Today in hypocrisy...

[Biff_T]

14 hours ago, busdriver said:

Your retards are more retarded than my retards!

 

[DosXX]

4 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

I suspect we will see Republicans reach retard-parity in fairly short order.

If it’s not already there. What the hell is this 

[HeloDude]

42 minutes ago, Negatory said:

Also, mods need to move to move this thread to the squadron bar. This is stupid AF to have a political circlejerk on the main page that some random UPT student is going to come across as they're looking for info about flying in the Air Force.

It’s literally under a thread called “Today in hypocrisy…”, not “How to fly an ILS in the T-6.”  The thread is fine as it is.

[ViperMan]

3 hours ago, Negatory said:

Doubt. Here i'll respond to this appeal to emotion right here! I hope this atones for "our" sins.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_balance

Congressman Hank Johnson on Guam tipping over - how is this person in charge

Interestingly, the most prominent "false balance" I can point to in modern times is the frame that ALL legacy media uses to discuss current politics. Donald Trump basically got half the vote, yet the presentation of his views as "extreme" belie that most fundamental truth. Casting his views as "extreme" is extreme false balance. Our media DOES NOT, and has not, seriously reckoned with the fact that HALF of all Americans are not on board with the crazy that is the current democratic establishment.

I'm glad you're able to call out a few less-prominent democrats who say obviously dumb things. Next step: acknowledge that many, central democrat policies are having detrimental effects on our society WITHOUT a "but Trump is worse" chaser.

[gearhog]

22 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

The left has more retards. Full stop.

However the right has been in the process of catching up probably since around 2008. As best I can tell that is when the corporatist take over of the government was successfully completed. Starting with the tea party and probably peaking with Donald Trump, the populist movement within the conservative right means that the historical metric of success for Republicans, money making, is being replaced.

Sure there are retards who succeed in the business world, but by and large you're going to see more intelligent people if you start filtering by income. But now that the Republican party is more interested in bravado than income as a result of the decimation of the middle class, I suspect we will see Republicans reach retard-parity in fairly short order.

Once that is complete and there are no longer intelligent mature people to run the government, we should get ourselves into a nasty shooting war in pretty short order. That will once again reinvigorate the American desire for competent leadership, but only after much blood has been shed.

Just some thoughts on your post:

If there was a corporatist takeover of the US government, then by definition, it would have been in the interests of financial gain. Have significant gains been realized by these stakeholders? I think we can say "Yes"... owning and controlling the US government to the extent that they do has vastly increased their position. So much so, that they now have even greater power and resources to replicate those gains if the processes and methods were applied on a larger scale.

When you, as an individual, are worth billions and the institutions that you control are worth trillions, where do your loyalties lie and why would you have any? When you have effectively unlimited wealth, you might begin to look outside the US and have ideas about the state of the world as a whole (as we all do), but then begin thinking that you or your institution has the resources and power to manifest the direction you think it should take.

Climate change, economics and disparities, sustainability, rogue governments, population, whatever, all become issues that you may find yourself within reach of affecting change in. However, if you're controlling the most powerful nation in the history of the planet, and you begin to see retards elected as a voice for the population, you may perceive a threat. If those retards begin to adversely affect your global ambitions, you may begin to see Democracy as a threat. What are you gonna do? NOT make an attempt to manipulate the process? Say Trump is poised to become elected in spite of your attempts to put your thumb on the scale and affect the outcome. Would you go so far as to intentionally and fundamentally weaken the USA, which you no longer have a loyalty to, economically and societally so they pose less of a threat even if the retards take over?

How would you do it? Crisis? They occur naturally, so why not make hay each and every time one occurs? When a crisis occurs, exacerbate it. Chaos yields opportunity and we can see that in each and every crisis that has unfolded in recent memory, wealth and power has become more concentrated.

War has always been a fantastic excuse and I'll agree, we're going to see bloodshed. A lot of it, because it solves lots of (their) problems. The US is being indebted, wealth is transferred to the profiteers, and the enemy is not being defeated. We do not defeat enemies because there is more money in the treatment than the cure.

However, I will say there will never be a "reinvigoration" of American desire for competent leadership because there won't be an America as we have always thought of it. American ideals and values are diverging and there is no way it's going back to the way any of us here think of it. There is no putting this back together. Something new may emerge and it may be called America, but it won't bear any resemblance to the country that was established according to our founding documents.

 

[ClearedHot]

Epic karma slap to a clown penis.  While calling inflation stories misinformation he is interrupted by a live report that says inflation is up again.  Also, this "Disinformation Czar" claims prices are DOWN 40% since Biden took over when in fact they are up 39%.

 

[Lord Ratner]

2 hours ago, gearhog said:

However, I will say there will never be a "reinvigoration" of American desire for competent leadership because there won't be an America as we have always thought of it. American ideals and values are diverging and there is no way it's going back to the way any of us here think of it. There is no putting this back together. Something new may emerge and it may be called America, but it won't bear any resemblance to the country that was established according to our founding documents.

This has been argued at the end of each and every saeculum. You think our differences are more polarized than say, the build up to the civil war? You think the abuses of wealth and power exceed the 1920's? I don't. I think it requires enough of a time gap that the people we could be asking about the differences, if there are any, are dead. They could give us, as a population, the perspective needed to keep from repeating the cycle. But that's exactly why it's a cycle. Because those who lived through it are no longer around, no longer in charge, so we now *have* to experience it for ourselves. 

 

2 hours ago, gearhog said:

I will say there will never be a "reinvigoration" of American desire for competent leadership because there won't be an America as we have always thought of it.

Because we have not gone through what the previous generation went through that created the America we long for today. But we will, and if we win the war, again, then we will have another 80ish years of American unity and strength, at which point our great-grandkids will have holodeck arguments about how America is collapsing and it will never be the same again. 

 

[Lord Ratner]

2 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

Epic karma slap to a clown penis.  While calling inflation stories misinformation he is interrupted by a live report that says inflation is up again.  Also, this "Disinformation Czar" claims prices are DOWN 40% since Biden took over when in fact they are up 39%.

 

He claimed the inflation rate is down. He's right. He's also abusing the public confusion regarding inflation rates to bullshit about the economy and protect his party. 

[gearhog]

10 minutes ago, Lord Ratner said:

This has been argued at the end of each and every saeculum. You think our differences are more polarized than say, the build up to the civil war? You think the abuses of wealth and power exceed the 1920's? I don't. I think it requires enough of a time gap that the people we could be asking about the differences, if there are any, are dead. They could give us, as a population, the perspective needed to keep from repeating the cycle. But that's exactly why it's a cycle. Because those who lived through it are no longer around, no longer in charge, so we now *have* to experience it for ourselves.

Because we have not gone through what the previous generation went through that created the America we long for today. But we will, and if we win the war, again, then we will have another 80ish years of American unity and strength, at which point our great-grandkids will have holodeck arguments about how America is collapsing and it will never be the same again.

The cycle does repeat, and Strauss and Howe do a great job illustrating that what we're going through today isn't new, but the circumstances and concerns of a vastly different population with vastly different technologies are. Never before have this many people been lifted this far out of poverty. A reversion to the mean would be a disaster unlike any previous cycle. Never before have this many people believed that not only will we suffer at the hands of human governance in the crisis phase, but that we are also now approaching planetary constraints in terms of environment/resources. No one can say how true it is at this moment in time, but unlimited consumption in a finite system isn't sustainable. People are compelled to take extreme actions on that belief now, and I don't think that can be said of any previous saeculum.

I know it's cliche, but the closet example in history to the American empire is the Roman empire. As it endured through many cycles, it ultimately fell completely, and for many of the same reasons we're experiencing today. During this saeculum, America has dominated the world in nearly every aspect of civilization: Technology, Innovation, Production, Society, Freedom, Humanitarianism, but those things did come at a cost. We may have begun self-reliant, but we currently draw upon human resources around the world to sustain our advancement, e.g. Iphone. It's subjective, but I think one could argue that we've been operating under the law of diminishing marginal returns for a while, and may be entering an era of negative returns.

America no longer exists to provide you, me, our grandkids, friends, and neighbors with the highest levels of safety, security and standard of living in history. It is a means to provide the corporatists you mentioned earlier with those things. Now that we are reaching a sufficient level of advancement where they may not require the productive efforts of many Americans, or even other populations to ensure their security, they must address the issue of "useless eaters". America, Western nations, and their ideologies are being dismantled. Immigration, reduction of freedoms, destruction of culture, civil unrest, inflation, taxation, household and national debts, sustainability efforts, and engagement in conflict are the attempts and methods being used to level the playing field.

Perhaps our grandkids would stand on a holodeck one day, but it won't be as Americans, it'll be as members of the United Citizen Federation. lol.

[FourFans]

21 hours ago, Negatory said:

We're addressing the argument that evangelicals voted for Trump, right? You're saying that it's made up.

No.  Not what I'm arguing. I am identifying the false argument that just because someone votes republican does not mean they have their:

On 4/9/2024 at 6:36 PM, 08Dawg said:

head shoved completely up the ass of a man who is both a wanton misogynist and an adulterer…but you could say the same for the majority of the evangelical right. 

Just because someone is an evangelical who voted for Trump does not mean they actually support Trump.  I would argue that many of those votes were votes against Biden, not for Trump.  Every evangelical I've spoken too, hell most everyone I've spoken to doesn't support either Biden or Trump.   So equating a trump vote to having your head shoved up is has as 08Dawg asserted is completely asinine.  By that yard stick, everyone who voted for Biden supports letting your kids get addicted to hookers and blow and then covering it up.  Nope, not a valid argument. 

My personal opinion is that voting 'against' something is a stupid way to vote.  You Vote FOR something, not against it.  But I've found many democrat voters who dislike Biden but will vote for him again because they personally don't like trump.  They compare their personal dislike for Trump against the political narrative that they like about Biden.  Completely irrational.  We're supposed to compare Pros to Pros and Cons to Cons.  Policy to policy, personal dislike to personal dislike, admin performance to admin performance.  How they can ignore the train wreck that's been the past three years because they have an emotional aversion to a man who is emotionally repellent yet brought in admin folks who were actually competent and focused on job performance instead of DEI, I don't know...but it is what it is, not what I want it to be.

As for your statistical analysis: near miss.  Compare apples to apples, and read the footnotes in your own posting. You misunderstood the argument: That binary voting patterns do not tell the nuanced story that many Republican votes hate trump and that most democrats only verbally support BLM while recognizing the racist organization for what it is. Cherry picking stats from two completely different voting blocks (one set is from 2023, the other 2020), and then raging that this is a RATIONAL argument while trying to make it completely black or white is telling.  It's a nuanced subject...which is my point.  Calling all Republican voters trump butt snorkelers and all democrats BLM rioters is hideously out of touch.  Yes, I'm aware you didn't say that.  You did, however, leap to a violent and binary defense.  It's telling.

Before you repost anything Pew, NIH, CDC, GAO or any other government agency puts out (yes they publish good stats, but context and analysis are more important than the numbers), go read these books:

     

Edited April 11, 2024 by FourFans

[ClearedHot]

3 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

He claimed the inflation rate is down. He's right. He's also abusing the public confusion regarding inflation rates to bullshit about the economy and protect his party. 

Incorrect:  Guessing you didn't watch the entire segment - He said "Inflation today is about 40% of what it was when Joe Biden took office"

His statement is categorically a lie.  The US Monthly inflation rate the day Biden took office was 1.4%, one year later it was 7.5%.  Inflation is in fact up 39% since Biden took office.

Also:

The Average YOY Inflation Rate under Trump was: 1.9%

The Average YOY Inflation Rate under Biden is: 5.7%

[Day Man]

1 hour ago, FourFans said:

brought in admin folks who were actually competent and focused on job performance

care to cite some? the only one I can think of is Mattis who basically resigned in protest 

[HeloDude]

20 minutes ago, Day Man said:

care to cite some? the only one I can think of is Mattis who basically resigned in protest 

Wait, are you suggesting that your opinion of whether or not someone is competent outweighs someone else’s opinion that differs than yours? 

[FourFans]

58 minutes ago, Day Man said:

care to cite some? the only one I can think of is Mattis who basically resigned in protest 

Off the top of my head: Mattis, Pence, Pompeo, Carson, Ross and I'll even throw Nikki Haley in there.  They are professionals who had gone and actually done shit to an expert level outside of the Beltway.  Were they perfect?  Not by a long shot.  But they sure as hell weren't DEI hires or 'yes' men.  Again comparing apples to apples.  That admin to this one.  There are a few absolutely excellent players in the Biden Cabinet.  A very few.  In fact, I'd only willingly call Jake Sullivan the ONLY rockstar on the cabinet or in senior functions/advisory capacities right now.  Blinken isn't horrible.  However the talent they bring is by far overshadowed by the fact that most senior individuals in this admin were selected based on skin color, sexual orientation, or political/narrative reliability instead of professional merit.

Point in case was this nomination for the FAA who ended up being withdrawn.  https://www.c-span.org/video/?526360-1/confirmation-hearing-faa-administrator-nominee  That's the level of competence this admin WANTS in place.  

That's par for the course, while it was not in the prior administration.  Again, not that it didn't happen, but it was the exception not the rule.

[Guest nsplayr]

11 minutes ago, FourFans said:

Off the top of my head: Mattis, Pence, Pompeo, Carson, Ross and I'll even throw Nikki Haley in there.

Not a bad list (disagree about Carson but YMMV), but low-key Mnuchin was the best senior Trump Admin official. And I was highly skeptical of him when he was nominated! Dan Coats as DNI was also good IMHO.

Mnuchin also took one of the best cartoon-villain pictures of all time haha.

[Lord Ratner]

1 hour ago, ClearedHot said:

Incorrect:  Guessing you didn't watch the entire segment - He said "Inflation today is about 40% of what it was when Joe Biden took office"

His statement is categorically a lie.  The US Monthly inflation rate the day Biden took office was 1.4%, one year later it was 7.5%.  Inflation is in fact up 39% since Biden took office.

Also:

1 hour ago, ClearedHot said:

Incorrect:  Guessing you didn't watch the entire segment - He said "Inflation today is about 40% of what it was when Joe Biden took office"

His statement is categorically a lie.  The US Monthly inflation rate the day Biden took office was 1.4%, one year later it was 7.5%.  Inflation is in fact up 39% since Biden took office.

Also:

The Average YOY Inflation Rate under Trump was: 1.9%

The Average YOY Inflation Rate under Biden is: 5.7%

The Average YOY Inflation Rate under Trump was: 1.9%

The Average YOY Inflation Rate under Biden is: 5.7%

Ok I see what you're saying, I missed the "took office" part. However the inflation that took place in 2021 was not from Joe Biden. It was from Trump and the pandemic supply shocks. The inflation we have today, and that we will have for the next decade in all likelihood, is from Biden. And Bush, and definitely Obama. Lot's of chickens coming home to roost. And when Trump wins, and the economy slows down, the trillions in Fed stimulus that Trump will call for will make inflation even worse. 

 

Not that it matters. Every economic statistic is a disaster under Biden, yet that are plenty of stats to twist to make it seem like he's doing great. Remember when he was bragging about reducing unemployment... after a pandemic?

 

 

[Guest nsplayr]

22 minutes ago, FourFans said:

There are a few absolutely excellent players in the Biden Cabinet.

Agree on Sullivan and I like Blinken as well. Yellen is excellent at Treasury, she never should have been replaced at the Fed, although Powell is also good...their policies & philosophy seem very similar. Haaland and Vilsack are quiet A- players in their jobs. Linda Thomas-Greenfield is great at the UN.

Overall some hits and some misses, as usual. Hoping that a second term brings some fresh faces in some key positions!

[Day Man]

1 hour ago, HeloDude said:

Wait, are you suggesting that your opinion of whether or not someone is competent outweighs someone else’s opinion that differs than yours? 

i simply asked him to elaborate on his thought as part of a 2-way conversation...you should try it sometime!

[Lord Ratner]

4 hours ago, gearhog said:

The cycle does repeat, and Strauss and Howe do a great job illustrating that what we're going through today isn't new, but the circumstances and concerns of a vastly different population with vastly different technologies are. Never before have this many people been lifted this far out of poverty. A reversion to the mean would be a disaster unlike any previous cycle. Never before have this many people believed that not only will we suffer at the hands of human governance in the crisis phase, but that we are also now approaching planetary constraints in terms of environment/resources. No one can say how true it is at this moment in time, but unlimited consumption in a finite system isn't sustainable. People are compelled to take extreme actions on that belief now, and I don't think that can be said of any previous saeculum.

Your metric is way off. 

4 hours ago, gearhog said:

Never before have this many people been lifted this far out of poverty.

 

4 hours ago, gearhog said:

Never before have this many people believed that not only will we suffer at the hands of human governance in the crisis phase, but that we are also now approaching planetary constraints in terms of environment/resources.

 

4 hours ago, gearhog said:

what we're going through today isn't new, but the circumstances and concerns of a vastly different population with vastly different technologies are

 

5 hours ago, gearhog said:

No one can say how true it is at this moment in time, but unlimited consumption in a finite system isn't sustainable

You don't think the airplane was vastly new? The telephone? Radio? Radar? You think Global Warming is different than global cooling, peak oil, the ozone hole, overpopulation, etc? Every decade since the start of the industrial revolution, other than immediately following a war, was the most people lifted from poverty at the time. These are exactly the things people have said each time. 

5 hours ago, gearhog said:

America no longer exists to provide you, me, our grandkids, friends, and neighbors with the highest levels of safety, security and standard of living in history. It is a means to provide the corporatists you mentioned earlier with those things. Now that we are reaching a sufficient level of advancement where they may not require the productive efforts of many Americans, or even other populations to ensure their security, they must address the issue of "useless eaters". America, Western nations, and their ideologies are being dismantled. Immigration, reduction of freedoms, destruction of culture, civil unrest, inflation, taxation, household and national debts, sustainability efforts, and engagement in conflict are the attempts and methods being used to level the playing field.

If you read the Fourth Turning then you know these same forces were in play each time, including government capture, elite hubris, wealth inequality, and absurd ideologies. 

Just look at the small but measurable resurgence in union organizing. What is old is new again.

 

I admit that the US can fall, but our location, resources, and population make that unlikely. We are simply in a better position based on many things we can't fuck up, no matter how hard we try. And we are trying 😂🤣

[Lord Ratner]

40 minutes ago, nsplayr said:

Yellen is excellent at Treasury, she never should have been replaced at the Fed, although Powell is also good...their policies & philosophy seem very similar.

Wait what? We had interest rates lower than they've ever been in history, and the Treasury doubled down on short term instruments. If they had issued Bonds at <2% and Notes at  <0.5%,  our government debt would be a time bomb with a 20 year fuse instead of a 2 year fuse. How is that "excellent?"

She also sat on low interest rates at the Fed, building this mess up when the economy was doing great. And she didn't see inflation till it hit her in the face over and over and over. Exactly what does she have to do in your mind to be less-than-excellent?

Edited April 11, 2024 by Lord Ratner

[FourFans]

[HeloDude]

1 hour ago, Day Man said:

i simply asked him to elaborate on his thought as part of a 2-way conversation...you should try it sometime!

But that’s not what you said—you said you can only think of one competent person in Trump’s administration.  So why argue with your opinion if it’s clear we disagree on political matters and your philosophy?

[Day Man]

1 hour ago, HeloDude said:

But that’s not what you said—you said you can only think of one competent person in Trump’s administration.  So why argue with your opinion if it’s clear we disagree on political matters and your philosophy?

because i could literally only think of one person? (Devos was the only other and she was garbage, i had to google Ross, couldn't remember what role Carson had, etc) So sorry for trying to understand a viewpoint different than mine. 🙄 Not sure why you're so worried about our discussion anyways...

[ClearedHot]

Democratic National Committee paid lawyers who represented Biden in special counsel probe

Just a few weeks ago Biden's staffer/advisors/supporter were blasting the RNC for the EXACT same thing. 

"Only a con man and grifter like Donald Trump would be so brazen as to take campaign donors' money to pay his mounting legal bills before the financially strapped RNC even gets a cut," Floyd said in a March 21 statement. "His campaign and the RNC are already in financial disarray, and Trump is only making their never-ending problems worse by turning his fundraising operation into a begging cup for his legal debts."

[Biff_T]

We need to bus our national leaders to a concentration camp.  

Edited April 14, 2024 by Biff_T
Afterthought