mechoman444

Of course because this is the pressing issue of the new millennium. Everyone sitting around going man Nixon really got the short end of the stick.

No no it’s just a conservative part the fact that you’re a woman has nothing to do with anything.

No. That is an extremely common misconception that people try to argue for on this platform, but it is ultimately incorrect.

Virtually any form of government can incorporate things like public transportation, state-run utilities, and stronger protections for unions. None of those things, by themselves, make a system socialist.

Socialism is specifically an economic system in which the means of production are owned and controlled collectively, either by the public or by the workers themselves.

What you’re describing are social welfare programs. The word “social” is one of those confusing and often misused words in the English language. Different terms can sound almost identical while referring to fundamentally different concepts. Social welfare is not socialism, even though the two terms sound similar.

The only reason I know about the bloke is because I play guitar, and you inevitably come across him if you play long enough. I checked out some of his music and found it pretty uninteresting and boring, so I immediately dismissed him. Then again, I dislike just about every white guy-with-a-guitar act, ironically because I’m also a white guy with a guitar.

He shouldn’t have bent the knee.

Well in that case I completely agree with you.

Ya! Nuance!

You’re taking evidence of a fringe movement and presenting it as evidence of a widespread Republican Party movement. Those are two very different claims.

Yes, there are fringe activists currently calling for repeal of the 19th Amendment, and one of them apparently showed up outside the Lindsay Clancy courthouse with a “Repeal the 19th” sign. That establishes that these people exist. It does not establish that this is a widespread movement within the Republican Party, much less that the Republican Party is pursuing repeal as a political objective. Current reporting actually describes the people pushing this as fringe activists.

There’s also a rather enormous constitutional hurdle you’re overlooking. The 19th Amendment cannot simply be repealed through ordinary legislation, executive action, or a presidential order. Under Article V, repealing it would require another constitutional amendment. That means either two-thirds of both chambers of Congress must propose one, or two-thirds of the states must call a convention to propose one. Then three-fourths of the states, currently 38, would have to ratify it.

So I’m not claiming nobody has ever suggested repealing the 19th Amendment. They clearly have. I’m saying that extrapolating from a handful of fringe activists and an isolated courthouse protest to “the Republican Party wants to repeal women’s right to vote” is not supported by the evidence. If you have evidence of an organized Republican campaign, Republican Party platform, congressional proposal, or state-level movement actually pursuing repeal, that’s a substantially different claim and I’d be interested in seeing it.

And now, for the not so nice part.

You are doing the exact thing I am arguing against: presenting out-of-context pictures as though they somehow validate a conclusion you had already reached. You aren’t examining the evidence and then reaching a conclusion; you’re working backward from the conclusion and selectively presenting whatever you think supports it. This kind of reasoning, and the way people manipulate information to fit an existing narrative, is precisely the sort of behavior that contributes to the political environment we are living in today.

And this isn’t some new phenomenon. There have been people throughout human history who were absolutely convinced they knew better than everyone else while demonstrating very little ability to distinguish evidence from confirmation bias. You don’t become intellectually or morally superior simply because you’ve found a group of people you consider stupid. If anything, you’re demonstrating the exact same intellectual weakness from the opposite direction.

People are allowed to be idiots. That doesn’t make their idiocy representative of an entire political movement, and it certainly doesn’t make selectively presenting their behavior as evidence of a broader movement intellectually honest. If your argument depends on taking the most extreme people you can find and pretending they represent everyone else, then the problem isn’t the people you’re pointing at. It’s the methodology you’re using to make your point.

I mean yes… But the conjecture aside the fact stand on their own merits.

The Lindsay Clancy case did generate some genuinely disturbing online rhetoric. There are, in fact, fringe conservative and MAGA-adjacent accounts calling for the repeal of the 19th Amendment, and there is even a petition explicitly connecting the Clancy case to a demand to repeal women’s suffrage. That part is real.

But that is very different from saying “MAGA is exploiting the Lindsay Clancy case to try to end women’s right to vote.” There is no evidence that the MAGA movement, the Republican Party, Congress, or any serious political organization is pursuing repeal of the 19th Amendment because of this case. What exists is a fringe online reaction that has been amplified because it is outrageous.

The actual court case has nothing whatsoever to do with women’s voting rights. It was a criminal trial concerning whether Lindsay Clancy was criminally responsible for killing her three children. The jury ultimately deadlocked 11–1 and the judge declared a mistrial.

And frankly, I think the lone holdout juror deserves some credit for doing exactly what a juror is supposed to do: make his own judgment rather than surrender his position simply because eleven other people disagreed with him. Whether his interpretation of the evidence and reasonable-doubt standard was correct is a legitimate question. But unanimity exists precisely because one juror is allowed to disagree. The defense even attempted to have the juror removed, and the judge declined to do so.

That’s not “MAGA ending women’s voting rights.” That’s the jury system functioning as designed, even if the result is frustrating.

The Nation is taking a real but extremely fringe online phenomenon and presenting it in its headline as though it represents an organized political effort to abolish women’s suffrage. That is sensationalism, and it is dangerously close to misinformation because the headline encourages readers to infer a political movement that the evidence does not establish.

There is certainly room to criticize people who genuinely advocate repealing the 19th Amendment. I would criticize that position myself. But we should not turn a handful of inflammatory social-media accounts into “MAGA is trying to end women’s right to vote.”

And if this is a moderated community, this is exactly where better moderation matters. A provocative political claim can be discussed, but the title should accurately describe what the linked article actually establishes. “Fringe MAGA-adjacent activists are calling for repeal of the 19th Amendment following the Clancy mistrial” would be a defensible description. “MAGA is exploiting the case to end women’s right to vote” is a much broader claim that the evidence simply does not support.

Disclaimer: Nothing in my comment should be interpreted as support for MAGA, the political right, conservatism, or any effort whatsoever to repeal the 19th Amendment or restrict women’s rights. I oppose those positions. My objection here is specifically to sensationalized and misleading claims that take fringe rhetoric and present it as an established political movement. I support equal rights and the fundamental human rights afforded to people regardless of sex, race, religion, political affiliation, or any other personal characteristic. Fact-checking exaggerated claims is not an endorsement of the people or ideology being discussed. It is simply an insistence that political arguments be based on what the evidence actually demonstrates.

Not sure what to think about this… On one hand good. On the other hand the system that deported him is the product of pure evil.

Then again watching them eat each other alive is amusing in its own right.

Shit dress them up in Walmart tactical gear give them some cheapo balaclava call them ice and tell the fucker they’re there to take them to an award ceremony… Then black bag him in the back of the van.

Jeez… It is amazing how I can learn about a new low these people can reach.

It’s books for children.

Extradite? We’re in the same country. Just go freaking pick him up.

Well… That was quick.

You’re still doing it. You’re still making up a position for me that I have never taken, because you literally cannot argue against what I’m actually saying. You have to construct a position that is easier for you to attack. You have to make me religious because that’s what you’re accustomed to arguing against.

But I am not religious. I have expressly denounced organized religion, including the unchecked pedophilia, indoctrination, and child abuse that you are pointing out. I fully acknowledge every one of those problems, and I agree with you about them. If I had the ability to dismantle Christianity entirely, I would personally do so. In fact, I am actively trying to undermine those institutions and ideas right now.

I am not religious. I am not a Christian. I oppose any and all abuse, organized religion, religious fundamentalism, and right-wing extremism.

So, do you acknowledge that this is actually my position?

Lol. Yeah. It’s funny that you have to invent a position for me to argue against it because there is literally nothing in what I wrote that you can actually argue against.

You have to manufacture a justification for your hatred, which ultimately makes you no better than the very thing you claim to dislike.

You genuinely cannot fathom that I can stand opposed to the same thing you do without blindly hating it.

That’s pretty fucking pitiful.

Also, once again, I stand against any and all abuse, sexual, physical, or mental. I do not support MAGA, religious fundamentalism, or right-wing extremism.

Also also, it is beyond amusing that I can explicitly say I don’t support these things, and yet you keep insisting that I do. That’s literally the only way you seem capable of having a conversation with me. You have a very specific thing you want to say, and apparently nothing I actually say matters because you’ll just keep attributing that position to me anyway.

You have to be stupid.

I don’t know if you actually understand the definitions of the words you’re using. Nothing I said was self-righteous. I’m not victimizing myself, nor am I playing the victim. I haven’t claimed that anyone in this situation is a victim, either. I also haven’t made any claims about being right or wrong, so I’m not sure what, exactly, you’re implying I need to be “correct” about in the first place.

Dude, are you actually reading what I’m saying? Did you miss the part where I explicitly said I’m an human secularist and anti-theist? I stand against organized religion.

And once again, you’re making sweeping statements about Christians as a whole, as though every single Christian on the planet is somehow evil simply because they participate in an organized religion. That’s an indefensible declarative statement. Can you actually prove to me that all Christians are evil? And no, you can’t just point to terrible things Christianity has done throughout history and use that as evidence. Christianity as an organized religion, and what you’re primarily referring to, which is more accurately Catholicism in many historical contexts, is not synonymous with every modern Christian or every Protestant denomination.

I don’t blindly hate. I have very concrete reasons for opposing organized religion. Organized religion can indoctrinate children, intentionally muddy or distort the truth to serve political interests, perpetually seek more money and influence, manipulate politics to advance its own agenda, and, at its extreme, cause profound harm and even death.

But what I don’t do is make idiotic, sweeping declarative statements like, “Christians are grooming their children to give them to pedophiles.” That’s ridiculous. Nobody is doing that as some universal Christian practice. There may have been isolated cases where something remotely resembling that happened, and those individuals should have been prosecuted for what they did. But you don’t get to take isolated criminal acts and pretend they represent every Christian on the planet.

That’s the distinction I’m making: I can have a strong, principled opposition to organized religion without blindly assigning the worst possible motives or behavior to every individual who happens to be religious.

And yet your rhetoric, argument, and general attitude is identical to op.

I know that you’re not op.

O for sure. But sometimes people need push back. One day someone will read this and see that not everyone will accept things like this at face value. So I know I’ll be downvoted to hell.

But as they say in the business there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

Like mine? I’m a human secularist and antitheist. I stand opposed to all organized religion.

My God, I haven’t seen a comment this full of itself and spoken this far out of someone’s ass in a long time. You’ve made massive assumptions that I specifically disclaimed against in my original comment. I don’t support Christian fundamentalism; I would actually protest against it. What I don’t do is blindly hate it like you and apparently the person I was responding to.

Did you actually read what I wrote, or did you already have something you wanted to say regardless of whether it was true? You know, the exact same problem you’re accusing others of having while doing it yourself.

My point is that you can’t use the same kind of hate to prop up your own narrative while condemning someone else’s. Saying that fundamentalist Christians are giving their children in marriage to pedophiles is an untrue, sweeping statement.

And that’s not even what he was saying. You’re making up a position for him to support your own argument, much like the people you apparently criticize for doing the exact same thing you’re doing right now.