ALoafOfBread

First they came for the immigrants

And I did not speak out

Because I’m one of the good ones

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu has been very useful to me. My cardio has improved dramatically, I am much stronger than I used to be, and I’ve gotten a lot of enjoyment out of going from absolute trash to slightly less trash over 2 years.

But I don’t expect it to really help me in a fight. If I did get into a fight, I certainly would do better than if I hadn’t trained; but one thing I’ve learned from fighting people for like 8hrs a week is that it is REALLY easy to fuck up and get hurt in ways you wouldn’t expect. The outcome of a fight is unpredictable - especially when the other person could have a weapon. The best martial art for self defense would be running.

Yeah those LIEbrals are always pRoJeCtInG! Probably because they’re fascists.

It’s always projection. They pre-empt criticism by taking whatever words are (rightly) being directed at them or could be used against them in the future and just flipping them around, making them lose their original meaning in the eyes of their adherents.

If you’re actually serious, literally just google voter turnout numbers in texas. Also look at how close some races were and compare that to the nonvoting registered voter population. I’ve seen several analyses of that recently

Here is the TX government record of voter turnout: https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/historical/70-92.shtml

Here is the TX government reporting of election results: https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/historical/presidential.shtml

2020 Presidential: 66% turnout, 52% of the VAP (voting age population) voted. Trump won by 600k votes, 4.5M of VAP was not registered.

2018 Senatorial: 53% turnout, 42% of VAP turned out. Ted “I posted incest porn on twitter on 9/11” Cruz won by 215k, 4.1M of VAP was not registered.

2018 Gubernatorial: 53% turnout, 42% of VAP turned out. Abbott won by 1.1M, 4.1M of VAP was not registered.

2016 Presidential: 59% turnout, 46% of VAP turned out. Trump won by 800k votes, 4.2M of VAP was not registered.

2012 Presidential: 59% turnout, 44% of VAP turned out. Romney won by 1.2M, 4.6M of VAP was not registered.

2008 Presidential: 60% turnout, 46% of VAP turned out. McCain won by 900k, 4.2M of VAP was not registered.

2004 Presidential: 56% turnout, 47% of VAP turned out. Bush won by 1.7M, 3M of VAP was not registered

2000 Presidential: total blowout for Bush, no two ways about it. He might have plunged us in to a 20 year long war and completely ravished innocent civilians in the middle east, but dont you just want to have a beer with the guy?

44% do not care, 27% intended to register but didn’t, 11% are paranoid about voter roles, 9% say it isn’t convenient (and Republicans sure have made it inconvenient), and 6% literally don’t know how to register. From that same article and polling data, 35% of unregistered voters do not believe their vote will affect the political process, and 30% don’t think it’ll change election results. AND 40% of these care who wins political races, but don’t vote.

These races are not close compared to the number of non-registered VAP. Young people are more left-leaning and show up to the polls at shockingly low rates. Minorities are typically more likely to vote Dem, but turn out at lower rates (partially due to disenfranchisement). If the non-voters voted, many races of the past 30+ years would’ve been close or Dem.

Once again, only reading the headlines and looking at thumbnails has paid off for me. I have learned absolutely nothing from this

How bad this was depends on how “great” was framed. Hitler was a failed art student and low ranking infantryman who was let into the military (possibly by mistake) after failing his physical examination.

By 1939 (age 50), he had taken control of the German state and was soon after made a dictator by the Enabling Act, killed many of his political rivals openly in the Night of Long Knives, re-armed the German military after the treaty of Versailles totally gutted it, been given Austria, invaded the Sudetenland, kicked off the holocaust with Kristalnacht, signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and occupied Poland - taking it in 3 weeks, and was at war with Britain/Australia/New Zealand (soon to be at war with everyone else).

“Great” doesn’t necessarily mean “good” or “morally correct.” Great can mean “person who has changed a lot of things” without making any moral judgment about that - think “great man of history” (not very materialist, I know). By that metric, obviously Hitler was “great” - even pre-WW2 and pre-Holocaust he had already radically changed global politics, had terrified much of Europe, radicalized a huge portion of the German people, and was set to potentially make a huge comeback from Germany’s defeat in WW1.

Or they could just be a bunch of nazis over there at Princeton. That is also very possible.

That isn’t really how the judging worked though. First they had a huge panel of judges - 9 of them. And they judge them on 5 criteria: technique, vocabulary, execution, musicality, and originality. It is qualitative, but it’s a comparative rating system with actual guidelines - so they each simply have to decide who did each thing better:

Maintaining physiological control while focusing on athleticism, form and spatial awareness.

The range of moves that display variation and the quantity of moves, ideally with minimal repetition.

The ability to land and perform moves smoothly, without falls or slips and while maintaining consistency and flow.

The ability to stay on beat, syncing movements to the rhythm of the music.

The capacity for improvisation, creativity and maintaining spontaneity with style and personality.

I don’t think breaking necessarily needs to be in the olympics, but we’re past the point of only allowing sports (looking at you, dressage) and we do have other artistic events (rhythmic gymanstics and synchro swimming). And, the scoring system for breaking was reasonable and able to determine valid winners.

Afaik the IOC did all the standard testing on her and didn’t find any issues (no doping, normal testosterone levels, etc). Idk if they did a genetic sex test - I’d imagine that isn’t standard. Is that correct? Regardless of the Russian-run boxing federation’s intentions, I’d still trust the IOC’s findings over theirs.

Plus, even if she was XXY or something, does that actually have any impact on athletic performance? I’d imagine not

Edi: yep. Looks like it is widely believed that having a y chromosome is unfair, but the science doesn’t necessarily back that up.

“improved understanding about genetic factors that lead to selection in sport should offer reassurance that female athletes with hyperandrogenism do not possess any physical attribute relevant to athletic performance that is neither attainable, nor present in other women.”

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-014-0249-8

I don’t think he’s ever had a plan - so while that’s his schtick, I don’t think it’s like a smokescreen or anything. He’s just some dumbass who wanted to start a show to interview interesting people and smoke weed. But, when you’re interviewing fringe political figures, racists, snake oil salesmen, etc. you have a journalistic duty that Joe Rogan: dumbass, was not prepared for and didn’t understand. Now he’s in over his head. People take him seriously, and he agrees with some of the crazy people he’s brought on because he’s a dumbass

Oh of course. Never meant to imply otherwise

If the strawman fits, burn it when you come to it. That’s what my grandpappy always used to say

Should be her version of trump derangement syndrome. For all the crazy critiques leveled at her - they’re just exhibiting symptoms of kamala chaos

“Ancient Wisdom” applied stupidly can indeed lead to shit takes. In this case, you’re criticizing this politician because… he didn’t give halloween handouts proportional to his income? His halloween candy bars weren’t a sufficiently significant sacrifice? And then you’re knocking this commenter because their opinion that your take is shit means they are blinded by the “systems of exploitation” they create as an engineer and their lack courage to share your moral views about the virtue of dispensing halloween candy proportional to ones wealth? You’re like a charicature of a cringey philosophy major - and I was a philosophy major. Stop pontificating and think logically about your argument.

Look at Protestants in America “interpreting” their “ancient wisdom” in all sorts of wacky ways. The Baptists’ “ancient wisdom” tells them they’ll go to hell if they dance. The pentacostals’ “ancient wisdom” says that the Holy Spirit will possess you and make you speak gibberish if you believe hard enough. The “christian science” people’s ancient wisdom tells them to pray cancer away - and if they fail to, it’s because they aren’t righteous enough.

Just because you can loosely relate some “ancient wisdom” to a situation doesn’t mean that it’s applicable or that you’re correct.

My wisdom would tell me that this guy’s halloween handouts don’t really say anything about him other than either that he: just likes giving out halloween candy, sees it as a smart political move, or both.

Nope. I’m actually being good faith. Genuinely. Check my post history if you want. You can disagree with someone and acknowledge they aren’t arguing in bad faith. Like I think you’re good faith even though you’re coming across with a bunch of ad hominems and stuff, but I think you believe what you’re saying.

And I’m not being condescending. I think people can absolutely understand my point. Otherwise, I wouldn’t waste time trying to communicate it. I’m saying I think people are mischaracterizing my position.

Literally, all I’m saying is: when we make criticisms of the other side, those criticisms are usually stronger in the long run if they’re based on the actual positions they take rather than straw-manned ones. And I think this is a strawmanned critique. That’s my whole point.

The implication is pretty clearly “the immigrants are coming to take your jobs, black people”. Especially when said to a room full of black people. Especially given that that has been standard republican messaging for well over 50 years for all ethnic groups.

That is still racist. It is still manipulative. It is still scummy and bad. It just is pretty clearly not logically equivalent to “immigrants are coming to take the jobs segregated for black people”.

And obviously state of residence is not equivalent to race. It is an example. It is the same logical form of argument. They’ve done the same thing (about race, specifically) to rural white folks since literally the trans-continental railroad, but then about Chinese immigrants mostly. In modern times, the meaning has never been “only x race can have y job”. It has always been about the threat of the outsider (immigrant) “stealing” jobs from non-immigrants as a way of causing an us-vs-them dynamic. That is still a racist dynamic. But it is not the same as saying only x race can have y job.

Dude. You are way overreacting and misinterpreting what I’ve said.

Saying “thing that trump said means this racist thing and not that one” is in no way equivalent to anything you’ve accused me of.

I’ve read theory. Kropotkin. Marx (not just manifesto, but kapital and other serious works). I’ve read nearly every book Chomsky has ever written. It is important to understand the nuances of propaganda. When we misinterpret something trump says intentionally to score political points, which I believe we are doing in this case (and which Republicans do all the time), there are pros and cons to that.

Pros: it can encourage people to vote, gets attention, energizes people

Cons: it misleads people by ignoring context and the other systemic issues at play here: namely focusing on this invented idea that there are “black jobs” instead of the idea that politicians play racial groups off each other all the time and have throughout american and european history by blaming immigrants for economic issues like unemployment.

None of that is pro fascist. I’m calling the orange fascist a racist. This site is largely left-leaning. These comments are aimed at my fellow leftists to encourage us to think critically about the political messaging Dems are putting out because it can be instructive to leftist causes.

I’m encouraging a critical, realpolitik understanding of the messaging around this case AND acknowledging that the orange fascist is indeed racist and that this sort of (in my opinion) bad-faith messaging can be beneficial in the short term but can be distracting and potentially harmful in the long run. People are quick to see criticism of the side they identify with as supporting the other side - that is not what’s happening here. If you look at what I’ve said in good faith, I believe you’ll see my point even if you disagree. I’ve laid it out pretty clearly, imo.

That just isn’t the case. Like, sure, it is a possible implication. But it is not the most likely one given the context. There are other implications to draw, like the ones I’ve given examples of, which are more likely given the context.

The fact that people can’t understand my point and are mass downvoting is what I’m talking about. I’ll sperg out on this despite the disagreement because I’m interested in rhetoric and political messaging.

Read my responses. It is not botd. Trump is obviously a racist POS. But being a racist POS doesn’t mean each thing he says means all racist things. Things have specific meanings. My whole point is that people aren’t thinking critically about how the messaging and the actual content of the speech differ.

He kinda did, though. He tried to say that a “black job” was any job a black person had. I think his handlers told him to shut up about it because it was drawing negative press.

Again, this whole “the blacks” vs “evil mexican immigrants” thing is racist. But that =/= “black people can only have certain jobs”. Just like when they drummed up this same rhetoric targeted at rural white people with bush, romney, mccain, and trump for all 3 of his campaigns … they always do this. And clearly they think white people can have all sorts of jobs.