Riots in DC

[xr7]

Yes it is a legit statement. He has been arrested. Interesting how many people were filming what they were doing.

 

[Ludachris]

The point is this, the episode at the capitol shook the tree, now the influential side, the side that spends twice as much money on elections has decided to play the same game this chief did. Deplatforming, taking away the ability to speak ones grievances, or opinions.

I think one of the reasons we are where we are has to do with the notion that everyone who does something we don't like is part of "them" or "they", or the "other side" - the evil dark side. A few big social media companies took action to remove members who were abusing their systems with certain inciteful language which they feel violates their TOS - very much like forum owners do on a daily basis with people who detract from their communities, only the social media companies are removing well known celebrities we all know and in some cases follow in a very polarizing point in time. Did they possibly overreact and put too much focus on conservatives who are abusing their TOS? That's definitely possible given the circumstances. Are they not being completely fair? An argument can certainly be made for that.

Those big social media companies do not represent the liberals I know any more than Fox News represents all the conservatives I know. They're not part of the same team, they are not responsible for each others' actions, nor do they have meetings in private back rooms to discuss these decisions together. Those companies made their own decisions, which happen to not favor the people being banned and those who think like those members. Liberals (like my tree hugger wife - sorry honey) had no say in the decision to ban people on Twitter. Seeing everyone who doesn't identify themselves openly as conservative as "the other side" or tying them together with big tech or Antifa or "the side that spends twice as much money on elections", is akin to liberals calling all conservatives racist, or asking conservatives to do something about the Proud Boys and other groups who they see as representing all conservatives. It's further propagating the division. Is the person of color responsible for all actions of all people of color? Is the white guy responsible for all actions of other white people? How about the liberal or the conservative?

So the same caveat applies, don't drive this underground, there are about 80 million of those people out there and they are not stupid. They are also not "Trump" supporters at heart, they are middle class working slobs who are fed up with government not listening to them.

Again, this comes back to identity politics. Did we find out if non-conservative accounts were removed in addition to the conservative accounts from social media? Or did the sources reporting the conservative bans only put effort into verifying the conservative bans? Could it be that each time any conservative is banned from social media all conservatives feel attacked, regardless of whether the person banned did anything to deserve the ban - much like the reaction of people of color when a person of color is beaten or killed by law enforcement. Was the individual responsible for being in that position (being banned on social media or being beaten/killed by law enforcement)? Or was it a tyrannical action by an oppressive (evil) force targeting all people like that? And what is the appropriate reaction for those who sympathize and relate with the victim? Should they look at it as "us versus them" or should they look at the details of each situation individually and try to understand what happened, and limit the scope of their outrage to the people involved in that particular situation, without holding everyone responsible for the actions of the people who made decisions in those situations as if they're part of some large heinous cult?

Some will not appreciate this comparison, so apologies in advance.... One person will say "tell big tech to stop targeting conservatives". Another will counter that with "then tell conservatives to stop breaking the rules of the tech companies to get banned". Then the next person says "but they're not banning liberals who do the same thing, they're only against us, the moderation is unfair and there needs to be reform, we will not be silent - break up social media or there will be a revolution!". Then the counter reaction is "you're misguided and are being manipulated by fringe talking heads". And around and around it goes. Very similar messages get thrown out there when a black person is beaten by police. "Tell police to stop targeting black people"... "tell black people to stop breaking the law and resisting arrest and putting themselves in those positions, take individual responsibility"... "other people in similar situations who are not black break the law but don't have lethal force used against them regularly, there needs to be reform - defund the police or there will be an uprising"... "you're being manipulated by people on your side inciting chaos and trying to divide us"... in both cases those imparting the discipline and those receiving the discipline have people taking their sides, and the individual responsibility of everyone involved gets drowned out and ignored, and that responsibility gets placed on all white people, all black people, all liberals, all conservatives. And everyone in those groups are now expected to be responsible for all the injustice or "their people" unless they A) don't get everyone in their group to recognize the evil in their hearts or B) show empathy for those they disagree with, disavow their group, and join the efforts of the more righteous, virtuous side. Which let's be real, isn't a realistic expectation. So what are some realistic expectations?

Half the country will always feel like the government isn't listening to them given the 2 party system. How can there ever be a time when the entire nation feels like the government IS listening to them when by nature, appealing to a particular base will always alienate the other? The pendulum will probably swing back the other way in 4 years, just like it did 4 years ago.

The pigeon meme is pretty funny though. At least there's some humor that can be found in some of it.

Again, I appreciate all of the civil discussion. I think most people respect each other here based on what brings us together enough to not throw out personal attacks that you find regularly elsewhere. Hope that continues to be the case.

 

[JAJ]

So, at risk of causing some consternation here, I'm going to explain why I, an outsider, have the views I have about the election narratives on "stolen" and "fraud". Why? Maybe it'll be interesting, that's all. Everyone's free to dismiss them, and I'm sure most will.

On the "stolen" narrative, I finally got a chance to understand it better the other day in an article that was linked on SVTP. Essentially the argument went like this - "laws were changed, voter access was changed, rules were eased and the result was that people that shouldn't have voted actually voted and that changed the outcome". If I'm reading it right, stolen just means that the losing side was outmaneuvered by the winning side. In court cases arguing that the rules shouldn't have been changed, the courts took the position, in effect, that ballots submitted in good faith had to be counted in good faith, and that if the rules were wrong then they should be fixed before the next election.

On the "fraud" narrative, it's harder. In the end, I fall back on the simple idea that if more than one person knows a secret, then it's not a secret. The thing about elections is that they're essentially local events. To conduct mass-scale voter fraud, you have to involve a lot of people. I just can't see how (based on the US Electoral Commission report for 2018's elections) 675,000 volunteers (two-thirds of whom are over 60) somehow secretly conspired to change the outcome of the 2020 election. The average polling station has about 8 volunteers so getting enough polling stations aligned around an outcome that disenfranchises a particular set of voters is going to be extremely hard to do, and even harder to keep secret. As for machines switching ballots, hand-count recounts in multiple locations failed to find it.

Then there's the situation in the courts. The narrative around the Supreme Court "lack of standing" decision was "it was a procedural rejection and the judges didn't even look at the evidence". But that's not exactly what it meant. The SCOTUS determined by 7-2 that the paperwork they were presented with didn't have a case for them to adjudicate and their ruling was an expression of judicial frustration at the plaintiff's lawyers for wasting the court's time. In a later similar ruling in a lower court, that judge actually reserved the option to censure the plaintiff's lawyers because they'd again presented a non-case to the court. Clearly, law courts take a different view on the relative importance of "testimony" compared with "evidence" than churches do.

So, that all makes me a voter fraud skeptic. It doesn't mean it didn't happen, it just means that based on what I see, I can't convince myself that it did.

 

[ChrisM]

It's the weirdest thing. All of these disparate groups keep pointing fingers at each other and saying essentially the same thing yet keep voting for a bigger, more intrusive federal government (well, most of them do anyways).

I wonder if there's any possible correlation there? I wonder...

Edit: I'd be remiss if I didn't add the very, very small handful of billionaires who, thanks to draconian lockdowns, now control the digital public square. Nothing bad ever happens when a handful of rich elite and politicians work together to silence the people's representatives. Nope.

 

[JAJ]

... the very, very small handful of billionaires who [...] now control the digital public square. Nothing bad ever happens when a handful of rich elite and politicians work together to silence the people's representatives. Nope.

I'm sure that I read somewhere that it was "algorithms" and "artificial intelligence" that governed the digital public square. I doubt the billionaires actually give a crap about what the AI does, so long as it maximizes profits.

 

[ChrisM]

Edit to the edit: I deleted all my social media and asked to move this to the paddock to avoid the dumpster fire of modern "dialogue." Going back to look at cars and guns.

 

[JAJ]

So, a very small handful of billionaires who have made public statements about their political leanings are not at least partially to blame for silencing an elected representative? It's the algorithms their companies have created that are doing it, completely separate from the business owners' wishes?

They made a ton of money from letting the algorithms enable conservative causes, so I doubt they'll stop now. They can have their cake and eat it too.

 

[Ludachris]

to avoid the dumpster fire of modern "dialogue."

 

[ChrisM]

@#$%. The gun forums I'm on are being deplatformed and I can't log in. So much for huffing off to look at guns. Hmph.

 

[TMSBOSS]

So much for free speach.

 

[blacksheep-1]

What happened in Florida in 2018, in Broward county was another ballot dump in the middle of the night, when a judge told the county elections supervisor to hold ballots aside to be determined later, she dumped them in with the rest of the ballots, thereby spoiling an almost entire county's ballots. In PA, a court order had to be presented in order to allow election observers into the room, barricades and paper coverings were then used to shield the counting process from those observers, in Fulton County 2 people were filmed opening ballot boxes and feeding them into a machine after everyone had left the building, (this was after claiming a pipe broke and everyone had to go home, counting to resume in the morning). Now maybe these were all trump ballots, maybe not, but the fact is that they should never had been touched without proper oversight. Also in PA, they violated their own voting laws because the SoS decided to extend voting deadlines without the legislation. The problem is, with all this, is that the election process should be sacrosanct, without regard for the parties or candidates, to do otherwise, or even to introduce question into the system, at the very least, gives the air of illegitimacy. Republics are very fragile, questioning the voting procedures is not a healthy way to keep one intact. In the prior mail in ballot elections (primary) as many as 21% were found questionable.
I have to inquire, why was all this even necessary when we know how many lotto tickets were printed, how many winners, where they were sold and their general location within a few minutes of them being pulled?

84,000 mail-in ballots disqualified in NYC primary election (nypost.com)

GOP observers given court order to watch PA election results - New York Daily News (nydailynews.com)

The Georgia Vote-Counting Video Was Not 'Debunked.' Not Even Close (thefederalist.com)

 

[blacksheep-1]

@#$%. The gun forums I'm on are being deplatformed and I can't log in. So much for huffing off to look at guns. Hmph.

It will divide us even further..
They're going to create an parallel internet if they keep it up, apparently Parler (among others) is looking for offshore hosts for their platform, never thought I'd see the day when you have to go offshore to provide free speech in the USA..lol

 

[Ludachris]

"laws were changed, voter access was changed, rules were eased and the result was that people that shouldn't have voted actually voted and that changed the outcome"

Can someone in the know shed some more light on this? As far as I understand, yes, some of the laws were changed to allow more mail in voting due to the pandemic in states that didn't previously allow it. But didn't the changes only end up making those state voting laws resemble voting laws that already existed in other sates? Or were the changes distinctly different in some ways? If so, in what ways? Legal rulings usually require precedence - so if similar laws existed in other states, by nature, it would be reasonable to argue the changes weren't unprecedented, right? If the laws were changed to make them different than all other states then that would raise more eyebrows with judges. I haven't seen any complaints about that being the case, only the general complaint that the laws were changed just before the election.

@#$%. The gun forums I'm on are being deplatformed and I can't log in. So much for huffing off to look at guns. Hmph.

I heard that AR15.com was having DNS trouble today, GoDaddy being their host. They posted that GoDaddy booted them, but haven't followed up on what exactly happened. Some are wondering if it's part of a larger GoDaddy outage or if GoDaddy actually did kick them off. What sites were you referring to?

 

[Double0Fox]

So much for free speech.

It's sad/scary that the media is now labeling everything/everyone that is even somewhat conservative now a "extremist".

@#$%. The gun forums I'm on are being deplatformed and I can't log in. So much for huffing off to look at guns. Hmph.

Same.

 

[ChrisM]

I heard that AR15.com was having DNS trouble today, GoDaddy being their host. They posted that GoDaddy booted them, but haven't followed up on what exactly happened. Some are wondering if it's part of a larger GoDaddy outage or if GoDaddy actually did kick them off. What sites were you referring to?

AR15.com specifically. If it is a regular issue and not deplatforming, I will come back here and say I was wrong. I don't mean that facetiously.

 

[boardkat]

@#$%. The gun forums I'm on are being deplatformed and I can't log in. So much for huffing off to look at guns. Hmph.

Same.

saw that you're in eastern oregon - are you on northwest firearms? it's an active, hyperlocal forum that's still up (for now, the owner has been waffling on the discourse/division for awhile), recommend you check it out if you aren't on there already. they try to keep the politics away, and moderate any attacks (from either side) aggressively, which is a welcome change.

 

[ChrisM]

saw that you're in eastern oregon - are you on northwest firearms? it's an active, hyperlocal forum that's still up (for now, the owner has been waffling on the discourse/division for awhile), recommend you check it out if you aren't on there already. they try to keep the politics away, and moderate any attacks (from either side) aggressively, which is a welcome change.

I'm actually stationed in Japan for a few more months, though I "grew up" in Lake Oswego in the early 2000s.

 

[boardkat]

I'm actually stationed in Japan for a few more months, though I "grew up" in Lake Oswego in the early 2000s.

i was talking about double0fox (saw his location in username) but man, what a small, connected world we live in!

 

[Ludachris]

What happened in Florida in 2018, in Broward county was another ballot dump in the middle of the night, when a judge told the county elections supervisor to hold ballots aside to be determined later, she dumped them in with the rest of the ballots, thereby spoiling an almost entire county's ballots. In PA, a court order had to be presented in order to allow election observers into the room, barricades and paper coverings were then used to shield the counting process from those observers, in Fulton County 2 people were filmed opening ballot boxes and feeding them into a machine after everyone had left the building, (this was after claiming a pipe broke and everyone had to go home, counting to resume in the morning). Now maybe these were all trump ballots, maybe not, but the fact is that they should never had been touched without proper oversight. Also in PA, they violated their own voting laws because the SoS decided to extend voting deadlines without the legislation. The problem is, with all this, is that the election process should be sacrosanct, without regard for the parties or candidates, to do otherwise, or even to introduce question into the system, at the very least, gives the air of illegitimacy. Republics are very fragile, questioning the voting procedures is not a healthy way to keep one intact. In the prior mail in ballot elections (primary) as many as 21% were found questionable.
I have to inquire, why was all this even necessary when we know how many lotto tickets were printed, how many winners, where they were sold and their general location within a few minutes of them being pulled?

84,000 mail-in ballots disqualified in NYC primary election (nypost.com)

GOP observers given court order to watch PA election results - New York Daily News (nydailynews.com)

The Georgia Vote-Counting Video Was Not 'Debunked.' Not Even Close (thefederalist.com)

The question is, how often did these kind of things take place in previous elections? I'd imagine the candidate who lost will always be more likely to have supporters who believe that fraud was more rampant in an election, or believe less in the system. It makes sense, but is it justified? In general though, I think any time one party fights to disqualify votes that they feel will help their candidate it calls people to question the system, especially when they're successful. When lawmakers fight tooth and nail to try to gerrymander the hell out of districts to keep one party in control it makes people question the system. There is quite a bit about the system that gives the air of illegitimacy. The system always stinks - it just stinks more to those who voted for the candidate that was defeated.

Overall though, I agree, republics are very fragile. Hopefully our "leaders" in office will take that to heart more going forward and dedicate themselves to instilling more trust in the system, though I won't hold my breath too much on that.

 

[ChrisM]

I heard that AR15.com was having DNS trouble today, GoDaddy being their host. They posted that GoDaddy booted them, but haven't followed up on what exactly happened. Some are wondering if it's part of a larger GoDaddy outage or if GoDaddy actually did kick them off. What sites were you referring to?

Since they did say "booted" I assume that means "GoDaddy no longer wishes to host us" and not "GoDaddy is having server issues, we'll be back up shortly."