Red
Well-Known Member
Members of either of our major parties are capable of stupid positions and decisions.Sardines answered this well, and this is also something you should already know, come on. You are saying that Biden wanting (not forcing, not coercing, not passing laws or signing executive orders, but rather requesting, keep that in mind) that Social Media sites (also note, NOT true media, as in THE PRESS, but rather a cesspool of billionaires harvesting and selling your data and using your data to manipulate you in their platforms, which they have STRIGHT UP ADMITTED TO, again NOT media at all) police what is posted to ensure posts are factually correct and minimize the spreading of disinformation, something true media already has a charter to at least attempt to do, and protect our kids especially from harmful information, again something THE PRESS already has a mandate to do, hence why they do not print articles or share videos with sensitive information directly, but you are saying that is EXACTLY EQUIVALENT to Trump denouncing the media at every turn, demanding that 60 minutes go to jail for reporting the truth, and formally blocking the AP from the white house because they use international naming conventions rather than Trump's delusional renaming of a meaningless piece of arbitrary geography, you think these make Biden and Trump exactly equivalent to each other? Man you are brainwashed.
By the way, here is one example of Trump going after Facebook and tanking Meta's stock. No wonder they fell in line with his propaganda machine. Can you show me an equivalent report of Biden doing this much damage to force Facebook to fall in line with his agenda? Keep in mind, Biden wanted truthful reporting, fact checking, and protection for kids. Trump wanted positive messages about Trump, and free use of facebook as part of the propaganda machine. Those are qualitatively objectively morally opposing goals. I can guess which you think has the moral high ground in this, and that is just pathetic.
And to be fair, here is a claim by the Heritage Foundation, the wonderful thinktank responsible for dismantling our government that is happening right now. By the way, no other outlet is reporting this, other than reporting what Zuck said during his congressional hearing, presenting no evidence. OH NO IT IS A CONSPIRACY!!1!
How the Biden White House, Facebook Quietly Censored Americans
Did you think what you saw on your Facebook feed was determined by your interests and your friends? Think again.www.heritage.org
So let's take that at face value, and say sure, Biden pressured facebook secretly behind the scenes. Does that make them equivalent entirely then? So beyond a single incident of behind the scenes pressuring what else has Biden done to earn the moniker of Nazi?
As far as any good the current administration has done, I have noted in another thread I think one positive thing they did, which had to do with questioning some spending, which we have needed to do for decades by the way. But beyond that they have been literally nothing but destructive, and the methods they are using to cut spending are full-on dishonest, lying to achieve their ends, and focused more on protecting the interests of billionaires than actually cutting any meaningful spending. It has been shown that all the "work" they are doing will not make the tiniest dent in the deficit, and actually shown by a republican that all they have cut barely amounts to maybe a single week of deficit spending, and yet disrupted thousands of lives of hard-working Americans. So, no, I am seeing very little positive coming from this administration. I do not view attempting to rewrite the constitution by fiat a positive move. Trump has already violated his oath of office a half dozen times in a single month of his presidency.
So, please share, what do you see that this administration is doing that is positive? Can you give us a list and we can add our 2 cents as to whether we think it is a positive move or not? Was destroying the most vetted and cleanest operating segment of the government providing foreign aid to countries in need a good move, the one that is highly likely to end in the deaths of thousands? Was putting thousands of federal employees out of work to free up literal pennies a good move? The next question would be, good for whom? Decidedly not for the thousands of people whose lives have been torn apart with the stroke of a pen, but maybe great for the billionaires looking for yet another handout? So show us your list, give us your top 10 fantastic things Trump has done, tell us why it is a great thing, and let us add our 2 cents. Let's have that conversation.
I think #4 on this list describes the Musk/Trump approach to cleaning house:
Opinion | The Six Principles of Stupidity
I define stupidity as ignoring the question: What would happen next? By that definition, the Trump administration has produced volleys of it.
Principle 1: Ideology produces disagreement, but stupidity produces befuddlement. This week, people in institutions across America spent a couple of days trying to figure out what the hell was going on. This is what happens when a government freezes roughly $3 trillion in spending with a two-page memo that reads like it was written by an intern. When stupidity is in control, the literature professor Patrick Moreau argues, words become unscrewed “from their relation to reality.”
Principle 2: Stupidity often inheres in organizations, not individuals. When you create an organization in which one man has all the power and everybody else has to flatter his preconceptions, then stupidity will surely result. As the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it: “This is virtually a sociological-psychological law. The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other.”
Principle 3: People who behave stupidly are more dangerous than people who behave maliciously. Evil people at least have some accurate sense of their own self-interest, which might restrain them. Stupidity dares greatly! Stupidity already has all the answers!
Principle 4: People who behave stupidly are unaware of the stupidity of their actions. You may have heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect, which is that incompetent people don’t have the skills to recognize their own incompetence. Let’s introduce the Hegseth-Gabbard corollary: The Trump administration is attempting to remove civil servants who may or may not be progressive but who have tremendous knowledge in their field of expertise and hire MAGA loyalists who often lack domain knowledge or expertise. The results may not be what the MAGA folks hoped for.
Principle 5: Stupidity is nearly impossible to oppose. Bonhoeffer notes, “Against stupidity we are defenseless.” Because stupid actions do not make sense, they invariably come as a surprise. Reasonable arguments fall on deaf ears. Counter-evidence is brushed aside. Facts are deemed irrelevant. Bonhoeffer continues, “In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack.”
Principle 6: The opposite of stupidity is not intelligence, it’s rationality. The psychologist Keith Stanovich defines rationality as the capacity to make decisions that help people achieve their objectives. People in the grip of the populist mind-set tend to be contemptuous of experience, prudence and expertise, helpful components of rationality. It turns out that this can make some populists willing to believe anything — conspiracy theories, folk tales and internet legends; that vaccines are harmful to children. They don’t live within a structured body of thought but within a rave party chaos of prejudices.
As time has gone by, I’ve developed more and more sympathy for the goals the populists are trying to achieve. America’s leadership class has spent the last few generations excluding, ignoring, rejecting and insulting a large swath of this country. It’s terrible to be assaulted in this way. It’s worse when you finally seize power and start assaulting yourself — and everyone around you. In fact, it’s stupid.
