Lord Ratner

No. Literally the opposite. You have to talk to the non-extremists. When the "regular" Democrats realize the descriptions of conservatives as evil and hateful (characterizations that cannot survive an intimate dialog) are made up nonsense, they will not feel like their party is "the only option for their views." I am 75% conservative, and while I despise both parties, I overwhelmingly side with the Republicans. I am certainly no Democrat. Never once voted for one. That's my point. Conservatives are spending all their time talking to each other. It's not going to fix anything. The hard work of reaching out falls to us. Is it fair? No. But if we don't fix it, who will? It's just one of the differences between conservative and liberal humans. We conserve. We defend and reinforce necessary systems. Liberals identify failings and bring attention to them. Neither side can succeed without the other, but not neither side will interact. Conservatives abandoned academia and government after the 60s. College got stupid, but conservatives shrugged. "The college kids will grow out of that when reality hits them." How'd that work out? Yup. Not easy to go against a 24 hour news cycle or social media outrage machine. But what is your alternative? It's not getting better, and now the conservatives are starting to do the same shit liberals do. Just look at Jan 6th. Conservatives *never* used to riot. Absolutely. A private conversation where you can ask questions and exchange opinions. Shack. It's amazing how far you can get in a conversation simply by doing nothing but asking questions, especially when you are attacked. When my mother in law said that the anti-abortion crowd is evil, during a conversation where I was definitely against abortion, all I had to do was ask "do you think I'm evil? Is your daughter?" Then wait. Let the wheels turn, which can't happen if you go on the attack. Someone said the left is all emotion. 100% true. But emotion can be overruled by thought and reason, if thought and reason are invoked. My favorite Jordan Peterson quote: "in order to think, you must be able to speak." Liberals (voters, NOT activists) aren't speaking, because we aren't speaking to them anymore. If we don't find a way to talk with them about our reality, do we really think they are going to stumble upon it on their own?

Again, separate what Trump might call "the elite" from the voters. Your average run-of-the-mill Democratic voter does not support censorship. Just like they don't support defunding the police. Censorship is exactly how the Democratic elite intend to maintain their control over their voters. Keep *you* from talking to them. If we throw up our hands because they censor a few prominent conservatives, they win. Believe it or not, you aren't censored, and the loudest conservatives are making millions. Don't buy into a narrative that isn't true.

Good luck. That's never worked on the past, but maybe this time will be different...

Good Lord, you must have been a real treat to give "feedback" to. So much for thick skin. You weren't lambasted for being pro choice, you were lambasted (specifically, I called you an idiot) for doing exactly what we're talking about now: Then you tried to play dumb that that wasn't an intentionally inflammatory and reductionist attack instead of just starting the conversation.

Conservatives have to talk to liberals. That's the solution. Those conversations have to happen without all of the usual conversational violations that shut down any chance of consensus or persuasion. Some examples: - Strawmanning - Acting as though the person you're talking to is responsible for, or agrees with, all the ideas/opinions of someone else just because they voted for the same party - Assumption of ill-intent - Using perjoratives to describe the party or the politicians they support our have supported. This is an implicit insult. "That fucking moron Joe Biden," for example, implies that anyone who voted for him must also be stupid, because only an idiot would vote for an idiot. Libtards is another example. - Spiking the football when you prove them wrong - Forcing someone to own a previously held opinion even though they may have changed their mind since then. You get the idea. It's all the exact same shit the liberals have been doing to conservatives for as long as I've been alive. But this isn't about what's fair, because it's not at all fair; it's about what works. Conservatives, as a group and as individuals, have to decide if they want to fix the society, or be viewed as the winners of a battle. Those are mutually exclusive goals.

Yes... That's exactly my point. Welcome. But if your can't distinguish between Democratic politicians/activists/academics and the Democratic voters, then there will be no progress Elections are not going to wake them up. Meaningful interactions with conservatives who can demonstrate a sane alternative to their no-longer-sane party, will. This was always the problem with Trump; he could very effectively communicate the hypocrisies and insanities of the political left, but only to Republicans. His pure odiousness was anathema to anyone you'd actually want to persuade. As anyone in the Air Force heard a million times, perception matters.

I'm my experience, most overwhelmingly are not. Again, I'm not talking about someone who runs a nonprofit or PAC. Just a Democratic voter. The dialog is dead, and if you can't talk, you can't think. Abortion, transgenderism, racism, policing, immigration... I haven't found a single person, including some of my actual progressive friends, who actually hold the party line. But they have to be prodded, they have to go through the process of hearing the ridiculous policy, saying it out loud themselves, then trying (and failing) to explain it coherently to someone who is legit interested in hearing their reasoning without calling them a clown. I *rarely* ever have to do more than ask for a cogent explanation and then just let them stumble around until eventually they say something in direct conflict with the activist message. Some examples of things I have yet to see survive this process: - All white people are racist. Actually racist against minorities. - The current border situation is ok - Abortion should be allowed for any reason on the day of delivery (this one *never* survives contact with a parent, and only rarely survives with anyone else) - 5 year olds should be given irreversible hormones if they think they are a different gender - The police are systemically killing unarmed black people (have to be able to cite FBI statistics) - Homeless people should be free to live the way they are living now in most cities Over and over and over I'm amazed at how quickly these insane ideas disintegrate upon the first instance of the well-intentioned liberal having to explain it to someone who isn't making fun of them, using some stupid nickname to describe their affiliation, or (and this is the big one) implying right off the bat that anyone who's would vote for a politician who supports/makes these claims must be stupid, unpatriotic, or evil. You'd think after being treated that way for years, the Trump voters would realize how shitty it is and refrain from doing the same, but social media and 24 hour cable news have turned politics into a revenge sport, where whataboutism and score keeping are more important than consensus and finding truth. Shit, I see it with family members (in my family as well). People who spend decades living together suddenly accusing the other of being anti-American, evil, of hating some group or another, of "being the problem." Never once for something they actually *do,* and always for who they voted for, as if a single vote implies absolute allegiance to any and all of a political party's most dogmatic or absurd positions. It's obviously wrong, yet so easy a trap to fall into.

Definitely the former, who make up the vast majority of Democratic voters (not activists or politicians). They are, by and large, the Democrats we live with, served with, and work with. And they are the only path to "fixing" the Democratic party, so yeah, we shouldn't treat them like shit for the mistake of trusting an activist class with an agenda.

Exactly. And they won't be guided back to reality through ridicule.

So wait, the guy who posts a dozen times a day on the web board is now whining about unsolicited feedback? Why would I ignore you when I can just call you out? Who's the Karen exactly? Just another retired cog that didn't rock the boat when they could have made a difference, but now has a mission to keep it real on the internet. I'm sure the fight against social justice insanity will make huge strides with Boomer memes and more worthless political team-ism, but I think I'll stick with faith in the American people and not write off half the country because Fox News told me that Democrats all hate genders and white people. 😉

You either believe that liberal American voters are by and large patriotic Americans who love their kids the same way you do and serve their country with the same motivations, or you believe they are committed operatives of the Democratic party who engage in online conversation to soften the beach head for absurd policies that target the most vulnerable amongst us. If you believe the latter, then maybe you're the problem too. My point is that your approach to have conversations with those who politically disagree with you can't start with clearly demeaning commentary if (big "if" in the era of look-at-how-smart-I-am Internet posting) your goal is actually to change minds and build consensus against stupid/dangerous policy. Or perhaps put more elegantly by someone we can all look up to, regardless of background or political alignment...

Do you and SurelySerious fight over who gets to sit on the other's lap when you yell at people on baseops for upsetting the fighter pilot gods?

That's about right. And the left wonders why the Trumpers don't trust anything or anyone anymore...

The problem with ignoring a Chinese attempt to take over Taiwan is the same potential problem with ignoring a Russian takeover of Ukraine. Operating under the assumption that the hostilities will end at that point is dangerous. By the time you realize your own takeover was part of the plan, your adversary could be in a much more capable position. I also concede that your adversary might end up in a much weaker position as well. Russia is a good example of that. Waiting for their position as the indisputable bad guy before dumping advanced weaponry and training on Ukraine has allowed us to maintain the high ground while systematically slaughtering the Russian military, without a single American life lost. However, I would be shocked if that was a premeditated plan. The West seems to bumble through all foreign interactions at this point. What China does over the next few years is going to determine everything. As Cleared Hot showed, they have put themselves into an economic and demographic catastrophe. If it is even possible to fix that, it will be a delicate operation. Extending themselves by attacking Taiwan would probably not help. But they are better long-term thinkers than we, so who knows?

Is the plane going to make it? I heard they're pretty expensive to repair😂🤣

It's almost like the control and disruption of energy distribution is a huge component of geopolitics that would be exploited by those wishing to do the West harm 😂🤣

Not a crazy idea, but the AF is short sighted, so don't hold your breath. I've been out for a while, but are we really almost done with UAVs? Have they just moved out of the AF?

What? Why? In the buildup to WWII the American people were staunchly isolationist, to the point our minimal involvement in the war that was already raging was quite unpopular. It wasn't until Pearl Harbor that the American people woke up to reality. Sound like how we-the-people would react to our Chinese-made TVs getting pricier? Democracies are bad at identifying threats until they are catastrophic threats. I agree with you that the line of calling someone a traitor is blurry when you still have full trade and travel relations with a country, but to claim the country that is actively stealing our military and civilian tech while sowing social discord through digital media bot accounts to destabilize support for the American system is not an enemy is obtuse.

A little online research indicates that there is such a thing as a pipeline "pig" which can zip through the pipe, propelled by the gas pressure, usually for cleaning and inspection. Easy to rig with a bomb. If true for the NS pipes, it would be a much easier solution than using a submarine. And because the gas only flows in one direction, it would have had to come from the Russian side. Getting four to go off at the same time might be tricky More Intel needed.

Is that what it shows? when you shoot a can of spray paint, the metal of the can still rips outward from the escaping gas. How do you even get a bomb inside an underwater pipeline? Strap it to an RC car? Is it just one long smooth pipe from one end to another, or are there regulators and valves along that way that would impede movement inside? Were the charges prepositioned during construction? It would not surprise me at all that Russia did this, but from inside? Seems sus.

You can't expect a regular citizen to identify China as a don't-associate-with enemy when our government (and big business organism) has been bending over backwards for years to maintain our economic relationship with the CCP. Now we are declaring economic war on China, but without the declaration. This semiconductor ban is an existential threat to many CCP initiatives. It will not just pass by in the night. And what can China do to simultaneously gain the needed semiconductor infrastructure while checking off an ancient and deeply symbolic goal of unifying the Chinese lands? I'm worried the unexpected success of Ukraine against Russia is emboldening the hawks to provoke China to invade Taiwan. On the flip side, I think in the long term this war is inevitable, so maybe we just rip off the band-aid. But it's not going to be pretty.

I bet he whips immigrants with those reins

It's all rather fascinating. I still think there's a pretty decent chance Russia did it, but I'm more open to Western actors being responsible. Here's something I didn't know until recently, though it is obvious once you hear it. The destruction of these (any) pipelines have a pretty devastating effect on the Russian ability to raise money, primarily because the production capacity that feeds these pipelines cannot be easily diverted to other transportation methods. So if the pipeline goes down, that region of energy production goes dormant, with the associated income. Can't just sell it to India or China, since the pipeline was the only method of transportation. Not the case with oil, which is very transportable. That puts a clearer incentive on Western involvement, though it still doesn't answer the question of why blow it up when you can just sanction it into oblivion? Those pipelines can only deliver to Europe, so if Europe says "no," the pipeline is effectively dead anyways, including the associated production. Now, counter point, of Sweden is using Intel in the investigation, the results could give away sources and methods that are still quite engaged in the conflict. So I don't think this article is as damning as you want it to be.

Found the little dick energy.

I'm not an expert, but when I was watching the videos from the day of the explosion, it sure didn't look to me like the blast originated from the bridge.