1. #22741
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mister Mets View Post
    America's status as the first republic...
    Wasn't there some guy got there first? Pluto? Playdoh? Platypus? Somebody like that, who predated 1776?

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    Invincible Member Kirby101's Avatar
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    The paradox of America. Being the first republic since ancient times in a world of Monarchies, while at the same time having one of the worst forms of slavery the world has seen. And then giving freedom and citizenship to those slaves and then engaging in a horrific genocide of the people who lived there before the Europeans. Helping free the world from fascism and bringing Democracy to nations, while overthrowing Democracies in other countries and installing Dictators.
    There came a time when the Old Gods died! The Brave died with the Cunning! The Noble perished locked in battle with unleashed Evil! It was the last day for them! An ancient era was passing in fiery holocaust!

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    Ultimate Member Robotman's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Amadeus Arkham View Post


    Video in the link.

    And we’ll have a sane person as Commander-In-Chief in just two days.
    There has to be security cameras that can prove or disprove this pretty quick, right?

  4. #22744
    Old school comic book fan WestPhillyPunisher's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mister Mets View Post
    It's a positive that a majority of Trump supporters don't want Trump to run again.

    As for the idea that so many of them want someone with his views, I suspect that's more voters projecting their own views onto Trump, given how little he believes, and how many contradictory statements he has made.
    It sounds to me like Trumpanzees want all of their leader’s hateful policies without Trump’s stupidity.
    Avatar: Here's to the late, great Steve Dillon. Best. Punisher. Artist. EVER!

  5. #22745
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    Quote Originally Posted by WestPhillyPunisher View Post
    It sounds to me like Trumpanzees want all of their leader’s hateful policies without Trump’s stupidity.
    Trump committed the unpardonable fascist sin: he lost to his inferiors. Now I don't think Trump has enough sense of identity beyond himself to truly be a fascist, but a lot of his adherents are. The fastest way for a fascist to become his fellow-cannibals' appetizer de juor is to come in second to the people the fascists are so desperate to prove they're better than. So, they don't want to abandon the ideas they projected onto Trump's rantings, but the man is used up for them.

    That crowd, however, is completely different than the superstitious nutbars whose prophets (in many cases I suspect, profit$) have promised them that God has anointed Trump, and they have to fight to see God's will done! (never mind all that nonsense about Christos being a pacifist and all...)

  6. #22746
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    Quote Originally Posted by DrNewGod View Post
    Wasn't there some guy got there first? Pluto? Playdoh? Platypus? Somebody like that, who predated 1776?
    There were several republics before USA in 1776. In the ancient world, you had the Republics of Rome and Carthage, you had the Democracies of Athens and Thebes. Gore Vidal wrote an awesome novel called CREATION and one the things he pointed out was that Ancient India around the time of Gautama Buddha also had democratic organizations in some city states.

    In the Renaissance you had the Republic of Florence, the Republic of Genoa, the Republic of Venice all of whom jostled for independence, empire, and power and freedom against the Papal States (the part of Italy directly governed by the Catholic Church). Macchiavelli whose writings influenced the American founding fathers was actually a minister in the Florentine Republic.

    Then you had Republics in Switzerland, and most importantly, Holland in the centuries after the Renaissance. Jean Jacques Rousseau came from Switzerland and wrote about that to people. The Dutch Republic invented modern banking and other institutions and colonized and settled in New Amsterdam. There was also the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth where you had a Parliament larger than England until the late 1700s.

  7. #22747
    Ultimate Member Mister Mets's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by DrNewGod View Post
    Wasn't there some guy got there first? Pluto? Playdoh? Platypus? Somebody like that, who predated 1776?
    In an earlier post, I said "The United States was important as the first large republic since ancient times."

    It just doesn't seem essential to clarify this more than once during an ongoing discussion.
    Sincerely,
    Thomas Mets

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    Ultimate Member Mister Mets's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Robotman View Post
    There has to be security cameras that can prove or disprove this pretty quick, right?
    There are also supposed to be visitor logs of the Capitol post-COVID (another change due to pandemic regulations is that the only people authorized to give tours of the capitol are members of Congress) so if she gave any tours, it would be easy to determine who was on those tours and if any were persons of interest in the riots.
    Sincerely,
    Thomas Mets

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mister Mets View Post
    In an earlier post, I said "The United States was important as the first large republic since ancient times."

    It just doesn't seem essential to clarify this more than once during an ongoing discussion.
    I disagree with Mets A LOT, but he's right on this.

  10. #22750
    Silver Sentinel BeastieRunner's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mister Mets View Post
    There are also supposed to be visitor logs of the Capitol post-COVID (another change due to pandemic regulations is that the only people authorized to give tours of the capitol are members of Congress) so if she gave any tours, it would be easy to determine who was on those tours and if any were persons of interest in the riots.
    It shouldn't be that hard to prove or disprove this one.

    I have yet to see it show up anywhere but that Twitter post.

    I've see her on the Post and WSJ deny she aided the mob but she used very couched wording. Like Trump.

    Not saying it didn't happen ... but in this day and age we need a lot more proof sadly.
    Last edited by BeastieRunner; 01-18-2021 at 02:48 PM.
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    One of the issues that seems to fly under the radar is Florida's data scientist Rebekah Brooks who seems to be targeted by Florida Law Enforcement (under the purview of that gargoyle Ron DeSantis).

    https://www.npr.org/sections/coronav...rida-authoriti

    It's a little disconcerting that something like this isn't being addressed at the top level and I hope incoming AG Garland investigates this matter thoroughly. A potential situation of a scientist being persecuted by a State Governor feels like it's something that should be clamped down hard.

  12. #22752
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    One of the issues that seems to fly under the radar is Florida's data scientist Rebekah Brooks who seems to be targeted by Florida Law Enforcement (under the purview of that gargoyle Ron DeSantis).

    https://www.npr.org/sections/coronav...rida-authoriti

    It's a little disconcerting that something like this isn't being addressed at the top level and I hope incoming AG Garland investigates this matter thoroughly. A potential situation of a scientist being persecuted by a State Governor feels like it's something that should be clamped down hard.
    Does top level still means Trump and his goons right now? Science abiding personnel are like holy water to a vampire, something they won't want to think about.

  13. #22753
    Mighty Member TheDarman's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mister Mets View Post
    It's a positive that a majority of Trump supporters don't want Trump to run again.

    As for the idea that so many of them want someone with his views, I suspect that's more voters projecting their own views onto Trump, given how little he believes, and how many contradictory statements he has made.
    I disagree. I think that what Trump, and his followers, believe is pretty coherently broken down in here. Most people who follow Trump at least agree, in some part, with the core tenets outlined below:

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    Not a coherent philosophical ideology like Marxism or Liberalism or even some varieties of Conservatism.

    But yeah, Trump does have ideas that people respond to. All of them really bad ideas speaking in a moral sense, a technical sense, a Poli. Sci. sense and so on. And of course by focusing on the latent issues of Trump's ideas, what's there on the surface, that doesn't discount stuff that's hidden or suppressed, namely white supremacy, and white grievance.

    Speaking in the most value neutral sense, Trump's ideas are:

    -- Make America Great Again, i.e. America is in decline, that the present of America is significantly worse than the past.
    -- America First, i.e. globally America is losing to emerging powers and economies and that America's economy must benefit itself over others.
    -- Citizenship is a privilege to be doled out to the chosen few.

    These are the overt ideas of Trump. And they fall under what's been called "herrenvolk democracy" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herren...ated%20concept.) The word Herrenvolk by the way means "Master Race". Trump's idea is that America's democratic rights are aristocratic, meant for the few and not egalitarian. That's quite analogous to Nazism. A lot of people say National Socialist Workers Party and use that to claim spuriously that Nazis were socialist but what they don't get is that in Nazism you had socialism for the aristocratic few, as an aristocratic privilege for the few and as a way to dole out loyalty to exclude the oppressed and needy.

    In the most neutral sense, Trump's ideas do in fact respond to, or let's say intersect oddly with, issues in the real world. The sense of "America is in decline" and "America is significantly worse than the past"...Trump has obviously exaggerated that disproportionately and lied about it maliciously and so on, but in a broad sense after the failure of the W. years, where America saw its prestige fall sharply in a way that was only partially recovered by Obama, you no longer have the confidence in America despite political rhetoric that they should or could act unilaterally. Obama's refusal to intervene in Syria, his N-Deal with Iran, great stuff by the way, was born out with that. The thing is that Obama could never admit, because it would be political suicide no matter how moral and correct it is do so, that
    a) America is and has been an Empire for a century and more,
    b) Americans don't like to admit they are an Empire. That's not the same as "not liking being an Empire" (which I think Americans do like).
    c) America should try and come up with ways to not be an Empire anymore, which Obama tried to do but without doing a) and b). You can't be half-Disraeli and half-Mandela, my dude. So that meant that Trump could paint Obama's multilateralism as a sign of America's decline in the world stage.

    Likewise "America First" and so on, globalization and so on is an easy enough villain for both the right and the left, and Trump's response to that which is a radical nativism is obviously false but again a real problem in society can have both a right-wing and a left-wing response. The Taliban and various fundamentalist outfits in the Middle East are quite valid in responding to imperialism and colonialism of various kinds but they are a right-wing extreme response to that real problem, and the problem in the Middle East is that there aren't significant left-wing alternatives of comparative political force. One of the few was the Kurds and now that's gone.

    The question of citizenship...well that's just nonsense, but it's a logical enough escalation from the two.

    So I'd say that's the ideology of the Trump base and Trump himself.
    With Great Power, Comes Great Responsibility

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  14. #22754
    Silver Sentinel BeastieRunner's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wildling View Post
    Does top level still means Trump and his goons right now? Science abiding personnel are like holy water to a vampire, something they won't want to think about.
    Is it too late to give Florida back to Spain?
    "Always listen to the crazy scientist with a weird van or armful of blueprints and diagrams." -- Vibranium

  15. #22755
    Mighty Member TheDarman's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BeastieRunner View Post
    Is it too late to give Florida back to Spain?
    I'm still trying to figure out what happened with Miami-Dade County and why Biden's support collapsed there so much from Clinton's in 2016. Florida has always been a fairly close state. Did folks there really buy Trump's argument about Biden being a Trojan Horse for socialism? And, if they did, how do you plan on combatting that moving forward given that it was clear misinformation then, but the policies will be ambiguous enough (as well as the framing of what it means to be truly "socialist") that this could become a self-fulfilling prophecy of disinformation?
    With Great Power, Comes Great Responsibility

    Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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