Politics 2: Electric Boogaloo — Page 839

Yes, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if republicans strengthen their control. I think overall they are pretty happy that Trump has done a lot of what he says he would do, has waved the flag and ridiculed the evil football players, and they don’t give a damn about all this abstract Russia stuff. Plus he kicked out all those bad immigrants that are taken are jobs.

Handman said:

They also had Hillary at 90% winning… I’ll believe it when I see it.

Not true. On election day they had it at 71%. Given the popular vote turnout, that wasn’t an unreasonable prediction. Even if they did put her at 90%, that still isn’t a 100% chance. 1/10 isn’t even close to impossible.

CatBus said:

moviefreakedmind said:

FiveThirtyEight puts a Democratic majority in the House at an 83% chance with a median of a 36-seat gain.

They don’t take Russian interference into account at all, otherwise I’d be pretty close to agreeing.

I don’t see how Russian interference could be so widespread as to send dozens of individual seats all over the country into Republican control.

Puggo - Jar Jar’s Yoda said:

Yes, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if republicans strengthen their control. I think overall they are pretty happy that Trump has done a lot of what he says he would do, has waved the flag and ridiculed the evil football players, and they don’t give a damn about all this abstract Russia stuff. Plus he kicked out all those bad immigrants that are taken are jobs.

They definitely won’t strengthen their control. They may maintain a slight majority in the House, which would be a huge victory for them, but that isn’t strengthening their control.

Sure, once he’d won states like Florida and Ohio, his chances went up. That makes perfect sense. That’s like saying that the Oklahoma Sooners had a 71% chance of beating the Kansas State Wildcats, but once the Wildcats were up by 14 at the start of the 4th quarter, Kansas State had a 90% chance of winning. That doesn’t change that it’s an upset. That doesn’t delegitimize polling or predictive models. That doesn’t mean that you always pick the underdogs in every contest because sometimes they win.

moviefreakedmind said:

CatBus said:

moviefreakedmind said:

FiveThirtyEight puts a Democratic majority in the House at an 83% chance with a median of a 36-seat gain.

They don’t take Russian interference into account at all, otherwise I’d be pretty close to agreeing.

I don’t see how Russian interference could be so widespread as to send dozens of individual seats all over the country into Republican control.

It seems like a smaller job than 2016 to me. They’d just need to target specific close congressional races, which is exactly what they already did in 2016 (the less-reported Russia story is it wasn’t just Trump they assisted, but dozens of downballot Republican Congressional candidates as well). So they just repeat 2016 without having to worry about the President this time. The overall national vote tally could be more-or-less unchanged, most districts could swing hard toward the Democrats, but close races could simply defy the national average and not swing enough. And the Russians have a freer hand to do things this time, with no federal coordination of cybersecurity anymore, more well-positioned Russian assets in government this time, etc. And maybe they don’t just play with Facebook and stealing e-mails anymore, but start corrupting voter databases to make voters in key districts ineligible (why bother changing votes when you can just make specific votes not count, right Mr. Kobach?). No need to assume they’d use the same tactics twice, although I think it’s pretty safe to assume they’d have the same objective.

Will any of this happen? Who knows? I’m saying it’s a risk that’s plausible enough to consider and take into account for predictions, since it already happened once before and the conditions are actually more favorable for them this time around. It’s also quite plausible that 2016 was a one-off and that the general public now has the benefit of knowing well in advance that the Russians plan to attempt to swing the election in favor of the Republicans (although, to be frank, everyone with an ounce of sense knew that going into 2016 as well) – it’s one of our “known unknowns” in Rumsfeld-speak.

Welcome back.

In midst of typing this, I see Wook has posted. Glad to see they are taking it seriously, as what you say about it does make sense Warb. I think it’s good that people can discuss controversial/offensive/wrong views. Yet sometimes people express themselves so ridiculously I don’t take it seriously and wouldn’t post there even if I were more active nowadays.

Collipso: supporting violence against people who hold controversial/offensive/wrong views is wrong.

Warbler said:

Now I wish to address why I lost my temper and went off. While I agree there is no justification, there is explanation. I was pushed to the edge. I was falsely accused of opposing any protest that “ruffles peoples’ feathers”, and of worshiping the flag. I was falsely accused of putting order and etiquette ahead of justice. I was falsely accused of being nationalistic. Just about the worst was being falsely accused of using children of soldiers that made the ultimate sacrifice as a shield. (the only reason I posted those pics was to show how the flag isn’t just a piece of cloth, not to use them as a shield). I was very offended by that. I was falsely accused of not being a patriot and being unAmerican. These assumptions were all made by someone that barely knows me or anything about me. Anyone that wants to tell me that I don’t get grief for my position on the protests during the National Anthem, I will quote the posts from this debate. What was said, hurt, and it got to me. I had finally had enough of the rude insulting and disrespectful treatment and I lost my temper. Despite what that person thinks, I am not the terrible person he thinks I am.

I get grief too. You’re giving me grief now. I expect that from arguments.

Yes, I deserved my ban. But I am not the only one that crossed the line. I consider the above a rude and dirty and low and insulting way to debate(bully?), and I refuse to engage with that person again.

I was not bullying. My posts did not fit the definition of bullying. It is nice to be referred to as an untouchable now.

I see that the person in question has continued to cross the line with a very offensive thread title about cops. I refuse to post in that thread. If someone wants to create thread to talk about all the cop shootings and which are justified and which aren’t and to talk about the state of our policing and what is good and bad and what needs to be changed, that is fine. But to name the thread what it was named is wrong and offensive. I can only imagine how Ferris would react if he saw it. What about new members that might come along that happen to be cops? I am disappointed that Jay and the mods allowed it.

Am I not allowed to make a thread where I list bad things done by cops? Do you really think that that shouldn’t be tolerated? I never said that all cops were evil, I just created the thread so that I wouldn’t have to list all of the policing stories that make me mad in this thread when no one usually responds to them.

Mrebo said:

Collipso: supporting violence against people who hold controversial/offensive/wrong views is wrong.

Not necessarily. There are plenty of examples now and throughout history of violence being necessary to defeat dangerous people. I’m generally opposed to violence, but it’s not bad 100% of the time.

SilverWook said:

Mods have lives, mostly. Contrary to popular belief, we don’t see every thread/post on here. Not to mention a mod just retired. That thread is now being discussed among the remaining staff, so keep your powder dry.

I’d like to address this and say that nowhere in that thread did I claim or even imply that all police are guilty of abusing their power or committing crimes against humanity. I just said that I wanted a thread where I could list all of the many examples that I find rather then clutter up this thread with them. If Warbler or anyone else is so offended by me doing that, then they have every ability to make a thread chronicling heroic police stories. (I might even contribute to it.) I didn’t create that thread to debate the issue of fair and just policing, which is a totally different discussion, I created it to illustrate how widespread the problem is without having to constantly post links in here that people in this thread probably don’t even want to read. Doing so would break up other people’s discussions and just make a ludicrously long thread even longer. I’ve considered making this thread for a while and I was prompted to do it when I kept finding links and posting them here. If that thread goes, then all my examples of police brutality that I occasionally post are coming back to this thread. I am diplomatic, though. I’ll change my thread’s title. How does “A Chronicle of American Police Brutality” sound?

moviefreakedmind said:

Mrebo said:

Collipso: supporting violence against people who hold controversial/offensive/wrong views is wrong.

Not necessarily. There are plenty of examples now and throughout history of violence being necessary to defeat dangerous people. I’m generally opposed to violence, but it’s not bad 100% of the time.

Jeebus had a good response.

There are “plenty of examples” of bad acts arguably being justified by the result. Whether they were “necessary” is generally only arguable. And I wager engaging in violence to defeat “dangerous people” more likely made things worse most of the time. There are the times when not engaging in violence was tremendously effective, most notably as led by Gandhi and by MLK Jr, which weighs heavily against the idea that violence is “necessary.”

I disagree that there is a “widespread problem” of police brutality but the logic above could be deployed in defense of police brutality. Sometimes the police make mistakes, the argument would go, but a violent approach is necessary to stop dangerous people. I don’t find a list of examples terribly convincing - for either of your arguments - and they only feed confirmation bias.

One of the main reasons that MLK seemed so moderate to white America was the militancy of people like Malcolm X. How could you possibly disagree that there is a widespread problem of police brutality? I’m on the fence about self-defense when unjustly assaulted by police. I do believe that it’s morally acceptable to defend yourself but I think it would mostly just make things worse for the victim.

Also, are you opposed to the American Revolution? How is the flag not just a symbol of violence to you? Washington should’ve just gone on hunger strike according to your logic.

Jeebus said:

Addendum: It’s also important to note that the people punching Nazis usually aren’t very good judges of who is and isn’t a Nazi. Personally, I’d rather have 100 Nazis go free than have 1 innocent man get punched, but that’s just me.

I also agree with this. That’s my thinking behind police too. I’d rather 100 guilty suspects go free than have 1 innocent one murdered or falsely imprisoned.