Accusations you can easily make but can hardly prove. — NOS4A2

is an example of defending racists, rapists, sex offenders, colluders and tax evaders. Oh, and killers. Let's not forget killers. 300,000 dead through sheer stupidity and counting.

striving to change things we can change and indifference with respect to the rest — 180 Proof

:up: :100:

don't know why you think I'm blaming anyone. — StreetlightX

I do.

It's because your writing, on this topic at least, is little more than the chanting of emotional slogans spiced with generous doses of fantasy superiority poses. The message seems to be that you alone get it, while the rest of us need our pathetic cuddling.

Biden has had a long career. There are undoubtably decisions in that career which can be reasonably challenged. You've briefly mentioned a few things that merit inspection. But it seems you haven't bothered to make a careful reasoned case for why we should be concerned about any particular decision.

Why not pick one Biden decision which bothers you the most, and start a new thread to analyze it in detail. If you don't know the details, then say that and we can all build the record together.

Educate yourself on your own presidential candidate rather than asking a stranger on the internet.

Edit: here, buy it/pirate it, read it.

As a mod, like it or not, know it or not, you are setting the standard which represents the goals of the forum.

Educate yourself on your own presidential candidate rather than asking a stranger on the internet. — StreetlightX

Ah, a well done edit. Thank you for the upgrade. I'm attempting to upgrade here as well, as I agree I can be insufferable.

Please note that at no point have I asked you educate me. That's you reading in to my request that which you wish to see, and wish to be.

I'm instead asking that you make your case, which may be entirely reasonable, in a manner more suitable to your position as a mod on a philosophy forum. I like the forum. I'd like to see it thrive. You've chosen to be in a position of leadership. I'm agreeing with your choice, and asking you to do the job you have selected for yourself.

If I didn't think you were able, I wouldn't bring it up. But I know you are able. So I'm requesting that which I know you are capable of.

Thanks for listening. I've made my case, and said what I wished to say. I'm agreeable to let it go now and move on.

In a world in which your every possibility of action is circumscribed from without (where what is 'up to you' is a given), Stoic ethics serves nothing less than an internalization of capitalist imperatives passed off as principled action. In any case, this is far off topic now.

So now we believe the FBI. But not before. :smirk:

I'm nervous about the debate tonite. We are so close. Please Biden, play it safe, say what you always say, don't get creative, keep smiling when he tries to rattle you. Let him talk all night if that's what he wants to do. Don't do anything to rock the boat. We're ahead. Run out the clock.

Like, it's been four years. If people continue to be surprised that Trump is a total wanker, who, really, is the idiot?

People act like - if only one can accumulate enough evidence that Trump is an idiot, people are bound to change their minds any second. Everytime Trump says or tweets or looks or does something stupid, liberals mobilize en masse to say: 'look, we finally got him! Don't you see it?'. And when no one gives a flying fuck because no one except liberals are playing that insular, suffocating game, they bunker down and wait for the next act of outrage before crawling out of their holes again to add yet one more piece of evidence to their list that no one but them gives a shit about.

And then, to top it off, they get incredulous like - why can't the hoi polloi see what we see? They must be dumb. We must be too smart for them! Didn't you see his Tweet??!?!? Wasn't it TeRrIbLE?? Like holy shit these people are the dumbest peices of shit on the planet and they think the situation is exactly the opposite. — StreetlightX

The scorn heaped upon Trump's personal (rather than political) behaviour had always had a humongous element of classism built into it. Trump does not act like how we want our rich people to act. He acts - shockingly - like a 'tasteless', that is to say poor man, with all the table manners of a prole. Liberals - who don't give a rats ass about politics so long as everyone is polite - cannot stand this. His base love that fact. His unique appeal is a function of class dynamics, and he trades on it like few others can.

I've been reading through this thread a bit and I just gotta say these post were :fire: :fire: :fire:

In any case of course they're trying to shame you into (theoretically) voting Biden here. Good American liberals when push comes to shove gotta shut up and get in line, no other way about it.

It reads like you dismiss what you don't understand, do so flippantly, which indirectly is insulting towards me but still think 4 is important. — Benkei

You're so sensitive. My flippancy is based upon my obvious irrelevancy in these matters, regardless of the level of my comprehension. That is to say, even should I have an understanding on these matters as profound as yours, I'd still realize that the scope of my control doesn't extend far beyond my cul-de-sac.

Interesting choice of words if you really did think that. More likely you just pay it lip service as I also remember how you reacted when Trump won and I pointed out half of the country didn't and that they should still be heard too. That was "tough luck" because you were all too happy getting your way. — Benkei

Oh, good Lord, let's now explore the mind of Hanover and see what my true motives are. If I really insulted you, I apologize. I apparently took lightly what you take seriously.

As a lawyer you're trained to sound reasonable but you're a ball of emotional contradictions. — Benkei

Not so much. I mean I do appreciate the compliment that you see some evidence of lawyerly training and that I can at least sound superficially reasonable, and I'll even concede an inconsistency from time to time, but "ball of emotion" probably doesn't describe me.

Also, your reaction to 3 would be funny if it wasn't so tragic. — Benkei

Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel. I read that on a fortune cookie once. I got the sweet and sour chicken. It was meh.

My point on #3 is actually true, which is that I don't think an information apocalypse is a concern, We have access to more information than ever before, which includes my ability to converse with you, a regular guy from across the globe. That is a major development in the history of our world. When I was a kid, we had a set of Encyclopedia Britannica, a globe I could spin in circles and see where my finger landed, and some well intentioned teachers in suburban Atlanta. There were a handful of channels on my television I could watch cartoons on, and a few anchormen at night who got together and reported all the same news stories. For sure there are now those who will peddle misinformation for their own agenda, and it will take a more sophisticated public to ferret out the good from the bad, but to pretend the narratives of old were accurate when information was better controlled is nonsense. A book I'm reading right now, White Trash, makes the point in a different context to be sure, but the point is well made that the information we've always had, even as to the most basic of foundational societal facts, has always been recited from an agenda.

Trump's lawyer, preparing for a blistering campaign:



You guys following this story? He thought she was 15 years old.

He didn’t. He was told by Borat when he barged in and then they all left. Presumably he thought she was around her actual age before that.

Sasha Baron Cohen has a habit of fooling Republicans into hotel rooms. Remember Cohen as Bruno with Ron Paul.

A continuation to the tape of Donald Trump sexually harassing Rudy Giuliani in drag?

This is prescient:

"To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle. One thing that helps towards it is to keep a diary, or, at any rate, to keep some record of one’s opinions about important events. Otherwise, when some particularly absurd belief is exploded by events, one may simply forget that one ever held it. Political predictions are usually wrong, but even when one makes a correct one, to discover why one was right can be very illuminating. In general, one is only right when either wish or fear coincides with reality. If one recognizes this, one cannot, of course, get rid of one’s subjective feelings, but one can to some extent insulate them from one’s thinking and make predictions cold-bloodedly, by the book of arithmetic. In private life most people are fairly realistic. When one is making out one’s weekly budget, two and two invariably make four. Politics, on the other hand, is a sort of sub-atomic or non-Euclidean world where it is quite easy for the part to be greater than the whole or for two objects to be in the same place simultaneously. Hence the contradictions and absurdities I have chronicled above, all finally traceable to a secret belief that one’s political opinions, unlike the weekly budget, will not have to be tested against solid reality.”

- George Orwell “In Front of your Nose”

So now we believe the FBI. But not before. :smirk:

Now we don’t believe them, nor do we care, but before we did?

is an example of defending racists, rapists, sex offenders, colluders and tax evaders. Oh, and killers. Let's not forget killers. 300,000 dead through sheer stupidity and counting.

If you keep repeating it it will magically become true.

It looks like the idea that Hunter’s emails were Russian disinfo was itself disinfo. The director of national intelligence denied that this was some ploy by the Kremlin. One of Hunter Biden’s former business partners confirmed the emails. If the press and social media continue to suppress it, no one will forget.

n any case of course they're trying to shame you into (theoretically) voting Biden her — BitconnectCarlos

Is that really true? Is anyone really trying to NOS4A2 to vote for Biden?

I'm not. I just try to understand why he (and others) supports Trump, and to assess whether or not his judgments are principled or thoroughly partisan.

What's worse, the crime of bribery or the fact that the media is covering it up (yet we still somehow all know about it)...?

Didn't trump try and make bribery legal back in 2017?

Didn't a recent report also find that "over 200 companies patronized Trump properties while receiving benefits from his administration?".

Granted, both Trump and Biden are corrupt. Wouldn't you agree that Trump is the more belligerent offender? And if so, why vote for Trump?

Oh no, don't get the wrong idea. That something is insulting doesn't necessarily mean I'm insulted. I'm just saying that if you think treating people equally and fairly is important you aren't contributing.

But guess who was naive? Naturally the stupid bullshitter decided otherwise.
Hence McGurk resigned. — ssu

Trump is doing what he believes his base wants. And he seems to be alining himself with bullies because his supporters admire people with power. I think only Zionist Christians would support Isreal at the expense of Palestinian and other Arab nations.

Jews were Semitic along with the Arabs, but they were Europeanized when they went north. Especially Germany played a strong role in the Isreal that exists today because of its influence on the Jews who migrated to Israel. Israel would not exist if Britain had not made this possible, and when Britain tried to prevent the Jewish takeover of Palestine, the Jews took up arms against the British, and the British left well-armed Jews and unarmed Palestinians, just as the Brits left well-armed colonist with poorly armed native Americans because men like Washington wanted to make a fortune on land that the Brits promised the colonist would not take.

Ok. Quoting what I wrote two years ago. Well, not much has changed. :smile:

I wasn't talking about NOS, I was talking about Streetlight. It's just interesting to me because Streetlight is definitely on the left, but he's certainly not mainstream left.

I'm just saying that if you think treating people equally and fairly is important you aren't contributing. — Benkei

I treat people equally. Gotta work on the fairly.

That something is insulting doesn't necessarily mean I'm insulted. — Benkei

What does this even mean, that there is some hypothetical reasonable man that would be insulted by certain comments, so it is therefore considered objectively insulting, but you have a thicker layer of skin than that person, so subjectively you weren't insulted?

That's so confusing. Can we just go back to the way I thought it to be to where if someone says "that's insulting," I can just take that to mean "I'm insulted"?

What does this even mean, that there is some hypothetical reasonable man that would be insulted by certain comments, so it is therefore considered objectively insulting, but you have a thicker layer of skin than that person, so subjectively you weren't insulted? — Hanover

I've been called a cunt several times but not felt insulted.

I've been called a cunt several times but not felt insulted. — Michael

Was calling you a cunt insulting if no one was insulted?

Maybe if it was intended as an insult?

In any case of course they're trying to shame you into (theoretically) voting Biden here. Good American liberals when push comes to shove gotta shut up and get in line, no other way about it. — BitconnectCarlos

I haven't followed all of it but from what I gather it was a matter of trying to determine if SLX stood on pragmatic ground, as in the lesser of two evils or 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' or ideological ground, a refusal to participate in a system that is beyond reform. A resolution would be interesting, assuming there isn't already one and my assessment is at all accurate.