Over here, and maybe in reverse where you're at, the corruption and general hatred has gotten way too obvious for anyone to pretend a blind eye to, and it's really hard for me to accept the people who knowingly turn a blind eye to it, let alone the growing minority who have come out of the closet to embrace white nationalism in the open.

I think Europe's situation is radically different from ours, and people mistakenly lump the two together. 

 

But I don't know really.  I used to read a bunch of international news, but the world is more self-isolating these days.  It's harder to get reliable information.

 

 

 

Probably the only thing I like about this warzone is that the right wing is simply not there because it's not interesting for them, so there's no way anyone can say "right-wing and left-wing were fighting and stuff happened" or "there was a demonstration from right-wing and a counter-demonstration from left-wing and this happened" or things like that. Only left-wing is there, so only left-wing is guilty for what is, as I already said, a true warzone. They had to evacuate friggin KINDERGARTENS because the children weren't safe. And if you think that was unnecessary, in at least one of the kindergartens, after the children had escaped, people actually broke in and basically tried to destroy everything.

 

In my country when half a million people march in a peaceful protest the right starts talking about legislation aimed to criminalize opposition to the present regime and point to isolated incidents of vandalism to call the entire crowd scum.  When white supremacists hold a military-style parade armed with AK47s in a black neighborhood, they call that free speech.  When extremists on both ends meet and start throwing rocks at each other, it's brave patriots defending America against the commies.  Our own president openly calls for violence against the left.

 

So yeah, if they do have to eat their hats then good.  There's always the counter risk that they openly support the violence or else just report that it was all right-wingers and dismiss anyone who shows them the facts as liars.  But I like to pretend Europe isn't half as far gone as America.

 

 

In Europe it's the other way around... There's the pegida demonstrations, which have gotten a lot of negative press despite being peaceful (except of course from a select few people, but those are universally denounced by pegina symphetisers), and the counterprotests by the anti-facists (the same that are now in Hamburg, for a large part) were always much more violent, but you either heard nothing about it, or you heard that "there were protests and counterprotests and X people were arrested", if possible with the implication that it were pegida protesters. And that's in general how it is.

 

Did you know that it even goes as far as media like CNN and BBC faking demonstrations to be able to tell the message they want to tell? After one of the terrorist attacks in London a few weeks ago, they staged a "muslim demonstration against terror". There were a few people there who were carefully choreographed to appear like they were with many more. Some videos about that staging were leaked. And, surprise, got no mainstream media attention.

 

And let's be real - there'll always be violent people on both sides of the debate, and they're all doing it wrong. However, the problem isn't in the first place the violent people, it's that media, politicians and even judges do their best to look away from left-wing violence while they emphasize right-wing violence.

 

I honestly feel like living in the 30s, but with left-wing and right-wing reversed.

 

This reminds me of when the White House posted an extremely misleading image of Trump's inauguration and claimed there were like 2 million people in attendance, then accused the thousands of independent photographers of all engaging in a mass conspiracy to photoshop people out of the pictures.

 

What scares the hell out of me is the 30% of Americans who repeat this line in spite of knowing it's a lie.

Yeah, I have a hard time even talking to people on the right here about apolitical matters these days.  Tensions are high.

 

The weird thing is that, at least for you, it's the right in america and the left in europe...

 

Though, I guess that in america, it really is both sides in the end. I remember that basically the whole of 2016 I was like, man, I'm so happy I'm not an american and don't have to vote on one of those two.

 

 

 

 

Probably the only thing I like about this warzone is that the right wing is simply not there because it's not interesting for them, so there's no way anyone can say "right-wing and left-wing were fighting and stuff happened" or "there was a demonstration from right-wing and a counter-demonstration from left-wing and this happened" or things like that. Only left-wing is there, so only left-wing is guilty for what is, as I already said, a true warzone. They had to evacuate friggin KINDERGARTENS because the children weren't safe. And if you think that was unnecessary, in at least one of the kindergartens, after the children had escaped, people actually broke in and basically tried to destroy everything.

 

In my country when half a million people march in a peaceful protest the right starts talking about legislation aimed to criminalize opposition to the present regime and point to isolated incidents of vandalism to call the entire crowd scum.  When white supremacists hold a military-style parade armed with AK47s in a black neighborhood, they call that free speech.  When extremists on both ends meet and start throwing rocks at each other, it's brave patriots defending America against the commies.  Our own president openly calls for violence against the left.

 

So yeah, if they do have to eat their hats then good.  There's always the counter risk that they openly support the violence or else just report that it was all right-wingers and dismiss anyone who shows them the facts as liars.  But I like to pretend Europe isn't half as far gone as America.

 

 

In Europe it's the other way around... There's the pegida demonstrations, which have gotten a lot of negative press despite being peaceful (except of course from a select few people, but those are universally denounced by pegina symphetisers), and the counterprotests by the anti-facists (the same that are now in Hamburg, for a large part) were always much more violent, but you either heard nothing about it, or you heard that "there were protests and counterprotests and X people were arrested", if possible with the implication that it were pegida protesters. And that's in general how it is.

 

Did you know that it even goes as far as media like CNN and BBC faking demonstrations to be able to tell the message they want to tell? After one of the terrorist attacks in London a few weeks ago, they staged a "muslim demonstration against terror". There were a few people there who were carefully choreographed to appear like they were with many more. Some videos about that staging were leaked. And, surprise, got no mainstream media attention.

 

And let's be real - there'll always be violent people on both sides of the debate, and they're all doing it wrong. However, the problem isn't in the first place the violent people, it's that media, politicians and even judges do their best to look away from left-wing violence while they emphasize right-wing violence.

 

I honestly feel like living in the 30s, but with left-wing and right-wing reversed.

 

This reminds me of when the White House posted an extremely misleading image of Trump's inauguration and claimed there were like 2 million people in attendance, then accused the thousands of independent photographers of all engaging in a mass conspiracy to photoshop people out of the pictures.

 

What scares the hell out of me is the 30% of Americans who repeat this line in spite of knowing it's a lie.

 

 

This is so over-hyped by both sides in my opinion. Like, what the hell does it matter how many people were there? And even if there were less - well, good arguments can be made that maybe more people were watching on television than eight years ago. But even if not, hey, he won the vote, right? It's not about the people coming on your party, it's about the people filling your dot.

Part of our problem is that we don't really have a representative government. The ultra-right wingers might be a minority, but as the system currently stands no amount of people showing up to vote against them can effectively oust them from power.

"Democracy is the worst form of government there is, except all others we've tried."

I think humanity is not supposed to live in groups so large that the leaders do not know all the people they make decisions about.

Edited July 8, 20177 yr by Leyrann

The problem with the vote in america, to me, was that it was either some weird, old, eccentric multimillionaire or someone deeply, deeply ingrained in the heart of the political system which so many people have come to hate. There was honestly no right choice.

For what it's worth, I think Bernie Sanders would've handily beaten Trump.

And to be fair, American politics in general, I just can't believe sometimes how far politicians from both parties will go to discredit their opponents. It's just smear campaigns from both sides.

In 50 years, though, it will all be clear.

This is so over-hyped by both sides in my opinion. Like, what the hell does it matter how many people were there? And even if there were less - well, good arguments can be made that maybe more people were watching on television than eight years ago. But even if not, hey, he won the vote, right? It's not about the people coming on your party, it's about the people filling your dot.

That's one glaring instance among literally many hundreds of the same sort, and it's like this.

 

Joe goes around telling everyone he graduated college with a 4.0, earned two purple hearts in Vietnam, and won an Olympic gold medal.

 

We can look at the facts and know that Joe hasn't actually ever lived outside of his dad's basement.

 

We don't have to hate Joe for his insecurity issues, but jesus christ why are we accepting him as the President of the United States?

How could we not have known that left/right* was so dangerous?

 

*cross out the side that is not applicable

 

This is so over-hyped by both sides in my opinion. Like, what the hell does it matter how many people were there? And even if there were less - well, good arguments can be made that maybe more people were watching on television than eight years ago. But even if not, hey, he won the vote, right? It's not about the people coming on your party, it's about the people filling your dot.

That's one glaring instance among literally many hundreds of the same sort, and it's like this.

 

Joe goes around telling everyone he graduated college with a 4.0, earned two purple hearts in Vietnam, and won an Olympic gold medal.

 

We can look at the facts and know that Joe hasn't actually ever lived outside of his dad's basement.

 

We don't have to hate Joe for his insecurity issues, but jesus christ why are we accepting him as the President of the United States?

 

 

Because a majority (or almost, whatever, he won the vote with however your voting system works) voted for him. Democracy. If the people want a fool to lead, then let a fool lead them.

Democracy is something that you'll have to accept, wheter you like it or not.

 

Right now in the Netherlands I'm hating it too, but that's also because I feel like the people who got the votes are trying to kill democracy.

 

(then again, maybe you feel the same?)

For what it's worth, I think Bernie Sanders would've handily beaten Trump.

Zero doubt in my mind.

Anyways, it's getting dark outside here, which means that I can go to sleep now.

 

G'night.

But even if not, hey, he won the vote, right? It's not about the people coming on your party, it's about the people filling your dot.

And as far as this goes, he won the election process as it has always existed in our nation's history. Don't hate the player hate the game etc but it still stands that he received significantly fewer votes (relatively speaking) than his opponent.

Anyways, it's getting dark outside here, which means that I can go to sleep now.

 

 

 

G'night.

 

You should get some black out blinds.

Because a majority (or almost, whatever, he won the vote with however your voting system works) voted for him. Democracy. If the people want a fool to lead, then let a fool lead them.

I mean, I would be just as disgusted but probably a lot more accepting if all of this came about democratically. None of it really did, and a lot of that had to do with pre-existing flaws in our system, but their historical origin isn't really relevant to the problems of here and now.

 

It's like, we as a nation worked so hard for so long to collectively educate ourselves, and it turned out that at the end of the day that never really mattered anyway, because the electoral system was exploitable.

 

More votes were cast for democrats than for republicans for the presidency, the Senate, and the House, yet republicans hold firm control of all three.  They actually hold their largest majority of the House in 80 years, in an election where most Americans voted against them.  It's really not a situation where showing up to vote can have an appreciable impact.  The ability to choose who runs our nation rests in the hands of a minority of mostly rural, poor, uneducated, extremely isolated people who we have no easy means to influence and large corporations can through hundreds of millions of dollars at.

 

Moreover, our Supreme Court was hijacked in a non-violent coup.  The nomination process for it was always broken because it relied on trust rather than law.  Republicans bailed on a 250 year tradition to establish a new procedure where so long as they hold the presidency or senate majority, no one can take a seat unless they pledge loyalty to the Right.  Keep in mind, the entire job of the Supreme Court is to ensure that the laws our government passes fall within the boundaries of our Constitution.  The Constitution is open to interpretation, certainly, but we now have an appointee who pledges to preemptively reinterpret it in whatever manner necessary to find the Republican party's actions legal.  Supreme Court judges have no term limit.  Short of a revolution, Neil Gorsuch will hold that seat for the remainder of his hopefully very short life.

But that's our problem.  The most important thing I can't emphasize enough is that "Left" and "Right" mean very different things here than they do in Europe.  I don't understand European politics today half as much as I used to, but I would be very surprised if there is much overlap between what our parties stand for.  Maybe things have changed, but I would be really surprised.  I think a lot of battles we're losing were won there generations ago and are accepted as practical policy across the board.

I know this isn't a political board, but our Debate forum is a bottom-tier cesspool and you'll get trolled off the planet if you frequent there long enough and aren't a white nationalist.  It's nice to express opinions once in a while in a place where I think I'll be able to disagree with people and still respect their views. 

so on that note

banana