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Polarisation is a Drug

And? What exactly am I supposed to find in American Conservative or The Weekly Standard that is supposed to convince me that what lerticus said is a caricature? Anyway in case anyone has not actually seen the trailer.

You're supposed to find many things that don't match the caricacture, obviously. Like, nothing about racism. Now, if you're not lazy, and would like to see what the American Conservative and so on actually say, you can go read them!

For god's sake, people have to get out of their f'ing ideological bubbles and stop sucking up Fox News/MSNBC propaganda. Or maybe talk to a real person. It's not hard.
 
You're supposed to find many things that don't match the caricacture, obviously. Like, nothing about racism. Now, if you're not lazy, and would like to see what the American Conservative and so on actually say, you can go read them!

For god's sake, people have to get out of their f'ing ideological bubbles and stop sucking up Fox News/MSNBC propaganda. Or maybe talk to a real person. It's not hard.
Your lazy because you won't go prove my point! Sure I'm the lazy one. And yes I have talked to real people that's why I think it's hilarious that your talking about caricatures. But hey it's my fault for sitting in my liberal bubble here in Oklahoma.
 
Your lazy because you won't go prove my point! Sure I'm the lazy one. And yes I have talked to real people that's why I think it's hilarious that your talking about caricatures. But hey it's my fault for sitting in my liberal bubble here in Oklahoma.

Yes, you are very lazy. So lazy you can't open a random article. Like, any random article. So lazy you have somehow not noticed the existence of conservative intellectuals. Well, intellectually incurious anyway.

Guess what -- the world is not limited to your circle of acquaintances in Oklahoma. How about, go open a magazine! I have already been so kind as to name you one, which I know you never heard of before. There are many more as well!

Just so you know, conservatives do the exact same thing that you are doing, in reverse.
 
Yes, you are very lazy. So lazy you can't open a random article. Like, any random article. So lazy you have somehow not noticed the existence of conservative intellectuals. Well, intellectually incurious anyway.

Guess what -- the world is not limited to your circle of acquaintances in Oklahoma. How about, go open a magazine! I have already been so kind as to name you one, which I know you never heard of before. There are many more as well!

Just so you know, conservatives do the exact same thing that you are doing, in reverse.
I'm sorry what percentage of conservatives do conservative intellectuals represent that I should consider them significant? No the world is not limited to my circle of acquaintances. But I probably have a more accurate picture of American Conservatives from my observations of the people around me then you do reading some magazine in bloody moscow. Don't you think?
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And what am I doing?
 
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Most of the rich fucks in America are libertarian/Randian (like Musk and Bezos and their ilk) or hard core conservative or both.

There are very few really progressive billionaires, and whether they are still "progressive" will be a question when they are asked to cough up money for the state coffers.
Bezos is randian? He owns the Wash Post.
 
Anyway in case anyone has not actually seen the trailer.
The Croatian license plate was nice... guess Croatia gets its Hostel moment now :)
 
And? What exactly am I supposed to find in American Conservative or The Weekly Standard that is supposed to convince me that what lerticus said is a caricature?
One also has to consider that the "conservative intelligentsia" is usually lying, as proven over many years. "Go read what they really think" is just asking to be hoodwinked, since it inevitably leads to claims that we should do nothing and stay the course, or actively return to policies that failed in the past, but with a veneer of rationality applied to the words.

It doesn't mean that you can't attempt a dialogue or be open to different opinions and methods. But it does mean that shoving your head into the propaganda machine will not be anywhere near as effective as actually listening to what the leadership and the membership say, and watching what they do. And they say "no, you will lose some coal jobs and the economy will collapse unless you put us in power and we will stay the course", or any of another thousand doomsday prophecies if you were to allow the other side to make any changes.

"Read a book" sounds all well and good, but going outside and seeing people as they are is far more important when the books are filled with lies.
 
Bezos is randian? He owns the Wash Post.
I assumed as such because there are many similarities between Musk and him. Consider also that he runs his company literally in a dog eat dog fashion with pretty high turnover, is anti-unionist etc. Pretty much the same as Musk but he is lower key.

Owning a newspaper like Washington Post really doesn't say much, unless he is hoping the newspaper will be used as a brand of sorts.
 
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I see. It seems that the words 'conservative' and 'liberal' have a life of its own in the US, since as I understand them, they're not connected to wealth in any way. This has actually been bothering me for a long time now, since I'm definitely a liberal (a socially oriented liberal), but I don't identify with sooo many of the things the liberals in the US seem to identify with.

From the POV of the wealthy, this works out really well. They've got the country polarized around everything except what matters.
 
From the POV of the wealthy, this works out really well. They've got the country polarized around everything except what matters.
Yep, show must go on. Also, no matter how good a political candidate is, there are now so many 'important' criteria, that if necessary, there's always something to hang them for.
 
Yep, show must go on. Also, no matter how good a political candidate is, there are now so many 'important' criteria, that if necessary, there's always something to hang them for.

It's hilarious. "We've got amazing income disparity and the world's highest incarceration rate. Hey, let's talk about what pronouns to use to refer to transgender people and this thing Trump tweeted! And Biden hugged people inappropriately! ROSEANNE BARR SAID SOMETHING RACIST GUYS!!!!"

Like the Baltimore thing. Baltimore has serious f'ing problems. Like a murder a day. "Hey let's talk about the nasty thing Trump said about Baltimore! That's totally important guys!"
 
It's hilarious. "We've got amazing income disparity and the world's highest incarceration rate. Hey, let's talk about what pronouns to use to refer to transgender people and this thing Trump tweeted! And Biden hugged people inappropriately! ROSEANNE BARR SAID SOMETHING RACIST GUYS!!!!"

Like the Baltimore thing. Baltimore has serious f'ing problems. Like a murder a day. "Hey let's talk about the nasty thing Trump said about Baltimore! That's totally important guys!"
That's exactly what I mean. I grew up in a post-1989 former WarPact country. I know what is an economy in a big dark hole, what is unchecked criminality, how miserable life can be and how desperate people can get. I took part in collectively getting out of that situation, and it took us some 20 years. I look at the debate in the US and in Western Europe and I think 'these people have no concept of priorities when it comes to dealing with issues.'
 
It's hilarious. "We've got amazing income disparity and the world's highest incarceration rate. Hey, let's talk about what pronouns to use to refer to transgender people and this thing Trump tweeted!
Because we can only do one thing at a time right? And you know I can't help think that people will stop worrying about what pronouns to use when people start using them. As for Trump? Did we forget he's President of the United States?
And Biden hugged people inappropriately!
That sounds kinda important.
Like the Baltimore thing. Baltimore has serious f'ing problems. Like a murder a day. "Hey let's talk about the nasty thing Trump said about Baltimore! That's totally important guys!"
I don't know why you keep trying to pretend that Something the President of the United States say's is unimportant?
 
Because we can only do one thing at a time right? And you know I can't help think that people will stop worrying about what pronouns to use when people start using them. As for Trump? Did we forget he's President of the United States?

Here's the thing. Politicians like to play the game of misdirection, employing tools to create mass distraction. Both sides do it all the time. They know how to trigger people, and Trump knows that. He is a professional crowd player, and he knows people can only focus on one issue at a time and he knows how to misdirect people from the issues that are really important.
 
Here's the thing. Politicians like to play the game of misdirection, employing tools to create mass distraction. Both sides do it all the time. They know how to trigger people, and Trump knows that. He is a professional crowd player, and he knows people can only focus on one issue at a time and he knows how to misdirect people from the issues that are really important.
Oh Trump the 4d chess player? I thought he was opening his big mouth?
 
Saying insulting shit about other people and getting people all riled up while he goofs around with his trade wars.

Getting people all interested in his tweets about the "squad" while he makes radical changes to the asylum laws.

Trump is smart. He has decades of experience in manipulating crowds and the media. It's his skill set.

Look at the "go back where you came from" tweet. He succeeded in not only distracting people from the asylum law changes -- he also forced the Democrats to rally around the same group of people the Dem establishment had been trying to marginalize, which gets Middle America to identify the Dem Party with these unpopular figures.
 
Getting people all interested in his tweets about the "squad" while he makes radical changes to the asylum laws.

Trump is smart. He has decades of experience in manipulating crowds and the media.

Look at the "go back where you came from" tweet. He succeeded in not only distracting people from the asylum law changes -- he also forced the Democrats to rally around the same group of people the Dem establishment had been trying to marginalize, which gets Middle America to identify the Dem Party with these unpopular figures.
Except he's not changing the laws, because he can't. He's making arbitrary pronouncements that keep getting overturned in court, even by Republican judges because he doesn't actually have the authority to do that.
 
Except he's not changing the laws, because he can't. He's making arbitrary pronouncements that keep getting overturned in court, even by Republican judges because he doesn't actually have the authority to do that.

I don't know what exactly you are referring to, but this doesn't have anything to do with the lack of media coverage of it that he engineered.

EDIT: Trump has been a professional celebrity, living in front of the camera, for 40 years. In that time, he has lived by manipulating the media. He's an expert at it. All professional celebrities who don't fizzle out quickly (like Paris Hilton) are. You know what to say and do to get the camera pointed the way you want it.
 
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It only counts as acceptable if it is conservatives hunting down the liberals and the lower class for kicks (again, The Purge). If the tables turn even a little bit it is suddenly an incitement to violence. Like how video games are supposedly inciting violence. Or calling racist racist is inciting racists to be violent racists.

But it is never time to do anything about gun violence, or to use satire in a way that might victimize imaginary conservatives. Fucking cowards.
Heh heh heh. On spacebattles, I said "Better dead than red applies as well to the american right as it does to communists. And to apples. I hate red delicious apples', and that was considered the tipping factor in banning me because I was 'calling violence against my political enemies'.

Never-mind the use of the phrase being common on space-battles, which is part of what caused me to say it :p.
 
Heh heh heh. On spacebattles, I said "Better dead than red applies as well to the american right as it does to communists. And to apples. I hate red delicious apples', and that was considered the tipping factor in banning me because I was 'calling violence against my political enemies'.

Never-mind the use of the phrase being common on space-battles, which is part of what caused me to say it :p.
Or the fact that you were making threats... against yourself... by saying you would rather be dead than a Republican.

I guess they all better ban themselves by stating that they will not be changed to an unconscionable ideology.
 
Or the fact that you were making threats... against yourself... by saying you would rather be dead than a Republican.

I guess they all better ban themselves by stating that they will not be changed to an unconscionable ideology.
Yeah, SB moderation policy really is just a cavalcade of pure fail, isn't it?
 
The thing is that this is a far more one-sided affair than people would think. The GOP more or less went off the cliff after Bush Jr. (who, in the grand scheme of things, is more of a modern Grant than anything) tried to push the GOP to a new direction that didn't rely on the Dixiecrats and the Boomers. Problem was, the GOP effectively told him to fuck off more or less as they didn't want to change with the landscape. Then there is the problem of their media bubble making reality have no objective meaning...

The phrase 'lunatics run the asylum' is rather apt in this situation, as the Dixiecrats more or less started to run the GOP during the '90s and Bush years before pulling the shit they had in the Obama years. Then it all coming to roost now with Trump, with or without Russian assistance (and so far, it looks like the GOP is going straight to the Russians again for help against Biden)...
 
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