https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/coast-guard-member-flashes-white-power-hand-signal-tv-n909856

Practically the whole article goes on and on about how this is a "white power" signal, but the very last paragraph says:



Are they talking about some other gesture or is this "ok" gesture now something racist? Or has it always been racist and I never knew?

So IIRC some people on 4chan lied to claim the OK hand signal was a white supremacist signal. A bunch of people took it seriously and they laughed about it, thinking it was funny.

The guy clearly does it intentionally, probably uses 4chan and was posting on /pol/ saying "hi I'm on the livestream what do I do" and someone said to do that so he did.

Urgh I hate the news.

Hold on. This guy makes a gesture on live TV since it's a thing on SomethingAwful4kids , and gets reprimanded for it... but Trump is still your president?

You mean Mr. Garrison is our president!

He should be!

That's my guess, yes. It's hard to know for sure since many people with white supremacist views do use 4chan and maybe started using the hand sign in a less ironic way after the news story.

My first guess would be he's probably some form of "redpilled" Trump supporter.

I'm still amused that Bill O'Reilly got fired last year. Was Nixon right all along? When the president does it, it's not illegal?

Well, Trump can just pardon himself. He probably already pre-pardoned himself.

He "can", if his own party (and their constituents) is (are) content enough to idlely see him do so.

But I guess they're all scared silly about losing their seats if the Tea Party whispers the possibility that they could be a "RINO", so that eventually the party becomes filled more and more by cowards and / or genuine radicals.

I'm pretty sure if Trump pardons himself I'm taking eggs to DC and egging the White House. You couldn't get further from what the founding fathers intended.

separation of brain cells

I don't know, a few years ago the supreme court ruled that individual citizens are required to buy a product from a private company, and if they don't they have to pay a fine disguised as a "tax."

wow

there are still people who care about obamacare?

Yeah, if you are a doctor, or are self-employed.

I don't get why Dems are so in love with corporate Romneycare

Bingo. I liked my plan and I liked my doctor. Now I have a new (crappier) plan, a new (uglier) doctor, and pay thrice as much. Thanks Obama!

Scalia's broccoli argument was ridiculed by the media in 2012 but it deserved to be taken more seriously. The supreme court hearings around the individual mandate were fascinating.

It was interesting because it was a multi-faceted act. It wasn't a simple "yes" or "no." Most of it was approved, but a few parts were rejected. More should have been.

Re: ok

It’s useful to keep in mind that white nationalists are both 1. cowards and 2. rare. Coopting a common hand gesture makes it easy for them to 1. deny white nationalism if it ever seems like they’re going to get their face caved in and 2. pretend there are a lot more white nationalists than there really are.

There’s no difference between someone who is “ironically” white nationalist and someone who really is one, by the way. See #1, above.

I'm personally not, I just disagree with why conservatives dislike it.

The courts shouldn't simply strike down laws you find personally inconvenient.

One of the more interesting features of the dissenting opinion was when the SC justices said that they wanted to strike obamacare down because Steven found it personally inconvenient.

I'm going to guess that Reid hasn't bought healthcare on the individual market, so he's expressing strong opinions about things that haven't personally affected him in ways that they've affected others.

You may be willing to pay more of your money so that everyone can have healthcare. It doesn't mean that everyone is. People who aren't aren't bad people because they aren't willing to.

Check your privilege, Reid.

What I was really getting at was check your condescension.

I do care about that, FYI. What I think is silly is having a problem with the SC not striking down Obamacare.

Why?

How do you feel about the SC going over the head of the legislature and deciding that denying abortion or same-sex marriage is illegal?

Yeah I'm totally sick of this liberals coopting common symbols/gestures/colors/icons. I can't even wear pink anymore without some democrat thinking I support breast cancer

To be honest, I have no knowledge of the court decisions on Obamacare and probably won't do any reading unless this discussion pushes me to. I just see a difference between:

"I don't like Obamacare, it has increased my premiums and my health care hasn't improved"

and

"I don't like Obamacare, it's an UNCONSTITUTIONAL bill pushed through by LUNATIC, POWERHUNGRY DEMOCRATS!"

Nobody here is saying the latter (hopefully). But I think it's common of conservatives to take basic complaints about tangible issues and turn them into some like epic constitutional struggle against encroaching power.

Like, with guns. Why isn't the primary argument that guns are fun, and despite the risks should be allowed to citizens with proper considerations in mind? That's what I think the real argument is, and I personally think it's the right one. Not stammering on about the 2nd amendment and constitutional rights.

It's like those people who try to pull over police officers and give them warnings. It's cringey to me when people try to use "constitution-speak".

And for the record, yes obviously the constitution is serious and should be held in high regard. The difference is between respecting the constitution and respecting everybody's argument about the constitution, regardless of what they know.

And for the further record, obviously this feeling doesn't extend to the actual legal realm, where arguments no matter how bad should be heard out. This feeling extends only to the realm of personal space, not public space.

I think that's the best argument for guns. A large group of people like them, and they are culturally significant for those people. There are a lot of people who get into a self-righteous frenzy over firearm deaths, but very much value their freedom to drink alcohol, despite alcohol being responsible for a large number of deaths.

However, the Constitution does guarantee access to firearms. We have a procedure to change that if we feel that circumstances warrant it, but that intentionally requires a strong consensus. Right now, enough people value access to firearms that this consensus does not exist. I don't respect attempts to sabotage that system. If culture shifts to the point that a constitutional amendment is viable, fine, but until then, we should respect the rights that are in the Constitution whatever people's reasons are for wanting to exercise them. We shouldn't have to justify it. You can't ban someone from publishing pornography just because that's not a "good enough reason" to use freedom of speech.

Obi_Kwiet, don't take this the wrong way, but you'd have been a much better spokesman for the Nazis than Goebbels was.

I don't think there's... multiple ways to take that.

let's try to stick to realistic suggestions, though

I think he's trying to mock my posting style.

You assume I pay that much attention to Reid Squad posts? ;P

Anyway, Obi_Kwiet might be the best right-wing apologist I've seen (on this forum, at least). Remember the "did the Iraqi government, jihadists or American weapons contractors swindle 139 million dollars from some helicopter sales to Iraq?" discussion, and how Obi came to the conclusion that "if the gun contractors did it, at least the money was returned to the American economy"?

Well, if anything, he's come a long way from the "the Catholic Church is liberal" Obi of 2004.

Or some other degree of way, at least.