Time for the sartre quote again
Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.
The right wing fundamentally do not care about facts and meaning. You can give as many stats and facts as you want that disprove their position and it doesn't matter. They're not arguing facts. They believe they're right, and they'll make whatever noises they want to justify that.
They're bad people.
87Perhaps the greater horror of fascism, from a philosophical perspective, is that it is essentially against the concept of meaning itself.
Language is merely another tool to enforce domination and submission. All that really matters is being on the winning side.
25Anyone that's been in a relationship with an abusive narcissist can clearly see the playbook. They live in a world where the only thing that matters is power and control because their grandiosity entitles them to anything they want. They manipulate reality so that they are always on top. There is no truth beyond that. Additionally, since they are entitled to everything but don't get it, they see themselves as an eternal victim that blames everyone else. This makes any relationship with them inherently antagonistic. Thus, anyone debating with them using logic to reach a valid conclusion will be wasting their time because the goal of the narcissist is simply to have power. They will dodge questions, distort reality, and even straight gaslight.
Another technique they use is to project. They assume that everyone else is like them, so when they accuse someone of something, the vast majority of the time it is a confession. For example, if they accuse someone of stealing an election, it's because they tried to steal it but were unsuccessful. Since they were unsuccessful at winning the election through cheating, then the other side must have been cheating too, or they would not have won. In there minds, everyone is playing this game. They literally cannot conceive a world based on rationality and see anyone that engages in that as a threat that will dismantle their delusional grandiosity.
Watching the MAGA movement is like watching a narcissist function on a societal level. It really is the same thing. If the Democrats truly wanted to rid the country of this deranged movement, then they would hire a team of psychologists that specialize in working with narcissists in order to develop a skill set to control and limit the abuse this mentality pushes onto others. Otherwise, we're all screwed because a narcissist cannot stop themselves from abusing others.
5Too bad I haven't read Sartre, that quote is brilliant and I already have reinvented it poorly a few times.
(Usually while analyzing verbal encounters with Turks\Azeris on Armenian issues, though, since open anti-Semites are hard to find, but them too.)
5Highly recommend the essay that quote is from: "Anti-Semite and Jew". It's written from that post-liberation of Paris/ending of ww2 perspective, but a lot of the insights on the nature of that kind of societal hate still hold up pretty well.
3
I wonder if that sort of right wing person is capable of doing science. I think they can't, due to the parallels with the most deadly scientific fraud perpetrated by Ancel Keys. He had no qualifications, but in the late '40s he stole a hypothesis and claimed it was his
This new affliction heart disease could be caused by eating saturated fats
The only good thing he did was design a good study to test the hypothesis, but his study unfortunately proved the opposite. People in the control group (eating the normal diet full of butter, eggs, and meat) lived longer than the intervention group, who replaced butter, eggs, and meat with linoleic acid (an omega 6 oil)
So he buried the study and said "we didn't run the study long enough, but we are certain due to the results we have that saturated fat is causing heart disease"
4They can. They can even combine real science with tangible results and pseudo-science. It has all been witnessed in history.
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They are and yet we, through their actions over the years, and our own inaction, are playing their game. We continue to talk instead of act. We continue to argue instead of act. We speak of standing up and yet do not act. We hope that, in the U.S., the justice system and democracy will act for us and yet we do not trust it, and still we do not act.
I know this is a little harsh. After all, we are doing something. Just that the Republican base and especially the MAGA cult is willing and has acted. Not that we should take such harsh action, only that I feel we rely too strongly on pushing our "leaders" instead of just coming together.
3Careful when lumping people into groups. You say the right wing are bad people, but the Democratic party itself is center right.
-7OP in no way even insinuated anything about the Democratic Party. I'm pretty sure that most people in America know that we have two options, and neither of them have been a good option since before my parents were born. It's been lesser of two evils, possibly since the country was founded, though the first few presidents did seem to actually give a shit about the people.
2
I'm old enough to remember when Benghazi was Obama's fault, and then it suddenly was Hillary's fault.
Their base forgot, but I didn't...
Ya know who's fault it actually was the? The GOP that cut funding for security in Benghazi
79When will we learn - "both sides" isn't something that THEY actually believe (they believe in winning, however/whatever it takes, and they are quite aware of how different that makes them from us - in fact they despise us for that), it is troll-bait meant for us to get distracted, taking time to respond to it rather than move forward with whatever ACTUALLY NEEDS DOING.
57I'm a big believer in the "both sides" theory. Stick with me here.
One side is a trash can fire. They do some fucked up shit.
The other is the Springfield Tire Fire.
Both sides suck, but one side sucks so bad that there's no way to ever fix it.
19If we had a mathematical equation such as "1 + 1 = ?", Dems would give the answer of -1000000, while Repubs would rape your mother, then kill her (b/c she might get pregnant, you see, and the rights of the fetus mean that you have to do it... right?).
I get the appeal of DT - to people who don't know anything at all, he made some good mouth noises, about getting rid of corruption blah blah. But never forget, a lot of people voted on him more to throw the dice because...
MORE PEOPLE VOTED AGAINST HILLARY THAN FOR DONALD.
Her corruption was of a special kind, chiefly in terms of the degree to which it was out in the open. Remember her emails? No not those proving that she accepted bribes from the Saudis, no not those other ones either, those other other ones where she illegally colluded with the DNC to do things like receive the questions in advance whereas Bernie was not given those, and to schedule her talks during popular sporting events when people were less likely to actually watch them. The Dems primary problem that year... was her? Also she would not allow anyone to even so much as run against her, which younger politicians NEED to do in spite of having no hope of winning in order to get their names out there for future runs, plus what if they were really that good and deserved to win the whole thing over her? (in comparison, if JEB had done that...) Oh yeah, and remember that time that the Supreme Court told her to turn over all the emails on her server, and she told them to take a hike? Okay so I'm exaggerating slightly: what she actually told them was "wait 3 days, I need to remove the ones that I don't want you to see first". THAT WAS WHAT SHE ACTUALLY SAID, IRL!!! (not necessarily word-for-word but as a paraphrase, it is accurate is it not?)
Many LIFELONG Democrats, immigrants even who have been racially profiled by the police and thus KNOW what the conservative agenda is first-hand, still chose to vote against her, thinking that she was THAT corrupt. Maybe the problem is how we think and talk about corruption in this country? e.g. the Saudis contributing money to a literal and established charity after a vote is given in their favor may be thoroughly "corruption", but especially if it is out in the open, is it really all that bad? They are an outside entity and you can't really stop them from doing something, so this channels their attempts at bribery to a (presumably) worthy cause... But what justification can we offer as to why Bernie was treated so unfairly, and she was given that handout, that the broad populace would accept?
Also, what would she likely have done to advance civil rights? DT made things worse, which ironically might end up making things better in the long run, but she would have just papered over the issue, unquestionably keeping things running FAR more smoothly in the short-term, but what good would that accomplish in the wider view? According to the Stoic philosophy, it's only worth attempting to fix what you CAN potentially fix, but what Dems CAN attempt to address is why that cry of outright DESPERATION of so very many independent, moderate Americans caused them to vote for him rather than her?
e.g., to return to our question of "1 + 1 = ?", where Dems would give the answer of -1000000, while what many middle-ground Americans did was roll the dice on a random number, which while it most certainly did not result in a good outcome, at least had a chance of avoiding that known false quantity (in their minds at least, keeping in mind that many/most of these are blue-collar workers who have other interests than keeping up with politics 24/7 - remember we are talking moderates here, not die-hard Faux News watchers, who also voted for him too).
i.e., it does no good to blame only the "other side" for all of their faults, whilst ignoring those on our own side. I think that attitude is what makes something unfixable.
2
You go high, we go low
12LOVE that channel :-)
3Indeed, the idea that fascists can be subdued by winning enough "Good boy points" with "Proper decor" is why we're in this mess.
3
Exactly. It's schoolyard "But... but... Timmy did..."
5Who is "they?" There certainly are people who believe both sides are authoritarian amd wish to control others (by nature of them creating laws to control others I'd say it's pretty spot on tbh.) The republicans, I don't have to go over what they want to restrict because everyone here knows it, however they pretend the democrats don't want to restrict the right to bear arms for instance, or different bodily autonomy (everyone loves fingerprints and nobody thinks we should have a right to privacy regarding them, the police can compel you to unlock a phone with a fingerprint but can't do so with a PIN because you have no rights regarding your fingerprints, because fuck you. Isn't that fucked up?)
For those of us who are libertarian (as opposed to authoritarian) minded and don't want to control others as long as they aren't actively hurting someone (no, simply owning a gun isn't actively hurting someone just as much as simply owning a knife isn't hurting someone, you have to stab them first, or at least try) there is no "good party" that doesn't want to control your right to X. Used to be at least the libertarians did but they went off the deep end with everyone else in 2016.
That's what is meant by "both sides," not whatever you're (the royal you're) pretending it means, i.e "both sides are exactly the same" or whatever other textbook strawman you (the royal you) decide "both sides" means. Is the Democrat party less bad than the republicans? Sure. Do they still want to control you? Yes. Does the republican party wish to control you? Yes. The republicans and the democrats constitute "both" "sides," and both of them do want to control you, so "yes, both sides."
1In one sense, "both sides" is just a term of convenience - nobody is saying that there are not additional sides besides those two, nor that there are not sub-sides below them, nor that subtleties do not exist such as someone thinking one way but voting another, or possibly voting their conscience in the primaries prior to ultimately sorting themselves into one of the two major camps. But if say one "side" constitutes 44% of the votes, and the other "side" as well, and then the remaining ~1-2% holds let us exaggerate and say 1,000,000 sides, then given how a plurality-rules system works, all of those other sides only act as statistical noise wrt the major ones, who are the only ones that have a chance at winning.
But more to the point, as someone in another reply below my comment linked to, that phrase refers to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism (and here's a funny meme about it) - i.e., whenever one side does something, the other side can say "yes but both sides are bad", which ofc ignores the particular point being discussed and pretty much is just an attempt to end the discussion, by diverting blame. I did not make this up - it is the literal name of something commonly used nowadays to something much older, likely predating both of our being alive by decades if not centuries, and that only in the USA but surely it was present in any democratic system where two major sides were arguing about whatever.
In this particular instance, I was saying that the Alt-Right movement in America (I hesitate to even call that "conservative" at this point) often attempts this logical fallacy tactic - a form of bad argumentation that even if you supported their agenda I would hope you would condemn, b/c proper argumentation form helps advance a cause while improper form detracts from it. Though you are correct - both sides do point to a bad end - it is just that they do not do so equally.
Also, Russia is fairly authoritarian itself? So with the number of Alt-Righters that are talking about re-making the USA more in that image, I would think you would be anti-Republican to a far greater degree than being anti-Democrat, even though like everyone else you are technically against both sides b/c they both legitimately do suck. After all, registering someone's fingerprint is a far lesser indignity than taking your child, or YOU, away in order to send them off to war:-|. Though possibly at least he/you would be given a gun... (whether it has any bullets inside it or not is another matter, plus there is literally one WITH BULLETS aimed at your back, prodding you to move forward).
2
Hillary would have been the perfect president for Covid. She would have shut down international airports and mandated rigorous screening to avoid spread.
The authoritarian tendencies people worried about with Hillary would have led to a quick and overwhelming reaction to Covid. We might not have been hit that hard.
35A stick in a pile of flaming dogshit would have been a better president than Trump.
37That's an artful way of repeating what the previous commenter said.
10
She would have shut down international airports
Event 201 conclusions said the opposite.
mandated rigorous screening to avoid spread.
Yes, this was possible. Many countries did track and trace well.
4Yes and here, in much of europe, we literally don't have to worry about covid at all. Nobody wears a mask anymore, not because of some political protest like in the US, but because covid rates are so low while US and Canada keep having huge waves because people are so anti-themselves and refuse to do a very simple easy thing to protect themselves and each other.
4
And nobody would’ve died so it would’ve been overreach and unnecessary.
3
This is a highlight of authoritarian regimes. We just have their play book this time and have devoted hopefully enough to education in the meantime.
I mean everyone knows the mason dixon line is hopeless. Sherman didn't get to finish and reconstruction was a joke. They also got to spread west, the Aryan nations in Idaho are testament.
32We should have extinguished this deplorable shit in April 1865
7Unfortunately, as a wise Walter Lippmann said: Men are mortal; but ideas are immortal.
3
Clearly the numbers need to be bigger to gain their support.
10Honestly there's hundreds of millions of Americans who don't give a shit either way. Who gives a shit what the loud ones say. What's important is what the most people say.
7What's important is what the most people say.
It would be if it weren't for the electoral college.
16I hear what you are trying to say (e.g. 11% are hard-right, roughly the same are hard-left, leaving almost 90% somewhere in the middle), but on the other hand... MOST people (I think?) in the countries that Nazi Germany took over did not desire to be invaded. In like manner, not everyone in Russia (most people even?) would like for the invasion of Ukraine to stop, and yet it goes on. i.e., not everyone's opinion is always taken into account equally.
Recently we just had a fantastic example in how McCarthy was booted from his Speaker role... by a handful of hard-line extremists. Never mind what "most" people want: the extremists pushed, and they won.
Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world. - Archimedes
3Even that is dubious if what most say is based on nonsense.
2
And Trump is leading the polls for the first time EVER. He won in 2016 while behind in the polls.
7He lost the general election. By over 3 million votes. He won the EC because, for the 5th time in just under 250 years the EC went against the popular vote.
6We play EC. We don't play popular vote. Thank you founding fathers!
1
I actually think him leading in the polls is a good thing. I'm hoping that creates an urgency to go out and vote. If he were getting slammed in the polls I'd worry about complacency in voters. Maybe that's just copium on my part though.
3Polls… ROFL!
-1
Trump supporters support Trump.
3All these 3 are corrupted politicians liars with blood in their hands. Don't advertise for twitter on lemmy and don't post propaganda
-16Both sides though.
I mean — for at least two of those things, yeah? Current COVID-19 deaths in the United States is just over 1.1 million, with about 400,000 occurring under Trump (the tweet is misinformation, big surprise) and the remaining 700,000 occurring under Biden. Moreover, Biden was also found in unauthorized possession of classified documents.
-27Biden was also found in unauthorized possession of classified documents.
They were in a forgotten drawer after using them. And then immediately returned the small hand full, searched around and found a hand full more and gave those back right away.
Trump intentionally took numerous boxes, lied about having nothing, moved them around his properties to hide them. Showed them off for being top secret to numerous people, and stashed them in a bathroom. Then the government finally decided to come take them back Then the people doing the stashing tried to destroy the evidence, and intimidate witnesses.
This is NOT "both sides".
20Imagine inheriting a disease shitshow and being blamed for how the Second Act plays out.
6Plus, we're comparing 400k over one year versus 700k over three years.
1
LOL YOU'RE STILL LIKING AND BOOSTING YOUR OWN POSTS!? 🤣🤣🤣 WHAT A FUCKING LOSER OMG
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