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Politics 2: Electric Boogaloo — Page 623

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Well, the larger point about EU membership is all about how one of the EU’s central principles is the respect for and promotion of human rights. It’s that exact issue that was always cited as such a sticking point preventing Turkish membership (albeit with a healthy dose of racism and Islamophobia, but concern for human rights was also a legitimate grievance). If a country applying for membership was anything like Poland or Hungary today, they’d be rejected out of hand, no doubt about it at all. But now the EU is stuck with them, having accepted them during saner years, and the legitimacy of the EU’s commitment to human rights suffers for it. And both of these countries are rotting fast – this will not be the end of it. This is not an aberration or a one-off “every country passes a stupid law every now and then” moment – this Holocaust law is a continuation of a prolonged multi-year erosion of democracy and human rights in Poland, and shouldn’t have been unexpected at all.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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It does sound like Poland’s hands are not clean in this. However, it should be remember that some Polish people felt they had to cooperate with the Nazis or be killed themselves and maybe their family too.

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Warbler said:

It does sound like Poland’s hands are not clean in this. However, it should be remember that some Polish people felt they had to cooperate with the Nazis or be killed themselves and maybe their family too.

No defense that couldn’t be made for Germans as well. But the Germans own up to it.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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CatBus said:

Warbler said:

It does sound like Poland’s hands are not clean in this. However, it should be remember that some Polish people felt they had to cooperate with the Nazis or be killed themselves and maybe their family too.

No defense that couldn’t be made for Germans as well. But the Germans own up to it.

except the Germans let Hitler come to power, the Polish people were conquered.

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the Germans let Hitler come to power

…except for those who fought him.

the Polish people were conquered

…except for those who collaborated.

And yet it’s not illegal to own up to their complicity in Germany, while it is in Poland.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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CatBus said:

And yet it’s not illegal to own up to their complicity in Germany, while it is in Poland.

And this right here is the crux of the issue.

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CatBus said:

the Germans let Hitler come to power

…except for those who fought him.

true.

the Polish people were conquered

…except for those who collaborated.

Polish collaborated in the holocaust, but how many collaborated in the actual conquering of Poland itself?

And yet it’s not illegal to own up to their complicity in Germany, while it is in Poland.

I agree the law is stupid and a violation of freedom of speech.

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Warbler said:

Polish collaborated in the holocaust, but how many collaborated in the actual conquering of Poland itself?

A decent percentage of the population of Szczuczyn, for example. Jews were Polish citizens just as much as non-Jewish Poles. So Poles who killed their fellow Polish citizens not at the urging of the Nazis, but because they wanted to achieve the same political aims as the Nazis, very much assisted in the invasion. The Nazis could focus their military energy elsewhere because of the ample assistance provided by some Poles, although it should be noted that the small number of Nazis still present in the town during the massacre actually stepped in to put an end to it, before following the lead of the Poles and murdering the rest of the Jews a few months later.

If a group of Americans went around killing a few hundred thousand independence-minded Americans during the Revolutionary War, it would be safe to say they were helping the British. As with the Poles who killed Polish Jews when the Germans invaded.

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I hadn’t realized that they began to murder the Jewish Polish before Poland was completely conquered.

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Warbler said:

chyron8472 said:

NeverarGreat said:

The US has made clear that we’re not interested in diplomacy [with NK]

Since when?

since Trump referred to the N. Korea leader as Rocketman. Belittling, and insulting the leader of the opposing nation and threatening nuclear war with him as Trump has done is not what I call diplomacy.

Yes, but “The US has made clear that we’re not interested in diplomacy” and “Trump is a narcissistic, incompetent ignoramus who couldn’t diplomatize his way out of a wet paper bag” are not analogous.

TV’s Frink said:

chyron just put a big Ric pic in your sig and be done with it.

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Eh, Trump is there theoretically representing the people of the US and their interests. So what he says theoretically is what the population of the US says.

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Good News: Thomas “Competitive Elections Are Bad for America” Brunell is no longer being considered to head the 2020 Census.

The bad news: there are plenty of other nuts on that tree, the 2020 Census is already underfunded and behind schedule, and will feature questions that will skew data by discouraging minority participation.

There are precedents for this. Lebanon essentially stopped doing a census after 1932, as any new even vaguely credible census data would overturn the political order there. Allocations are still done today using that 1932 data.

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He actually said “Competitive Elections Are Bad for America”?

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Warbler said:

He actually said “Competitive Elections Are Bad for America”?

He didn’t just say it, he wrote a book with that title. He’s pro-gerrymandering, thinks there should be more of it and courts should get out of the way and let the parties go crazy on the maps, drawing themselves into safe districts so that they always win regardless of how the overall vote goes. Because one-person-one-vote is socialism or something. So, he was at the top of Trump’s list to run the US freaking Census, given that he was the worst imaginable candidate for the job.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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Senator Manchin’s office says that the Senator will pose for photographs with any of his constituents and that any signs he holds bear no relation to his policy positions.

I like to imagine what signs we could get him to pose with…

The blue elephant in the room.

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Mrebo said:

Senator Manchin’s office says that the Senator will pose for photographs with any of his constituents and that any signs he holds bear no relation to his policy positions.

I kind of admire that.

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He’s leaving himself wide open to creative photo shopping which would circulate long after it’s been debunked.

Forum Moderator

Where were you in '77?

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He is leaving himself open to negative campaign ads.

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He’s leaving himself open for campaign donations. I believe it was Willie Brown who said “If you can’t take people’s money and then turn around a screw them, you’ve got no business being in this business.”

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How about no one until we have proof?

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Warbler said:

How about no one until we have proof?

but then i wouldn’t have to believe them. or do we have to believe facts now for them to be true. /sarcasm

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I don’t think anyone is that desperate to win a reality show. Morgan hates Star Wars, so nuts to him anyway. 😛

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Where were you in '77?