4 ms·

That is trivially true, but stop both-sides-ing it with false equivalency. At this point, the major party in power is doing all they can to undermine democracy

by toss1 1y ago

That is trivially true, but stop both-sides-ing it with false equivalency. At this point, the major party in power is doing all they can to undermine democracy and strip-mine the country for their own benefit and that of their few multi-billionaire sponsors. The other party is attempting to herd a broad coalition of people to maintain democracy. Yes, it is imperfect, and the country has fallen often far short of perfection through it's entire history. That is no reason to set the perfect as the enemy of the good. Simply declaring "every form of government is (or all parties are) awful" is a cop-out, and the logical conclusion of that is a complete power vacuum which leads only to the population being ruled by rival gangs & fiefdoms.

gosub100 1y ago
I'll happily stop both-sides-ing it when people stop emphasizing "the current administration" when it's not relevant to the topic. Your guy lost, learn from your mistakes and carry on. Or criticize both presidents equally. If you criticized Biden in his tenure it was still Trump's fault. Believe me, I tried. It's Logical nonsense.
- exceptione 1y ago
  > I'll happily stop both-sides-ing it when No, you unconditionally need to stop both-siding. When you want to bring a broader issue in the spotlight, do bring the broader issue in the spot light. But when you feel you are inclined to throw in a bothsidism, which is a negative sum contribution to discourse, then the chance that you actually have an insight on the broader issue is quite small. > Your guy lost, learn from your mistakes and carry on As a bystander I can say on behalf of the ones that have been "othered" by means of political marketing, there is no guy. The pressing issue at play is the rule of law, separation of powers, due process, fair elections, and basic respect for human rights. If anyone feels they should continue to shout while waiving the merchandise of their favorite team, if anyone thinks this is the right moment to continue behaving like a spoiled hooligan, then they lose the aforementioned basic prerequisites of democracy, and with that, the democratic constitutional state.
  - gosub100 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - beej71 1y ago
      Disregarding the rest of the content, the poster has every right to do that!
    - exceptione 1y ago
      Why would I hate Trump? He is a minor player. His role is to play the chaos actor, to divert attention. Just useful. For the people with real, material influence he is delivering. The spell is broken if the press can stop wasting our mental bandwidth on the day to day distractions, and start to open themself to the big picture. And yes, doing a postmortem of how they got there is going to be an exercise in self-confrontation across the whole political spectrum.
- kurikuri 1y ago
  > Your guy lost, learn from your mistakes and carry on. Or criticize both presidents equally. So, your solution here is for people who think the current administration is particularly bad to either not complain or accept any whataboutisms you have? Your ‘both administrations’ quip is a vacuous justification for the current administration’s actions. If this is the basis for your justification, then, regardless of the truth of your claim, you’d be inconsistent to then praise this specific administration for anything positive. Thus, outside of nihilist generalizations about the overall structure of the US, you can’t meaningfully contribute to this conversation. Without giving a positive justification for the administrations behavior, your contributions are ‘logical nonsense.’ I’d rather simply complain about the doublespeakers in office at the moment and say it is wrong to do so, and there is no ‘logical nonsense’ in that.
ivewonyoung 1y ago
Is my reading of your comment accurate? If not please let us know. "The party not in power also has been doing similar things(in regards to the article) if not worse over the past couple of decades but lets completely ignore that, not criticize them at all, don't even bring it up and blame only the current admin because...<party currently in power is baddd>"
- beej71 1y ago
  I'm not the parent, but that seems like a pretty bad misread. But to answer, you worry more about the guy waving a knife in your face than other people who have knives and may have waved them in your face in the past. I'm curious what the worse one is. The Clipper Chip? Seems like a light pleasantry compared to what's happening now.
- toss1 1y ago
  No. It is so inaccurate that you either have serious problems with reading comprehension or are being deliberately disingenuous in order to destroy the conversation as if your Red Team is right. The GP comment was about both the specific "Flood The Zone" strategy promoted by an advisor to the current administration and the overall and absolutely unprecedented assault by this administration on democracy and the rule of law itself. Yes, I made a reference to the historical fact that the ideals of American democracy have always been aspirational. That is NOT license to whataboutism or claims that "everyone does it". In a democracy, all the branches of govt (exec, ligislative, judicial) and the institutions of society (press, industry, academy, finance, religion, sport, charity, orgs, etc.) are ALL independent, balance power throughout society, and work for its advancement as best they can. Under authoritarianism or fascism, all those branches and institutions are coerced or corrupted to concentrate power and serve the executive. Never in the history of this country has any administration even come within orders of magnitude of this regime's attempt to cut off democracy. They are abusing the power of the state to coerce an corrupt every single branch and institution they can, starting with the judiciary, lawyers, press, and academia. If you have actually "won young", you should take your gift of time and freedom to learn some history. Particularly relevant are how democracies are converted to autocracies, and it did not just happen in Germany in the 1930s, it happened today in Russia (ya, short weak democracy, but it didn't have to go that way), Venezuela, Hungary, and more; and the current party in power is abdicating it's legislative responsibilities to try to make it happen here. You might think you are safe because of your privilege of wealth, but if they succeed in their efforts to kill the 14th amendment and Habeas Corpus, you are not. Again, history is a guide, and the bog-standard authoritarian playbook is being run in broad daylight and secret Signal chat groups.
yeahokbut 1y ago
My Dem senator from a “very blue state” described the US economy with decades of forced austerity and rising inequality as a model for the world and then Trump ruined our credibility. Let that settle in; our credibility is was built on growing inequality. Decades of austerity being cheered on behind closed doors to leave a left wing senator believing austerity politics, gentle eugenics is a model for the world. The problem is not the parties. It’s the people in power.

by toss1 1y ago

gosub100 1y ago

I'll happily stop both-sides-ing it when people stop emphasizing "the current administration" when it's not relevant to the topic. Your guy lost, learn from your mistakes and carry on. Or criticize both presidents equally. If you criticized Biden in his tenure it was still Trump's fault. Believe me, I tried. It's Logical nonsense.

exceptione 1y ago
> I'll happily stop both-sides-ing it when No, you unconditionally need to stop both-siding. When you want to bring a broader issue in the spotlight, do bring the broader issue in the spot light. But when you feel you are inclined to throw in a bothsidism, which is a negative sum contribution to discourse, then the chance that you actually have an insight on the broader issue is quite small. > Your guy lost, learn from your mistakes and carry on As a bystander I can say on behalf of the ones that have been "othered" by means of political marketing, there is no guy. The pressing issue at play is the rule of law, separation of powers, due process, fair elections, and basic respect for human rights. If anyone feels they should continue to shout while waiving the merchandise of their favorite team, if anyone thinks this is the right moment to continue behaving like a spoiled hooligan, then they lose the aforementioned basic prerequisites of democracy, and with that, the democratic constitutional state.
- gosub100 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - beej71 1y ago
    Disregarding the rest of the content, the poster has every right to do that!
  - exceptione 1y ago
    Why would I hate Trump? He is a minor player. His role is to play the chaos actor, to divert attention. Just useful. For the people with real, material influence he is delivering. The spell is broken if the press can stop wasting our mental bandwidth on the day to day distractions, and start to open themself to the big picture. And yes, doing a postmortem of how they got there is going to be an exercise in self-confrontation across the whole political spectrum.
kurikuri 1y ago
> Your guy lost, learn from your mistakes and carry on. Or criticize both presidents equally. So, your solution here is for people who think the current administration is particularly bad to either not complain or accept any whataboutisms you have? Your ‘both administrations’ quip is a vacuous justification for the current administration’s actions. If this is the basis for your justification, then, regardless of the truth of your claim, you’d be inconsistent to then praise this specific administration for anything positive. Thus, outside of nihilist generalizations about the overall structure of the US, you can’t meaningfully contribute to this conversation. Without giving a positive justification for the administrations behavior, your contributions are ‘logical nonsense.’ I’d rather simply complain about the doublespeakers in office at the moment and say it is wrong to do so, and there is no ‘logical nonsense’ in that.

ivewonyoung 1y ago

Is my reading of your comment accurate? If not please let us know. "The party not in power also has been doing similar things(in regards to the article) if not worse over the past couple of decades but lets completely ignore that, not criticize them at all, don't even bring it up and blame only the current admin because...<party currently in power is baddd>"

beej71 1y ago
I'm not the parent, but that seems like a pretty bad misread. But to answer, you worry more about the guy waving a knife in your face than other people who have knives and may have waved them in your face in the past. I'm curious what the worse one is. The Clipper Chip? Seems like a light pleasantry compared to what's happening now.
toss1 1y ago
No. It is so inaccurate that you either have serious problems with reading comprehension or are being deliberately disingenuous in order to destroy the conversation as if your Red Team is right. The GP comment was about both the specific "Flood The Zone" strategy promoted by an advisor to the current administration and the overall and absolutely unprecedented assault by this administration on democracy and the rule of law itself. Yes, I made a reference to the historical fact that the ideals of American democracy have always been aspirational. That is NOT license to whataboutism or claims that "everyone does it". In a democracy, all the branches of govt (exec, ligislative, judicial) and the institutions of society (press, industry, academy, finance, religion, sport, charity, orgs, etc.) are ALL independent, balance power throughout society, and work for its advancement as best they can. Under authoritarianism or fascism, all those branches and institutions are coerced or corrupted to concentrate power and serve the executive. Never in the history of this country has any administration even come within orders of magnitude of this regime's attempt to cut off democracy. They are abusing the power of the state to coerce an corrupt every single branch and institution they can, starting with the judiciary, lawyers, press, and academia. If you have actually "won young", you should take your gift of time and freedom to learn some history. Particularly relevant are how democracies are converted to autocracies, and it did not just happen in Germany in the 1930s, it happened today in Russia (ya, short weak democracy, but it didn't have to go that way), Venezuela, Hungary, and more; and the current party in power is abdicating it's legislative responsibilities to try to make it happen here. You might think you are safe because of your privilege of wealth, but if they succeed in their efforts to kill the 14th amendment and Habeas Corpus, you are not. Again, history is a guide, and the bog-standard authoritarian playbook is being run in broad daylight and secret Signal chat groups.

yeahokbut 1y ago

My Dem senator from a “very blue state” described the US economy with decades of forced austerity and rising inequality as a model for the world and then Trump ruined our credibility. Let that settle in; our credibility is was built on growing inequality. Decades of austerity being cheered on behind closed doors to leave a left wing senator believing austerity politics, gentle eugenics is a model for the world. The problem is not the parties. It’s the people in power.