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Thread: OT: Politics

  1. #1551
    Quote Originally Posted by PBSteve View Post
    2nd amendment activists are either silent or rationalize police actions when black men are killed lawfully exercising their right to bear arms:
    https://www.aclu.org/blog/racial-jus...jvjreAnBn3s29M
    we've known this for over a year, philando castile was about 5 miles from my house. the NRA promised a response once "all the facts were in" .... still nothing.

    guys, its just racism.
    social conservatism: the mortal fear that someone, somewhere, might be having fun.

  2. #1552
    Insider Unfated33's Avatar
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    We finally start to see some evidence of voter fraud here in my congressional district. Unfortunately, the voter protection measures put in place by the Republican state congress do nothing to prevent this kind of fraud.

    https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/05/polit...aud/index.html

    Investigators are examining whether Leslie McCrae Dowless, a longtime Bladen County operative who worked for a consultant to the Harris campaign, and a group of people loosely connected to him gathered unsealed absentee ballots, marked those ballots for their candidate, sealed them and signed as witnesses. North Carolina requires witnesses to sign absentee ballots. Usually, those witnesses are family members or friends and ballots are not supposed to be handled by a third party.
    They are also investigating the possibility that absentee ballots were gathered in areas considered to be supportive of McCready but never turned in.
    Local political scientist Michael Bitzer has really dug into the data to see what happened with all four types of voting (absentee-mail, absentee-early voter, election day voter, provisional ballot) here:
    http://www.oldnorthstatepolitics.com...tested-CD.html

    What is interesting about this is that minority ballots, especially African American and Native American had very high rates of not being returned in some of the counties of the district. In Bladen County, they had very high rates of return with the implication of voting for Harris. In NC, like many other southern states, race can be considered a proxy for political party. So while early voters and election day voters that were minority largely favored the Democrat, absentee ballots overwhelmingly went for the Republican.

    Perhaps voters in these two counties simply decided to request, but never return, their absentee by mail ballots; it may be as simple as that. It could also be that the campaigns, on both sides of the political fence, failed to motivate and/or follow-up with their ABM voters to get their ballots completed and returned; it could be as simple as that as well. Maybe it's the fact that both Bladen and Robeson voters (two rural counties) are just that different from Mecklenburg (urban) and Union (suburban) voters in having a different approach to voting; it could be as simple as that. But if there are other issues at hand than voters simply not returning their own ballots, the integrity of the voting process in the 9th Congressional District's election may be called into question.

  3. #1553
    It's not voter fraud, it's election fraud.

  4. #1554
    Insider Unfated33's Avatar
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    I might be inclined to agree with that sentiment, but can you clarify how you are parsing the difference?

  5. #1555
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    that isn't a political disagreement. we dont disagree on politics josh, we disagree on what is real.
    to clarify, i don't spare you the rough edges because thats the way trumpettes prefer to be communicated too. "fuck your feelings" and all. don't cry victim here.
    and to repeat, josh, our differences are not political. they are human.
    I wrote up the beginning of a small paper identifying something I saw a couple years ago. I called it the Paper Doll Wars, to identify the fact I saw so many people going to war on social media and attacking each other over false characterizations of each other. A disconnect from reality that just had them yelling at what I identified as the Paper Doll * a simple, 2D cut out that really wasn*t A person at all.

    In trying to wrap my head around the tone, the anger, coming out in politics today, I was missing something. I finally think I have identified for myself a core issue that I had been missing. I have gone on about moral values, tribalism, sacred items that people dance around, and what they feel is important, the blatant wrongness that comes from calling so many people racists and related, but in the background nagging was that I was missing something. What was the part that was wrong? The Tribalism studies put it on course, but Gordon finally cracked it open for me, so there is a seed in all the surrounding rotten fruit that transpired here.

    When Gordon said the issue was humanity, that I wasn*t human, it all made sense. Being a small geek on history and WWII, a person is curious how genocides work. How they start, the motivation. Often people talk about herd mentality, but there is something that drives religion and tribal actions to allow this behavior. Witch hunts, Rwanda, actual concentration camps, slavery. Down to calling all Trumpers racist. It makes no moral sense. It is easy to see how factually wrong it is. But then, it isn*t. Why do people in this mindset keep repeating this behavior? It isn*t history, it is part of us. Talking about tribalism the root is a protective action or movement * the action of people scared, people who feel threatened. Feel that something that is important is going to be hurt, or that a great sacrilege is going to happen. Something that hurts their soul. But to act on that we have to justify an action that we would not put on others. To kill even. In that, the other side has to be, well, evil. They have to be less human. If somebody is breaking into your home to defend yourself you make the same decision.

    We dehumanize people to justify our actions to them.

    And this gives us a distinct advantage. It is highly evolutionary. If over the long course most people didn*t have this, humans would have died off. Maybe some did.

    In arguing with Gordon I am at a disadvantage, because while I might think he is making asinine point and being a dick * the truth is Gordon, by his own admission, doesn*t consider me to be human. Or, well, less human than himself. He thinks that of anybody not only aligned with the GOP, or disagreeing on his absolutely libelist positions. He thinks this, obviously, about Trump. Look at his understanding provided of the GOP and related. He has the actual belief that the GOP is racist. He doesn*t realize that what is really happening is race issues are sacred to him, and to be able to dehumanize the other tribe he needs to say the other side is not following his sacred totem. Steve, while not being such an a-hole, is following the same moral actions, but he also is using sexism as a sacred totem. Gordon and Steve are not more correct, or right than I am. But they are acting to protect their tribe at a level I am not, since I only lightly align with their enemy. And they feel justified in posting the worst, trying to signal to their tribe, rally them up * Here! Here is the Witch! It is not human! We can do whatever we want to it!

    You can put whatever name you want in there * Witch. Blacks. Kulaks. Jew. Tutsi. GOP. The signaling is the same. It has the same purpose. Gordon and Steve might not realize the underlying drive of this even, the long purpose. Why they feel compelled, and what the virtue signaling is actually doing. It*s purpose, its internal chemical drive.

    What is happening now is worse than a Paper Doll War. The affect is not a bent or crumpled bit of paper left in the dustbin of a forum of the internet. It is now a tribal, religious movement. No different than a mob forming, calling for the noose to go around the tree to justify their behavior. The instigator, the man yelling from the back calling for blood is motivated the same way, with the same lack of character and strong belief that they are doing good against evil. They have justified their actions. The other is bad, evil. They are not even human. Look at how twitter is wrecking people*s lives when someone says or does something un-PC.

    In the books or movie a good call to civility, to rationalize, to be good to one another works. Atticus Finch stopping a small mob, and others. We have it in our folklore. It should work. But those are fiction.

    The truth in action is the mob normally gets blood. The only way to turn them around is if those from their tribe stop them. Those who remind them what it is that is sacred, what value they hold over the need to hate, kill, destroy. To remind them of the humanity of the other people around them. It is repeated time and time again, the backbone of so much history.

    Gordon, and to an extent Steve, are just the men at the back of the mob, egging them on. Calling out how bad the other side is, again and again. Saying just how evil the *Others* are. Post after post. With fiery hot belief in their position. *Proof* that they have, to prove say the other tribe is evil, and they are justified in acting however they need to.

    In the end, with this realization, the only one who can affect this horrid behavior is those of his tribe. The rational left. Ryan for example. The part that can look across the gulf of the battlefield and say *Those people over there are human.* Gordon is past that. Maybe he never had it. Right here, right now on this forum he is a fanatic. Toxic. He might be Chief Lets-kill-em-all in his mind, but really he is the guy at the back, yelling to hang that poor man, right there with Chief Every-one-who-disagrees-with-me-is-a-racist. He thinks he is the humanist, but really he is ill-liberal. This is the reason he has been kicked off of every other forum. Because he is not doing anything constructive on it, and he chases other people off who were constructive. That really is the opposite of being liberal.

    I am going to disengage. Controlling Gordon or Steve*s impossible characterizations would never come from a rational argument from anybody not in their own tribe. The only way to reign back this mindset has to come from those in their own tribe. And I am not.

    I would love to come to this forum and just talk paintball, and maybe cars. But we have some here who want to hate. Dehumanize. And they actually will probably think my leaving the argument is a win for them.

    It isn*t. It is a loss of rationality for their tribe. It further sections off and isolates and allows for the demonization of people that you don*t even know. And don*t want to.

    Ryan, d0c, others * this is your place to speak up. You are still rational. Irony has bugged out, I am bugging out. Others do not feel welcome here, and have told me so. Gordon and Steve will turn on them if they disagree. The quality of this forum, and maybe the nation is in your hands, these are your tribal members. Or else this is the Gordon and Steve bash people and call them racists forum, not Simonized. Your call, see ya around.
    Josh Coray
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    www.j4paintball.com

  6. #1556
    Quote Originally Posted by Unfated33 View Post
    I might be inclined to agree with that sentiment, but can you clarify how you are parsing the difference?
    Voter fraud is where an individual pretends to be someone else to vote or votes when they aren't allowed to (hence why it's a rare crime as risks greatly outweigh benefits).

    Election/Electoral fraud is the interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of the favored candidate, depressing the vote share of the rival candidates, or both.

  7. #1557
    i'd love for you to find anything, anywhere, stating that i don't believe you are person.

    the hypocrisy here is staggering. in his defense of the morally indefensible, the inhuman ways we treat some people, he accuses me of believing he isn't a person?

    wow. your mind is a baffling place josh.
    Last edited by cockerpunk; 12-06-2018 at 11:46 AM.
    social conservatism: the mortal fear that someone, somewhere, might be having fun.

  8. #1558
    Insider PBSteve's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by d0cwho View Post
    Voter fraud is where an individual pretends to be someone else to vote or votes when they aren't allowed to (hence why it's a rare crime as risks greatly outweigh benefits).

    Election/Electoral fraud is the interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of the favored candidate, depressing the vote share of the rival candidates, or both.
    Yeah, the fraud here isn't being committed by voters but by election officials.

  9. #1559
    Insider Unfated33's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by PBSteve View Post
    Yeah, the fraud here isn't being committed by voters but by election officials.
    Okay, I understand the clarification then, but in this case I disagree. A voter in the district organized a campaign to collect and steer ballots towards one candidate. I would consider it to be voter fraud on the part of McRae Dowless. Mr. Dowless is an elected official in the state of NC, but he is not an election official.
    Last edited by Unfated33; 12-06-2018 at 12:21 PM. Reason: Spelling

  10. #1560
    Insider PBSteve's Avatar
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    "Fuck your feelings, you're being histrionic. Why doesn't anyone care about my feelings!? !?"

    -Josh, and conservative men in general

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