effingjoe

I don’t buy this. I am a cis, white, middle-class male. Should I vote only for my best interests, or should I take a wider view, and vote even if it will personally disadvantage me?

Voting against one’s own best interests is not brainwashing, necessarily.

And this is still within my first point. They are definitely voting against their best interests, but it could just be that they find this an acceptable trade off to getting something else they want-- like more codified religion in the law, or bringing back the good ol’ days (/s) of overt racism.

The point is that “they’re brainwashed” is a cop out. And, not for nothing, a corollary to them being brainwashed is that they are not responsible for their actions, isn’t it?

While I understand the urge to come to this conclusion, it’s a simpler hypothesis that they just like the policies these people have pushed for, so much so that they disregard all the negatives that seem to be connected to Republican control (lower life expectancy, ineffective government programs[^1], lower standard of living, etc. You might call it “brainwashing” but that term in this context is too vague; they could claim we are also brainwashed with the same amount of accuracy.

Also, while it isn’t your point, this would be a reason they keep getting voted in-- not a reason they run unopposed.

[1] This may be seen as a good thing, for some of them.

Because people keep voting for them, or they simply run unopposed.

It’s to be expected for Christians (et al); a vast majority have been taught at a young age that the perfect society is one where a benevolent god makes all the decisions and you just shut up and do as you’re told. It was never The People’s Republic of Heaven; it’s the Kingdom of Heaven.

You wouldn’t happen to be a white, cis, male, would you? I ask because you seem to have a somewhat abstract concept of what politics is.

My point is that you shouldn’t have made that comment at all. What purpose did it serve? You are aware that many people do take collective responsibility for their country, right? You would agree that if one is to take pride in the good, they should also shoulder responsibility for the bad, right? You are aware that when someone uses the collective “we”, especially in the context of criticizing a country, that they may not (and are probably not) including their own personal stance in that comment, right?

You were trolling. The new question is: why? Are you so emotionally attached to the Marshall Plan being seen as an overall good thing that you needed to lash out? I don’t get it. In fact, the only non-troll reason I see is that you do take credit for the good but refuse to take responsibility for the bad.

And since we’re obviously belaboring this point: If not the individual citizen’s responsibility, whose is it? Do you believe “every vote matters”, or not? Do you believe in “of the people, by the people, for the people”? You may not feel comfortable taking pride in any national accomplishments, and that’s fine-- I’m not sure there are even many in which to take pride-- but we all have a say in how society conducts itself and when it conducts itself badly, that is a failing for all of us. And if I’m being blunt, it has the same general feeling of some white man first learning about white male privilege and saying “You must be talking about yourself; I wasn’t privileged!”

Well, first off, you should have never made the dig about “speaking for yourself”. Unless, of course, you just didn’t know what I meant or what we were talking about, which clearly you did. You may disagree with whether it’s correct to have national pride, but in a comment where I was replying to someone who did suggest they had national pride, your remark is borderline trolling, and it is what caused by misunderstanding at your actual point.

I see from the link you provided that you’re a mod of this community. Behave better, lest we end up right back where we were with Reddit.

Your entire discussion seems milquetoast at this point. You didn’t mean this, you didn’t say that. Even here you send mixed messages-- is “lacking harm” something to be proud of? You say: “honestly, yeah”.

I think you’re just wasting my time at this point.

I did?

I assumed you didn’t read it because the criticism is also that it didn’t actually help. That is to say, countries that got the money didn’t recover faster than those that didn’t. So what would you call something that benefits just yourself?

I was arguing that compared to other powers of the era(and now) the Marshall plan was lacking harm.

Is “lacking harm” something to be proud of?

If you say “we did x” you are taking responsibility for x- but I didn’t do x and I will not take responsibility for it.

I try not to take an aggressive stance, but this is 100% Grade-A bullshit. Where is this stance of yours when it comes to the Marshall Plan? The entire topic is about taking pride in the collective actions of the country. If “we” did things to be proud of, then “we” did things you should be ashamed of. You have to pick one mode of thought-- you can’t claim pride in just the good things while refusing responsibility for the bad.

I do not mean to be dense but I don’t follow how your comment applies to mine.

From the wikipedia article you didn’t read:

The Marshall Plan’s role in the rapid recovery of Western Europe has been debated. Most reject the idea that it alone miraculously revived Europe since the evidence shows that a general recovery was already underway. The Marshall Plan grants were provided at a rate that was not much higher in terms of flow than the previous UNRRA aid and represented less than 3% of the combined national income of the recipient countries between 1948 and 1951,[110] which would mean an increase in GDP growth of only 0.3%.[7] In addition, there is no correlation between the amount of aid received and the speed of recovery: both France and the United Kingdom received more aid, but West Germany recovered significantly faster.[7]

Criticism of the Marshall Plan became prominent among historians of the revisionist school, such as Walter LaFeber, during the 1960s and 1970s. They argued that the plan was American economic imperialism and that it was an attempt to gain control over Western Europe just as the Soviets controlled Eastern Europe economically through the Comecon. In a review of West Germany’s economy from 1945 to 1951, German analyst Werner Abelshauser concluded that “foreign aid was not crucial in starting the recovery or in keeping it going”. The economic recoveries of France, Italy, and Belgium, Cowen argues, began a few months before the flow of US money. Belgium, the country that relied earliest and most heavily on free-market economic policies after its liberation in 1944, experienced swift recovery and avoided the severe housing and food shortages seen in the rest of continental Europe.[132]

Former US Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank Alan Greenspan gives most credit to German Chancellor Ludwig Erhard for Europe’s economic recovery. Greenspan writes in his memoir The Age of Turbulence that Erhard’s economic policies were the most important aspect of postwar Western European recovery, even outweighing the contributions of the Marshall Plan. He states that it was Erhard’s reductions in economic regulations that permitted Germany’s miraculous recovery, and that these policies also contributed to the recoveries of many other European countries. Its recovery is attributed to traditional economic stimuli, such as increases in investment, fueled by a high savings rate and low taxes. Japan saw a large infusion of US investment during the Korean War.[133]

compare the US to what France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Portugal did trying to hang on to their colonies and extract as much wealth from them as possible. Not to mention how many citizens of those countries are proud of that!

I was not suggesting the people can’t be proud of the not-good things their country does-- only that they shouldn’t. Also: whataboutism never defends any given position or stance; don’t rely on it too much, if at all.

I see you’re speaking for yourself.

I don’t know what you mean. Are you saying that the United States isn’t generally pretty racist and that I’m just projecting? Or was this just a halfhearted attempt at an ad hominem attack? Elaborate please.

It’s still failing for me. Just checked.

Test: https://abcnews.go.com/US/live-updates/hunter-biden-hearing/hunter-bidens-legal-team-threatened-with-sanctions-101661337

Something weird is going on with that link. I can navigate to it from a link on the live updates, but if I click it directly, I get a 404. I copied my link from my browser, not from the OP.

Link to a similar story: https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/25/politics/hunter-biden-house-republicans-amicus-brief/

Since the OP’s link is dead.

You cheeky bastard; you got me.

Abolishing slavery, ending Jim Crow, giving women the vote, becoming one of the first dozen countries on the planet to legalize gay marriage, helping win WW2, helping support Ukraine, donating more to foreign aid than any other country on the planet, the Marshall Plan, everything about NASA, best national parks on the planet, entertainment capital of the world, first country to land a man on the moon, the whole “nation of immigrants” things making us one of the most diverse countries on the planet.

• Slavery isn’t abolished; it can still, per the constitution, be used as punishment.
• Jim Crow may be ended, but the racism that enables it has always been alive and well
• Gave women the right to vote way later than it should have
• Same as above
• Only after being directly attacked
• Only because we spend so obscenely much on war. A billionaire that gives $1000 is not as generous as someone making min-wage that give $10.
• Self-serving imperialism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan#Modern_criticism
• like defunding it to where we have to privatize space flight now? Elon Musk approves!
• I… guess? Arguably has nothing to do with being an American. Lots of countries were throwing money at this-- we just randomly got there first.
• We’re openly and emphatically racist, as a country. We simultaneously reject immigration while requiring immigrants to be used as borderline slave labor to ensure our produce doesn’t get too expensive.

We’ve never been the shining city on the hill, but we sure want to pretend we are.

I have a Pixel phone. It will screen unknown numbers and ask them why they are calling, and then pass on their response to me (text and audio). A vast majority just hang up when they hear the automated message. The few that don’t often end up being a recording that wasn’t sophisticated enough to know that it was being played to essentially another recording.

Edit: and by “unknown number” I mean “not in my contacts list”.

It’s conceivable that one would be proud of their country for the actions their country takes, both domestic and/or world stage. Like I’m sure the people living in those Scandinavian where a vast majority of their country is healthy, happy, and even their criminals are treated with dignity and respect can be proud of how their country has turned out.

I don’t think it’s a common interpretation to feel self-directed pride due to one’s country. Unless, maybe, you’re the president or someone who makes actual decisions for the country.

There’s still a self-sorting selection bias, I imagine. The kind of batshit insane person that both will answer their phone when it’s an unknown number, and will then go on to answer a survey after they pick up the call.

I’m only kind of joking here.

What’s bad faith about my argument? There’s only two options: You believe what you typed and that it’s impossible to make this mistake, or that you were using hyperbole, and you acknowledge that it is possible to make this mistake. These two options are both mutually exclusive and binary-- there can be no other stances. (and notably you haven’t actually clarified which one you believe.)

I didn’t make you choose to defend a poorly thought out stance. That’s on you.

I appreciate the additional information, however, a link found in the codeberg link you provided leads to this comment from earnest:

The up arrow is the equivalent of a boost on Mastodon, adding to favorites is represented by a star. The down arrow is equivalent to the Dislike button on Lemmy and Friendica, Mastodon probably doesn’t have an equivalent (Dislike will be federated this week). Compared to Lemmy, it works a little differently, as the up arrow there is the equivalent of a favorite.

The comment activity can be checked by expanding the “more” menu and selecting “activity”

This seems to imply that downvotes (reduces) are federated. (And notably, upvotes are now “stars” “boosts” are, uh, “boosts”; this was changed since the linked comment was made)

Or am I totally missing something? That’s always and option.