What does a BIDEN Presidency look like?

[Admiral Yi]

He's lazy bastard who eats too much!

Or at least he will be!

[Maximus]

Kind of smells like a false flag.

[DGuller]

It doesn't necessarily smell like one, but I would definitely not assume that whoever happens to be the opponent is behind it.  False flag assassination attempts and the like do happen in elections.

[Maximus]

It doesn't necessarily smell like one, but I would definitely not assume that whoever happens to be the opponent is behind it.  False flag assassination attempts and the like do happen in elections.

My reasoning is it's hard to see that benefitting anyone other than Wright, and while it's easy to underestimate stupidity in some cases there's a lot of national attention on this particular race.

[alfred russel]

She was the heavy favorite to win. I'm not going to assume rationality, but if there is rationality she wouldn't do a false flag attack on herself right before an election she was supposed to win.

This is also the race with that super fake Dan Rodimer guy.

[Berkut]

If someone put words in my mouth that I praised Biden for not succumbing to black people, I would absolutely take it like Berkut would.  Most reasonable people would, I suspect.  And just to clear up on the timeline, Berkut wasn't the first recipient of a casually thrown racism allusion, I was, so that's why the discussion about garbon accusing people of racism was already active. 

I think it may be wise to pause focusing on people's thin skin for a second, and consider it from the POV of the people with the thin skin.  Maybe people in the US just really don't like fielding accusation of racism of varying subtlety as part of a debate? 

And really, even if you don't care about anyone's thin skin, being blatantly insulting isn't even the point.

The question is....why? What is the purpose for responding to the debate about whether some prominent politician should be calling to abolish the police with these comments about race?

Notice that garbon wasn't trying to argue that we should abolish the police, or that whether we should or not it was a good thing to say, or even denying the point that it is politically damaging. He was not trying to address the argument at all. Why bother?

He was just trying to shame those involved from making the argument to begin with. Whether or not we ought or ought not to be angry about being implied to be racist isn't even the point. The point is that there is no purpose to the observation except to try to force the people arguing for a perspective to STFU and stop challenging the accepted orthodoxy. It is an outright attack on free expression, and it is something that the <intolerant left> has been doing for some time now. If you don't like someone's ideas, don't argue better ideas, just force them to shut up. Cancel them. Shame them. Attack them. You don't have to argue that they are wrong, just do your best to make sure they are not heard.

[Razgovory]

It doesn't necessarily smell like one, but I would definitely not assume that whoever happens to be the opponent is behind it.  False flag assassination attempts and the like do happen in elections.

I read up on this and it one of those things where a bunch of people are running, both Democrat and Republican.  So it could really be anyone.  It could just be some crazy person, but it could be something much worse.   What's worse?  It could be a perfectly sane person who is blazing a trail of new awfulness, a trail that would be tread by a large number of politicians in the future.

[Maximus]

She was the heavy favorite to win. I'm not going to assume rationality, but if there is rationality she wouldn't do a false flag attack on herself right before an election she was supposed to win.

This is also the race with that super fake Dan Rodimer guy.

I wouldn't expect it to be her, but someone who really didn't want her opponent to win.

[Eddie Teach]

From the article it's not clear who is in second or that the race is close.

[Jacob]

I am genuinely not even remotely convinced you are hard pressed to understand that at all.

Well, I mean I'm in the process of constructing an explanation that makes sense to me, especially given how similarly you and DGuller reacted. There's obviously something there. But the explanation isn't that garbon was calling you a racist (I don't think he was) but it's also not that you and DGuller are racists (you aren't).

But this is in fact the first time I've seen reaction like yours and DGuller's to something like what garbon posted and it startled the hell out of me. Maybe I'm living in a woke bubble or something, but it's not something I've seen before.

From my perspective, garbon was adding some fairly innocuous commentary, with a bit of cattiness thrown in (but less than standard for him, IMO). You and DGuller completely overreacted, and you went on to become downright abusive. Obviously from your perspective you felt viciously attacked, and reacted appropriately. And obviously, there's a bit of a gap there.

Sure, there is the veneer of barely plausible deniability thrown over it, just like the right will tell you that the new voting restrictions have nothing to do with suppressing minority voting. After all, the laws say nothing about black people at all!

I think you're accusing me of having some sort of agenda here and disingenuously pretending not to, and saying that makes me equivalent to GOP efforts to suppress the Black vote. Or did I misunderstand you?

[Jacob]

If someone put words in my mouth that I praised Biden for not succumbing to black people, I would absolutely take it like Berkut would.  Most reasonable people would, I suspect.  And just to clear up on the timeline, Berkut wasn't the first recipient of a casually thrown racism allusion, I was, so that's why the discussion about garbon accusing people of racism was already active.

Yeah, I was somewhat surprised by your reaction as well. I obviously don't agree that your reaction and Berkut's were reasonable. They seemed pretty unreasonable to me, in fact. But I know you and Berkut to be pretty reasonable people so there's something to be figured out.

I mean, it could be that I'm just a disingenuous virtue signalling wokeist or some such but (unsurprisingly, I hope) I don't think that's it either.

I think it may be wise to pause focusing on people's thin skin for a second, and consider it from the POV of the people with the thin skin.  Maybe people in the US just really don't like fielding accusation of racism of varying subtlety as part of a debate? 

Yes indeed. Maybe the time has come to consider the point of view of heterosexual middle class white men whose voices have been so viciously suppressed in recent times

That's the kind of thing that you object to, right? I linked your argument to your identity, and suggested that maybe that makes it less relevant or persuasive. I mean I get it. That's me too, and I get shit like that thrown at me as well at times. It can be annoying, frustrating, and sometimes pernicious depending on the context.

Personally, though, the shit garbon posted doesn't even fucking rate. Your mileage obviously differs. I don't think what I said about "the time has come to consider the feelings of white folks..." etc to rate either. Not sure how you take it.

But maybe you're right. Maybe wokeness is a counter-productive plague that undermines the ability of the non-Fascist centre and left to get good and useful things done. Maybe the pendulum has swung too far and average white dudes like us are being pushed around too much by people wielding cries of racism as a cudgel (and other -isms, for that matter). It does kind of feel like it sometimes. But at the same time, the long tradition of white folks telling non-white folks that they're incorrect in the way they react to the racism they experience continues going strong. And non-white folks still seem to be experiencing some pretty egregious shit, in spite of how far we've gotten. And if you care about that - and I believe you do - then that's a circle that has to be squared... and I don't really think the readings you took from garbon's posts helped that.

Then again, this is languish and maybe the point is to get into shit-fights rather than anything constructive. I guess there's that.

[Zoupa]

Whenever I hear a white person from the US telling us he/she knows better, or disparages wokeism, I always come back to this video, which I encourage anyone to watch and re-watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llci8MVh8J4

[Admiral Yi]

God that's a mess.

[Zoupa]

Good to know.

[Berkut]

I am genuinely not even remotely convinced you are hard pressed to understand that at all.

Well, I mean I'm in the process of constructing an explanation that makes sense to me, especially given how similarly you and DGuller reacted. There's obviously something there. But the explanation isn't that garbon was calling you a racist (I don't think he was) but it's also not that you and DGuller are racists (you aren't).

But this is in fact the first time I've seen reaction like yours and DGuller's to something like what garbon posted and it startled the hell out of me. Maybe I'm living in a woke bubble or something, but it's not something I've seen before.

From my perspective, garbon was adding some fairly innocuous commentary, with a bit of cattiness thrown in (but less than standard for him, IMO). You and DGuller completely overreacted, and you went on to become downright abusive. Obviously from your perspective you felt viciously attacked, and reacted appropriately. And obviously, there's a bit of a gap there.

Sure, there is the veneer of barely plausible deniability thrown over it, just like the right will tell you that the new voting restrictions have nothing to do with suppressing minority voting. After all, the laws say nothing about black people at all!

I think you're accusing me of having some sort of agenda here and disingenuously pretending not to, and saying that makes me equivalent to GOP efforts to suppress the Black vote. Or did I misunderstand you?

I am saying I am not convinced that you don't understand the intent of garbons post. I am saying it is perfectly obvious what he is doing, and your working hard to come up with a way you can act like it is something other than what it rather obviously is. I don't know that that qualifies as an "agenda", but no, I am not saying it is "equivalent" to trying to suppress black voting - it is simply similar in that both cases have this fake attempt at deniability that nobody actually believes - not even the people claiming to believe it.

In your case it is because you are defending your fellow lefty and you are heavily emotionally invested in the idea that all this concern by everyone over the problems in left wing culture is just right wing bullshit, and in fact there is nothing at all wrong that needs to be addressed. That is incorrect, but hardly as morally reprehensible as the GOP trying to discourage minority voting.