Surprised by the poll results! Would have thought more people would be sceptical about the idea of natural rights. But also pleasantly surprised with those who simply see it as a short-hand or derivative of social arrangements.

If you would otherwise vote Democrat but are staying at home or voting 3rd party because of your dislike of Biden, then you are tautologically casting a vote for Trump. — EricH

Again with the mental gymnastics.

Oh geee what a surrprrrisseee who could have seen this coming!

The only thing to blame if Trump is reelected is the superficiality, stupidity, childishness, and greed of Democrats. — neonspectraltoast

And people here - and elsewhere - want to reward them for it, and then blame those who do not.

Notably, unlike a certain bullshit effort of mental gymnastics in which not voting counts as voting, this is a rather straightforward case in which voting for someone tautologically implies support.

God you're thick lol.

I'm sorry you don't English good. Must be a hard life.

Also you like using explicit sexual imaginary alot. You got some issues to work out. Maybe stay away from women for the time being. Maybe forever.

Maybe you missed my Wiki link.

:sparkle: Here it is again. :sparkle:

Here's at least :sparkle: 90 lawmakers since 2017 :sparkle: at the state level alone.

Maybe step outside every once in a while, little lamb.

I don't just think it - I'm going by juridical record. Feel free to ignore reality of course.

Scratch an establishment politican, find a moral lowlife.

What planet do YOU live on, Baden? — Frank Apisa

This one, where the American halls of political power are filled to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_political_sex_scandals_in_the_United_States with sexual misconduct.

The pearl clutching is hilarious. Your senators and representatives are sexual freaks, and have been since day one. Biden 'hair sniff hall predator' is no exception, but a conformist to the rule.

The irony being that bringing up real facts - like, say, that Obama's drone strikes killed non-combatants 90% of the time and that he's a literal war criminal - would simply be too inconvenient for American empire, so bullshit like an indefineable 'Obamagate' needs to be pushed instead.

Much like the still-to-be-produced 'strong' evidence of COVID's release from a Wuhan lab. I mean, jeez, if anyone wants to call out China, look to the arseholery they're pulling in HK right now. Instead - bullshit upon bullshit, from an adminstration caught - not with its pants down - but without pants from the beginning.

Hahaha

Not Even the People Ranting About “Obamagate” Know What It Is -

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/05/trump-tweet-obamagate-rand-paul-richard-grenell.html

Our little forum being a microcosm lol.

https://jacobinmag.com/2020/05/joe-biden-move-left

"Congressional Democrats pretend they are really putting up an opposition to Trump, even though they keep supporting his corporate bailout bills — and progressive organizations in DC ask us to applaud the bait and switch. [As for Biden,] consider how condescending, how mocking, the entire “task force” dance really is. It’s as if the Biden campaign went into the basement of the DNC, dusted off a three-ring binder from 1983 titled “How To Run Campaigns,” and turned to page 863b for the section entitled “Post-Primary Unity Blueprint” — and we are all expected to pretend that this is something real.

We all know in our hearts that we don’t really need another “climate task force” — we know we just need a Democratic nominee who commits to supporting existing Green New Deal legislation; We all know we don’t really need a “health care task force.” We know we just need a Democratic nominee who commits to not vetoing Medicare for All legislation that is already co-sponsored by a majority of US House Democrats; We know all of this, so don’t deny it. We know Biden could just choose right now to endorse these things, and we know he is actively choosing not to do that — at least not yet. He is instead ripping the page out of that ancient DNC binder and choosing to put forward vague task forces, expecting us all to pretend he isn’t deliberately shirking concrete legislative commitments, and further pretend that a task force process is some serious, truthful, totally above-board move for consensus".

---

https://theintercept.com/2020/05/12/heroes-act-coronavirus-health-insurance-industry/

Re: the democratic party's latest bailout bill:

"This week, Axios reported that House Democrats are working on legislation to “ensure that people aren’t ‘double-dipping’ into the different pots of money” — for instance, “they do not want someone who is receiving more unemployment money to also receive money through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).”; At the same time, Democratic lawmakers are pushing new bills that would let corporate lobbying organizations and dark money groups in Washington grab some of that dwindling PPP money for themselves before the cash gets to more mom-and-pop businesses teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Moreover, the legislation would knowingly help some politically connected industries effectively double-dip on giant bailouts for themselves."

--

All this to say nothing of the democrats' acceding to the latest expansion of the 'patriot' act (which, to recall, Biden practically wrote).

--

Anyone who thinks Joe Biden and the democrats have anything to offer are fucking delusional. Even if one could be convinced to ignore Biden's past maliciousness - which is anything but 'past' insofar as millions of people are currently paying for it today - even his current conduct and that of his party are fucking evil. Any dewey eyed belief in whatever dangling promissory note he has to offer is insanity. It's like those wretched battered partners of abusive relationships who believe - against all reason and evidence - that things will change after the baby of the election.

With, of course, support of the democrats. This is the 'alternative' that American citizens are supposed to vote for.

That, and, as I said way earlier: people like Biden are the people who gave us Trump to begin with. Trump is a direct result and phenomenon of policies supported and championed by Biden. They are not 'the same', but they both belong to the same ratchet mechanism that continues to pull American politics rightward and downward - and the rest of the world with it. Once you see the both as belonging to a cyclic phenomenon that continually co-opts all other paths out of it, the only option is Exit, not Voice.

It's not 'more pragmatic' to vote for Biden; it's acquiescing in a political suicide that's slower, rather than faster. A change of pace is not a change of direction.

What the incredibly dumb 'arithmetic' leaves out of the equation is of course that a vote for either legitimates the entire operation of blackmail which forced one in that position to begin with. Stupid inputs in, stupid outputs out.

And Chomsky is an idiot on this. Much like his linguistics.

The act of pressing a button is irrelevant. — Xtrix

Only true thing you've said so far.

What terrifies me is that America consistently seeks to export it's model of governance and 'growth' - by force, if necessary. Or with treaties like NAFTA and the TPP - both of which Biden supported and continues to support. People wonder why others take interest in American affairs. The question is better put the other way around: why America is consistently fucking around in the affairs of others.

Jesus, this is like me telling someone if they don't punch someone in the face just like I'm going to, they're guilty of battery. It's literally that stupid. — Baden

Sometimes the best response is to let the stupid speak for itself and then laugh.

not voting... is indeed a vote. — Xtrix

Lol.

More wonderful Orwellianism where not voting=voting.

the vast majority of voters literally cannot imagine any alternative to the point where many of them will rabidly attack, mock, and pillory anyone who suggests there is one. — Baden

It's an interesting phenomenon not limited to here. I think it has to do with shame - the shame of being put in an impossible situation (Trump or Biden?), and the minimal psychic relief that is offered when one imgines oneself Stoically doing one's duty regardless - as if a sacrifice for a cause. Those who refuse the blackmail of 'choice', make a mockery of this idea of self-sacrifice - they realize that the choice is not an impossible one, but in so doing they deprive the shamed voters of their sacrifical self-image. That shame turns to anger as they lash out because those who refuse the 'choice' don't let them have their minimal justification for voting for a rapist (either way).

I mean, it takes huge psychic mutilation to convince oneself that one should commit oneself to one rapist over another, while still preserving some image of self-integrity; that someone else doesn't see themselves as being bound to make that choice is going to result in some major pathology on the part of the shamed voter. That pathology comes out in a pretty vile anger, and unsuprisingly - at least here - cashed out in sexual insults. Like a sublimation of political impotence projected onto others as sexual impotence. It's very sad, and I feel sorry for them. But this is the kind of thing that the system generates. Wretched people, turned against each other and themselves, for the sake of that system. A basic Marxist point, relevant in this situation.

:up:

Biden would rather challenge people to a fist fight, or tell them to go vote for someone else, than lay down an argument for why people should vote for him. Probably because he can barely articulate a full sentence, but also probably because he stands for nothing.

Well done for having minimal principles and for refusing to be politically blackmailed.

Says the bootlicker.

Go play apologetics somewhere else.

Police are literally a public health risk for black people - black men in particular - in the US. It's an incredible 'stupidity' that just so-happens to kill black people at a rate of 2.5x that of white people. Just one of those inexplicable, magic things that happens because of 'stupidity'.

Of course when it happens to pretty white women, the chances of conviction go up, magically up. Also helps if the cop in question has a name like Mohamed Noor.

Yes, yes, there's always an excuse - and someone waiting to excuse it.

This one?: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/black-woman-shot-killed-after-kentucky-police-entered-her-home-n1205651

Basically, cops stormed into the house of a black woman - an EMT - during a 'no knock' raid and shot her dead - the cops had the wrong address. The lawyer representing this case is the same as the lawyer in Arbery's case.

Trump is a walking bag of limp dicks who has materially and unapologetically increased the degree of misery in the world by multiple factors, so its kinda hard to understand why anyone owes a cunt like him even a modicum of respect.

https://www.wdrb.com/in-depth/attorneys-claim-lmpd-officers-killed-26-year-old-emt-in-botched-police-raid/article_4bb33de6-704e-11ea-bb3c-4785530c8830.html

You don't even need to leave your house to get shot by cops in America. Just being black will do the trick.

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/05/trump-storms-out-of-briefing-after-being-called-out-for-racism-from-chinese-american-reporter/

A racist, a baby, and a fuckup of a leader who can't take responsibility.

Also the Obama thing - if it needs to be spelt out for anyone too stupid to get it - is Trump's rolling out the tried and tested target of deflection over the fact that the US now has had 80,000+ deaths and that Obama called him out for compromising rule of law with his fucking around on the Fylnn case. Obama, China - anything to divert from his own murderous incompetence.

Yaaasss Queeeen.

Yet it is the government and the political leadership that decides what it wants. — ssu

Oh sweet summer child.

You think tech companies are not interested in using government to further their interests by expanding government reach for their sakes?

I really don't know what your point is.

Did you read the article?

https://theintercept.com/2020/05/08/andrew-cuomo-eric-schmidt-coronavirus-tech-shock-doctrine/

This is an exemplary way of critiquing state overreach during COVID in a way that's not just a shitty reactionary vomit spew of 'Muh Freedoms" and "Muh haircuts":

"We face real and hard choices between investing in humans and investing in technology. Because the brutal truth is that, as it stands, we are very unlikely to do both. The refusal to transfer anything like the needed resources to states and cities in successive federal bailouts means that the coronavirus health crisis is now slamming headlong into a manufactured austerity crisis. Public schools, universities, hospitals, and transit are facing existential questions about their futures. If tech companies win their ferocious lobbying campaign for remote learning, telehealth, 5G, and driverless vehicles — their Screen New Deal — there simply won’t be any money left over for urgent public priorities, never mind the Green New Deal that our planet urgently needs.

On the contrary: The price tag for all the shiny gadgets will be mass teacher layoffs and hospital closures.

Tech provides us with powerful tools, but not every solution is technological. And the trouble with outsourcing key decisions about how to “reimagine” our states and cities to men like Bill Gates and Eric Schmidt is that they have spent their lives demonstrating the belief that there is no problem that technology cannot fix. For them, and many others in Silicon Valley, the pandemic is a golden opportunity to receive not just the gratitude, but the deference and power that they feel has been unjustly denied. And Andrew Cuomo, by putting the former Google chair in charge of the body that will shape the state’s reopening, appears to have just given him something close to free reign."

Trump is a cognitve speed bump too apparently. Or road block, rather. A literal trump card which ends all argument and ceases all rational thought. To anything one can say - "Bbb-b-buuttttt Trump!"