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That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus
251–260 of 656 posts
Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
>a single actor cannot take over. This is a distinction without a difference. People can screech about "we're a democracy, we don't have a king" all they want but if the overwhelming amount of discretionary authority in the system is held by a fairly small group of people cut from approximately the same cloth it doesn't really matter, they're all gonna decide things the same ways and the results are gonna be just as…
it's a distinction with A TON of difference. Well-functioning democracies have a push-and-pull that tends to slow things down BUT also prevents massive outreaches. Systems with tons of "sides" are stabler than dual systems because of this. > It doesn't matter if you have a thousand people working to appease the ideological whims of one absolute ruler or a thousand people with the same set of ideological whims, it's s…
>it's a distinction with A TON of difference. Well-functioning democracies have a push-and-pull that tends to slow things down BUT also prevents massive outreaches. Systems with tons of "sides" are stabler than dual systems because of this.
Right, a democracy won't succumb to one insane leader peddling particularly insane whims the way a dictatorship possibly can. But for the other 99/100 years of the century when things are business as usual it's a distinction without a difference.
The fact that we have a nominal democracy doesn't change the fact that we're being ruled by the small ideological minority that holds the bulk of the power in the system.
>that's exactly the point - there's a third option.
Yeah, we could have a government by some semblance of the people and all the diversity of that implies, but we don't, at least not to any serious degree at the federal level, so here we are.
Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed, everybody except me is a ideologue with whom at least 2 academics and a reddit poster disagree. I, on the other hand, am always right, of course! Additionally, as a jew, I was raised on an ironclad ideological assertion that the holocaust was the worst thing people have ever done to each other, and no genocides have or will ever rival it. I'm keenly aware that there is a vested interest in maintaining that vi…
Stalin is very, very, very different from Hitler. (Again I cannot reply to the comment below, but my point is not that I am not ideological; of course I am. But Snyder is also extremely ideological and uses his history to push a very particular kindideologues of politics, which is ironic given the context of the thread. ) (Adding another edit since I can't reply! But again, I don't understand why my interlocutor cann…
For example, Stalin probably killed a lot more communists.
Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus
#254Once a Chinese grad student explained to me a difference he noted between Chinese and American citizens. He said in China no really reads or watches 24/7 major news outlets in China. They are fully aware that all of it is propaganda and just go about their life. He said Americans seem to get really emotional over content in the press and seem to really struggle with the idea of propaganda / journalism in the news. I…
There are certainly some news outlets that operate like propoganda. I mean Fox comes to mind, if you ever watch you’ll notice they carefully craft their statements and rarely talk about facts, mostly feelings. News is at its core a business, and they know they get eyes on things by scaring people or talking about things that seem shocking at face value. NYT and other outlets that do long form articles (Wired) have invaluable information. But we live in a world where most people (especially perpetually online people) just browse the headlines and take what they want from it. We’ve lost nuance, and because of that in the US one party is using that to their advantage.
Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
In some cases, yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disciplinary_actions_for_comme... > Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that any non-citizens who celebrated Kirk's death would be immediately deported… > Attorney General Pam Bondi indicated on Katie Miller's podcast and in subsequent Department of Justice announcements that she intended to "target" speech against Kirk following his death as hate speech… Plus te…
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Do you think a lot of people in power should be fired then? A lot of the current admin is guilty of behaviour in similarly poor taste.
Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
If an entry level commissioned officer can be expected to keep it in their pants than an entry level teacher can too. Yeah it's a first amendment issue depending on where through the gray area the line is drawn but the .gov runs right through the gray areas of violating rights all the time, I don't really see the big deal if it does it to it's own cogs.
There's a very, very long standing specific exception for members of the military (subject to the UCMJ) that is not present for teachers.
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Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus
#257> using radio “triangulation” (sic)
Why is triangulation an error?
Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus
#258There is a lawyer (Alec Karakatsanis) who has been writing about police driven propaganda for years. His recent book "Copaganda" is fantastic. He carefully breaks down how major papers (NYT is chief among them) create stories that fit a narrative by using very one-sided sources. Like an article on crime written in bad faith where the only people quotes are police, police consultants, and ex-police. It's a really good…
Copaganda is indeed a good book, recommend.
Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus
#259Earlier quoted context omitted.
What your Chinese friend isn't saying is that all those Substack writers in the US would be disappeared into Chinese gulag's. The US has a strong freedom of speech clause baked into its core governance system...When I was fifteen I'd be subscribed to five different punk zines and would be creating mix-tapes from 10 different sources (and much of it wildly offensive and political).
And yet people are getting fired over making comments about Charlie Kirk on social media.
There’s something hypocritical about a person who thinks it’s an injustice for them to be fired for expressing their opinions, when that opinion is that they are glad Charlie Kirk was murdered for expressing his opinions.
Karl Popper said,
“But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols."
Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus
#260Reminds me of the time when I consulted with a very large newspaper chain in the US which owned a lot of papers - both left leaning and right leaning. we used to get feeds from all of the usual sources.
But the news articles themselves were "massaged" in various ways by some of the same editorial teams to suit the left-leaning or the right-leaning newspapers. The idea that completely different spin can be put to the same news - and by the same editorial teams, was a big eye opener for me.
What this taught me is that the media's primary role is to polarise people to either the left or the right so that they can be herded to vote along or act along prescribed lines. What the media and the establishment hates are people who are not either left or right leaning and who are capable of picking and choosing the narrative depending on what makes the most sense - that is, the so called centrists.
But here we are more than 2 decades later from that time and I see that the spin doctors are busier than ever and the "centrists" have almost completely disappeared.