Random Politics 2

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Hoogstwaarschijnlijk
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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby Hoogstwaarschijnlijk » 2021-01-07, 16:51

Did you expected this to happen? Where was all the police, why could they go so easily into the Capital, surely there were signs that people would go riot that day?

I feel sorry for the USA.
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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-01-07, 17:41

Of course, this doesn't surprise me at all. The US is essentially an empire, and we are witnessing its downfall, which by this point in my opinion is long overdue. It is like the downfall of any other empire. The fall of Rome was not exactly a pretty sight, either.

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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby Rí.na.dTeangacha » 2021-01-07, 18:17

I found this especially stupid:

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"The European/Eurasian country of Georgia invading Washington yesterday!!"

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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-01-07, 18:24

Is that more stupid than American conspiracy theories?

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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby Osias » 2021-01-07, 20:46

vijayjohn wrote:Of course, this doesn't surprise me at all. The US is essentially an empire, and we are witnessing its downfall, which by this point in my opinion is long overdue. It is like the downfall of any other empire. The fall of Rome was not exactly a pretty sight, either.

I see no evidence of anything falling. The USA will take measures to prevent thighs like that to happen again like new laws, a reform of DC politics or something, removing the need for the congress endorsing votes (or something), invade some arab country completely unrelated to the events like Iraq (except Saudi Arabia). Or something.

Even Republicans will now be immunized against letting a billionaire running for president by their party. And the country will be even more resilient to this kind of thing.
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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby Yasna » 2021-01-07, 21:21

Osias wrote:I see no evidence of anything falling. The USA will take measures to prevent thighs like that to happen again like new laws, a reform of DC politics or something, removing the need for the congress endorsing votes (or something), invade some arab country completely unrelated to the events like Iraq (except Saudi Arabia). Or something.

Even Republicans will now be immunized against letting a billionaire running for president by their party. And the country will be even more resilient to this kind of thing.

Trump is but a symptom of a deeper rot in American society. About the only thing holding us together was relatively high confidence in the opportunity to kick out the other "team" in a free and fair election every few years. That confidence is rapidly dwindling.
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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby Dormouse559 » 2021-01-07, 21:25

Osias wrote:I see no evidence of anything falling. The USA will take measures to prevent thighs like that to happen again like new laws, a reform of DC politics or something, removing the need for the congress endorsing votes (or something), invade some arab country completely unrelated to the events like Iraq (except Saudi Arabia). Or something.

Even Republicans will now be immunized against letting a billionaire running for president by their party. And the country will be even more resilient to this kind of thing.

I'm not so optimistic. 74 million people voted for Trump. A majority of Republican House members voted to reject the election results from two states that voted for Biden, after being run out by rioters. These people aren't going to evaporate on January 20.

As for Trump, he is somewhat diminished today, but the fact that this happened only once he whipped up a mob to storm the Capitol should indicate how much influence he wields. No, he's not going away because he faced one (1) consequence for his actions.
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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby Osias » 2021-01-07, 22:07

I was not being optimistic. Quite the contrary. To me an empire is a bad thing. It would be nice if the USA become a normal nonimperial country but I don't see that happening so soon.
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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby linguoboy » 2021-01-07, 23:27

Yasna wrote:Nice to see the American left rediscovering the importance of the rule of law. Better late than never.

I'm not sure what the even means. The leftists who were in favour of violent revolution are even more in favour now. And the liberal majority, who tut-tutted at the perceived excesses of last year's protests are tut-tutting even harder. (And everyone but blinkered centrists and other "both-siders" is able to see the difference between protesting police violence on the one hand and invading parliament while the legislature is in session in order to prevent the certification of a lawfully-conducted election whose results you refuse to accept because your guy lost on the other.)
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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby Saim » 2021-01-08, 7:02

Am I the only one who finds it entirely plausible a Trump supporter might carry a Georgian flag to a protest on purpose? Seeing a lot of people saying “that’s not the flag of the State of Georgia”, and I’m thinking, yeah, maybe he’s just Georgian-American or really into eastern Christianity or something?

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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby md0 » 2021-01-08, 8:42

Seems like now the US has its own "But what about Marfin?" moment which can be conveniently used every time the far-right kills someone or attempts a coup in order to place the responsibility on some abstract group of leftists instead of the actual nazi holding the bloody knife.

Anyway, I don't see any way this doesn't end with an impeachment. What we saw on TV is like, five standard deviations away from what we expect even if flawed democracies. Considering that the attempt was foiled, there's absolutely no reason to offer amnesty to the coupists via Trump's power to pardon anyone with a pulse. Anything short of that normalises it (and then the bad bad leftists will believe even less in rule of law because it will be so obviously skewed in favour of the right, like they suspected, and it will frankly be a moral obligation to act against it).
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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-01-09, 12:54

Osias wrote:I see no evidence of anything falling.

The fall of an empire doesn't look like one until after the fact, but there are a series of disasters that lead up to it, and that already began at least twenty years ago.
The USA will take measures to prevent thighs like that to happen again like new laws, a reform of DC politics or something, removing the need for the congress endorsing votes (or something),

These things take a very long time to happen in the United States and become almost irrelevant in practical terms by the time they actually become law.
invade some arab country completely unrelated to the events like Iraq (except Saudi Arabia). Or something.

If the US was strong enough to invade another country at the moment, certainly an extremist like Donald Chump would have done it by now, but it's not. It's sunk deep in financial debt. It can't just invade countries whenever it feels like it the way it used to be able to.
Even Republicans will now be immunized against letting a billionaire running for president by their party.

That is impossible. American politics fundamentally works in such a way that you can't possibly become a president without earning and spending very large amounts of money.
And the country will be even more resilient to this kind of thing.

On the contrary, I think the next president will be so much worse than Chump that liberals will start getting nostalgic for him.

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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby Osias » 2021-01-09, 13:34

Do you mean the next Trump or actually Biden?
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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-01-09, 13:38

"The next Trump," I guess. Probably whoever comes after Biden

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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby Osias » 2021-01-09, 13:45

:yep:
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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby schnaz » 2021-01-11, 17:48

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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby linguoboy » 2021-01-11, 18:31

It is super depressing to see how many of my "progressive" friends are all ra-ra for the state security apparatus just because it's catching a few criminals who would never even have been allowed to crime if it had done its job in the first place instead of giving them a pass for ideological reasons while doubling down on its pursuit of left-wing "agitators" instead. The FBI is still a tool of oppression. The no-fly list is still a terrible abuse of governmental authority. Along with most other measures introduced after 9/11, it's reduced civil liberties without increasing security--and whatever legislation gets introduced in the wake of the Capitol attack is going to be more of the same.
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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby Yasna » 2021-01-15, 22:59

linguoboy wrote:I'm not sure what the even means. The leftists who were in favour of violent revolution are even more in favour now. And the liberal majority, who tut-tutted at the perceived excesses of last year's protests are tut-tutting even harder.

The "perceived excesses". There were at least 19 deaths, 12 police officers were shot. "Arson, vandalism, and looting between May 26 and June 8 were tabulated to have caused $1–2 billion in insured damages nationally—the highest recorded damage from civil disorder in U.S. history.*" Federal buildings were attacked.** Tut-tutting doesn't cut it. And I heard otherwise reasonable, moderate people on the left playing down the violence. The NYT spilled more ink in one day on the Capitol riot violence than they spilled over the whole summer on the BLM violence.

(And everyone but blinkered centrists and other "both-siders" is able to see the difference between protesting police violence on the one hand and invading parliament while the legislature is in session in order to prevent the certification of a lawfully-conducted election whose results you refuse to accept because your guy lost on the other.)

Of course I see the difference. But if you're outraged at the Capitol rioting, I don't see how you can not also have been outraged at the BLM rioting last summer. And to be clear, I think people are absolutely justified in their outrage over the Capitol rioting.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests
**Portland Protesters Set Fire to Federal Courthouse, Cops Declare Demonstration a Riot
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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-01-16, 6:08

I don't think I can say I'm outraged per se.

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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby linguoboy » 2021-01-16, 17:52

Yasna wrote:Of course I see the difference. But if you're outraged at the Capitol rioting, I don't see how you can not also have been outraged at the BLM rioting last summer. And to be clear, I think people are absolutely justified in their outrage over the Capitol rioting.

I know you follow the news, so you saw this little tidbit, didn't you?

Police in the United States are three times more likely to use force against leftwing protesters than rightwing protesters, according to new data from US Crisis Monitor, a joint project of the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project and the Bridging Divides Initiative.

That's how insidious white supremacy is. When Black people protest in order to have their most fundamental civil rights respected, the police meet them with violence, escalating the conflict until they can call it a "riot", for which they lay all the blame on the protestors. Then uncritical supporters of state violence use this as justification to dismiss their concerns as invalid.

Then when White people attempt a coup against a lawfully-elected government, they are allowed to basically walk right in to the seat of national legislature (after doing their reconnaissance the day before with the aid of willing dupes or actual traitors) and then--and this is what I simply can't get over--walk right out again, even once reinforcements had been called, as if it were a Sunday outing. And when anyone to the right of Mitt Romney talks about just how alarming this is, those same uncritical supporters are like, "But BLM!" It's the absolute height of whataboutism and false equivalence.

You say you see the difference, but you don't. You're ignoring just about every detail which differentiates these incidents--most notably how they became violent--and then congratulating yourself on the clarity of your moral vision. But you don't even see the blinders you have on, or how you came to wear them.
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