RationalWiki:Saloon bar/Archive459

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Dr disrespect drama

Thought this guy was innocent until he posted a shit response saying he knew he was messaging a minor. Thoughts on twitch’s job as people raised concerns about the company not doing shit and spying on their whispers product? 2600:387:F:D15:0:0:0:3 (talk) 02:44, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

No CoD streamer is a good person example no.219243 A somebody. (talk) 03:00, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

What an idiot for first apologizing to his team without ever apologizing to his victim, disgusting. As for twitch I wouldn’t be surprised about the spying since they’re owned by amazon. Phantasmagoria (talk) 02:51, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

He's a kinda piece of shit, who doesn't get if he's a big name, he has to give up everything. what a turd, it was his job and he took some time to say 'let's meet' I have done the same, you can dig that up, why is is diferent? Torrent (talk) 02:44, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

The difference is I never did a sex crime, I invited somebody who was going through a lot to Zoom into a meeting with myself and a friend who I have fun painting and sculpting with, to paint, draw, or just hang out on zoom and talk while we talk. Two of the least judgemental people on the planet, the invite might have been a little forward, but the difference is I ain't tryna fuck ya, man. It's become more clear that the two time was fully intending sex, what a turd. Torrent (talk) 05:05, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

My first questions given Dr Disrespect's confessional note was, why did he know that he was talking to a minor when he planned to meet them? Why didn't he then, given he had that information, call off meeting that person? It seems unlikely that he'd ask the relevant question later in the conversation given he was accused of sexually explicit content with them. That he knew they were a minor was one thing, but that he tried to delete it and then put that back in is even more weird, did he realize that he made a slip and no-one actually knew whether he knew that information? Who knows. The evidence may exist according to rumors of screenshots circulating about him. The next question I had was, what was Twitch doing in all of this? Aren't they supposed to contact the police or at least the parents given that he is talking to a minor? Why was no investigation into this performed? Twitch's handling of the case is disastrously bad and if anything can come of this is should be a massive tarnishing of that company's reputation and some incentive to force them to actually handle these cases appropriately. It might be by this point that twitch has lost the relevant conversation data entirely, which means we may never know for certain what happened there. (I suspect some things are true, but libel). BumblingBuffoon (talk) 06:09, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Does anyone else feel pain in their dreams?

Y Last night I had a dream where a small white owl interrupted a nightmare. I tried really hard to corral the bird baby hand, but the claws were really spiky. I did wake up, I had an arm I was sleeping on, when I don't drink my dreams are vivid and I toss and turn. I tried really have to apologize for trying to scoot this little spiky owl out of the dream by the end of it, my needling pain just didn't add up. I have been a drinker for a long time, but there are moments in dreams, for longer than I have been a drinker, where I have felt sharp pains in dreams. They don't wake me up as often anymore, but they are a physical sensation. Actual pain. The least explicable is one that hit me twice when I was like, 11. I had my blood drawn from my fingertip with some device, it stung, no problem. I had a dream where the same device stung my ear and I woke up, and my ear kinda stung. Later, I had a dream that a spider bit me in that same spot, and I woke up and my ear kinda stung. No have no piercings nor tattoos, but lately, I bave been having dreams that include Physical pain. Which is kinda everybody's 'pinch me' tell. I get gently.clawed by cats and now owl talons, and a little sting or a pinch can't help me. A talking owl should probably be clue, but dreams don't give an inch. You can always forget it's a dream. Torrent (talk) 04:45, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

I've woken up with an elevated heart rate from nightmares before, but that's a different thing I think. I've had physical sensations before in dreams, like I've physically felt the sensation of diving through the air in one dream I had, but nothing else comes to mind. Carthage (talk) 04:52, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

I think I've had that before. Something like it. My first and only time on a carousel, I was like 12, way too old. That night in bed I felt up and down. To this day, sometimes when I get sleep paralysis, I feel a rhythmic pull down and by the time I wake up i'm most of the way off the bed. It's not like I hate it. I also, when I start to drift off straight into a dream, I often dream I meet a staircase and trip. Sometimes when I'm sleepy but not tired, my body will jerk in the same way,no dream required. Sleep is such a strange thing. Torrent (talk) 05:14, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

In my childhood and teens, I had many nightmares where I was hunted by people or other beings who caught and hurt and/or killed me, and it hurt. It wasn't the same as ordinary pain as in waking life, the qualia were off with weird mixtures of sensations, but it was very uncomfortable nonetheless, and I learned to try to wake up quickly when things were going badly in a dream so that I wouldn't need to go through painful experiences. But this situation changed in later years and I don't have that kind of thing going on anymore. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 16:33, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Nope, you don't feel pain in your dreams.47.5.66.54 (talk) 04:00, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

I do. Namako (talk) 16:08, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

I had tons of nightmares as a kid. I did a lot of practice with lucid dreaming, and now I don't get that underwater kinda inhibition for running or punching. I've even used the dream toilet just for a second without wetting the bed. I still have nightmares but generally I can sleep through them, a huge help is my childhood dog, she shows up and it kinda throws me, when I think enough about it. I was 3 when we got her as a puppy, she lived to be 17+ so she was a huge part of my life . It has helped that I took some time to practice lucid dreaming, recognizing triggers.

I remember dreams very vividly. That baby owl hasn't come back but one time I had a dream that was interrupted by a small raccoon. Small being very strange. I kinda chased it off in my dream. Next morning I got to my car to get to work, when I drove home on the same route I always took, there was a very small dead raccoon in the alley. If it had been there the day before I would have noticed it. I remember an auburn coat on a poor piece of roadkill I saw a couple days ago on the interstate, must have been a cat as tight and smooth as the fur was, I would not miss a piece of roadkill. It was a kinda one-way alley for parking and I definitely treated it as such, so there's no way I accidentally saw this and then had a dream about it. It was very strange that I would have a dream with a small raccoon and come across the carcass of a dead raccoon that fit the bill within 24 hours. And Roadkill is actually not common in an alley where people drive about 15 mph tops. I do believe in coincidence, and I do believe in serendipity, I have a dozen stories about both, but this is the strangest one by far. Torrent (talk) 05:58, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

you want another case of seredipity, clean off, I did work on an energy neutral barn and planned a trip to see a friend after. During this very cool build, there was a dialogue, 'be careful on that ladder, I fell off and broke both my arms' 'It's okay, I fell off tHe Minden Opera house. I'll be okqy". The serendipitiy here is, a guy who I roomed with had a brother and neice, and her teacher fell off a ladder and broke her arms, this was 100 that teacher. I actually asked the guy on the ladder, you ever heard of this guy and he said 'that was our band teacher! We used to call him Mr Fart*****.' this was 100 my friends' grandpa's student. very serendipitous for us all to be working on one project. And then I finished my trip, joined the grandson, an absolute bosom buddy of mine. Like of course drill down but there are 36 public elementary schools, with probably 2 to 3 teachers each grade. It is special that it would all be so small. We're talking 400 miles and 6 years of time. It's the same past, but serendipity when it runs together. Torrent (talk) 05:38, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Need help getting out of the loony bin

So I came off my ADHD meds recently, and have been experiencing some... decidedly unwelcome effects. For some reason, I spent the last couple of weeks worrying about creationists being right. Don't get me wrong - when I take some time and think clearly, I know it is all BS. But sometimes I CAN'T think clearly - had to spend some time reading our articles to set myself back in order. For a physics student, I feel rather embarrassed that I had to go through that...

So my issue is this. I can always read rational stuff and get back to normalcy. But I need some way of PERMANENTLY setting my mind, so that I can laugh at BS as I used to, instead of having to do a double take every time I see it. (And no, I am looking for something that doesn't involve going back to meds.) Meow^Purr 05:46, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

My guess is that Creationism is what you focus on when you have ADHD. Why do you suppose that's your normal obsession?

Also, I don't know if this would be effective, but ask yourself, what if a vile, malicious alien species created life, as a form of routine "galactic harvest"? Creationists always break down when you suggest that the intelligent designer is anyone other than God. CorruptUser 14:07, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

@CorruptUser I have sometimes thought of the Abrahamic god as a higher-dimensional computer programmer who creates characters in his PC for fun and enjoys making them fight each other by making them imagine they'll get thrown in a torture chamber if they don't... Meow^Purr 07:08, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

This can only be sorted by discovering and tackling the source. One thing I will suggest is that you might be suffering from a form of 'imposter syndrome' - in which you are unable to trust your own judgements because you have been conditioned since a kid that your brain is wrong and therefore the views from it cannot be trusted. If you've been on the meds since year dot, you might have forgotten how your brain functions in 'vanilla mode' and like if you're drunk, doubt the conclusions it is coming up with [this might make the impostor syndrome worse, because you've had folks telling you too that said vanilla mode can't be trusted one bit].

Another option is this is just your 'hyperfixation of the week'. And as long as it's not hurting anyone, swallows too much time or becomes a full-blown obsession - scratch that itch. Teach yourself about creationism, to the point you are confident you 'get it' and feel your conclusion on it is as solid as it reasonably can be. KarmaPolice (talk) 14:22, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

It is almost certainly my hyperfixation of the week; I've had others before and have been on meds only for a few years now. The only issue is that it is swallowing time... currently I am doing just that, teaching myself and tuning my mind to a rational frequency. Only thing is, some part of it feels embarrassing since I am re-learning what I already knew. But I suppose that's my ego talking. Meow^Purr 16:16, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

I found that learning about paradoxes regarding the Abrahamic god (i.e the description of having omnipotence), and just bizarre hypothetical scenarios (voyer god disapprovingly watching you as you rub one out to Stoya) is what first made me realize that the whole thing is likely bullshit. What really solidified it for me though was just delving into historical development of Christianity and its progenitor Judaism. Asherah, First Council of Nicaea (where finer points of Jeezus lore was worked out), classification of demons (who are the "princes of Hell" anyways? isn't there only one big baddie?), stuff like that. The more educated and informed one becomes, the more easy it is to see through all the nonsense.... does leave a person tired and depressed though :3 Impiricism (talk) 14:50, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

The funny thing is, this is obvious, and known to me. And yet I have headache-inducing overthinking sessions of "Ohh what if they are right..." even though the facts are obvious. The only explanation I could come up with is that I have yet to account for how there are good Christians too (Louis Zamperini for instance). I understand that's how life is (both good and bad), but still have difficulty wrapping my head around it. Meow^Purr 16:16, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

You can 'account for it' by simply remembering that 'being a good person' and 'believing in creationism' are two completely different things. I personally know creationists who are, generally speaking, decent and pleasant enough people. Just like I know 'evolutionists' who are total cunts. I think there is a human tendency to wish to ascribe negative personal attributes to people who don't agree with us on stuff. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:41, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

@KarmaPolice This particular bit wasn't about creationism, more about what to think of those who "find faith". The frauds are easy to dismiss, but I'm still figuring out what to think of types like Zamperini. Meow^Purr 03:18, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps that's the true question of your hyperfixation; 'why do people find faith'? Creationism is more an effect of your question, not the question itself. You 'accept' creationism as being BS but then you wonder whether those ernest creationists 'know something you don't' to explain said ernestness. KarmaPolice (talk) 09:28, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

@Meow What's there to consider with Zamperini? Reading his Wikipedia page and no doubt he went through some very traumatic experiences, and I assume him becoming an evangelist was a comforting balm to deal with things, but that doesn't make his ardent belief in the Christian god anything more than a lie still. In any faith, you can can find adherents claiming that their belief "saved them", and perhaps it does in some ways... does that make the beliefs any more true?

You are most probably correct, and this is my broad view as well. Only that in my presently indisposed state, it adds to the jerky "Ooooh are they right?!" feeling, even if my logic tells me otherwise. The best view of the situation is this: I am like a Vulcan who has temporarily lost his logical balance for some reason, and am figuring out how to get it back. Meow^Purr 14:46, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Have you watched Bill Nye debates Ken Hamm? I've only seen excerpts and the most telling one was at the end when Nye said he'd accept creationism if there was genuine evidence for it, but Hamm said he wouldn't stop believing creationism even if proof turned up otherwise. Gish himself said similar; 'We cannot discover by scientific investigations anything about the creative processes used by the Creator' - ergo, any evidence or theorising against creationism is automatically excluded from consideration, because if by 'scientific investigation' we mean anything remotely related to either rationalism or empiricism and now we're in the 'clap your hands if you believe' territory which is best left in either theology or the Mage the Ascension game I play. The truth of the matter is simple; there is no real 'conflict' between creationism and anything else because the former is of the heart and the latter is of the mind - a desire to believe in a some form of supernatural deity vs the rational-logical-empirical reasoning which while it can't ultimately proven either way - bonus points to arguments that 'creationism is correct but God is now dead' [as in the deity once existed but no longer does] or 'creationism is correct but God doesn't give a fuck anymore' [as in They lost interest in Us long ago and buggered off]. Which is the main reason I don't really entertain such arguments anymore - there is no 'clinching argument' either way and doesn't really change anything [ Pascal's wager besides; but you think God will be pleased if you only believed in Them only because you were scared of Hell?] KarmaPolice (talk) 10:26, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Sounds a lot like the hell that I've been going through for the last several months. Having that contrarian garbage in your brain is awful, and the more you try to fight it, the worse it gets. It can even turn into a form of OCD. You can try mindfulness exercises in an attempt to calm your mind and let those thoughts just pass by without judgement or rumination. Not easy, and it can require repetition. But honestly, professional therapy is the best way and speaking with a health provider about your approach to medication and coming off it. Paul S (talk) 18:46, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

https://youtu.be/cdYRcTeQXTE?feature=shared https://youtu.be/Rnwr2mRzJD0?feature=shared https://youtu.be/xrxEJ8ZK3tQ?feature=shared I don't really get it. But there are only days before we die, measuresd by different metrics. If this is how you want to do it.... fucking Cool just remember that to everybody you're playing a game, It's fucking weird, and if people don't relax, just a little bit, their target is is as stupid as me. Torrent (talk) 03:00, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

I watched the Nye v Hamm live. My buddy was like 'woah' and got us tickets to see Nye live. She is so fucking good and cool about that shit, I would not have met buhbuhBill n Nye if my friend hadn't done it. I should probably tell her so. Torrent (talk) 09:19, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

A thought I had about Timeline Theory

You know, a while back, after being faced with the whole 'Omniscience is not compatible with free will' debacle, I had an idea; If true, Timeline Theory (Which is what I am using to refer to the concept that every single choice splits the universe into timelines for every single possible choice you make), would solve this debacle, and make Free Will and Omniscience work with each other.

If Timeline Theory is true, then an Omniscient being wouldn't know what choice someone is guaranteed to take, but instead, all the choices that every single being could possibly make, thus allowing an Omniscient being to know everything without infringing on free will.

Now, of course, I am not suggesting that Timeline Theory is 100% the case, as verifying it is something that will take a long time (Assuming it isn't impossible, which it might be), I just wanted to share a thought I had. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 00:13, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't want to make light of your interest in this idea, but it seems kind of incredible to suppose that human thoughts effect the entire universe, much less cause reality to divide. It seems kind of grandiose to suppose that because personal choices are possible, there are so-called splits in the time line. I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean. Also, humans are not the only animals capable of making decisions. When a squirrel chooses which nut to eat, does the universe respond in some way I am incapable of imagining? Just how important are humans really?UncleKrampus (talk) 04:45, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure this is a bastardization of the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Carthage (talk) 05:23, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Yeah that's what I was thinking of. I forgot that was its name. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 16:13, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

What possible experiment could be devised to test any single element the proposed hypothesis? If it's all just "What if?" then "What if it's total bollocks?"Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 05:34, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

I am very well aware of this and the fact that it is unfalsifiable (Something I attempted to emphasize in the thing I was talking about); The thing I was trying to describe was the Many Worlds Hypothesis, or at least what I remembered from it from the explanations I heard. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 16:13, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

But if no single part of it can be demonstrated - and if the whole thing is unfalsifiable - what use is it? It is indistinguishable from - shall we say - a useless thing.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 16:39, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

True, but I wasn't trying to deny that fact. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 16:55, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

OK. Sorry if I came off a bit strong at first.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 12:14, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

No worries, happens to the best of us. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 18:01, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

The "Timeline Theory" that you describe, does not sound falsifiable at all, not to mention that it still breaks the idea of omniscience; the god know every possible action that could potentially be taken, as well as the outcomes of each action, but does not know what action will be taken... that's close to it, but is still not omniscience. I don't think Free Will and omniscience are compatible together at all truth be told. Impiricism (talk) 15:49, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Putting aside the difficulties (such as: what is a choice?) for fun, what about this allows for free will? 'I made a choice' can be explicitly replaced with 'I exist now on a path where that choice was made, not even necessarily by me'. Not to mention the existential weirdness. Is each path one (necessarily completely determinstic XD) individual? The whole graph? Can I be said to be anything if one 'me' becomes at least two 'mes' (or worse, infinitely many 'mes') immediately after any choice, whether I made it or not? Namako (talk) 16:08, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

This is a bit reminiscent of Molinism, which holds that God has knowledge of what every person would do under all possible circumstances (though Molinism holds that God employs this knowledge in deciding how to create the world). If you haven't seen it before, you might also find some interest in this, which surveys some of the important responses to the foreknowledge/free will problem. 𝒮𝑒𝓇𝑒𝓃𝑒 ^talk 17:37, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't quite get why this part of Jurisdicta's interactions here was collapsed when this instance doesn't seem all that trolly, but then again I don't quite understand what they were trying to say here. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 18:01, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

@𝒮𝑒𝓇𝑒𝓃𝑒 I love the concept of the Freedom-Denying Prophetic Object. Fast review: Section 5 is definitely worth a read even if you can't get through all the theological stuff that came before, as it distills the contained logical problem down to its core elements. Namako (talk) 21:33, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

@ evryone FIRST PAST THE POST IS AN INSANE ARGUMENT. There is time for a deal, there is so much space for Biden to say, I have come to terms with my. Now it kinda has to go Kamala, which would feed into nonsense right wing conspiracy, that Biden would just up and die so the democrats could score 'first female president'. That was a real conspiracy theory. Now we're beggingfor the 25th. Biden and Harris are honestly very similar politicians. But if I went to either and said 'The majority youth vote wants you to step down' who would know enough about what is going on to spearhead a second selection? They do not care about elections, they do not empower the American electorate, neither

Party actually gives much of a federal fuck, maybe it's better if the federal fuck is ungovernable. So many people puke and cry about socialiam, and now we're facing federalism. I am not for conspiracy theories, but I cannot believe the democrats are giving up federal power like it's nothing. And the republicans are taking it, taking sides is bonkers, both sides can be bad Torrent (talk) 03:17, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Okay??? Why are you talking about this in a completely unrelated thread? TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 15:17, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

I musta made a mistake. Happens to me a lot. I Torrent (talk) 07:28, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Article 8k

What is the betting that at least one appearance of the 8000th article (ie allowing for deletions, mergers, redirects etc) will feature the Donald? Anna Livia (talk) 12:13, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Orange-us Urungus has reached maximum number of articles already… betting against. Bongolian (talk) 05:13, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Corbyn, Labour and antisemitism.

I'm currently re-doing the 2019 United Kingdom general election page and well, you've got to mention the Corbyn/antisemitism issue. I don't want to re-fight this whole argument, but I would like to hear editors views on it. As in; a) how much do you believe the allegations were true vs manufactured, b) how much Corbyn himself was to blame for this and c) how much of an effect it had in the defeat in the GE. I'm asking because I'm trying to work out some kind of reality-based consensus here, mainly because I can't find one online. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:47, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

If you haven't found one online, why do you think RW would be any better? People here aren't free of ideological bias. Carthage (talk) 17:53, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Which is why I'm asking. I suspect I am not as impartial on this issue as I perhaps should be on writing about it. I have a kind of 'provisional conclusion' but I wonder if anyone else reaches that conclusion independently [which is why I'm not saying what I think yet]. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:57, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Here is a report of a poll (2019) suggesting that 87% of British Jews regard Corbyn as antisemetic. It is linked from an article in the Atlantic (December 10,2019). UncleKrampus (talk) 19:34, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

What do British left-wing Jewish organisations have to say about this? New world (talk) 23:01, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

The issue is, the vangard of the anti-Semitism claims against Corbyn and Co were The Jewish Chronicle, a paper which has always been fairly conservative, pretty pro-Zionist/ pro-Israel and has a long track record of losing libel cases regarding calling people antisemites and/or supporters of terrorism. There is also a faction [like the World Jewish Congress] who outright says all forms of anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism, in which by that metre-stick would actually make Corbyn [and a lot on the left] 'anti-Semitic' to some extent. It's all about definitions, mon; and part of the Corbyn tussle was that he refused to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism in full, because it as-written is very 'in the eye of the beholder' about it - ie for someone to say they felt X was antisemetic was enough [which is a shit legal principle for anything]. Believing something doesn't automatically mean it's true, either - if the whole of the right-wing print media and most of the Jewish media [as in, the media which caters for them] is on a daily basis saying Labour is riddled with antisemitism, the likes of the BBC then fall into the trap of lending credibility by 'covering the coverage' which makes British Jews 'feel unsafe', which then is reported in the right-wing media... I'm not saying there was zero fire here, but I'm trying to find pictures of fire and lots of the media reports were just pictures of smoke.

What British Jewish opinion felt/feels is much more difficult, because I am very conscious of a) 'avoiding goysplaining' and b) aware that I'm outside of this community and thus shall miss the nuances etc of the issue. There were some left-wing Jewish orgs/persons who were at least non-hostile; a bunch of 'senior' Jewish folks bitched at the Chronicle for their repeated hit-pieces on Corbyn, for example but from what I could tell the only real 'supporters' came from the anti-Zionists. However, in my studies I've started to notice a right-wing/pro-Zionist wing with a tendency to call anybody who doesn't agree a 'self hating Jew' - something I now recall them doing with Gerald Kaufman [veteran left-wing Labour MP]. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:52, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

The problem of subjectivity is much intensified through micro-aggression. One never knows for certain if a statement is meant in good humor, joking on the square, or as a personal attack. How can you know if you are being attacked? Better to be safe than sorry. Every out-of-favor minority group probably behaves the same way. Historically, Jews have have been alienated from the greater society. The definition of "antisemitism" has a long history of ambiguity, even among Jews themselves.

One writer on Jewish folk-wisdom wrote "We have all heard – and used – the expression “two Jews, three opinions.” And although we employ it jokingly, even mockingly, most of us believe that it contains a kernel of truth. Now if two Jews have three opinions, then one of those two Jews has two opinions. Can one person hold two opinions concurrently? Apparently he can, and if he is a Jew, he often does!"The comment suggests the existence of information cascades. One will often not only confide ones personal opinions, but will also often include the "common view" of ones own social group. This may be happening when a particular group is under pressure. The use of "Islamophobia" exhibits similar epistemic ambiguity. These can be terminative rhetorical expressions and are often used to end arguments. For example, "it would be regarded as antisemitic for you to disregard the opinions of Jews." Good luck with that. UncleKrampus (talk) 17:27, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

There seem to be less leftist Jewish organizations than in the US probably in part because there's proportionally more Orthodox Jews in the UK than the US (about 30-40% of Jews in the UK vs. about 10% in the US). There's left-wing Orthodox Jews, but in broad terms. Chillpilled (talk) 12:16, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

English law tries to answer this through the concept of 'the reasonable person' - in this case, it would ask 'would the reasonable person think this was / could be seen as antisemetic?' which is a guard against loons, extremists and bad-faith accusers but also protecting against the pin-dancing of dogwhistlers [which is why Jewish Chronicle keeps on losing libel cases]. But yes, you're right there's issues even within this; that for example if the vast majority of Jewish Britons accepted the WJC's definition of anti-Semitism 'the reasonable Jewish person' would feel Corbyn was antisemetic due to his pro-Palestinian 'tilt' and may very well feel their views etc were being completely ignored by gentile society - and may even come to the conclusion that the whole general society is at least vaguely antisemetic if we don't agree with the allegation [qv: the Jewish Chronicle has outright said they won't stop throwing out antisemitism allegations]

And yes, you are very right in pointing out the significant differences between Jewish Brits and Americans. In 2015, their Tory/Lab split was 70/20 but on the other side in 2020 the Rep/Dem split was 30/70. 95% of Brits had visited Israel at least once, while only 40% of Americans have. Exogamous relationships are half in the UK than the USA [26% vs 58%], the 'attendence of Jewish schools' 60%/30% [however, there's one significant difference - most American schools are 'strictly Orthodox' while most UK ones are 'Conservative'] and like Israel itself, British Jewry is seeing the ultra-orthodox Haredis [clannish to the point of being segregated from mainstream society] as the main driver in numbers growth - to the point the former Chief Rabbi warned that 'complete assimilation' and 'Haredi takeover' were the two biggest threats to their community. KarmaPolice (talk) 13:52, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I didn't read the whole thread (sorry if this was already discussed then), but if I were you, I wouldn't pick a side about it. Many people think that SPOV means that you can only cover one side. This is true in many cases, but it isn't true when the subject isn't apparently settled. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 19:45, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Not if I fall into the false balance trap. I think I am starting to gauge better the extent of the fire vs smoke, but the main feeling I'm getting right now is that this topic is too big to be covered within the '19 election page and needs to be solo. KarmaPolice (talk) 02:56, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

I think David Graeber had it right. Corbyn brought a lot of people into the labour party and in anti-semitic society that is going to include anti-semites and other deplorables. That's just the nature of grass-roots politics. Not everyone who follows you is actually going to be well read or even particularly morally sound.

Personally I think the antisemitism angle was taken up by the British media because trying to attack Corbyn on race, gender or sexuality fronts was not going to work. The trans panic hadn't quite hit the intensity it has now, they were already doing everything they could to paint him as Stalin's best mate and Corbyn's progressive credentials were pretty much untouchable... ...except for antisemitism because by muddying the waters around what counts as antisemitism and whipping the pro-israel lobby into a foaming rage they could create enough noise that to give the average swing voter or cautious progressive the impression that voting for Jeremy Corbyn was maybe not a good idea if they didn't want to be labelled a bigot.

How a community feels is not always good representation of how much discrimination they are actually facing. That's the problem with standpoint epistemology, it ignores the way in which people are encouraged to frame themselves as victims in order to get one-over on their "enemies" and curry favour. Most nazis view white people as persecuted minorities on the brink of dying out. TERFs spend a lot of time trying to convince women that they will be sexually assualted and have their rights stripped if they tolerate trans-people.

The jewish writer Sarah Schulman, I think correctly, noted that all acts of cruelty are preceeded with claims of victimhood. Positioning oneself as a fragile underdog who needs to be sympathised with in its efforts to defend itself is a classic trope of propaganda and it's also one that zionist media pushes VERY hard among its Jewish and Gentile audiences.

tl;dr I think there were real cases of anti-semitism but they were seized on to create a generally false narrative that painted the labour party as exceptionally antisemitic.

Tikitime2 (talk) 22:18, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

However, it can say this had the effect that when the likes of the Jewish Chronicle did produce some decent evidence [Corbyn's calling of Hamas 'friends' looks terrible with 2024 hindsight - though it's not like he's the first to fucked up like this] that the 'Camp Corbyn' immediately discounted it as another mainly untrue hit-piece, rather than at least doing 'due dilligence' quick to ensure the facts of the situation before making the decision to effectively stonewall the allegations.

And yes, it does need to be remembered how much other crap they tried to lob at him; for example, attempts to infer he'd been an Eastern Bloc spy or as a supporter of the IRA back in the 80s/90s. They don't mention his firm support for the 'terrorist group' the ANC - mainly because I suspect too many Hate Mail readers would have twigged they were the [retrospective] 'good guys' in the fight over apartheid South Africa [well, I suspect some readers might still think 'Botha was right' but that's outside of the Overton Window now].

And it's been long enough now I am going to show my feelings/views - is that Corbyn's main crimes were of a Hanlon's type - he was too stupid to really grapple with the nuances of what was a very difficult topic and too ineffectual a leader to actually work out a way to douse the flames. And it was more this which lost him the 2019 election than 'anti-Semitism' per se; that the 'dry run' of running the country is showing you're capable of running your party. And in this [as well as dealing with the Blairite throwouts which eventually left to make Change UK] Corbyn clearly failed'..

This is what you get when leadership candidates are chosen on the principle of 'buggins turn'. I suspect if we'd ended up with McDonnell as leader in '16 it very well might have ended up with him in No 10 by '19. KarmaPolice (talk) 23:00, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

True however I think the Corbyn camps digging their heels in is understandable. One of the, sometimes intended, side-effects of concern trolling is that once you swamp your opponent with bad-faith accusations when they inevitably dismiss more real and legitimate grievances as more of the same you can then really stick it to them. This tactic is also seized on by anti-feminists and TERFs who are very excited to jump on real cases of men having their issues dismissed or an individual trans-person turning out to be a predator because they can then retrospectively take feminists and LGBTQ+ people to task for saying that those issues "weren't real".

Not really sure what the Corbyn camp could have done (other than just be generally "better") as, by design, if you take every grievance, and complaint at face value (when you know that a substantial portion of it is just political shit-talk) then the concern trolling suceeds in having you bogged down in endless discussions that waste your time and make you look guilty be default. In such cases you have to very skillfully weave your way out and when you have part of the labour party determined to make the antisemitism claims stick that seems very difficult. Part of me wonders if Corbyn could have had a serious crack at it if he had done a better job of disciplining labour MPs (surely other parties don't have MPs fuming with rage when they find out that, despite their efforts, their party has done far better than predicted?). Though perhaps that would of caused even more in-fighting and so the Corbyn project was dead from the start having built its foundations on a labour party that had long moved on from "that kind of politics". Ultiamtely though Corbyn belonged to the soft left that really underestimated the depths its opponents would stoop to and was just too naive to see what he was up against.

Tikitime2 (talk) 08:28, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

The anti-Semitism was a stitch up by Blairites and rightist in the Labour Party that wanted to take down Corbyn. The media lapped it up because it wanted to destroy Corbyn for threatening corporate power and by Israel supporters who wanted to silence criticism of its human rights abuses. There was literally a report (called the Forde report) that openly admitted that accusations of antisemitism was used as a weapon. Ψ (talk) 11:31, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Although I think that's obviously the case especially with all that's happened since, it's not like there was nothing to be grabbed onto there. I would not go and totally write off the fact that about 90 percent of Jews feel Corbyn to be antisemitic. At a bare minimum that's a PR disaster. A comparison was made with TERFs, and I don't think you can draw a clear parallel between the two topics but. Although they have made ground in the UK I don't see anything to this level with polling of women in the UK — in fact it shows women remain more supportive of trans people despite the years-long media circus over there emphatically claiming the opposite. So I think the views of British Jews on Corbyn are not totally explained by media portrayal alone. This is why I brought up the difference in political leanings among the Jewish community in the UK vs. US, that's probably going to be a bigger factor. And as mentioned of course, not only was the receptive community already going to be more skeptical of you as they're more conservative, but then when you go calling Hamas "friends" and these kinds of things. Maybe if the party managed to gain a majority under Corbyn things could have been rehabilitated, but here we are instead. Chillpilled (talk) 12:27, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

The Jewish population of the UK have been lied to. Also support for transgender people in the UK is not great but more then men. Also, the friends comment is taken out of context. Ψ (talk) 13:44, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm a little iffy on YouGov after how badly they bungled polling on Holocaust denial, but unfortunately they're one of the only firms doing in-depth surveys on trans topics in the UK, and yes I was speaking in relative terms (support among men vs. women). Media portrayal does remain a significant part of the picture, but if that explained it all, you'd have 90% of women in the UK goosestepping behind the likes of Posie Parker. Chillpilled (talk) 17:04, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

The fundimental issue was [in my opinion] that Corbyn was either unwilling or incapable to grow from 'seasoned left-wing complainer' to 'motivated statesperson'. Take the Select Committee on antisemitism; it cleared the Labour Party ['no more antisemetic than the general UK population'] but intead of Corbyn attacking the judgement because it criticised his own leadership on this issue I would have told him [if I'd been a staffer] 'to fucking get out there and find a BBC News camera, thank the Committee, parrot it's main judgement, take the hit personally, vow to do better 'for the good of the movement' and make it crystal that antisemites can go fuck themselves', pointing out that 'the movement is bigger than you Jeremy'. But then again, I'm a somewhat cynical and Machiavellian type who can appreciate any successful political movement needs a few 'Malcolm Tuckers' about - watching all the angles, kicking arse when needed and doing their best to manage the media and fellow party members in equal measure.

But a lot of the more hardline 'Corbynistas' would hate me for this, because it's his 'authenticity' of 'never selling out' which is so appealing. But where has that got them? With a guy who 'didn't look closer' to a particular mural when it floated past his FB feed. It's emblematic of the whole of Corbyn's campaigning career; never considering the ramifications of the lending of his name to various groups and individuals. I'll tell you why he didn't; Corbyn never considered the fact he'd ever be in a position in which these things would actually matter - he enjoyed the 'privilege of opposition' because nothing he really said or did had a real-world effect. I think it was perhaps this than his 'left-wing policies' which pissed off some Labour MPs - that they'd 'had a measure of the man' since 1983 and they'd noted that he was a 'Poundship Benn' with a strong fixation on foreign policy to the point you wondered whether Corbyn really truly cared about domestic affairs at all.

The trans/anti-semitism analogy holds in the respect that like TERFs cling onto the occasional example to 'prove the rule' that 'it's all indoctrination/men wanting to rape women' BS, the anti-Corbyn folks cited the small group of cases of antisemitism as proof that it was everywhere. Even the WP page on the whole issue is very light of actual evidence. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:41, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

@Chillpilled I'd also further point out that the vast majority of Jews consider Israel to be important to them and so by default any opposition by non-Jews to the actions of Israel is going to be seen negatively and potentially antisemitic. Add to that, as others have noted, that the vanguard of Jewish media in Britain tends to be quite happy to feed accusations of antisemitism and you get a wide-spread belief that Corbyn was/is antisemitic despite limited evidence from the man himself. Conversely no such trigger point really exists to rally women against transwomen because, dare I say it, allowing transwomen into women's changing rooms isn't quite the same existential threat as the one percieved by many British Jews when people talk about sanctioning what is quite literally "their" holy-land.

@KarmaPolice On the other hand it was his willingness to just state his honest position that actually got him as far as he did. Rather than kowtowing to the press on a number of issues he was actually capable of articulating and shaping public opinion (Welfare & Austerity spring to mind). It might have been more prudent to just head out, humbly take the L and move on but that could of been a wrong turn in itself. The press are just as likely to see an apology as weakness and the last 10 years of politics *cough* Trump and Boris *cough* have thrown doubt on the idea that humility is going to be rewarded.

And in politics, especially mass movement politics that involve rubbing shoulders with an ungodly amount of people, there is simply no way to vet that properly and the standard applied to Corbyn on that front I think was cynically strict. It's long been known for Tory MP's to, often knowingly, rub-shoulders with sexists, homophobes, racist and fascists... it's just the media for various partisan reasons is largely uninterested in doing the bin-raking and providing of column inches to make that headline news. It's one of these things where everyone gets caught in photos smiling next to people or organisations they might not endorse (or perhaps secretly endorse but don't want to endorse in public).. but only certain unlucky people end up with their compromat published on the front page of the telegraph. As the adage goes, conservatives get to play politics on 'easy mode'.

Fundamentally I don't really see the failure of the Corbyn campaign as a personal failure on his part or on "the corbynistas", I think they largely did their best with what they had which is why it is so frustrating. Their failures weren't all that much more egregious than those of any other movement and they played the game about as well as can be expected considering the terrain they were fighting on but ultimately still failed, so it really does leave one with a sense of hopelessness. I'm considering voting Green but we've already seen scare-stories being published about them, which kind of proves my point that if the media decides it wants to turn a polticians career into a 24/7 circus of scandal then it will generally succeed and there's not much point in blaming the politician in those cases.

I think actually, if anything, Corbyn's problem was that he was too ready to play-ball with forces that would rather see him die in a fire than win an election. Something that Starmer has understood that Corbyn didn't is who his enemies are both outside and inside the party.

Tikitime2 (talk) 16:42, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't think Chill was arguing that the TERF/antisemitism analogy was equally serious, merely that they are both Molehill mountaneering issues. Though a few TERFs have tried to paint it as a slippery slope 'existential threat to all women'.

Anyway, Tiki the example I provided before [about the Select Committe] wasn't one about Corbyn being 'authentic', it was merely one of 'organisational competence'. Even right to the end, most of the anti-Corbyn people still held that they did not believe the man himself to be anti-semetic, more that he was either too incompetent, trusting and/or stupid to realise the anti-semitism which had crept into the party in his wake [a former senior Rabbi once said he found Corbyn incapable or unwilling to see the seriousness of the issue]. In fact, while him 'getting out there and taking the hit with good grace' would have been attacked by the Hate Mail et al but they'd have attacked regardless, so in such a case it's better to 'roll with the blow' rather than try to take it on the chin. Might even enhance Corbyn's 'authenticity'; hearing him doing a honest-face apology and vowing to 'up his game' to ensure antisemitism has zero home within Labour - much better than the mealy-mouthed 'mistakes made, lessons learned' shite.

I agree that only the most naked careerist polices all their actions in the expectation of some day getting into a position of power, and as quite a bit of his 'crimes' were before the internet [so much more likely to vanish into the ether than hang about online forever] but the issue was that at times as a backbencher he showed some dubious judgement calls which were dubious at the time - again, that mural. I could accept the maker may not have intended it to be a anti-semetic dogwhistle, but I could also instantly see that quite a lot of people could see it that way. Nor was there a need for him to have commented on it.

I agree with you that Corbyn 'did his best' - but I also think Johnson 'did his best'. But their best was simply not good enough; that Corbyn was too weak a leader and perhaps too stupid. He wasn't even that charismatic; I remember him from back from the Stop The War and found the likes of Abbott or even Galloway more persuasive, while I believe McDonnell was a lot sharper. I also agree that the Tories get to play on 'easy mode' but that has been a 'known known' for socialists since at least the 'Zinoviev letter' a century ago, but my argument rests on the belief that a decent % of people ended up not voting Labour in '19 because they feared a Corbyn government would be utterly incompetent - I remember, for example that a lot of Corbyn's domestic policies polled well with voter panels right up to the point they were told they were Corbyn's. I also note that even with all this and Brexit and the red-baiting that Labour still scored more % of the vote-share than either 2010 or 2015.

Personally speaking, I'm throwing my meagre weight to my local Labour candidate. They're not a Starmerite parachute, they've got the backing of several unions and while it's a bit of a long shot, I think they just might win. So I'm also doing a bit of leafleting etc for them too. With the 'Green issue', I think part of the issue with them is that to some extent they've shot up like a weed since 2015 and they've not upped their ability to vet etc prospective candidates yet. So again, it's not a 'moderateness' issue, but a simple competence one. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:55, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

I was undecided on Corbyn till the Brexit referendum. I remember the time vividly in no small part because I received my HiV diagnosis and lost my job in the very same week as the referendum which I could not even vote in due personal circumstances as the time. It was not a fun time. I remember corbyns first foray for the remain campaign being a somewhat measured statement in favour of the EU followed by swiftly going AWOL from the rest of the referendum. Such leadership during this historic time was a sign of to come. Brexit was a such close run thing in the end. I wonder if Someone who was I constantly being told was incredibly popular with the grassroots, a real man of the people, a real inspiration, had made a little bit of an effort, showed some willing, what the world would look like today.

I remember corbyns high watermark shortly after - getting beaten into second place by theresa may. It was embarrassing for the Tories for sure, but the way that doing better than expected was somehow an epic victory was just bizarre to me. Anyhow, whatever kind of validation it might have brought his supporters, it was soon squandered in that horrific period of deadlock in parliament. Years went by where the government not get any legislation through. People were high fiving everytime the house said nope to may's bills. They should have been appalled at how fucking our political had become. Corbyns Brexit policy at this was nonexistent. It virtually shifted by 180 degrees at every vote and at every amendment. By the time Boris took the reins for the tories and broke 3 years of this car crash with an illegal shutdown of parliament,forcing and election that Corbyn was now reluctant to agree too, corbyn still had nothing to say on Brexit. Literally nothing. Demands for promising a new referendum to his manifesto of unicorns and rainbows where met with a compromise that instead promised to hold a referendum on whether to hold another referendum. Just what the people where asking for after three years of deadlock over the defining political event of a generation. No details though, we were to figure that all out some other time, corbyn made it clear he didn't care either way. Bizarrely, many on team Corbyn seemed genuinely surprised at labours historic defeat in 2019.

The whole antisemitism that dogged him throughout his leadership is interesting. Not least in that it is surprising that he could not get on top of it in anyway, that it seemed to just get worse and worse, no matter how many reports and inquiries he commissioned. On the backbenches he was every other week apologising for sharing a platform with some rabid antisemite at some event, he was always unaware that guy's well reported views before hand but totally opposed to them now he's been made aware. It didnt faze him then and he should have been aware that he would get called an antisemite at some point now he was leader of the opposition. He should have been prepared.

The echr report and the later ford inquiry in the leaked dossier provide most of the answers. They very clearly define just how it all snowballed out of control and is illustrative and his leadership as a whole. Corbyn is not found to be antisemitic personally. This is made clear. It was also made very clear that there were genuine complaints leveled at party members, some very high profile members, that where found to be valid. enough of them that they cannot be dismissed as politically motivated. The reports found the Labour party in breach of the equality act because of inadequate training and procedures in place dealing with complaints, political interference in the process, and harressment of people making complaints and dismissing them politcally motivated. The forde inquiry confirmed much of this, painting a picture the leaders office as from the outset Corbyn getting the job not giving any guidance to his team, on their roles, on the roles of staff from hq, on procedures, or interactions between his office and hq. Antisemitism complaints could be dealt with ultimately from a lack of leadership that Corbyn is ultimately responsible for. This all resulted in the appalling factionalism that grew from to such heights under Corbyn, from the toxic environment his lack of guidance produced. That factionalism is still blighting labour today. It compounded the problems dealing with complaints, by effectively weaponising antisemitism. Internally from all factions, and externally too. Strangely, the louder people defended corbyn the more worse it all got, dismissing all complaints false out of hand regardless of their merits was deemed to be antisemitic in and of itself. It became self fulfilling. Something that I always note when people today declare that it was all a farce.

Corbyn was never found to be personally antisemitic. It was his shit leadership and the toxic environment it produced. What damning for corbyn is that after the echr report was published he had the chance to finally draw under it all, one last attempt at leadership that was absent from most of his reign, but no. He could not manage that. He just doubled down on declaring it all a stitch up. The exact same behaviour that the report identified as being in breach of equality act. He deserved to be booted out of the labour party. He brought it on himself. His legacy is now the factionalism that calcified under his leadership and was one the primary factors in labours defeat. His supporters seem unable to move on even on the cusp of labour gaining power and finally the country can maybe start to heal after the long years of Brexit and tory rule that has brought us to our knees. Corbyn is of course a martyr brought low from the bias media, by treacherous blairites, conniving Zionists, and keir starmer himself. Heaven forbid that corbyn's own failings might have been a factor, or his supporters own behaviour now and then could be faulted.

Corbyn to me is a part and parcel of this whole dreadful era of brexit. i hope the fourth of july will finally bring it to an end. corbyn along with it. AMassiveGay (talk) 15:04, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

We have to remember; the the early polling for the 2017 election was almost the reverse of this one; 100-125 Tory majorities [which would have put Labour in the worst result since 1935] which partly was incorrect and partly 'spaffed up the wall' due to MayBot's terrible campaign. I think this was a kind of 'rush of blood to the head' to Corbyn afterwards; that while he'd proved the Nu Labour maxim that 'left-wing is unelectable' wrong, it had been against an opponent dead in the water and they were still in opposition.

And yes, I have mentioned the Brexit logjam in the 'Background' bit of the 2019 draft - that MayBot had been too blinkered, rigid and stupid to realise that 'her way' was simply not going to work, and this left the door open for Corbyn to see if he could come up with a Brexit which might have worked vs the electoral calculus in the Commons at the time. What would this have been? A form of 'soft Brexit' like Norway; which I think most of Labour would have supported, but would have required him to reach over to the LDs, SNP and renegade Tories like Ken Clarke to get through. But Corbyn simply was not that kind of politician - 'a statesman in waiting'. But [in my opinion] feeds back to my complaint earlier - that Corbyn was a campaigner, not a leader - he knew what he didn't like, but had no real idea of what he did want or how the fuck to get there.

I think the growth of a 'bunker mentality' was what finished off Corbyn. That they couldn't see the difference between 'constructive criticism' from a friend or 'hostile criticism' from a foe. Their former experience with folks like Alistair Campbell made them so 'anti-spin' they found it difficult to even consider the possibility it was not 'the spin' which was the bad thing, just the end it was being put to. That in some respects - like the later iterations of Tory party - they prefered to select folks on 'loyalty' rather than 'ability', which to some extent completely cut themselves off from the 97-10 talent pool.

I would go worse; I say Corbyn's legacy is that he 'proved' that 'socialism is unelectable' to a lot of Labourite insiders and shall be cited as such for the next 25 years. A more competent and forceful leaderhip [again, not 'less left'] from Corbyn may have still lost 2019 - Brexit had opened up unfamiliar electoral fissures - but he wouldn't have discredited the wider movement by making a new 'longest suicide note in history' [sic]. Ultimately, a huge % of 'Corbynistas' were folks who already roughtly believed what he was saying before he said it and got caught up in the euphoria of for once not being in the shitty cheap seats at the back of the Labour party. I say this as a person who was/is in this demographic - but unlike most of them, I had seen Corbyn's actions 'before he was cool' and was decidedly unimpressed by him personally.

Oh, you might get your wish, Gay - I've heard Labour internal whispers that they're rather bullish in taking Islington. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:16, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Corbyn retained his seat, though as an independent (not by choice, mind your).

However, it raises an interesting counterfactual question: What would the “lesson of history” had been, had the “chicken coup” or one of the other shenanigans engineered by the Labour right succeeded in ousting Corbyn prior to the 2019 election, leaving some tepid, Labour right leader in charge?

My guess is that, considering the apparently substantial drop in turnout in the 2024 election, Labour’s performance in a 2019 setting without a candidate that energised substantial parts of the base (which Corbyn clearly did) would have been even worse.

Nevertheless, I’m cynical enough to believe that, had the Labour right, rather than Corbyn, been in charge of the post Brexit blowout, the story wouldn’t have been that the Labour right was “unelectable” (after all, no pundits seem to draw such lessons when “moderates” lose to right (wing) parties).

Instead, I suspect that even a more catastrophic Labour performance than the one we actually got under Corbyn would be (not unjustly) put down to the rather unique circumstances of Brexit, but the “Corbynistas” would probably also be blamed for “fracturing the party” and for “scaring away the voters” (as is the standard refrain in the US when “moderate” Democrats lose to the GOP). ScepticWombat (talk) 04:06, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

I think you're right. In this 2019 counterfactual, I think they would blame the combination of 'the left' scaring people away and elitist sneering that 'the masses' have been tricked by Bozo the Clown in regards to his Brexit promises. But as I've said before, I believe that Third Way 'managerialism' has caused the populism by being condesending, aloof and enthralled with their map/territory issue regarding stuff like the economy. And they're still fucking at it; Blair's 'roadmap' for Starmer is the same old crap - managerialism, technocratic solutions and [the new bit] pandering to Frank Gammon on anything socio-cultural in scape [No more woke! More flags! Lock 'em up! Hard on immigrants! etc]. I mean, do we really need a 'more tough' policing and prison system, or one that simply fucking worked better so [for example] if repeat shoplifters have more than a 0.7% chance of actually ending up with a conviction?

I generally agree with the FT article which makes the case that Starmer is perhaps 'the last chance for centrism' in the UK; if Labour falls apart, the system will end up like France is now. But I don't agree entirely with the FT; the threat is not just from 'right populism', but 'left populism' too; the 'unnamed Labour veteran' who says "The real danger is not the hard left but the soft left demanding more spending or other bad ideas"... what are you saying? That Starmer has to stick rigidly to Third Way? If you do, the 'real danger' is that the Labour candcastle is washed away in 2028 because you stubbornly went through with more Austerity, ignored inquality, put the needs of business over people and spent your term timidly taking social advice from GB News. It's times like this which makes me want to yell 'remember who your fucking friends are'. Starmer needs to remember the lesson of Ramsay Macdonald; that chasing for the [unobtainable] halo of being 'the natural party of government' and for head-pats from a Tory establishment and a rightist capitalist elite will destroy you sooner than later. KarmaPolice (talk) 14:32, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I can’t say I disagree. As to the last example, I’d say this exemplifies what some have dubbed “extreme centrism” (and yes, they’ve used Macron as one of the examples). This is an ideology that fetishises “centrism” to an extreme degree and thus sees any deviation from whatever “centrist” dogma as “dangerous extremism/populism”. Note that this definition of “centrism” tends to be somewhere on the neoliberal/neoconservative centre/centre-right as it was in the late 1990s/early 2000s.

What is more worrying is that proponents of this kind of “extreme centrism” find it difficult to distinguish between the degree and extent of the, frankly, societal threats from the left and the right; not only casting what was once mainstream social democratic ideas as somewhere to the left of Mao, but also conflating the suggestions for economic changes by the (far) left with the authoritarian, if not outright fascist, proposals for remoulding society into an authoritarian ethnostate by the (far) right, as being equally dangerous and preposterous.

What should also be considered in the British case, is that if Starmer fails to at least give an impression that he’s trying to reform the economy and/or providing some sense of meaningful progress, but is simply seen as continuing austerity in some different guise, he’ll essentially kill off that crucial topic, economic policy, as a campaign issue in the next UK election. This then means that the Tories are much more likely to be able to run and win on their batshit culture war issues, because these could energise their base, whereas Labour’s is likely to be dejected and disappointed, if Starmer fails to give the impression of meaningful reform and/or progress. ScepticWombat (talk) 14:22, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

As for (not) remembering who your friends are, that’s (depressingly) also a rerun of the (Bill) Clinton, then Blair playbook of “strategically antagonising” traditional allies to show how much “The New Democrats/New Labour” has changed.

The depressing thing about this is that the experience of both (Bill) Clinton and Blair showed that they at most received grudging and brief toleration by the right (wing) forces they courted, then were mercilessly attacked once the mainstream right had gotten their shit back together. The difference between the US and UK was that the GOP was a lot quicker in making their comeback than the Tories.

Then we can add the equally moronic examples of Obama and Biden who also seems to think that there’s some magic to “bipartisanship” that outweighs actually getting things done. And not least Obama essentially pissing away the “moment of change” after the financial meltdown by mainly tinkering a bit around edges, thus undercutting any chance the Democrats had to ride the popular revulsion and anger stemming from the crisis to carry through real reforms, thus leaving the field wide open for a sham “populist” like Trump. ScepticWombat (talk) 14:38, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Is left populism a danger though? "Populism" has always been a term used to attack the left. The fall of the Soviet Union has moved the Overton window, and as I understand it, all European parties on the left went through the economic positions of the Third Way. The Tony Blairs, Gerhard Schröders, François Hollands, Michel Rocards, Pierre Mendès France, Helmut Schmidts, George Clemenceaus, Friedrich Eberts, Emmanuel Macrons, Olaf Scholzs, and Keir Starmers have always been closer to liberalism than to the rest of the reformist left, they do not believe in protectionism and social struggle. The solution for the left is to separate, and replace the traditional parties, leading the left behind a line of rupture with the established order. A "left populism" would be beneficial in order to fight the right populism used by the far-right. Left-right spectrum is an observable reality, and politically as well as economically the right faction of the Socialist parties of Europe is closer to the right-wing than to the left-wing. New world (talk) 14:45, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

It is to Third Way orthodoxy. That is 'the only way be can be elected is by not spilling the middle-class centrist's drink by proposing change'. This was why Corbyn's fans were so pleased with the 2017 result [despite losing] - by Third Way logic, they should have been utterly crushed electorally [vice-versa can be said about 2024; that 'Third Way' won on a really shitty % of the vote and got less in numbers]. Problem is [as you note] that this is purely based on the 'you have nowhere else to go' philosophy which I suspect is close to becoming very unstuck in the UK. Anyway, who fucking cares of some drink-spilling if it's to stop the folks in the lower decks of the ship from drowning and to repair the massive rip in the hull?

Anyway, the issue is [at least in the UK] is that Third Way don't loathe 'populism' per se - just the bits from the left. Blair, after all has told Starmer to lean into right-populist social talking points - not refute them or at least 'drill down into them and neutralise the causes' of them. Similar can be said of economic needs; that almost without fail, New Labour took capitals side in arguments vs labour, for example in housing [support; NIMBYs, landlords and big homebuilders, against decent building regs, social housing and long-term planning]. Even real 'technocrats' wouldn't be like this; at least they would try to really govern 'for the national interest', not in a almost pathetically desperate attempt to pander to people who will knife you the moment they get the chance to? KarmaPolice (talk) 16:15, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Indeed, my point was that I find the “radical centrists’” balance fallacy, equating the left and right “extremes” to be absolutely untenable. Sure, the left in, say, France may want some things that might not be great in terms of macroeconomics, but that’s not at all in the same league as parties openly peddling the Great Replacement conspiracy theory as justification for creating an authoritarian ethnostate.

That “extreme centrists” are nevertheless willing to engage in such absurd rhetoric shows that they aren’t actually that serious about stopping the extreme right, because the flip side is that “extreme centrists” are also willing to incorporate right wing style culture war bullshit to stay in power and “protect the centre”. The “extreme centrists” are thus willing to accommodate the extreme right to some extent, as part of their triangulation and thus legitimate the culture war in a way they hardly ever accommodate any part of the leftist ideas. ScepticWombat (talk) 16:41, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Therefore it's less a 'balance fallacy' and more 'simply hating anyone remotely more left/progressive than they are'. Hearing Blair now makes me have a bit of a soft spot for Brown when in 2010 he got caught in a 'hot mic' calling that Faragist woman 'a bigot'. At least he had the balls to call it out, even if it was only done in what he thought was private. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:46, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I’d say it’s still a balance fallacy, even if it’s insincerely employed as mere rhetorical device.

As for the “no spilled drinks” perspective, it’s important to realise that a key point in this type of “centrist extremism” is something that, uncharitably if not inaccurately, can be termed “moderate social Darwinism”.

Because key believers in “radical centrism” tend to have a sort of Panglossian view that the late 1990s/early 2000s style of neoliberal society actually represented as close to an ideal, meritocratic society as we’re likely to get, they tend to see economic deprivation mainly as the result of individual “bad choices”, though with some marginal allowances for inopportune circumstances.

These “bad choices” tend to be framed in terms of getting a “good education” and those who fail to do so get very little sympathy from “radical centrists”, as this is viewed as a failure to grasp the reasonably equal opportunities that the supposedly meritocratic society offers everyone.

While “radical centrists” might not be willing to let people starve, they view it as entirely natural that those without a certain educational pedigree are not able to live a particularly comfortable life, as this is seen as the result of not “meriting” a secure (middle class) life, which, by contrast, is seen as the just reward for individual (educational) achievement.

This kind of thinking is exhaustively treated in its US Democratic context in Thomas Frank’s Listen, Liberal (2016) and as he pointed out, the only allowance this view grants in terms of educational problems is that the educational sector not meritocratic enough, hence why the adherents are very enamoured of scholarship and (token) diversity programmes etc., but they are generally unconcerned with those who “fail to make the cut”. ScepticWombat (talk) 19:12, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I wouldn't say they're centrists - they're conservatives. They're simply less odious 'Boss Hogg' types [see below discussion] who end up voting for fascists as long as they pass the tone fallacy, aren't visibly evil and the opposition is threatening their nest in any way. Their parents were the 'White Moderate' that Dr King bitched about, the ones who would nod and smile but then do fuck all about anything. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:57, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I've also finished redoing the 2019 United Kingdom general election rebuild. I think I've done the best to find something which can be judged as 'observable reality'. Yes, it was much longer than I had wished - but those two years really were turbulent [2024 will be rather fat too, due to it covering Covid, Johnson, Truss and Farage]. Thanks for the those who helped me 'get my mind in order' on this. KarmaPolice (talk) 22:13, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree that “small c conservatism” is probably the closest pre existing ideology to “radical centrism”, but I’d pose that there are some important differences.

Whereas “modern” conservatism of the post WWII era tended to have some pragmatic strain and realised that it needed to “change to preserve”, what I call “radical centrists” don’t seem to possess this insight or flexibility.

In that sense, “radical centrists” seem more like outright reactionaries, analogous to the kind of ancien régime adherents who first tried to ignore the French Revolution, then tried to turn the clock back and pretend it didn’t happen and that the Humpty Dumpty of their imagined pre revolutionary salad days could be put back together.

For that matter, I don’t consider either the GOP or the Tories to be particularly conservative either, given that both parties seem bent on radical changes to society and are willing to cut through any number of traditions and historical precedents in achieving this. “Radical reactionaries” might be one term for them, given that some clearly idealise the Gilded Age/Victorian Britain, but that seems like an oversimplification to me, given they’re actually not simply trying to turn back the clock.

By contrast, the “radical centrists” generally do seem to want to simply reset the calendar to somewhere between the late 1990s and early 2000s. ScepticWombat (talk) 23:53, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I think you raise a good point; why aren't these people 'conseratives'? After all, they are supporters of the status quo and said status quo is an ideology which was born in the era of flares, huge hair and 8-track tapes [ie the 70s]? We in the UK might call these folks 'Blatcherites'; ie folks who take the social liberalism of Blair but the economic conservatism of Thatcher.

My theory is this; that in the USA, these people should have moved into the conservative camp in the 2000s but found little welcome from the previous iteration of 'conservatism' who were still hell-bent in fighting the lost 'culture wars' of the 70s/80s [women's lib, gay rights, contraception etc - shout out to Pat Buchanan c1992]. This meant that to some extent they were a key 'swing voter' in this period; having to decide whether the Republican retrograde social policies or the Democrat progressive economic policies was the 'bigger evil' [so they are 'pragmatic' in this respect]. And those 'conservatives' never let them in, shouting 'RINO' at them and generally regarding them as 'the enemy'. To develop my 'Boss Hogg' argument from below, part of this loathing is personal, because the 'radical centre' types are the ones who have done well in the current era, while their general feeling is one of either 'decline' or 'threat'.

A lot of what is called 'conservative' in America now is utterly reactionary - just see the spews of the hate-blog which is CP and their savior KenBot. Like most reactionary ideologies, it has it's own shades of opinion and partly due to their own self-imposed ignorance of actual history have a kind of mash-up of bits of various historical periods as their mythologised past they'd like to return to. Thus, the term 'conservative' has become increasingly toxic over time, a trend which has acccelerated after the MAGA-cult appeared on the scene.

No wonder our 'status quo'ers' don't want to be called conservative and don't think of themselves as them either. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:20, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

The "Social-liberalism" of Blair and the "Economic conservatism" of Thatcher is what many call "liberalism". In the UK and US perhaps not, but it's not unusual to see centrists with the (moderate) right-wing. What even is the "centre"? If the right is "the party of order" for the conservation of traditional society - often hierarchical and "meritocratic" in theory - slowly accepting new realities, while the left is the "party of movement" that supports progressivism and social change - which are often motivated by the desire for more political, economical and social equality - then (neo-)liberal "centrism" is on the right. New world (talk) 20:25, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

French Nazis Front National wins Election

Interesting times. Marine Le Pen is now in charge of the largest party in France. Will she take the jackboots out of her closet to start kicking out everyone from petty crooks to just random people trying to make an honest living? Or will she pull a Georgia Meloni/Geert Wilders where she's all talk but ultimately acts as a moderate on migration? CorruptUser 01:34, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Uhm, don’t you think that we should wait until the election is actually over (i.e. after the second round) to call it? Anyway, the main outcome of “cohabitation” will likely be that Macron continues his “de facto rule by decree”, which, bizarrely, will allow Le Pen to position herself as the defender of democracy. If anything, she’ll have no choice but to “melonise”, due to the political system (unless Macron tries to embrace her to reinvigorate his own dying political project).

The really big issue will the next French presidential election in 2027, which, right now, looks like a very likely Le Pen victory, as Macron can’t run again, his “reinvented centre-right” party is mostly an empty shell, both the old Gaullist and Socialist parties are essentially dead (or at least spent as meaningful, political forces), and even a united left (a popular front) contains elements (especially Melenchon) that turn large sections of the electorate off. ScepticWombat (talk) 06:38, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

This is the result of two years of focusing on the left (in its entirety, and particularly Mélenchon), and ignoring the far-right. Now LR and the Macronists seriously can't stay true to their "values" for one single time, and after years of telling us to vote Macron, Chirac, they have the ego to think they are the only reasonable solution for the country. I'm really hoping for an ungovernable assembly after the second round, honestly. It seems the left isn't really turned off by Mélenchon, instead it's just stuck at 30 percent of the population, which is absolutely shocking. What difference does it make if the left does 30 percent or 35? New world (talk) 17:14, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

This election is reminding me a bit of the 1930 German election; where both the 'left' and 'right' ate a lot of the 'centre', leaving the Germans with a 'negative majority' and requiring the Chancellor to effectively 'rule by decree' using the powers of the President.

I'll also point out for Americans that France is a multi-party system, which the far-right 'won' on 33% of the vote, which was only 5% more than the 'unified Left'. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:29, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

A BBC presenter, I think it was Owen Bennett-Jones, had the Gaul to ask a French journalist after the election as to whether members of the National Rally would be angry if other parties refused to form a coalition with them to form a government. Bongolian (talk) 18:42, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

How dare Ensemble think that the lowest unemployement since the 80's, low crime, succesfull reindustrialisation of France, increasing life expectancy, stable gini index, and excellent support during the Covid crisis, how dare they think they did a rather good job! How dare they! And of course, additional not taking responsibility by the far left for Mélenchon's failing to convince a large part of the french that he's not a problem (The "media conspiracy" against him, the large lay offs at Le Media, the anti-Ukraine positions, the regular incendiary rhetoric, the claiming of legitimacy when he reached 4rth place in last election... No no no it's not his fault...).165.225.205.21 (talk) 12:38, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Do you see this post? This is the bullshit they think about the current situation. YOU can actually win an election, it's allowed, but your favourite government is really unpopular, doesn't mean the left has the ENTIRE responsibility for the rise of the Front National. MACRON convinced people that immigration was a problem, in hopes of getting a stable electorate, MACRON literally said he had 'common values' with Mélenchon between the two rounds, MACRON told us to do the republican front, MACRON did so much undemocratic shit he convinced 40 percent of the population that the far-right was a good choice, how can you not see that he's fucking narcissistic.

This is France, not "reasonable" and neo-liberal Germany, the ministry of the interior clearly classifies LFI and Mélenchon and the PCF, as well as the socialists and the greens as "left" (while the actual communistic Trotskyists (NPA and LO) are classed as "far-left"), and the Front National is classed as "far-right". The result of your inhumane path towards Startup Nation is that the FN can now paint the nation as "in danger", not because of the far-right, but because of the "far-left", and evil Mélenchon. Who even told you Mélenchon wanted to become PM? From our perspective, he's an important figure of the left, his voice is valid, and he is a possibility. However, he isn't consensual, so he is NOT becoming PM, he was never going to. He is considered by us as an important figure of the century, how insane? You cannot say that after loosing an election, you could impose your Liberal Right agenda, you can not, you lost in the eyes of the French People. The FN was first, the Popular Front second. Your president took functions on 2017, not before that, and since 2017, the only thing which has been "improved" are the pension funds. He destroyed the code du travail, he got opposition from the yellow vests, his handling of Covid was bordering pseudo-science, he had to back down because of the war in Ukraine, and now he lost the election. Macron is gone, even the macronists don't want him. Enough Mélenchonbashing, half of what you say isn't even true, but it's probably not worth arguing. The far-right wants to take power on this country. New world (talk) 16:56, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Ensemble got 3rd place... After the RN and a coalition of left parties that are as stable as NUPES was. " inhumane path towards Startup Nation" As we all know, supporting innovation is inhuman. "He destroyed the code du travail" No, he did not. "he got opposition from the yellow vest" Yes, those guys were as much far left as far right, and, ya know, it was a para-military militia that blocked the human right of free movement in France because... an increase of a few cents in the price of gas."his handling of Covid was bordering pseudo-science" wtf no, lockdowns were the recommended procedure (though started too late, agreed) and he made vaccinations near-mandatory as soon as they were available. " he had to back down because of the war in Ukraine" ?? Back down from what? "he lost the election" True that! Anyways, you can fact check everything I've said about Mélenchon, claims of "harcélèment médiatique de principe", the financial difficulties of Le Media and its condemnation for the firing of Denis Robert, I have already provided sources for its anti-Ukrainian positions, and for the incendiary rhetoric, yourself said he had some "hot takes". Yep, the problem with Macron imho is more that he thought that they could neglect pedagogy, propaganda, because the results would speak for themselves. The same mistake Jospin did. Far right propaganda, boosted by Russia and China, was stronger. By the way, one of the first act of Macron, in 2018, was increasing the budget of immigraiton, asile and intégration, with the objective to house 86% of asilum seekers in 2020. So no, he didn't pretend that "immigraiton was a problem"...165.225.205.21 (talk) 08:50, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

At least we agree to fight the far-right, boosted by Russian propaganda, at all costs. But, you do realise that Macron can't just tell people, in a country where the system is NOT fundamentally neoliberal, that HIS idea of France NEEDS to be achieved until the end. His idea of France, and yours, have not managed to impose themselves, there is a time when you have to accept you lost, in a country were you are just as anti-system and populist as the other two extremes (remember the notion of "extreme centre"). Mélenchon is not father Le Pen, or even daughter Le Pen. Did you ever watch just a small bit of Cnews? tell me that is equally dangerous to Mélenchon verbally aggressing Alain Duhamel because of a word too much. Macron did immigration law, called the ENTIRE left "immigrationist", his minister Castex OPENLY REFUSED to close schools when covid started, on the pseudo-science, he wanted to ignore popular discontent and continue his reforms, only Covid, first, then the war in Ukraine stoped him on his journey. Macron is worse than all these lying "centrist" politicians, he is equally extreme, and equally unpopular, to Le Pen and Mélenchon. Honestly, this is partially Macron's fault. If he wouldn't have come in 2017, we would still be voting socialist or republican. But damn, ARE YOU THIS DISCONNECTED? A FEW CENTS? Really??? Macron did bullshit all along his presidency, I agree he was still an average lying "moderate" and "modern" liberal in 2017–2019, but damn, now its just unbelievable you can support him. He (and Le Pen) has a cult of personality on an entirely different level than the "cult of personality" of Mélenchon. His entire "macronist" alliance is founded on his person as president, it's about to break away. Macron was previously not very different from other politicians on foreign relations, it's just after his failed negotiations with Russia that he radicalised (the comments on troops are supported by NO party, except his alliance). He wants a "Europe of defence" but led by France, he continuously declares his "independence" (as if) from the USA. Jospin was actually popular, and the left should have united in 2002, it would have won. Mélenchon was still a socialist, remember? The socialist party was arguing, just 20 years before, in 1981, for the public property of most of the means of production, for the abolition of NATO, etc. If Mélenchon proposed any of those things today, he would be an objective eco-terrorist, right? Macron lost because of Macron, his politics are unpopular, his own electorate largely hates him, he does not understand democracy, more and more politicians are arguing for a 6th republic. (The 6th republic of Mélenchon would, as a reminder, not benefit Mélenchon, but the neoliberals, as it does in Germany, Spain, Italy etc. Macron's positions on institutions show he is not an honest politician, he is an opportunist). Remember retirement, in 2019, Macron was agreeing to QUIT, in 2023 he decided that he was so correct about the economy that it had to happen (when some of those eco-terrorist black bloc left-wing pseudo-economists said the system would be stable until 2070). Those pseudo-economists that also supported Mélenchon's program, the NUPES program, and the NFP program, those people. How can you say Macron is 'progressive' on anything really, Immigration law in 2023 proved he was not, and his various comments about various different issues show his strategy of getting a centre-right electorate only radicalised the centre-right electorate. He surely convinced people immigration was a problem, but he didn't expect those people to think he "doesn't do enough". The result: People who know the far-right is the FAR-RIGHT, can tell you, in a totally normal way, that we "haven't tried it in France yet". People, people who are not nazis, who consider the far-right to be the far-right, vote the far-right, because we "have not tried yet". New world (talk) 11:15, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Is paragraphing banned or something? KarmaPolice (talk) 15:14, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

I have sympathy for New World, if I'm translating right. I do think there is an actual Nazi front in europe, but I don't think it's very far from the right wing Nazis in America. I hope this is a condemnation. Calling people Nazis has a long online history, but xenophobia and creating racial communities is Nazi shit. You don't have to call yourself a Nazi to say 'politics should put people who don't care about our culture in camps'. Like, okay, Dune. They can't divide us if nobody walks in step. Torrent (talk) 08:36, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks? I don't understand a word you're saying. But yes, these people are nazis is what I meant to say indirectly, they openly vote for what they themselves call extreme-right. The comments about "not tried yet" are real comments, you can hear them, it's desolating. 40 % of people vote for these people. However, it's not openly racist, the voter base of Le Pen's party (10 to 15 %) is openly racist, they are having a "communitaurist" vote (the word is often used wrongly to describe anti-racist votes by immigration communities who don't reject the republic, but with these people it fits). One thing to remember is that France is a political nation, not an ethnic nation, and to me, the United States of America have a responsibility in this wave of brown. France's institutions are most often staunchly humanist and universalist, and while sometimes universalism gets mixed with "assimilation" by the far-right, the Front National is still anti-republican on these issues. They disrespect laicity by pointing out "Christian roots", they want to end the right of ground, which exists since the 16th century, and replace it with a "right of blood", they have royalist tendencies etc. Le Pen's party didn't "moderate", it's vocabulary on "national identity", and especially Great Replacement bullshit, is part of a strategy created during the time of father Le Pen, and this has not changed with daughter Le Pen. These people can't accept France's social republican model, they need uncertainty, and a widely unpopular government like Macron has helped them. Other things which helped them is the media empire of their supporter Bolloré. New world (talk) 11:38, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

The Popular Front is first! Far-right second THIRD! Time to do compromises, mister Macron. Your bourgeois polls used by the dominant class have not manipulated the people! The impossible is possible. New world (talk) 18:05, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Mélenchonists will say that they're not far left, and then use this kind of rhetoric and conspiracy theories... Look, *this* is why you're not getting votes from a larger part of the electorate.165.225.205.21 (talk) 10:30, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Isn't it so nice to so bluntly dismiss something without bothering to go into detail why it should be rejected? Carthage (talk) 14:49, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

I thought it was obvious. Rhetoric : "bourgeois", "dominant class", "manipulate the people" are far left terms. Nobody outside of marxist circles uses bourgeois anymore. Conspiracy theories : polls are "bourgeois" or "dominant class" and part of a conspiracy to "manipulate the people".79.81.224.156 (talk) 19:02, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Wow. Today I learned only radical leftists think that governments manipulate people and societies can have dominant classes.-Flandres (talk) 19:39, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

"Bourgeois" is a common term in (French) academia, and Marxist analysis does not have to be extremist. Left extremism is characterised as anti-republican, and often advocates for violent action. Marxist analysis is an important part of socialist tradition, and the reformist left can continue to use it. What disqualifies Marxist analysis of society according to you? New world (talk) 19:52, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Flandres, bad faith, I'm not going to answer that. New World, "Bourgeois" is an exclusively far left term in (French) politics. Again, only marxists use the term. Maybe I should have made myself clearer. And far left is wider than violent left extremism.79.81.224.156 (talk) 20:24, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

How is that bad faith? I may have worded it in a sarcastic way but I just pointed out the obvious absurdity of your argument. "Has a better argument than you" =/= "bad faith."-Flandres (talk) 20:33, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

The far-left does not respect the republic and its underlying principles, often, but not always, arguing for violent action. Currently, the term bourgeois is associated with the far-left, however since we're not on a TV plateaux, how about we constructively argument about this question? It's common association with the far-left - which exists independently from those terms and is founded on various traditions (including orthodox Marxism) - does not make it far-left. New world (talk) 21:22, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Flandres, I say that "bourgeois polls used by the dominant class have not manipulated the people!" is a conspiracy theory, because not only *everyone* uses polls, but also polls only show a snapshot of what people think, and finally they accurately predicted the first round, the second round being harder to do, what with candidates retracting or not. I, of course, perfectly agree that governements can manipulate masses and society have dominant classes. You're just using the conspie retort of "What, you don't think the governement lies to us about 9/11 being an inside job/moon landing/flat Earth? But of couuuurse, the governement never lies!!one!".

New World, "Currently, the term bourgeois is associated with the far-left" that's what I wanted, thank you. Upwards, you insisted that " LFI and Mélenchon and the PCF, as well as the socialists and the greens as "left" ". My point is that you, as Mélenchon and LFI does, keep using far left rhetoric that betrays the nature of their ideology. Politically, only the far left says stuff like "bourgeois polls used by the dominant class have not manipulated the people!". The far right also whines about polls (when they're losing), but uses a different rhetoric.

Look, my argument is (here) simple : LFI is not getting more vote because of its constant use of far left rhetoric and conspiracy theories. I could add that "Time to do compromises" also applies perfectly to LFI because not only the parliament is divided in 3, but the NFP is too, yet Mélenchon has been shown to not being really good at this whole compromise thing (a constant among far left groups).2A02:8429:2E9:4101:2C0D:5673:487B:F2FA (talk) 21:47, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Your argument is fallacious. That's all there really is to it. I could go more in-depth into how conflict theory is widely present in academia, but that would be pointless. Is there not a class of people who accrue their wealth through their private ownership of industry? If yes, then what does it matter what you call them? Bourgeosie? Capitalists? Barons of industry? You're nitpicking terms of art and not actually addressing substance, and you seem to be engaging in conspiracy theories yourself. Carthage (talk) 22:07, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) In the post I replied to, you didn't say " I say that "bourgeois polls used by the dominant class have manipulated the people!" is a conspiracy theory." You said "Rhetoric : "bourgeois", "dominant class", "manipulate the people" are far left terms." You either said all of these terms/phrases separately are exclusively far-left buzzwords and thus stupid conspiracy theories or worded your statement in a very incompetent way. Also, your rush to equate me with 9/11 truthers and moon landing deniers-even though you don't know me or my worldview at all-would be hilarious if it wasn't so pathetic. If you represent the average centrist I see now why your team got beaten by Mélenchon.-Flandres (talk) 22:07, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

So your argument is association of the term with the far-left, and not its meaning? Was Jaurès "betraying the nature" of his thought? No, of course he wasn't! Reformist socialism does not exclude using parts of Marxist analysis, which was theorised in the 19th century, and needs updating. The strategy of La France Insoumise is founded on an analysis of many factors, and so far, despite rejection from certain parts of the people, this strategy has made the Party of the left, and then La France Insoumise, advance from 3 % to 22 %. Reformist socialism does not exclude Marxist analysis, the entire necessity for the immediate change wanted by Mélenchon is founded on the correlation between the increasing number of the human population and the capitalist mode of production, in other words eco-socialism. Wether this change happens through reform or revolution (LFI wants to lead another citizen revolution, that is revolution through election leading to the pursuit of the general interest, founded on recent cases of citizen revolution including Tunisia, Equator, and, yes, Venezuela [as a reminder, even though Venezuela is a terrible example, under Chavez it continuously had democratic elections]) does not remove Marx's influence on current thought.

Respecting democracy and the republic does not imply that the use of Marx would be "betraying" your beliefs. Reformist socialism can cite Marx as much as it can cite Jaurès, the use of various references is necessary to give a correct analysis and defend it. Marx is an important part of socialism, though marked by the context of his time, in the same way Heinz Dieterich (the father of socialism of the 21st century) or Saint-Simon are.

Bernie Sanders too, likely isn't allergic to Marx, is he far-left? New world (talk) 22:42, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Flandres, I've said " use this kind of rhetoric and conspiracy theories...". That's two things. I even specificaly separated them afterwards when asked for clarification : there's the leftist rhetoric, and there's the conspiracy theories. "Rhetoric : "bourgeois", "dominant class", "manipulate the people" are far left terms. Nobody outside of marxist circles uses bourgeois anymore. Conspiracy theories : polls are "bourgeois" or "dominant class" and part of a conspiracy to "manipulate the people"." That's literally what I said. The idea that there was some kind of governemental conspiracy of polls to manipulate the people, is, well, a conspiracy theory. And it's written in far leftist jargon.

New World, yeah, Venezuela, exactly why a large part of french people don't want to vote in LFI and its great admirator of it Mélenchon :) "then La France Insoumise, advance from 3 % to 22 %" Overexaggeration, as often. The NFP did 22%. LFI has still only 71 seats compared to the 98 of Renaissance. Anyway, I'm not discussing the adequacy or not of Marxist analysis there, I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy of pretending not to be far left and then using far left rhetoric and conspiracy theories, and I'm saying that this is why LFI isn't getting more votes.170.85.0.105 (talk) 16:05, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

What? Your not up to date about things at all, on Macron you didn't cite much of his postcovid time either. Mélenchon did 22 % in the presidential election of 2022 (largely getting Hamon voters and abstentionists), just behind Le Pen. The New Popular Front did 25/28 %. Like it or not, even though Glucksmann had a good dynamic (the European elections don't replace the presidential and legislative ones though..), which doesn't mean much since the Socialists of Faure are closer to Melenchon than to Glucksmann ideologically, the PG then LFI advanced at every election, from meager 3 % to 22 %, excluding the score of the united left (even more). At the last european election, commentators were talking about the collapse of LFI, and yet it got 10 %, compared to 6 % in the european election in 2019. Tell someone in 2012 that the successor of PG will be the largest party on the left, he wouldn't believe you. And contrary to what you think, parts of the French people don't like Melenchon because of Hamas and affaire Quatennens. Venezuela plays a minor role in most people's minds, in 2017 he was the most popular politician in France.

As to 'far-left', I didn't say the government was directly involved in that sentence, did I? If you say it, bourgeois must be far-left. I'm sorry for being an archaic Judeo-bolchevic Islamo-leftist, please forgive me my lord. New world (talk) 16:49, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

"Rhetoric : "bourgeois", "dominant class", "manipulate the people" are far left terms. Nobody outside of marxist circles uses bourgeois anymore." If you actually read my initial answer, you would know I did not bring up "bourgeois" at all. It was your claim "dominant class" and "manipulate the people" are far-left terms, because of how obviously stupid it is to say that governments are only capable of manipulation and having dominant classes in conspiracy theory land.-Flandres (talk) 23:16, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

New World, "If you say it, bourgeois must be far-left.", no you do agree : "Currently, the term bourgeois is associated with the far-left".

"in 2017 he was the most popular politician in France. " Yet he placed 4rth in the 2017 presidential election. Legislatives 2017 showed one of the *largest electoral victory in the Vth republic*... And what did LFI said? "Il y a un problème de légitimité" - Raquel Garrido, lieutenant of Mélenchon, 2017. And yet again, here in 2024, LFI seems to be widely dismissive that 2/3 of the population did *not* vote for the NFP, and don't look at the situation like "french people are divided and we need to compromise". Pardon us evil centrists for having doubts on the democratic alignement of LFI... So yeah, far left rhetoric and conspiracy theories are exactly why LFI doesn't get more votes.165.225.205.21 (talk) 12:45, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

It's association with the far-left doesn't change it's meaning, this necessity of "accepting" the "current state of the world", EU treaties, etc. is precisely why many don't like Macron. Things can change, you know.

As to 2017, he was fourth at 19 %, just behind Fillon and Le Pen, but indeed you observed the situation correctly, he isn't president. In the legislative elections of 2017, just as the European elections this year, less than half of France voted. The current assembly has more legitimacy because of participation, precisely, than the last ones.

As to 'compromises', again, the Socialist Party clearly said no to a grand coalition. Specifically Olivier Faure said no. There needs to be a pact of non-aggression, but agreeing to govern with macronists is a horrible mistake for 2027, you scare off voters more than Mélenchon. Who is for a coalition? Hollande? I guess with the great Hollande on your side, you will lead a popular government with the French people. New world (talk) 13:58, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

RIP Democracy?

Am I reading this right? Does the POTUS have the power to just give an "official order" to have all of his political opponents executed and be immune from prosecution? MirrorIrorriM (talk) 02:44, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Pretty much - the president is now immune from anything done as "official acts", including criminal ones as I understand it (basically extending Nixon v. Fitzgerald which gave some civil immunity, but not criminal immunity) and the definition Roberts gave is wishy washy as hell. (Yes, "unofficial acts" are not immune, but what are those? The guidance is weak.)

Yet another sign that the "originalism" of the Roberts court (of which unless you are a Christian fascist has got to be the absolute worst Supreme Court in American history) is bullshit. There's no way in hell the original drafters of the Constitution would have accepted giving the executive this much power.

Now, parliamentary immunity is a thing in many countries; but usually the scope is fairly narrow. Many countries, for instance, give some protection to parliamentary members for certain elements of speech (eg immunity from defamation charges)... but members are often not immune from criminal acts. Roberts IMHO left the scope wide open... which is IMHO dangerous (as Sotomayor pointed out)... but frankly unsurprising. It's open enough to allow Trump to try to justify the 2021 U.S. coup attempt (and future coup attempts) as an "official act", it's open enough to allow him to commit Justice Department abuses pursuing "enemies" as an "official act", and it's open enough for Trump to wreck the government should he get elected. (As noted, the crook Richard Nixon would have loved this shit, he had a few "official acts" that he probably would've loved to justify that way.) BobJohnson (talk) 03:12, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

The president ordering National Guards to shoot to kill all peaceful protesters would be an official act that is not prosecutable. In principle anyone that the president orders to be assassinated in the US would never be prosecuted either. The perps who are "just following orders" would just get pardoned by the pres. Bongolian (talk) 04:39, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

So Trump really could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and get away with as long as he's President and claims it's an "offcial duty". How long until after he is sworn into office (He is just certain to win at this point) until his political opponents start Disappering, and how long until he broadens the scope and goes after everyday people like you and me? Also what is to stop Biden('s handlers) during his lame duck period to send SEAL Team 6 on Trump and his Supreme Court Lackeys and deal with him the same way they did with Bin Laden? 2001:67C:2628:647:5:0:0:172 (talk) 05:28, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

That's a fucking shortsighted way to read it. I meAn if you wanted to, you maniac. But that's the point. Who is cooling this federal power? Applesauce, why can't Biden? Because he actually can't. Torrent (talk) 06:51, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

I think the details need to be noted here; that POTUS has been given immunity when they act as POTUS. It's not carte blanche for all actions while POTUS. It has also been left to lower courts to define 'official acts as POTUS'. Nixon, for example very well might have still been on the hook for Watergate because while his orders were done while POTUS, it was not really done as POTUS [as it was relating to his 1972 re-relection bid]. You would have to find a really bent court to rule that Stormy Daniels was covered by this, for example.

Bonglian is doing a wee bit of hyberbole because POTUS already has the power to do what they outline. POTUS has the Insurrection Act, has the power to fold the National Guard into the DoD and the power to pardon murderers. Federal officials already have 'qualified immunity', which SCOTUS first made [judicial activism! Wait, it's good when done by conservatives?] and over decades has built up into a very strong rampart. What has happened to change this view is that the Guards will now be less sure that the order to fire on a crowd was an illegal order [which they are duty-bound to disobey] than before.

As well as the very important 'fuzziness' grey area BobJ points out, there is also the issue that this sets precedent which also could cover all Federal employees and politicians. Now think of the Heritage Foundations 'Project 2025' - this SCOTUS ruling could very easily be tugged over to cover all their acts, as long as they could find a tame judge with a 'yep, that's an official act!' rubber-stamp. But then there's the fact that if the individual is protected, who is to blame? The buck has to stop somewhere - not simply bounce about and then vanish behind the couch.

The main thing which worries me is not about granting the office of President a form of 'sovereign immunity' but the fact once again, SCOTUS is fucking about with terms like 'originalism', re-defining it to mean 'allows us to do shit which as conservative dominionists, we like'. The reek of 'partisanship' is becoming so strong that it's very legitimacy is starting to be seriously questioned - not just by 'the usual suspects', but more mainstream commentators too. SCOTUS had enough legitimacy to ram through Bush vs Gore in 2000 - I am worried it won't again if this upcoming election ends up in the court. Esp if it ends up being a 6/3 split and/or one side refuses to accept it. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:28, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

The main reason for the “fuzziness” is because the SCOTUS’s GOP majority wants to make sure that it is the final arbiter of what constitutes “(un)official act” so as to excuse their own partisans when convenient, but keeping open the possibility of cracking down on their political/ideological opponents when it suits them. This is yet another example of the current GOP-led judicial overreach in the US polity and completely in line with the SCOTUS gutting the Chevron deference last week. ScepticWombat (talk) 12:58, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

I cannot help but wonder what the fuck is going on inside their heads. Do they really believe that 'the oppposition' will simply roll over indefinitely as they twist all the laws to serve their partisan interests and pet projects alone? That lower courts will all jump in line to their warped precedent, however iffy their given rationale is and how scontradictory their reasoning becomes? That their legitimacy shall remain inviolate, regardless to how much of the status quo they torch? Or do they have some self-awareness that if they go too far they might jeopardise the whole rule of law? KarmaPolice (talk) 13:20, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

The "tell" they gave is the one thing the Supreme Court decided indeed was an "official act" -- that Trump can use the Department of Justice to make false claims about election fraud and try to convince states to overturn their election results. Not only is this an "official act", it can't even be introduced as evidence to support other claims made against Trump. So, yes, the whiff of partisanship is extremely strong. It's pretty clear that the conservative elements of the Roberts court is in the bag for the Republican party no matter what.

The counter to "RIP Democracy" is indeed that America as a whole is hardly in agreement with the Republican desire to make the United States into a Christian fascist nation (or even a Hungary style "illiberal democracy".) Opposition is quite strong. States and others in government have given the Supreme Court the middle finger in the past and it's very possible that this, and large amounts of other resistance, will happen again. Depending on what happens in the next several years, on the other hand, perhaps it's "RIP United States"... or at least, an acceleration of decline in world power and influence (something that has already happened, but not to the point where the USA isn't still strong in many elements). Everyone loves to reference Hitler these days, but this is actually a good example where identity-based fascism caused a severe dent to German society influence -- post World War 2, thanks to the left-leaning and Jewish German scientists being chased out of the country, the center of the science world essentially moved from Germany to the Anglosphere. German influence in Western art considerably diminished as well for similar reasons (again largely moving to the Anglosphere). Trump's not Hitler (I think -- edit: though calling for "TELEVISED MILITARY TRIBUNALS" against Liz Cheney the day after this decision, oof.), but with the Republicans of today being anti-science, anti-education, isolationist, fundamentalist, and heavily wrapped in Other demonizing based identity politics... the scope for considerable damage is certainly there. (Though the fact that America is heavily divided and not wholly in agreement with Dominionism, combined with the "time limited" tilt of MAGA, certainly helps ensure that perhaps this is not a given...) BobJohnson (talk) 13:52, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

I’d say that the GOP SCOTUS is just doing what the rest of the GOP has been doing for years: Not caring a whiff about “procedure”, “precedent” or “playing fair” (let alone nice) if it doesn’t further their political agenda. They simply don’t care whether they violate some hallowed tradition as long as they get their policy pushed through.

The major problem is that their Democratic opponents, and especially the “moderates” in charge of the party live and breathe for “procedure” and thinks that pleasing the non-existent “invisible referee” of proper procedure is as least as, if not more, important as getting anything meaningful done.

The GOP SCOTUS knows very well that their lofty pretence is a sham and that their arguments are transparently bullshit sophistry, but they don’t care as long as it allows them to reshape the country to their liking. The only brake is the kind of tactical postponement we see right now, so that controversial decisions are pushed beyond the November elections to avoid energising the Democratic base by pissing off one or more of its constituent parts (as happened when Roe v. Wade was overturned).

If their decisions elicit a counter reaction, they will deal with it if and when, and savour their victory in the meantime. The great thing is that elections matter only indirectly when you control the SCOTUS. It’s also a pretty big step to confront the SCOTUS head on, no matter how glaringly obviously partisan it is and however much it acts to curtail meaningful democracy or governance not to its liking. ScepticWombat (talk) 14:38, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Trump is already trying to use the ruling to overturn his hush money conviction, though it is a very weak argument since it was before his time in office. Regardless, the ruling is a strong signal of democracy falling apart in the US in my opinion. There was a thoughtful opinion piece from 2016 I read... my synopsis of it is that a possible reason why some people may vote for a controversial figure (to put it very mildly) such as Trump is because he seems to represent some type of real change in the current status quo, where injustices continue to be pervasive even after many years of acknowledgement. It's saddening. Impiricism (talk) 21:24, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Ah yes, makes total sense. Let's solve society's many injustices by electing a guy who promises to become a dictator and jail/disappear his political opponents. I think the premise of your article you're linking is wrong, because to the eyes of an average Trump supporter, most of society's injustices are not bugs, they're features. 2001:67C:2628:647:1:0:0:172 (talk) 21:53, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

The article I think doesn't suggest that Trump's "populist" political run is trying to be positive at all, simply that it is change in an environment that has become stagnant. I imagine that perhaps for some Americans the last few presidents both Democratic and Republican have done nothing to truly address the country's greatest injustices, and so a person like Trump who promises to upend everything could at least be... something. I'll agree that all of this could just be PIDOOMA. Impiricism (talk) 22:18, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

The best thing I can say about right-wing populists of the Trump stamp is that they can sometimes be accurate in pointing out problems and 'saying the unsayable' [such as 'the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were hugely costly failures']. But they rarely actually have any decent answers to these problems, assuming they have any intention to sort them out in the first place. And SCOTUS in itself isn't causing 'democracy' to fall apart [at least not yet] but is severely straining the principle that 'the law' is non-partisan. If they go much further, I fear this over-strain will cause a snap of confidence in SCOTUS being 'worthy of respect' and in short order, the whole judicial system will start to unzip because loads of people will stop believing it is legitimate [last year a poll said 58% 'disapproved' of how they were doing their job] and I suspect there's a lot of lower-level judges [including some Republicans] who are really not happy about the shenannigans.

Again, I point out; what would have happened in Bush v Gore if the latter had not accepted SCOTUS's ruling and many of his voters believed the court was full of Republican hacks who had deliberately ignored contrary evidence so they could anoint Bush? This hypothetical may very well become actual within a few months... KarmaPolice (talk) 22:53, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

I tend to think of Trump's "biggest fans", as far as the masses go, as the culture war addicts, evangelicals, those with cartoonish visions of masculinity, and whatnot. (Less in number but of greater importance are the ruling class types that really do indeed want authoritarian capitalism.) We've already had Trump term 1 and anyone with any memory of that time knows that essentially jack shit changed systematically; if anything, things were made worse for "the little guy". (The most notable thing regarding Trump term 1 was those big debt-inducing tax cuts for the rich). The number of "double haters" this cycle seems very high, and a loon like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is polling around 10% -- so this is where I'd place probably more of the "fuck the system" folks at this point, third party voters or those who probably won't vote at all. In 2016, sure, I think some support for Trump *was* probably from the "fuck the system" crowd. BobJohnson (talk) 02:16, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

I think that analysis is incomplete, and veering towards 'basket of deplorable' territory. I hold that Leon Trotsky was right in defining the 'key demographics' for right-wing demagogues like Trump - that it's an alliance between the 'resentful pauperised ex-favoured groups' [white working class, ruralites, elderly, skint small 'businesspeople' and folks in declining industries] and the 'scared currently favoured groups' [small/medium sized capitalists, middle-class suburbanites, well-heeled white men, small-town elites] who fear that the 'woke globalist big-city elites' plan to pauperise them too. The true picture of a MAGA-hat is more a 'Boss Hogg' type; the smug, mediocre local elite who has made a very nice nest for themselves and won't let anything change this state of affairs. And Trump appears to have been good to these people; cut their taxes, hit back on anything that smelt of 'affirmative action', disemboweled Federal regulations, upheld 'law and order' to the hilt and in effect said 'you have nothing to be ashamed of, you are on top because you're so great!' which is helps massage egos which are battered by librul concepts like white privilege or even the class system [which is horrible because it suggests you might have won the Game Of Life only because you started ahead of others].

These sorts are generally okay with the gutting of the legal system because they generally believe it's job is to back them up, not to be some form of 'neutral arbiter' of the law. Not that they see it this way, mind; in their heads 'the law being on their side' isn't some kind of peversion, but the normal state of affairs. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:15, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Well, I don't think Hillary Clinton was completely wrong on her "basket of deplorables" (if politically unwise, and a phrase I personally wouldn't use because "they are often only pawn in game of life") among Trump's "biggest fans" -- essentially, the type that go to Trump rallies, have Trump kookmobiles and otherwise plaster themselves in MAGA decor, etc. often are ones with very pronounced racism or homophobia or sexism. However, you are correct that among the full scope of Trump support, focusing on the "deplorables" is woefully incomplete. It is also way over-focused on in the American media. They don't focus enough on declinism, which is a large part of the theme of the first group, and which doesn't necessarily incorporate full-on racism/sexism/etc. That being said, there is an Other within this group even without the minorities, and it boils down to the narrative coming down from Fox News and elsewhere that Liberals Are Scary And Woke And (insert catchphrase of the week here). This propaganda has been going on for 40+ years. Thus we are at the point where people I've talked too actually fear college (as a whole) due to supposed "liberal indoctrination" (despite college's flaws, this narrative is concerning to me), and even legitimately fear places like San Francisco themselves for Reasons.

Like you pointed out, I also think the American media fails to note how much of the second group is driven by classism. Certainly some who are classist have elements of the other stuff too, but a lot of these small-time elites really hate the "white trash" too. While the racists get all the attention, I think the real heart of Trumpism is this later group. It's no wonder that so many of the "Republican elite" (big time and small time) in turn look fondly at Vladimir Putin or especially Viktor Orban. The later in fact provides the perfect template for American authoritarian capitalism: feed the "deplorables" nuggets of racism/homophobia/etc., packaged with "traditional values" wrapped in a cultural Christian cross, and then get rid of that pesky democracy and all of those dissenting media voices in favor of a stagnant corrupt anti-competitive oligarchy with a fully propagandized news structure and a fully encrusted elite segment. It's the Southern Strategy all over again, sure, but now with an authoritarian shadow, complete with defined castes (like the South actually did have in the supposed "good old days"). BobJohnson (talk) 17:30, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘The extremism and anti-democratic sentiment within the MAGA-wing of the Supreme Court should not be underestimated:

Jeffrey Toobin, lawyer/author of the forthcoming book The Pardon: Nixon, Ford and the Politics of Presidential Mercy: To understand how extraordinary the Supreme Court’s opinion in Trump v. United States is, go back to 1974. That was the last time a former president faced a realistic chance of prosecution for crimes committed while in office. The justices gave Donald Trump a degree of deference that was inconceivable for Richard M. Nixon a half-century ago – and one that no one on any side of Nixon’s legal battles even imagined.

Reader: I am in shock at the SCOTUS immunity ruling. Doesn’t this mean that as Commander in Chief, Trump could order the military to kill with impunity anyone he deems not loyal enough to him? Anyone who says anything against him? We won’t have any rights if the president can simply claim it was part of his “official” duty to kill or imprison whomever makes him mad. They have ruled he can be a dictator!
Jennifer Rubin, lawyer/columnist: You've captured the implications quite nicely.[1]

Bongolian (talk) 20:00, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Lighten the mood a bit, anyone else find it funny all the Trumpists are cheering a decision that theoretically let Biden kill Trump now with zero consequences. He has a better case to do it, too. Revolverman (talk) 08:54, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Using social media to judge sentiment is perilous, of course, but on the Reddit r/Conservative thread on this decision, while the vast majority were doing the typical politics-as-sports shuffle, celebrating the supposed "liberal tears" and Trump "victory", a few of the brighter bulbs in that subreddit recognized that this decision also opened the door for a future left-wing authoritarian as well. Alas, their voices were drowned out by the cheerleaders. So it goes. BobJohnson (talk) 16:34, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Heritage Foundation promises 'Second American Revolution', says it will be bloodless 'if the left allows it to be'.

To this, I have to say, W.T.F. Just imagine if the positions were reversed, would anyone expect 'the Right' to simply surrender peacefully? To say, 'yeah, you got us' because of a ideologically-comprimsed SCOTUS delivering a load of iffy judgements in favour of 'the left' and then managed to get in 'their person' into the White House on a platform of 'getting my enemies'? Yep, we're coming for your guns, your Bibles, to purge your home of the flag and Reagan plates and you shall meekly open your doors and show our 'KGB' where they are? Like fuck they would. Again, this reminds me of some crap some socks and idiots at this Bar in the past, the ones who state 'every LEO and armed forces member is for us' and that they'd never surrender. Even further back, this crap reminds me of the antebellum South, where they'd boast about the prowess and bravery of the 'Southern fighting gentleman' and simply could not compute that the North will fight [and fight well] if pushed hard enough. KarmaPolice (talk) 18:03, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

What this latest SCOTUS decision makes clear is that Roberts is not a brake on the rest of the whacko GOP judges at all. It has long been clear that both Thomas and Alito are totally off the rails and Barrett, What’s-His-Face and Keg Dude only bothered with the most perfunctory pretence during their confirmation to appear less like the obvious party hacks they are.

But some, and I admit I was among them, at least had some expectations that Robert’s might not be all aboard the crazy train and that he might give just a tiny fuck about the SCOTUS’s standing and outward appearance (though I see now that Balls & Strikes ran an article on this a few days ago). Not to mention that I thought that he probably wouldn’t savour the historical image and legacy of The Robert’s Court as being that of a nakedly partisan institution that threw away even the pretence of adhering to things like precedent, stare decisis, while totally giving the game away on “originalism” being nothing more than “whatever bullshit suits our purposes”.

It’s very clear now that Roberts either expects that it will be his partisan victors who’ll write the history of his court, or that he doesn’t mind being remembered as the Chief Justice who not only oversaw, but actively abetted the SCOTUS turning into an openly GOP-controlled instrument of party politics with no regard for any kind of principle of separation of powers etc. ScepticWombat (talk) 18:37, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

The one “good” thing about the absurd decision is that it well and truly removes any remaining intellectual fig leaves in the guise of the “originalist” approach to the interpretation of US law that might remain.

To claim that the US founders intended to have an immune, imperial presidency, because they were concerned about the POTUS being deterred from taking “bold action” by potential, subsequent prosecution is so patently absurd to anyone with even a passing knowledge of the subject that it can be used to throw out any future “originalist” arguments as the silly sophistry they always were. ScepticWombat (talk) 18:47, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

This proves that presidential regimes are nothing but presidential monarchies, you elect your monarch for 4 years and then he does whatever pleases him. No need to respect a program, or the representatives of the sovereign people. Every country has a ruler, republican democracies have the people as ruler, presidential monarchies have the elected president as ruler. The foundation of democratic republics, the republican principles of the enlightenment, are not respected in presidential monarchies, electing your king doesn't make it a representative democracy, if that king does not have to respect you.

The principle that defines the democratic aspect of a republic, the "sovereignty of the people" of Rousseau, which we call "representative democracy", is not respected since the elected king can ignore the representatives of the people elected in a legislative assembly. The people, unable to vote for laws themselves like in Athenian democracy, choose representatives and programs, if these aren't respected, democratic life is not respected. Out of curiosity, does the US system respect the separation between executive, legislative and judiciary powers? New world (talk) 13:06, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

There are also very few real checks on a president's power outside of election. Impeachment is an option, technically, but can you point me to any president who has ever been successfully removed from office? 2/3rds majority makes it seem almost guaranteed to fail. I would argue that the American system is obsolete, and was designed from the beginning to keep democracy in check. Better those uppity peasants know their place. It's why the decidedly less democratic Senate (which wasn't even directly elected until 1913 IIRC) has more powers than the House of Representatives, which was originally directly elected. Why should we concentrate power in a single individual who might as well be a monarch anyway? Carthage (talk) 13:19, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I think it needs to be noted that the powers of the Presidency have hugely grown since Washington's day. Over time, executive power has expanded for reasons as varied as 'the establishment of a significant standing army', 'the proliferation of Federal departments', 'the massive upswing of international diplomacy', 'expansion of Federal responsibilties' and 'the balooning of powerful non-state actors [such as corporations]'. But I will point out that there are more checks on a President than you think - for example, Federal budgets are voted through and Cabinet members have to be ratified, not simply appointed [while a British PM can simply order it so with no fightback]. KarmaPolice (talk) 13:36, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Why should we accept this expansion of powers carte blanche? Why not curtail it, or declare some things off limits to executive authority? Congress has been ceding more and more of its powers to the presidency over the years, all the way up to the power to start wars unilaterally, which is something the POTUS should not be able to do. Just because powers have expanded doesn't mean that's automatically something we should just accept without question. Carthage (talk) 15:09, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I am not an American [and so aren't as up on all the issues] but I suspect the increasing dysfunctional nature of Congress over the last decades has been an issue - a rule of thumb is that the more incapable a legislature is, the more powerful an executive becomes [qv, late Weimar Germany]. On a more particular issue, I suspect the 'why don't we cut the President down to size?' arguments run into the same problem the British arguments towards proportional representation does - that folks are normally all in favour of 'reform' right up to the point where they 'win' under the current rules and then they suddenly found lots of good things to say about the current way. For example, you have all the right-wingers yelling 'don't tread on me' and 'states rights' stuff but will suddenly fall silent when it's a Republican POTUS who's 'treading on the states rights' of the opposition. KarmaPolice (talk) 15:26, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Why not get rid of democracy entirely then?? If the far-right is winning elections in many countries, the problem is the leader of the opposition who is apparently not credible. Down with him! Long live whatever better opposition rises! If politicians can't convince, they are horrible politicians, at the same time they shouldn't give up and complain alone about how much things are going terribly without any collective actions following.

Democratic republics' constitutions are supposedly founded on unbreakable principles, reducing the chances of injustice and dysfunction on any side (though I don't know if the US also claims this, I generally don't know much about the American war of independence). The existence of a king like in the UK is, from a republican point of view, intolerable. The democratic aspect of republics is the sovereignty of the people, there is a right to strike, to protest (for or against government, everything should be possible). Democracy, under all its forms, is conflict, not rational consensus after deliberation, as some Anglo-Saxon polemists grand figures of the philosophy of liberalism want you to believe. If the government is so terrible it can't organise that conflict correctly, then the government should go, under popular pressure. Specifically, if popular will has expressed itself, there should be a referendum, and if the government loses, it calls for new elections. The reason some forces are labelled 'extreme' and excluded from other political forces, is because of necessary conventional uses. The far-right is anti-republican, it disrespects these fundamental principles. The presidential position is a function, not a person, if the person at the head of the nation can't assume the responsibility of that function, he's not good at his job. These principles need to be respected without hesitation by those who label themselves "republican", and this is why the necessary action in the US should be mass strikes and protests. The United States of America need a citizen revolution, that is a revolution through election and pacific protest, leading to a republican refoundation in the name of the general will, like it has happened in Tunisia and other countries of the Arab Spring, as well as in Equator under Rafael Correa. There needs to be a mass movement, participating in elections, and calling for a constituent assembly.

The US has two parties calling themselves "democratic" and "republican", both are undemocratic and anti-republican. The one thing United Statians could do is rise up and build something new. But that isn't happening in a country where political structures openly do not care about principles. New world (talk) 15:56, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ It feels like the fall of Rome sometimes tbh. This decline American society is facing. And America is undergoing decline, both domestically and abroad. I would compare it to the transition of the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire, but Rome remained a superpower, and expanded its power, through that transition. Carthage (talk) 06:51, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

In the American case, I don't think 'getting rid of democracy entirely' is required. Though it does need some overhauling so it 'works better'. Putting in campaign spending limits would be a good start and I'd be open to having 'split votes' for the Presidential Electoral College [like Maine and Nebraska does] and making being a 'faithless elector' illegal [might also want to write down who chooses them, lest a person *cough* Trump 2024 *cough* tried to win by getting states to appoint their own MAGA electors over the vote of the citizens]. I would also add that reforming the Senate should be fairly high on the list because it is the least democratic of the three [I would reduce their use of the 'nuclear option' from upping the threshold from 50% +1 to say, 60%] and thus doesn't have the legitimacy to overrule the 'will of the people' as expressed in the House.

In a few cases, I actually do think 'less democracy' is the answer. The appointment of judges, public prosecutors and electoral district commissions - I argue - should be taken out of the hands of politicians and put in the hands of expert bureaucrats [I cite the UK 'Electoral Commission' here; they're non-partisan experts who do the redistricting every 10-20 years. Result; few accusations about gerrymandering]. Putting in term limits for Supreme Court Justices would also be wise, organised that each Presidential term gets one SCOTUS pick [though it's possible that on occasion they might get two, if a serving SCOTUS dies in-post].

My earlier point wasn't in some belief that 'politics should be all consensual' [I argue that politicians should fight with words inside the chamber so we don't fight with weapons outside of it] but the fact that quite a lot of American politicians are hypocritical in their stances; for example conservatives only supporting elections in which they won. Democracy only works if all the major players respect the spirit of the 'rules of the game' and parties can only gain/keep the general respect of the people if they are consistant - case in point; a decent % of Americans notice that the Republicans only give a shit about the 'Federal Debt Ceiling' when it's a Democratic President - if it's 'their man' in the White House, they can't sign it off quick enough! I'm no way a conservative, but I can at least respect a conservative if they're consistent with their opinions and apply the same measuring-sticks to friend or foe. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:14, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

You bring up the fact that the POTUS has checks on their power. What do those checks matter if the POTUS is rendered immune to criminal prosecution? The latest SCOTUS decision gives the POTUS the power to order anyone assassinated who does not follow their imperial decree. There are no longer any checks on the power of the Presidency. This country needs a constitutional convention now. Carthage (talk) 09:14, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

They're not completely immune, though the holes in the definition [as I think BobJ pointed out] leave it very much a partisan weapon - a part of me wants a lame-duck Biden to commit a couple of [minor] acts to basically challenge the MAGA-Justices to create precident on 'official act' which will make it harder for them to excuse Trump without losing their very trousers of respectibility. But the truth is - which most folks have not noticed - is that this is a mere extension of the 'qualified immunity' which has increasingly been used to defend shit like outright police brutality. Anyhows, is this a legal hole that Congress could fix with a new, well-written law? KarmaPolice (talk) 09:48, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

According to Legal Eagle, an actual lawyer, there isn't, since there's no way to appeal a SCOTUS decision beyond another SCOTUS case or a constitutional amendment. Of course, given how rapidly the Court is losing legitimacy, you could always just ignore the order. There's precedent for that. Carthage (talk) 09:55, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Also, the whole "a POTUS can still be prosecuted for unofficial acts" is a nothingburger because SCOTUS doesn't even define what an "unofficial act" is. They do provide a definition of what counts as an official act, though. Core official acts (commanding the military, pardons, etc) are completely immune to prosecution, while non-core official acts still provide presumptive immunity. The "test" offered to override that presumptive immunity depends on whether or not a prosecution would unduly affect the authority of the executive branch, which is so fucking broad as to render any potential action immune even for non-core official acts. Since the command of the military is now considered a "core official act," that means a POTUS can order an assassination of a political rival or even a military coup with impunity. Of course, whether the military would obey that POTUS is a different question. While the POTUS is the commander in chief, the military is also takes their oaths very seriously. I could see an order for a military coup to be rejected by a significant portion of the brass and soldiery. Carthage (talk) 13:21, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

SCOTUS did not define 'unofficial act' because that's generally not what they do. There will need to be another case [perhaps quite a few] to nail down the definition of over time [just like they've been slowly constructing 'qualified immunity' over decades by defining on a case-by-case basis what it covers and what it doesn't]. Which is why I made the 'serious joke' that Biden in his final days should commit a few so hopefully SCOTUS would then start nailing it down [if I remember right SCOTUS can set out in their reasoning what they're thinking of as 'official' but I don't believe that is legally binding].

In short, your complaint on this bit is that American law [as an English-derivitve] has case law. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:11, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

I think you're confused here. Qualified immunity provides protection from civil suits, and it's not absolute. This new ruling provides absolute immunity to criminal prosecution. Carthage (talk) 18:30, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Hah. Why did SCOTUS build a rampart of 'protection from civil cases'? Mainly, because folks increasingly became wise that most cops barely ever faced criminal charges for their shittiness and so began to do civil ones privately. But my primary point holds true - over decades SCOTUS built that rampart through various judgements - this semi-sovereign immunity it's cooked up has no rampart yet because there's no case law for it yet [the first bit will be on Stormy Daniels]. Thus, your bitching that SCOTUS didn't write down a complete definition of 'official acts' is basically, complaining that they didn't do something that they wouldn't have done regardless of the ideological bent of the court. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:06, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘The case cited by SCOTUS was (to put it simply) about whether Nixon could be sued for civil damages, and plenty of critics have pointed out that this is wholly different from criminal liability in several ways.

The worry back then was that anyone might sue a POTUS for damages, gumming up the courts etc. By contrast, criminal prosecution already involves several thresholds that have to be crossed before a case can be brought, meaning that the worries raised in the Nixon case simply don’t apply, let alone that it is, ahem, quite unusual to “reapply” elements of civil law to criminal law in this way. ScepticWombat (talk) 20:46, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

The only thing I'm 'applying' here is explaining how legal precedent works. Feel free in substituting any other example you'd care to share on how over decades judges can build a whole welter of case law around an originally fairly vanilla/short line in a bit of legislation. KarmaPolice (talk) 20:34, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Election night...

Here's my final guesstimate for the results;

393 - Labour

180 - Conservative

35 - LD

25 - SNP

3 - Plaid

2 - Green

2 - Reform

20 - Other

Which shall give Labour a 'working majority' of ~135.

I predict turnout will be 61%.

I also predict that Galloway and Corbyn will lose by three digits or below, while Farage will win at a similar level.

KarmaPolice (talk) 20:57, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Exit poll just dropped. Projection is 410 seats for Labour. Conservatives down to 131. Crushing defeat for Sunak. --RWRW (talk) 21:02, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Exit poll:

410 - Labour

131 - Conservative

61 - LD

10 - SNP

4 - Plaid

2 - Green

13 - Reform

19 - Other

This will give Labour a 'working majority' of about 180. Almost identical to the 1997 Tory wipeout.

Ouch. Generational victories just don't last as long as they used to, do they? KarmaPolice (talk) 21:05, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I wish the Greens got more seats. And maybe they did! Just an exit poll. But here's an article I saw. Chillpilled (talk) 21:31, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Disturbing number of Reform seats, to be honest. I saw them polling at somewhere between 1-5 seats. I expected them to get more than that because I've always thought there must be 5 times more "shy Reform/UKIP/BNP" voters than there are "Shy Tories", but even then I figured ~8-10 at most. X Stickman (talk) 21:35, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

They got a lot of votes, but they seem to have stalled out at 4 seats. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 12:28, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Rip the tories? 2600:387:F:4717:0:0:0:A (talk) 21:36, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Watch for whether Sunak and any of his ministers themselves lose their seats, I guess. But I doubt their party will go away. Interestingly enough Corbyn had a poll at the last minute, showing him competitive while running as an independent. Chillpilled (talk) 21:41, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Most the Reform seats are very close calls - so it could be as low as 5. And I will argue that the continued 'Green rise' will be retarded a little with this Labour landslide; because I suspect Starmer has just gotten some ~40-50 MPs which HQ only let run because they were meant to lose [ie they're too lefty]. Labour has been throwing huge resources to 'get' Corbyn and Galloway out, and the internal Labour gossip is that they are a touch bullish of victory at both. KarmaPolice (talk) 21:45, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

On the way out Sunak has made Theresa May, Chris Grayling, Liam Booth-Smith, Hilary Cass and others into life peers. Chillpilled (talk) 22:02, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Does Sunak get another bite of that erimine-cherry once it's official he's yesterday's man?

Anyway, if you're interested in charting the 'Green rise', Chilled - might be an idea to watch 'Hertford and Stortford' - a Tory Shire which is very low Labour target, but last year their entire local council flipped to Green. I am watching [as well as my local] is 'Lowestoft' [Tory/Reform], 'Hitchin' [Tory Shire, key Labour target] 'Sheffield Hallam' [rather three-sided Tory/Labour/LD battle], 'Huntingdon' [Tory Shire with a Labour/Reform tussle] and 'Cambridgeshire South' [Tory Shire/Burb, LD target]. KarmaPolice (talk) 22:05, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Chillpilled (talk) 22:21, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Though doing a little digging the last local polling suggests Labour is going to win Hertford... this seat has been held by the Tories since 1868. KarmaPolice (talk) 22:45, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

its unfortunate that reform are predicted to win 13 seats but not entirely unexpected. so many tory held seats were/are essentially a toss up that through tactical voting and whatnot, the numbers in exit poll could as likely seen the tory number swapped with the lib dems, or the lib dem numbers swapped with reform. im hoping for the sole silver lining in reform getting seats at all - farage doesnt win clacton. its been one of the safer tory seats, so there is every chance. fingers crossed AMassiveGay (talk) 23:03, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I actually hope Farage does win Clacton, because that means he's tied to having to go to the place repeatedly for the next four years and people will get a proper scene of how shit a MP he is [that is if his prior history as an MEP is anything to go by]. Plus, do you know Clacton? It's like 20 years behind the rest of the UK. KarmaPolice (talk) 23:07, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Farage is of the wave of politicians where performance doesn't mean anything at all - the fact that The Establishment (which is "literally anyone who isn't us") don't like him is, in and of itself, a reason to support him. If Reform really is on the rise in any way, the one thing the UK can't afford to do is fall into the same traps the Democrats did with Trump; pointing out bad things he does and expecting it to change his supporter's minds. It doesn't work. X Stickman (talk) 23:12, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Except it does work more in multiparty parlimentary systems. Farage will end up with a seat and he will be expected to actually do shit in it, like surgeries, correspondence and so on - he cannot simply ignore that and continue to prance about being a media darling. Farage will get in because the Tories have completely imploded, have run the worst campaign since 2017 and the local Tory appears to be a 'backbench blockhead'. KarmaPolice (talk) 23:28, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Even this does mean I have to listen to Reform shitheads droning on and on about Brexit... LBC has one so annoying on that I want to get his broken record and slash his throat with it... KarmaPolice (talk) 23:59, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

he will absolutely love getting to ask dog shit questions every week at pmqs. his sticht has been getting more and more overtly racist lately in the interviews ive seen. the fucking frog faced gobshite will normalise that bile like never before AMassiveGay (talk) 00:11, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

If he gets selected by the Speaker to ask any - only the heads of the second and third parties get a ration of them. I am also not so sure if he will be able to normalise the fact that yes, Farage has gotten further-right since say, 2016 [hearing him peddle George Soros conspiracy theories got my eyebrows more than the 'Ukraine should quit fighting']. I am getting the feeling that a large % of Tories have simply decided to stay home, the loons have coupled with the old UKIP vote and all that we can see now is the core vote left.

One thing Reform might help with is spooking enough Labourites in the Midlands/North into realing no, we really do need to short out shit like housing, employment and the general feeling we're all folks fighting for an MRE on a sinking lifeboat. Because the best way to neutralise the Reform vote is deal with their reasonable concerns. KarmaPolice (talk) 00:26, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

In other news, Iain Duncan Smith might just survive as the Labour candidate got dumped a la Rochdale, while apparently Labour is a lot more fusty on projected Corbyn and Bristol Green wins. Robert Buckland [the ex-MP for Swindon] is also fatter than I imagined [though that's not really news...] KarmaPolice (talk) 00:35, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

The 'rise of Reform' might be exaggerated; picking a declared Northern seat [Redcar] tells me that Reform c2024 is the same [both number and %] as UKIP 2015. This would also explain the reason they're not making a huge amount of traction in 'winning seats' KarmaPolice (talk) 01:33, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

The exit poll has been revised at some point to put Labour at 405, Conservatives at 154, Lib Dems at 56, SNP at 6, and Reform at 4. Interesting revision. X Stickman (talk) 03:29, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

The most abysmal thing about this election is that Starmer and a lot of pundits will take endless victory laps to the tune of “this is how you win elections” bragging, without realising (or at least acknowledging) exactly how lucky Starmer has been.

He has essentially become the “for lack of a better choice” candidate, arriving at the fortunate conjunction of both the Tory and SNP simultaneously collapsing with Reform contributing even more to the nosedive of the former.

But I suspect that, rather than acknowledging this fortuitous setting and timing, the story will be that the only way to win elections is to run on “austerity light” AKA “serious” economic policies and similarly crib from the Tories on immigration, because “Look! Starmer won big!”.

The issue is the same as with Obama: What happens when the supposed alternative fails to deliver meaningful change? The only “benefit” I can see is that no one is apparently seeing Starmer as an actual markedly change (remember “Yes, we can!”?) candidate, meaning the disappointment will probably be markedly less than with Obama simply because hopes and expectations are a lot lower. ScepticWombat (talk) 03:37, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Well, at least the BBC’s “numbers guy” (Sir John Curtice) does present a pretty straightforward version of this “Tories’ loss, rather than Labour win” story. ScepticWombat (talk) 06:55, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

(reset) To some extent it was 'time for a change (and let's see how the other lot #### things up). Anna Livia (talk) 09:45, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

One thing that I'm not seeing a lot about is the virtual elimination of the Scottish Nationalists. Probably nobody is going to be talking about an new independence referendum for a while.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 10:10, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

I should be happy but none of these non seat-count numbers are ¬_¬. Namako (talk) 12:27, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Corbyn managed to hold onto his seat, which means Labour technically managed to lose a seat they've held onto since 1937. Nice job Starmer. ^{— Unsigned, by: 51.6.220.176 / talk}

With only 2 seats uncalled, were standing at:

412 - Labour

121 - Conservative

71 - LD

9 - SNP

7 - Sinn Fein

5 - DUP

4 - Plaid

4 - Green

4 - Reform

6 - Indp.

5 - Others

So Karma's prediction was pretty decent except for Tories doing worse and SNP getting annihilated way harder than they expected. I also enjoyed seeing the DUP lose seats. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 12:37, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Excellent night for the Liberal Democrats as well.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 12:59, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Since this was the first website I visited after getting home from work and turning on my computer, seeing the election result here marked the first time RationalWki has been an actual source of actually important news for me. Spud (talk) 13:13, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

If Labour parrot on about 'this is how to win elections', I'll respect them a lot less - Curtice is right; I would also point out that Labour has won on a very low vote-share; Kinnock lost in 1992 and Callahan in 1979 on more percentage points. All the signs I've seen is that there was a large Lib-Lab tactical vote going on, which is how they managed to gain so much more MPs on a meagre positive swing - I mean, as percentage terms - Heath got +4.4, Thatcher got +8.1, Blair got +8.8 and Cameron got +3.7. In fact, the only remotely comparable election for this is 2019, where Johnson scored victory on a paltry +1.2 [Starmer got +1.6], but the total number was 9.1 points difference. The winners in this election are Reform, the Greens and apathy. Like Corbyn in '17, a lot of this victory goes into the Tories running a really shit campaign, which is something which simply cannot be relied on again.

My guestimate was wrong because I put Reform in 9% than 14%, put the SNP decline at 15% than 25% and underestimated the level of Lib/Lab tactical voting of perhaps 33%. The first and third issues between them were killer; Labour voters propped up LDs in places like Torbay and Reform cleaved off about a third of the Tory vote, allowing them to get through the gap - and this was replicated throughout the country.

The 'Labour sandcastle' is big but weak. It's not held together by either a) a lot of charismatic front-benchers [a la 1997] or b) a firm manifesto [a la 1945]. And the thing they are going to soon crack apart with is 'Austerity Redux'. Like Kinnock has pointed out repeatedly, Reeves has 'boxed herself in' by promising to stick to Tory spending plans which have huge cuts pencilled in for next April. But she's is not a fool [I think]; she'll know a major part of the UK's 'lost decade' economically is due to austerity, and even folks like Forbes agree that 'cutting your way to growth' simply does not work [and repeating a failed medicine even worse]. It will be politically difficult too; they vaguely promised 'no more austerity' and while I think most will understand funding rises are reasonablly out of the question for now any cuts will be openly resisted by a large slice of the PLP.

The other issue for the Labour sandcastle is the resumed bleed-out from 'the left' [good thinkpiece]. Corbyn survived. HQ meddling in removing Faiza Shaheen led to Iain Duncan-Smith surviving by skin of teeth. Gaza has come back to haunt them; four 'Galloways' took down Labour MPs, came close to unseating folks like Jess Phillips and split the Labour vote to allow a Tory [!] to win Leicester East. The Green vote is worse; they are proving rather good at encouraging LDs/Labour to tactically vote for them but their own voters appear to not reciprocate this. Worst of all, the internal 'awkward squad' is a lot bigger - Starmer has perhaps ~40 MPs who weren't expected to win so they let the activists choose [ie much more left-wing] but then stole all their activists and threw them out of HQ's support-network if they objected. Couple these with perhaps ~20 from older intakes, the Co-operative Party size of ~40 and the same again from a 'Red Wall group' with Reform breathing down their necks might form a kind of 'Progressive/Socialist Caucus' of between 75-100 MPs]. I'm worried that Starmer and co will continue to tell folks like us to 'go fuck ourselves' as they have been for the last four years.

Anyway, this is a more 'accurate' final result. Some 'editing' needs to be done; for example taking into account the non-attendees/voters, while grouping them into factions which highlights the general 'ideological lines' of this parliament.

412 - 'Labour Bloc'

367 - Labour

43 - Cooperative

2 - SDLP

122 - 'Conservative Bloc'

120 - Conservative

1 - UUP

1 - Independent Unionist

73 - 'Liberal Bloc'

72 - LD

1 - Alliance

13 - 'Nationalist Bloc'

9 - SNP

4 - Plaid

11 - 'Reform Bloc'

5 - Reform

5 - DUP

1 - TUV

5 - 'Gaza Bloc'

5 - Independents

4 - Greens

Not applicable

7 - SF

3 - Speaker(s)

This means that Starmer has an 'effective working majority' of 184. Which means he's got a two-seat bigger one than Blair had in 1997.

KarmaPolice (talk) 14:46, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

On the downside Nigel Farage is now an MP. At least Galloway is out.Qwertydiy (talk) 14:48, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Galloway doesn't hold seats. He's a by-election carpetbagger. KarmaPolice (talk) 14:50, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Reform picked up one of the undecided seats, putting them at 5. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 17:47, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Corrected! In related news, who is going to be the next Tory leader? I'm saying 'Cleverly' if the membership retains/regains some sanity, 'Patel/Braverman' if they don't. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:57, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Might it not make sense to include Sinn Fein in “Nationalist bloc”? After all, quite apart from very much being (Irish) nationalists, they do have a somewhat similar agenda to the regionalists/nationalists in the SNP and Plaid Cymru (as in more independence from London with the ultimate goal of a complete split).

As for a new Tory leader, I would be surprised if perennial candidate Jeremy “No, it’s not spelled with a C” Hunt doesn’t try for it for the umpteenth time, since he’s among the few “old beast” former leadership contenders who survived the Tory massacre (albeit by the skin of his teeth). At the very least, he might be bland and innocuous enough to serve as an interim leader, until the Tories decide whether they’ll go full batshit (e.g. Badenoch/Braverman/Patel) or not. ScepticWombat (talk) 20:40, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

No, because Sinn Fein do not take their seats up in the Commons [won't swear allegence to the Crown] and the Speaker and two deputies [one Lab, one Tory] don't vote unless to break a deadlock, which is why they are both in the 'Not Applicable' category [and the magic '50% +1' number being here '321' rather than '326']

As for Tories... shit, I thought Hunt died. I suspect he might go for it but I also suspect he's too tainted by the 10-24 era. Cleverly only got to the front in the final phase. KarmaPolice (talk) 20:52, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

ive heard badenoch is a favourite. ive also heard it suggested they might try and tempt farage to join the tories to lead. we cant expect sanity when all farage has needed to do is spout some barely concealed xenophobia and uk news media were falling over themselves to fellate his ego boost his support. now there is talk of leading the conservatives. if its not farage then it will be one the tories who thought they lost there support because they were not big enough cunts and they will point to farage as proof.

meanwhile i hear ed davey is going to go over niagara falls in a barrel next week. hes not rumoured to say anything racist so no one will notice. AMassiveGay (talk) 21:03, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Ah, yes. I’d forgotten that Sinn Fein doesn’t actually take up their seats.

As for Farage as a potential Tory leader, then that scenario was already mentioned prior to the election as well. And he’s arguably not markedly ideologically different from the Badenoch et al. types on the Tory right.

Still, I doubt that the Tories will go for Farage as a leader. Not least because of his shambolic history with his on-again/off-again style of UKIP/Brexit Party/Reform Party leadership. At least the in-house Tory wingnuts can be expected to be somewhat schooled in the day-to-day running of a party, rather than always desperately trying to find their next gig. ScepticWombat (talk) 21:49, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Looking very likely that the last seat will go LibDem, since the SNP candidate conceded it (vote counts haven’t finished so it’s not certain yet). Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 23:21, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, it’s LibDem for sure. The only reason it isn’t official is basically a processing/accounting error: The list of votes cast doesn’t match up with the votes counted. It’s not that the actual result seems to be in doubt.

I was part of an election handling/ballot counting group years ago and we hit a similar problem. Fortunately, an immediate recount brought our discrepancy within the acceptable level (less than 10 votes or something on that order) so we could wrap up. By that time, I think it was around 02:00 at night and I’d been there since 08:00 in the morning, because the “shift” began an hour before the polls opened.

Then we worked all day manually checking voters against registration lists, which almost went wrong when one of the others made an error (luckily we caught it after a few votes and were able to correct it) and handing out ballots until around 20:00 when the polls closed and we could start counting. We finished the first count around midnight, which was when we were told the discrepancy between the list and the votes was too big and we had to check/count the votes again.

Not a job where you wanted to start calculating your hourly wage (you got a set fee for the day, and not a particularly large one, either) and most of the others were pensioners. But it was interesting to see the “mechanics of democracy” first hand and up close. ScepticWombat (talk) 00:48, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Farage is one of those politicians where the rules just somehow fail to apply to him. On top of that, he's been very deliberately and specifically emulating Trump - to a point where I thought it was almost cute, running off to America then coming back spouting all the same rhetoric. It's like when a kid gets their first dinosaur book and then it's nonstop dinosaur facts for weeks. He's going to just start rattling off nonsense as often as he can, he'll be receiving a massively disproportionate media platform for what he wants to say (which he will use to simultaneously claim that the mainstream media is trying to silence him), and he'll strengthen or increase his support by just talking crap. I've seen a few comments here and there stating that he'll fail to act as a proper MP and Clacton will start to dislike him after he fails to hold regular surgeries, or he'll make a fool of himself in parliament etc etc... but that won't happen. It WOULD happen to any other MP, but it won't be to him. His support has come from convincing people that The Establishment (whatever term they want to use for it at any given time) is Lying To You and/or Silencing Us. Him saying something that is criticised by any other politicians will, in and of itself, be a confirmation of his supporters beliefs. He doesn't actually have to DO anything; he just has to say "BROWN PEOPLE BAD", Starmer will say "There's no place for talk like this in British politics", and Reform voters will go "Wow look how much they're scared of him because he tells the truth, he's our man". Legit concerned for the future of politics now he's fully entrenched in it - he will drag the rhetoric down with him if he's not properly managed. The Democrats completely failed to manage what Trump did to US politics, I just hope Labour learned lessons and don't repeat the same mistakes. X Stickman (talk) 02:10, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

The main issue is that this isn't the USA. Trump was able to rise out of nothing, capture the candidacy and then make it his own. I know morons like Patel are bleating about how the election 'showed we [Tories] weren't right-wing enough' and all-but inviting Farage in, but there is/will be a decent % of the moderate end of the Tories who will be arguing that peddling conspiracy theories, culture wars shite and populist posing was part of the reason they took such a drubbing. I know some folks are saying shit like '23+14=Victory!' but that makes the assumption that all the remaining Tory voters would be happy to switch to Farage - there are quite a lot who loathe him personally [he is a massive authortarian egotist] and more who loathe what he stands for [people are starting to notice he is not the 'I'm just a Thatcherite Eurosceptic' being he was a decade ago]. Once again, I shall stick to my maxim; that alone, right-wing populists cannot get over about 30% support - they require the 'establishment Right' to drop their underwear and let them fuck them. And unlike the USA [again] the 'central office' controls much more of the party than the activists do - which means Farage is out until the Tory 'grandees' decide to give Farage the party tied-up with a bow.

Truth be told, Farage isn't going to get much more attention now he has 'MP' after his name - he has long been welcomed to almost any media outlet he wished to slither to and to nod seriously to his shitty pronouncements. Again, you forget the differences between the British and American media-scapes. I'm personally most worried about how Farage is trying to use social media to hook up with the shiteheads in the manosphere and portraying himself as an edgy candidate to Da Kids, the 'old guy who get it' [with some success, I have heard]. In this respect, Farage is similar to Corbyn or Galloway.

Farage's has had a success, yes. But not much more than in 2015. Then, they [as in UKIP] took Clacton, had a national vote-share of 12.6%. Speaking of which... UKIP 2015 vote: 3.9m. Reform 2024: 4.1m. This translates as 8.4% of the entire electorate in 2015 and 8.5% of them this time around. 2024 looks more impressive from outsiders because Reform is technically 'new' and they effectively didn't fight either 2017 or 2019. How did they win five seats, then? The fact a lot of the 'lost' voters from 2019 were Tories so disgusted with Sunak and Co they decided to sit this one out to punish them.

They are a threat, yes. One where Kinnock et al has warned Labour of - that they effectively have 'one chance' to show the 'left behinds', the 'just about managings' and the 'constantly scramblings' of the UK that yes, we can make your life better, and not in a out-of-touch, 'elitist' manner of reading reams of stats telling you the evidence of your own eyes and ears are a minority of one or simply gaslighting you. For if they don't... chances are yes, Farage will be a centre-stage threat, not one simply hanging about by the curtian. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:06, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ How much of the anti-Sunak sentiment was motivated by racism? Carthage (talk) 06:15, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I would hazard; a lot less than Americans would assume. From my own experience, while British society is riddled with Othering, the mere presence of non-pasty skin hues alone has become a relatively minor part of this. I mean, Sunak clearly wasn't a Muslim, he was born and raised here and due to class and active choices wasn't too foreign. He also went pretty far in assuring folks that 'Britain wasn't a racist country' and hating on BLM as PM [interestingly, he said he felt it had been and 'respected BLM' just three years earlier], which is always a lovely salve on the 'I'm not racist but' elderly golf-club bores who represent a lot of the Tory Party membership these days.

Personally, I suspect the only British groups who disliked Sunak for being of Indian decent was a) some of the above-mentioned 'golf-club bores', b) their lower-class gammony sibling the 'Weatherspoons bore' and c) the most demented supporters of the EDL. And even the first two would veil it in a 'well, he's not one of us' language which could in fact be more 'anti-Americanism' [Sunak is partly Americanised in habits etc] which even now, has a undercurrent in the older/traditionally-minded middle/upper classes [something surprisingly little-covered in the media]. KarmaPolice (talk) 13:20, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I wonder who will follow Sunak as leader...Badenoch? Braverman? Patel? Jenrick? No matter who loses the ghost of Tebbit wins!-Flandres (talk) 20:34, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

It all depends on who is left in the 'Tory selectorate' [ie the 121 MPs left]. We can then assume with depressingly regularity that the golf-club bores which are party leadership will then select the most right-wing candidate [however, there's a chance some of the most rabid have defected to Reform which might make the situation a little less toxic]. My money is on it ending up as 'Cleverly vs Patel'. If it's the former, Farage is out, if it's the latter, I put it evens that Farage will be the Tory leader in the 2028 election. KarmaPolice (talk) 10:29, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

The thing I’m wondering about in terms of Farage as Tory leader is this: Do the Tory grandees (and especially the MPs) think he can “bring in the punters”? This aspect is basically why the GOP establishment acceded to Trump in the first place, but I’m not sure whether Farage actually has the same pull (or if the Tory grandees think he has).

Trump quickly built a good portion of extremely loyal and extremely motivated supporters, which is gold in FPTP, but I’m not convinced that Farage can boast the same solid backing. If he can’t bank on his own version of “MAGA hats”, then there’s only two upsides for the Tory grandees in bringing him in: The good old “better inside the tent, pissing out”-argument and a bet that Farage’s ability to soak up media attention will make him a campaigning asset.

I think that the Tory grandees are wary of Farage’s rather sloppy approach for his previous parties, though, unless they can insert some kind of “chief of staff” to make sure things don’t fall apart in Farage’s narcissistic shenanigans. You could argue that BoJo posed a similar problem, but he, at least, was a lifelong Tory and a toff, which counts for a lot.

It’s one thing to elevate an unprincipled shyster like Boris, who’s nonetheless something of an insider with solid Tory credentials, to the Tory leadership, but quite another to bet the farm on someone like Farage, who is an outsider and something of an agent of chaos. The main scenario in which I see him take over is one of desperation, where the Tories continue to face problems with a fragmented vote due Reform UK (or whatever the “Farage Party” is named).

Note, though, that this should not be seen as any sort of Tory “institutional guard against extremism”, but as a fairly straightforward party insider/outsider conflict. I’m fairly certain that one of the “internal nutcases” (whom have all been mentioned above) will have a decent chance of becoming Sunak’s successor. ScepticWombat (talk) 05:15, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Like with the 'Never Trump' Republicans, I think a lot of Tories only oppose Farage for personal reasons alone, not due to significant differences of policy - why would they, when UKIP's c2010 policies became the Conservatives' by c2022? Toad's grandstanding, egotistical and authoritarian nature is going to be a major part of this; unlike Trump c2016, Farage is a known quantity. I argue this will make them more wary.

I also think some will be burned by the 'Johnson experience' - he was the first PM to be felled over personal failings rather than that of policy. I suspect most had a hope that Johnson could 'reign' while they 'ruled' in the background [not a huge leap, when you consider his indolent, vain and selfish nature which would have made him a fair ancien regime princeling] but Covid showed that like said ancien regimes, 'chumocracies' with an indolent king don't function well in a crisis [to stretch it further; Cummings was the eminence grise who mainly fell from power because the King's mistress hated him]. And Farage is even less' likely to be happy to 'reign' - and sure as fucking hell he will never serve. If he had been, he's have rejoined the Tories ages ago. This means that if he is invited into the tent, it is to give him said tent.

The Edwardian cosplayer Rees-Mogg is right in pointing out that 'not all Reform voters will automatically come to the Conservatives' - I'd extend this by suggesting that without Reform's presence the general turnout would have been significantly lower as a lot of those 4.1m teal voters would have stayed home. But the opposite applies too; that a decent % of blue voters will bolt if faced with the prospect of a Farage-led Conservatives.

The critical issue here is what said grandees come to believe is 'the reasons why we got a pasting'. Problem [for them] is that the narrative 'Farage split the vote and we weren't right-wing enough' is the easiest answer to give, because it ignores all the painful 'home truths'; the most obvious one being 'you were all fired because you were lying, gaslighting, over-promising and non-delivering shits who when not being stupid was outright malicious and you're run the place into the ground while enriching your mates'. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:47, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I've seen it suggested in more than one place that Farage might end up leading the tory party at some point, dependent on the result of the internal squabbling of the tory party post-loss. One thing I haven't seen suggested, and I don't know how likely it is but I do feel like it could happen, is that the tory party would splinter off another faction. So you'd have RefCon or whatever stupid fucking name they are almost certain to come up with led by Farage, and then... I don't know, Traditional Conservatives? Or some other name. A splinter party where the more moderate/centre/left-ish tories are just like well, fuck this and fuck you, Farage, we didn't want to leave the party but the party has clearly left us, we're taking our shit and going elsewhere. Probably try to drag people like Rory Stewart back into it, give them a senior position, that kind of thing. It's not the most likely scenario but I certainly can't see a situation in which Farage joins the tories in a leadership capacity that doesn't also result in a significant exodus of the not-completely-nuts membership. X Stickman (talk) 20:16, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I do wonder if the Tories lurch rightwards, whether one of the others would move to occupy the empty space. Ideally, I'd like to see the LDs to 'shuffle rightwards' a bit [to put them about a kind of 'classical liberal' position simiar to the Clegg era] so 'sane Tories' like Ken Clarke, Michael Heseltine, Rory Stewart etc would be happy to be in. I would then like Labour to shuffle a little leftwards [into a position of social democracy]. KarmaPolice (talk) 20:56, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Lettuces

How many lettuces will Rishi Sunak last? Anna Livia (talk) 12:13, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

1, probably, unless the party isn't prompt about it, which they might not be with so many high level casualties. Also it's nice that a Tory leadership brawl will have no immediate outside effect for a change. Namako (talk) 12:26, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

A bit of a silly trivia, but all of the recent Tory churn has resulted in Larry the cat being Chief Mouser to the Cabinet for more PMs (6) than any other Chief Mouser in UK history. BobJohnson (talk) 12:48, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Can we just let Larry run the country instead of Keir Starmer? WARNING: NOTED IDIOT Daemonspudguy^{talk page} 15:12, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I find people who talk about "oneness" ironically lack perspective

https://tinybuddha.com/blog/how-to-prevent-your-ego-from-running-your-life/

I was sorta browsing through random threads trying to find some things on self worth to help myself and I end up down meandering paths as I often do (probably not good for me knowing myself). But the above sorta caught my attention. I find that people who talk about things being interconnected seldom see how far that reaches. How much of the world we live in is built by people who don't think like them and how they wouldn't have the life they lead now if everyone was non judgmental and things like that. I mean society is sorta built on judging what is good and bad, better and worse.47.5.66.54 (talk) 04:14, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

...OK? The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 05:44, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I get OP's point. Spiritual minded people often act like they have everything figured out, but their very philosophy when practiced would prevent maintaining the industrial complexes that give them the excess resources to pursue a pet philosophy in the first place. MirrorIrorriM (talk) 10:16, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Everyone has a "pet philosophy," since we are all informed by our own individual experiences. Carthage (talk) 10:43, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Well the people who say that tend to think there is something apart from your experience that is the real you "untainted" by all that, like the article references that thing to be consciousness or something immortal, which to me sounds like nonsense.47.5.66.54 (talk) 02:53, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Reading what this IP did previously on this site, my initial instincts about this person were largely correct. No experiences IRL, looking for confirmation, facing mental unrest, confused writing. New world (talk) 19:35, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Extremely delayed request for assistance re: Jesus Myth article/s

Back in December, I found myself motivated to finally register here after a good few years appreciating the site from a respectul, lurk-y distance, because I was taken aback at how relentlessly dense and unapproachable the Jesus myth theory article was. One must imagine Sisyphus happy, as the saying goes, and I felt like I had spotted a really choice boulder at the foot of a lovely scenic hill. Unfortunately, I was then almost immediately waylaid for half a year (perhaps pre-emptively punished for my hubris by whichever unfortunate minor god has dominion over online encyclopedias, who can say?) and was unable to get to pushing.

In that time, it seems as though precisely zero people saw my optimistic little addition to the talk page there, offering to roll up my sleeves and attempt to turn the article into something that maybe a normal, casually curious layman might feasibly be able and willing to read. Don't worry, that didn't hurt my feelings or anything like that, if anything I am glad: if someone had shown up and offered feedback or assistance and I had just plain ghosted them for 7 months, I would feel like a real asshole. However, the fact remains that I am more than a little gunshy about going in completely solo in this endeavour, for a couple of reasons:

• Between Jesus myth theory, Evidence for the historical existence of Jesus Christ, and Christ myth theory, there are 24 full talk page archives of arguments between other editors, spanning many years. I have not read all of them, because I am not quite that deranged, but (and I mentioned this back in December) I am far from the first person to think that one or more of those articles needs work; it seems as though all who have taken up this quest before me have, for one reason or another, abandoned their attempts.
• Having my first actual contribution to RW be an unsanctioned, unsupervised, major overhaul of what is, I think, quite an important subject given this site's origins and purpose does not seem like necessarily a great way to go. I am confident in my ability, sure, but from an outside perspective I would certainly be wary of me, especially since said contribution would involve quite drastically reducing the overall length of the article. The last thing I want is to come off like a vandal or a zealot, especially considering the previous point.
• RW is a community, and maybe asking for help, advice, constructive criticism, etc. is a good way to start talking to people.

𒌨𒈪 ur-gig₂ / 𒌨𒉆𒉺𒇻 ur-nam-sipad 06:29, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree, those articles DO need work, they are Conspiracist nonsense. A somebody. (talk) 19:51, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Go for it. The reason people have quit halfway through, though, is because those articles require a lot of work and to do so is basically unpaid labor. It may be worth it to some, like you, but there is no point shaming people here. Everyone contributes in their own way and by their own paces. Carthage (talk) 22:16, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

French elections

The second round of the French legislative elections are happening today. The left-wing alliance (constituted from the Socialist Party, the greens, LFI [the movement of Mélenchon], the Communist Party, the centre-"left" social-liberal party Place Publique of Raphael Glucksmann [the son of the pro-CIA philosopher André Glucksmann], and the Trotskyist party NPA [-A, because it's split in two now]) has removed every one of it's candidates arrived in third place in "triangulars" (where three parties are qualified in the constituency for the second round) where the far-right could win; the presidential alliance of Macron has removed it's third place candidates in many places, but not in all; the classical right-wing party has decided to "let voters decide in their consciousness".

The left has called for "no vote to go to the far-right", the presidential alliance has various positions, including giving no vote for the far-right, a "neither-neither" (neither LFI, which they see as "outside the republican arc", neither Front National), or letting "voters decide". The right-wing (the part which didn't switch to Le Pen already) has decided to stay "independent", with some calling to fight the far-right, even by voting LFI, while others already indirectly support Le Pen by "respecting voters intelligence", and by pointing out the greater danger of the "Islamist left".

According to various experts, the Republican Front, which worked best under Jacques Chirac in 2002, where he was elected with 80 % of the vote, never really existed on the right (since most of the time the left had to vote for a right-leaning candidate), and that includes the "centre". The left has always had a disciplined republican front, though some don't want to vote for Macron's alliance again. Polls for now show a good dynamic, with the Front National slowly getting less close to an absolute majority. The left-wing alliance (New Popular Front) is at around 200 (out of 577) deputies.

If the republican front works, the left-wing and the presidential camp will have to agree on something in order to have a government, and that's difficult. With the Socialist Party becoming stronger again (in 2017 and 2022 they were replaced on the left by Mélenchon's movement, LFI), since polls show them at around 60 deputies, the disputes between the left faction and the right faction of the party will continue again, especially since more Socialist Party deputies means more social-traitors and elephants back in the game. The main "elephant" of the party who came back is François Hollande, who will most likely win a place as deputy (being the second president to be elected in parliament). Mélenchon's movement (LFI) wants the New Popular Front to win the election and get a majority alone, which could possibly happen, but polls don't suggest this. LFI is still the first party on the left according to polls, though the gap between LFI and the Socialist Party is smaller (10 deputies). The Greens want to govern with Macron, if he accepts to implement the program of the left. The communists will be sentenced to unimportance. An important thing to remember is that the three old parties would have been dead without LFI in the 2022 parliament elections. On Macron's side, the right-leaning party Horizon wants an alliance with "social-democrats" (excluding the communists and LFI), while the president's party Renaissance is vague for now. New world (talk) 11:10, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

SURPRISE! THE LEFT IS FIRST!!! (180–215 deputies) MACRON SECOND!!! (150–180) THE FAR-RIGHT IS THIRD!!!! (120-150) New world (talk) 18:03, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Mélenchon announces the application of the entirety of the program!! Is this real? New world (talk) 18:20, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Yet another case of the mainstream media political pundits blowing it again -- they've been beating the drum of "rise of the European right" rather heavily recently. No doubt there's some of that, but by the coverage of France's election, you would have thought that Le Pen had it in the bag. This isn't even a balance fallacy anymore; it's clear that so much of the "mainstream media" is still stuck in various forms of business friendly centrism (neoconservativism or neoliberalism, or Third Way) who are these days often the real cycle losers these days. (Not always - we'll give the old school centrists Labour's victory. But that was more a result of the appalling job of the last 14 years of the Tories, from the boorish Boris Johnson to the budget blow-up from the Randian lettuce). The pundits seem to have no idea how to act of late when something different comes along. They seem quite keen (often rightly so) of judging the populist right for its odorous qualities, but they seem blind to some of the factors behind exactly why such has risen. And any left movement not stuck in the 1990s seems entirely like a blind spot to them in so many cases.

(This is one problem regarding one of the cycles in American politics, the "Biden must go" pundit narrative. Now, true, it would be great if someone was found to replace a very visibly aging fossil *if* someone good can be found. But the pundit class that is blaring the loudest about this is are some of the least qualified to find a replacement. Last cycle I remember the main narrative from the pundit class was how 2022 was going to be a "red (Republican) wave". Hah!) BobJohnson (talk) 01:12, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

"son of the pro-CIA philosopher André Glucksmann" I think this should be added to the Poisoning The Well fallacy page, this is such a classic example. The leader of a party is not bad, you know, he's just the son of Bad Person, wink wink nudge. Or Fallacy by Association? So, the presidential party did not crumble, LFI still has less MPs than them, and has now to actually talk to the Socialist Party and the Greens if they want to weight.

And the rise of the far right is actually concerning, yes, they didn't reach the ability to govern yet in France due to the electoral system making extremes getting a majority very difficult, but Orban is still stable, Slovakia fell, in Germany they have a growing influence...165.225.205.21 (talk) 07:15, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

I think that one big reason why so much of the big, legacy media in the Anglosphere, and especially the UK/US, totally missed the result is lazy journalism where they extrapolated from the results in the first round and the EP elections without factoring in the very likely scenario that anti-RN forces would tactically withdraw candidates to maximise the chances of beating RN candidates. While there were some doubts as to whether Macron would work with the left on this tactic this time around, it was nevertheless a likely prospect.

However, following this process in order to attempt to predict its outcome would require continuously checking a lot of horse trading in constituencies all over France, not just parachuting a journalist in for a photo shoot in front of some Paris monument and thus very few UK/US media bothered. Not least because that kind of journalism is expensive.

Then comes the continuous, baffling “political provincialism” of UK/US foreign political reporting, which seem institutionally incapable of understanding politics that don’t run on an FPTP framework with very few political parties (i.e. one that doesn’t match the UK or US). Despite French parliamentary elections being fairly close, the addition of the runoff element has always led to horse trading and tactical withdrawals before the second round, but the journos’ (or editors’…) attitude seems to be that that’s messy and the rubes who read/listen/view the reporting probably won’t get it.

I’d argue that the best indication of this kind of “political provincialism” is when UK media keep describing results where no single political party gets an overall majority as a “hung parliament” and seeing this as a terribly ambivalent result in parallel to such an outcome in a UK general election. It’s as if the reporters have never heard of the long and totally uncontroversial traditions that many political systems have run for decades with coalition and even minority cabinets without descending into deadlock or chaos.

That said, I also think that there’s a significant “centrist” bias in a lot of the foreign correspondents’ reporting. One reason might be that a lot of the big beasts that tend to set the tone are not exactly spring chickens, not least because becoming a prestigious foreign correspondent takes time. That means that quite a few of these “tone setters” are still viewing politicians through a “good old 1980/’90s/early 2000s” lens and seem almost constitutionally incapable of understanding the frustration, anger and criticism that has grown, especially since the financial crisis.

Even more so, these kinds of tone setting, prestigious foreign correspondents tend to be well off and move mainly in rather select circles, which means that their own personal experience will overexpose them to far more of this neoliberal/neoconservative establishment blather than most people. This will make it seem to them that these attitudes are far more prevalent and incontrovertible than they actually are. Then add that this blather tends to come with the imprimatur of “policy professionals” (Beltway think tanks etc.), which tends to impress this kind of journalists a lot, and you have yet another reason why they seem totally perplexed by events that don’t fit their preconceptions. ScepticWombat (talk) 07:51, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Conspiracy theory of the day; the 'provincialism' of some of the British press was deliberate [I found the BBC coverage fine, but the details are too 'complicated' to explain in under 150 seconds alloted in a TV/radio news report]. Reasoning; they do not wish to teach their readership that 'other forms of democracy' exists apart from our current FPTP - because traditionally, FPTP favours the Conservatives [which they favour] due to the left/centre being split]. Because one of one of our main arguments against reform is that 'oh it's all too confusing to the electorate' and more infomation would break this. You see this here even within the UK; that they generally do not bother to tell their readers that Welsh/Scottish elections are held under AMS and traditionally 'metro mayors' used to use ranked-choice [but the Tories got rid of that, putting in FPTP].

You see similar in announcements like 'National Rally won the election!' - some desire to have the narrative of the 'march of the "centre right" against woke lefty-Islamists' [sic] but don't mention they only scored what was it, 33% the vote? Why do they do this? Because they want to give the impression that the entirety of Europe are in revolt against 'woke', 'immigrants', 'Muslims' and so on so they lie by ommission. I recently had a discussion which someone who's swallowed this shitty hook cited Geert Wilders 'huge victory' in the Netherlands last year, where they were under the impression they'd won a FPTP majority and had a massive surge in support.

Times like this, I love my smartphone and Wikipedia. They weren't the happiest of people when I asked how grand their victory was about 30% of the seats gained on 23% of the vote which had increased by 2%. [I also noted that the 'establishment right' had dropped their underwear to them by allowing them a major role in the goverment, which made my day a bit worse]. KarmaPolice (talk) 10:18, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

An extremely important thing to mention is that the left won the election under the electoral system used in France, while the proportional system would give the far-right a victory. Ironically, a proportional system was once introduced in 1986 by Mitterrand, in the hope of splitting the right-wing vote by benefiting the Front National of Jean-Marie Le Pen. Indeed, Mitterrand consciously promoted the Front National to become an important party, which is interesting, considering Mitterrand's past. The logic behind it was that "a few deputies for the Front National" was better than the "return of the right". It backfired, as the right won the election, and imposed a cohabitation. Despite the victory, the right-wing government abolished the proportional system. New world (talk) 15:08, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Do/should we have an article on cass?

Do/should we have an article on cass? Koafox (talk) 11:11, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I presume 'Cass Review', rather than John Cass and the educational establishments formerly named after him (part of the Anti-Slavery Renaming Project), and Cass Art (which is totally harmless). ^{— Unsigned, by: Anna Livia / talk / contribs}

Maybe, but I might would wait a little longer for more criticism of it to enter medical literature. A couple I know are these: this report, and this critical appraisal. These are technically not published in a journal however (though I assume the latter will be eventually). This is, but I found the other two more compelling at least initially (especially because they were written by entire teams rather than just one person). There are a lot of facts with the review to contend with. It's considerable Cass's systematic reviews were published in a BMJ journal, and structured by Trilby Langton, herself a "gender exploratory therapist". I was thinking about making a page on RW named "gender exploratory therapy", to lay out how this phrase seems to be used both by well-meaning psychiatrists, conversion therapists, and possibly some uncomfortable grey area between the two. It's an area of ambiguity helping nobody. Chillpilled (talk) 23:19, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

The ASRP is a catch-all term I came up with as I wrote - is there a better term?Anna Livia (talk) 23:57, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Hurricane Beryl

Happening live https://www.youtube.com/live/TSK7EHBxXow?feature=shared Torrent (talk) 05:38, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Well, this is the earliest recorded Category 5 hurricane in a calendar year, and the name "Beryl" is going to be retired without a doubt. What name do you think they'll replace it with in 2030? TheEternalOutsider (talk) 15:05, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm not really here to predict 2030, I do remember Sailor Moon, and the naming convention of hurricanes goes boy/girl/boy/girl alphabetically. So the question is how many hurricanes, before 2030. Hurricane Jacques? 2030 is impossible yo guess. Beryl is a very pretty name for a girl, and it was category 1. Torrent (talk) 09:33, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

What year is this?

uk general election, done dusted in a month. snap french elections done in even less.

what year of the current cycle is the US pres elections currently in? AMassiveGay (talk) 13:57, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Same year. Voting day is Nov 5th. Thus all the palaver over 'replace Biden'; they've got about 5 weeks [before the Convention on 19th Aug] to get it over and done with.

It's also why some commentators said Sunak was stupid to call our election in July; if he'd waited until Oct chances are Farage would have been found shining Trump's shoes and stritting around in MAGA safe-space rallies rather than touring Clacton. KarmaPolice (talk) 14:16, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

The UK election occurred on American Independence Day (July 4) and the US election will occur on Guy Fawkes Night (November 5). Make of that what you will. Anna Livia (talk) 18:41, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

First Millennial Saint

I just came across this NPR article about the Catholic Church getting their first millennial saint. God people in this world are insane. The "healing miracles" ascribed to this 15 year old Italian kid who died in 2006 are dubious... and they exhumed his body to put it up on display for the faithful to gawk at? How the fuck is any of this still a thing?

Read the RW Saint article too after, and of course the cherry on top is likely financial fraud by the church with funds donated for the canonization process. Bullshit like this makes my mind swing back to the opinion that the species is doomed, and good riddance as well! Impiricism (talk) 17:55, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, your average Christian is a credulous moron, news at 11. If it's any consolation, Christianity is slowly withering in the developed world.-Flandres (talk) 18:23, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

I personally think canonisation is simply one of those things which the Catholic Chruch should really stop doing. I'm a bit hazy on the theology, but this case is an example of real 'fast tracking' - traditionally, a possible-saint was expected to have been dead for a century and need to go through three 'sub-saint' stages first. If this Salon article is right, the rot really set in during John Paul II, esp. regarding Mother Theresa's fast tracking [which I think the RW article notes jumped steps like the lack of a 'devil's advocate' to argue against canonisation]. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:35, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

See, in monotheism there are good guys and bad guys, and everybody else. A human who is declared a saint is a lot more sensible than fallen angels (Christ. & Isl.) and evil Jinn (Isl.). If one argues that religious people acquire unnatural ontologies because they are mentally deficient, Catholics might appear more capable than many others. The Pope believes in Climate change, the big bang, that evolution is not inconsistent with Creation, etc. The Hadith is full of supernatural critters. Nobody gives a damn. Delusion and indifference are relevant, and not at all the same. The Catholic Church is ostensibly one of the less delusional of the Christian sects or denominations ( and there are something like 45,000). Islam is Deterministic with a capital D. Islamic literature occasionally expresses the idea that the believer is protected from death by their Fate. This is not what we would call Cartesian.UncleKrampus (talk) 21:29, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

The saint shtick is part of the glue that holds the Catholic Church together. While it often seems monolithic, it's really a collection of diverse sects (Jesuits, Maronites, different secret societies, different sub-churches in communion). It's the very definition of 'catholic' ("including a wide variety of things"). Create a saint for a community, and they have something near them to relate to, pray to, and adhere to. Bongolian (talk) 04:58, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Its genuinely hilarious how even the slightest objectivity in looking at the RCC's rules and dogma shows how unbelievably self serving all these rules are, like how where the RCC presents saints more like minor gods, with all the rites of honoring a minor god, but in a convenient Monotheistic package. Even simpler ones, like how in Lent Olive oil is fine, but butter is sending you right to hell (So better pay those inflated prices!) Revolverman (talk) 09:32, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I always thought you had to die to become a Catholic saint. TWo miracles then transubstantiate or some shit, you can't just be alive and be a saint. Torrent (talk) 09:46, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

No rules are broken here. Torrent (talk) 10:28, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

My point about 'this is something the Church should stop doing' was in reference to being fast tracked and the sheer numbers. Lookie here - traditionally, each pope beatified between zero and ten. The proliferation started under Pius XI [1922-1939] - but at least he had the decency to pick long-dead people, while Pius XII [1939-1958] generally stuck with folks from the early 19th. As I said before, the rot truly set in under John-Paul II, and while his two successors have reigned it somewhat back it's still a lot higher than before WW1.

Let's ask the question; has modern people become more saintly? Have more miracles happened recently? Or are the Church being increasingly lax with their criteria? Now, on the other hand it can be argued that the Catholic popuation has balooned over time [~120m in 1800, ~266m in 1900, ~1.1b in 2000] and media/communication technology is allowing more miracles being recorded and transmitted back to the Curia for evaluation. My theory is this; that like with the creation of peerages in the UK, the Catholic Chruch is devaluing the meaning of 'sainthood' by rushing things through too quick and too ready to attribute miracles to make it so. I'm okay with the 'first steps' towards canonisation, because to be declared 'Servant of God' or even 'Venerable' doesn't require miracles, merely enough evidence they were in short 'exemplars' in word/deed which it would be good for other Catholics to follow. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:13, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Your question "Have more miracles happened recently?" seems to carry a pretty bizarre assumption. That is "miracles happen" - presumably as a result of intervention by a god. Which needs another assumption "Gods exist".

If think you really need to start with the question "Have any miracles ever happened", before you go on the "have they become more frequent?".Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 14:35, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I will first say, I've never been Catholic. But rushing nonsense towards nonsense? Who cares? why do the silly rules about sainthood mean anything? Anybody who is rushing to accept a new Catholic saint is probably either nutso bonkers Catholic, or fed up with their own version of Christianity and looking for a MORE magical version, which I actually think is better than the nationalist Christianity of mainstream Evangelicalism. God and saints OUGHT to be performing miracles in the face of people proselytizing a convenient 'might by numbers makes right' kinda Christianity. Catholicism at least as writ doesn't let somebody hold a Bible and claim ownership of the religion. Not saying it's real or convincing, just saying if you're gonna believe in magic, at least expect practitioners to know the magic words. Torrent (talk) 11:50, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Catholicism isn't better than "nationalist Christianity", Catholicism is responsible for the suffering of countless people in the world, just because their priests have actual degrees doesn't make them any better than some nutjob preaching about the end times in New York City. A somebody. (talk) 15:04, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

What you're describing is more 'pentecostal' than 'evangelical'. I also suspect you don't really don't watch any fantasy or sci-fi, then? Or play say, RPG games? You don't 'set an internal narrative' and then blow holes in it - and the general consensus within the Catholic Church appears to be that pentecostalism is basically, heretical [or at least dancing on the edge of it]. I would cite the example of demonic possession. Now, the Catholic Church accepts the possibility of this, but basically asks all the 'mundane' causes to be eliminated first and then demands a 'diagnosis' which is actually rather strict. Pentecostal fundies - like Derek Prince - skip this. Everything is fucking demons. And I mean everything. They walk amongst us, man [If you can get hold of a free pdf of his 'They Shall Expel Demons' I suggest you do, because it's a hoot]. He makes a fig-leaf of 'get medical views first' and similar but that's hard to square with his 'diagnosis' of [for example] a 'promiscuous woman' being possessed by a demon of lust or of descriptions of people being possessed by demons coming out of speakers.

From a purely sociological POV, I can see what the Catholic Church is trying to do. They cannot discount the possibility of say, divine intervention [for obs reasons] but they cannot have a religion based around God [and saints] becoming wish-machines for every single fucking thing, however mundane, stupid or even harmful it is. You can see this thinking in some of the idiocies of the Religious Right - who needs medical science when we can simply pray for Timmy's cancer to go away? Why worry about global warming when the Lord will simply put a stop to it? In debt? Don't worry, 'the Lord will provide'! This means the 'faith' is directly tied to visible performances - which means it can rapidly fall apart when it doesn't happen. In theological terms, Catholics [and other mainline Christians] also get very worried that it's a religion basically built around emotionialism, groupthink, supernaturalism, the charisma of individuals and the desire/need for material changes - not actual faith or knowledge of scripture.

Thus the Catholic's somewhat twinkly-eyed 'well, it just might happen' fence-sitting which grants the possibility of such things happening but generally excludes the probability of it [and it being overt even lower]. Thus it covers their arse re: non-performing of miracles and grants a level of credibility to believers who have a modicum of scepticism/intelligence. Stuffing the ranks with tons of dubious miricle-wielding saints isn't really helping here. KarmaPolice (talk) 13:03, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

if saints arent doing miracles any more, then maybe the catholics arent so holy after all. im not going to church every sunday, confessing that i had a wank watching he-man, to be absolved of sin by a paedophile if none of them can show the pope has still got a direct line upstairs and can dial up some divine intervention once in a while. would it hurt to have a few more saints here and there who can deal with little stuff? that are more current and can appeal to someone on instagram? the pope got loads of important stuff to do i know, thats why you delegate. get a youtuber who witnessed a vision of the holy mary. nothing to showy. just a run of the mill curing of an illness. dont even need to be anything too serious like cancer or something. a minor ailment. genital warts maybe. i got a dodgy back in need of a miracle. i mean honestly, i cant find any position that i lie down in without discomfort. not asking for much, but it would be nice to think that not wearing condoms and going to church on a sunday might have some benefits i dont have to be dead to appreciate. for all the good it does me, i might as well be CofE. i might give one of those churchs that play with snakes or speak in tongues. they cut out the middle the man and get straight to the laying on of hands, no need for praying to a saint to put a word in for the little people, especially one that dont do miracles. if im gonna believe in bullshit, im going to believe the most batshit crazy bullshit out there. i want stigmata. i want curing of incurable disease. i want the occasional shower of blood, or frogs, or locusts etc. some nomark who was super pious and super boring with not even a hint of a vision or christ appearing on a slice of toast associated with them? try harder popey AMassiveGay (talk) 15:19, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

How about a shower of face-bearing toast? KarmaPolice (talk) 16:24, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

The Church has both enabled and facilitated a lot of horrific shit. I would not be sad to see them go. Carthage (talk) 16:54, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

You know what? I fully agree with @AMassiveGay. And of course I agree with @Carthage. The only thing left to say is Try harder God. Torrent (talk) 04:13, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Enshittification Beyond the Internet

Here's a bit of background I had noticed. So today, while I was window shopping for a brief moment at Target, I had noticed a few random aisles containing stuff meant for young children. But what I also noticed within those aisles was a few licensed products branded with content farm channels from YouTube, which regularly produce clickbait and misinformation that fools young children into clicking to reap the advertising revenue. This is concerning for reasons, since their influence has spread beyond the Internet. Target has had a poor track record with some of their inventory for many years, but is it worse than ten years ago to count as enshittification? And have you noticed any things getting worse in some places in real life yourself? TheEternalOutsider (talk) 03:11, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

To put it simply, have you noticed instances of enshittification outside of the Internet affecting your daily life? TheEternalOutsider (talk) 03:18, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

If you don't know what Cambridge Analytica was I recommend reading about it then reading about AI tools + social media algorithms, and putting two and two together. The Internet is just going to be used to divide people with increasing targeting and intensity. For both profit and geopolitical gain there are actors interested in making this happen. "Russian bots/trolls" was patty-cake (though decently demonstrative of what sort of thing is to come) compared to what's next and many people even failed that test. In my view one of the most important broad issues is learning to resist this general picture and keep people connected to each other in real life away from these tricks. Unfortunately internet has grown to be SRS BSNS. Chillpilled (talk) 04:25, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Do MAGA hats count? Carthage (talk) 06:03, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Don't know if this counts either: I was driving in Canada, and I saw a car in front of me with a bumper sticker on the back that read "OUT OF A JOB? BUY MORE FOREIGN!". This was in a relatively liberal area btw. 45.130.81.23 (talk) 06:12, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

I actually encountered a liberal kookmobile once. Carthage (talk) 06:21, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Saw a geezer with a Bitchute hat in a store talking crazy shit at the clerk. Saw a LessWrong t-shirt being worn by dude in another store. Saw another guy wearing a Roko's basilisk t-shirt in the same store but different time as the Bitchut geezer. Bongolian (talk) 07:11, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

like ten years ago I ran into a guy with a 'who is John Galt?' T shirt. I was told by someone about 3 years ago that a dude was wearing 'Maverick' gear. I paid 5 dollars extra for my license plate to not be the awful template and say 'support the arts' with a beautiful stippled Midwest sunset. My extra 5 dollars went to old district signage. The shittery is how the base slate was decided. I agree when we wear something like a Tommy Hilfiger, we are walking billboards. I don't think taking personal ownership is necessarily a bad thing. I do think it's cheesy and cringe to think your entire personality can be summed up in a t-shirt. Torrent (talk) 08:29, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

If there's one good thing about this crap, it's a signal for who to avoid. Carthage (talk) 08:33, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

I have band t-shirts and sports team jackets and, well, fuck me, I wore a Montreal Canadiens beanie/toque on the fourth. It was kinda funny to wear on the fourth because everyone was like 'this guy's got the red white and blue spirit!' and I'm like 'Suzuki has to carry that team Off the ground.' It's a Canadian hockey team and it's a piece of clothing that I own. I don't own t-shirts of bands I've never seen. But I mean, if somebody is gonna wear an In Utero shirt, it's cool album art even if the connection is different. I think it's also worth avoiding the people who wanna run them down. And I am guilty of this. I was talking with a guy at work about some indie music shit back in like 2009. Another guy came in wearing a Pink Floyd 'Dark Side of the Moon' t-shirt. The kinda guy who hears a Warren Zevon song for the first time and shouts 'this sounds just like that Kid Rock song!' (Happened). Guy I was talking to was flustered, said 'Name two Pink Floyd songs' and the guy went pale. I said 'hold on, give him a chance, name the band from your shirt'. He was still deer in headlights, I said 'It's okay to look at your shirt.' AND HE DID, he looked at his own shirt. No answer. He just thought it looked cool, WHICH IS ALSO TRUE, who am I, the boss of cool t-shirts? I didn't handle it well, because the situation was hilarious, but I was also mean. I don't even like Pink Floyd. Torrent (talk) 09:13, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

'Never wear or consume any merch that you don't know the source of' is one of those nuggets of 'wisdom' I've passed on to the next generation. I once had 'you' question my Manics shirt and my reply was 'Mr Carbohydrate', said because it was the first single 'B-side' I could recall. They didn't know it. *smirks*

Anyway, I will point out that 'tie-in products' are nothing new; in the 50s American shows like 'Howdy Doody' had merch and I believe the first British example was Dr Who in the early 60s. Band tees were apparently invented either by Elvis or the Beatles and do I need to mention the fact Elvis was in a load of fairly shit films mainly to advertise his music or the 1980s cartoons like He-Man which was explicitly designed to advertise the toys? I recall the growth of video game merch in the 1990s - there's a photo of kid-Karma in an undisclosed location who's wearing a Sonic & Knuckles shirt and I loved the tie-in 'choose your own adventure' books.

Not for the first time, I'm gonna say 'nothing new under the sun' on this. YT has 'come of age', it's a respected medium in it's own right. I've seen YT content which I would say was of high enough quality 'for TV' and there's now channels which have larger audiences than TV channels. I cite Sturgeon's law here [90% of everything is crap], I was tricked so often by 'analogue clickbait' such as TV adverts, headlines, shop displays and stuff in the back in magazines. Did you know that back in the 50s/60s, there was some British parents who had banned the watching of ITV because it had advertising in it? You are aware that the YT creators need to live on something, right?

With my sociological hat on, I will extend Torrent's point/example - stuff like branding, logos and so on are 'modern tribal markers'. Political ideology. Hobbies. Income level. Lifestyle views. Backstory. Even personality type. This is something kids/teens know explicitly; it's why they constantly bitch for certain stuff - they know their 'tribe' and want the markers so they can mix with their fellows. Media utilise this all the time; a subtle example was in King of the Hill episode 'It's not easy being Green' where they put the environmentalist teacher in a Brown Uni sweatshirt - thus marking him as a Ivy League grad and a possible 'librul' without whacking you over the head with it. Another Judge creation; Bill Lumbergh in Office Space - his Porshe plate is 'MY PRSHE', marking him instantly as a at least a bit of a bellend.

I prized my tie-dye Nirvana shirt as a greasy teen because it was an authentic early-90s, limited-edition throwback - something very hard to get hold of in the UK pre-internet. Why? Partly because I genuinely liked it, but the fact it wasn't something you could just buy out of the back of Kerrang or from Camden Market bought me what we called then 'cool points' [though not aloud, because to voice it instantly made you very sad]. Even opting out of this firmly is a sign of your 'tribe', like the bloke I know who de-brands everything he owns and even turns inside-out plastic bags so the company/shop logo is not visible. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:37, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

I still encounter Chick tracts in the wild, most recently at a gas station in very rural Virginia in the last year. Last week someone left a doom-and-gloom millennialist card on my car when I was at a doctor's appointment. There was a prominent kookmobile occasionally seen near here but it's been missing (raptured?) for a few years now. I haven't seen any bullshit youtube meme nonsense around here yet. —cosmikdebris ^talk stalk 15:53, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm currently on vacation in the New Brunswick / Nova Scotia / Newfoundland portion of Canada. I've actually seen a WTF on my adventures, one house sporting a Confederate flag. The thing is, it's like one house out of a zillion others, most of which have few "tribe" signifiers except for a Canadian flag and maybe a few other things local to the area. (Very possibly my mileage might vary in Alberta. :) ) Support of the "tolerance tribe" (Pride flags etc.) certainly is higher than "back in the South", where there's too much MAGA tribal stuff (though hardly universal and IMHO down in intensity from 2016).

Without knowing specific information about this product in question, I'm like, *shrug*? "Back in the days of youth" I certainly bought "merchandise" of "niche shit" I liked for kind of the purpose that KP pointed out, in part because you like it, in part because it allows for you to connect with others that like your same "niche shit". This stuff I imagine is far likely to live on in YouTube; in my day it was cable, but cable television has been post-enshitification for a long time, and is not *quite* the place to go these days for more niche programming (well, usually). BobJohnson (talk) 22:48, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Yeah if one travels around the Prairie provinces (Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba), especially in the small rural cities and town, reactionary and far-right icons become more present; "Fuck Trudeau" stickers are also quite common. Confederate flags, MAGA merch, I've even seen a Knights Templar flag flying above a house. Alberta, which hosted a sold-out Tucker Carlson show, is often described as the Texas of Canada. Saskatchewan is Florida. Not too sure what Manitoba would be most equivalent to. Most of the people sporting the offensive icons tend to be older and will still be polite when met no matter who you are, though I have also observed some overt racism and sexism. Impiricism (talk) 15:14, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Maybe a little bit? I'd say there definitely is a concern with internet trends and its merchandise which is rapidly developed to bring in profit, due to the often short lifecycle of the former. With more young kids getting access to the internet compared to a decade ago, corporations have been following trends and memes much more closely to capitalize on potential product development. I think the amount of production that occurs to have a product that may ultimately just end up in a landfill (due to the trend dying) is terrible, and there should perhaps be some measures in place to mitigate it; that said, it can get difficult to determine what is just a trend and what isn't. Impiricism (talk) 18:45, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

I have a T-Shirt that says (if you turn your head) "Amazing to see how many idiots turn their head to read this shit". No Joke. Forgot what was on the second one... Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 12:02, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

cool? When I was in my freshman year of high school I had a shirt that said 'Never Underestimate the Power of Stupid People in Large Groups," I'm 14 and this is deep, and my English teacher was like 'that's IT, next book is To Kill a Mockingbird'. I never wore a phrase t-shirt again, it was the Most accurate/least punk validation I've ever received. Torrent (talk) 03:51, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Far-right attacking David Gerard and RationalWiki

Diana Fleischman, Richard Hanania and Emil Kirkegaard and other far-right idiots from the Aporia Magazine are currently spamming around this article [2] that attacks David Gerard and RationalWiki. Substack seems to be the new hosting ground where anonymous users can write long libel pieces about living people. The person that wrote this article is a Mormon loon. I don't know if anyone has any background on this Mormon lunatic but I would be interested in knowing why he has such as vendetta against RationalWiki. Johns (talk) 18:43, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

His own page has some details about himself, including an uncensored photo of himself (towards the bottom), pseudonyms and personal life (furry, gay married).[3] According to that page, he was at the second Manifest conference under a pseudonym. Bongolian (talk) 19:19, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Interesting, thanks for the info. It's probably worth creating an individual article for Manifest. I suspect that this guy is an ex-Wikipedia user, he seems to have a personal grudge against Gerard. Johns (talk) 19:55, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Anatoly Karlin is also linking to the article and adding his invective commentary attacking Gerard as a "troll" and "harasser". Rather two-faced of him since he was trying to be Gerard's friend a few months back to unblock his account by email if I am not mistaken. 134.209.181.229 (talk) 21:23, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

This reminds me of a Medium blog series I saw about Wikipedia and Gamergate: I can only read so much before I start to wonder who the audience is. I'm copyediting JKR's page here which has some of the same problems going on too verbosely about Twitter slapfights. I've thought we should have an article or section somewhere explaining what sites like Substack and Medium are, and how they're blog sites that make it less clear than older platforms like Blogspot or WordPress might have. Chillpilled (talk) 20:22, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Now that tome stretched by ability to do speed reading [so I accept I might have missed something] but I didn't read any attack on RW itself. All it really said that 'the accused' made some snarky mainspace edits on topics they didn't like. The 'worst' charge is that said accused expressed two differing opinions on HuffPost [RW editor vs WP admin] which I would argue shows that the accuser does not seem to understand the possibility that they were writing under different hats in different contexts. The WP persona was disussing general reliability of HuffPost and they said 'perfectly normal NewsOrg' [ie generally reliable]. Then their RW persona points out a time where they got caught by Poe's Law. I've been around long enough to know that 'perfectly normal NewsOrgs' occasionally get caught out by parodists [just like sometimes they get tricked by fakeries]. Now, there's a discussion to be had whether it should be in RW's article but that's irrelevant in the case - which is if there is some form of contradiction between the two personas. Which I clearly argue 'there is not'.

All the rest is either an attack on the individual or possibly on WP. Nothing to do with us.

Therefore, m'luds I formally submit in the case of TracingWoodGrains vs RationalWiki a defence of 'no case to answer'.KarmaPolice (talk) 20:44, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

I remember having the impression our HuffPost page was outdated. A lot of what they used to be was, ironically enough, a blog host for basically anyone left leaning. They still host a lot of trash from that period, but in recent years I get the impression they improved. Chillpilled (talk) 20:58, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Quite a lot of our pages are. As I think you pointed out before, we simply lack the bandwidth to cover all of this. This is one of those times where I wonder whether it might be wiser to [for example] nuke most of the shortish media pages, roll them into one big media page and give each entry a couple of lines for a description, try to rate their accuracy and bias, note any particular 'fame/infamy points' and leave it at that. KarmaPolice (talk) 21:16, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

This would also be a method RW can cover 'blogging-type' of outlets, like Medium, Substack and so on. KarmaPolice (talk) 21:19, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure compiling them in one page like that is a good idea. Also I think that was GJK who said that to you, not me, although it's correct. Chillpilled (talk) 21:24, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Why? It's a semi-regular thing on RW when we are aware of our coverage on a topic is let's say 'uneven'. I shall cite the President of the United States article as a good example of what I'm thinking of. KarmaPolice (talk) 22:45, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Well it's fine for these big blogging platforms, we could stick them in social media in their own section maybe. But for actual news orgs it's maybe nice to have more info than a couple lines in some long compilation less people will bother with. Chillpilled (talk) 08:44, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

I point back to the POTUS example; that the entries which we do have quite a bit to say about their entry has the 'link to main article and short précis' entry while the ones we don't just have the latter. I'm not advocating the removal of decent, on-mission articles on news orgs [say, the Daily Mail, more rounding up the semi-stubs and putting them together. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:35, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

To me, this article reads as an attack on Wikipedia more than Rationalwiki, and it tries to discredit Wikipedia via a excessively, EXCESSIVELY LONG, throw-shit-at-wall-and-see-what sticks argumentum ad hominem on a single mod. (As if there is only one mod at Wikipedia.) I didn't even finish the article, basically it sounds like someone's butthurt that their attempts to push bad edits onto Wikipedia were reverted, so they complained about anything they could think about (even who cares elements or even cool things that this poster apparently hates). A waste of Internet electrons if I ever saw one. BobJohnson (talk) 23:03, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

I started to read it, but after a while the hyper-detailed axe-grinding got too boring.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 13:32, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Musk's X or Trump's Truth Social

Both men are really hated and controversial. Though who has the better social Media site? ^{— Unsigned, by: Socialmediauser / talk / contribs}

X.com (not the game!, which was fabulous back in the day and still passable now) has a lot more people on it and no obvious fascist leanings (yet)Aloysius the Gaul (talk) 03:53, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Musk bought something which came with a big wide crowd of people, and though reputation and popularity seem to have declined, it's still far from decaying to a state as bad as Trump's site, which started from scratch and only attracted Trumpists. On the software side, Trump's site uses a variation of Mastodon with some features removed, Musk's X uses a technically somewhat bungled development of Twitter. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 21:03, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

It's obvious that Trump's thing is worse. But I'm reluctant to use the word "better" when referring to what Musk is doing.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 06:35, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

The idea of "still passable" is false. Dorsey's operation of Twitter rather awful in my view. It very naively with no safety mechanism, basically a magnet for trolls and Nazis (the latter of which didn't even exist in Dorsey's view). The safety mechanism was reluctantly implemented contrary to Dorsey's own free-speech absolutist ideology and was never very adequate. Musk sacked virtually the whole safety team almost immediately. The result from the beginning has been if one is anonymously posting about cats or something innocuous, one might never see the sewer below. Essay:Reflections on reporting Twitter Nazis Bongolian (talk) 15:15, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

It's not passable to me or you, but it's passable to a large number of people. Quite many don't really care as long as other people they're chatting with, or even just want to vicariously hang out with, are in the same place, and there's no bullying thrust into their faces personally, and there's not some technical problems making it too painful to use. "Passable" is a very low bar for a lot of people. Though portions of users have left already, for which the bar was higher. -ApooftGnegiol (talk) 21:26, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Above IP

@Christopher, So, the above IP is a sockpuppet of User:Machina? New world (talk) 15:28, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, suspicious from that post alone, but quite obvious when looking at the BoN's edit history. It's a rare exception of a 3-week block for a BoN, which should be escalated to 3-months if the existential dread postings persist after that. Bongolian (talk) 20:23, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Looking at the user contributions, @Machina seems to be banned only from editing the Saloon Bar. Why not ask the user himself? He should be able to edit outside of this page. New world (talk) 20:59, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Machina can offer a defense on RationalWiki talk:All things in moderation Bongolian (talk) 06:36, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Can someone open a ticket? Am on phone and it's really shit for stuff like that. KarmaPolice (talk) 09:48, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

I like Machina. Y'all are posting while living your lives? I am so glad I never accepted a moderator position. Machine is a solipsist, that is not actually harmful. A lot of young people go solipsism or simulation, and I think it would be useful to them to hear takes that they couldn't invent. Torrent (talk) 09:54, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Trump rally shooting

Idk if im gonna witnes a shinzo abe 2.0 soon.

Edit: not sure if gunshot so far the sound is described as popping. 2600:387:F:4710:0:0:0:6 (talk) 22:39, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Elevating fascist politicians to martyrs is a terrible idea. New world (talk) 23:18, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

To all of you who think this was a good idea: one audience member was killed and another was critically injured. MayGodSaveUsAll (talk) 23:42, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

cough cough r/politics 2600:387:F:4710:0:0:0:6 (talk) 23:45, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

I have a bad feeling that this will be the American Reichstag Fire moment, where the right uses this as an excuse to turn the US into a police state. Not to mention this almost certainly solidified his chances of winning. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 00:01, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

This is exactly what I thought. Now the MAGA movement is going to be out for blood at this rate. The base is absolutely going to use this as “The Deep State” hellbent on stopping him. Patty Pat 01:30, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

The only way this hurts Trump is that people are no longer paying attention to Biden's flubs. Things are NOT looking good for the Dems this November; Biden really needs to step aside ASAP. CorruptUser 02:44, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

His big ass ego is not letting him and trump knows this by calling him an "old broken down pile of crap" to troll him. 2600:387:F:4710:0:0:0:6 (talk)

I don't think its an ego so much as Biden genuinely does not know how terrible he is. CorruptUser 03:54, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Thomas Matthew Crooks, the dead perp was a registered Republican,[4] but that won't stop MAGA cult members from blaming Biden/BLM/Antifa/Nancy/Hillary… There is a history of autocrats surviving assassination attempts (Berlusconi was shot once; Mussolini survived several assassination attempts). It feeds into their sense of victimhood and invincibility. Never mind that the orange ogre has been calling for violence since 2015, expect him to make the most of this one. Bongolian (talk) 06:44, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

This might very well be the moment that wins Trump the election, no matter what the Democrats do. Trump now not only has his martyr story served on a silver platter, he also has an obvious justification for all of his authoritarian Project 2025 ideas, and the Democrats now have practically no chance to make the election about Trump’s ideas and not his person. Fuck. ScepticWombat (talk) 07:14, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Oh, and I’m pretty sure the Biden cabal will try to spin this as a reason not to introduce further “chaos” into the race by switching out Biden, so that door might well also be closing now. ScepticWombat (talk) 07:15, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

It's certainly a gift for Trump. That photo of him with blood running down his face, with his fist in the air and the American flag in the background couldn't have been better if he had posed for it.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 07:28, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Trump is going to be presented as a martyr by his followers, and protected by God given the way the assassination attempt failed. Mark my words. Panzerfaust (talk) 07:47, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Latest conspiracy news (Swedish edition, the stuff my mom reads on Facebook). This was all the start signal, and now Operation Storm will unfold Very Very Soon (but no time table, nothing definite). Martial law is hereby in place globally, the entire financial system will shortly be replaced by Quantum Financial System (QFS) bringing justice to finance, the Khazar mafia responsible for everything bad in the world will be defeated, all the energy needs of all the world will be filled by Tesla free energy brought out of suppression at last, and all the news media all over the world will be replaced by military transmissions Busting Wide Open all the terrible goings-on in the world that are now brought right. Very Very Soon, but no date and no time. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 08:15, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Social media is shit, Ric Romero reports (for all you old fart Farkers out there). Also, the Republican media spin cycle certainly protects their geriatric candidate better than the Democrat media spin cycle does. (Regardless, we are at a point where, when it comes to presidential politics, both sides have their ~40% base and -- so far -- no story has changed that.)

I'm going to wait a few news spin cycles to comment further. In another Ric Romero statement, United States politics tends to be a wee bit more violent than the politics of most developed nations. And yes, this gives Trump a "martyr" motif, but the real question is: does this "motif" actually change any minds? BobJohnson (talk) 09:11, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

The martyr thing isn’t gonna change minds, but it doesn’t have to because that’s not what this election is about. This election is about which candidate can get their base to turn up to the election booths. One side is depressed and demoralized at the prospect of voting for a senile old fool who's bad on Gaza and has seemingly already lost. The other side is angry about the state of the country and are now eager to vote for the someone they see as a badass who just took a bullet for them. Which side do you think is a winning electoral coalition? Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 11:09, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

You don't think the liberal side is *not* angry about the state of the country? You must have not seen all the chatter about Project 2025 of late (as well as the lingering folks pissed off that Roe v. Wade was appealed). All that mainstream media pissing and moaning about Israel / Gaza and Biden's age has resulted in FiveThirtyEight's electoral vote forecast to be, er, roughly tied... like it has been since mid-May (and only slightly down since early May when 538 started the poll).

In addition, the United States is not a monarchy (yet). There are Congressional elections, state elections, and local elections. Yes, it seems like half the electorate in the United States doesn't give a shit about this stuff... that civic failure is a conversation for another day. But Trump v. Biden is not the only thing going on. BobJohnson (talk) 14:54, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Oh the Dems are mad about the state of the country too, no doubt, but that’s hardly useful when the incumbent is a Democrat. A lot of Dems might stay home because of it. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 17:16, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

This very well may not have much of an effect; the Orange One was perhaps hit in the 'best' bit if the body regarding damage, blood loss etc - if they overplay this 'I'm sooo bwave!' thing (qv; Musk's comment earlier) it might put the backs up of a non-zero number of voters.

But there's one bit I want to deal with. I am aware of some comments (not here, elsewhere) that this was 'a setup' or something. I don't believe it is on the simple reason that a situation like this is hard too pull off and Trump is a coward personally. The Secret Service also wouldn't have gone along with this either. KarmaPolice (talk) 09:46, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

It also argues against a setup that the shooter being killed was an extremely likely outcome, no matter what happened to Trump, and I think that would make it pretty difficult to recruit a shooter who was “in on the game”.

A “serious but duped” shooter, on the other hand, would not be something that Trump would dare (as mentioned, he’s the classic coward bully), and I doubt he would even risk a “sympathetic shooter” scenario either.

Not to mention the obvious fact that things were already going his way in the campaign and there was thus no need for such risky, conspiratorial shenanigans. ScepticWombat (talk) 10:54, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

I wouldn't trust a Navy SEAL sniper to "only" graze my ear with a bullet while I'm talking and moving around, let alone some random kid who looks like one of the Hapsburgs. CorruptUser 11:59, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

When Raygun was shot it won him 49 out of 50 states. I'm calling it right now. It's Joever. Carthage (talk) 12:47, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

4 more years! 4 more years!

In the long run, I really really REALLY hope the Dems have a lot of introspection as to why they lost 2024, and not just blame it on the failed assassination attempt. Stop giving us candidates that belong in a nursing home. Actually focus on the issues the vast majority of the public wants; affordable healthcare and housing, stable employment. Stop doing things which only piss off the general public; entering into new wars hasn't made a party popular since 2002, you aren't going to win any voters through invasions. CorruptUser 14:08, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Trump I feel is more a figure-head symptom of a bigger problem in the US, of almost half of Americans desiring, apathetic to, or maybe just plain ignorant of the country sliding into Fascism. Even if Trump were to die at this point, I'm not sure it would change the course the US is heading. I guess we'll see what happens in the next couple decades; with looming climate change as well, it's sure to be interesting anyways. Impiricism (talk) 15:01, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Randomly woke up to see a fundraiser has started and 800k of donations already with people like vivek, shapiro, and kid rock donating in the 5 digits https://www.gofundme.com/f/president-trump-seeks-support-for-butler-pa-victims. 2600:387:F:4717:0:0:0:9 (talk) 15:38, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

@CorruptUser I heartily agree. Unfortunately, the DNC seems stuck in an ideological 1990s time bubble where it’s forbidden to discuss anything along those lines. That’s also convenient vis-à-vis the donor class which really doesn’t like any of those suggestions.

If that’s going to change, it may require a bottom-up takeover like the one attempted (and partially successful) by the MAGA hats in the GOP, as depicted in Finish What We Started (2024) by Isaac Arnsdorf.

Now, I’m not familiar enough with the party structures of the GOP vs. The Democrats to say whether a similar strategy is feasible in the latter, but I think something along those lines is a more likely avenue to change than hoping that the Democratic grandees are suddenly going change.

They didn’t after Obama turned off a large slice of his electorate by failing to reform, they didn’t after Hillary lost to Trump, they didn’t after Biden scraped by under very favourable circumstances and they didn’t when it was obvious that running Biden again would likely be courting disaster, but there was still a decent amount time to find another.

They are now panicking about Biden, but that’s just because they realise just how badly they’ve messed up on a tactical level, not because they recognise that “Biden’esque” candidates simply won’t cut the mustard. In other words: They will not change unless forced to.

The donor class sure as hell won’t force them, meaning that only a political challenge, either external via a third party (which means fracturing the vote and almost ensuring at least one GOP win) or from an internal bottom-up party movement is likely to change anything. ScepticWombat (talk) 07:29, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Comparison

As with Lee Harvey Oswald the perpetrator was killed - wo we will not know 'the logic/reasoning' and so can act as the focus for fever-dream conspiracies.

The most dangerous attackers are those individuals who operate alone (even if they have 'a particular viewpoint') and do not act so as to draw attention to themselves, as they operate under the radar. Anna Livia (talk) 10:34, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

The big difference is that Oswald was killed by a third party well after he was apprehended, rather than shot during the act, with the latter being much less obvious “conspiracy fodder”.

But there is still a chance that the shooter left some kind of “testament” about his motives (think, Breivik or the Christchurch shooter), but that he didn’t leave it online in order to reduce the chance of advance detection. ScepticWombat (talk) 10:46, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

They could have easily have scheduled it's release by a time delay. Very easy to do. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:35, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Sure, but I think it’s a bit early to discount that such a fairly clear statement of the shooter’s motives exists and that we’ll never know what those motives were. ScepticWombat (talk) 11:45, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

I've seen a few people on twitter claiming that this was a false-flag by Trump. This can be debunked instantly by pointing out that at 150 yards, no sniper in the world is guaranteed to hit ONLY a willing participant's ear, and just an inch off would've struck Trump's brain. And bullets are not like they are in video games; bone and bullets both shatter.

What I am seeing also are claims the Secret Service are a bunch of incompetent "diversity hires", promulgated by Musk because prior to working the Service, the director Kim Cheatle oversaw the security for PepsiCo, keeping America's Doritos safe. Nevermind that she was working as deputy director in the Secret Service before this. CorruptUser 11:55, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Sigh, I hadn’t thought of that particular scenario, but it’s hardly surprising that someone in the Xdiocracy would launch the “because of incompetent DEI hires” allegations. It’s totally on message with several pre existing GOP/MAGA narratives that blame all kinds of failures on DEI for, basically, excluding all of the supposedly hyper competent white dudes from [insert relevant job title here]. ScepticWombat (talk) 13:18, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Given that Elon Musk has royally fucked up Twitter, would he consider himself an incompetent "DEI diversity hire"?

((sarc)It's those gosh darn Canadians like Musk infiltrating the tech-bro scene that's fucking Silicon Valley up, I tell ya! Blame Canada!(/sarc)BobJohnson (talk) 15:01, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Details are a bit sparse right now, but I shall say with some conviction the Secret Service does have questions to answer.

The suspected shooter (apparently) had a reasonably clear aim at Trump, the distance was about ~140m and was apparently armed with an 'AR-15 style rifle'. If we take this to mean it's a longish barreled with 'intermediate' rounds (like 5.56 or 5.45mm) as long as the shooter was fairly competent and rifle not in shit condition hitting the target would not be that hard. A decent scope etc would continue this. I will therise that it might be windage alone which saved Trump. And if they'd have used an old-school bolt-action (like the Carcano used on JFK) he would have been hit 'properly' (as long as it had a good zero).

Point being; if I know this, the Secret Service clearly would. And more. KarmaPolice (talk) 14:23, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Why not shoot-to-disable so there are 'words out of the gunman's mouth'?

For some of the first conspiracy theories see [5]. Anna Livia (talk) 18:20, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

I'd guess the shooter was prone so a shallow target. Chances are they had a decent magazine capacity so the Secret Service sniper did 100% right thing - immediately located the hostile and took them out. KarmaPolice (talk) 20:56, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

@Anna Livia No such thing; this is real life, not a video game. If you shoot, it's to kill, and you keep shooting until your target stops moving. CorruptUser 21:35, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Some of us live in contexts where 'what we have read about such matters' is all we know. Anna Livia (talk) 23:25, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Corrupt is wrong. For example, British 'SWAT' teams aim to incapacitate the targets - only killing when they judge there is no other option. I expect Secret Service is about the same - if possible they will try to disarm/ incapacitated but the health of the principal is paramount. KarmaPolice (talk) 00:05, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

incapacitate in this case usually involves killing targets. shots to chest area is considered the most effective way to incapacitate which generally results in death. if the target is deemed a possible suicide bomber, this might set off of any explosive vests, as might a taser. incapacitate in this case is via shots to the head. generally even more fatal than shots to the chest. ultimately, if it becomes necessary to shoot someone, then it is invariably going to be lethal, in effect if not by design. they are not going to try and wing them. just ask jean charle de menezes. any kill by the armed response will be referred to the iopc to be independently investigated. this is no sense a whitewashing of the police officers involved either. they can and have been prosecuted for murder if found the a shooting was not justified. the point is, incapacitate is not disarm, and they only incapacitate when there is no other option, because invariably it means death. there have only been about 80 or so police shootings since 1990. the uk is not the us. it is relatively rare for there to be no other option but shooting is rarely the first option, and never the default option. sadly, sometimes there really no other options. the differences with police cultures between the us and uk not withstanding, i dont see how there would be any other options for dealing this gunman after he had already started shooting at people that would not have resulted with his death. AMassiveGay (talk) 20:30, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Or put more glibly; 'incapacitate' in regards to firearms normally means 'shoot them somewhere not immediately lethal and hope they quit it'; ie through being effectively disabled by pain and/or survival instinct. Problem is, people can be temporarily immune to pain from say, adrenaline, drugs, determination etc and continue to fire back. This is compounded by some modern popular calibres [like the 5.56mm and 9mm] which have fairly poor 'stopping power' - there's been many a report in the 20th where militaries have found their weapons good at poking holes in people but not that good at 'stopping' the enemy from continuing to attack before they bleed to death.

In this, Corrupt is a bit correct; while you don't have to always 'shoot to kill', trying to 'shoot to incapacitate' is kinda difficult and really not something guns are designed to do [though there are 'less lethal' options like say, rubber bullets and baton rounds]. KarmaPolice (talk) 23:40, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

How to get US gun control at last

Currently floating around on the inner tubes:[6]

“”Democrats should introduce a gun control bill called the "The Donald Trump safety and gun control bill" and make republicans vote against it.

Bongolian (talk) 03:05, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

While I agree that might be hilarious, I don’t think it’ll be “good politics”, but that it’s more likely to be viewed as “nefarious politicking” and thus turn voters off. ScepticWombat (talk) 07:29, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

How fucking .close was this to being an entirely different conversation? An untrained kid, 20 years old, took a shot and knocked the ear. Armor of God is in the whackadoo conversation. Iron sights from 150 Yards, dumb ass kid almost made the shot, missed and killed a person because guns are built to be long range killing machines. And the conversation from both sides is Thank God it wasn't Trump? Torrent (talk) 10:01, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Why should I give a shit if Trump's ear got grazed when unstable gun fanatics with a name to gain can just crawl up a roof and enact indiscriminate violence, and even if it is targeted, it is indiscriminate because a bullet doesn't care who it hits. Torrent (talk) 10:11, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

There is a lot of 'dork can't shoot, haha' shit going around. Dude missed by an inch and still killed somebody, guns are fucking killing machines. There is no purpose for a gun other than to kill something, and if you mess that up, big surprise, somebody might die. Nobody should be allowed to run around with an AR-15. Torrent (talk) 10:18, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

One oddity with certain pro-extremely-loose Second Amendment types (particularly the guns-as-identity right-wing crowd) is that they seem to be convinced that their side is the only side that owns and can handle firearms. In reality, there's not only plenty of left-wingers that own guns... there's also plenty of apolitical that own guns, and (as seems to possibly be the case here) some mentally disturbed (or parents of the mentally disturbed) that own guns. I do not expect the conversation here to change at all; after all, a lot of this crowd simultaneously is Very Concerned about inner city crime, which loose gun laws help perpetuate. Alas, this crowd often prefers to evoke stereotypes on that issue and leave it at that. Furthermore, events like mass murders of children have not moved the dial at all, either. BobJohnson (talk) 10:46, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

The right-wing has a very strong doublethink going on regarding stuff like this. It not only fails to realise that 'the left' can [and I suspect will] stock up on weaponry and learn how to use it right [also put in the effort for physical training etc] but also will most likely be willing to fight and die for what they believe in as much as they would be - to the point that if they needed to, the US Army would be able to build new field forces out of traditionally 'librul' [and low-recruitment areas] like New England and the Pacific states to [let's say], put down a Gileadian rebellion.

This mental blind spot frankly put, scares me more than anything else. Balances of power last because each side respects the strengths and determination of their opponent - they know that they must never push them too far or slam their back to the wall, otherwise they will fight back with everything they've got. If you don't respect your opponent, that you believe you can get away with anything because 'They're wusses' and will fold the moment you bring ut a blade... this is how wars happen. KarmaPolice (talk) 20:24, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Good luck with that. There are more guns than people in the US, and you can bet your ass off that many of those gun owners would rather be branded criminals than give up their guns. The problem isn't guns, the problem is gun culture. Too many people treat their guns as replacement dicks, rather than the tools they actually are. You don't see people posing with their power drills, do you? Also, any serious attempts at gun control are gonna be directed against people who need them the most. The marginalized. Trans folk, people of color, etc. Carthage (talk) 14:18, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

And how many people are realistically suggesting let's call it a 'general disarming' policy for America? It is impractical to the level of insanity, and most get that before we get into Charlton Heston impressions. I will cite the 'weapons ban' in Discworld's Night Watch too, where Vimes noted that the majority of weapons confiscated was from law-abiding citizens, meaning that basically, you've disarmed the 'good citizens' but obviously, left the 'bad citizens' armed. Smart.

There is also issues with the phrasing of the issue. Does America have a gun problem, or a violence problem? Are the guns a cause, or merely the favoured tool? Similar can be said about other things; for example, does America have an obesity problem, a ultra-processed food problem, or both? Chicken or egg, or perhaps chicken omelette? KarmaPolice (talk) 15:12, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

How realistic do you think even a "minor" attempt at regulation is gonna be when you not only have the GOP controlling one and a half branches of government, but also have sheriffs who straight up refuse to enforce any gun laws no matter what their content is? Of course, those same reactionaries would love to disarm queer folk and people of color. Carthage (talk)

Let's be more accurate here; those fuckers would prefer to disarm everyone who's not a right-wing white. But there's an issue that a lot of the 'mainstream left' in America loathe all firearms with an understandable venom which makes 'reasonable discussion' impossible, or a general lack of understanding which means the suggestions are hugely impractical [who was it who suggested all guns should be registered with a gun club?]. Anyhows, while you're right in that almost nothing will actually pass right now due to the extremist capture of legislatures etc, the Democrats need to show they've actually got some reasonable policies ready 'in the drawer' if only they could get it passed [the sort of answers which have their angles protected in advance against the usual counter-arguments, such as 'this proposal is utterly impractical']. And part of this is a critical analysis of the myriad of problems which is causing the problem [for like obesity and drug use, there's no single cause or solution]. In more general terms, it is not a good idea electorally for a major party to become associated with the top view when it's something 35% possess.

And I shall offer 'toxic individualism' to this analysis. That there's a percentage of folks who think their rights to do X is absolute, that it comes with zero responsibilities and that it cannot ever be remotely hedged in. You see this in for example, free speech extremists who shall angrily lash out if they are brought face-to-face with the effects of their airing of views. KarmaPolice (talk) 07:15, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Most legislators also know next to nothing about guns. That's why you get stupid shit like bans on "assault weapons" (a category know-nothing legislators invented out of whole cloth) that don't do much, or anything at all, to reduce rates of gun violence. Most gun violence is committed with pistols, not "assault weapons" BTW. According to a Pew survey, in 2020 only 3% of firearms fatalities were the result of rifle usage. Carthage (talk) 00:03, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

In discussions with "the gun folks" (short of the absolutist true believers of whom the firearm is some sort of identity religion, of which nothing will change their minds), the one point I have brought up that "seems to get some of them to think" is that a lot of the "NRA schtick" IMHO is pure cold marketing. With outdoor recreation on the decline, catering to the "paranoid style" allows gun manufacturers to make up some lost revenue. There's a lot of shit in the US (and elsewhere) that tries to market a "SPEND!" solution to things that require some dedication to get good at; it takes some time to become a decently proficient marksman, but (in true musician-style "gear acquisition syndrome" guise) a helluv a lot of firearms marketing is spent trying to convince people that they can successfully become a Gun God by simply spending a lot of money. The same applies to the "paranoid style" marketing regarding personal protection; far more marketing is spent convincing people that they need Super Gee Whiz Expensive Semi-Auto Shit for personal protection when in reality, simply honing your technique will probably do far more. (As an example of marketing over competence, one of the things I remember about the St. Louis gun-toting incident in 2020 was that people who actually had some experience with guns commented on just how shitty the McCloskey's form and protocol was. They should've spent their money buying that Fancy AR-15 learning how to actually hold a weapon.)

The other fun aspect of the NRA is a bit of that outdoor recreation aspect that is ignored these days. The United States has historically been very good with public lands IMHO, and it's more than just the more environmentally protected stuff like national parks. Let's face it: if you didn't have public lands like the national forests, what happens with hunting land is that it's bought up by some uber-rich weenie who will proceed to prevent the general public from hunting on their land, either charging up the wazoo in order for people to hunt on their land, or only exclusively allowing other uber-rich weenies on their "dude ranch" retreats. There's plenty of non-protected land that falls in that category. Generally speaking (not historically, Teddy Roosevelt would've been pissed with the modern GOP) the Democrats tend to be the ones promoting public lands these days, which means that given the current political environment, the NRA (despite being "pro-hunter") says nothing about this stance, at least that I can find. (I vaguely remember during Obama's era they had some tepid support of public land expansion buried beneath the fearmongering whargarble, but these days I don't even see that.) BobJohnson (talk) 00:36, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

There is a growing number of queer people who have taken up arms in response to current events. They don't believe the state will protect them, when the state is the very same entity persecuting them. Do you think these people are paranoid? Carthage (talk) 00:43, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Depends on whether they are learning to use their weapon or are Spending Money on Fancy Shit without learning how to use it. Queer culture that has taken up firearms is too far under my radar (I'm aware of groups like Pink Pistols but don't know too much about them). Although my personal knowledge is limited, from the little I've seen, left wing gun groups like Redneck Revolt have personally impressed me more than current NRA culture. The term "paranoid style" refers to a term coined by historian Richard Hofstadter which addresses a specific sort of right wing personality that is heavily into conspiracy theory, and has existed for decades (examples range from the John Birch Society to QAnon). While there are left-wingers into conspiracy, my usage of "paranoid style" follows the 1960s essay convention and doesn't apply to them. BobJohnson (talk) 01:42, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, 'Gear Aquisition Syndrome' is in almost all hobbies; fitness, art, cooking, sports, gaming, camping, photography etc - blame American hyper-commercialisation. Truth is, the 'gun market' in the USA is very mature; there's not been any serious technological developments since the advent of plastic polymers in the 80s, they are usually pretty durable products which are [relatively] easy to repair there hasn't been much in the way of capability improvement for at least 50 years [in regards to hunting rifles / revolvers, perhaps a century], the vast majority of very good weapons are now 'out of patent' which means anybody can produce them [qv Norinco of China, churning out decent/affordable clones of iconic weapons] and they use [as a rule] generic ammunition types.

All this is shit for a gunmakers POV. I can't lock you in using the 'razor and blades' model with some wierd calibre of ammo, my 'new' hunting design from 2020 is not going to really be superior to one from 1920 [and most serious folks know it], my new design is nothing to shout about, a lot of those ones from 1920 are still kicking about, there's a huge cottage industry of gunsmiths refurbishing weapons so they can be returned to the market and it's fairly easy to get spares etc to do this. Thus, marketing more shit to the paranoids, dressing up my wears in 'tacticool' garb, using every chance to stoke the 'they're coming for your GUNS!!!' flames so they come in and clear out my inventory and constantly throwing out more aftermarket shite for folks to collect like Pokemon.

The interesting thing is [as Carthage notes] is that this crap has infiltrated the anti-gun group too. They think banning things like the scary-looking AR-15 is really important, when at best it's just a distraction to the real issues. The more sane part of this realises that they've fallen into the 'politicians fallacy'; that gun violence is horrible, something needs to be done but this is one of the very few things we might actually succeed in doing. Some folks might believe/hope that if they can start with say, getting back the Federal Assault Weapon Ban from the 90s they might be able to gradually 'salami-slice' their way to a reasonable level of firearm restrictions [but I would argue this is now moot with the MAGA-majority in SCOTUS]. But we need to remember there is a segment of the American population who is at best rather blase regarding gun deaths in general, merely objects to 'mass shooter' events - reasoning [with some logical, though cuntish reasoning] that a lot of those attacks/deaths would have happened even if the murderer hadn't had access to a firearm.

From what little I've read, it would appear those non right-wing gun owners are getting their shit togther, but in a haphazard manner. Like with leftie preppers, they're aware that they're in the distinct minority, that a lot of 'their community' is very anti-gun and they [usually] don't have the funding levels right-wing groups enjoy from sympathetic millionaires. I would put my money on ethnic-minority based groups being the most organised, because often they're plugged into their local community, can be spread via word-of-mouth and have the example of the Black Panthers to follow [or not].

Good thinkpiece: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/john-brown-gun-club-armed-anti-fascist-1234733200/

KarmaPolice (talk) 20:40, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Serendipity

Maybe trump is what you got better alive than dead. Maybe I'm the kind to say if you're awful take the shot. Take the shot for me. Insanely close but the plan isn't ever violence..Torrent (talk) 11:06, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

You want my honest take? Torrent (talk)

I think we should regulate guns. Torrent (talk) 11:19, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

What will it take for 'the legislatures' to introduce legislation regardless of the squawking and more of the gun-nutters?

In the UK most people do not feel threatened by having to undergo checks to get the various gun licences (including black-powder and other categories). Anna Livia (talk) 18:17, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

In the UK, you need a licence to even operate one (we'll, good as) - and most don't go further than side/side shotguns or perhaps a varmint rifle. But for starters, we don't have any big game to take down.

But the problem is (apparently) there's not much which could have been done legal-wise. If it turns out they used an 'AR style' (aka 'scary looking') weapon banning them wouldn't really have done much because they could have simply used an old Marlin, Garand or Mosin (all legit hunting rifles) instead. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:09, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

The point is that there is a general awareness that 'people need licences for guns and other weapons, apart from criminals who don't' - and many of us not of the 'hunting, shooting and fishing brigade, or with military connections' will never knowingly cross paths with weapons unless seeing museum displays and historical re-enactments (plus a few 'old weapons found in attic/dug up in garden' type stories). Anna Livia (talk) 23:37, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Pro-gun people have lots of arguments that are shit, but the 'there's too many guns in circulation to do licensing' is not one of them. Or pointing out that due to a combination of shit policing and the above plethora law-abiding citizens do need a means to defend themselves. However, the shittiness starts when they oppose licencing of the weapon holder rather than the weapon, or even making it mandatory for the above to have secure methods of storage (one of the main sources of firearms for mass shootings is 'legal pieces taken from a relative without consent').

As for 'knowingly crossing paths with weapons'... well the 'knowingly' is the part. There has always been some 'leftish' owners, and 2016 found an upswing of ownership amongst groups such as LGBT, women, minorities etc (no prizes for guessing why) and from what little studies I've seen is that they are a lot more circumspect about their ownership (for example, they don't talk about it, attend ranges outside of their locality) as well as the folks who simply don't talk about 'stuff I don't think you'd care about'. 35% of Americans own at least one firearm and 44% said they lived in a 'gun household' as of 20 (Gallup poll) - while some will be Dale Gribble types, some clearly won't be. KarmaPolice (talk) 10:14, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

it can't be about punishing gun owners when their kids go incel bang bang, if my parents had any kinda gun safe I'd have cracked that. The idea I have is to require all guns to be registered to a club, with federal standards that would absolutely be in odds of state open carry laws. There are buildings in the US that have to use signs, similar to no smoking, that show in no uncertain graphic language, no guns https://images.app.goo.gl/p3qAjN5gAp5X8nCg6 I can't think of the last time I've seen a no smoking sign. Torrent (talk) 11:11, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

And how would this work, exactly? KarmaPolice (talk) 12:35, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

I was using 'knowingly' in the UK sense; we can all think of contexts where weapons will be present but not visible.

In various contexts guns (of whatever kind) can be a visible part of local culture, but that they have to be treated 'as what they are' (much as in other cultures 'serious' knives and bladed weapons are carried, whether or not as a status symbol/part of the normal costume).

'The weapons' and 'the culture' have to be considered as at least partly separate. It does not matter how many guns or other weapons there are if the general attitude is that they are 'used correctly' and not as the answer to any question or problem (so, on one level, they are no different to a box of matches or a lighter). Anna Livia (talk) 13:21, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree, it is the 'gun culture' which is a major issue in the USA, as seen by the relatively low level of gun violence in 'high gun ownership' places (Canada, Scandinavia, Germany etc). I mean, I've heard folks talk about 'knife culture' but I've spent the weekend working with a 45cm heavy machete which would truly ruin anyone's day. KarmaPolice (talk) 15:41, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

I am a little in the weeds here and I want to clarify something. A pistol and a rifle are different. The gun club would require standards of understanding ownership, at the very least, proper storage. It is Illegal to have a 3 inch knife, Google it and you will get a bunch of places selling a millimeter under. So I don't think in America you could just walk around with a machete and claim right to bear arms, which is a part of this.

So then, to own a gun is still easy, but register all guns at a club requires at least a two step regisistration process. It's honestly barely a protective measure, but misuse of the highly defensive weapon of gun needs be addressed. I'm not saying making it illegal to run somebody over with a car makes it impossible to run somebody over with a car, It's a much more consistent argument that pointing a gun at a living thing increases its chance of dying. And if I have to argue on that, I will. Guns, especially rifles, need to be accounted for. In numbers, users, location and uses as much as it is important to register a modification like a suppressor to a gun club. I wouldn't say a gun club would be responsible for a member's bad action, but man, that kid almost smoked a presidential candidate. Was he, at 20, just fully in charge of a rifle? It's silly and speculative to think, but if he had one extra responsibility to log taking that rifle out, he could have lied or not logged it, still 100% on him, but knowing who has a rifle in the first place, even if it doesn't turn out to be any of the gun club. Demolition Ranch has gun club rights, ATF requires registration and they have no reason to harm anyone or leave their range. It simply means they can use modifications that must stay on their property. If I said all their rifles needed to be registered the same as their modifications, they would be bothered for at most 30 minutes, I guarantee they have a very capable team logging every gun and modification. Torrent (talk) 07:33, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

In a practical sense, Q: 'you have logged your AR-15 for what purpose?'. A: 'Range shooting' Q: 'You are not storing your AR-15 at the designated clublocker, are you storing it in a safe?' A:'yes' and then it's extra penalties from there IF the gun is used in impropriety, as in irresponsible of the gun owner to fail to meet the standards of the gun club, which at least some terms must be mandated, like if a dumb kid or an angry person acted outside of a mandate. Torrent (talk) 07:51, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Issues;

1/ This will turn gun clubs into arms of law enforcement. They shall hate that, and I don't trust them all to 'do it properly' either - one of my legal/regulatory maxims is to never outsource compliance to folks who can't be relied on to do it right [just imagine; Dale Gribble or Jimbo and Ned doing the questioning?]. Plus is there even enough clubs to do this?

2/ Your system doesn't do a jot about all the 300m+ weapons which already exist, or those which could be made later on from construction/assembily methods.

3/ The system of each gun being registered will be hugely bureaucratic and include a massive database which quite a lot of folks would object to. Even more so, if you start demanding all mods etc being re-registered too.

In short, this is [to your own admission] a lot of work for not much actual effect. In fact, it smells more like 'security theatre' than anything really productive, because the vast majority of current 'shooters' would still get their mitts on those weapons. Now, there are politicos out there who [I think] would put their political lives on the line by standing up to the NRA/fweedom nutjobs but I don't think they'd count this hill as worth dying on.

Personally, I think the UK example is a better one - where you licence the person, not the weapon [closing 'gun show', 'ghost gun' and 'preexisting firearm' loopholes]. This check would be functionally to the current NICS background checks done if you've bought your piece through an authorised dealer [which means the system is already in place]. It would be an 'shall issue' basis [as it is a right, not a privilege] but there would be a couple of conditions attached ['you will not sell/lend weapons to unlicenced people', 'you are legally liable to keep your weapons secured when not in use to prevent theft' etc]. To sweeten the deal, I'd also make said firearms permit a legal form of photo ID. KarmaPolice (talk) 10:08, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

okay, it's now known the shooter was part of a gun club. But turning gun clubs into militias is nuts bonkers. Gun law maybe irks libertarians, but an ID to own a gun sounds reasonable. If you're walking around with a gun, maybe keep that permit in your wallet. I would happily work with you to make a gun license as culturally relevant in America as a Driver's license. Torrent (talk) 05:06, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

While I think the prevalence of guns is the biggest issue, undercutting all attempts at licensing, I do think that something equivalent to a driver’s license would probably be the most feasible. That way, you could also have several classes of licenses for various types of weapons (a handgun/shotgun/rifle division would probably be fairly easy to handle) just as you need different licenses for different types of vehicles.

However, while it is probably not politically feasible, I’d say that banning certain classes of weapons would probably limit the lethal potential in mass shootings, while still allowing plenty of room for personal protection, hunting etc. A very simple technical definition would be a ban on detachable magazines, period, alongside a maximum magazine capacity (say, 5 or 10 rounds). Or you could go further and additionally ban autoloading weapons altogether.

This would still allow for revolvers, shotguns, a lot (most?) of bolt action rifles, and even some semiautomatic pistols and rifles (that is, if autoloaders aren’t banned, of course), but the latter would be less attractive without their high capacity, detachable magazines. The lack of high capacity, automatic weapons would likely reduce the lethal potential in mass shootings, because they allow any shooter to get a lot of rounds off in very little time. However, this probably wouldn’t change most shootings, which are likely to be one on one, or at most involve under a handful of people.

And yes, I know that people can train to a high proficiency with bolt actions as well (“mad minute” and all that), but the point is that this takes time and effort, unlike the time it takes to become equally (or more) lethal with a semiautomatic rifle (especially with a large, detachable magazine), say one of the many AR-15 clones. ScepticWombat (talk) 06:22, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

I got to fire a Mosin. I had just fired an AR, so I kinda 'Sally'd' it and my first shot went very high. I put the rest of the rounds direct, but it is not a hunting rifle, the target will explode. Torrent (talk) 07:09, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Problem with multi-licencing is that driving is not a 'protected right' as per the Constitution while gun ownership is [esp with this current SCOTUS lineup]. Most of your limitation suggestions would basically be a resumption of the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994, which I suspect is currently politically impossible to get returned right now at a Federal level. A part of me wonders whether uses of taxation might be a good 'work-around' solution - say, '1000% excise tax' on sales of new assault weapons [the Constitution says about the right to own guns. Not that they should be affordable]. Now, I personally think that's a bit too stiff a tax and won't deal with preexisting pieces, but it's a method to start to staunch the inflow of weaponry. There are other items which can be put in, for example cracking down on unlicenced firearm dealers, using the above tax revenues for the ATF to covertly buy up assault weapons on the used market for destruction [in the hope it will push up the prices to ridiculus levels] and also looking at the restrictions on certain types of ammunition [for example, flechettes]. But the main purpose of my licencing model is to drill it hard into the heads of every gun owner in America that it's their duty to ensure their pieces don't fall into the hands of unlicenced people [kids/thieves/etc]. KarmaPolice (talk) 13:32, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Biden

What are the important figures able to replace Biden which could realistically win the US election? Is there any chance the left faction of the Democratic Party could take the leadership? New world (talk) 13:29, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

I would say Bernie or AOC, but they have both endorsed Biden. Carthage (talk) 13:39, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Neither are widely popular, and AOC in particular has a national hate-dom greater than her support base. Better off with some governor. CorruptUser 13:52, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

I would like Gretchen Witner, but all the signs are Harris will insist it's her if not Biden. KarmaPolice (talk) 14:25, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Sadly, I think KarmaPolice is right, although I agree with those suggesting that one of the more popular governors would probably stand a far better chance of saving the sinking Democratic ship. ScepticWombat (talk) 14:54, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Due to the shitty way that elections are held in the US, having enormous amounts of money counts for a lot in running a campaign. If Biden stepped out, Harris would control the funds that they've raised together. That makes it extremely unlikely that anyone could run without her on the ticket as presidential candidate. The pundit class has been fueling this nonsense about an 'alternative' candidate to Biden since the debate. One good thing about the incident is that it could end distract the easily-distracted pundit class from that foolishness. Bongolian (talk) 15:11, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

I think we need to remember Harris is running (effectively) to be President because there's a reasonable % of the electorate who suspect (for whatever reason) Biden won't see out a second term. Even the most pro-Biden people will at least privately that folks of Biden's age can go from 'fine' to 'dead' worryingly quickly. So she really needs to get out there and convince America she is a damn fine backup. KarmaPolice (talk) 15:46, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

I think a workable compromise might be to run Harris for POTUS, but adding one of the popular governors as VP, which might be able to secure at least one key, swing state (as LBJ was chosen by JFK to essentially “deliver Texas”). This way the Democrats could strive for a combination of “sensible continuity & change” in contrast to “risk complete chaos with Trump”.

But it also requires the Democratic campaign to really start talking about what it’ll actually work to deliver in terms of policies and concrete results in the coming presidential term, not just trying to scare the electorate and claim they already delivered.

The one upside to the assassination attempt is that it might force the Democratic campaign to talk about policies and promises, exactly because it will be harder for them to just run negative campaigns about Trump without sounding as if they at least tacitly endorse the attempt on Trump’s life. ScepticWombat (talk) 15:59, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, there’s nobody else but Harris. And that’s because the “popular governor” candidates are white, so the party would have to struggle to explain to black voters why the party just completely snubbed the first black woman vice president and replaced her with a white person. And with the election bound to be so close, any decrease in black turnout would severely hurt the party both presidentially and down ballot. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 17:19, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

I am happy to recant if evidence shows otherwise, but a) I think Harris is less popular with minority (esp black) voters than it's assumed and b) I think said voters would be more attracted to actual policies which effect them/ communities than a mere face. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:28, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

I’m sure, but it wouldn’t be a good look at all. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 17:29, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

True, but this is a situation where every situation looks shit. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:00, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Fox poll finds Harris the most viable of any, at least on favorability/unfavorability measures. (Before dismissing because of the source, see here.) Chillpilled (talk) 23:04, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Who would she pîck as VP, btw? Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 11:38, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

It would never happen, but it would be pretty cool if Harris was president and Ocasio-Cortez VP. I just imagine conservative heads exploding because it's not just one, but TWO women in powerful political positions. Impiricism (talk) 14:52, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

I am as confused by this as I was by The McCain and Palin ticket. Are you trying to lose? I, in my conspiratorial mind, think the two party system in America is really trying to keep a center that benefits big money. There is no dark horse Democrat, aside from Harris. I just have never bought the idea that a two party system would work against itself. Guns are bad murder is wrong. Torrent (talk) 05:32, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm not. The right-wing have well-oiled political machines which 'gets out the vote' really well and gets lots of said oil from a clutch of megadonors. There is no real 'left' equivalent. In short; if you are a progressive/ socialist in the USA and you want to be actually noticed by the smoke-filled room folks, build yourself a political machine if your own (not just ad-hoc lashups for particular issues/ elections). KarmaPolice (talk) 12:16, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

While it looks monumentally stupid in hindsight, there was at least some short-term logic to the McCain/Palin ticket. It was probably supposed that McCain could rope in the “moderates”, not least the “Reagan Democrat” types, while Palin could bring in what would become the Tea Party and the fundies and thus create a GOP win in an otherwise very uphill election. Instead, Palin essentially scared away those who might have gone for McCain and her (pre) Tea Party/fundie appeal wasn’t enough either, likely because the (pre) Teabaggers/fundies saw McCain as a RINO. ScepticWombat (talk) 15:32, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

There was also the issue that McCain was getting practically NO coverage due to the media being completely obsessed with Obama. McCain had to do something to get attention. CorruptUser 15:48, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

So the fact Obama was running on a 'change' ticket during the wreckage of the banking crisis which was morphing into the Great Recession (which had happened under the early 00s Republican dominance of all three parts of Govt) had nothing to do with it?

While going up against Obama was going to be difficult, chances are Palin was much more of a minus than a plus. Which the 2008 BBC agreed on - Why McCain lost (BBC News, 2008) KarmaPolice (talk) 16:52, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Don’t know if it was addressed to a specific comment, but the “uphill election” I mentioned was meant to point to the financial crisis, which indeed would’ve made any GOP ticket a long shot to win, although that doesn’t change that the McCain/Palin combo did make some sense at the time. However, it was clearly also a “marriage of convenience” and I seem to recall a lot of stories of internal conflicts within the campaign too, which probably didn’t help things either. ScepticWombat (talk) 01:51, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Was referrting to Corrupt's point. I vaguely remember the online chatter from '08 and one the few impressions left to me of then was of 'a maverick Republican touring the country assuring everyone he wasn't a maverick anymore'. I also remember think this might have been the first time where age/health of candidate was made an issue [McCain was 72 and had had cancer in the past] arguing it meant greater scrutiny of Palin was required than of say, Biden [as VP]. KarmaPolice (talk) 02:12, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

USA

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qyXNcCOMeVc New world (talk) 18:50, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Funny but man, the French version of the American accent is exactly the American version of the French accent. Incredible. Torrent (talk) 09:01, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Ahn hohn hohn, c'est incroyable. (En chhr like you got stuff in your throat, oi like oyi, then ah bluh like you got other things to do) Torrent (talk) 09:14, 19 July 2024 (UTC)