blastula
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Obi wan Trump? Nah, not seeing it.
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In defence of Trump
- Thread starter DrZoidberg
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Obi wan Trump? Nah, not seeing it.
TomC
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Nope.
Trump wants to be alpha male. Too important for laws to matter.
But, apparently, he's not. Even his staunchest supporters are recognizing that he's a criminal circling the toilet bowl. They're fleeing him, as fast as they are able while dragging their Trumpista baggage behind them.
And Trump sees this. He's losing it. This isn't hard to understand.
Tom
The reason there is no quality conservative press is that they would be trying to defend an unsupportable position.
DrZoidberg
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I don't think that is how propaganda works. Remember that it's his ideas that matter. Not the person. Anybody can be Trump's megaphone. If they shut him off he, can write the same thing in a chat forum, like this, and then have it instantly propagated on every social media platform by an army of followers. With him on Twitter his opponents (like me) at least knows what idiocies he's spouting. Which allows us to counter them.
In Europe we have a long history of trying to stop Nazism through censorship. Let's just say its been an epic fail. Every attempt has only strengthened them.
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DrZoidberg
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This reminds me of something. In USA the atheists have smart arguments. The theists stupid arguments. Why? Because the theists are so dominant in the culture that when a theists says dumb shit, there's no opposition to their arguments. So they think that their arguments are clever. It's the same reason Swedish Christians tend to have well thought out arguments and come across as the nice guys, while Swedish atheists often come across as arrogant buffoons.
Only in a culture where the intellectual climate is overwhelmingly liberal is it possible, IMHO, to think that the conservative position is indefensible. Of course there's reasonable reasons to be conservative. It's all about what values you uphold. I don't think you are so self absorbed that you truly believe that everybody who doesn't think exactly like you are idiots?
DrZoidberg
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If anybody doubts the liberal hegemony. What about this?
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-55615214
An alt right chat service can't find anywhere to host their service. In what way isn't the liberals in complete control of society now? No wonder conservatives vote for idiots like Trump.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-55615214
An alt right chat service can't find anywhere to host their service. In what way isn't the liberals in complete control of society now? No wonder conservatives vote for idiots like Trump.
No self respecting company would want anything to do with a hate app that incited domestic terrorism. Why is that so fucking difficult to grasp? No liberal bias required. Incidentally, an app sinking or swimming on its own merits is about as capitalist as one can get.
DrZoidberg
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The way capitalism works is that if there's a market there's a provider. There clearly is a market. Twitter generated massive amount of money selling the personal data of QAnnon users. Still do. If they don't do it, they are leaving money on the table. Why would they leave money on the table? Why would Amazon leave money on the table by denying Parler hosting? Like you say, it's because they don't want to be associated with it. The money gained from providing services will be less than the money they lose through loss of revenue because of the association. I'm not cool with that. I want everybody to be able to speak freely, to associate freely and to not be persecuted for their ideas and ideals. It's sacred to me.
Then you might ask, if they have so many supporters, then why not do their own hosting? Why not create their own infrastructure? Isn't that obvious? Because they can't. They don't have the money or resources. They are a marginalised group. No matter how crazy that sounds, it has to be true. Otherwise they wouldn't be at the mercy of cancel culture.
I don't like it when anybody picks on the weak and marginalised. I don't care how unlovable or ugly they are. It's not what liberalism is about. Cancel culture is fundamentally and anti-liberal and bizarrely enough, a classically conservative, thing to do. When the liberals got the power, the power has clearly gone to our heads.
prideandfall
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the short answer is "i'm a 41 year old lower middle class white guy so if society starts to crumble i'll probably be dead before it gets to the point where i'd feel it, and i'm enough of a cantankerous misanthropic bastard that the thought i might get to watch the start of the decline of modern human civilization amuses the shit out of me".
the long answer has to do with not having children so not caring about the future of the species or the planet and feeling a bit of schadenfreude about getting to see the first glimmers of those idiots getting what they want and how it's going to result in their own destruction, and how the people who could have done something about it did nothing and that's poetic in a way as well.
Shadowy Man
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Makes you wonder why groups who openly seek the overthrow of the government would be marginalized.
As for the business decisions of companies like Apple and Amazon I see it more that they feel if they don’t do what they’re doing they’d be inviting more government regulations and that they definitely don’t want. That’s been obvious when Zuckerberg has testified in front of Congress.
The actions of these so-called freedom loving patriots are more likely to lead to the reduction of personal freedoms than simply voting Democrat.
As for the business decisions of companies like Apple and Amazon I see it more that they feel if they don’t do what they’re doing they’d be inviting more government regulations and that they definitely don’t want. That’s been obvious when Zuckerberg has testified in front of Congress.
The actions of these so-called freedom loving patriots are more likely to lead to the reduction of personal freedoms than simply voting Democrat.
Jimmy Higgins
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This site was allowed until thousands invaded the Capitol Building and continue to plan more violence. If these people were Muslims, this wouldn't be considered "liberal hegemony".
Jimmy Higgins
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This is a Devil's Advocate thread that lost its way.
I think you missed a major point. They don’t do it because they want to interact with non-crazies. They want to be around us, within our circles. They want to RECRUIT and they can’t do it on their own platform which they absolutely CAN set up any time they want.
Don2 (Don1 Revised)
Contributor
But they are not right now in charge of your country. The first attempt at censoring Hitler was throwing him in prison and allowing him to write a book called His Struggle. That was the worst outcome. In any case, Trump does add something to the propaganda. He's got Breitbart started by Steve Bannon, AM radio, secret provocaters named Q who are really him, and tabloid news owners who are his best friends, in addition to money he pumps into newly spawned websites each day. NewsMax and OAN are also suddenly into power. That's all in addition to the old conservative infrastructure: churches, Fox News, and conservative "think" tanks. Someone new just can't take over with the same reach across everything and unify it like he has. They don't have the money or connections. Ted Cruz wants to take over it, but will fail.
Also, I agree he should not be banned from Twitter...after thinking about it last few days...but I don't see a solution to the actual problem of Trump's propaganda inciting people for us in my country right now.
prideandfall
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i think that you... really don't understand how the terms 'liberal' and 'conservative' and 'left wing' and 'right wing' apply differently to the US than anywhere else in the world.
the US does not have any mainstream politically liberal presence - not in the news media, not in the pop-culture, not in the general zeitgeist, not in tradition - nothing, nada, nowhere. zero politically liberal politicians exist (and whatever marginalized one-off name one might try to cite to counter that point just proves it), zero narrative from a liberal perspective thrives.
the US has a moderate conservative party that is pro-business, anti-worker, militaristic, and largely concerned with maintaining a functional status quo for the purposes of enriching the wealthy at the expense of everyone else, while at least paying lip service to pretending to try to progress the social order for the good of all, sometimes, if it's not too much trouble.
and then the US has a completely bat-shit pack of theocratic nazis who operate on the premise that the idea of government itself is invalid on a conceptual level and the purpose of government is to dismantle itself, and that for-profit business and jesus will sort everything out.
in the US, politics is not about a question with two sides having different ideas about how to solve it.
"hm, health care is a problem in that millions of people can't afford it and are getting sick and having their lives ruined by it. what should we do to fix this?"
Democrats: well we could think about expanding medicare, or introduce a public option, or reform to the medical industry... ooo or, we could give the insurance industry one of the biggest corporate hand jobs in the history of the human race and sell it to the public as making it so *everyone* has health insurance! bingo"
Republicans: LYNCH ALL THE NIGGERS
explain to me how you have a reasoned debate on a topic when those are your two options.
DrZoidberg
Contributor
How do you explain that they are struggling with finding hosting? Don't forget that since the 90% power has shifted dramatically towards the IT sector. Away from traditional sectors, like banking. IT guys are a hell of a lot more liberal than bankers. And when it comes to social media, infrastructure, they do have all the power. So I don't think it's all that crazy.
DrZoidberg
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But why would they fear those kinds of regulations? If it wasn't for liberals having power, there would be no risk for such regulation. I have no illusions about Amazons ideology. Their ideology is to make money. That's obviously their only agenda. What is interesting is what choices they make and why they feel forced to make the choices they do.
I don't fear individuals. Conspiracies aren't a small club of powerful people agreeing on manipulating the world. Conspiracies happen because the system forces powerful people's hands. The system, ie how we have designed societal incentives, nudges people towards actions. If enough people support liberal censorship it may come into law, which dissuades corporation to go against their will.
Human history has many examples of what happens when a majority bullies a minority. Most often the majority thinks their actions are justified, because they are the majority. They re-enforce each other. I think this is what is happening now within the left.
DrZoidberg
Contributor
Of course you are correct. Public opinion today is reactive. All you need is some terrorist attack or another for the tail to swing violently in the opposite direction.