The Partisan Divide on Issues

[David Horn]

(01-13-2021, 03:47 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: While Xenakis has done heroic service in supporting various turning sites, in his own site he sees it as his function to censor ideas conflicting with his own.  During Rags time as moderator, he avoided this here.  There was no ideology based censorship of ideas.  Is there agreement among the moderators that this will continue?

I'm for everything except real threats of violence and spam.  There is a lot of disagreement on this site.  I hope it continues. And no one's posted porn to my knowledge, so that will be addressed if and when. Any categories I missed?

[Bob Butler 54]

(01-13-2021, 04:05 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-13-2021, 03:47 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: While Xenakis has done heroic service in supporting various turning sites, in his own site he sees it as his function to censor ideas conflicting with his own.  During Rags time as moderator, he avoided this here.  There was no ideology based censorship of ideas.  Is there agreement among the moderators that this will continue?

I'm for everything except real threats of violence and spam.  There is a lot of disagreement on this site.  I hope it continues.  And no one's posted porn to my knowledge, so that will be addressed if and when.  Any categories I missed?

That about covers it.  It's the disagreements that I hope continue.

[Classic-Xer]

(01-13-2021, 01:29 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(01-13-2021, 01:12 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: There was a lot of violence across the entire country that the Democrats supported by doing little to nothing about it, saying little to nothing about it  and allowing it to continue for several months that culminated with what we saw last week. EYES DO NOT LIE DAVE AND THE DEMOCRATS ARE NOW THE ONES POSITIONED TO LOOSE CONTROL OVER AN ENTIRE COUNTRY. YOUR NOT THINKING DAVE. THE WOMEN IN CONTROL OF THE HOUSE AREN'T THINKING DAVE. THE WOMEN SUPPORTING THE REMOVAL OF TRUMP AREN'T THINKING DAVE. ALL THE WOMEN ARE DOING IS BRINGING THE COUNTRY CLOSER TO YEARS OF CIVIL UNREST AND ALL OUT CIVIL WAR RIGHT NOW. When its all said and done, the Democratic party will be a train wreck. Is that what you want?

The difference is that they are thinking differently.  Reds are best understood in abstract through tribal thinking.  Divide between us and them, develop a healthy xenophobia about them, and use violence to assure superiority over them.  Blues are WEIRDer.  They care about principles such as democracy, equality, human rights and rule of law.  It is an entirely different way of approaching things.  I don’t feel confident that people seeking different goals will understand how the other is thinking.

In the crisis heart you usually find a focused efficient government.  I know this is not how reds usually view Democrats, but it seems the direction Biden is heading in.  We will see how he does, how well law and order does against those who think tribally.

Once again, if you weren't so into tribal thinking and associated with a tribe and guilty of thinking in terms of us and them and being divisive, you'd have some integrity/credibility to fall back on at this point. The WEIRD might (I say might) care about values such as democracy, equality, human rights and the rule of law as they pertain to themselves and their tribe. Are the WEIRD in trouble for ignoring existing laws that equally pertain to them and crossing American boundaries that rational/sane people would never cross and placing themselves at risk being stripped of all protections right now? As I mentioned before, I'm not a member of the GOP tribe. I'm a member of the American tribe that's well over 5 times their size that tends to support them these days.

[Classic-Xer]

(01-13-2021, 03:38 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(01-13-2021, 02:42 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: EYES DON'T LIE. PERSONAL EXPERIENCES DON'T LIE.

Trump, however, does lie.  If folks buy into one of his lies, such as for example there was massive voting fraud in the 2020 election, you end up rioting in the capitol.  Building a view of how the world works on a lie?  That is how a set of values will collapse.

Are you having trouble with your caps lock key?

We are both old enough to know how the world works, so who is lying? Are you buying into all the we care about you crap that some elites are preaching to get there hands on trillions of dollars or protect their business investments with China? You're to old to be so naive these days.

Here's your legal problem, we know of a group of key battle ground states where state election laws were changed illegally. How many of those states would have tilted the other way had their election laws not been illegally changed in advance of the election? How many Democrats were scared into not leaving their homes by constant media barrage centered on all the deaths associated with COVID19 and the fear of all the racial hatred that still exists outside the urban areas. We will never know will we? The GOP are being undermined and out flanked by deviant Democrats all the time. It's pretty clear that they're out of touch with the times and not cut out for the nastiness that lays ahead.

We can't have illegal shit like that going on just before a national election takes place or violence will become a new norm. We can't have left wing mobs who are free to threaten and intimidate their political opposition either unless you want violence to become a new norm. Oh, then there's the months upon months of violence that Kamala Harris and several other Democratic politicians are guilty of fanning and supporting that Biden didn't seem to care about until the riot and looting that took place in Kenosha, WI which drew his attention to sinking poll numbers and forced him to come out of his basement for a brief stint.

[Classic-Xer]

(01-13-2021, 03:38 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(01-13-2021, 02:42 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: EYES DON'T LIE. PERSONAL EXPERIENCES DON'T LIE.

Are you having trouble with your caps lock key?

I'm making it very clear where the bulk of the American right stands today. All of its eyes are on the Democrats and the GOP has been clipped and left powerless.

[Bob Butler 54]

(01-13-2021, 09:22 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: We are both old enough to know how the world works, so who is lying?

Just remember what happens to the conservative values during the crisis heart. If you learned anything from hanging around turning sites you should anticipate what is coming.

Should.

[Classic-Xer]

(01-13-2021, 10:47 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(01-13-2021, 09:22 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: We are both old enough to know how the world works, so who is lying?

Just remember what happens to the conservative values during the crisis heart.  If you learned anything from hanging around turning sites you should anticipate what is coming.  

Should.

I don't think that you recognize or grasp the values that we represent that are directly attached and related to your own life and whatever rights and freedoms that you have left today. Like I said, if we have to go to war with the Democratic party, we won't be going to war to keep slavery or Jim Crow laws in place. Like I've said, you aren't thinking straight anymore. Your thinking more along the lines of a lowly partisan hack. I don't know what the rest of world was doing while America was busy settling its differences during the American Civil War. I don't know what kind of a fool or lunatic or dirt bag would go along with empowering government to take away the Constitutional rights and protections of millions of American citizens.

We seem to be at a WEIRD crossroad as a nation. We have a Constitution that says its illegal for the US government to do what Facebook and Twitter and several other corporations are doing these days. How is that possible with the Democrats in power? It goes against everything you've claimed to be opposed to and associated with me for years. So, how much value do you place on Biden/Harris Presidency? Does it have to succeed or can it fail miserably? I don't place any value on it whatsoever. I don't place any value on the Democratic government of yours either. So, what do you have to do to fix that because I know of seventy some million Americans who could begin withdrawing their money and stop paying their taxes and destroy your government. Is that what you anticipate? You probably should because we live a free country. Welcome to the 4T.

[Bob Butler 54]

(01-14-2021, 02:15 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I don't think that you recognize or grasp the values that we represent that are directly attached and related to your own life and whatever rights and freedoms that you have left today. Like I said, if we have to go to war with the Democratic party, we won't be going to war to keep slavery or Jim Crow laws in place. Like I've said, you aren't thinking straight anymore. Your thinking more along the lines of a lowly partisan hack. I don't know what the rest of world was doing while America was busy settling its differences during the American Civil War. I don't know what kind of a fool or lunatic or dirt bag would go along with empowering government to take away the Constitutional rights and protections of millions of American citizens.

We seem to be at a WEIRD crossroad as a nation. We have a Constitution that says its illegal for the US government to do what Facebook and Twitter and several other corporations are doing these days. How is that possible with the Democrats in power? It goes against everything you've claimed to be opposed to and associated with me for years. So, how much value do you place on Biden/Harris Presidency? Does it have to succeed or can it fail miserably? I don't place any value on it whatsoever. I don't place any value on the Democratic government of yours either. So, what do you have to do to fix that because I know of seventy some million Americans who could begin withdrawing their money and stop paying their taxes and destroy your government. Is that what you anticipate? You probably should because we live a free country. Welcome to the 4T.

I recently got up from a dream / nightmare.  I was putting up another post about one of Trump’s big lies.  It was about that guy at the capitol wearing a Camp Auchwitz shirt.

Ugh.

As I see the crisis issues, they include the virus, saving lives, fighting the Trump big lie that the bug will magically go away with no effort.  They include BLM, the racial violent police, systematic racism, and the Republican obstruction of legislation to treat minorities better.  They include now the big lie that there was a systematic voting fraud in the 2020 election.  I’ll include the science denial on global warming as another Trump big lie.

With the exception of the bug keeping me away from much human contact, the big lies don’t much effect me.  I’m white.  The elections in Massachusetts are not controversial.  I just dropped my ballot in the mail a little early to avoid the Republican obstruction.  The hurricanes are mostly way south, the fires way west.  So I’ll deny that this has a lot to do with me.  Still, the deaths, the racial oppression, the climate disasters, the messing with the mail, the attacks on our electoral system, these big lies and effects on the people add up.  I would have them stop.

Planning criminal activity has nothing to do with protected free speech.  Now many of the social media companies are over reacting.  That is not uncommon.   You have something as big as an insurrection, the instinct is to over react, to make it stop right now. On Xenakis’s site, someone made the comparison of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  They will shut down whole companies that are providing legitimate services as well as a platform to plan criminal activity.  They are not giving the victim companies time to institute policies that block the bad conversations and allow the good.  

Then again, the companies hit seem to be working to provide the criminal services again.  Meanwhile, those seeking to hold legitimate conversation can go to many a place to hold them.  There is no lack of ability to exchange ideas.  For example, you are still here.  Open a thread about actually implementing one of your criminal schemes and see what happens.

I doubt people will stop paying taxes.  The government provides a bunch of services.  Stop paying taxes and you lose the services.  That is another of your daydreams.

[pbrower2a]

(01-13-2021, 02:42 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(01-13-2021, 04:07 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Are you saying that Trump had no chance of getting re-elected? That would have stopped him. Whoops! He encouraged people to nullify the election on his behalf. Mercifully he has failed. 

Don't worry too much about having no second chance at some right-wing authoritarian with a despotic streak getting within range of the Presidency, especially should there be some economic, military, or diplomatic calamity. Millions of Americans would gladly sacrifice their essential liberty for economic betterment or for assertions of national pride.

I'm saying Trump and the Republicans showed no signs of functioning or signs of  having any interest in becoming a dictator or dictatorship unlike Biden/Harris and the Democratic party and its group of corporate allies who are currently operating above the law  and positioned become right now.

Treating the opposition as if it has no relevance and never will have it again. I suppose that that is a rather mild form of dictatorship unlike the sort that eliminates opponents.

People taken away in unmarked vans? Formation of a secret police? The vehicles were all similar and they had US flags and Trump banners. When quasi-official activity (even if it is 'volunteer' activity has the banner of a political figure and it serves the ideology and person of the Leader... that is commonplace in a dictatorship. I mocked this as "Trump-Trump Macoutes" in an allusion to the horrible secret police of Duvalier-era Haiti. To be sure, people never started to disappear, but voting out Donald Trump is one way to ensure that inchoate tendencies to tyranny be aborted. 

Then there is the the Trump cult of personality.   Anyone who falls short of unqualified acceptance of it is suspect in his mind and that of his supporters.       

Quote:EYES DON'T LIE. PERSONAL EXPERIENCES DON'T LIE.

You neglect the wisdom of collective experience. I see enough in common between Donald Trump and dictators in other countries and different from prior Presidents of the United States to recognize the danger of a dictator. Maybe he didn't go as far as fast as someone like Hitler or Pinochet in establishing tyranny, but he has certainly gone too far and too fast. Maybe we would be wary if there were any politicized youth group.. Trump has no youth appeal and that is one of his weaknesses.

Still, this is America, and the only people well equipped to deal with any incipient totalitarianism are those that have lived under dictatorial regimes as in China, Cuba, or Iraq, or under dictatorial regimes that have bitten the dust. Plenty of Americans are naïve about  the nature of dictatorship. Enough people got cold feet about the threats to liberty under Trump, and that is why he will soon be an ex-President. He tried to nullify an election on demonstrably specious grounds... we all know the rules for deciding who is President, and Trump sought to bypass those rules.  

Quote:You represent a fascist regime right now. A fascist regime that has the power to control speech and target and sensor political opposition and make its own rules and apply its own laws.

Your projection SHOWS. You accuse people who disagree with you of doing the sorts of things that they do themselves. An example of projection: look at what Hitler claimed the Jews were up to... and that is exactly what the Nazis were doing! 

Freedom of expression is not absolute. Criminal speech and communication is not free speech. A the extreme

"This is a stick-up. Put all money in this satchel and don't turn on any alarms, and nobody gets hurt" while in a bank is obviously not free speech. It might be permissible in a screenplay about bank-robbers, but not in a real bank. Incitement to riot, political violence, or genocide is not free speech. What someone in a position of command or influence says is particularly under scrutiny, which means that the howling of a skid-row drunk mean far less and are under far less control than what a schoolteacher or military officer has to say.     

Quote:So, my question to you is are you an American or a quasi socialist supporter of some sort who doesn't care if America remains American or not at this point in his life?

Socialist? Do you mean "Big Government"? The Right has found that Big Government can serve it well  in enforcing monopoly and crony capitalism while ensuring sweetheart contracts off which profiteers can fatten themselves. Wars for profit (and we can be glad that Trump did not bumble his way into one) need Big Government to enrich the war profiteers and draft the cannon fodder. Maybe we can't eliminate Big Government, but we can prevent Big, Bad Government. Ideally we shrink the government until it is little more than a Welfare State, but that may be a pipe dream. 

Your idea of what constitutes "America" is far narrower than mine. It obviously includes First Peoples as well as land-grabbing white people who took away land that belonged to First Peoples. It obviously includes the descendants of slaves who have no connection to any culture other than what their masters allowed -- and who through their toils as slaves earned American citizenship for themselves and their progeny so long as they remain in America. There is no established church (First Amendment), which means that there is no conflict between being a member of any religion (except perhaps for one that does human sacrifices or rites of sexual abuse) and being American.   

Quote:We are seeing another calamity going on in Washington DC right now. What's a government full of shitty hell bent politicians worth?

Just remember what liberals with conscience thought of the fecal policies and vile expressions of Donald Trump. Those would have been just as wrong had we done them. You are free to believe that Obama was a dreadful President; indeed you are also free to believe in an Earth-centered universe, young-earth creationism, that the mathematical constants π and e are rational. You are free to be very wrong, too. 

Trump violates my conscience. Beware anyone who has no conscience or who sacrifices conscience for gain, power, indulgence, or ego.    

Quote:What's a government that doesn't respect the Constitution or obey the laws of the land worth these days?

The Trump Presidency, of course! Remember well that the Constitution is an expression of political morality. 

Quote:What's a bunch of insecure women who will do anything for power and a group of  ball less males who go along with anything and say anything for power worth?

You are not the first person to allege that truth has a strong connection to testosterone. Male penitentiaries are full of frustrated testosterone. I prefer to stay clear of those places.

Quote:So, what does a free country with Constitutional rights that believes in America and the American rule of law have to do as a country when the party that represents all of its interests doesn't have the power to stop them even though the two are more or less evenly matched.

Your narrow definition of what constitutes America practically necessitates the denial of Constitutional rights to people who 'fail' to share your vision. For example, I listen to very un-American music:



  

There's nothing American about this music.  

Quote:Does America have the right to revolt and disrupt and use violence like them?

Ask the experts -- Jefferson, et al:

Quote:"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

You have no right to enforce your delusions upon the rest of Humanity, and neither does any tyrant any more than I can force you to listen to classical music (if I were to make any guess, your favorite is either country or classic rock. Am I right?)  We Americans have elections, and we can turn quickly upon a President taking on dictatorial tendencies. 

The American political divide that we now know is more along lines of culture than of economic conditions. Trump chose to find the largest part of American culture, nearly half, and pitted it against the rest of America. But know well: that was not enough.  Worse, Trump has shown that the part of America that he could win over is anything but moral in its intended treatment of the rest of America. Doing bad things to people is immoral.

Quote:I hope your not foolish or naive enough to believe that it doesn't today? Do you know what I don't like about the silly notion of having a living Constitution. I understand that everything that lives eventually dies and a living Constitution would die like everything else that lives. Welcome to the 4T.

Better a living Constitution than dead people in a concentration camp. We now take our chances with Joe Biden.

[David Horn]

(01-13-2021, 08:04 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Once again, if you weren't so into tribal thinking and associated with a tribe and guilty of thinking in terms of us and them and being divisive, you'd have some integrity/credibility to fall back on at this point. The WEIRD might (I say might) care about values such as democracy, equality, human rights and the rule of law as they pertain to themselves and their tribe. Are the WEIRD in trouble for ignoring existing laws that equally pertain to them and crossing American boundaries that rational/sane people would never cross and placing themselves at risk being stripped of all protections right now? As I mentioned before, I'm not a member of the GOP tribe. I'm a member of the American tribe that's well over 5 times their size that tends to support them these days.

C-Xer, you seem to be determined to be obtuse.  You write about real America and the like, but never show how you arrive at your numbers. At the moment, roughly 40% of the US still believes in the irrational world created by RW media and coopted by DJT.  Note: believing something doesn't make it so.  Existing outside the truth-paradigm, preferring one created for you, doesn't produce anything but strife.  Taking one obvious point: Trump lost the election, and no mental trick can change that.  And the insurrection at the Capitol was just that.  It wasn't a righteous uprising of patriots.  Wishing other wise won't change facts.

[Bob Butler 54]

(01-14-2021, 11:03 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-13-2021, 08:04 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Once again, if you weren't so into tribal thinking and associated with a tribe and guilty of thinking in terms of us and them and being divisive, you'd have some integrity/credibility to fall back on at this point. The WEIRD might (I say might) care about values such as democracy, equality, human rights and the rule of law as they pertain to themselves and their tribe. Are the WEIRD in trouble for ignoring existing laws that equally pertain to them and crossing American boundaries that rational/sane people would never cross and placing themselves at risk being stripped of all protections right now? As I mentioned before, I'm not a member of the GOP tribe. I'm a member of the American tribe that's well over 5 times their size that tends to support them these days.

C-Xer, you seem to be determined to be obtuse.  You write about real America and the like, but never show how you arrive at your numbers. At the moment, roughly 40% of the US still believes in the irrational world created by RW media and coopted by DJT.  Note: believing something doesn't make it so.  Existing outside the truth-paradigm, preferring one created for you, doesn't produce anything but strife.  Taking one obvious point: Trump lost the election, and no mental trick can change that.  And the insurrection at the Capitol was just that.  It wasn't a righteous uprising of patriots.  Wishing other wise won't change facts.

I will second Dave's post, above.  I will add that Trump's big lies generally have an expiration date.  They found an old archived newspaper with Obama's birth announcement and a hospital where he was born.  It is clear that the wall isn't going to be built, let alone Mexico paying for it.

The relevant one here is that there was massive voting fraud in the 2020 election.  Biden and many others routinely deny it, but many red either don't believe it or pretend.  I would think the impeachment would be a wonderful time to emphasize that the claim is a lie.  It is not presented in court as lying to a judge will get you disbarred.  The fact that Trump's lawyers do not repeat the claim in court is telling.  Fox disavowed reporting on the lie as soon as a defamation lawsuit was hinted at.

I have a really hard time giving the lie at this point any staying power.

The coastal press recently reported on this point, an interview with a very red person attending a 'Stop the Steal' rally in Texas.  He claimed that if what Trump has been saying is a lie, he will likely never vote again.  That he has considered it is telling that he knows in his heart this was another Trump lie.

[pbrower2a]

(01-14-2021, 02:15 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(01-13-2021, 10:47 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(01-13-2021, 09:22 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: We are both old enough to know how the world works, so who is lying?

Just remember what happens to the conservative values during the crisis heart.  If you learned anything from hanging around turning sites you should anticipate what is coming.  

Should.

I don't think that you recognize or grasp the values that we represent that are directly attached and related to your own life and whatever rights and freedoms that you have left today. Like I said, if we have to go to war with the Democratic party, we won't be going to war to keep slavery or Jim Crow laws in place. Like I've said, you aren't thinking straight anymore. Your thinking more along the lines of a lowly partisan hack. I don't know what the rest of world was doing while America was busy settling its differences during the American Civil War. I don't know what kind of a fool or lunatic or dirt bag would go along with empowering government to take away the Constitutional rights and protections of millions of American citizens.

Oh, so you are not going to restore Jim Crow, let alone slavery! That ought to be reassuring to African-Americans who never knew that such was a possibility. Maybe if you tell the Jews that there won't be any shooting pits or fake showers into which someone introduce hydrogen cyanide they will want to join you. 

Give us all a break. A herd of deer isn't complacent because it knows that a lurking tiger will kill and eat only of them this time, most likely the stupidest, sickest, or lamest. You accentuate "gun rights" while trivializing the others. To make Americans not like "your" sort of Americans conform to your idea of what constitutes an American implies the degradation of political freedom, cultural identity, civil liberties, and due process that tears at the ideals of our Founding Fathers and of their successors.         

Quote:We seem to be at a WEIRD crossroad as a nation. We have a Constitution that says its illegal for the US government to do what Facebook and Twitter and several other corporations are doing these days.

Facebook and Twitter have the right, as for-profit entities, to do what they deem appropriate for avoiding legal problems of themselves and their customers. Is it lawful for either to deny me some right to post an image of my car and such language as "$6500 or best offer" and my phone number and website?

Heck, this website deleted a large number of posts, including some offering counterfeit currency, forged passports, and just about every false document that you can imagine. Do you have a problem with that?

Incendiary rhetoric and criminal speech are... well, I understate the reality when I say "trouble". Newspapers have always chosen their fights carefully. 

Quote:How is that possible with the Democrats in power? It goes against everything you've claimed to be opposed to and associated with me for years.

Violent insurrection is not a basic human right. Nullification of an election is nobody's right. Disruption of a session of Congress is not a basic human right. Please, Classic X'er -- make it unambiguously clear that you repudiate all statutory offenses committed at the Capitol building on January 6, and that you would condemn anything of the sort if it happened in St. Paul, even if those who did the insurrection believed in your agenda?  

Quote:So, how much value do you place on Biden/Harris Presidency? Does it have to succeed or can it fail miserably?

Way too early to tell. Can you tell me definitively that the Minnesota Twins will reach the baseball playoffs this year? I can reasonably tell you that my "Detroit Cocker Spaniels" will have another awful season, and that just evading 100 losses will be some achievement.

Quote:I don't place any value on it whatsoever. I don't place any value on the Democratic government of yours either.

Well, he is your President, too... just as Trump was mine. That's something like being in most of Michigan and having no baseball team to watch most days than the "Detroit Cocker Spaniels". Yeah, yeah, yeah; they are finally rebuilding, sorting out the talent that they get by trading off veterans who still have some value on contending teams, picking off surplus players from good teams (let's say the Red Sox second baseman who can hit .250 with 12 home runs a year because they have a second baseman who can hit .280 with 20 home  runs a year and can't play both, and giving every high draft pick a chance to prepare for the majors. Maybe in a couple years I might travel to Detroit to see them play a game or two. I have better things to do with my life than to watch a bad baseball team and better places to go than a baseball stadium unless the Yankees or Angels are playing. 

Quote:So, what do you have to do to fix that because I know of seventy some million Americans who could begin withdrawing their money and stop paying their taxes and destroy your government. Is that what you anticipate? You probably should because we live a free country. Welcome to the 4T.

I didn't know that there were Canadian banks in the Twin Cities that take deposits in America and lend only in Canada. Because of withholding, working stiffs have no means of evading taxes on their work. Besides, the winning record for the election was 81-74... and there are no more games to play. 

If you are unhappy with "America" no longer being the "real America" that you supposedly love, then there are nearly 200 other sovereign entities in the world to which you might consider emigrating. Of course, I strongly discourage you from going to Syria, Somalia, or North Korea.

[Classic-Xer]

(01-14-2021, 11:03 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-13-2021, 08:04 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Once again, if you weren't so into tribal thinking and associated with a tribe and guilty of thinking in terms of us and them and being divisive, you'd have some integrity/credibility to fall back on at this point. The WEIRD might (I say might) care about values such as democracy, equality, human rights and the rule of law as they pertain to themselves and their tribe. Are the WEIRD in trouble for ignoring existing laws that equally pertain to them and crossing American boundaries that rational/sane people would never cross and placing themselves at risk being stripped of all protections right now? As I mentioned before, I'm not a member of the GOP tribe. I'm a member of the American tribe that's well over 5 times their size that tends to support them these days.

C-Xer, you seem to be determined to be obtuse.  You write about real America and the like, but never show how you arrive at your numbers. At the moment, roughly 40% of the US still believes in the irrational world created by RW media and coopted by DJT.  Note: believing something doesn't make it so.  Existing outside the truth-paradigm, preferring one created for you, doesn't produce anything but strife.  Taking one obvious point: Trump lost the election, and no mental trick can change that.  And the insurrection at the Capitol was just that.  It wasn't a righteous uprising of patriots.  Wishing other wise won't change facts.

The group that stormed the capitol was a mixed group of individuals who got involved for various reasons. Law enforcement is in the process of apprehending them and figuring all of that out right now. I accepted Biden was going to be the next President a long time ago. I'll never give him credit for winning fair and square. I don't believe he truly earned it or really deserves to be the President either. I think his election is going to turn out to be a major mistake/blunder since it occurred at the wrong time in history. A pivotal time is not the time to elect an old man with dementia or a token VP or a bunch of arrogant morons who have been protected by a system with double standards for years. As I've said, I'm not much of a wishful thinker or one who clings to false hopes or laurels associated with bygone eras.  I don't believe what occurred with election laws in some key battle ground states was legal. If 40% equates to 70 some million Americans who ain't going to budge or concede then your in trouble when the the shit hits the fan and it starts to really heat up. AS I mentioned, social justice is a double edged sword that cuts both ways. I've also mentioned that the left is playing with fire and walking on thin ice and waking a sleeping giant.

[Bob Butler 54]

(01-15-2021, 04:32 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: The group that stormed the capitol was a mixed group of individuals who got involved for various reasons. Law enforcement is in the process of apprehending them and figuring all of that out right now. I accepted Biden was going to be the next President a long time ago. I'll never give him credit for winning fair and square. I don't believe he truly  earned it or really deserves to be the President  either. I think his election is going to turn out to be a major mistake/blunder since  it occurred at the wrong time in history. A pivotal time is not the time to elect an old man with dementia or a token VP or a bunch of arrogant morons who have been protected by a system with double standards for years. As I've said, I'm not much of a wishful thinker or one who clings to false hopes or laurels associated with bygone eras.   I don't believe what occurred with election laws in some key battle ground states was legal. If 40% equates to 70 some million Americans who ain't going to budge or concede then your in trouble when the the shit hits the fan and  it starts to really  heat up. AS I mentioned, social justice is a double edged sword that cuts both ways. I've also mentioned that the left  is playing with fire and walking on thin ice and waking a  sleeping giant.

With the polls showing a big lead and Trump saying he might well win in the courts, it would be prudent for Biden to play it squeaky clean.  Why risk what turned out to be a fifty win to one loss record?

I'd agree some officials bent over backwards to allow people to vote safely during the pandemic, and violated the rules here and there.  The one Trump court win was such a case.  This was not the equivalent of Trump's systematic attempt to nullify black voters.

I am willing to bet on the pattern of past crises, that the conservative values will crash, that an efficient and focused government will start solving the crisis problems.  I also believe Trump's lie that the 2020 election was rigged can't be sustained.  With that fading comes the beginning of the conservative value collapse.

[pbrower2a]

(01-15-2021, 04:32 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(01-14-2021, 11:03 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-13-2021, 08:04 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Once again, if you weren't so into tribal thinking and associated with a tribe and guilty of thinking in terms of us and them and being divisive, you'd have some integrity/credibility to fall back on at this point. The WEIRD might (I say might) care about values such as democracy, equality, human rights and the rule of law as they pertain to themselves and their tribe. Are the WEIRD in trouble for ignoring existing laws that equally pertain to them and crossing American boundaries that rational/sane people would never cross and placing themselves at risk being stripped of all protections right now? As I mentioned before, I'm not a member of the GOP tribe. I'm a member of the American tribe that's well over 5 times their size that tends to support them these days.

C-Xer, you seem to be determined to be obtuse.  You write about real America and the like, but never show how you arrive at your numbers. At the moment, roughly 40% of the US still believes in the irrational world created by RW media and coopted by DJT.  Note: believing something doesn't make it so.  Existing outside the truth-paradigm, preferring one created for you, doesn't produce anything but strife.  Taking one obvious point: Trump lost the election, and no mental trick can change that.  And the insurrection at the Capitol was just that.  It wasn't a righteous uprising of patriots.  Wishing other wise won't change facts.

The group that stormed the capitol was a mixed group of individuals who got involved for various reasons.

It was very well organized -- better organized than the more successful storming of the Winter Palace in Petrograd in 1917 (supposedly a spontaneous revolution according to Soviet hagiography that remains murky) or the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich in 1923. Many of the people had special military and police training. Many had body armor, and some had zip-cuffs. The training for counter-terrorism is much like that for doing terrorism. 

Donald Trump fosters cranky beliefs (and he really is a crank). Cranky beliefs are silly when they have no force behind them. With force behind them, those cranky beliefs bring horror.

Quote:Law enforcement is in the process of apprehending them and figuring all of that out right now.

The FBI is expert at getting, examining, and interpreting criminal evidence. Many Special Agents are accountants, arguably the ones most expert in forensic accounting. They can follow the money in acquisition and spending. That is good for connecting people through travel. The plot is unraveling rapidly; conspiracies break when conspirators compete to save their skins.  

Quote:I accepted Biden was going to be the next President a long time ago. I'll never give him credit for winning fair and square.

There was plenty that was screwy in 2016, but nothing that one could trace definitively. So on that we two are even. 

Quote:I don't believe he truly  earned it or really deserves to be the President  either. I think his election is going to turn out to be a major mistake/blunder since  it occurred at the wrong time in history.

Not as big a blunder as Donald Trump. So long as his health holds, Biden will more likely rise to the occasion. He has better instincts for politics than anyone. Nobody better knows the system than he does.

Quote:A pivotal time is not the time to elect an old man with dementia or a token VP or a bunch of arrogant morons who have been protected by a system with double standards for years.

Joe Biden probably knows already that he is a one-term President... for reasons of health. The job takes much out of a person. Note well that we also have a precedent for a President in serious decline: the President takes a largely ceremonial role and competent subordinates do the rest. You tell me: Trump has mental problems, whether those relate to age or are inherent in his character. Did you see any Casper Weinberger or George Shultz in the Trump Administration? Biden seeks the antitheses of tokens -- people competent in their own right. I've met tokens, and they don't impress me. They call attention to what they are, but they seem to have sold out. One can never quite figure out what they do well. They travel to lots of company picnics for photo ops. There is plenty of talent among America's Model Minorities.    

Quote:As I've said, I'm not much of a wishful thinker or one who clings to false hopes or laurels associated with bygone eras.   I don't believe what occurred with election laws in some key battle ground states was legal. If 40% equates to 70 some million Americans who ain't going to budge or concede then your in trouble when the the shit hits the fan and  it starts to really  heat up. AS I mentioned, social justice is a double edged sword that cuts both ways. I've also mentioned that the left  is playing with fire and walking on thin ice and waking a  sleeping giant.

But 81 million budged against an incumbent President and elected a new President who won 306 electoral votes. Electoral laws had to be adapted to the reality of COVID-19 which would have scared people away from voting. I see COVID-19 as an aggressive and omnipresent enemy that has already invaded and occupied America, and kills even more effectively than an occupier's Gestapo, OGPU, or Mukhabarat. At least if some militia comes close to a polling place and starts threatening voters, the police can come and break that activity up. 

Donald Trump is already disgraced as no ex-President (which he soon will be). Yes, I recognize that Joe Biden will face stern opposition from the large minority GOP, and if that is not effective enough for America's plutocratic pigs, then I expect those plutocratic pigs to open the spigots in support of reactionary politicians who believe as they do that no human suffering can ever be in excess in the service of elite power, indulgence, and gain. America's plutocratic pigs are no nicer than the hypocritical, ruthless, domineering, exploitative pigs in George Orwell's political fable Animal Farm. 

I concur that poor white people in America, especially in the Mountain and Deep South, are oppressed. If I had to choose between being a poor Mexican-American kid in San Antonio and being a poor white kid in rural West Virginia I would pick being the Mexican-American because there is at least an organized Mexican-American community in San Antonio. San Antonio at the least has jobs for people who falter in school, which is more than I can say about Appalachia. If you remember my old threads about comparisons between states... statistically, although blacks were worse off than whites in all states, blacks in Maryland (even if it contains dreadful Baltimore) fare better than whites in West Virginia. 

I have seen a documentary about life in dying Ohio cities (much like rural West Virginia) on Deutsche Welle... and the documentary looks like something that one might have expected as anti-American propaganda by old DDR media. If the old East German media went after phantoms of American evil (mass culture, militarism, and capitalism)... mass poverty is a legitimate disgrace. It is no phantom; it degrades life. 

Nearly 90 years after the New Deal for America and 75 years after the Marshall Plan (modeled heavily after the New Deal) for a war-ravaged Europe, the American Mountain South and Deep South needs the equivalent of one or the other. Donald Trump never offered anything like either. He offered nothing but resentment toward the well educated, especially in minority groups. Joe Biden knows his history, and that is enough promise for my liking. He expects an extreme test of his abilities. History will judge whether he meets those challenges. 

Donald Trump couldn't condemn violent bigots as Ronald Reagan did. He could never meet the extreme social stress of a respiratory disease from which prosperous, advanced societies are supposedly exempt because he could not call for sacrifices to meet the need of the time. I do not know definitively whether he was complicit in the insurrection of January 6, and I will leave that for criminal investigations underway.

[Bob Butler 54]

This morning, I called up my weather page which feature a six day projection of what to expect from the sky.  There it was.  January 20th.  Officially now in sight.

A few days rain, followed by lots of partly sunny.

[Classic-Xer]

(01-15-2021, 07:17 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(01-15-2021, 04:32 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: The group that stormed the capitol was a mixed group of individuals who got involved for various reasons. Law enforcement is in the process of apprehending them and figuring all of that out right now. I accepted Biden was going to be the next President a long time ago. I'll never give him credit for winning fair and square. I don't believe he truly  earned it or really deserves to be the President  either. I think his election is going to turn out to be a major mistake/blunder since  it occurred at the wrong time in history. A pivotal time is not the time to elect an old man with dementia or a token VP or a bunch of arrogant morons who have been protected by a system with double standards for years. As I've said, I'm not much of a wishful thinker or one who clings to false hopes or laurels associated with bygone eras.   I don't believe what occurred with election laws in some key battle ground states was legal. If 40% equates to 70 some million Americans who ain't going to budge or concede then your in trouble when the the shit hits the fan and  it starts to really  heat up. AS I mentioned, social justice is a double edged sword that cuts both ways. I've also mentioned that the left  is playing with fire and walking on thin ice and waking a  sleeping giant.

With the polls showing a big lead and Trump saying he might well win in the courts, it would be prudent for Biden to play it squeaky clean.  Why risk what turned out to be a fifty win to one loss record?

I'd agree some officials bent over backwards to allow people to vote safely during the pandemic, and violated the rules here and there.  The one Trump court win was such a case.  This was not the equivalent of Trump's systematic attempt to nullify black voters.

I am willing to bet on the pattern of past crises, that the conservative values will crash, that an efficient and focused government will start solving the crisis problems.  I also believe Trump's lie that the 2020 election was rigged can't be sustained.  With that fading comes the beginning of the conservative value collapse.

You keep talking about conservative/American values that are directly related to you, your Constitutional rights,, your legal protection and your life. I don't trust your judgement or your frame of mind and don't like the way you muddle either. Well, if you break some laws and change some election laws then your pretty much rigged an election whether people like you view it that way or not. At least you are honest enough to admit there was illegal activity that took place prior to the election. I agree that the Supreme Court address that issue and rule on it vs passing on it and doing nothing about it. So, how far away are we from having a government that no long represents America and what do you think is going to happen to the Democrats when the 2nd American Revolutionary War begins in earnest. I'm going to give you a hint, Americans aren't nice during times of war. Americans are allowed to be ruthless and allowed to fund killing and able to inflict all kinds of hardship and cause all kinds of problems for the Democrats and their corporate allies. You do realize that you are playing with fire and supporting a group of self righteous hellions who are trying dismantle two sets of guiding principles associated with a higher power. The last time that happened, America (God's hellions) leveled two superpowers and financially toppled the third later on. The Democratic women are clueless and very few have fighting experience and the most threatening thing they've had to deal with so far was any mob similar to the mobs most them had been cheering on and supporting throughout the summer. OK. They got a taste of their own medicine but did they learn anything about themselves from the experience. I don't think so based on what I see them doing now.

[pbrower2a]

(01-15-2021, 04:32 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(01-14-2021, 11:03 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-13-2021, 08:04 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Once again, if you weren't so into tribal thinking and associated with a tribe and guilty of thinking in terms of us and them and being divisive, you'd have some integrity/credibility to fall back on at this point. The WEIRD might (I say might) care about values such as democracy, equality, human rights and the rule of law as they pertain to themselves and their tribe. Are the WEIRD in trouble for ignoring existing laws that equally pertain to them and crossing American boundaries that rational/sane people would never cross and placing themselves at risk being stripped of all protections right now? As I mentioned before, I'm not a member of the GOP tribe. I'm a member of the American tribe that's well over 5 times their size that tends to support them these days.

C-Xer, you seem to be determined to be obtuse.  You write about real America and the like, but never show how you arrive at your numbers. At the moment, roughly 40% of the US still believes in the irrational world created by RW media and coopted by DJT.  Note: believing something doesn't make it so.  Existing outside the truth-paradigm, preferring one created for you, doesn't produce anything but strife.  Taking one obvious point: Trump lost the election, and no mental trick can change that.  And the insurrection at the Capitol was just that.  It wasn't a righteous uprising of patriots.  Wishing other wise won't change facts.

The group that stormed the capitol was a mixed group of individuals who got involved for various reasons.

Sure -- plenty of Trump banners and at least one Confederate flag.  The insurrectionists did have US flags -- but I will have to treat that as neutral because we liberals have as much right to Old Glory as conservatives and the Hard Right did. After all, this flag:



surely delighted prisoners at Dachau and Mauthausen.

No Antifa stuff; no red flags of (Socialist) revolution.  Nobody seemed to have any Black Lives Matter paraphernalia. It did have one connection to the Far Left in its resemblance to Bolsheviks storming the Winter Palace. Except the fellow with the pseudo-Viking helmet who painted his face, the crowd seemed to be almost monochromatic in skin tones.

Quote:Law enforcement is in the process of apprehending them and figuring all of that out right now. I accepted Biden was going to be the next President a long time ago.

On this we agree. Law and order is the first civil right, without which all the enumerated rights of the Bill of Rights or the Declaration of the Rights of Man or its equivalents mean nothing. 

I was astonished that Trump got so close... but it is clear that he lost. It's hard for some people to believe that the order in which votes were counted mattered, and that paradoxically the earliest votes in got counted last in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The earliest votes counted showed leads for Biden in Florida, Ohio and Texas, and Biden lost all three of those states.  79 versus 85... one way or the other, Trump loses.  

Quote:I'll never give him credit for winning fair and square. I don't believe he truly  earned it or really deserves to be the President  either.

This is probably the cleanest Presidential election that was not an electoral landslide. The only odd circumstance was a pandemic. State governments decided by lawful process that to accommodate people who feared COVID-19 spreading at polling places. COVID-19 was far more of a threat to a free and fair election than armed militias at polling places. Voting by mail was already the norm in two states (Oregon and Utah) and it will become the norm in more states. It passes Constitutional muster. 

Failing to allow people to vote early or by mail (basically everyone qualifies for an absentee ballot) would have allowed COVID-19 to affect the vote in a way that looks like vote fraud.    

Quote:I think his election is going to turn out to be a major mistake/blunder since  it occurred at the wrong time in history. A pivotal time is not the time to elect an old man with dementia or a token VP or a bunch of arrogant morons who have been protected by a system with double standards for years.

Your prediction; mine is more complex. Joe Biden is about as athletic-looking a 78-year-old as I ever see. He does struggle with a stutter. So what! Once he gets going, he is as slick a speaker as anyone. This said, we should well know Donald Trump. He has huge gaps of knowledge and character. He has extremely rigid thought, which has many possible explanations. I can disclose that my therapist has seen me as having very rigid thought... that is commonplace in Asperger's. Another is dementia. Another is pathological narcissism, something that many associate with Donald Trump. 

I would be more scared of the delusional quality of Trump thought. Biden knows what happens if he starts slipping: he ends up with a Reagan-like Presidency in which the increasingly-senile President gets an increasingly ceremonial role while trusted people make the real decisions and convince the President that those are what he has always believed. The Reagan Presidency went well -- better than I could have expected. Then again, one must trust the Vice-President and have some good people like George Shulz and Caspar Weinberger. Trump has had none of those; he insists upon yes-men.      

Quote:As I've said, I'm not much of a wishful thinker or one who clings to false hopes or laurels associated with bygone eras.   I don't believe what occurred with election laws in some key battle ground states was legal.

It was completely legal. The challenges in the courts failed except for one very technical argument that was not significant enough to have decided the electoral result of any state.

Quote:If 40% equates to 70 some million Americans who ain't going to budge or concede then your in trouble when the the shit hits the fan and  it starts to really  heat up.

Trump got 46.82% of the popular vote nationwide... but on the other hand Joe Biden won 51.27% of the popular vote. Biden got a larger share of the popular vote in 2020 than Reagan did in 1980. Joe Biden does not need the support of hard-core supporters of Donald Trump. He may not have a huge margin for error, but he does have good people around him. 

I look at what can go right:

1. By summer, COVID-19 will be gone as a menace. Americans will be doing what they did before COVID-19 ravaged America, and there will be a boom in the provision of services. People will be traveling again, as they will have itchy feet; having been shut in out of fear they will have contemplated where they want to go. People will be trading in cars for newer ones. People will be moving from places that they have sickened of. The cinema will be busy, as will concert halls, opera houses, and little theater.  Sports venues will have genuine crowds

2. I look at the Skowronek cycle, and I see that the successor of a catastrophic failure as President can have more unqualified successes. A President late in the cycle, let us say Obama, faces plenty of unexpected consequences for his intended reforms.  Trump is the end of the neoliberal cycle, and the first President of the new cycle can do many daring things and get away with them because they are new, and because the realities that set in later in the cycle haven't caught up. 

3. The disruptions of life during COVID-19 have hit children hardest, and that will be over. Adults will be thankful that their kids can get the full experience of school again. Some of the usual rites of passage will simply be deferred a year or so. 

4. The clothing business will pick up. People working from home don't have to dress up; those reappearing in offices do. If you work from home nobody cares that you wore the same shirt or blouse -- or even underwear -- three consecutive days. That is a big concern in business places in which people have contact with customers and clients.

5. There is no speculative boom to go kaputt. That is the biggest threat to any economy. Speculative booms are themselves frauds, more the devouring than the creation of assets. 

6. Real wages will likely start rising again, and management-labor relations will likely be better. Many employers who had pushed their employees to the limit with crowding on the job to make assembly-line speeds faster (especially in food processing) will have learned the hard way why such is counterproductive.  

Quote:AS I mentioned, social justice is a double edged sword that cuts both ways. I've also mentioned that the left  is playing with fire and walking on thin ice and waking a  sleeping giant.

Mixed metaphor! That is good for unintended laughter in Freshman Composition!

But back to the issue of social justice: if you think "social justice" creates big trouble, then wait till you see the harm that social injustice brings. Social injustice creates dissent. It makes wildcat strikes possible. It creates poverty that weakens the consumer markets. Where social injustice is most severe it can lead to proletarian revolutions.

[Classic-Xer]

(01-15-2021, 09:30 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Sure -- plenty of Trump banners and at least one Confederate flag.  The insurrectionists did have US flags -- but I will have to treat that as neutral because we liberals have as much right to Old Glory as conservatives and the Hard Right did. After all, this flag:



surely delighted prisoners at Dachau and Mauthausen.

No Antifa stuff; no red flags of (Socialist) revolution.  Nobody seemed to have any Black Lives Matter paraphernalia. It did have one connection to the Far Left in its resemblance to Bolsheviks storming the Winter Palace. Except the fellow with the pseudo-Viking helmet who painted his face, the crowd seemed to be almost monochromatic in skin tones.

Biden becomes President in less than a week. The election is over and the final score was 81-74. Bob even admits the obvious law changes that were illegal come back to hurt Biden's legitimacy. So, what would the removal of all the illegal votes for Biden (Trump too) do to the final score. Would it even it up quite a bit or tilt in favor of Trump? As a general rule, time reveals evidence and truth? Biden looks, acts and sounds like a seventy year old man with dementia before Alzheimer's kicks in. I've already seen how Biden is going to govern. He's going to govern as more of a Progressive than a centrist Democrat. He has to in order to maintain peace within the party/cities. May as well, he has a fascist system already ready in place with corporations who are already operating above the law protecting and persecuting/intimating lawyers/threats and eliminating the possibility of political dissent right now. As far as I'm concerned, I'm speaking to a supporter of fascism right now. BTW, I'm not surprised by it either. I've been warning you about the Democratic party and telling you keep your eyes on them for years but you weren't listening or paying attention and more focused on promoting and spreading Left Wing propaganda as usual.

So, how much of the United States do you want to find yourself fighting against within next four years? We might even give 10 more congressional seats to further feed false impressions for Progressives to misread and further act upon. Keep in mind, we aren't nearly as emotionally driven as the Left.  In four years, Washington DC will be on the brink of bankruptcy (the speculative boom your not seeing either). America will be primed to break with tradition declare its independence from the Democratic party and separate from blue states that will be failing miserably by then. Also, there will be a very clear distinction between the Tea Party/Trump party and the Democratic party by then as well. May as well, America did before in 1776 with the British and America can do it again 2024 with the Democrats. We can't play games with China and fully rely on diplomacy like Biden plans. If someone is going to be immigrating else where, the someone is going to be you not me. I don't see any other way out of the situation we are in as a nation now. As I've mentioned several times, oil and water doesn't mix and when relationships are no longer productive then its time to part ways. You're a fair weather American fan at best.

[Bob Butler 54]

(01-15-2021, 07:58 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: You keep talking about conservative/American values that are directly related to you, your Constitutional rights,, your legal protection and your life. I don't trust your judgement or your frame of mind and don't like the way you muddle either. Well, if you break some laws and change some election laws then your pretty much rigged an election whether people like you view it that way or not. At least you are honest enough to admit there was illegal activity that took place prior to the election. I agree that the Supreme Court address that issue and rule on it vs passing on it and doing nothing about it. So, how far away are we from having a government that no long represents America and what do you think is going to happen to the Democrats when the 2nd American Revolutionary War begins in earnest. I'm going to give you a hint, Americans aren't nice during times of war. Americans are allowed to be ruthless and allowed to fund killing and able to inflict all kinds of hardship and cause all kinds of problems for the Democrats and their corporate allies. You do realize that you are playing with fire and supporting a group of self righteous hellions who are trying  dismantle two sets of guiding principles associated with a higher power. The last time that happened, America (God's hellions) leveled two superpowers and financially toppled the third later on. The Democratic women are clueless and very few have fighting experience and the most threatening thing they've had to deal with so far was any mob similar to the mobs most them had been cheering on and supporting throughout the summer. OK. They got a taste of their own medicine but did they learn anything about themselves from the experience. I don't think so based on what I see them doing now.

Will the rural community continue believing a big lie with absolutely no evidence to support it? Will they continue to support terrorism backed only by that lie? Will they reject a new government that seriously attempts to solve problems while the conservative administration let people die, encouraged the racist violent cops, embraced the division of wealth, encouraged terrorism and failed to acknowledge the science involving the increased hurricanes and fires?

I expect people to cling to their worldview. People generally require a Hiroshima class in your face reality check before they start questioning their values. The Trump administrations failures are getting close to that, but some will cling to what they have come to believe anyway.

The question is if I care?