly thought out post that tired me thought prudent to pound out on my phone right before brushing my teeth.
2017-08-15, 11:51 AM #3501
Originally posted by Eversor:
Been reading some Peter Thiel during your self-imposed ban? :p


Actually this of sort of true. I am always eager to monitor the far right on sites like 4chan to gauge the political reaction to events that should cause more reasonable people to jump ship, so perhaps I accumulated a bit too much empathy for posters showing ϵ less hatred, that I got too good at processing their point of view without batting an eye.

Karl Popper warned about this, though:
Quote:
Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.


I blame the two party system for forcing me to try to empathize with voters who are rotting in the wastebasket of political parties.
2017-08-15, 11:52 AM #3502
Originally posted by Reverend Jones:
Hate to say it, but both the drug war and political correctness run amok seem to me to be longterm consequences of women's suffrage. I know this is incredibly toxic to try and point out and I'd like to be disabused of it, but it seems so clearly true. Of course I would still support women's suffrage even if this were true. And we could say that slavery was probably the consequence of male only suffrage....


I'm going to skip the why and just go to the what
2017-08-15, 11:54 AM #3503
Those reactions are always predictable enough that there's no real need to keep tabs. I used to do it, too.
Looks like we're not going down after all, so nevermind.
2017-08-15, 11:54 AM #3504
Maybe you can give a detailed account about what you think political correctness is?
2017-08-15, 11:56 AM #3505
Originally posted by Reid:
I'm going to skip the why and just go to the what


Burp
2017-08-15, 11:59 AM #3506
Originally posted by Reid:
Maybe you can give a detailed account about what you think political correctness is?


Maybe. Maybe not. Isn't it obvious? Not that I have an axe to grind here, but imagine you and I have different views on the topic. Like maybe you think it doesn't even meaningfully exist, judging by your answer, or perpaps more simply that you are wary of lazy bigotry casting too wide a net, using the term as a catch-all, just like the right does with the word "leftists".
2017-08-15, 12:08 PM #3507
Originally posted by Krokodile:
Those reactions are always predictable enough that there's no real need to keep tabs. I used to do it, too.


I did learn a few things. The racist corners of 4chan have unequivocally been taken over now by oughtright Nazis, who are unabashedly displaying Nazi flags over their posts. But in the hours before this, many other people on the fence of trolling and outright murderous hatred seemed to be expressing frustration and disillusionment with the board. Those who are braving this "raid" by "storm***s" are ridiculing these people as "Nazi larpers", which is heartening.

Of course that leaves the site's only remaining constituency-an alliance between the KKK and 14 y.o. edgelords.
2017-08-15, 12:15 PM #3508
TBQH, despite the horrors of the weekend, I am actually quite optimistic that in the aftermath, the far far right is finally being exposed, and as a result Trump's base really is shrinking down to a small enough tumor that we might be able to simply cut out (I'm looking at you, Paul Ryan).
2017-08-15, 12:42 PM #3509
Originally posted by Reverend Jones:
Actually this of sort of true. I am always eager to monitor the far right on sites like 4chan to gauge the political reaction to events that should cause more reasonable people to jump ship, so perhaps I accumulated a bit too much empathy for posters showing ϵ less hatred, that I got too good at processing their point of view without batting an eye.

Karl Popper warned about this, though:


I blame the two party system for forcing me to try to empathize with voters who are rotting in the wastebasket of political parties.


Hmm:

Quote:
"Old saying: When you dance with the devil, the devil doesn't change—the devil changes you,"


http://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-not-planning-on-charlottesville-trip-why-the-hell-would-we-do-that-aides-say
2017-08-15, 12:43 PM #3510
Originally posted by Reverend Jones:
Maybe. Maybe not. Isn't it obvious? Not that I have an axe to grind here, but imagine you and I have different views on the topic. Like maybe you think it doesn't even meaningfully exist, judging by your answer, or perpaps more simply that you are wary of lazy bigotry casting too wide a net, using the term as a catch-all, just like the right does with the word "leftists".


Things that seem obvious can be not so obvious when you analyze them critically.
2017-08-15, 12:50 PM #3511
Maybe. But it's hard to know what you're getting at if you don't tell me.
2017-08-15, 1:27 PM #3512
Originally posted by Reverend Jones:
TBQH, despite the horrors of the weekend, I am actually quite optimistic that in the aftermath, the far far right is finally being exposed, and as a result Trump's base really is shrinking down to a small enough tumor that we might be able to simply cut out (I'm looking at you, Paul Ryan).


The problem isn't that Trump has a base. The problem is that political polarization is now being coupled with the view that violence is the best way to reconcile differences between groups that hold opposed beliefs. It's horrible that Trump is president, and that as president, he's validating radical, avowedly antisemitic and racist elements in society. But aside from the dysfunction of American politics right now, which has been clear for a long time, it's clear after this weekend that there are deep rifts in American civil society (i.e., among the American population), and there's no way for them to resolve their differences except through violence. There's little reason to believe that those extremist, violent right-wing elements are weaker and not stronger after this weekend.
former entrepreneur
2017-08-15, 1:34 PM #3513
Originally posted by Reverend Jones:
Maybe. But it's hard to know what you're getting at if you don't tell me.


In my experience when people complain about political correctness are subtextually saying "I want to say offensive things without consequences." I can't really parse the phrase any other way. I was wondering if you had uses for it that meant something other than that.
2017-08-15, 1:37 PM #3514
Originally posted by Eversor:
The problem isn't that Trump has a base. The problem is that political polarization is now being coupled with the view that violence is the best way to reconcile differences between groups that hold opposed beliefs. It's horrible that Trump is president, and that as president, he's validating radical, avowedly antisemitic and racist elements in society. But aside from the dysfunction of American politics right now, which has been clear for a long time, it's clear after this weekend that there are deep rifts in American civil society (i.e., among the American population), and there's no way for them to resolve their differences except through violence. There's little reason to believe that those extremist, violent right-wing elements are weaker and not stronger after this weekend.


What response is appropriate for neo-Nazis who want to congregate in your area?
2017-08-15, 1:38 PM #3515
In response to Eversor: I may be wrong here, but I would posit that as the violent right-wing elements are emboldened, Trump's mainstream appeal shrinks, even on the right. "With friends like these, who needs enemies?"

Electoral games aside, what's more worrying for people's immediate safety from right wing terrorism is that the FBI and DHS warned the White House about this growing threat months ago.

Quote:
The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security in May warned that white supremacist groups had already carried out more attacks than any other domestic extremist group over the past 16 years and were likely to carry out more attacks over the next year, according to an intelligence bulletin obtained by Foreign Policy.

Even as President Donald Trump continues to resist calling out white supremacists for violence, federal law enforcement has made clear that it sees these types of domestic extremists as a severe threat. The report, dated May 10, says the FBI and DHS believe that members of the white supremacist movement “likely will continue to pose a threat of lethal violence over the next year.”

The “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which attracted hundreds of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and other members of the so-called alt-right, sparked violent clashes over the weekend. A woman, Heather Heyer, was killed by a car that drove into a crowd of people protesting the rally.

James Alex Fields Jr., the driver of the vehicle that struck Heyer, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder.

Since the outbreak of violence over the weekend, President Trump has been heavily criticized for not condemning racist groups. “We must remember this truth: No matter our color, creed, religion or political party, we are ALL AMERICANS FIRST,” he tweeted.

The FBI, on the other hand, has already concluded that white supremacists, including neo-Nazi supporters and members of the Ku Klux Klan, are in fact responsible for the lion’s share of violent attacks among domestic extremist groups. White supremacists “were responsible for 49 homicides in 26 attacks from 2000 to 2016 … more than any other domestic extremist movement,” reads the joint intelligence bulletin.

The report, titled “White Supremacist Extremism Poses Persistent Threat of Lethal Violence,” was prepared by the FBI and DHS.

The bulletin’s numbers appear to correspond with outside estimates. An independent database compiled by the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute found that between 2008 and 2016, far-right plots and attacks outnumbered Islamist incidents by almost 2 to 1.

The cases cited in the intelligence report include an 18-year-old Chinese student in Nashville, Indiana, who was attacked by a white supremacist with a hatchet; the murder of an African-American man in Fort Wayne, Indiana; and the stabbing of Klansman in East Yanceyville, North Carolina, by other KKK members, who believed the victim was Jewish and secretly working for law enforcement.

An FBI spokesperson said it was bureau policy not to comment on specific intelligence products but added that as “part of the continuous dialogue with our law enforcement partners, the FBI routinely shares information about potential threats to better enable law enforcement to protect the communities they serve.”

DHS did not respond to a request for comment on the document, but provided a general statement on recent events. “DHS personnel have been in contact with Virginia state and local law enforcement to offer any assistance necessary to deal with [Saturday’s] horrible violent incident in Charlottesville,” wrote a DHS spokesperson.
2017-08-15, 1:42 PM #3516
Originally posted by Reid:
What response is appropriate for neo-Nazis who want to congregate in your area?


The National Guard would be a better response than citizens armed with blunt weapons.
former entrepreneur
2017-08-15, 1:45 PM #3517
Originally posted by Reverend Jones:
In response to Eversor: I may be wrong here, but I would posit that as the violent right-wing elements are emboldened, Trump's mainstream appeal shrinks, even on the right. "With friends like these, who needs enemies?"


I completely agree. It's feasible that this could be a decisive turning point for Trump where his popularity plummets and Republicans begin to turn on him. But, again, electoral politics is important, but it's not everything. There are rifts developing in American society, among American citizens, that are foreboding, to put it mildly. And those rifts will continue even if Trump is ousted from office (in fact, they may even become more pronounced).
former entrepreneur
2017-08-15, 1:45 PM #3518
Originally posted by Reid:
In my experience when people complain about political correctness are subtextually saying "I want to say offensive things without consequences." I can't really parse the phrase any other way. I was wondering if you had uses for it that meant something other than that.


Ah, but who gets to determine what is "offensive" other than the offended party? And I shudder at the open-ended scope of the word "consequences". This interpretation of your post pretty well illustrates exactly the kind of damper on speech that defines the notion of political correctness today.



At the end of the day, it all comes down to the whether or not the person making the ostensibly "offensive" statements is doing so in good faith and for the purpose of furthering discourse rather than repeating memes.
2017-08-15, 1:47 PM #3519
Originally posted by Eversor:
I completely agree. It's feasible that this could be a decisive turning point for Trump where his popularity plummets and Republicans begin to turn on him. But, again, electoral politics is important, but it's not everything. There are rifts developing in American society, among American citizens, that are foreboding, to put it mildly. And those rifts will continue even if Trump is ousted from office (in fact, they may even become more pronounced).


I imagine there is a chance we'll see counter-riots in response to the violence perpetrated by the racists, which may well turn the tide in Trump's favor. If so, it would all depend on which side escalates closest to election day, making their side look really bad in the eyes of the average voter.

I don't think there are many people who look at what happened this past weekend and say, "hey! that's exactly what I was thinking needed to be done, good job guys!"
2017-08-15, 1:52 PM #3520
Originally posted by Reverend Jones:
I imagine there is a chance we'll see counter-riots in response to the violence perpetrated by the racists, which may well turn the tide in Trump's favor. If so, it would all depend on which side escalates closest to election day, making their side look really bad in the eyes of the average voter.

I don't think there are many people who look at what happened this past weekend and say, "hey! that's exactly what I was thinking needed to be done, good job guys!"


Right, but what I'm getting at is that, to an extent, it doesn't matter who the president is. There are reasons why white nationalism is becoming more prominent in America that have little to do with who the president is. These groups won't just go away because a Democrat or some other Republican becomes president.
former entrepreneur
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