POG Politics Thread Version 3

I am just trying to imagine a discussion or debate where one person is saying the sky is blue and we call that one sided. Then they invite someone else into the discussion that says the sky is purple. And we are supposed to say "oh good now it is fair and balanced"? Like why does that make the discussion better?

For the sake of argument I am going to remove all context and knowledge about how the US government operates and all that and treat this most recent attack on Iran in a vacuum. There really only seems to be four ways to view the situations:

1) The intelligence that the Iranian government was "weeks away" from developing nuclear weapons is real and accurate. Furthermore, given its accuracy, this justifies a preemptive strike on Iran that would obviously result in the death of thousands of Iranian civilians.

2) The intelligence that the Iranian government was "weeks away" from developing nuclear weapons is either fully made up or inaccurate. Furthermore, given the fact that it is not true, attacking Iran is not justified.

3) It does not matter if Iran was "weeks away" from developing nuclear weapons, the US government is justified in attacking Iran anyway, so the fact that our government might have made up intelligence is beside the point.

4) It does not matter if Iran was, indeed, "weeks away" from developing nuclear weapons, the US government is not justified in attacking Iran.

As far as mainstream media and politicians go, options 3 and 4 seem to be pretty uncommon to state publicly (more to say on this later). Which leaves 1 and 2. And I am not sure how that is a "left vs right" issue. It is a discussion of facts. Either the intelligence is real and accurate or it is not. I don't understand how "fair and balanced" comes into this. Or why I need a supposed "left leaning" or "right leaning" political operative to address the factual nature of the intelligence.

Now what is more likely, is that option 3 is actually a much more common feeling by "right leaning" politicians etc and option 1 is just the cover because option 3 is obviously barbaric and they know that. In such a situation, I see why it would be relevant to make sure discussions have "right leaning" voices.

Mark, the 24th Amendment was enacted specifically to stop states from intentionally disenfranchising voters based upon taxation schemes.

Mouse-over Rothmus' name in twitter. He tags himself with "voluntaryism" and "laissez-faire". Why is he espousing ("I have a suggestion") franchise based upon something he claims he doesn't believe should exist??

Also the All-In podcast, according a brief reddit sweep, was funny years ago, until it was coopted by the GOP into a propaganda outlet.

One of the hosts is Trump's "AI and Crypto Czar".

You get viewpoints from liberal and conservative prespectives?

I just found the results interesting. If you actually pay the taxes, you want a republican agenda.

Yes, Dave Sacks is conserative and a Trump appointee. Meanwhile, both Jason and Dave are liberal.

I would never call the All-in podcast "funny"

I pay my taxes, and I do not want that.

The infographic did not show any source for its data, did you see one in the comments somewhere?

Jason Calacanis has expressed complex and evolving political views, often aligning with libertarian or anarcho-capitalist principles. He is socially liberal, supporting gay rights and abortion rights, but economically conservative, favoring tax cuts, reduced government spending, deregulation, and free-market policies.

David Friedberg describes his political stance as centrist, often emphasizing independent thinking over traditional party alignment. He identifies as fiscally conservative, advocating for reduced government spending and deficit reduction, while also expressing socially liberal views, including belief in climate change and support for individual freedoms.

if these guys are your Left voices, your window is barely open

"the climate is changing" is Birdman's sky-is-blue, and "people should have individual freedoms" is something that I would hope even the contemporary Right would not disagree with

The podcast debate between the right and left, we have the ultra conservatives versus the ultra conservatives who don't believe gay people should be killed.

I think what birdman is saying is that either Iran was weeks away from producing a nuclear weapon or it wasn't. and that is something that is factually knowable, and not based on any viewpoint from whatever ideology

The reasons to invade countries are pretty minimal. If there was a Holocaust going on I could see an argument for doing it at least but we mostly at best ignore those.

Basically what filthy said. I do not really see how "liberal" and "conservative" viewpoints are relevant here? Like can you dig in a little deeper on how you characterize these viewpoints as it relates to going to war with Iran?

i think we are so soaked in propaganda that even people(like me and birdman, and most of us) desperately trying to escape that propaganda still can't help but be influenced in some ways.

i would say that usa isn't going to war with iran, so much as just bombing it, and now sending in troops to terrorize them.

"going to war" implies some kind of equivlancy. we here in usa don't have iranian bombs dropping on us. we don't have iranian troops terrorizing us.

or idk, maybe im totally talking out of my ass usual lol

Wars don't have to be back and forth

iraq or afghanistan never bombed the usa, niether did vietnam or korea

yeah idk, maybe it's just my misunderstanding of the language, and what "war" means to me or other people... or also "war" as opposed to "attack, invade, bomb, terrorize, plunder"

also the other thing we were talking about... balanced views vs just factually correct

I saw a repost of the 2003(?) oscar speech by Michael Moore, and he said there are no WMDs in Iraq. that is a lie. and everyone at the Oscars bood him lmao

but it was widely considered just a leftist view that the whole wmd thing is a lie. and to be fair and balanced you'd have to have people who are saying we have to invade Iraq to protect ourselves from their wmds

but nothing fair and balanced about that. one was true, and one was a lie.

Yeah I just think it is weird the way we launder factually incorrect viewpoints under the guise of political opinions. As if you can just be clearly wrong about something but we allow it because we can say "oh that is just a rightwing viewpoint" rather than something that is clearly stupid or factually wrong.

Take "trickle down economics". If you want to believe that we should lower taxes on the rich fine. But what you cannot do is say "lowering taxes on the rich is going to help the middle class and poor". That is factually incorrect. Trying to hide behind it being a political view is stupid. That is not a "right wing" view. It is just incorrect.

it may be the case that left-, right-, whatever-camps operate on dogmatic presuppositions, unspoken or at least unexpounded, which determinatively factor into left-/right- conclusions

I'm not sure if you're saying this already, but it's something I think bears special attention in this discussion

for example, with trickle-down:

if you operate on the presumption that capital is (1) rational and (2) interested primarily in internal reinvestment, then the logic of trickle-down starts to make more sense

so there is a certain politicality to these things, just that it is pre-spective (arising from presumptions) and should not be considered post-spectively (determined by conclusions)

https://membean.com/roots/spect-see

Membean

Word Root: spect (Root)

thus it is not to say "you aren't right wing, you're just wrong" (no pun intended) but instead to say "you are wrong because you work from incorrect right-wing dogmas"

"war is a continuation of politics by other means"

https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/articles/grand-strategy-clausewitz/

War Room - U.S. Army War College

THE GRAND STRATEGY OF CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

What we have now is a failure to communicate. Trump eschews diplomacy. He tried to use economic bully tactics and was repeatedly rebuffed. So now he's left with only one avenue of political expression, physical violence.

Having fisticuffs with Iran, but we're not even boxing!!!

[QUOTE=amplify]hyperstition[/QUOTE]

vampires love fighting but hate mirrors

Good news, my newsfeed has returned to normal!

Headline: U.S. Intel Briefs Trump on Claims Iran's New Leader Is Gay

lol