>>28153

Your link is broken, but digging around on the sight revealed that the article was sourced from the southern poverty law center and twitter.

At some point you might want to go check out what the SPLC actually lists as 'hate crimes' before taking their word for an invisible rush of violence that, somehow, manages to just not be recorded at all - Despite taking place in a media environment where a man being beaten and having his car stolen while the people doing so claim that it is because he voted for trump can be played on screen while commentators say that the people doing so had the right to as part of their protest.

There's plenty of actual video out there (often taken by the 'protesters') of people being attacked for being pro-trump, and yet a shocking dearth of recordings of this savage, terrifying wave of pro-trump violence.

When you're going to try to fearmonger in order to protect a vulnerable group, remember this adage:

"Nothing bad happened to the boy who cried wolf, but that town's flock was fucked'

>>28166
Look, in an effort to foster discussion rather than fighting on here, I'll say that I really don't understand why so many people are jumping at everyone saying they're scared of trump and calling them fear mongers. I don't understand it, but I'm sure there's some reason that there's so many people who feel strongly about this. But when you come into a thread, call people who are scared Bad Asshole Fearmongers, talk about a lack of proper sourcing and then throw around information with no actual sources or links it makes it really hard to engage in a neutral and friendly manner. I don't know if you don't realize the irony is saying "posting without sources is fearing mongering, and I have experience knowing what that does, look at all these unsourced examples" or if you're trying to get a rise out of people or what but in the story I remember, wolves eat peter because he pissed the villagers off so much they refused to believe him. I really don't think a couple of kids (at least in my case) posting about how they're scared of trump on this tiny website with one active board constitutes "fear mongering".

>At some point you might want to go check out what the SPLC actually lists as 'hate crimes' before taking their word for an invisible rush of violence
I already did look up how it was intimidation rather than actual assaults, and the post you are responding to acknowledged this in literally the first sentence after the link:
>Mostly harassment and graffiti threats instead of direct violence so far, but worrying about violence to come is not unreasonable when its in the literal writing on the wall.
To make things more clear: I am saying it is likely that increased racial harassment will correlate with a rise in violence over the next few months or years. If you want to make a case against that than go ahead, but at least respond to what I actually actually say.

>>28167

It's because people like you, personally, concoct fictional 'waves of violence' that 'have already started' in an effort to make people even more scared, which doesn't help anything on one hand - and on the other hand makes people less likely to believe you when you say a bad thing happens later on (see: the boy who cried wolf).

And, as always in this sort of situation, when your bailey is attacked you retreat to your motte. 'It's just a little website so it doesn't matter.' 'People are just afraid why is that a problem.' Shameful.

>posting unsourced claims

okay
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9snWgbVt5w
This was, fortunately, openly condemned when initially reported on. Of course, later on they felt like the actions in this video somehow warranted debate as though there could conceivably be a rational standpoint other than 'this is fucked up and the people involved are criminals'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u038-WW0G1E
whoops

It turns out that if you try to find actual video of violence from trump supporters, the only actual recordings that show up are people being escorted out of rallies by security with the only 'violence' occuring when they attempt to physically resist it.

>>28170

>I already did look up how it was intimidation rather than actual assaults

It's also twitter posts and assorted 'microaggressions.' The SPLC is a joke.

>If you want to make a case against that than go ahead, but at least respond to what I actually actually say.

hello motte! I wasn't arguing against what may or may not happen at some nebulous point in the future. I was arguing against THIS statement from earlier in the thread:

"Faked or not his perception and the public opinion of his person have brought forth waves of violence, and highlighted/exaggerated the sentiments of bigots across the country. "

You don't get to respond to that with 'well your disagreement with that statement doesn't disagree with this other, different statement so it's inaccurate.' That's not how shit actually works.

>>28175
Okay, I think there's a dissonance in what I'm trying to say and how I'm coming off or presenting myself. I will apologize for phrasing things the way I did, as miscommunication is a two way street and I have been a part of it.

The size of a website doesn't matter when making comments- you're absolutely right, and I shouldn't have used it as a justification. The intent behind my comments was with the understanding of "fear-mongering" as a term which implies a larger scope; I felt that because of the smaller, more closely knit community here that even if I was fear-mongering, it was more akin to talking with a group of my classmates about what I'm scared of and less out on the streets doom calling. If you feel one can be a fearmonger in both situations then my point was invalid all along, made only because I understood fear mongering to be a term with a wider scope of meaning, connotation a larger and perhaps more public display.

Secondly, "Just scared" was meant to address you calling me a fear monger. The point being, I am scared. I am scared for myself, for my family, for civil liberties and for my chance to have a good future under Trump. Whether or not my fears are substantiated I don't think is hugely relevant, because I'm feeling scared either way. So when I voiced my fears, that a presidency under trump has supported hated crimes and bigotry, it felt unfair for you to call it fear-mongering. My intent is not to scare people, but to share with others why I personally am scared. My goal or aim is not to go on the internet and lie maliciously to harbor hate and get people afraid and riled up. I'm sharing why I am personally frightened, hence me feeling that you calling me a fear monger is unfair.

Now That I've tried to clarify my goals and the message I want to share, I am frankly confused as to what you believe or what your goal is. At first you agreed with me, saying yes violence has increased, Clinton supporters are out en-masse attack trump. I personally feel that classifying anti-trump people as Clinton supporters is unfair and in poor taste, but that's not really the point. I responded to you rather vitriolically, which didn't help the situation. My bad, I really should have known better than to try to start inflaming people.

In response you say that i'm a fear monger for saying violence has increased, because I have no sources to back myself up, implying that i'm out here with malicious intent trying to scare people. Many others echoed my sentiments, some of which you responded to, until later I replied saying I didn't understand why people were so quick to call others fear-mongers, but that obviously you care passionately and there's something motivating you. I don't feel this part of my comments has been addressed, and I'm still in the dark as to your goals or feelings or motivations on why proving I'm a fearmonger seemingly so important to you. Like legitimately, I really do not understand why that is of importance, and I want to know more, because I feel like I'm missing something here. If you really feel that I am hurting people and doing damage here, I am truly deeply sorry. I was scared and still am scared, and needed a place to voice those thoughts. I don't think it constitutes fearmongering, but if I misunderstood the word or perhaps the impact of my actions, again that's my bad. I'm not out here trying to prove a point, or convince anyone that they're wrong, and my phrasing of waves of violence as fact was not the right way to voice my thoughts. I personally feel that it has happened, is happening and will continue to happen, but I should have made it clear those were thoughts and opinions based on experience, or backed it up with well sourced evidence. I did neither, and that wasn't the best move.

I still don't get the cried wolf metaphor though- like in this instance am I falsely reporting violence, which people will come to realize is a lie, thereby discrediting myself, so that when I come to report real violent attacks against me I'm fucking myself over? Or what? I don't know if we just read a different peter cried wolf story, but I am seriously confused as to what that means in this context.

Basically: I still don't think I'm fearmongering, but I am sorry for not being more careful about how I phrased what i said, that was a bad move and I should have done better. Still unsure as to what your beliefs or goals are, so it's hard for me to find common ground with you and come to an understanding, but I'd like to.

>I was arguing against THIS statement from earlier in the thread:
>"Faked or not his perception and the public opinion of his person have brought forth waves of violence, and highlighted/exaggerated the sentiments of bigots across the country. "
>You don't get to respond to that with 'well your disagreement with that statement doesn't disagree with this other, different statement so it's inaccurate.' That's not how shit actually works.
You were arguing against that statement, but I did not make that statement or entirely agree with it. My argument in the post you linked to was a partial agreement (which also makes it a partial disagreement) saying that there has not been waves of violence but has been increased harassment and that this is a reason to be concerned about future violence. Arguing against the quoted statement while linking to a post making a significantly different statement is just confusing.

>It's also twitter posts and assorted 'microaggressions.'
Because online harassment isn't real?

>>28183
I'm outside the rest of the argument now, but I do want to pick up on that last bit.
I feel that it's certainly been overblown, in my opinion. People being dicks online is always going to be a problem, not saying combating it is a bad idea but it's more worthwhile to teach people to just be able to handle nerds being inflammatory wads on the internet than it is to try and stop it happening.
Hell, half the time trying to fight it the wrong way just results in more, like what happened with twitter's anti-harassment team and the ensuing Weird Twitter shenanigans.
Really, the only thing that's ever going to be a huge problem for anyone's life is if they get Doxxed, and that's already something that's illegal to do as I recall it. Everything else is something people just gotta learn to deal with as they come rather than treating it as the END OF THE WORLD.
This is a bipartisan problem too, people have weird perceptions it's only the far left but I've seen just as much bawwing out of the far right, near left/right, and centrists.

"People constantly get mad over silly shit and should stop." -me, 2016

>People being dicks online is always going to be a problem, not saying combating it is a bad idea but it's more worthwhile to teach people to just be able to handle nerds being inflammatory wads on the internet than it is to try and stop it happening.
Hasn't a variant of that been said about basically every form of discriminatory action ever? "Sure X is bad, but we can't prevent all of it so instead of trying to prevent any of it let's just tell those effected by hit how they should be coping or defending themselves instead."

>Hell, half the time trying to fight it the wrong way just results in more, like what happened with twitter's anti-harassment team and the ensuing Weird Twitter shenanigans.
I agree that working against harassment is hard to do right and can lead to backlash, but I don't agree with the implied conclusion that therefore nobody should ever try.

>Really, the only thing that's ever going to be a huge problem for anyone's life is if they get Doxxed
The only thing that's ever likely to be a huge problem for your life maybe. People have had some pretty major problems with online harassment unless you want to go down the rabbit hole of "everyone who says their subjective experience disagrees with my own is a liar and/or a faulty human being".

>Everything else is something people just gotta learn to deal with as they come rather than treating it as the END OF THE WORLD.
So what you're saying is:
1. It is wrong (or at best a waste of precious time) to speak out against jerks online when those jerks are not the END OF THE WORLD.
2. It is ok to speak out against people speaking out against jerks online. (You are presumably ok with that since that is what you are spending time doing.)
How is this not a double standard? (Are people speaking out against jerks online in fact THE END OF THE WORLD?)

Bob 2016/12/05(Mon)07:37 No. 28192 ID: 47f07a
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>>28187
The important thing to do in order to properly combat harassment is to properly define it.

In my mind, harassment is
>Continued, aggressive hateful actions from a person or a group of persons directed either at a person or a group of persons with an objective intent of harm.
Or
>Singular and profound hateful actions from a person or a group of persons directed either at a person or a group of persons with an objective intent of harm.

It is not
>A person disagreeing with another person with direct (and perhaps colorful) language
>A person not ascribing to another person's worldview or disagreeing with another person's worldview
>A group doing something another person, personally, does not prefer

Take, for example, someone in this thread calling another a fearmonger. This is not harassment - it is merely a disagreement. It's not continued, nor is it really hateful or harmful. It's just a statement or, perhaps, a conclusion that someone may be blowing something out of proportion. At its worst, it's an accusation of foul play.

It is important to make this distinction, absurdly so. To not make it is to invite a glorification of victimhood, to be able to weild percieved harm as a sword against those who disagree with you. Not to make a slippery slope argument, but it eventually leads to an assumption that anything you /percieve/ as hateful speech immediately /becomes/ hateful speech, which is very, very bad for discourse at best and at worst leads to a total stifling of any meaningful opposition to ideas from one side or the other.

Imagine if >>28126 got banned for harassment because of his image and express approval of a certain presidential candidate. Imagine if the person posting those snopes links was banned for similar reasons.

Imagine if people got banned for /outright false information/ that was disseminated and accepted without challenge.

It's happened here, or at least on our IRC channel. Apologies have been made, and it was not done for foul purpose - but damages have been done.

The massive importance of context, definition, and scrutiny should not be downplayed. Feelings are important, but more important is fairness. And no, I will not shake on that, no matter how stonehearted it sounds.

>Continued, aggressive hateful actions from a person or a group of persons directed either at a person or a group of persons with an objective intent of harm.
How do you define harm in this context? I would agree with a definition of harassment being actions that intentionally cause harm, but definitions for harm can vary wildly.

>A person disagreeing with another person with direct (and perhaps colorful) language
I agree that disagreement is not harassment. That said, what some people refer to as "colorful language" can refer to things that include harassment. For example, "I disagree with you" and "I disagree with you and you are an idiot" are not harassment, but if it gets to "I disagree with you go kill yourself" or "I disagree with you so you should be raped" it has become harassment.

>A person not ascribing to another person's worldview or disagreeing with another person's worldview
Also agreed. (Some viewpoints like racism have problems, but that is a separate issue from harassment and there should be caution involved in any rules about that as well.)

>A group doing something another person, personally, does not prefer
By this do you mean things that are disliked but does not cause harm? This one just goes back to the definition of harm question.

>>28194
I'd say that for the internet specifically harassment also needs clarification. If it's some guy getting into a bloody row with you and maybe carrying the conversation on a bit longer than it should be going? Unpleasant, but calling it harassment like people do is a dis-service to the term.
Some guy stalking you across several platforms and accounts with that same argument? THAT is harassment.

Some guy going "lol, what a [insert denigrating comment here]"? Unavoidable, commonplace, and usually a part of the internet argument process. Lame, but also usually easy to counter. Do it with impunity, humiliate them and they usually stop.
Multiple people maintaining a campaign on this stuff, to the point of it affecting day-to-day life offline? Yeah that's harassment. and unfortunately it's become a bit of a hard sell when it does happen because of fraudsters like sarkeesian initiating them for profit.

It's matters of degree to me, at least in the context of the majority of the web and it's culture.

With internet disagreements there's not really as much of a clear-cut case for intent since the attitude of "lol let's see how far I can push this" is kind of an unfortunately-metastasized thing in online culture on both ends of the debate and these things kinda need to take that into account.

This is getting pretty wall-o-wordsy now, but kazerad's posts on anonymity are sort of what I base my perceptions of internet culture on right now and because of the very concept of anonymity (http://kazerad.tumblr.com/post/99022123468/shepherd-of-the-masked) people are going to always have an outlet to tell people to their face they are a "raging queermo dipshit who should die", and if you react to that in any way other than ridicule for how ridiculous such a statement is and resume the argument you will be mocked incessantly for letting them get under your skin for such an obvious play.
This is unfortunate, but now unavoidable as the culture of hurtful prankery mischief and anti-culture has blossomed online.
since all they get out of doing these things are the emotional rush of ruining someone's day, denying them that and carrying on like they didn't even try is the only way to really stymie that problem in my eyes.

>>28187
To branch off what I said, I don't think blaming the victim is a good idea, at least not in standard conditions. It's always the fault of the aggressor. But in this case, it's a habit formed on an idea-sharing medium that is impossible to truly fix without entering into 1984 restrictions on internet freedom. The idea of Funny Internet Dickhole is going to keep popping back up because so much of the internet's culture was founded around that, and so those ideas will keep being popular. Even back when the internet was just usenet groups, this method of pranksterism and secret-club newbie hazing and whatever else causes people to treat others on the internet was pretty common, if somewhat less effective since groups were more tighter-knit.

It becomes a widespread social issue rather than something that can be fixed on the net itself, and while it's been possible to influence general trends in the past I am somewhat doubtful we'll be able to eradicate the "be a dick for laughs" strain of social cancer anytime within our lifetimes.

Bob 2016/12/08(Thu)18:34 No. 28204 ID: 1ac545
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>>28192
I'm the guy who posted the pepe and your mention of a hypothetical ban has me paranoid so I'm just gonna cover my ass real fast:
Bernie was my first choice and I eventually ended up rooting for Johnson, Trump just has the best memes.

>>28204

Don't worry bud I don't think anyone actually thought you were pro-trump just because of a pepe. Tbh I enjoyed it because I was expecting to get immediately swarmed by assholes so it was a bit of a relief to have the first reply be memes
>>28198
Tbh I agree in theory like. People are never gonna stop bein dicks and the internet means it's a lot harder to make any sort of real negative repercussions for behavior deemed socially unacceptable. That being said though me trying to offhandedly dismiss someone I (mistakenly) thought was spouting pro-trump shit was what caused the big argument so like obviously you have to be a little more strategic and skillful with your ridicule than a lot of people might be capable of. Please take above statement of an example based on my own experience as well rather than me trying to start shit with anyone. Like I said, not my intentions.

Truth be told though I never liked the idea of "It's impossible to win, so why even fight?" Like I dunno it just goes against a lot of my personal morals and motivators so like even though it's impossible to git rid of assholes I think it's important to not become okay with assholery and not tolerate it in our communities. But at this point it's more theoretical and getting into personal beliefs and stuff so like it's not really a point I'm trying to fight you on or anything, just saying for my own self the "leave it alone because you'll never succeed" doesn't really jive well with me yanno?

>>28205
I actually agree with that sentiment! I'm not actually arguing "don't fight against it", I'm arguing against faulty tactics, sort of.

A big part of my own pathos is a general tendency towards self-analyzation, and through that approach I've found a lot of success just asking myself if my approach is really right in that situation.

To give an example, a while back I was really spooked by that whole Pence wants to Fry the Gays thing that was going around. Some guy came up to me mocking me about it, and at first I was like "wow this guy's a chode" before I realized I've done the same thing to people elsewhere when they were hilariously wrong about things, and thought "HM."
So I asked why they were playing it off like that, opening the door for the possibility I might be wrong. Lo and behold, turns out it was some overblown snippet from one interview that people were holding onto as some major indication of the man's political compass. I still think Pence is an asshole, but I'm not outright terrified of the man being our VP now, you know?

This is kind of the approach to take to internet harassment for the most part now since then, I doubt Sarkeesian would be half as controversial or hated a figure if she'd just address all the shit she's been accused of and improve based on that criticism.

Get on board, friends. The one that wants to improve the nation and enforce laws won.

Do you want to actually help things get better? Act that way, regardless of who's living in a building for 4 to 8 years.
Besides, the DNC fucked up so hard they lost both house and senate. Action will occur. Also, given all the dnc leak bullshit, I'm of the opinion that they need a severe cleaning out. However, they have put in place policies that make it hard as hell to do so. Thus, I'm of the opinion that they need to be torn down and replaced. It wouldn't be the first time. Don't see any Whigs around.
Don't get me wrong. The other party needs cleaning too. I'm just of the opinion that the DNC has earned the privilege of being first in line.
No matter who is in power, work to make your nation great again.

>>28221
So how do you suggest responding to people like that

>>28226
For the most part? de-escalating works wonders. In cases it doesn't, whatever, it's going to turn into a big argument few people learn from, which is a shame.

But when you can, just try to cut yourself off from making assumptions or trying to take an "I'm obviously right" approach. Just go "Yeah, alright, I'm willing to listen for a bit."
Hearing these people out can do wonders for making them question their own ideas, because A: it's not what they expect and it puts them off guard, and B: opens the door to you pointing out inconsistencies in their ideas or, most importantly, learning about inconsistencies in your own ideas.

>I'm not actually arguing "don't fight against it", I'm arguing against faulty tactics, sort of.
I do appreciate giving actual suggestions aside from "don't complain about that". It really bugs me when people say "that isn't tactical" without offering any other advice aside from an implied "do nothing", but that is not the case here. That said, I do have some disagreements with your suggestion.

>impossible to truly fix
>It becomes a widespread social issue rather than something that can be fixed on the net itself, and while it's been possible to influence general trends in the past I am somewhat doubtful we'll be able to eradicate the "be a dick for laughs" strain of social cancer anytime within our lifetimes.
You can never expect to eradicate anything on a social scale aside from possibly literal diseases. Influencing general trends is the entire point of any realistic social action; not "solving the problem once and for all" but nudging the odds in the direction you want.

>tell people to their face they are a "raging queermo dipshit who should die", and if you react to that in any way other than ridicule for how ridiculous such a statement is and resume the argument you will be mocked incessantly for letting them get under your skin for such an obvious play.
It is generally very easy to mostly ignore stupid insults but very hard to completely ignore them. Some (I suspect most to all) people consistently have a tiny part of themselves that reacts to such claims with "but what if...". Unless you have pre-existing issues this is still trivial to deal with, but when you are told the same value judgement again and again and again (especially in an absence of other people saying otherwise), the voice of "what if" becomes more and more trouble to quash over time and it (or reflexive over-reaction as a defense against it) can eventually become the sort of pre-existing issue that makes the next time not so trivial.

>Hearing these people out can do wonders for making them question their own ideas
That can be good to do if you have circumstances that allow for it (which in my case I usually do), though for people undergoing actual harassment it might not be viable or desirable to hear it out if it is a) an argument you just reviewed 1000 minor variations of, b) not arguing in good faith, or c) an earnest argument for a goal that is beyond reasonable discussion (such as if someone is arguing you should shut up forever / not have rights / die).

>I doubt Sarkeesian would be half as controversial or hated a figure if she'd just address all the shit she's been accused of and improve based on that criticism.
Didn't the major influx of harassment in that case start when her ex-boyfriend posted a rant containing a conspiracy theory and a chan thread decided to make it a thing for lulz? I don't know what a de-escalating response to that would even look like.

More generally, many people will never be satisfied with your approach no matter how polite and willing to compromise you are. For two (slightly tangential due to being about politics rather than conversation but I think the principle carries over to some extent) examples, see Obama's first term, or how in my state of NC the Democrats recently repealed Charlotte' LBGT ordinance in exchange for a full repeal of HB2 (aka the bathroom bill aka "protecting privacy" by scrutinizing citizens just trying to pee) and the Republicans completely reneged on their end of the deal.

@Bob
>Also, given all the dnc leak bullshit, I'm of the opinion that they need a severe cleaning out.
Putin acted to help the Republicans to win, so the Democrats are the ones more in need of cleaning out? Because Putin clearly has the best interests of the USA at heart and just wants to Make It Great Again?

>>28234
I still disagree with that, because when the other party is that much of a turd it becomes a battle to win over people watching from the sidelines.
Like, if some guy is going hardball on me with no facts or evidence to back things up, I try to keep level tone and start dimantling them for the people who'd be reading the argument.
Obviously not applicable to real-world conversations, but a handy trick online.

On the last bit, both the republican party and the democrat party need the big thick boot. Our country is breaking down under the weight of their combined bullshit. The democrats are a corrupt body that has deliberately interfered with the election process, and the republicans have become a seething den of authoritarians who excise those who dare to compromise because compromise makes you a weakling in their eyes.

And BOTH sides fall prey to the idea of the other side being irredeemably evil, which has resulted in a stagnation of ideas on both ends. Republicans, contrary to my prior beliefs, do actually make some good points occasionally about the sustainability of some of the democrat ideas, and without that pushback we might be in an even more fiscally dim situation than we already are. Conversely, the democrats are important because of their (currently) strong worker's rights support. But because everyone just sees "angry bigot republican" or "pansy-ass democrat," ideas that both sides might otherwise agree on get polarized so hard that they die in the scuffle between the two parties, and it's only gotten worse as this trend has further taken over in media coverage and the public.

Without compromise between them the two party has no point, so if we're going to have this kind of stiff competition the electoral college NEEDS to be taken out of the equation so outsider parties can have a real shot at usurping these two cancerous growths that have been dividing the nation.

TL:DR, if we keep ignoring problems with the parties "because the other one's worse" it's going to keep going in a degenerative loop because "The other guy's worse" makes for such a great argument against trying to affect change in those shitty things

>>28236
A Republic is truly the worst possible form of government.

...except for all the other ones.

Bob 2016/12/22(Thu)19:49 No. 28238 ID: 9f3729

>>28237
I mean, democracy is generally less awful

>Like, if some guy is going hardball on me with no facts or evidence to back things up, I try to keep level tone and start dimantling them for the people who'd be reading the argument.
>Obviously not applicable to real-world conversations, but a handy trick online.
I see the appeal of that approach, but isn't the cause of this thread how the calm fact checking approach spectacularly failed to convince people on a large scale? I am not convinced that things would work differently on the internet.

>And BOTH sides fall prey to the idea of the other side being irredeemably evil, which has resulted in a stagnation of ideas on both ends. Republicans, contrary to my prior beliefs, do actually make some good points occasionally about the sustainability of some of the democrat ideas, and without that pushback we might be in an even more fiscally dim situation than we already are.
Honestly I have heard maybe one or two Republican policies (not counting things with as much or more support from the Democrats) during the last decade. I disagree with Democratic policies fairly often, but the vast majority of Republican policies are things that in my opinion range from "wrong" to "actively malicious". I understand the importance of compromise, but past a certain level of awfulness compromise can cause more harm then good. How for example would compromise with white nationalists (like the originator of the term "alt-right") not make things worse?
And I don't think stagnation is an accurate term to describe things when there is conflict within the Democrats (Bernie vs establishment and the shady steps taken by the latter against the former) and we would all be better off if the Republicans had stagnated in the age of Bush instead of transforming into the party of Breitbart and Trump.

>>28239
Hm, you do make a good point, but I don't think that's blame-able on the approach more than the visibility.
Like, there's a huge focus on sensationalising everything in the news right now, and that's created a lot of wangst on either ends. I'll have to see if there are any proper research papers on that now, seems like a fun thing to read about and see if my tactics are actually as tops as I thought.

>republicans
This is, again, kind of a problem with the media and the system combined. There's a lot of focus on most networks with completely vilifying these people. As I said earlier, Trumbo was even victim of this without any need since he would have otherwise vilified himself without edited-together clips muddying that perception and introducing that element of doubt to the reporting.

That's not to say there aren't crazy and terrible people in the republican party, not at all! In fact the party leadership is starting to crumble under it's own weight hard because of all the authoritarianism and assholery between them. There's still good people in there though, and they are quite unfortunately mixed up with people like Pence or Romney who pretty much epitomize the poorer aspects of that party.


The problem is, that's also true of the left. There's people like the former dnc-chair still in there now, malicious corruption and scandal abound. This isn't to say they are worse, they are honestly in a slightly-better place than republicans as far as I can tell.

But slightly-better =/= good, and both need to go immediately if we are going to have a successful democracy instead of a crumbling republic.

The two party system is, was, and always will be a blight on our society that our forefathers even tried to prevent because partisan politics are just not a good idea for a healthy leadership.

>>28235

You are legotmately calling the REPUBLICANS the authoritarian party? Authoritarianism has been the democratic and hyper-liberal internet dork idel for like the ladt 8 years.

>>28242
Sorry, I meant to clarify that was somewhat of a problem with both sides.
The authoritarianism problem is more noted in the republican leadership especially though, there's been a lot of purging and consolidation of people who disagree so now there's a very poor homogeny between the majority of republican leaders, IE, MUH FAMILY VALUES, MUH CHRISTIAN NEEDS, (with one exception in that one senator) GLOBAL WARMING LIES, etc etc.

Not that the left doesn't have comparably-annoying things in common (for example, their lack of even-handedness in social issues for anyone not black, gay, or female; Lack of self-awareness when they push ideologies and false information; etc), but it's less of an indistinguishable smear than the right seems to have since the left still has a good number of people disagreeing with their own party a lot, which is needed for that compromise to happen and for the two party system to even work as anything other than a big tribal shitfight.

>>28234
I think you're mixing up your professional victims, and thus regard what you say with little value.

Anita Sarkeesian is the scam artist that stole feminist's money with a kickstarter that she didn't completely deliver on, even at times using stolen assets to make what she did make, cherry picking and misrepresenting things for sub-par videos.

You're thinking of Zoe Quinn, the abusive girlfriend that also crashed a different charity drive because it would compete with her own, sicced the feminist hate-mob on a chan full of already suicidal neets, and fucked around to get favourable press for her shitty twine game.

Also, there has been no evidence presented for Russian interference in the election. We only have the word of the same agency that ALSO said that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and we all know how THAT turned out, don't we? Take off the tinfoil.

>>28239

The republican paety DID stagnate. It doubled down on what the old morons in their election campaign meetings decided they wanted rheir 'core' voter base to be instead of reading what the country wantrs, which is what led to them forcing sarah palin to torpedo the mccain campaign and the romney's disastrous attempt. For all intents and purposes, they nade the exact same mistakes the clinton campaign made but the clinton campaign was full of even bigger dumbasses who thought that telling everyone that they were bigots for not falling into lock-step would allow them ti getting away with the exact same mistakes.

The republican party doesnt actually like trump any more thaj the democrats do. All the way through the primary and even into the election they did everythibg they could to tey to stump the trump. Since they had an 8 year head start on the same collapse impending for the democratic party so they were actually incapable of atoppibg him from hijacking their remnants

>>28248
Thank you for making my point better than I could, mate! This is what comes of partisan politics, though. People buckle down under one or the other and no amount of bullshittery will drag them out of that blind faith, so we wind up with disastrously incompetent parties and horrible corruption on both sides.
It's a sad state to be in and it's the leading motivation behind my own political activism trying to get the electoral college dismantled and runoff voting on the ballot.


http://www.ucsusa.org/action/phone-calls.html

Remember, the only way you'll see positive progress is if you make it your mission to annoy the fuck out of your senators and congressmen. Make the people representing you hear you out on whatever issues you're after and you might just get lucky, they are people and, despite evidence to the contrary, do have some form of conscience most of the time.

>But slightly-better =/= good, and both need to go immediately if we are going to have a successful democracy instead of a crumbling republic.
I view Democrats as being fairly consistently better, though still not very good, because the Republicans consistently do bad things.

>The two party system is, was, and always will be a blight on our society that our forefathers even tried to prevent because partisan politics are just not a good idea for a healthy leadership.
>get the electoral college dismantled and runoff voting on the ballot.
Completely agreed.

>You are legotmately calling the REPUBLICANS the authoritarian party? Authoritarianism has been the democratic and hyper-liberal internet dork idel for like the ladt 8 years.
Authoritarian things I can think of by party:
Democrats:
* Financial Regulations(I don't personally mind this)
* Anti Discrimination (also don't mind this)
* Anti Gun (or this)
* Healthcare Mandate (IMO somewhat problematic and worse than a single payer system but having health care available to more people is still worth it)
* The DNC colluded against dissenting opinions like Bernie
* Anti Whistleblower (Bipartisan aside from Wikileaks)
* Pro surveillance (Bipartisan)

Republicans (since trump):
* Pro police militarization
* Pro harsher police procedures shown to disproportionately effect minorities
* Anti immigrant
* Pro limiting immigration based on religion
* Anti-LBGT (especially in terms of bathroom scrutiny)
* Anti women's rights (especially abortion)
* Anti Drug
* Anti peaceful protest that is "unpatriotic" like flag burning or not standing during the national anthem
* Anti political compromise over all
* Anti Whistleblower (bipartisan aside from Wikileaks)
* Pro surveillance (bipartisan)

Neither party is very good, but Republicans are worse. The democrats often favor things that make it easier for oppression to occur, but the republicans are the ones in favor of actively doing the oppression (unless of course you don't count oppression when it isn't effecting REAL AMERICANS which in practice always seems to mean white straight christian and male).

>The republican paety DID stagnate. It doubled down on what the old morons in their election campaign meetings decided they wanted rheir 'core' voter base to be instead of reading what the country wantrs
I would call a lot of the things the Republicans under Trump are up to as new innovations in a similar vein as previous awfulness rather than more of the same, but at this point it is mostly a semantic categorization disagreement.

>>28246
I did get the names confused. I am bad with names.

>a kickstarter that she didn't completely deliver on
In what way?

>and fucked around to get favourable press for her shitty twine game.
The favorable press that occurred before she allegedly slept around?

>We only have the word of the same agency that ALSO said that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction
I agree that the CIA has a very shady history with regards to elections and "regime change". Reviewing what is currently known about the evidence in general, it looks like there is a lot of circumstantial evidence but no direct proof. So fair enough with that point, unless that situation changes I will not use the Russia suspicions as an argument against Trump (and instead focusing more on the things he has been publicly doing instead).

>>28250
super fair on most counts. I do want to get into the gun control thing, though, and why I'm pretty hardball against anything beyond sanity restrictions preventing the mentally-unwell getting access:

I see gun rights as our check against our own politicians. Without our right to bear arms, our words would mean a whole lot less to our leaders than they already do. Because of our right to bear arms, the threat of physical revolution if things get too bad remains an ever-present threat that, at least somewhat, keeps things in shape.

I fear if we start letting them chip away at our right to firearms we'll lose that bargaining chip, and even that whole option if things continue to deteriorate like they have been.

>regulations

Moving off gun control stuff, I'm very much pro-regulations. Without them we wouldn't have the following:
-minimum wage
-basic safety laws
-safety equipment in general (stuff's pricey, but it's necessary. Look up the history of ironworking prior to the golden gate bridge, shit was pretty spooky.)
-child labor laws
-anti-trust laws (gimped, but still heavily needed in this new age of awful monopolies and noncompete agreements.)

There's more, too, but these are the big ones. They can put strain on smaller businesses, but that's kind of the risk we have to take since otherwise the big companies will stomp over everything regardless. If anything we need more, there's still a LOT of pretty heinous shit going on at the behest of large corporations and ESPECIALLY large banks.
After the housing market crashed way back in the aughts, we had regulations put in place to prevent a repeat of the predatory practices (like adjustable-rate mortgages) that led to that disaster. Not even a couple years later they quietly got killed by politicians bankrolled by those banks, and already we're building up to yet another one.
Corporations are not ethical, they never will be because that is not their motivation for being what they are. Regulations have to be put in place to force them into line or they'll just continue to be shit to everyone.

There's a very real-world example of what unregulated capitalism leads to, too! It's china. A small sampling of what lack of regulations has led to in the big red:
-poisonous smog on-par with london's notorious "killer fog" from the industrial revolution
-insurance policies so poorly-thought-out that many people will "double-tap" after hit-and-run accidents because otherwise they'd have to pay a life-long pension to the victim and it's cheaper to pay the accidental death fine instead (there's videos of this shit, it's terrible)
-undercutting and constant knockoffs (american regulations keep the worst of these from hitting the states, thank those regulations you aren't currently reading this on a MyPhone Mobile Super)
-a generally shit standard of living
-large apartment buildings built so absolutely shitty that they have a habit of just falling over

And I'm sure there's more. I know nobody has argued against this yet, but I get frustrated at anti-regulation sentiment since it is a VERY NECESSARY THING, and it feels like a lot of people have fallen hook-line-and-sinker for they Tea Party's terrible campaigns.

>>28249

Without the electoral college the country's policies are determined entirely by 4 large cities. It's definitely not great, but it is there for a reason.

Bob 2016/12/27(Tue)11:15 No. 28254 ID: 9f3729

>>28253
See i thought about that too, i still think ots a disaster area though. Theres identical issues with country folk having generic countryfolk opinions as there are with cityfolk, so I can't say giving them more vote power is right by me. If anything I'd prefer the inverse, cut vote weight by half or so for large population centers but leave others untouched so we aren't lending undue credence to a minority of voters.

>>28254

They DON'T have more voter power, they just have any at all.

Hillary didn't lose the electoral college because of rural voters, she lost it because she turned away cities that have historically voted democrat because the policies that liberals have been pushing for the last 20 years have been disastrous, even for cities, except for very, very large and wealthy cities.

>>28255
why are you bringing up hillary? I want it gone because it's a shit institution.
And I kinda want a citation on that other point, I've never heard of it hurting more rural areas and I lived in one for a good chunk of my life up in Michigan.

>>28257
And yes, they do have more voter power. As I recall, it's currently 1 california vote to every 3 wyoming voters. That's no bueno, I'd understand if it was only LA or Hollywood or those sorts of high-population areas but that's generalized over the whole state, as I recall.

The electoral college also is a major focal point for the two-party system, I highly doubt we'll ever see an elector vote third-party. There's no public vetting process for these electors either.
It's a very deeply flawed institution whose sole reason for remaining around could be better filled by simply modifying other processes and eliminating it altogether.

>determined entirely by 4 large cities
Explain? The 20 largest cities have a estimated population of ~123,000,000 compared to the US total population of 318,000,000 (via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_States#Cities). That isn't a majority for the top 20, much less the top third.

Number of cities involved aside, talking about things being "determined entirely by the cities" in general assumes the city dwelling majority will consistently vote as one monolithic entity. Can't the same "nobody else will have any power without uneven vote weights" logic (using the same assumption of monolithic block voting) be applied to any majority demographic (such as the majority of white people)? To be clear I find that argument absurd when applied to race, but why is it better when applied to rural/urban?

>>28259
There's actually somewhat of an argument there, people living in an area tend to have somewhat of a homogenized set of views. Los Angeles, for example, is a very "Left" city compared to other places in the state.
It's really not a great argument for the electoral college though, it is the barest of excuses for such a detrimental anachronism.

Bob 2016/12/27(Tue)23:44 No. 28261 ID: a788b7
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>>28259

hillary clinton was literally behind in the popular vote by MILLIONS of votes before california was counted, and california has a significant amount of its population crammed into very small parts of the state.

>>28259

>but why is it better when applied to rural/urban

Because it's fucking true, bro (see image). This is an election map that doesn't show the election results by state, but by county. For the example I can spell out the most clearly and directly (as a kentuckian), check out kentucky there. There are two blue counties in the entire state. Those are Jefferson County and Fayette County. Jefferson County is where Louisville is , which is an inland shipping hub with an international airport and massive UPS branch. Fayette County is where Lexington is, with lexington being the only other city in the state. Everything else (including the capital city of Frankfort, which at a glance resembles a city but is actually devoid of any life and is really fucking creepy to go through) is red through and through. This pattern holds almost universally across the entire country, though it DOES change in the states that heavily depended upon non-international manufacturing and shipping for economic purposes as washington has been slam-fucking those states to death for the last 20 years and the modern democratic line was legitimately 'we aren't going to help you and we don't want you involved in the democratic party because you're problematic™'

Shocking absolutely nobody, the strongest voting areas for the democratic party in the election were large, wealthy cities where liberal economic policies have done things like 'put all of the funding they bothered to spend on improving people's lives' and 'putting economic stimulus packages to in the recession even though they were barely touched compared to the areas that had fewer special interest groups.' The ones with the strongest disparity (like the west coast of california) are the areas that actually benefit from pro-corporate international trade policies that have absolutely GUTTED the non-coastal areas of the country. Remember that it was the current Democratic party that has been trying to push the TPP, with a presidential candidate who CAMPAIGNED ON IT.

>Can't the same "nobody else will have any power without uneven vote weights" logic

The votes really are not very unevenly weighted by state, with the exception of states that are too small to actually have a meaningful effect on the election if they didn't have their electors inflated to the minimum required for a voting coalition to require them (3)

>>28258
>It's currently 1 californa vote to 3 wyoming voters

You literally took the two biggest possible outliers (largest population vs smallest population) in a system that ensures that each state is able to actually be represented in a meaningful way regarding the outcome of an election. Even if every single person in wyoming voted for a single candidate, they would make up less than one fifth of one percent of the vote. So if they were stuck with the popular vote, their votes literally would not have mattered in any election in the history of the nation. They wouldn't even have a vote in the house of representatives. The people who live in wyoming would have absolutely NO say in the government at all, despite the government absolutely having the power to set economic policies that can completely ravage the state. A system that gives these sorts of people a measurable impact on the future of their own lives is required, and 'hurr durr popular vote only' doesn't do that. The electoral college gives them a half-assed chance at it, which is more than any other proposed system would do.

A much better system than abolishing the electoral college would be to reform it so that the maine/nebraska electoral system the norm - Maine and Nebraska split their electoral votes based on the popular vote of the state. This would work to ensure that popular/electoral disparities were not a thing while still leaving people who live in smaller states with a vote that actually matters in some regard.

>>28259
Only about 130 million people voted this year which means a majority would require only 66 million to go unchallenged. If half the people in these cities vote the results would be (approximately) as follows:
~51% - 31,259,000 votes for candidate "X"
~66% - 40,861,000 votes
~75% - 45,969,000 votes
While none of these are national majorities in there own right they aren't anything to scoff at. With numbers like these you'd only need to scrounge an extra two or three dozen smaller cities nationwide to get a majority. That being said these number hinge on a 50% of the population voting which is, unfortunately, preposterous. So theoretically the top twenty cities could command the nation if they got their apathy under control while the rest of the country didn't. But in practice they're just very, very influential.

>>28262
What he said, stats don't check out there.
You're right on the 3-to-1 comment though, I got kinda lazy with that one and didn't think it through.
The electoral college is still not great for the reasons I've listed though, and while I agree it's unfair those states have been slamfucked like that blaming that on the democrats isn't 100% fair. The largest part of that's been automation killing manufacturing and dwindling interest in coal, the latter of which is arguably an unavoidable and ultimately-positive thing.

The trade deals and such aren't the best either and I've campaigned heavily against them, no arguments there.

I am unsure how to fix your economies, to be quite honest, but I doubt any real answer lies in attacking the things making it bearable to live in states where the economy isn't shit. Those regulations and standards are kinda necessary, as I mentioned, making concessions in that because some places aren't doing so hot is a bad move at best and disastrous at worst. Lotta shit meant to be a "temporary cut" winds up being a long-lasting pile of horse-shit, so it's a hard situation to approach.

Much like Michigan, there's not a whole lot of things you can do when your local driving economic force is A: shit, and B: decides to just up and abandon you like that.

Bob 2016/12/28(Wed)08:56 No. 28264 ID: 3b108e
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>>28261
>>28263
The electoral college was literally devised to stop people like you from enforcing popular tyranny.

>>28263

The democrats aren't solely responsible at all, but they're the ones that managed to actually swing heavy population centers against them by running on the platform of 'make your lives worse' in this election. Given that it is 100% the election result that has people whining about the electoral college, what happened in this specific election is relevant to the discussion.

>but I doubt any real answer lies in attacking the things making it bearable to live in states where the economy isn't shit.

Are you implying that the TPP would be okay then? Because remember, this wasn't even about necessarily making things better for people who don't live in incredibly wealthy metropolitan areas already, it was about STOPPING things from getting cataclysmically worse.

I live in a big city, but I live in a big city close enough to actual rural areas (that I have actually traveled to) that I've seen what happened to the people that ACTUALLY got hit by the recession. What happened here was fucking nothing by comparison.

>but I doubt any real answer lies in attacking the things making it bearable to live in states where the economy isn't shit.

It's really weird to me how the same people who championed the various 'occupy' movements and crowed about the 1% are suddenly pro-'rich get richer' when it comes to economic policies that are keeping THEM richer.

>>28264

Did you quote the posts you meant to there? Because if so that's pretty baffling.

>>28265
Stop putting words in my mouth, it makes you an unbearable turd.
I said right in that post that the TPP is a pile of dogshit, most trade deals have been and are since they usually come with shitty little sub-clauses like "let us censor the internet" or "lower standards on meat imports so we can sell you mad cow again". I want economic improvements, not lateral shifts.

Also, working against the lower class is a bipartisan problem, the republicans have been tricking people into voting against their interests for decades and continue to do so today. The Democrats are just as bad about that, too, and this circles right back around to the electoral college since it's the biggest factor keeping us trapped in this awful two-party shitshow.
Fuck 'em both, they're both horrible cancers on our democracy and we need them to cease.

Lowering regulations on the automotive industry is what led to them outsourcing their jobs, just to point out an example.

Draft legislation aimed outside the college so it's good parts stick around and burn the rest of it out of our system like the parasitic entity it's become.

>It's really weird to me how the same people who championed the various 'occupy' movements and crowed about the 1% are suddenly pro-'rich get richer' when it comes to economic policies that are keeping THEM richer.

There you are sticking words in my mouth again. I'm saying don't drag our reasonably ok economies down to where yours are at because you're bitter the jobs in your area dried up.
Some of that is the result of the government or it's policies on a somewhat economically-negligible small-business level, but the big wealth-bases like coal mining and factory work that used to drive the midwestern economies? That is squarely the fault of the companies who choose to export their jobs and embrace automation to increase their profit margins and the societal need for sustainable energy, both of which you're never going to be able to reverse.

It's also the fault of other corporations for driving those smaller family-businesses out of business, Wal-mart is notorious for that especially but other companies do the same. Ever wonder why there aren't more mom-and-pop gaming stores? Gamestop eats those fuckers up, in spite of their shitty practices.

I'm getting salty now so I'm gonna take a step back, if I'm wrong yeah show me I'm wrong, but this is what I'm aware of about the situation and I'm not sure what reducing those regulations will ever accomplish towards fixing the broken economies of places with no industry to speak of.

>Even if every single person in wyoming voted for a single candidate, they would make up less than one fifth of one percent of the vote. So if they were stuck with the popular vote, their votes literally would not have mattered in any election in the history of the nation.
That is still something that applies to any small minority. For example, muslims are ~1% of the US population, so would they have a similar claim to having no political influence? (Or does government not have the power to set policy to their detriment?)

>It's really weird to me how the same people who championed the various 'occupy' movements and crowed about the 1% are suddenly pro-'rich get richer' when it comes to economic policies that are keeping THEM richer.
So you don't think Trump will make the rich richer with his proposed tax plan?

>>28266

>Draft legislation aimed outside the college so it's good parts stick around and burn the rest of it out of our system like the parasitic entity it's become.

I agree entirely that the electoral college should be reformed.

>There you are sticking words in my mouth again. I'm saying don't drag our reasonably ok economies down to where yours are at because you're bitter the jobs in your area dried up.

I'm not sticking words on your mouth when you're the one saying them, Mr. 1%.

Why shouldn't the funds that were meant to help people through the recession gone to the people who were ACTUALLY suffering? That sort of shit is what I'm talking about. Not feeding funds that are supposed to be relief to the corporate interest groups in large, wealthy cities is not the same thing as 'dragging them down' to anyone else's level. You're just proving my point there; you piss and moan about the people who have more than you want to keep it for themselves, but fuck other people with less than you - their requests for help are just requests to drag you down to their level.

>and I'm not sure what reducing those regulations will ever accomplish towards fixing the broken economies of places with no industry to speak of.

Do you not understand that things like tariffs and restrictions on contracts for companies with non-domestic production are regulation, not deregulation? That's the platform that Trump ran on, not removing regulations. I'm kind of confused as to where you got the idea that I support a deregulated economy.

>>28268
>muslims are less than 1% of the US population

Muslims do not have their own governing body in the united states. There's also 5x as many as there are people in Wyoming since you want to be pedantic.

>So you don't think Trump will make the rich richer with his proposed tax plan?

Remember kids, understanding why the DNC threw the country away running an unelectable candidate means you support trump! You heard it here first!

>>28269
I think we might have had a bit of a misunderstanding on both ends, if I'm reading this right. I thought you were working off the "deregulating businesses will bring back jobs" argument, a common theme amongst the more extremist right-wing politicals and something I have personal beef with for being a very poor idea. That was a shitty assumption to make, sorry about that. I go on about not making snap judgements but it's a hard habit to train yourself out of.

Conversely, it seems you think I was arguing in favor of the very tax breaks I've been condemning. Stuff like the tax break you get for marriage, for example: That one is only really a big help to people who are already fairly wealthy with a lot of assets. It's things like that I am very much against, I would rather see meaningful tax breaks to people under the lower-middle class bracket. Even reducing the wage taxes on them by a quarter would do wonders for their purchasing power and the economy.


Other things I do want to see kept around, if modified: the idea of using Tax Breaks to encourage good corporate behaviour has, at best, been somewhat ineffective in my eyes. Creating a tax break for job creation, for example, just seems to result in a lot of cheap and shitty minimum wage jobs and reduces how much pull-in we get from those companies in tax revenue, further affecting our deficit and public works funding.

Instead, I'd like to see that become a legal requirement for companies breaching above a certain operational capacity. Perhaps they can maneuver around profit margin-based laws through clever accounting, but limiting the spread of these companies would serve a dual purpose: it would leave the door open for newer companies to sprout up (encouraging competition and diversity) and it would be a less easily-avoidable tax condition than all the ones we have based on income and other manipulatable statistics.

Of course this could be worked around through shell companies, but that's a slightly more involved process than playing number games and something easier to plan around.

>Muslims do not have their own governing body in the united states.
I concede that there is a point that anti-discrimination would be best handled on a constitutional or supreme court rather than executive level while you can't not 'discriminate' against states in the economic sense that a lot of federal money allocation is done by state. It still is the downside that the fact that the electoral college also effects social issues has contributed to the country's course towards making those "should be" constitutional and court protections farther from actual protections. Well, you have convinced me from being entirely against the electoral college to being ambivalent about it.

Aside from the existence of the electoral college overall, would you agree that it would be better to have electoral college votes just be decided by the people who vote for them rather than being an actual person who could change their mind? For example, I loathe Trump and think he will be awful for the country but still think it would have set a likely worse precedent for US democracy in the long run if the electors had voted in Clinton despite being voted otherwise.

>understanding why the DNC threw the country away running an unelectable candidate means you support trump!
I did misread your earlier post as being about presidential politics when it was more general, but since you bring it up now Clinton is overly pro-rich while being less pro-rich than Trunp (awful two party system and all that).