The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

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beantownbubba
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by beantownbubba »

I haven't read all of them but I've seen at least 4 or 5 references to editorials and op-eds on the subject of "what Trump should be saying" post the 2 most recent massacres. I am totally flummoxed. The very notion presupposes that Trump has leadership qualities both in the sense of knowing how to lead and in the willingness of people to follow. I mean, seriously, if Trump gave what u considered to be the most perfect response in reaction to these tragedies, would you believe a single word he said? And even if you believed he meant it would you believe that he has the wherewithal and skills necessary to follow through? I didn't think so. This is just more evidence that the mainstream media STILL, after all this time and all this evidence, still acts as if Trump were a normal president. This explains a lot about the media coverage of the world we live in but it's incredibly frustrating and imho totally inappropriate.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by scotto »

Iowan wrote:The thing about the mental health response isn’t that it’s wrong so much as the people who parrot it aren’t actually willing to take meaningful action to increase access to mental health care.
No, the thing about the mental health response is that it is wrong.
Increase/improve mental health services for all? Yes. Hold politicians/pundits who make this claim accountable? Absolutely.
But hate is not a mental illness. Blaming violence on mental disorders conveniently overlooks the real cause: The United States' easy access to guns.

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Iowan »

scotto wrote:
Iowan wrote:The thing about the mental health response isn’t that it’s wrong so much as the people who parrot it aren’t actually willing to take meaningful action to increase access to mental health care.
No, the thing about the mental health response is that it is wrong.
Increase/improve mental health services for all? Yes. Hold politicians/pundits who make this claim accountable? Absolutely.
But hate is not a mental illness. Blaming violence on mental disorders conveniently overlooks the real cause: The United States' easy access to guns.
Of course making it harder to get these kind of weapons will reduce the amount of mass murders, but I think we're kidding ourselves if we act like our woeful mental health infrastructure doesn't play a role. Conservatives love to talk about mental health because the NRA can't see gun sales drop, but that doesn't mean it's total bullshit. Call them on the carpet, and see if what seems to be a mutually agreed upon point can improve.

We have a mountain of laws banning drugs. They don't keep Americans from doing drugs. The root cause isn't access to guns, it's angry people. Making it harder to get these guns will help, but it won't make the problem go away. A true solution addresses the mountain of angry, hopeless, hate filled people as well as making it harder for them to access death tools.

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by beantownbubba »

Iowan wrote:The root cause isn't access to guns, it's angry people. Making it harder to get these guns will help, but it won't make the problem go away. A true solution addresses the mountain of angry, hopeless, hate filled people as well as making it harder for them to access death tools.
No doubt there's a certain amount of truth here, but "angry, hopeless, hate filled people" are not necessarily, not even usually, mentally ill so "fixing them" requires a lot more than increasing the availability of mental health services.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by pearlbeer »

Iowan wrote:
scotto wrote:
Iowan wrote:The thing about the mental health response isn’t that it’s wrong so much as the people who parrot it aren’t actually willing to take meaningful action to increase access to mental health care.
No, the thing about the mental health response is that it is wrong.
Increase/improve mental health services for all? Yes. Hold politicians/pundits who make this claim accountable? Absolutely.
But hate is not a mental illness. Blaming violence on mental disorders conveniently overlooks the real cause: The United States' easy access to guns.
Of course making it harder to get these kind of weapons will reduce the amount of mass murders, but I think we're kidding ourselves if we act like our woeful mental health infrastructure doesn't play a role. Conservatives love to talk about mental health because the NRA can't see gun sales drop, but that doesn't mean it's total bullshit. Call them on the carpet, and see if what seems to be a mutually agreed upon point can improve.

We have a mountain of laws banning drugs. They don't keep Americans from doing drugs. The root cause isn't access to guns, it's angry people. Making it harder to get these guns will help, but it won't make the problem go away. A true solution addresses the mountain of angry, hopeless, hate filled people as well as making it harder for them to access death tools.
While I won't argue with the above, there are other developed countries that deal with mental illness as well - Germany, UK, Canada, Japan, etc. I'm not going to look up statistics, but I'll assume that the rates of mental illness are similar. Yet, no other country deals with mass shootings to the level we do. We should address mental health, but the unique problem is guns.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by oilpiers »

Iowan wrote:The thing about the mental health response isn’t that it’s wrong so much as the people who parrot it aren’t actually willing to take meaningful action to increase access to mental health care.
I worked on a County Mental Health Crisis Team for 26 years. I evaluated psych patients in the field, mostly in hospitals, often in homes, very closely with law enforcement. I see zero indication I could have prevented any of these shootings if I evaluated them, unless they were telling me or others they were planning on it. I worked at Thousand Oaks PD for over 10 years. The Borderline bar shooting last November, where Sgt. Ron Helus was killed, was the Sgt. I worked with on the same rotation with for 10 years. The shooter was seen by our team 8 months prior to the shooting. I watched both Fox and MSNBC interview another friend/co-worker, Sgt. Eric Buschow where both networks attempted to frame the Crisis Team as at least partially responsible for the shooter not being locked up prior to the event. Sgt. Buschow was steadfast in his defense of my former coworkers. He was visibly frustrated at the ridiculous assumption that evaluating someone 8 months prior would allow us to predict something like this. He, as well as Sheriff Dean, both stated they had no idea how to prevent these shooting. Rare honesty. 20-30 people are assessed daily by the Crisis Team, with only 70 psych beds in the county. Do that math.
I am not saying mental health issues are irrelevant. But they are not the answer to this ongoing problem.

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by beantownbubba »

oilpiers wrote:
Iowan wrote:The thing about the mental health response isn’t that it’s wrong so much as the people who parrot it aren’t actually willing to take meaningful action to increase access to mental health care.
I worked on a County Mental Health Crisis Team for 26 years. I evaluated psych patients in the field, mostly in hospitals, often in homes, very closely with law enforcement. I see zero indication I could have prevented any of these shootings if I evaluated them, unless they were telling me or others they were planning on it. I worked at Thousand Oaks PD for over 10 years. The Borderline bar shooting last November, where Sgt. Ron Helus was killed, was the Sgt. I worked with on the same rotation with for 10 years. The shooter was seen by our team 8 months prior to the shooting. I watched both Fox and MSNBC interview another friend/co-worker, Sgt. Eric Buschow where both networks attempted to frame the Crisis Team as at least partially responsible for the shooter not being locked up prior to the event. Sgt. Buschow was steadfast in his defense of my former coworkers. He was visibly frustrated at the ridiculous assumption that evaluating someone 8 months prior would allow us to predict something like this. He, as well as Sheriff Dean, both stated they had no idea how to prevent these shooting. Rare honesty. 20-30 people are assessed daily by the Crisis Team, with only 70 psych beds in the county. Do that math.
I am not saying mental health issues are irrelevant. But they are not the answer to this ongoing problem.
Nothing like first hand experience. Thanks.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by scotto »

pearlbeer wrote:While I won't argue with the above, there are other developed countries that deal with mental illness as well - Germany, UK, Canada, Japan, etc. I'm not going to look up statistics, but I'll assume that the rates of mental illness are similar. Yet, no other country deals with mass shootings to the level we do. We should address mental health, but the unique problem is guns.
Precisely. Which is what makes the "It's a mental health issue" argument a convenient excuse to avoid the real issues. (I'd also wager that other countries have about the same number of video game enthusiasts, but that's another argument.) There's plenty of evidence that demonstrates mental illness is a very, very small correlate with gun violence and hardly any credible evidence to prove otherwise, but that doesn't stop folks from yammering about it when they don't want to admit the inconvenient truth. Kind of like global climate change. (Which is also another argument.)

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by scotto »

oilpiers wrote:
Iowan wrote:The thing about the mental health response isn’t that it’s wrong so much as the people who parrot it aren’t actually willing to take meaningful action to increase access to mental health care.
I worked on a County Mental Health Crisis Team for 26 years. I evaluated psych patients in the field, mostly in hospitals, often in homes, very closely with law enforcement. I see zero indication I could have prevented any of these shootings if I evaluated them, unless they were telling me or others they were planning on it. I worked at Thousand Oaks PD for over 10 years. The Borderline bar shooting last November, where Sgt. Ron Helus was killed, was the Sgt. I worked with on the same rotation with for 10 years. The shooter was seen by our team 8 months prior to the shooting. I watched both Fox and MSNBC interview another friend/co-worker, Sgt. Eric Buschow where both networks attempted to frame the Crisis Team as at least partially responsible for the shooter not being locked up prior to the event. Sgt. Buschow was steadfast in his defense of my former coworkers. He was visibly frustrated at the ridiculous assumption that evaluating someone 8 months prior would allow us to predict something like this. He, as well as Sheriff Dean, both stated they had no idea how to prevent these shooting. Rare honesty. 20-30 people are assessed daily by the Crisis Team, with only 70 psych beds in the county. Do that math.
I am not saying mental health issues are irrelevant. But they are not the answer to this ongoing problem.
Very well said and much respect for your work.
I work with our prison-based Crisis Intervention Teams and those in the community and the sheer number of individuals who may seem like a serious threat at any given time render this argument worthless. This country simply doesn't have the resources, the knowledge base, or--frankly--the constitutional laws to force treatment/medication/commitment on everyone who acts suspicious.

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Smitty »

beantownbubba wrote:
Iowan wrote:The root cause isn't access to guns, it's angry people. Making it harder to get these guns will help, but it won't make the problem go away. A true solution addresses the mountain of angry, hopeless, hate filled people as well as making it harder for them to access death tools.
No doubt there's a certain amount of truth here, but "angry, hopeless, hate filled people" are not necessarily, not even usually, mentally ill so "fixing them" requires a lot more than increasing the availability of mental health services.
A lot of folks with good intentions seem to have conflated not an issue with not THE issue. Columbine, Aurora, Va Tech, Tallahassee, Newtown, Parkland, Isla Vista, Charleston, Toronto, afaik nearly every single major mass shooting that has been committed by a young white male has the common thread of antisocial personality disorder. I mean that's a fact regardless of whether the rightwing disingenuously uses it to change the subject from gun control. There are studies that refute that most shooters are mentally ill, but those statistics also discredit other popular liberal talking points as they widen the umbrella to include familicides and felony mass murders (implying they're tied to other felony crimes linked to domestic violence, organized crime or for financial gain). By those statistics, the "angry white man" and "incel" profile as the most likely mass shooter is also debunked. I know after looking at the actual studies, which I found the most comprehensive summary of on the fact-checked Center for Inquiry site, I learned a lot of my preconceived notions were false or at least were misconstrued.

Argue that mental health isn't the most pressing issue and I'd agree. No matter what the demographic or state of mind, the guns are what allowed the attacks to happen. People suffering from mental health issues (which include me, and probably most of y'all as it's a broad fucking term) are still more likely to be victims than perpetrators of violence. As others have said above, mental health is an issue in many countries that don't have a mass shooting problem, the main difference being you guessed it a lack of guns and/or gun culture. Personally I believe the toxic incel ideology (which is a gateway to white supremacy) & it's communities are inherently attractive to young males with a problem with social interaction, whether diagnosed with ASPD or not, but maybe those who do suffer from personality disorders are more susceptible to radicalization, at least to the point where they pick up a gun, and I come to that conclusion based on virtually every incel-related gunmans' mental history. That's my armchair theory, but it's not based on nothing. That also doesn't mean the disorder is the issue as much as the white nationalist and anti-women rhetoric espoused all over online incel communities (such as the chans, reddit, discord, YouTube etc). The weeds are thick when it comes to the monitoring, regulating and censoring of online communities and in essence it's like playing whack-a-mole but I seriously think that's at the root of many of our problems, including public mass shooters. Linking mass shootings to video games is as ludicrous as rock and roll being the devil's music, but gaming communities online are used as gateways to toxic ideologies; I monitor my ten-year-old son's YouTube history and I've witnessed some of that myself. Idk, it's dicey, but if we're serious about stopping this shit we are gonna have to go further than just addressing the physical firearms themselves.

One of the main initiatives of the group Sandy Hook Promise, formed by parents' of the Newtown victims, was to get educate people on warning signs of potential shooters and get "red flag" laws on the books. One of the Parkland student's first accomplishments was getting a red flag law passed in Florida. It's not at all sufficient IMO but it is a start and isn't in itself bad just because Trump said something supporting it. There is evidence that it's effective at lowering not just gun crimes but also suicide rates. It's too small a compromise to stop there but don't dismiss it entirely because you heard it come out of Trump's mouth. Fuck, one indication that it might be a positive thing is that it turned my Dad, the most hardcore Trumper you can imagine (I would say just look at his facebook but don't, please), against him. Seeings how he stopped similar legislation from the Obama administration from being enacted, Trump shouldn't get any credit for it though.

So that's where I'm at. There is a mental health issue that factors into the problem of mass shootings, but unless we gain the ability to legislate away mental disorders focusing solely on that won't do shit. Red flag laws, and further educating folks on what those red flags are, however, might help a little and they're proven to curb suicide rates so I'm all for them. Getting a hold on the spread of toxic ideologies is a must, but I ain't got the answer on how we do that but shit we gotta try. First though it just comes down to taking the ease of access away from guns engineered to do the most damage in the least amount of time. That should be the number one goal right now.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by oilpiers »

Smitty wrote:
beantownbubba wrote:
Iowan wrote:The root cause isn't access to guns, it's angry people. Making it harder to get these guns will help, but it won't make the problem go away. A true solution addresses the mountain of angry, hopeless, hate filled people as well as making it harder for them to access death tools.
No doubt there's a certain amount of truth here, but "angry, hopeless, hate filled people" are not necessarily, not even usually, mentally ill so "fixing them" requires a lot more than increasing the availability of mental health services.
A lot of folks with good intentions seem to have conflated not an issue with not THE issue. Columbine, Aurora, Va Tech, Tallahassee, Newtown, Parkland, Isla Vista, Charleston, Toronto, afaik nearly every single major mass shooting that has been committed by a young white male has the common thread of antisocial personality disorder. I mean that's a fact regardless of whether the rightwing disingenuously uses it to change the subject from gun control. There are studies that refute that most shooters are mentally ill, but those statistics also discredit other popular liberal talking points as they widen the umbrella to include familicides and felony mass murders (implying they're tied to other felony crimes linked to domestic violence, organized crime or for financial gain). By those statistics, the "angry white man" and "incel" profile as the most likely mass shooter is also debunked. I know after looking at the actual studies, which I found the most comprehensive summary of on the fact-checked Center for Inquiry site, I learned a lot of my preconceived notions were false or at least were misconstrued.

Argue that mental health isn't the most pressing issue and I'd agree. No matter what the demographic or state of mind, the guns are what allowed the attacks to happen. People suffering from mental health issues (which include me, and probably most of y'all as it's a broad fucking term) are still more likely to be victims than perpetrators of violence. As others have said above, mental health is an issue in many countries that don't have a mass shooting problem, the main difference being you guessed it a lack of guns and/or gun culture. Personally I believe the toxic incel ideology (which is a gateway to white supremacy) & it's communities are inherently attractive to young males with a problem with social interaction, whether diagnosed with ASPD or not, but maybe those who do suffer from personality disorders are more susceptible to radicalization, at least to the point where they pick up a gun, and I come to that conclusion based on virtually every incel-related gunmans' mental history. That's my armchair theory, but it's not based on nothing. That also doesn't mean the disorder is the issue as much as the white nationalist and anti-women rhetoric espoused all over online incel communities (such as the chans, reddit, discord, YouTube etc). The weeds are thick when it comes to the monitoring, regulating and censoring of online communities and in essence it's like playing whack-a-mole but I seriously think that's at the root of many of our problems, including public mass shooters. Linking mass shootings to video games is as ludicrous as rock and roll being the devil's music, but gaming communities online are used as gateways to toxic ideologies; I monitor my ten-year-old son's YouTube history and I've witnessed some of that myself. Idk, it's dicey, but if we're serious about stopping this shit we are gonna have to go further than just addressing the physical firearms themselves.

One of the main initiatives of the group Sandy Hook Promise, formed by parents' of the Newtown victims, was to get educate people on warning signs of potential shooters and get "red flag" laws on the books. One of the Parkland student's first accomplishments was getting a red flag law passed in Florida. It's not at all sufficient IMO but it is a start and isn't in itself bad just because Trump said something supporting it. There is evidence that it's effective at lowering not just gun crimes but also suicide rates. It's too small a compromise to stop there but don't dismiss it entirely because you heard it come out of Trump's mouth. Fuck, one indication that it might be a positive thing is that it turned my Dad, the most hardcore Trumper you can imagine (I would say just look at his facebook but don't, please), against him. Seeings how he stopped similar legislation from the Obama administration from being enacted, Trump shouldn't get any credit for it though.

So that's where I'm at. There is a mental health issue that factors into the problem of mass shootings, but unless we gain the ability to legislate away mental disorders focusing solely on that won't do shit. Red flag laws, and further educating folks on what those red flags are, however, might help a little and they're proven to curb suicide rates so I'm all for them. Getting a hold on the spread of toxic ideologies is a must, but I ain't got the answer on how we do that but shit we gotta try. First though it just comes down to taking the ease of access away from guns engineered to do the most damage in the least amount of time. That should be the number one goal right now.
I will not dispute one word of what you say. I just want to give my opinion on one part. Personality disorders, with the possible exception of borderline, are only arguably mental health disorders. Narcissism and anti-social disorders are not psychotic or depressive, which are the two main types of treatable mental illnesses. Narcissists become presidents, not just one, Academy Award winning artists of all kinds, and anti-social personality disorders are actually another word for criminal. People do not get involuntary treatment based simply on those diagnoses. Borderline is another deal, and anyone with any significant experience will tell you, they are a treatment teams nightmare. An equivalent to narcissism and anti-social is the often diagnosed term for children of Intermittent Explosive Disorder. This is justifying bad behavior with a diagnosis, when it is usually a product of environment and yes, you can blame the parents in most cases, lack of coherent structure in raising children. There is nothing worse than a behavior problem child being shipped to a locked unit and pumped with drugs because was never given a chance to learn to behave.In all my years of psych evaluations, more often than not, especially with children, hospitalization was last resort. It provides no miracles, regardless of age. It does however, work very well for the grossly psychotic, and seriously depressed and/or suicidal.

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by scotto »

^ Well done.
The difference between treatable and non-treatable (or at least nigh-on impossible to treat) mental health concerns is what's lost in the knee-jerk "It's a mental health issue" response and then everyone looks at you like you're, well, crazy, for suggesting that murderers are not mentally ill. Unless Republicans are suggesting we start building psychiatric facilities on every corner (and I'm pretty sure they're not) AND change the nation's civil-commitment laws, red-flag legislation won't do anything but further overburden our already overburdened mental health system, with the truly mentally ill (depression, anxiety, psychotic, etc.) individuals who are not a threat further stigmatized and the treatment-resistant (antisocial, narcissistic, etc.) who are a more likely threat skating below the radar.
Again, pick any research paper or sociological study and you can parse percentage of mentally ill or societal factors or video-game playing all day long, but there remains only one single constant variable in gun violence. Hint: it's guns.

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Smitty »

scotto wrote:^ Well done.
The difference between treatable and non-treatable (or at least nigh-on impossible to treat) mental health concerns is what's lost in the knee-jerk "It's a mental health issue" response and then everyone looks at you like you're, well, crazy, for suggesting that murderers are not mentally ill. Unless Republicans are suggesting we start building psychiatric facilities on every corner (and I'm pretty sure they're not) AND change the nation's civil-commitment laws, red-flag legislation won't do anything but further overburden our already overburdened mental health system, with the truly mentally ill (depression, anxiety, psychotic, etc.) individuals who are not a threat further stigmatized and the treatment-resistant (antisocial, narcissistic, etc.) who are a more likely threat skating below the radar.
Again, pick any research paper or sociological study and you can parse percentage of mentally ill or societal factors or video-game playing all day long, but there remains only one single constant variable in gun violence. Hint: it's guns.
Oh goddamn, he was responding to me, I'm not a Republican skating the issue of gun control and the correlation between these guys having mental issues and slaughtering innocents is not equivalent to blaming on video games or whatever. The number one issue is guns, absolutely, I said so myself, and following that is the spread of toxic ideologies, but sticking your head in the sand and screaming "stop!" when anyone in good faith tries to have an intelligent and rational conversation about mental issues and mass shootings is bullshit, save that for the Republicans. You can also shift the goal posts from treatable to untreatable or genetic or behavioral based and for the sake of this discussion it doesn't matter because it's not about treatment, its about detecting proven warning signs and proactively intervening. If someone exhibits a pattern of aberrant behavior to the point they can be diagnosed with ASPD or whatever disorder, regardless of if they fit your narrow criteria for being legitimately mentally ill or if they're just a bad kid, I don't want them having access to guns. Not only is there tangible evidence that red flag laws work to lower suicide and violent crime in states that have implemented them, there's also evidence that they may have prevented mass shootings that did take place if there had been a system in place to report warning signs, but whatever. I also point out that while I know firsthand experience in any profession almost always diverts from official guidebooks/manuals, but all the literature about personality disorders insist that there is a biological component and also suggest treatment in the form of psychotherapy or in extreme cases medication. I'm no expert so I will defer to you & oilpiers, I just wanted to point that out. I alwo want to thank oilpiers for the actual on-the-beat insight.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by scotto »

Apologies if my response seemed targeted to any one person, it wasn't. I was just responding and adding my commentary.
I'm all for taking steps. And I acknowledge that red-flag legislation could thwart violence. That would be a major step.
But I'm frustrated with those (not with you or oilpiers or anyone here) who want a convenient way to shift the blame and ignore the elephant in the room. I'm also frustrated from waging this battle all day at work and on Facebook and with friends and family. Again, sorry if it felt personal.
Fuck, these are wearying times.

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Smitty »

scotto, I apologize too for the tone, "wearying" doesn't even begin to describe these times. It wasn't but a few short years ago that the general consensus on the left, even among some on 3dd who now reflexively shut it down, was that red flag laws were a good idea and a necessary part of a gun control package; now a few years later, right on the cusp of them actually being passed into law which seems like a miracle in itself, I get labelled "part of the problem" by people I consider friends for supporting them. I mean aside from more shootings and nothing being done, nothing has changed in the intervening years; it's not like we have a better understanding of gunmen now than we had then, and depending on how next year goes it may be a long while before any other meaningful legislation has a chance to pass Moscow Mitch's Senate, but right now we have a short window to possibly get this done with bipartisan support and now all the sudden the left doesn't even want it? WTF?

Hell, just google "red flag laws" and pay attention to the difference in tone from articles pre-dating Trump's proposal and those after it. The about-face is so blatant it makes me question the motives behind it.

Even if you divorce the entire premise from mass shootings, which you shouldn't but still, red flag laws go a long way towards combating the suicide epidemic, which by numbers is a much larger issue than mass shootings anyway.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Swamp »

Japan and South Korea out sell the US in video games.
and the rest as they say is uh er uh, well somebodies history somewhere?

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

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i think a lot of NRA/conservatives think The Minority Report is achievable.

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

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Trump heading out for a 10 day Golf holiday. Leadership!
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by beantownbubba »

In some ways it's probably a good thing that I found this thread about as far down the page as it's been in a very long time. But I can't let sleeping dogs lie. Trump's comments/actions in getting Reps Omar and Tlaib banned from Israel have really shaken me. Yes, of course Israel played a role in the "drama," but (a) It was Trump's doing and (b) it's the US side of this that's the bigger problem (which is not in any way to endorse Israel's terrible, boneheaded decision). By attacking two US citizens and 2 members of the legislative branch of government, the president is undermining and destroying the very government he is supposed to lead. Some have said that he is doing this for petty personal reasons given his feud w/ the squad, and while turning international relations upside down in service of a petty personal feud would be a really bad thing, imho what Trump is doing is worse, because his feud w/ the squad is not petty & personal, it is an intentional racist attack and he has now upped the ante.
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Post by John A Arkansawyer »

The sooner we put those assholes in the grave&piss on the dirt above it, the better off we'll be

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by John A Arkansawyer »

beantownbubba wrote:In some ways it's probably a good thing that I found this thread about as far down the page as it's been in a very long time. But I can't let sleeping dogs lie. Trump's comments/actions in getting Reps Omar and Tlaib banned from Israel have really shaken me. Yes, of course Israel played a role in the "drama," but (a) It was Trump's doing and (b) it's the US side of this that's the bigger problem (which is not in any way to endorse Israel's terrible, boneheaded decision). By attacking two US citizens and 2 members of the legislative branch of government, the president is undermining and destroying the very government he is supposed to lead. Some have said that he is doing this for petty personal reasons given his feud w/ the squad, and while turning international relations upside down in service of a petty personal feud would be a really bad thing, imho what Trump is doing is worse, because his feud w/ the squad is not petty & personal, it is an intentional racist attack and he has now upped the ante.
Dahlia Lithwick says it's worse than that:
Media accounts suggest is wasn’t exactly clear to whom Jews voting for a Democrat would be disloyal, but in context it appears that he was suggesting that Jews owe their first loyalty to Israel and that any choice to defend Reps. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota—freshman Democrats who were first granted entry to Israel by the Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and then denied it after Trump suggested they be barred—is a choice not to defend Israel, where, according to Trump, Jews’ principal loyalty should lie.

...All of these remarks tap into a centuries-old anti-Semitic canard about the ways in which Jews can never be fully loyal to their homelands because they always place their religious loyalties first. To be sure, claims that “outsiders” and “others” can never be loyal to America have swept in Catholics and Muslims over time, but they will always have a special salience for Jews, dating back to the original fake news that was the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, used to cast doubt on Jewish “loyalty” for decades.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by pearlbeer »

My new working theory:

Trump says bat-shit crazy shit like "Jews are disloyal if they don't vote for me" or "let's buy Greenland!" to distract attention from policy. We need to seperate what he SAYS from what he DOES.

Meanwhile....gun control seemingly just died (again) and here we are talking about "The Squad" and Greenland.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by beantownbubba »

John A Arkansawyer wrote:Dahlia Lithwick says it's worse than that:
It is indeed worse than what I wrote, much worse. My post was made BEFORE the more recent comments that Ms. Lithwick is responding to. His earlier comments were bad because Trump used the foreign policy of the United States to purse his own personal interest in being re-elected by manipulating the system to his advantage; because he undercut the legitimacy and authority of the United States Congress; and because he treated 2 citizens who also happened to be Congresswomen as second class citizens, punishing them for exercising their right to free speech and limiting their ability to travel in unconstitutional ways. In legal terms, he also denied them due process and the equal protection of the law.

This latest thing? It's purely offensive that he thinks he can speak for Jews (and/or tell us what to think and how to act) and because the fundamental notions behind his comments are flat out anti-Semitic and w/out question reflect views and assumptions that are flat out dangerous to Jews.

We can also throw in the absolutely bizarre and inexplicable "Greenland/Denmark incident" which to me shows that Trump lives in a fantasy world of his own creation. My first and most consistent thought is of Humphrey Bogart mumbling about strawberries in The Caine Mutiny. These seem to me to be literally the ramblings of a mentally challenged mind. How does any Trump supporter, especially elected officials, fund raisers and assorted big wheels, read/hear about this and think that supporting this mean is in any way ok? I think it's a particularly great example of the problem because it doesn't involve any hot button issues - it has nothing to do w/ "the culture wars," "playing to the base," "dividing and conquering" the opposition or appealing to or advancing the interests of, any particular interest group or political faction, so there's nothing for anybody to be defensive about and no reason to search for possible explanations/justifications (of which I've heard exactly zero) for this bizarre behavior. It's flat out nuts and not acknowledging that says way too much about Trump's supporters and not in a good way.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by beantownbubba »

pearlbeer wrote:My new working theory:

Trump says bat-shit crazy shit like "Jews are disloyal if they don't vote for me" or "let's buy Greenland!" to distract attention from policy. We need to seperate what he SAYS from what he DOES.

Meanwhile....gun control seemingly just died (again) and here we are talking about "The Squad" and Greenland.
Generally true, except that I think your first two examples actually don't fit that mold: The "disloyalty" issue because it's so directly threatening to a particular group which can't ignore it and the Greenland thing because imho it's literally evidence of a mental deficiency (by which I mean some kind of mental illness, not minimal IQ, which is its own story) which ought to be addressed head on by the powers that be. Also note that the issue w/ the squad (denial of entry into Israel) is not the same as the loyalty issue, though both are to some extent directed at dividing and distracting the Jewish community.

But as I say, I think you accurately capture Trump's modus operandi.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by pearlbeer »

beantownbubba wrote:
pearlbeer wrote:My new working theory:

Trump says bat-shit crazy shit like "Jews are disloyal if they don't vote for me" or "let's buy Greenland!" to distract attention from policy. We need to seperate what he SAYS from what he DOES.

Meanwhile....gun control seemingly just died (again) and here we are talking about "The Squad" and Greenland.
Generally true, except that I think your first two examples actually don't fit that mold: The "disloyalty" issue because it's so directly threatening to a particular group which can't ignore it and the Greenland thing because imho it's literally evidence of a mental deficiency (by which I mean some kind of mental illness, not minimal IQ, which is its own story) which ought to be addressed head on by the powers that be. Also note that the issue w/ the squad (denial of entry into Israel) is not the same as the loyalty issue, though both are to some extent directed at dividing and distracting the Jewish community.

But as I say, I think you accurately capture Trump's modus operandi.
All true.

Maybe my point would have been better made by simply saying he is a incompetent fucking asshole.

Fuck Trump
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by beantownbubba »

pearlbeer wrote:Fuck Trump
The bottom line remains the bottom line.

Fuck Trump.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by John A Arkansawyer »

beantownbubba wrote:This latest thing? It's purely offensive that he thinks he can speak for Jews (and/or tell us what to think and how to act) and because the fundamental notions behind his comments are flat out anti-Semitic and w/out question reflect views and assumptions that are flat out dangerous to Jews.
Josh Bernoff, author of Writing Without Bullshit, did just that on this topic this morning, and added a small silver lining at the end:
One more thing. Jews are more likely to live in cities, and in blue states like New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts where Trump will never prevail. But Florida is a swing state, and 3% of the Florida population is Jewish. The 2016 margin between Trump’s vote and Hillary Clinton’s vote in Florida is smaller than the number of Jews there. It wouldn’t surprise me if Trump’s arrogance just cost him the state in the 2020 election.

Because Jews don’t forget.
It's not a typical posting from him--it's usually just about bad writing and occasionally good writing (because, let's face it, there's a lot more of the latter than the former)--but it's an awfully good one.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Tequila Cowboy »

pearlbeer wrote:My new working theory:

Trump says bat-shit crazy shit like "Jews are disloyal if they don't vote for me" or "let's buy Greenland!" to distract attention from policy. We need to seperate what he SAYS from what he DOES.

Meanwhile....gun control seemingly just died (again) and here we are talking about "The Squad" and Greenland.
I don't think it's all distraction. The Jewish thing is political in trying to ingratiate himself to a world leader that thinks like him and possibly divide American Jews. The Greenland thing is ridiculous on its face but but the reaction and the canceling of the meeting has real foreign policy implication and reduces our influence in the world. It is harmful. Just because these issues aren't as horrific and emotional as babies in cages doesn't mean they aren't harmful. In knocking Jewish Americans he stokes antisemitism despite his support for Israel and in rebuffing Denmark he isolates further from the world community matters. Outside of some of the wacko personal insult Tweets it all matters. We should be able to pay attention to all of it.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by whatwouldcooleydo? »

money shot about 1:37 in

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