Trump casually threatens the extermination of the Afghani people if they can't reach a deal with the Taliban.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

So mods, could we maybe not have every single thread where someone says something mildly positive about Trump turn into a multi-post screed about the fake progressives that TRR thinks have infested the forum? Please?

To be fair, the forum is a shit show, and it is full of bizarrely anti-anti-Trump progressives. I mean, I tend to scroll past TRR by habit, but he seems to be more and more the most reasonable poster left in N&P, which is absolutely damning.

[Tribble]

Seems to me that Trump was... publicly patting himself on the back for showing “restraint?” Like how he pulled back that air strike against Iran at the last minute?

[Jub]

To be fair, the forum is a shit show, and it is full of bizarrely anti-anti-Trump progressives. I mean, I tend to scroll past TRR by habit, but he seems to be more and more the most reasonable poster left in N&P, which is absolutely damning.

The thing is Trump isn't the issue. Russian interference isn't the issue. A partisan Senate that won't pass things isn't the issue.

They're all symptoms of a fundamentally broken system. A system which can only ever shamble along haphazardly making some areas better and others worse all at the whims of a relative handful of people beholden to almost nobody. Trump is bad, if not historically so, but it's not as if Obama, Bush, and Clinton were paragons who didn't all serve to push things into a state where Trump could take power. It's not as if a lot of the nasty things people said about Hilary weren't without merit even if many things were overblown.

Screaming constantly about a single symptom of the larger disease only makes those doing it seem like petty simpletons who can't accept that every President, Member of the House, and Senator will be corrupt, self-serving, and immoral by virtue of what it takes to climb the ladder in US politics.

It also doesn't help when all the articles are vents or wild fantasies about impeachment that offer no new insight and propose no new solutions to the systemic issues that created the current situation. It becomes droning and one-note not helped by TRRs hyperbole and quickness to escalate every thread into a flaming heap of personal attacks and walls of ignorance. If TRR could make his points in a way that didn't involve triple posts, appeals to emotion, and a slew of cries of slander as features more common than reason logic and evidence I don't think people would treat him the way they do.

[The Romulan Republic]

Blah blah blah, all the politicians are just as bad...

This is an argument that has been systematically used to normalize Trumpism and discredit its critics by painting them as hypocrites. Its cynicism and apathy masquerading as fairness and consistency.

People focus on Trump because he is the most urgent and pressing problem, and any attempt to address any of the other problems will be impossible as long as he remains in office. And I post so often on the same points because they keep being relevant, and no one else seems to give enough of a shit to post about them.


As to my own personal conduct, again, I am not (or should not be) the topic of this thread. However:

The very first line of Ralin's very first post in this thread was calling me a liar.

But apparently (according to my self-appointed personal hall monitor Jub), the problem is that I always escalate everything into personal attacks. Yep, its totally my fault, and not the person who's opening argument was accusing me of lying. Because everyone "knows" that's what TRR does, because everyone says that's what TRR does, because everyone knows that's what TRR does, because everyone says that's what TRR does...

As for "walls of ignorance"- I am not the one who has ignored arguments here. Again, that's Ralin. He claimed Trump was anti-militarist and anti-interventionist. I posted six examples of Trump's militarism. Not a one has been addressed, except indirectly via character attacks. This is, in my opinion, an open and flagrant violation of board debating rules.

Ralin: Either address my arguments regarding Trump's militarism, or concede.

Lastly, I'll stop accusing people of slander when people stop slandering me (actually, the correct legal term is libel, since the defamation occurs in print). You've got to love people who persistently defame me and then use my pointing it out as proof that I'm the one at fault. But I learned this lesson all the way back in grade school. The teachers would ignore bullies who bullied out of sight, but the kid who fought back or made a scene about it would get in trouble. Nobody likes a victim who pushes back. They're inconvenient.

[The Romulan Republic]

Seems to me that Trump was... publicly patting himself on the back for showing “restraint?” Like how he pulled back that air strike against Iran at the last minute?

Yeah, this too.

Trump's first priority is always his own ego.

[Jub]

Blah blah blah, all the politicians are just as bad...

This is an argument that has been systematically used to normalize Trumpism and discredit its critics by painting them as hypocrites. Its cynicism and apathy masquerading as fairness and consistency.

People focus on Trump because he is the most urgent and pressing problem, and any attempt to address any of the other problems will be impossible as long as he remains in office. And I post so often on the same points because they keep being relevant, and no one else seems to give enough of a shit to post about them.

Keep worrying about the symptoms and you'll never treat the causes.

The very first line of Ralin's very first post in this thread was calling me a liar.

No, he said the thread title was a lie. When even CNN doesn't use the term threaten in their title perhaps you should take their lead.

Lastly, I'll stop accusing people of slander when people stop slandering me (actually, the correct legal term is libel, since the defamation occurs in print). You've got to love people who persistently defame me and then use my pointing it out as proof that I'm the one at fault. But I learned this lesson all the way back in grade school. The teachers would ignore bullies who bullied out of sight, but the kid who fought back or made a scene about it would get in trouble. Nobody likes a victim who pushes back. They're inconvenient.

File a legal case or fuck off.

[Ralin]

As for "walls of ignorance"- I am not the one who has ignored arguments here. Again, that's Ralin. He claimed Trump was anti-militarist and anti-interventionist. I posted six examples of Trump's militarism. Not a one has been addressed, except indirectly via character attacks. This is, in my opinion, an open and flagrant violation of board debating rules.

Ralin: Either address my arguments regarding Trump's militarism, or concede.

Also, that the claim that Trump has started no wars may be technically true, but he has:

1. Continued all wars inherited from previous Presidencies, at least up to this point. Including ordering strikes on Syria.

So, continued the status quo? Because a couple years ago people were convinced Syria was going to turn into nuIraq.

2. Repeatedly advocated for war in Venezuela.

And yet we’re not at war with Venezuela.

3. Reportedly ordered the assassination of Assad according to Woodward's book (an order General Mattis, his then Secretary of Defense, ignored).

Meaning he didn’t have an assassination attempt made on Assad. Bad and all, but nothing came of it.

4. Given effective carte blanche to the Israeli government in its occupation of Palestine, even beyond the support given by prior US administrations.

Right. As opposed to all the anti-Israeli administrations which effectively restrained Israel, their occupation of Palestine and their apartheid state.

5. Used one of the first vetoes of his Presidency to ensure continued US support for the horrific Saudi war in Yemen.

Does the US have soldiers in Yemen taking part in this war? Sounds like the Saudis are far more in a position to judge whether the war there is needed or bad than Obama and his drone strikes.

6. Threatened nuclear war/genocide on multiple occassions.

So have all of his predecessors, in fancier language. In some cases it even apparently worked; see how he’s moderately improved relations with North Korea.

[The Romulan Republic]

So, continued the status quo? Because a couple years ago people were convinced Syria was going to turn into nuIraq.

If Obama was in your view a war criminal, and you acknowledge that Trump has continued the status quo he inherited from Obama after two and a half years in the White House, that rather definitively disproves your claim that Trump is an anti-militarist/anti-interventionist, doesn't it? Concession accepted.

But you've just got to love the mental contortions here:

Ralin: "Trump is anti-militarist and anti-interventionist! Obama was far worse and should have been arrested!"

Me: "Trump's continued all the wars he inherited."

Ralin: "So he just continued the status quo he inherited from Obama. That proves he's not a militarist! I win!"

This is literally Orwellian.

It is also likely that the perpetuation of the status quo in these cases, as bad as it is, is due in large part to the intervention of more stable minds than Trump's (see my point below regarding General Mattis disregarding his orders). Had Trump been given free reign to act on his impulses, the results would likely be much worse.

And yet we’re not at war with Venezuela.

For now. There's no denying that Trump has pushed us closer to conflict there and in Iran.

Meaning he didn’t have an assassination attempt made on Assad. Bad and all, but nothing came of it.

"Its not that bad because his own soldiers didn't follow his orders" is not a resounding vindication of him or his policies, to say the least.

Right. As opposed to all the anti-Israeli administrations which effectively restrained Israel, their occupation of Palestine and their apartheid state.

Nice job ignoring the fact that Trump has actually adopted a more hard-line pro-Israel policy. Also, again, saying that previous administrations were war criminals and then saying Trump is just continuing the status quo is kind of the opposite of proving he's anti-intervention or anti-militarist. Concession accepted.

Does the US have soldiers in Yemen taking part in this war? Sounds like the Saudis are far more in a position to judge whether the war there is needed or bad than Obama and his drone strikes.

Ah, I forgot your obvious out. Americans aren't actually doing the invading and murdering civilians in person, just facilitating and bankrolling the murder and invasion by Saudi Arabia. And obviously, murdering civilians and invading other countries is A-okay, as long as its done by a non-western dictatorship.

Got to love faction-based morality.

Oh, and since you're so outraged by the Obama drone strikes, would you care to answer the Al Jazeera article I quoted above, which noted that the last year has seen the highest number of Afghan civilian casualties, in part due to increased bombing by the peace-loving Trump Regime?

So have all of his predecessors, in fancier language. In some cases it even apparently worked; see how he’s moderately improved relations with North Korea.

Right, because the fact that we didn't end up at war with NK is entirely due to Trump personally, and not achieved by more able diplomats in spite of at least as much as because of his idiocy. Also, the specific language and tone used matters in politics.

For half my points, you have no actual rebuttal, just goalpost shifting from "Trump is anti-militarist/anti-interventionist" to "Trump is no worse than previous administrations" (effectively a concession), which lets you segue into the usual "They're all just as bad" rhetoric typically used to normalize fascism.

Meanwhile, you seem to just assume everything that went right did so because of the merits of Trump and his policies, rather than in spite of them.

As for your apologism for Saudi war crimes and US funding for them, it reveals once again that you are a shameless hypocrite who gives not one shit for the lives of Middle Eastern civilians, but who is perfectly willing to condone their murder (even funded by the US) as long as its a non-Western faction doing the actual killing. Your outrage over the deaths caused by Obama's drone strikes is therefore nothing of the sort, and has nothing to do with any sense of value for the lives lost or the human suffering that resulted- it is simply a convenient tool with which to attack America. Those deaths to you are just props in your political narrative.

Concession accepted, until such time as you see fit to post a more substantive and less contradictory rebuttal to the points I have raised.

[Aether]

So mods, could we maybe not have every single thread where someone says something mildly positive about Trump turn into a multi-post screed about the fake progressives that TRR thinks have infested the forum? Please?

To be fair, the forum is a shit show, and it is full of bizarrely anti-anti-Trump progressives. I mean, I tend to scroll past TRR by habit, but he seems to be more and more the most reasonable poster left in N&P, which is absolutely damning.

I lurked here a long, long time before registering; even then I do not post all that much due to obligations IRL. Perhaps it is my rosed colored glasses, but at one time this forum, this site, demanded a lot more to back opinions or claims. Whenever I see a new thread started by TRR all I can see is this:



Sorry for me-tooing, Mods.

[The Romulan Republic]

So mods, could we maybe not have every single thread where someone says something mildly positive about Trump turn into a multi-post screed about the fake progressives that TRR thinks have infested the forum? Please?

To be fair, the forum is a shit show, and it is full of bizarrely anti-anti-Trump progressives. I mean, I tend to scroll past TRR by habit, but he seems to be more and more the most reasonable poster left in N&P, which is absolutely damning.

I lurked here a long, long time before registering; even then I do not post all that much due to obligations IRL. Perhaps it is my rosed colored glasses, but at one time this forum, this site, demanded a lot more to back opinions or claims. Whenever I see a new thread started by TRR all I can see is this:



Sorry for me-tooing, Mods.

So, you by your own admission knowingly dog-pile, despite knowing its frowned on here, and basically post nothing of substance, and for no other reason than to single out a specific poster for personal ridicule.

Hey dip shit: maybe try actually reading what I post and judging my arguments on their merits, rather than (by your own admission) dismissing anything I post out of hand. Or, if that does not appeal to you, stay out of the conversation all together instead of vapidly trolling.

Not a mod: just a suggestion.

[The Romulan Republic]

Also, it is fucking pathetic (and frankly creepy) that we have the PotUS making genocidal threats, and the focus of attention on this board seems to be "How can we all troll/mock this one poster we don't like?"

[Straha]

Also, it is fucking pathetic (and frankly creepy) that we have the PotUS making genocidal threats, and the focus of attention on this board seems to be "How can we all troll/mock this one poster we don't like?"

Welcome to SD.net. Did you ever wonder why it has the reputation that it does?

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Also, it is fucking pathetic (and frankly creepy) that we have the PotUS making genocidal threats, and the focus of attention on this board seems to be "How can we all troll/mock this one poster we don't like?"

Welcome to SD.net. Did you ever wonder why it has the reputation that it does?

I hadn't thought about it, though the TV Tropes page is interesting. I've found that if you can survive here, you can survive anywhere!