tshile

“The country that put judeo in judeo-Christian” *looks at calendar* 🤔

That’s not how I see it. and I think there are other things people care about like what you mentioned. but if you’re starting from the stand point there can be no other reason but this one specific reason, and deciding what other people think and why for them, there’s really nowhere to go from there.

If you’re asking this then there’s a huge communication break down. A recent example, using a different topic for the sake of detaching from this specific topic, would be the Israel-Palestine war. On one side you have people that are sympathetic to the Palestinian peoples and see a wrong there. The other side “debates” them by essentially saying that by virtue of being sympathetic, you hate Jews; you support terrorist. On the other side you have people that are sympathetic to the Israelis situation. The other side declares they hate Muslims. You have people deciding what a speakers intent is for them, and it’s roots are in being so emotionally wrapped up and righteous about their opinions and how they formed them, that it is unreasonable to them that maybe someone disagrees with you for good reason; or that it’s even ok to have a differing opinion at all. People are lazy and like labels, not details. They seem to prefer fewer labels to choose from and to apply them as quickly as possible. it’s way easier for me to decide your opinion is based on hatred and corruption, than it is to have to fully consider it and rethink what it may or may not mean for my opinion. i (like I imagine a lot of people) have changed my opinions and stances on things a lot over the last 20 years. I don’t see how you can be capable of growing as a person if you casually write off things you disagree with. It requires considering new information. But that takes time and effort. And we’re a society that doesn’t seem to read past the headline or the tweet describing an article. We elected a guy in 2016 that speaks on a 3rd grade level cause that makes people feel comfortable. Conspiracy theories run rampant because at their core they explain why a problem is the fault of some nebulous entity, and absolve us from any responsibility for causing it or doing anything about it. We’re ****ed as a society 🤷‍♂️

Seems like a creepy idea. The same party that’s heads collectively explode if you say there should be a database of gun owners.

I have morals and try to apply them consistently. Im aware I fall short of what I think is best. I’m happy to discuss them but only if I get to decide what my morals are… The comment was directed at everyone. I even said I recognize I fall into the same trap.

Absolutely. there are people that are against abortion because they are against women. there are people that are against the statue removal because they are racist trash. there are people that are republicans because they’re neo nazis, or leftists because they’re anarchists. and they use the same arguments as cover as they see fit for what motivates them. And sometimes it’s blatantly obvious. where we go wrong is when we decide those are the only reasons. And then treat people that disagree with us, that the only reason they could possibly disagree with us is that they’re evil/racist/etc

Well it’s totally fair to say that getting into politics increases scrutiny - we’ve seen it a thousand different ways. But also this stuff takes a while to get found out about - for investigations to launch, for trials to move forward, for whistleblowers to appear. Hell, it’s even possible that the reason he got into politics at all was to attach himself to a party to help provide him cover for things he saw coming down the pipe

I think there’s a line between judging someone for their opinions and motives, and deciding what they are for yourself. I’ve got no problem with judging people. At all. I have a huge problem with deciding what someone else’s opinion is, especially when they’re trying to explain what their opinion is and you simply refuse to consider that maybe they know more about what their opinions are and the motives that drive them than you do. And to be fair - I fall into it, just like everyone else. I’m not tying to act like I’m riding around on some high horse. But some people operate that way by default. Or just always. I don’t think it’s good, helpful, nor productive.

Um. Some of us, and many others, have been pointing out the issues with the way he does things long before he became active in politics.

That seems to totally miss the point I was making but ok.

The problem with tying righteousness to your opinions, is the baked in implication that the only reason someone would disagree with you is that they have some sort of hatred motivating them. it’s not surprising that a person that’s built their opinion/argument on a foundation of absolute moral correctness, treats someone that disagrees the way they do. it’s why I stay away from abortion discussions. Because both sides operate 100% that way, all the time. doesn’t leave a lot of wiggle room for discussion. It’s just people yelling at each other.

the issue with this way of analyzing things is you enter the territory of deciding what other peoples opinions are for them. You and I have argued this in the past, but I firmly believe the person speaking gets to decide what their opinions are and what they are trying to convey. Not the person listening. and we see this throughout. I know it’s hard for me to post things without someone responding by declaring what my motives and opinions are for me. I realize that sometimes that’s because I communicate poorly. Sometimes it’s because of unfortunate word selection that requires cleanup (happened the other week with the noem dog story where my choice of words implied something about all farmers, which wasn’t my intention.) but it absolutely also happens because people all too often think they get to decide what another persons motives or opinions are. I personally know people who like that we have certain statues or whatever, and it’s not because they think the confederacy was awesome, or wanted them to win, or are racist or hateful. But based on what you said - those people don’t exist, rather they are simply liars (or whatever) I don’t think that’s helpful. Can’t really think of a time where someone deciding my opinions and motives are different than what I say they are, was a good or productive thing …

as a life long Virginian - civil war is baked into everything. Virginia was a key state with lots (majority? Not quite sure) of battles taking place and even more taking place just outside its borders. It’s not surprising to me outsiders don’t understand this. It’s also not surprising that many people take the “we disagree that means you’re a racist and evil person” stance. It’s prevalent these days. Almost seems to be the default way of analyzing things for most.

the thing that was voted on, stipulates the funding must be provided by private people. The board will oversee how the funds are spent but no taxpayer money is to be used for it. The thing that always cracks me up is when people care about something that has no impact on them whatsoever. I don’t live there. My kids don’t go there. I didn’t care when they changed it and I don’t care if they change it back. It’s their schools not mine 🤷‍♂️

Conan obrien has a podcast called Conan O’Brien needs a friend. he interviewed grohl, novoselic, and Albini and cover how he produced in utero. It’s a great listen. It was released 10/23/2023 if you want to find it in his episodes list.

(edit: this is my understanding but I may be wrong, not a lawyer) There are rules about that. You don’t get to get on the stand and say what you want to say and then plead the 5th to everything else. I’m not sure of the specifics

I’ve said several times I don’t think they’re a good ally. My reasoning is mostly based on us having little influence with them. If they generally want the same thing they kinda do what we want, but if we’re at odds they have no problem doing whatever they want. given the money, arms, the context of their existence in the Middle East, the decades they’ve survived simply because we help them… they continue to survive because everyone believes if someone does something we’ll show up immediately and stomp them out… I think they owe at least following our needs and wants on a foreign policy level. but they don’t. There’s a good argument made that the reasons stuxnet became public is because Israel got super aggressive with it when we told them not to, and it wound up in a researchers honeypot. (Edit: for what it’s worth, I believe this is the leading theory by faaaar, among tech people that followed the story. USA denies any involvement publicly. There is a solid documentary on it for those interested) they foiled an incredibly expensive, amazing, and meaningful intelligence operation that we most like funded entirely and contributed 90% of the work - because they’re stupid aggressive and lack control or loyalty to us. Israel is like that one buddy you got that if you’re out and he gets in a fight, you take a few steps back thinking “I don’t know what happened here to start a fight but he probably deserves what’s about to happen, gonna sit this one out”

if I recall the segment on WTOP correctly: it comes down to what the source/order of the funds/munitions is what wasn’t clear to me is whether the issue was that he can’t touch it because the order came in a way that requires congress, or whether he’s simply chipping away at it and does have the ability to stop more. sorry but I find that stuff hard to keep track of and I didn’t even catch the whole segment but that was the gist of it

well. That would only make sense if the hostages were released or dead. So long as there are hostages alive, that’s not and never was going to happen. It’s totally unreasonable to expect a group capable of waging the war, to get bored and stop while their people are actively held as hostages… this is why Hamas plan was stupid. No one is helping them or intervening and they have no way to take on Israel by themselves. they’re going to wind up dead and for a “country” that doesn’t exist anymore. I don’t think Israel gives a **** about those 2 million people. and obviously Hamas is incapable of doing anything. 🤷‍♂️ WTOP is saying Israel just released a statement that they will “go it alone” so. The move to get them back to a negotiating table (the premise being - you must negotiate with terrorists 🙄) is not getting them back to the negotiating table. Is not going to do anything about the protests or the people angry at the admin. And likely pissed off a significant number of Jewish people and others. I suppose it’s early to call the move a failure, things can change, but it’s certainly looking like a huge, public failure for the administration at the moment.

So while Biden is stopping one shipment, another shipment valued at 870 million is going out the door to Israel now. I just don’t understand the strategy here.

Of course it’s not, and they’re not discussing those things. Which is why from the start my thought was they will take the land. And come up with whatever they come up with to handle the Palestinians that are still alive once they formally annex the land to be theirs.

To me it would be more correct to say: History shows war crimes are selectively enforced, and based on said history its way more likely Hamas leaders are tried on it but Israeli leaders are not. I think pointing out the likelihood of things based on the read world is not the same as a personal endorsement of the situation (sorry I’ve been arguing about “war crimes” a lot in this thread…)

Israel’s reactions (as I heard on NPR this morning) are not good. one of their leaders said if they won’t give us smart bombs we’ll use dumb bombs and kill more Palestinians another said this is why we shouldn’t have allowed them to pressure us, we should have ended this quickly from the start and lots more along those lines. if the heart of it is morality then I get it - that’s how morality works, making tough decisions when it’s inconvenient to do so but politically I’m not sure it makes sense.

That’s fine but I’m not sure it has anything to do with what I pointed out. Which probably belongs in the election thread anyways.

From an election strategy stand point - I find it interesting to think about how that nets out. Biden draws the line at moving into rafah, but only in terms of no longer supplying weapons (lol money is another can of worms but ignoring for now.). I’m so lost in terms of demographics across the country that are impacted by this - but it certainly seems possible you don’t placate enough on the Palestinian side to make up for what you lose on the Jewish side. Or maybe you do. Or maybe really there’s like 3 states total where the calculus even matters and it’s not that difficult to make it a net improvement. It’s also entirely possible this is purely a US-centric decision and has nothing to do with election ramifications. I just find it interesting working through them from that angle.