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> Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said (...) "This has caused reporters to have a full blown meltdown, crying victim online." Interesting use of language

> Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said (...) "This has caused reporters to have a full blown meltdown, crying victim online." Interesting use of language... seems like the mask is coming off everywhere now, not just where I live (Hungary). I've been intentionally skipping on a lot of our local political reporting, so I was really quite surprised to see recently how lowbrow the language used by politicians, specifically those in power, has gotten these days. Especially how flagrant they are about it too. This is a very meta, and to many I'm sure trivial, thing to take issue with, yes, but if those in authority are this unashamedly drunk on power, and look down on those they rule over so openly, I'd really question how fit they are to represent people's collective best interest.

4ggr0 1y ago
[flagged]
- ddddang 1y ago
  [dead]
wat10000 1y ago
A lot of people love this. They want to wield power to hurt people they don’t like. Watching others they perceive as being on “their side” do it serves as a substitute.
- cindyllm 1y ago
  [dead]
- gaindustries 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - x3n0ph3n3 1y ago
    Not everyone wants a better society, nor agrees on what a better society even looks like. It's a common mistake to believe your adversary is just like you, but terribly confused.
  - conartist6 1y ago
    I really hate to be the one to break this to you, but humans are a kind of animal
    - card_zero 1y ago
      They're also a kind of growth medium for bacteria, a kind of vector for memes, a kind of informal unit of measurement and a kind of meat. What about it.
      - IAmBroom 1y ago
        conartists is replying to the claim 'you are a human, not an animal'.
  - wat10000 1y ago
    That’s not opposed to what I’m saying. Lots of people want a better society and think that “better” involves powerful people wielding it against people they don’t like. Everybody is the hero of their own story. The Nazis thought they were making the world a better place by murdering all the undesirables. And I never said I was better. I nearly added a “and this isn’t exclusive to one side” addendum to my comment, but decided that would just derail my point. Maybe I should have.
    - potato3732842 1y ago
      >That’s not opposed to what I’m saying. Lots of people want a better society and think that “better” involves powerful people wielding it against people they don’t like. Everybody is the hero of their own story. The Nazis thought they were making the world a better place by murdering all the undesirables. Exactly. The boomers thought they were making the world a better place with their 1960s environmentalism regulation and zoning. Turns out they mostly just teed up a housing crisis 50yr later.
      - wat10000 1y ago
        Yes, if only we still had deadly smog, maybe we could afford rent.
        mothballed 1y ago
        No, it's zoning, codes, and covenants, and licensing that were all the barriers that stopped me from building a house in 99.9% of the USA. I ultimately found a place that allowed me to bypass that, which thankfully also has virtually zero public utilities or police/fire or services or taxes which is probably the thing scaring shitless any of the bootlickers from coming out here and making housing laws like the rest of the places.
        potato3732842 1y ago
        If you were trying to build the kind of density of lot covered by building and other impermeable surface that you see in cities built out before the 70s (i.e. the stuff HN fawns over) stormwater stuff would prevent you.
  - aredox 1y ago
    A better society for who? >You are no better, my friend. I resent them for their choices and their dishonesty. Things they chose to be and could change if they were open to discussion in good faith - which they refuse. They resent me and millions of others for my skin color or my sexual orientation or where I was born. Things I never chose and can't change.
    - DaSHacka 1y ago
      The funny thing is I have no idea what side you're talking about.
      - aredox 1y ago
        [flagged]
      - IAmBroom 1y ago
        Really? You have no idea which side of US politics hates people based on skin color or sexual orientation? Please argue in good faith.
        aredox 1y ago
        [dead]
        DaSHacka 1y ago
        I mean, both sides can easily argue both things. Did you miss the current administration's pushback against DEI for being "discriminatory towards white cisgender males"?
        phatskat 1y ago
        But DEI isn’t and wasn’t ever that. I did DEI training at two different jobs and it boiled down to “you can’t know what someone else may be going through, or where they’ve been, and no the best course of action is to be open and curious”. Heck, in my most recent DEI training, one of the people to be sympathetic towards was a white cis man - it was a section focusing on discrimination based on age. Both sides can not, in my view, argue both things: the right as we see it in America wants to oppress people based on immutable values such as race and gender. The left wants people to acknowledge that “hey maybe it’s ok if everything doesn’t cater to one specific archetype of a person” - no reasonable person on the left wants to punish or oppress anyone for being a “white cisgender male”. There’s this idea I’ve held onto that seems very apt: when a group that was being oppressed is given the same rights as their oppressors, their oppressors feel as though something is being taken from them.
  - raw_anon_1111 1y ago
    And this type of naïveté is why the left always loses. If the last election doesn’t wake people up nothing will. People want someone to represent them that hates the same people they hate. Who shares their grievances and punishes people who don’t look or think like them. That’s at least the case of 40%% of Americans who still support everything the current administration does. This has always been “who we are” despite what Michelle Obama says. Then people reply about “what about the other 60%”. If you have 10 friends and ask them what they want to eat for dinner and 6 say let’s get Mexican and the other 4 say let’s kill Bob and eat him. You still need to be concerned about your friend group.
    - mothballed 1y ago
      Bob should be able to secede from such a democracy, which was arguably an implied right of a voluntary union up until the Civil War. Otherwise democracy is just a tyranny of the majority, and bob is only 2 votes away from being dinner and legitimately so.
      - wat10000 1y ago
        Allowing an entire state to secede does bupkis to prevent a tyranny of the majority. You just need a smaller number of people to be a tyrannical majority in your newly independent state.
        mothballed 1y ago
        At some people you can secede to an individual size of 1, at which point you can only tyrannize yourself. But it's a valid point, you're only mitigating not eliminating tyranny of the majority by picking which democracy you choose to be a part of. It is harder to tyrannize people with options, though, and much easier if it's either follow the company line or be massacred. The Somalis basically have this system, which has been more successful than their geographic attempts at democracy, where you can essentially go under an entirely different legal system even in the exact same geographic spot by accepting a sponsor of another tribe, or possibly by marrying ('xeer'), or if you so choose you can secede from the whole thing and make your own tribe and take the risks that come with that.
- throw0101d 1y ago
  > A lot of people love this. They want to wield power to hurt people they don’t like. See "The Cruelty is the Point", written during Trump 1.0: > Taking joy in that suffering is more human than most would like to admit. Somewhere on the wide spectrum between adolescent teasing and the smiling white men in the lynching photographs are the Trump supporters whose community is built by rejoicing in the anguish of those they see as unlike them, who have found in their shared cruelty an answer to the loneliness and atomization of modern life. * https://archive.is/NjiSx https://archive.is/NjiSx * https://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelty-is-the-point/572104/ https://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive...
lunias 1y ago
I've observed the same, but it's not one sided. Journalism has become decidedly lowbrow as well. Almost every exchange plays out as an attack and a defense rather than a discussion in good faith seeking mutual understanding and compromise.

4ggr0 1y ago

[flagged]

ddddang 1y ago
[dead]

wat10000 1y ago

A lot of people love this. They want to wield power to hurt people they don’t like. Watching others they perceive as being on “their side” do it serves as a substitute.

cindyllm 1y ago
[dead]
gaindustries 1y ago
[flagged]
- x3n0ph3n3 1y ago
  Not everyone wants a better society, nor agrees on what a better society even looks like. It's a common mistake to believe your adversary is just like you, but terribly confused.
- conartist6 1y ago
  I really hate to be the one to break this to you, but humans are a kind of animal
  - card_zero 1y ago
    They're also a kind of growth medium for bacteria, a kind of vector for memes, a kind of informal unit of measurement and a kind of meat. What about it.
    - IAmBroom 1y ago
      conartists is replying to the claim 'you are a human, not an animal'.
- wat10000 1y ago
  That’s not opposed to what I’m saying. Lots of people want a better society and think that “better” involves powerful people wielding it against people they don’t like. Everybody is the hero of their own story. The Nazis thought they were making the world a better place by murdering all the undesirables. And I never said I was better. I nearly added a “and this isn’t exclusive to one side” addendum to my comment, but decided that would just derail my point. Maybe I should have.
  - potato3732842 1y ago
    >That’s not opposed to what I’m saying. Lots of people want a better society and think that “better” involves powerful people wielding it against people they don’t like. Everybody is the hero of their own story. The Nazis thought they were making the world a better place by murdering all the undesirables. Exactly. The boomers thought they were making the world a better place with their 1960s environmentalism regulation and zoning. Turns out they mostly just teed up a housing crisis 50yr later.
    - wat10000 1y ago
      Yes, if only we still had deadly smog, maybe we could afford rent.
      - mothballed 1y ago
        No, it's zoning, codes, and covenants, and licensing that were all the barriers that stopped me from building a house in 99.9% of the USA. I ultimately found a place that allowed me to bypass that, which thankfully also has virtually zero public utilities or police/fire or services or taxes which is probably the thing scaring shitless any of the bootlickers from coming out here and making housing laws like the rest of the places.
        potato3732842 1y ago
        If you were trying to build the kind of density of lot covered by building and other impermeable surface that you see in cities built out before the 70s (i.e. the stuff HN fawns over) stormwater stuff would prevent you.
- aredox 1y ago
  A better society for who? >You are no better, my friend. I resent them for their choices and their dishonesty. Things they chose to be and could change if they were open to discussion in good faith - which they refuse. They resent me and millions of others for my skin color or my sexual orientation or where I was born. Things I never chose and can't change.
  - DaSHacka 1y ago
    The funny thing is I have no idea what side you're talking about.
    - aredox 1y ago
      [flagged]
    - IAmBroom 1y ago
      Really? You have no idea which side of US politics hates people based on skin color or sexual orientation? Please argue in good faith.
      - aredox 1y ago
        [dead]
      - DaSHacka 1y ago
        I mean, both sides can easily argue both things. Did you miss the current administration's pushback against DEI for being "discriminatory towards white cisgender males"?
        phatskat 1y ago
        But DEI isn’t and wasn’t ever that. I did DEI training at two different jobs and it boiled down to “you can’t know what someone else may be going through, or where they’ve been, and no the best course of action is to be open and curious”. Heck, in my most recent DEI training, one of the people to be sympathetic towards was a white cis man - it was a section focusing on discrimination based on age. Both sides can not, in my view, argue both things: the right as we see it in America wants to oppress people based on immutable values such as race and gender. The left wants people to acknowledge that “hey maybe it’s ok if everything doesn’t cater to one specific archetype of a person” - no reasonable person on the left wants to punish or oppress anyone for being a “white cisgender male”. There’s this idea I’ve held onto that seems very apt: when a group that was being oppressed is given the same rights as their oppressors, their oppressors feel as though something is being taken from them.
- raw_anon_1111 1y ago
  And this type of naïveté is why the left always loses. If the last election doesn’t wake people up nothing will. People want someone to represent them that hates the same people they hate. Who shares their grievances and punishes people who don’t look or think like them. That’s at least the case of 40%% of Americans who still support everything the current administration does. This has always been “who we are” despite what Michelle Obama says. Then people reply about “what about the other 60%”. If you have 10 friends and ask them what they want to eat for dinner and 6 say let’s get Mexican and the other 4 say let’s kill Bob and eat him. You still need to be concerned about your friend group.
  - mothballed 1y ago
    Bob should be able to secede from such a democracy, which was arguably an implied right of a voluntary union up until the Civil War. Otherwise democracy is just a tyranny of the majority, and bob is only 2 votes away from being dinner and legitimately so.
    - wat10000 1y ago
      Allowing an entire state to secede does bupkis to prevent a tyranny of the majority. You just need a smaller number of people to be a tyrannical majority in your newly independent state.
      - mothballed 1y ago
        At some people you can secede to an individual size of 1, at which point you can only tyrannize yourself. But it's a valid point, you're only mitigating not eliminating tyranny of the majority by picking which democracy you choose to be a part of. It is harder to tyrannize people with options, though, and much easier if it's either follow the company line or be massacred. The Somalis basically have this system, which has been more successful than their geographic attempts at democracy, where you can essentially go under an entirely different legal system even in the exact same geographic spot by accepting a sponsor of another tribe, or possibly by marrying ('xeer'), or if you so choose you can secede from the whole thing and make your own tribe and take the risks that come with that.
throw0101d 1y ago
> A lot of people love this. They want to wield power to hurt people they don’t like. See "The Cruelty is the Point", written during Trump 1.0: > Taking joy in that suffering is more human than most would like to admit. Somewhere on the wide spectrum between adolescent teasing and the smiling white men in the lynching photographs are the Trump supporters whose community is built by rejoicing in the anguish of those they see as unlike them, who have found in their shared cruelty an answer to the loneliness and atomization of modern life. * https://archive.is/NjiSx https://archive.is/NjiSx * https://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelty-is-the-point/572104/ https://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive...

lunias 1y ago

I've observed the same, but it's not one sided. Journalism has become decidedly lowbrow as well. Almost every exchange plays out as an attack and a defense rather than a discussion in good faith seeking mutual understanding and compromise.