After Losing Support, Trump's Business and Manufacturing Councils Are Shutting Down (theverge.com)

Over a dozen anonymous readers share a similar report: Two White House advisory councils that once included tech leaders like Elon Musk and Travis Kalanick have dissolved, after several members resigned over President Donald Trump's weak condemnation of white supremacists. A member of the Strategic and Policy Forum told CNBC that it wanted to make a "more significant impact" by disbanding the entire group: "It makes a central point that it's not going to go forward. It's done." Soon after, Trump took credit for shutting down both that group and a separate Manufacturing Council, "rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople." The councils' members came from a range of industries, including several major Silicon Valley companies. Besides Musk and Kalanick, executives from Intel, IBM, and Dell had joined. It's been controversial from the start -- Musk and Kalanick both left months ago -- but a major exodus started this week, after Trump issued a vague statement blaming "many sides" for violence at a white supremacist rally that left one woman dead. Intel CEO Brian Krzanich resigned on Monday, saying that politics had "sidelined the important mission of rebuilding America's manufacturing base." Axios has more details.

Comments

Less Business Leaders Influencing Government?

[NicknameUnavailable]

Sounds like a win.

Re:Less Business Leaders Influencing Government?

[sexconker]

Fewer.

Re:Less Business Leaders Influencing Government?

[nnet]

I'm tired of winning.

Re:Less Business Leaders Influencing Government?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, Ser Davos.

Re:Less Business Leaders Influencing Government?

[zlives]

just as trump predicted ;)

Re:Less Business Leaders Influencing Government?

[Anonymous Coward]

He misread the teleprompter. It was actually, "There will be so much whining. So much whining, you will get tired of all the whining."

Re:Less Business Leaders Influencing Government?

[gumpish]

So if you were reading some code out loud to someone and you reached the following line making a comparison between two integers:

if (intA intB)

You would read that as "if int A is fewer than int B"?

Re:Less Business Leaders Influencing Government?

[gumpish]

Arg, silly me, expecting slashdot to behave like a sane site and perform entity encoding.
if (intA < intB)

Re:Less Business Leaders Influencing Government?

[WrongMonkey]

Different cases. "Business leaders" is a plural noun, integer value is a singular noun.

Re:Less Business Leaders Influencing Government?

[Anonymous Coward]

You use 'fewer' for nouns that can be counted (people, business leaders, oranges) and 'less' for nouns that can't be counted (time, money, music). And numbers are always 'less'. Your example was numbers, while business leaders was countable nouns. It's subtle, but grammar doesn't treat them the same.

Re:Less Business Leaders Influencing Government?

[AmiMoJo]

Trunk always does this, it should come as no surprise.

"I settled that lawsuit, but I could have won it. It just wasn't worth my time."

"I said it all along, best to just let Obamacare fail."

And hopefully one day

"You get impeach me, I quit."

Re:Less Business Leaders Influencing Government?

[Captain Splendid]

Stannis, actually.

Re:Less Business Leaders Influencing Government?

[denzacar]

You forgot the obligatory "I'm gonna build a bigger thing... With blackjack... and hookers..." steps.

Re:Less Business Leaders Influencing Government?

[Anonymous Coward]

>You would read that as "if int A is fewer than int B"?

Only if you coded it like:

int A, int C < int B

Because I'd be snidely pointing out why your code doesn't compile. Here's the english version:

Yellow Potato Salad is less than Green Potato Salad
(If there's only 500 mg of Yellow Potato Salad, and 750 mg of Green, very true!)

Yellow Potato Salad, White Potato Salad is fewer than Green Potato Salad
(Incorrect. There's two potato salads listed on the left. Should be greater than. Also, is that really what you wanted to know?)

Less is for single or non-count items. Like integers. They are non-count items for computers unless they're in a data structure because they're treated as a solitary item that happens to have a value stamped into the memory location. Like the tub of 500 vs. 750 ml tubs of potato salad).

Fewer is for count items. Like Potato Salads. Or integers in data structures.

http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/less-versus-fewer

Hope that helps!

Re:Less Business Leaders Influencing Government?

[Zaelath]

When true, A is indeed less than B.

If they are representative of "things" then there are fewer of A than B, when true.

If they are representative of salaries, then A is less than B, when true.

There is no counter-example for English pedantry.

Re:Less Business Leaders Influencing Government?

[duke_cheetah2003]

"You get impeach me, I quit."

I'm actually mildly impressed he hasn't quit already. All the flak he's taking, it must be soul crushing. Presidenting is hard, who woulda thunk?

But I feel mildly cheated by his use of hair dye/hair piece. whatever that thing ontop of his head is. All previous presidents, we got to watch them progressively grey as the job ground them down. I miss those days.

Re:Less Business Leaders Influencing Government?

[Man On Pink Corner]

Shhh, we don't call him that in public. Yet.

Re:Less Business Leaders Influencing Government?

[Anonymous Coward]

it is more like this:
a = [1,2,3]
b = [1,2,3,4]
then I would say
a has fewer entries than b
not a has less entries than b
however the count(a) is less than count(b)
it is subtle I suppose.

Re:Less Business Leaders Influencing Government?

[TheRaven64]

No, because less would be grammatically correct. However, if your code instead said:

if (a.count() < b.count())

I would read it as 'if a has fewer elements than b'.

Re:Less Business Leaders Influencing Government?

[MoarSauce123]

There are three reasons why Trump wants to be president - his ego - his business - his close ties with the alt-right/neo-nazi movement Trump's goal is to destroy government so that his business and those of his fascist friends can engage in any lucrative activity they want without fearing the government or having to share any of the profits. Quitting would take away this incredible opportunity and it clearly would be counter to his ego. Trump never quit, he never thinks he did anything wrong, and above all, he never apologizes for anything. Contrary, he boasts publicly that he got away with stuff because he is a celebrity. Just think about the many pussy grabs, law violations, lies, and other not even borderline criminal activities the Trump clan engaged in (such as his son giving Green Cards to Chinese investors in exchange for loans to compensate for bad real estate deals). Let that sink in for a minute. These people are running the country at the moment!

heh MAGA

[Anonymous Coward]

MAGA my ass

Mass Exodus!

[Anonymous Coward]

Faroe, let my people go!

Re:Mass Exodus!

[rally2xs]

What, you're pleading with a card game?

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean for dispassionately reporting a factual event? How dare they, we know facts have no place in our new Reich.

Re:Opportunistic

[lactose99]

Yeah, 'cuz racists and neo-Nazis are REALLY good for this country

Green Day needs to re-release American Idiot

[future assassin]

Trumpagedon style https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Green Day needs to re-release American Idiot

[sheph]

I can't think why they should. It would still be the same obvious leftist tripe it was the last time around.

Anti-Trump Garbage

[Anonymous Coward]

He said NO to big business and shut 'em down himself. Nice SLANT, Slantdot.

Re:Anti-Trump Garbage

[Anonymous Coward]

You're seriously trying to sell it as a win?

Trump setup those councils when he took office. Everybody on the council left, and now he's disbanding them.

That's not a win. That's the loser kid sitting in a corner by himself because he smells like cat piss.

Re:Opportunistic

[DigiShaman]

BLM members are racists, and Obama invited them and said the protests were a good thing. Were was the MSM outrage there? Yeah, you know the answer to that.

It's true

[Anonymous Coward]

There were many problems that happened in Charlotte, not one. Stinking Nazis and KKK-heads were one problem, marching without a permit, defacing property. Crappy Antifa groups marching and fighting with the skinheaders were another problem. Police not enforcing the law were another problems. All are repugnant. The fact that the media is trying to push the narrative that "Trump defended the Nazis" is ridiculous. Anybody with any shred of common sense knows he didn't and doesn't, as nearly everyone else in the country doesn't as well.

The fact that the business leaders were too gun-shy to face reality shows they really are more concerned with politics than helping to return manufacturing to this country. We need more leaders with backbone, and this lot obviously wasn't qualified.

Re:It's true

[Captain Splendid]

What history is getting rewritten? The South lost. Losers in wars don't get statues. History's not being rewritten, it's finally getting right.

Re:It's true

[Anonymous Coward]

i am sure you will be just as tolerant of the ISIS heroes in statue from in the near future!!!
fuck off with your bigotry.

Re:It's true

[Anonymous Coward]

You lost get over it. Losers don't get participation trophies. No historical facts are changed by removing a hunk of bronze.

Re:It's true

[Lisandro]

I find that entire argument pretty ridiculous. So, history is getting rewritten because statues are being removed? Do you teach from them?

There's a reason Germany doesn't have Hitler statues, you know, and it is not because they're willing to forget.

Re:It's true

[MightyMartian]

And I bet you really outraged when all those Lithuanians, Estonians and Latvians toppled statues of Lenin! Truly a crime against humanity.

The fact that you can still have statues of the likes of Robert E Lee and Jefferson Davis a century and a half after the Confederacy was beaten into the ground astonishes me. It's one thing to remember one's past, but to actually honor the leaders of the Confederacy with statues and memorials, no thanks, that's not remembering a bitter chapter from the past, that's celebrating it.

It all stems back to the fiction that the former Confederate states were allowed to propagate, that somehow the formation of the Confederacy wasn't about preservation of slavery, that somehow it was some great campaign for liberty. Well, that's bullshit. The Confederacy was entirely about slavery, and it stood and fell on that principle, so fuck Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and all the other men who sent hundreds of thousands off to stain hundreds of battlefields red for the cause of keeping men in shackles because of their skin color. We shouldn't topple their statues, we should fucking dynamite them.

Re:It's true

[Anonymous Coward]

So what store had the best deals on Tiki torches?

Re:It's true

[penandpaper]

Getting it right? By re-framing it through the morals of the day... That is not getting it right. Why not put another statute up next to it to show future generations what we think?

They were a product of their time and to judge them against our morals is wrong. You miss the lessons learned. You miss the motivations. You are ignoring history.

How far does your offense go in destroying history? Robert E. Lee isn't the monster the left make him out to be. He held a position that persisted for hundreds of years. Slavery was an issue for hundreds of years. All of the founders had slaves... Are we to burn the constitution and abandon the ideals because they have because we judge them with today's standard? I have heard many support that because "3/5ths compromise" yet not realize that it was slave owners that wanted slaves to be counted equally!

ISIS destroys antiquity because blasphemy. We do it because offense. I see no difference.

Those statues do not tell us where we are going or where we are. They tell us where we have been. By destroying them and moving them out of sight we forget our past. We lose a part of us that help us become better.

It really makes me sad to see history destroyed and defaced. At least with moving it is still there but out of sight out of mind does not challenge you to understand it.

Re:It's true

[penandpaper]

ISIS isn't history. They are modern.

I don't see anyone arguing to destroy the Al-Azhar Mosque because ISIS or in this case Muslim Brotherhood.

I don't see anyone arguing the destruction of cathedrals because of the Inquisition.

What are you willing to burn to feel morally superior?

Re:It's true

[Evil Kerek]

Nope but losers in elections get to keep saying 'If the rules were different, we'd have won'. 'I refuse to accept the results of the election'. 'I think I'll start a riot'.

Re:It's true

[cayenne8]

The fact that you can still have statues of the likes of Robert E Lee and Jefferson Davis a century and a half after the Confederacy was beaten into the ground astonishes me.

I take it you are not from the south and do not live in any of the southern states.

If that is the case, then you really don't have any ground to say anything about it.

It is fully up to the people of each of these states.

The only thing wrong here is many of these cases, is...that a few politicians are making the decisions rather than putting this to the vote of the people in those cities/states.

But you are not part of the state populations in question, and really don't have shit to say about it.

If you're not from there, you don't understand.

Re:It's true

[fahrbot-bot]

Let's not forget about the real problem: leftist nutjob trying to rewrite history by tearing down confederate statue.

Don't Confuse History with Monuments:

There is a crucial difference between leaders like Washington and Jefferson, imperfect men who helped create the United States, Ms. Gordon-Reed said, and Confederate generals like Jackson and Lee, whose main historical significance is that they took up arms against it. The comparison, she added, also “misapprehends the moral problem with the Confederacy.”

“This is not about the personality of an individual and his or her flaws,” she said. “This is about men who organized a system of government to maintain a system of slavery and to destroy the American union.”

As for the idea of erasing history, it’s a possibility most scholars do not take lightly. But James Grossman, the executive director of the American Historical Association, said that Mr. Trump’s comments failed to recognize the difference between history and memory, which is always shifting.

When you alter monuments, “you’re not changing history,” he said. “You’re changing how we remember history.”

Some critics of Confederate monuments have called for them to be moved to museums, rather than destroyed, or even left in place and reinterpreted, to explain the context in which they were created. Mr. Grossman noted that most Confederate monuments were constructed in two periods: the 1890s, as Jim Crow was being established, and in the 1950s, during a period of mass Southern resistance to the civil rights movement.

“We would not want to whitewash our history by pretending that Jim Crow and disenfranchisement or massive resistance to the civil rights movement never happened,” he said. “That is the part of our history that these monuments testify to.”

“The amazing thing is that the president is doing more to endanger historical monuments than most of the protesters,” he said. “The alt-right is producing a world where there is more pressure to remove monuments, rather than less.”

Also, it seems like many of these Confederate statues glorify traitors and treason - not heritage.

Re:It's true

[Train0987]

There's a statue of Lenin in Seattle. Right now. Try to tear it down if you want to see a riot.

Re:It's true

[MightyMartian]

It's so good that all those out-of-state Nazis came to support the maintaining of statues celebrating the glory of the Confederacy.

Re:It's true

[DRJlaw]

The only thing wrong here is many of these cases, is...that a few politicians are making the decisions rather than putting this to the vote of the people in those cities/states.

When is the last time that you voted on putting up or taking down any statue?

When the statues were put up it was only "few politicians are making the decisions rather than putting [it] to the vote of the people." Why raise the bar now?

Re:It's true

[Captain Splendid]

By re-framing it through the morals of the day

Well yeah, because being against slavery is soo 2017...

They were a product of their time and to judge them against our morals is wrong.

Actually, if you look it up, quite a lot of these monuments got erected decades, even a century after the war. They were certainly a product of their time, just not the one you think.

You miss the lessons learned. You miss the motivations. You are ignoring history.

In order: The South got off easy. They wanted slaves. They lost. None of these monuments make any of that clear, so I fail to see what's being lost.

Robert E. Lee isn't the monster the left make him out to be.

This should be fun. Please explain to me how someone who owned slaves and decided to commit treason in order to be able to continue having slaves is not a monster.

All of the founders had slaves

Yeah, veneration of the founders has always baffled me too.

Are we to burn the constitution and abandon the ideals because they have because we judge them with today's standard?

What a bizarre argument considering the 15th amendment is sitting right there.

yet not realize that it was slave owners that wanted slaves to be counted equally!

ROFLMAO! Yes they did. Can you tell me why, though?

ISIS destroys antiquity because blasphemy. We do it because offense. I see no difference.

Well, one group thinks those statues desecrate their entire worldview. The other group thinks that celebrating treasonous slaveowners is not what modern democracies do. The fact that you can't see the difference says a lot more about you than either of those 2 groups.

By destroying them and moving them out of sight we forget our past.

Nah, I'm pretty sure the thousands of books, movies, history classes and artifacts from the era will manage to take up the slack.

We lose a part of us that help us become better.

Please explain to me how one statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest, let alone several, accomplishes this goal.

At least with moving it is still there but out of sight out of mind does not challenge you to understand it.

And I've yet to meet a leftist that has a problem with this solution.

Re:It's true

[Anonymous Coward]

Real problem: Statues
Not real problem: Neo-nazis who would systematically murder half the US population if they got into power. And who now have someone in the whitehouse who relies on their support.

I see where your priorities lie.

Re:It's true

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess we need to topple all the statues of Native Americans like Chief Joseph, Sitting Bull, or Geronimo around the country since they lost too. Except our 'white-washed' (pun intended) history teaches that all Native American tribes were peaceful and were brutally killed by the invading hoards of European settlers. Of course, to believe that you have to ignore the millions of them who were slaughtered and enslaved by neighboring tribes long before Columbus ever set foot on the continent.

Re:It's true

[Train0987]

Only 2% of the southern population owned slaves. 98% did not. Many opposed slavery outright. In New Orleans there were more free people of color than there were slaves and many of them owned slaves themselves.

Re:It's true

[Anonymous Coward]

The revisionist viewpoint that the CSA was "all about" slavery is and has always been bullshit and a smear campaign. History is written by the victors.

The facts of the matter, however, are pretty well recorded and established. The practice of human slavery was a sideshow. It had been getting a lot of negative press for decades by the time the war broke out, even amongst southerners. But slavery was "tradition" and "cheap" and "zomg how could we afford to pay people" and all of those other bullshit excuses that businesses use to justify abusing their workers. They still use them. How could we ever afford to build safe factories? How could we ever afford to pay into the Social Security system? How could we ever afford to pay a minimum wage? How could we ever afford to pay for employees' insurance? How could we ever afford to give employees parental leave? That was attitude was just window-dressing to the war itself, which was about control.

Remember that the US was less than 100 years old. It was originally the Continental Confederation after the revolutionary war. It wasn't for another decade or so before the constitutional congress wrote up the constitution and sent it to the states for ratification. Rhode Island refused to even attend. And at that constitutional congress, there were 4(!) separate plans for how to structure the central government. The one that "won" was the one written by Federalists, the party most in favor of a strong central government and weak state governments. But that was also tempered by compromises that brought in some weakening of the central government, as well as the 10th amendment. The early years bred malcontents that thought that the federal government was too strong and that the constitution "did it wrong" and that Alexander Hamilton (the author of the Virginia Plan that formed the main basis of the constitution) was a dirty, rotten, big-government, jackbooted thug. The war of 1812 didn't help, as it caused general instability and showed that there were weak spots in the government's ability to muster a decent military effort. As the years wore on, those malcontents grew in number due to economic trouble. Most of them were agrarian southerners. City-bound northerners were at less of a disadvantage in the international economy. So now we have a north-south divide, not on ideology, but on wealth. And that will start a war every damned time.

The reason slavery became an ideological punching bag was because the north was industrializing and growing in population and didn't need slaves anymore, while the south was rural and agrarian and still "needed" free labor (see previous explanation of why this "need" is actually bullshit). The north was using its population (read: voting power) and industrialization (read: money) to strip southerners of their ability to participate in the nation's economy, essentially forcing them into the position of being wage slaves themselves. Oh, yes, there was plenty of oppression to go around. There still is. The rich were merely making the rules for the poor, as they always have. The poor fought back, and in the process, equated themselves with a cause that now horrifies many in its barbarism. How? The victors write history. They merely wrote the history to blow that factor out of proportion and hide the oppression they themselves were willing to inflict upon "the other side".

But, more to the point, it was seen as a "gracious gesture" by the union to allow the confederates to display statues to their war heroes. Now, it's misconstrued as a reminder of a painful history that wasn't even a geopolitical factor in the war, but was merely a whitewashing tool and a way to calm the masses after a brutal war. After all, after you've beaten your opponent, what better way to keep them under your control than to strip their free labor from them, and then give that labor force a glimpse of what being treated equally might be like? All without actually doing anything to grant them equality, because, whitewash or not, the northerners were just as bigoted and pro-slavery as the southerners were in many cases.

There were no good sides in that conflict. Some good things came about because bad people wanted leverage over other bad people.

Re:It's true

[Anonymous Coward]

You are right, he has no say. But, the people in those locales do, and they wanted the statues gone. But people who were *not* from the local area celebrate slavery and worship Hitler. They wanted these important symbols of white dominance to continue to be celebrated. So they came in with guns, pipes and shields. The city council told them to get lost and hold their demonstration the hell away from them. The ACLU did what they always do when someone's first amendment rights are threatened and they fought for these neo-nazi dipshits right to assemble.

And you know what the worst part is? Some morons are now blaming the ACLU for the murder. The ACLU defended their right to assemble, not their murderous intentions. Don't expect to see the ACLU offering to defend the murderer (except insofar as his constitutional rights might be infringed).

You claim "a few politicians are making decisions" which ignores the fact that the people in that area elected those politicians to represent them. Are *you* from Charlottesville? Should *you* be allowed to arm yourself, come to their town and tell them they have to keep those statues? No, I didn't think so.

Re:It's true

[Anonymous Coward]

You forget that many of these statues were erected half a century after the civil war to justify the righteousness of separate but equal race laws. They were never about the history of the people places or events, they were symbols used for a political end, the same way the Tea Party movement subverted symbols of the American Revolution to complain about modern-day taxation. If you think those old symbols of the Confederacy still hold no symbolic value 150 years later, you are incredibly naive. If they held no symbolic value, there would be no need to remove/relocate statues in the dead of night with armed guards. Let's face it, damn few people are THAT passionate about history.

Re:It's true

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, that we went to war North & South in 1861 to end slavery isn't true at all. It might have be an underlying theme that pushed us towards war, but it didn't start it. The evidence is plenty there. Do you realize that the emancipation proclamation came during the war? And for the years leading up to it under Lincoln, that Lincoln's critics in his own party said he was not a true abolitionist, called him an ineffective, wannabe tyrant and tried to replace him? Yes the Republican Party (* shocking for you as a dumb liberal) had a campaign platform of abolishing slavery. That is why the party was founded. But the party, as led by Lincoln, wanted to abolish slavery preserving union throughout, and not start a war.

The Democrats (the true slavery, and all of the above supremacists groups, party), simply pushed a states right issue as a reason it could not be abolished at the federal level. When the war started, no one actually defined the end-game on when to stop, and got out of control. Lincoln wanted to put a stop to the confederate militias quickly so they could go back to the political debate without the threat of violence and loss of life, but there were extremists in both parties that kept it going.

It was only when, after the conflict got more serious, that people decided that ending the practice was in the best interest, and solve the underlying issue.

Anyway, the reason why the war even started was because of extremists groups trying to overthrow the political system to get their demands. It so happened that extremists (apparent in the beginning as radical Democrats wanting to be in control of the process through force, while out of power) organized and struck in an attempt send a message to Washington, and of course Confederates rallied behind states rights, and started to unite over a number of days, because they saw "oppression" and stood up on what the media of the day said was happening and should do. In later years, the abolitionists, and radical Republicans got their way, placed the theme on slavery, as the whole reason. And the victor always has the last word.

In other countries, they reformed without going to war. Why this one? It's because their were radical elements wanting power on how the process was going to be. They pushed us towards war, even though reform could have been possible, by dividing us in two. They did it by staging stunts of their own. Obviously this can't happen today, right?

Wrong. Democrats and Left-ist Republicans that are now out of power and doing the same thing to those in power to gain their power back. The media is more interested in creating two sides in the issue to serve their master than to tell any truth. In reality, no one in their right mind would actually want to try to implement a racist ideology using thuggery violence. It's a completely loosing issue. But that is how to demonize a group of people you don't want to have power. Just like "state's rights", or "civil rights", or "keeping a piece of history rights", is distorting people into being sub-human bent on violence with no actual motivation for that other than to create a false narrative that serves no function to the people being there. So these left-ist groups are creating conflicts purposely to sway people to engage in violence, and then blame it on the people they want removed.

The truth is, the people that engaged on violence, on the pretend two sides were being paid to assist in creating a false narrative. There is no better explanation. Find the funding, throw those people in jail, confiscate their money to prevent them from doing it again, and this joke of that the President is creating this goes away, magically.

Re:It's true

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sick of the excuse "If you're not from there, you don't understand." Fucking explain it then! Otherwise I'm left to fill in the blanks: These statues celebrate the confederacy and act as modern day symbols for the righteousness of racist ideology. They soothe the egos of pathetic fragile men who need affirmation that they are good people(TM) in spite of their fellow Americans telling them they're ignorant fuckwits stuck in the deep past.

Re:It's true

[MightyMartian]

The fact of the matter is that the slave states left the Union because they had lost the fight to make a sufficient number of the new states that were going to be carved out of the Western Territory slave states, which meant that within thirty or forty years, there would be enough Free States in the Union to push through an amendment abolishing slavery. They didn't leave for any high purpose, they left explicitly to preserve slavery, proudly said so at the time, and it was only during Reconstruction that the myth that the Civil War was about the evil North trying to put down those brave southern states was spread. The victorious Union sadly allowed this happen, but since, particularly after Lincoln's assassination, the primary goal of Reconstruction was to rehabilitate the former Confederate states as quickly as possible, I suppose they thought allowing the myth that Secession was a states rights issue, rather than a slavery issue, was a useful one to allow to be peddled.

But no matter how much you and the other Confederate apologists try to make this a "North" vs "south" issue, the fact was that secession only happened when the question of the Western Territory couldn't be decided and an avowed supporter of the Abolitionists became president.

Re:It's true

[JohnFen]

It is fully up to the people of each of these states.

That's right -- and those are the exact people who decided to take the monuments down.

So, what's your point, exactly?

Re:It's true

[swillden]

It all stems back to the fiction that the former Confederate states were allowed to propagate, that somehow the formation of the Confederacy wasn't about preservation of slavery, that somehow it was some great campaign for liberty.

That's the cover story.

In reality, all of those statues were put up during the Jim Crow era, and were part of a deliberate effort to make sure that blacks never forgot who the boss was. Other elements of the effort included segregation, regular lynchings, and use of the criminal justice system to recreate the system of black slavery, only at lower cost and with less regard for black lives, because they were now an operational expense not a self-replicating capital investment.

I recommend Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas Blackmon, to learn about this incredibly nasty and hypocritical part of American history that has been effectively excised (not accidentally!) from American education.

Re:It's true

[JohnFen]

Also, it seems like many of these Confederate statues glorify traitors and treason - not heritage.

Many of the people who object to the removal of these monuments think the Confederates were right and either believe the civil war never really ended or would like a new civil war to begin.

In that light, their viewing the monuments as heritage to be honored, and their viewing the people that the statues celebrate as equivalent to George Washington, etc., actually makes sense.

Re:It's true

[MightyMartian]

See my response above. None of Secessionist and future Confederate leaders were the least bit shy in saying they seceded to preserve slavery. That was a pleasant fiction that southerners told to each other after they had lost, a way to preserve their pride after unmitigated defeat and military occupation.

Once the political battle to maintain a sufficient balance of new slave states being formed out of the West was clearly a non-starter, the slave states had no choice. Once the Free States became large enough in number over the next few decades, slavery would have been abolished anyways. The Civil War was directly caused by the failure of the Compromise of 1850 and the election of Abraham Lincoln. It is absolutely absurd to claim that slavery was only some minor constituent of Secession when it was the overarching point of discord between the Free and Slave states for over a decade prior to the Civil War. The fact was that the failure of the compromise and Lincoln's election represented to the Slave States the death sentence of slavery.

Re:It's true

[penandpaper]

Please explain to me how one statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest, let alone several, accomplishes this goal.

Because it's a window to understand history for anyone willing to learn. Because it's a story that a people from a different time wanted to tell future generations. Either as a warning, a lesson, or to just be remembered. Reading the Wikipedia... Why wouldn't you want his story to be told? Seriously... I think his is a story that should be told.

He is one of the few officers in either army to enlist as a private and be promoted to general officer. "The Wizard of the Saddle" to the 1st Grand Wizard of the KKK who ordered the KKK to take off their masks and "“volunteered to help ‘exterminate’ those men responsible for the continued violence against the blacks.”

The most important aspect I think relevant to the conversation about racism: "By the end of his life, Forrest’s racial attitudes would evolve — in 1875, he advocated for the admission of blacks into law school — and he lived to fully renounce his involvement with the Klan that he headed and abolished."

Times change. People change. If a Lieutenant General of the Confederate Army and 1st Grand Wizard of the KKK can change their view on race, any one can. Do you think there is a lesson to be learned? Do you think we can learn from him? Do you think anyone can read his story and reflect on their own life to be a better person? ... I don't understand what you perceive history to be but it's a flawed dirty mess of people just like us.

Re:It's true

[Drethon]

I agree, those who forget the past... at the same time, violence isn't a good answer either.

Re:It's true

[drinkypoo]

I take it you are not from the south and do not live in any of the southern states. If that is the case, then you really don't have any ground to say anything about it.

Uh, no. It's the losers in the southern state who don't have anything to say about it, because they fucking lost. Furthermore, even the sitting president doesn't like those fucks since they are losers, so good luck keeping the stupid statues.

If you're not from there, you don't understand.

We understand that racist horse shit perfectly. If you don't believe it's racist, you don't understand yourself.

Re:It's true

[drinkypoo]

Also, it seems like many of these Confederate statues glorify traitors and treason - not heritage.

No, it's both. The statues glorify a heritage of treason. They'd better hide those things in shifty museums that nobody goes to before they all get destroyed by people who are actually opposed to slavery.

Re:It's true

[Anonymous Coward]

Times change. People change. If a Lieutenant General of the Confederate Army and 1st Grand Wizard of the KKK can change their view on race, any one can.

"If I can change, and yous can change ... everybody can change...." - Rocky Balboa in Rocky IV
Powerful words

Re:It's true

[Anonymous Coward]

And don't confuse lies with history. The civil war was not about slavery. It was about if leaving the Union was legal or not. Slavery was certainly an issue in deciding to leave or stay, but it wasn't the direct cause of the war.

Re:It's true

[Skuld-Chan]

Not to mention most of these statues were put up in the 20s as a show of force anyhow. It's not like any of those statues actually meant anything important happened at that location.

Re:It's true

[Anonymous Coward]

I take it you would agree then that the people of the South should shut up about what we do in LA, NYC, Seattle, and other more enlightened areas? No opinions at all about how we treat undocumented immigrants or otherwise manage our affairs?

Of course your argument is complete bullshit. We are still one nation, as much as you like to pretend we are not. And your racist groups clearly have no qualms about meddling in the affairs of the rest of the country. So don't tell us that we can't have any opinions about what some troglodytes with inferiority complexes do in the South.

Re:It's true

[Anonymous Coward]

Times change. People change. If a Lieutenant General of the Confederate Army and 1st Grand Wizard of the KKK can change their view on race, any one can. Do you think there is a lesson to be learned? Do you think we can learn from him? Do you think anyone can read his story and reflect on their own life to be a better person?

No, fuck that old dead white racist asshole! Bury his story with the rest of the racist garbage.

Frankly, most of US domestic political history prior to FDRs 'New Deal' should just be erased because it's all racist, homophobic, elitist bigotry in action. There is no redeeming value to a civilized society in preserving ideas of hate.

Re:It's true

[thegarbz]

I find that entire argument pretty ridiculous. So, history is getting rewritten because statues are being removed? Do you teach from them?

Given most people's grasp of history I'm inclined to think this is now the common source for all their knowledge. See a statue of the guy, read the plaque at the base.

There's a reason Germany doesn't have Hitler statues

Yep. When they lost the war the winning side (reads: Americans) forced them to introduce policies to wipe any possible resurgence of the Nazi regime and any mention of it. They not only took down statues but also possession of any Nazi materials illegal including books that gave an insight into the mind of Hitler, and introduce laws that made reference to Nazis illegal too.

Thanks America you wonderful champions of free speech.

Re:It's true

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not wrong, I agree that there might be something to learn from him. But maybe we should put a statue of him sitting a desk writing rather than mounted on a war horse with a sword on his hip. When you place him in a heroic war-like statue, you're making a totally different statement.

I don't mean this to be a snarky post either.

Re:It's true

[poity]

The "They lost" argument is weaker than the moral argument. In addition, it qualifies for removal all statues of Native Americans currently on local and federal government property.

Re:It's true

[deathguppie]

Robert E. Lee fought for the right to own other humans. If that makes a hero to you then you are proclaiming your own views by defending him.

Re:It's true

[Gussington]

Please explain to me how one statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest, let alone several, accomplishes this goal.

Because it's a window to understand history for anyone willing to learn. Because it's a story that a people from a different time wanted to tell future generations.

Yeah we should've left all the Nazi paraphernalia up in Europe after WW2 too right?
Ever heard of a museum or a library?

Re:It's true

[deathguppie]

less than 2% of the population rape children. If the other 98% were willing to die in a prolonged war defending child rape I still wouldn't be cool with them putting up statues to glorify their effort.

Re:It's true

[penandpaper]

Yes, a museum and library. But somethings are important enough to be put front and center for every passerby to see. A statue in downtown stares you in the face begging you to learn why it stands there from a people long since dead.

Nazi's were modern that set up their own monuments. It wasn't history, it was current events. It wasn't put up by people after the Nazi's. I don't think the monuments dedicated to WW2 or Holocaust should be taken down.

Re:It's true

[penandpaper]

. But maybe we

But it isn't we that put it up asking the future to hear the story. It was a past generation that wanted us, the future, to see it and remember something. If we have something to tell the future we should do the same thing and we are! We put up statues of Martin Luther King Jr and the like. What does that tell the future about us?

heroic war-like statue... totally different statement.

I think that's because he was an effective general. Part of his story is his military accomplishments.

Re:It's true

[Anonymous Coward]

Doomed to repeat.

Re:It's true

[penandpaper]

I never said he was a hero. I said he wasn't the monster the left makes him out to be and that there are lessons to be learned. He was a product of his time and so are we.

Re:It's true

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it's a window to understand history for anyone willing to learn.

You have convinced me: off to start a GoFundMe for statues of Hitler, and Goebbels.

Re:It's true

[Anonymous Coward]

A little to add to your post. Slavery is alive and well in the 21st Century. Don't kid yourself. Mainly in Islamic Nations, but it exists in a few others as well. It's out there, and it doesn't plan on going away.

Re:It's true

[Anonymous Coward]

. But maybe we

But it isn't we that put it up asking the future to hear the story.

You should really stop truncating posts, you tend to create the impression you're trying to deceive. That was, in fact, a suggestion for what we should do. You have bad habits, and should seek to avoid them.

It was a past generation that wanted us, the future, to see it and remember something.

Yes, a past generation that wanted us to hear their message of bigotry, intolerance, and oppression masked under a falsehood. And their message is one we now wish to reject.

If we have something to tell the future we should do the same thing and we are!

If we did the same thing, we'd be sending the same message. Let's do something different. Let's tear down their statues, just like Reagan wanted. Repudiate the past. Cast it out.

We put up statues of Martin Luther King Jr and the like. What does that tell the future about us?

Can't you come up with another example? It's like you don't know any other names to say.

heroic war-like statue... totally different statement.

I think that's because he was an effective general. Part of his story is his military accomplishments.

Because they wanted to glorify his military accomplishments. So be it. Their intended message is confirmed, nothing like your suggested acceptable message, and thus we'll reject their message, and let the future know. They can look upon it and despair instead. An empty plinth, echoing down through the ages.

That's important, to have front and center for passerby to see, begging you to learn why it was destroyed, why it was rejected and denounced.

Re:It's true

[Anonymous Coward]

The thread is so long, and with so many downmodded posts that I may be missing an in between post that you are responding to. But it looks to me like you are using the "only 2%" statistic to argue against the removal of statues of that 2%? People aren't saying that the whole South's history should be erased. They are saying that we should stop glorifying the leaders of the 2% by having their statues on public display in town squares and pretending that they were great leaders for protecting "states rights" while ignoring that the "rights" they wanted to protect were the rights of states to deny the constitutional rights of the people based on their race.

Re:It's true

[Tranzistors]

He was a product of his time and so are we.

With this reasoning, is there any crime that can't be justified, if it was committed by large enough group? Hell, even actions of Breivik can be justified this way. If only he didn't read the wrong literature and had more diverse circle of friends, he wouldn't have killed all those people.

Even worse for Lee, he didn't live in the world where it was an alien idea that blacks should be as free as whites. He lived at the crossroads and he made a choice.

Finally, for Lee himself the statue means nothing, because he is dead. Those statues are for those still living. For example, I grew up in a state with plenty of statues of Lenin and monuments for the Red Army. After regaining independence, those things were removed. Not because we wanted to forget the terror of soviet regime, but not to live in a country which prides itself for having soviet terror.

Re:It's true

[Anonymous Coward]

Those statues don't exist to teach. They exist to idolize.

Re:It's true

[Anonymous Coward]

Do not use those you know nothing about for your political bullshit.

Lenin was, is, and always will be the symbol of occupation BY ANOTHER STATE. Not to mention numerous massacres and wide-spread deportation campaign directed against the population NOT for their beliefs but for their status/nationality. He was not a general of renown, like Lee, or even a decently competent statesman like Davis. He wasn't not a national of the three states, nor had he any ties to Baltic and Finno-Ugric ethnic groups forming said states. Complete foreigner whose empire rolled over us not for political differences but because of the need of resources (land and human) and later to reach Germany.

Snieckus and his ilk (I cannot recall off the top of my head the names of Latvian and Estonian communist leaders) were agents of foreign state, of another nation entirely, bent on destroying not just our way of life, but turning us into Soviet citizens and EXTERMINATING the dissenters. Who just so happened to be a sizeable portion of the population. It was not a damn civil war between communists and patriots, it was brutal war reaching almost two decades in lenght, where foreign power was crushing the independence and national identity of the land.

I will not claim to know the full intricacies of American history, however it does not take much to notice that Civil War situation has nothing in common with the Baltic states and their take-over by Russia/Soviet Union.

Re:It's true

[someone1234]

On the other hand, there is no known statue for Hitler.

Re:It's true

[Anonymous Coward]

I think we could amend the wiki page with "in 2017, one of the statues of Mr. Forrest was relocated to the Museum of American Racism."

This doesn't prevent us from learning the history.

Re:It's true

[Anonymous Coward]

All of the founders were not slave owners. Washington and Jefferson were the most hypocritical of the slave owners in that in their wills they freed their own slaves, because they knew freeing them was the right thing to do, but they wouldn't do it when it would effect their actual ability to exploit them.
Lets work out what actually happened.
The Confederates were almost universally members of the Democratic party. After they lost the war they used Jim Crow laws to subvert the Thirteenth Amendment. Lyndon Johnson, who as the Majority leader in the House prevented the Civil Rights Act from being passed while Eisenhower was president specifically so that a Republican would not get credit for passing it. In modern times party uses exploitation of black minorities, including doing everything possible to prevent institutional poverty, to continue to exploit African-Americans.
I'd take all these statues and put them in museums with great big plaques explaining the Democratic party's culpability in causing the Civil War and erecting the statues during the Jim Crow period, less anyone forget who actually caused those things.
That would be bad for the narrative. Better to tear them all down and never admit that the Democrats were the ones who put them up.

Re:It's true

[Sindar By Choice]

Are we to burn the constitution and abandon the ideals because they have because we judge them with today's standard?

Weak argument and you know it.
The statues that have been and continue to be removed are focused on the American Civil War, and the glorification of those who fought in the Confederacy, but you knew that...

Then you have to ask yourself, why are these statues offensive, and why do people want them removed?

Are you really that dense that you cannot understand why they are offensive?

Re:It's true

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you ask black people how they feel about those statues? Or maybe, you don't consider their feelings on the matter to be important?

The statues aren't just monuments to history. That is a ridiculous and utterly false assertion. Those statues are heroic and they have pride of place. The occupy the absolute best locations for statuary, where they exist.

Now let's take a look at why they were put up. Did the sculptors, the legislators, the citizens who did that work, supported the very idea of erecting a statue, did they have in mind solely a need to communicate history to young people? Or did they mean to send a message that these figures are Heroes, that they represent the best of the South, and that the legacy of slavery, the Civil War and racism is still an aspirational ideal of Dixie?

Answer those questions honestly and you'll start to have a better relationship with the truth. Those statues are meant to sell an ideal of White Pride, and that's also meant to communicate that Black People Don't Matter Here.

Re:It's true

[Gussington]

Yes, a museum and library. But somethings are important enough to be put front and center for every passerby to see. A statue in downtown stares you in the face begging you to learn why it stands there from a people long since dead.

Or encourages people to follow in their footsteps.
We know enough about human behaviour that if you leave rocks around someone will start throwing them. Dangerous ideas need to be delivered in a controlled manner, ie museums, libraries and schools etc...

Re:It's true

[penandpaper]

We know enough about human behaviour

I don't know how true that is with the current political climate.

. Dangerous ideas need to be delivered in a controlled manner

I disagree with this. It doesn't matter how an idea is delivered - what motivates people to act on ideas doesn't change. If we value free speech we have to allow it in any way that people we disagree with want so long as actions do not follow.

You can say you hate whatever you want but the moment you decide to act or plan to act is when we take legal action.

Re:It's true

[Gussington]

I don't know how true that is with the current political climate.

Really? Trumo is the equivalent of a 12 yea rold. He is a man-baby. Everything he does is exactly what you would expect if 12 year old entitled rich kid was President.

.

I disagree with this. It doesn't matter how an idea is delivered

You can teach kids about Hitler in history class or they can join the Hitler youth. Its the same information only delivered differently. If you can't see the difference then there's no point discussing any further...

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

It has nothing to do with the Left. When dozens of CEO's of American companies representing billions of dollars of shareholder value are running away from the supposed "leader of the free world".... well, you have to ask yourself did America seriously fuck up in choosing a President? I think the answer is pretty obvious.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you seriously faulting people for not denouncing a rampage that hasn't happened?

Re:Opportunistic

[Suiggy]

nazi

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would upvote +1000. I have been on /. for a loooooong time and YES, since it's purchase a few years back, it has become a shithole for leftist propaganda.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Dorianny]

We aren't bashing Trump for being Trump but for being a POTUS that is dividing America in the worst possible way

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Right on, everyone not with us are nazis.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

No way in hell you've been here 15 years. If anything it's a platform for conservative nerds and social media propaganda dissemination leaning towards the right.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Meet your next president.

Re:Opportunistic

[cyberchondriac]

Eh, no better or worse than violent communist vigilantes, really. Or racists that chant, "Dead cops now", and "Pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon" or variants thereof, and shoot cops dead. Sorry, that last part WAS due to some BLM members and their denial of that is BS.
Every group has an internal spectrum but the worst of them are about the same.

Re:Opportunistic

[NicknameUnavailable]

Wait till Antifa and BLM goes on a rampage. Will they, or rather, have the EVER denounced them? FUCK NO!!! And they never will.

Given how they're all very interested in building underground bunkers it's pretty safe to say that's their exit strategy. The economy is a house of cards made of lies, global politics is a joke, and every policy they're able to push through the masses is counter-productive. Nobody has a good solution to it so they fan the flames and prepare to wait it out underground when shit hits the fan so they can emerge later with medicine, technology, and most importantly to them renewed control.

This most recent escapade was funded by Soros on the Antifa side and the CIA on the alt-right side (note the one guy arrested Friday night was the guy who organized it, who was in the CIA as recently as a few years ago, while the Soros backing of BLM and then Antifa has been widely known about for years.)

They want a society-collapsing shitshow, it's the only mechanism they have by which to hold on to power.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you suggesting that we're wrong for judging Nazis by their most extreme members?

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Lisandro]

Do you really think this is a left vs. right issue?

Re:Opportunistic

[x0ra]

come try to punch me, I've got 9mm lead pills you'll enjoy ;-)

Re:Opportunistic

[DigiShaman]

Fuck off Suiggy! I'm as American as it gets. I'm anti-statism in all its forms; be it spear-headed from from a communist or fascist movement, or institutionalized in government. I support calling out the Neo-Nazi movement for what they are, a hate group. No, what I'm truly angry about is the opportunistic nation of the MSM and K-Street to divide and conquered. Fuck them, and full all those that support this Orwellian oppression.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Annatar22]

Feminists have been called Nazi's for at least 4 decades now, I've yet to see them decide to start running over people with cars, threaten jews and other minorities.

If you don't want to be called a Nazi, perhaps don't act like a fascist, and don't defend those who do by providing shade for them to hide in.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[x0ra]

There is plenty of feminism wishing "death to all men" or wishing them in concentration camps.

SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

Half a year in and Trump has fucked up on every single endeavor.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm.....no. This is the media brainwashing you and the left trying to defy Trump no matter what and to spread false news to delegitimize him!

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure Rolf. List me three Trump achievements.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[bravecanadian]

Ummm.....no. This is the media brainwashing you and the left trying to defy Trump no matter what and to spread false news to delegitimize him!

Says the coward.. please, do inform us what he's accomplished?

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[DickBreath]

1. Had the biggest inaguration crowd size evar!
2. Won by the most electoral votes evar!
3. Brought us to the brink of nuclear war!
But I'll give you a bonus accomplishment . . .
4. Got more republicans than ever to realize that maybe Obamacare isn't so bad -- and that ACA and Obamacare are the same thing, contrary to the Fox News narrative.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

You are both wrong. The one and only thing Trump has "succeeded" at is replacing good judges with, young racist idiots.

So to the GP, yes he's succeeded in one place. To the AC parent, he's not succeeded in anything else that you think he has other than bringing 1950 back to a boil and encouraging race tensions and spreading hate and bigotry that has been nearly gone or deeply hidden for a couple of decades.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

No, he's just the worst president you've ever had, Republican or Democrat, by any objective measure you could possibly come up with.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy with a house and senate majority who is seemingly unable to pass legislation he and his party campaigned on?

Give me a fucking break. He's just that incompetent.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[fahrbot-bot]

4. Got more republicans than ever to realize that maybe Obamacare isn't so bad -- and that ACA and Obamacare are the same thing, contrary to the Fox News narrative.

Perhaps republicans in general, but I'm not convinced that the ones in office realize (or won't - ever - admit) it "isn't so bad". I think it's just that they couldn't agree on how to efficiently and effectively ignore and/or screw-over the people they don't care about.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump is working under the worst conditions a president has ever had. The media is all out against him from the get go, biased to hell. The left refuses to even acknowledged he won and is an impediment to progress at every turn.

Biggest bunch of babies ever. Please go to your safe space and never come back.

"Trump is working under the worst conditions a president has ever had."

Worse than George Washington defending a fledgling nation against the British Empire?
Worse than Abraham Lincoln attempting to reunite a country divided by Civil War?
Worse than Franklin D. Roosevelt who had to fight Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in World War 2?

Trump has it worse because why?
Oh yeah, "The media is all out against him".

"Biggest bunch of babies ever."

Yes, you are.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, that's right, *the left* who control the senate and the house are blocking him at every turn.
It'd be an insult to retards to call you a retard.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[AmiMoJo]

I hear his golf handicap improved.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, he managed to get elected as president, despite established media being very much opposed, that was a thing.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

He's more handicapped now?

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[MattskEE]

The left refuses to even acknowledged he won and is an impediment to progress at every turn.

Don't exaggerate. Virtually everybody on the left acknowledges that he won, we're just unhappy about it.

And of course we are asking our representatives in Congress to do everything that they can to block his agenda... the President is not a king and cannot rule like a dictator.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. After all the effort he put in practising he managed to raise it by 20%,

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Tablizer]

No, he's just the worst president you've ever had, Republican or Democrat, by any objective measure you could possibly come up with. [Emph. added]

I'd argue that presidents who actually got stuff done, bad stuff, are worse. Trump is too innefective to even get bad stuff done.

The Vietnam and Iraq war come to mind. If Trump were around then, he perhaps would have bungled getting war underway, which would have been a good thing.

I'm just worried his undisciplined mouth and/or fingers may start a bigass conflict and/or we lose too many allies. And stirring up the red/blue culture war and pitting ethnicities against each other ain't helping. But other than that, an ineffective tyrant is usually better than an effective tyrant. He's like Adolf's dumber brother: same rants, but couldn't invade a wet paper bag. Most just slap their forehead or laugh at him. (Hypothetical brother.)

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

He stopped Syria from using chemical weapons on their own people, something that happened 28 times under Obama.
He stopped N Korea from threatening to attack US without having to attack them.
Greatly reduced illegal immigration.
Stopping gang violence from illegals.
Pointed out how worthless GOP promises are in campaigns.

He has a rough job being president after the complete worthless crap Obama was. While Obama would have been praising people causing a riot in a park, Trump denounced violence FROM THE LEFT, a near first in my lifetime. For once it is unacceptable for a leftie to go around beating up people in wheelchairs, biting off fingers of the elderly, and all the other nonsense they have been doing for the last 8 years and getting praised for.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[mark-t]

Nothing Trump has done so far even begins to compare to the atrocities committed by some past presidents... so while I certainly don't want to ever be seen as defending Trump, I really can't say I agree that he's objectively the worst that the USA has ever had. I'll be willing to concede, however, that he might very well be the dumbest, and I'll acknowledge that it's very possible (and maybe even probable) that his ignorance may lead to actions that in turn might make even his worst predecessors look tame, but right now, and so far, at least, it's just too soon to call.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

I see the Democrats have been saving their mod points. Now if only they could learn to do the same with other people's money.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[s.petry]

While I agree that he doesn't have it as bad as GP stated, you have to admit that he has the worst conditions ever without a major war.

Media and Politicians from both parties started calling for his impeachment the day he was elected.

8 month string of allegations with which I'm still waiting to see any substantiating facts. Amazing how those have all vanished of late.

Criticized for literally no reason, such as TFA's claim that he was weak on the KKK, Nazi, and White Supremacists. I listened to and read both of his speeches, and the only thing he seems to have done "wrong" to the left was speak the truth about Left-Wing radicals showing up and causing some of the violence. We know that last part happens and has happened pretty frequently of late (Berkley, Evergreen, etc...).

Saying two parties were involved is not weak, it's honest. It does not justify or condone violence of any kind, it simply states what the majority of us believe. There is no place in society for that type of violence.

Ignoring the violent groups on one side is partially to blame for people showing up armed and violent. Ask a psychologist or sociologist if it may have had impact on the thought process of the person who committed a murder, they will tell you absolutely "YES". When people feel backed into a corner with no recourse, wither or not that position is completely rational, they will lash out in what they perceive as defensive action or action of last resort.

If you don't see that people in power (some) are intentionally stirring up civil unrest, you are not even trying. This is all about power grab, and the useful idiots are playing right into their hands. These same tactics were used by Trotsky/Lenin, Mao, Pot, Castro, et al. Identity politics is a means to an end, not the end itself.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

impediment to progress at every turn. Sounds like Obama's Presidency, however, he was still able to get things accomplished. But we are talking about someone who has Presidential qualities, unlike Trump. It's because Trump isn't a true leader at all and never has been he also lacks tact, class, knowledge, empathy, intelligence and is a walking powder keg willing to turn on even his closest "allies" that nobody on either side of the aisle trusts him. That is why Trump is having issues getting anything done. Trump destroyed his Presidency long before it started.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

Half a year in and Trump has fucked up on every single endeavor.

Except deregulation.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah. He killed TPP. That alone makes him the best president since Reagan. To be fair he's lucky to have been at exactly the right position for doing that.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like you're doing your own fair share of whining, snowflake. Take your own advice.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump will never succeed as long there is a saboteur in a position of power. The media is just calling out what is happening, the saboteur is creating the news.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Whibla]

Worse than George Washington defending a fledgling nation against the British Empire?
Worse than Abraham Lincoln attempting to reunite a country divided by Civil War?
Worse than Franklin D. Roosevelt who had to fight Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in World War 2?

Nothing unites a country better than an external enemy. So, yeah, I'd say in a sense he does have it worse.
(Let's just hope you know who doesn't read this and do something ... silly.)

Trump has it worse because why?
Oh yeah, "The media is all out against him".

And, in fairness that's certainly how it appears. What's going on now is a prime example of it. He condemns the violence, from both sides, in Charlottesville, and is vilified for not repeatedly and specifically condemning (only) the neo-nazis and the kkk.

Don't get me wrong, I think he's a vindictive tool. Repealing, or attempting to repeal, anything done by the previous administration simply because it was done by the previous administration is just childish. Sacking people because they don't toe the party (well, his) line, or because they dare to disagree is just spiteful, not to mention short sighted (this last definitely applies to the closing down of the manufacturing councils - but the members have not exactly covered themselves in glory, in my opinion, in the last couple of days).

And yet, despite all that, I actually felt sorry for him today, for the bashing he's getting in the media.

"Biggest bunch of babies ever."

An accusation that could almost be leveled at, apparently, over half the country right now.

Amazing? Tragic? Comedic? I can't even tell anymore...

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[dj245]

The left refuses to even acknowledged he won and is an impediment to progress at every turn.

Don't exaggerate. Virtually everybody on the left acknowledges that he won, we're just unhappy about it.

And of course we are asking our representatives in Congress to do everything that they can to block his agenda... the President is not a king and cannot rule like a dictator.

Has he tried to be one?

I disagree with many of Trump's policies, but instead of passing something easy in the first 100 days, the Republican party focused on delivering the promise they have been harking on for the past 7 years- repealing Obamacare. When it became abundantly clear that the public didn't want that, they turned their attention to tax reforms benefitting the wealthy. Trump doesn't have much to do with either of those agendas, those are longstanding Republican party platforms.

What Trump does seem to be very good at is bringing attention to an issue and forcing a resolution of it. How many times did Obama stand in front of a podium and denounce violent acts? Dozens if not hundreds of times. The issue was out of the news cycle by the next day and nothing changed. By not giving the news media the sound bite they expect, Trump has the power to keep the public's attention on an issue. The statues probably would have come down sooner or later, but because Trump kept the story going, that will probably happen sooner now.

Similarly, by amping up the rhetoric on North Korea and keeping the media focused on his strong language, they eventually backed down. It was the eventual conclusion (Kim Jong Un isn't stupid), but Trump's actions almost certainly expedited the result.

I'm not saying Trump is a good president by any means, but he does have the media's attention and makes good use of it. Good Cop / Bad Cop is a very effective negotiating tactic, and it is one that Trump seems to use frequently. Some very effective bosses I have worked under were equally comfortable playing good cop OR bad cop. Most politicians play good cop to their base. Very few politicians play bad cop intentionally, and most try to be as appealing as possible to everyone. When Trump issues statements directly contrary to Secretary of State Tillerson, is that really an administration in "disarray", or a negotiating tactic? Probably a decent amount of both. Tillerson is the carrot and Trump is the stick. If you want to force a decision, you have to show both at the same time.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[WheezyJoe]

Trump is working under the worst conditions a president has ever had. The media is all out against him from the get go, biased to hell. The left refuses to even acknowledged he won and is an impediment to progress at every turn.

Your "liberals" are NOT IN POWER. Please get at least that one thing straight. Republicans control the House and Senate, case closed. Trump's failures to date are on them, not some "liberal" media.

That's Trump's own Party, supposed to be his friends, and they could care less about some "media... all out against him from the get go". They regularly bash this "biased" media of yours.

Yet even John McCain gives the thumbs-down to Trump. Why? Chiefly, because Trump picks fights with leaders of his own Party. Nevermind whatever views or causes he may or may not have, bottom-line Trump can't behave like a grown-up. That makes for great TV, and maybe it makes some people feel good ("Yeah! You tell 'em Trump!") but it doesn't get anything done.

Trump supporters need to stop asking whether they love the way-so-awesome tough shit he says and tweets, and instead ask whether they'd trust him enough, honest to God, to pay cash to buy a used car from him. Seriously. Be honest. Would you buy a used car from that man? It's the greatest, let me tell you, and don't believe those lies from the liberals at the CarFax - they're losers, this ride has never been in no accident, never been totaled, that puddle of oil is from something else, believe me.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Motherfucking Shit]

Maybe, just maybe, so much of the media coverage of Trump is negative because the things his administration is doing (or not doing) are perceived negatively by a large part of the population. Maybe it's because numerous things Trump promised to accomplish "on day one," or in the first month of his term, or in the first 100 days of his term haven't been done. Maybe it's because Americans figured out they prefer having imperfect health care as opposed to none at all, and they kinda like having clean water that isn't full of coal fly ash. Maybe it's because day after day, more shady connections between Russia and the Trump camp are revealed, and the administration bungles more cover-up attempts. Maybe it's because the president looks outright incompetent having his appointees and White House staff continually infighting, resigning, getting fired, recusing themselves, and finding themselves under investigation by the FBI. Maybe it's because the public doesn't quite approve of Trump's nepotistic despotism, or the very troubling appearance that he's christened his son-in-law to do an end run around various posts that are supposed to require Congressional approval. Maybe most of America doesn't like having an increasingly angry, childish, petulant, petty, racist buffoon being the person who represents them in front of the world.

Nahhh, can't be any of that; it's the (((librul media globalist elites))) who are the problem, right?

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

Since you are sincere in wanting to learn, here you go: List of Trump accomplishments to date

Here is how liberals normally react:
1) "Lol, 3 points of 97 are not because of Trump, these are because of Obama, therefore the full list is invalid"
2) "Lol, point XX is slightly wrong: Trump didn't create 1 million jobs, it was really only 976 thousand."
3) "Lol, it's reddit, therefore I am unable to read it and the words are automatically invalid"

Try to be honest at least with yourself. Or go stuff your libtard gotchas up your ass.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Tablizer]

Now if only [Democrats] could learn to [save] other people's money.

Republicans have been the bigger spenders for the last several decades. Examples: Reagan's military buildup, including SDI; Bush's wars, Medic. Plan D, and DHS. And they cut taxes on the rich, causing revenue shortfalls, and then blame the problem on Democrats. Nice work.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump is working under the worst conditions a president has ever had. The media is all out against him from the get go, biased to hell. The left refuses to even acknowledged he won and is an impediment to progress at every turn.

Biggest bunch of babies ever. Please go to your safe space and never come back.

Trump will say anything to win the topic of the minute then say the opposite to win the next minute. He is completely divorced from reality and truth. He attacks everyone and everything that are not helping him "win" except oddly for racists and Russia.

Those black kids that he took the full page ad against that turned out to be innocent, which he never could accept seem to be the first signs I recall of deep seated racism, but the Obama birthirism thing was pretty much a gigantic clue stick. Even if you argue that it was just his plan to manipulate idiots, well that is hardly better on the ethical scale.

My own guess is he may have had to say anything to win to avoid Putin releasing something damaging or foreclosing on loans, etc. That being said, I half think he was stunned to actually win that day, and worried for that brief moment in time.

Basically he has built a house of cards on bombast, narcissism, racism, and lies and that is a very crappy foundation for a house. The walls are falling down only for everyone else to finally see that the emperor is not wearing any clothing.

He needs to leave, and ideally pence with him. I believe Ryan is third in line. I'd still not pick him, but I'm sure we would survive a Paul Ryan presidency. I'm not completely sure about a Trump one. I'm not too worried about North Korean nuclear weapons, unless they hit here by sheer bad luck, but Trump playing the anger card until we have, well, more blood in the streets is certainly possible. Riots are also possible, though still a low probability. Either way, Ryan seems the best bet in the line of succession until maybe you hit Mattis, and I don't know his political views. Still, pretty much everyone after Trump probably passes the clinical definition of sanity. I'm not too sure about Trump.

Even if he is sane, which I doubt, he is quite frankly lacking the skill set to do the job.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Gussington]

Trump has it worse because why?

Because Trump said so. Don't believe the media, it's all lies. Believe what Trump tells you and don't ask questions.
Actually don't even believe what he says because when you quote him back to himself he blames the media for that too...

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Gussington]

While I agree that he doesn't have it as bad as GP stated, you have to admit that he has the worst conditions ever without a major war.

Which he brought on himself. Part of leadership is taking responsibility for your actions, and he is unwilling to do even that. The bad situation he finds himself in is all his own fault, but yet he continues to play victim. This is not the traits of a leader....

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Gussington]

the President is not a king and cannot rule like a dictator.

Has he tried to be one?

Yes.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Maxo-Texas]

Good example of Poe's law there!

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

the President is not a king and cannot rule like a dictator.

What were your thoughts on this a couple years ago?

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Jeremi]

While I agree that he doesn't have it as bad as GP stated, you have to admit that he has the worst conditions ever without a major war.

You know who believes otherwise? Donald Trump.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, they shut the borders somewhat. Deported people that don't belong here and illegals who are cheating the system. Opened the federal reserve, brought FOXCON to American soil, donated his money to schools... etc. etc.

You have been brainwashed by the Zionist media. Read the alternative media instead of being brainwashed. You'll get another perspective.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

"Biggest bunch of babies" - short of the Snowflake In Chief himself. Nobody complains more about criticism than Trump. Even public disagreement results in continual whining and lashing out.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

He's encouraged alt-rt to bitchslap progressive Trotsky sluts. Bleed Trotsky slut bleed.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

As has his net worth.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[rtb61]

Let's be real, Trump is not doing much of anything. The US deep state is doing everything, the people that wanted the Corporate Whore and part of their game is to make Trump look bad because of course the thing that would make Trump look great, seriously great, would be forcing the investigation, prosecution and imprisonment of as much of the corrupt deep state as possible. Sure corporations jumped on board with Trump for the corporate council which just turned into pillage the peasants council and mad everyone look bad, c'mon Trump what else would you expect from those deep state corporate types.

The only way Trump can save himself by drawing huge unstoppable support from the masses, is to go after the US deep state, well, at least let elements of the FBI, using links into the NSA/CIA to really go after the US deep state, all the evidence is being exposed, no excuses. Sic the FBI on them a be done with it, successful reformers always become heroes and you a few hundred to really make a big impact, a huge nationwide memorable impact, pay for you memory in time with their time spent behind bars.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

And perhaps most significantly:
5. Kicked off the introspection among Republicans that will cause them to abandon the fringe right vote in the next election and eventually start to win back the center-right that is currently the domain of establishment Democrats.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[davester666]

And they are going to try to do it again

This year, tax reform "Sure, we'll run a deficit, but it won't be that bad and we'll quickly get more tax revenue because the whole economy will grow faster"

Next year, "OMG, the deficit is out of control. Health Care, Social Security and Medicare costs are causing huge deficits. We've got to cut them all now or else it's the end of America!"

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

He won't tell the Nazis and other bigots to go fuck themselves because they VOTED FOR HIM! He doesn't want to lose their votes in 2020.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

iggest bunch of babies ever. Please go to your safe space and never come back.

Ah, the sweet sweet irony...

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Plus1Entropy]

Yeah, except that when the evidence does come out you suddenly start whining and bitching about leaks. The facts will come to light when the investigation is complete.

You're right though, the people in power are stirring up civil unrest. The President of the United States has legitimized and galvanized Nazis and white supremacists in a way that hasn't been seen in decades.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Plus1Entropy]

In what way has North Korea backed down? They always threaten violence and then don't follow it up. But it wasn't threatening violence against Guam that started the sabre rattling, it was the recent missile tests. If they are still pursuing their Nuclear program then they haven't "backed down" in any way, it's just the status quo with more bluster.

So... things stay the way they've been for decades, but somehow Trump did something magical?

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump bears false witness more readily than over-eaters at a bean restaurant fart. He thinks more of himself than he does God's commandments.

You would think that the Christians among his followers would catch on rather than throw their souls away.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

Well if you think about it, his stand on global warming is essentially equivalent to the premeditated murder of 9 billion people. You could argue he has plenty of accomplices, but you could hardly argue that billions won't likely die, if we stay on the path Trump has laid out with respect to responding to the challenge of global warming.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

THEDONALD has smashed yo Trotsky-ite nibberizing face. Feel the pain. That's plenty.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[hey!]

Too bad you can't take Mulligans in politics too.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[AmiMoJo]

Indeed, it's like -15 now. All that practice is paying off.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[hey!]

Let's be real, Trump is not doing much of anything. The US deep state is doing everything, the people that wanted the Corporate Whore

And yet, that doesn't sound too bad relative to the possibilities.

The only way Trump can save himself by drawing huge unstoppable support from the masses

What masses? He lost the popular vote, and his approval has south since then. To give credit where credit is due, he paid attention to people who'd been ignored, some of whom I've been saying for years need some national attention. But the reason they've been ignored is that they aren't enough to win power by themselves. You need to fit them into a coalition, and in Trump's case that coalition was with traditional Republicans who thought he'd at least be useful. Establishment Republicans don't want to see the apparatus of state blown up, they want to see it used.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[hey!]

FDR took office during a global economic depression of unprecedented scale and depth. A full quarter of US GDP evaporated, 50% of industrial production simply disappeared, and the unemployment rate hit 25%.

In comparison, war would be easy.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[DickBreath]

It could be that they want to screw over the poor. Or it could be that they can't stand that a good plan was passed by . . . (gasp!) . . . a dark skinned man! (horrors!)

But, it could be both reasons.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[DickBreath]

Trump does not bear false witness.

He uses alternate facts. From the father of alternate facts.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[mark-t]

Even accepting the notion you've presented, it hasn't actually happened yet. It may make him stupid and even dangerous, but realistically, while even a full 8 years in office with his policies on global warming might be pretty bad, it is highly improbable that it actually would lead to human extinction. The only thing he conceivably has the power to do that could actually wipe out billions is start a nuclear war. Which, by the way, I wouldn't put it past him for, but even that still hasn't happened yet, whereas to suggest he is somehow among the objectively worst presidents is to compare things you fear he will do to the horrible things that some past presidents *actually* did

While I have absolutely no admiration for the man at all, it is the very height of injustice to condemn someone for something that you believe they will do in the future, the same way you would if they actually did it.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear his golf handicap improved.

Not as much as Obama's did while he was in office.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

If Nothing else - he got one of the biggest government leaches in history, Elon Musk, to quit!
lol

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[MooseMiester]

Your statement only works if you lie with statistics, expressing debt as a percentage of something else. Obama set a spending record that most likely won't be touched in a century.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Tablizer]

In that case you are the one "lying with statistics" since absolute dollars doesn't take into account inflation nor population growth. Without accounting for inflation, you are comparing apples to oranges since today's dollar is not the same as 1985's dollar. His new programs were only about 1.6T (mostly stimulus and ACA). If he did nothing in office, sat in the corner drooling, the debt would be the same as it is now minus 1.6T.

And, the economy may have been even worse off without the stimulus, but that's mostly another subject. He is NOT more "spendy" than GOP. The Iraq war alone surpassed 1.6T.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[dinfinity]

Sure. Worst conditions. Trump's party has a majority in the Senate and in Congress.
Given the legislative disasters we've seen up until now from those Republican majorities, it is clear which side is 'an impediment to progress at every turn'.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[MooseMiester]

Under Obama the Democrats refused to pass a budget, so they could tell the kind of tall tales you're spinning now. This is the same crop of politicians who told us there was a surplus, when in fact what happened was "We projected to spend 5% more than last year and we only spent 3% more". Which is EXACTLY THE SAME as "I was going to borrow $100 I don't have, but I only borrowed $50, therefore I have a surplus of $50". Which for anyone other than a lying politician would get you laughed out of the room. Now you're trying to sell me "Only new programs count". Give me a break.

And then the Iraq war nonsense. The 1.6T number is bandied about in sock puppet echo chambers, do you know how it is calculated? And as long as we're taking revisionist history, how many Democrats voted for it?

It's just like the "All Republican Presidents are stupid ignoramuses whereas all Democratic Presidents are BRILLIANT!

Or "All Republicans are Racist"

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Ol Olsoc]

Let's be real, Trump is not doing much of anything. The US deep state is doing everything, the people that wanted the Corporate Whore and part of their game is to make Trump look bad because of course the thing that would make Trump look great, seriously great, would be forcing the investigation, prosecution and imprisonment of as much of the corrupt deep state as possible.

That new weed these days is so damn powerful!

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Ol Olsoc]

Now if only [Democrats] could learn to [save] other people's money.

Republicans have been the bigger spenders for the last several decades.

This is true. Some years ago I did some research form multiple sources, and despite what you hear regurgitated from Fox et al, The Republican party chants a mantra of fiscal responsibility while spending like drunken sailors. They have some favoritegroups to gift their personal largess upon, but they spend a boatload.

As well, they have a tendency to come to office while times are good, and leave after screwing things up. The cool part is they manage to blame it all on the Democrats or liberals, or some other outfit that they can point out to distract us.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Ol Olsoc]

In what way has North Korea backed down? They always threaten violence and then don't follow it up.

Don't you remember all of the Korean wars, nookyler and others under the failed presidency of O'Blama? It got really rough when they used their hypnosis bomb and turned everyone into liberals but God Mitch McConnell, and the Baptists managed to get us back into good conservative habits again.

Only under the ledership of Dear Leader Trump have the North Koreans stopped their nookyaler attacks on AMerican soil and our Trusy allies.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Tablizer]

Under Obama the Democrats refused to pass a budget, so they could tell the kind of tall tales you're spinning now.

Are we talking about the president or Congress? You seem to be moving the goalpost. I was talking about the president. I will agree both parties play political games to hide their real intentions. But that also means assigning spending blame to parties in Congress would be messy and nuanced.

And then the Iraq war [cost quote is] nonsense. The 1.6T number is bandied about in sock puppet echo chamber

I invite you to link to a reliable cost quote from a reliable source.

And as long as we're taking revisionist history, how many Democrats voted for [Iraq war]?

About 65% of Democrats and 98% of GOP. So that would make the Dems 65% stupid and the GOP 98% stupid. But, I was talking about prez, not congress.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[MooseMiester]

Here's the reality of the situation here.

All the budgets Obama submitted were defeated like 98-2 but you and I both know that was by design. If you don't pass a budget, you get to run the government on the mandatory increases in the only budget you have, which was written when the economy was booming, so that budget allowed the Democrats to spend, spend, and spend while blaming it all on Bush. And now, if they resist Trump's budget tooth and nail, they can continue to write all those nice fat checks to their constituents that were baked into the earmarks, pork, and BS in the old budget - as well as spend at the same rate of increase, so they can blame the Republicans for spending like drunken sailors - and the idiot followers of the party will believe it. To put it bluntly neither party wants quit paying the current bribe structure, or they risk not getting elected. So there will be plenty of lies told about the budget on both sides. Same reason the ACA (the biggest bribe EVER paid to a single industry in the history of mankind) can't be changed, you can't stop that bribe money flowing or it doesn't get returned to you. Single Payer would allow even bigger bribes to be paid for an even lower quality of service. Surely you aren't that naive... Neither Republicans or Democrat incumbents want ANYTHING to change, which is exactly why Trumps election is such a huge inconvenience.

Nobody really knows what the Iraq war cost. It's a great political point, to claim it's Bush's war when so many leading Democrats in the house and senate voted for the thing. You've taken that kool-aid to the next level by using it as an excuse to justify a stimulus that was, in effect, a post election bribe to the donors (same thing Clinton did), and the ACA, which was the biggest bribe ever paid in the history of the world....

I'm not a member of either party and I think the whole system stinks, but it's the best system on earth relative to every other country.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Tablizer]

Neither Republicans or Democrat incumbents want ANYTHING to change [regarding spending cuts]

I will agree both parties are guilty of the debt in many ways. But GOP keeps painting O as a mass spender.

Single Payer would allow even bigger bribes to be paid for an even lower quality of service.

It makes healthcare far cheaper in other countries compared to what we pay under both ACA and BushCare.

when so many leading Democrats in the house and senate voted for the thing.

GOP championed it, and most Dems admitted it was a mistake, unlike GOP.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[MooseMiester]

I suggest you need to re-evaluate the whole "Us .vs. Them" mindset.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Anonymous Coward]

Fun facts:

Obama played golf precisely 333 times during the 8 years of his presidency, or 11.4% of the time.
Trump played golf 40 times in the first 181 full days in office (not cherry picking, but the only data I have, feel free to update), or 22% of the time.

So Trump is well on his way to spending his time playing golf *twice as much* as Obama did over equivalent periods, and for which Trump criticised Obama over.

Therefore we can say for certain that Trump is a massive fucking hypocrite.

Re:SO MUCH WINNING

[Mr.CRC]

The best we can hope for in this political climate is for exactly nothing to get done.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[sycodon]

Apparently it is because you aren't allowed to condemn the Left.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong for the double-standard. Learn to comprehend.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody calls moderates Nazis or anything else - we call Nazis Nazis - and we will run them into the ground.

Racists - Nazis - scum of the earth

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[OYAHHH]

I agree, that userid is not one that has been around 15 years. Mine, yes, that one, no. Guess she could have got an ID after being an AC for years....

Per /. being a platform for conservative nerds that is a good one. I literally had to walk away from /. for about 5 years because it had become so leftist infested that I literally couldn't say a word without being modded straight down. On practically anything I said as a Conservative.

So, while the ratio of conservatives to liberals on /. now seems about 50/50 to me it has absolutely not always been that way.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

you misspelled putin

Re:Opportunistic

[Suiggy]

Fascists like yourself are on the wrong side of history. Your hate and bigotry have no place in this world. You'll be stamped out.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Give me a break. This is a tech story. The president of the fucking United States has killed two boards, which consisted of several top CEOs, whose companies produces tech products and services that the vast majority of people in the fucking world use. If you think it's a left vs right issue, or a political issue, maybe you're not nerd enough to know the difference. Stop the whining. Open any news outlet's site and you will see a ton of Trump stories there. Look at Slashdot's front page, and in the last five hours, all they have run is a math article, a few Science-related stories, a story about Microsoft Office and another story about Google's services. That's a fucking fair balance.

Re:Opportunistic

[Captain Splendid]

Fuck them, and full all those that support this Orwellian oppression.

You mean like Trump and Sessions wanting the logs from an anti-Trump website? Or a bunch of African-American protestors who'd like the odds of "death by cop" to come down a few points?

So you're the oldest

[future assassin]

Anonymous Coward account.

Re:So you're the oldest

[Crizzam]

I just logged in to shut you up.

Re:So you're the oldest

[rholtzjr]

BRB, my stock of popcorn ran out. I think I will double down on the purchase as this thread will probably become VERY amusing.

Re:So you're the oldest

[future assassin]

Can you describe this leftist articles to the right of me, leftist articles to the left of me agony that you're experiencing on /.?

Re: So you're the oldest

[Anonymous Coward]

Falling for manipulation using language. Can you argue against anonymity? Why would you force people to unmask themselves and have them be vulnerable to violence or doxxing? If you can't argue against someone because you don't have a history to creep through or a username to make fun of, perhaps you should accept that you have no legitimate argument.

Where is alt-right?

[Anonymous Coward]

I only have Alt on the left.
On the right it is Alt Gr

Re:Where is alt-right?

[Anonymous Coward]

> On the right it is Alt Gr
Greece is on the right side of the Mediterranean, so it's really just a (rather reduntant) location identifier. On my keyboard, to the right of Alt Right, are a couple of other keys that can be redefined as Super Right and Hyper Right.

Re:Where is alt-right?

[desdinova 216]

on my keyboard it's between the space bar and a key with the windows logo.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[scsirob]

s/dividing/divided .. USA has been divided for years and it's not something that started all of a sudden when Trump took office. America is undergoing the tyranny of SJW's and has been for years. Trump simply exposes it for the hysteria that it is. He's very clumsy in doing so, but at least he isn't walking away from the over-inflated snowflake issues and all that comes from it. He may be a big bad bully but that doesn't make him wrong on all accounts.

Oh, and for the record, I'm not a US citizen, I'm looking at this from the other side of the ocean, wondering WTF got into you people.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[skids]

Do you realize your fantasy is ridiculous and will never come to pass? The revolution will not be homogenized.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[MightyMartian]

Don't blame Slashdot because the President of the United States is a loudmouthed idiot.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[jimtheowl]

And yet, you are posting as AC.

At least make some effort.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[BeauHD (4450103)]

ya man so we are basicly payed on a scale based on clicks and pro Hilary sentiment. If we get neither we donot get payed. Dont get me wrong, Russia like totally HANDED Trump the election by hacking into Americans but the point is we are payed to say that

Re:Opportunistic

[DigiShaman]

Look in the mirror, you anti-american fuckwad! I have nothing to do with any of that bullshit. But to insinuate my leanings for calling out the double-standard is bullshit, and i"m call you out on it.

Re:Opportunistic

[mlw4428]

Yeah real MURICAN you are. I saw your post advocating on asking Muslims to renounce their faith and then shooting them if they say no. Real fucking anti-statist of you. You're are disgusting human being.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

The left hasn't done anything wrong, well, except for a few cop killings, and the speaker for the Women's March on Washington tortured a man for two weeks, including shoving a pipe up his ass because he was, in her accomplices' words, "a homo" before e killing him, and the time one of those antifa guys shot another one because he thought he was a nazi, and the time...

Shame on CEOs

[Anonymous Coward]

Shame on the CEOs who don't want to help make America great again by making more jobs, etc!

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

For all these fucking cowards of CEO, next time we have mass immigration, we will house them in their neighborhoods.

I've lived most of my life in neighborhoods that included a large percentage of immigrants, mostly working class (or lower). In both blue and red states.

In all cases, the fortunes of those neighborhoods have trended steadily upward over the last 40 years towards higher income and higher education levels. Meanwhile, communities that are hostile to diversity sure are complaining a lot lately about their dwindling propects.

I'm sure that there are plenty of CEO's who are racist in their personal lives. But they know which side their bread is buttered on when it comes to furthering their personal priorities and those of their companies.

Maybe you should take a hint and run your own life like a business.

no, YOU'RE grandstanding!

[Anonymous Coward]

And you didn't quit, I FIRED you!


God that guy is pathetic.

Re:no, YOU'RE grandstanding!

[crunchygranola]

And you didn't quit, I FIRED you! God that guy is pathetic.

You need to bone up on your Trumpisms. It would closer to: "Not quit! Not quit! Fired! I FIRED you!"

Re:no, YOU'RE grandstanding!

[Anonymous Coward]

If he disbanded the councils after everyone other than him had left, all he really did was fire himself.

Re:Opportunistic

[bluefoxlucid]

all they see is money and big donation. They don't give two-fucks about what's best for the nation.

"Rebuilding the nation's manufacturing base" won't create more jobs than it destroys, nor will it bring America wealth. It will only bring slower economic growth and an increase in poverty among the working-class American. Thing is, nobody understands economics on that level--it takes a couple pages of analysis to work out the net impact for moving manufacture, and who really has time to spend an hour or two working out every little detail of everything they encounter?--so it's easy to sell an isolated system with access to an infinite external resource as a model of reality.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[MightyMartian]

Plenty? How many? Provide a number, along with full citation and reference to the polls and/or studies used to derive the data. Go on, you've made a claim, now actually back it up.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

yes... you should judge them by their least extreme members that still confess a hate agenda about racial superiority.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[bluefoxlucid]

Why are there conservatives and liberals? Why can't we have a reality-based community like HN?

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, you're just jealous that he's personally earned so much money and has the "best" words. Any news reports about Our Fearless Commander in Chief indicating any sort of division in his cabinet, or his citizens is quite obviously Fake News because who in the world could have a complaint with someone as ethical, generous, and forthright as good ol' #45.

Aaand because there are a LOT of idiots on /. nowdays, obligatory [/sarcasm]

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Captain Splendid]

Do you realize that if you keep antagonizing moderate on your right by calling them nazi, they might actually become such [and run over leftist cuckholds without shame] ?

Dafuq? "Liberals called me mean names and now that means I have to be an extremist murderer!"

Calm down already, you little snowflake.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is plenty of feminism wishing "death to all men" or wishing them in concentration camps.

Poe's law? Are you really that brainwashed?

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[MightyMartian]

Exactly right. I don't think Paul Ryan is a Nazi. I don't think Mitch McConnell is a Nazi. I don't think Ted Cruz is a Nazi.

Let's be pretty clear here, the majority of Republicans are not Nazis. But then again, those marching in Charlottesville with their white nationalist and white supremacist flags and sheilds are not your average Republicans. They are, well, yes, that's right, they're Nazis, and their so repugnant and evil that just about goddamned Republican out there is running from them as fast as possible...

With the exception of the Republican President of the United States.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[bravecanadian]

* - citation needed

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

wow you are a tool

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[scsirob]

A couple of years ago I would be offended. Now I see this as just another snowflake comment, melting away. By all standards that SJW's are trying to set, I'm a bigot, a racist, a nazi, alt-right extremist and an islamofobe. Can't care less anymore. By my own standards I'm just an average working-class guy with a job and a family wondering what the hell is happening to the world.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Crizzam]

Here's your effort, bitch.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[MightyMartian]

And by "leftist propaganda", you mean calling out Nazis. Yes, truly a thought crime. How dare Nazis be condemned.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Lisandro]

Why would i condemn the left when Trump shuts down his business advisory councils?

Lock him up

[nospam007]

The funniest thing is that the Nazi-in-chief declares that _he_ disbanded them, before being fled by all of them.
That moron is really the limbo champion of the world, nobody can go lower than him.

Re:Lock him up

[JohnFen]

In Trump's worldview, there is nothing worse than "losing", so he will always and forever find a way to think of everything that happens to him as a win.

Re:Opportunistic

[DigiShaman]

If they wish to enforce Sharia Law against law abiding American citizens, yes, it's and act of war, and should be handled accordingly. Islam is fascism. It's the embodiment of the subjugation of women and children. It's written in that fucking little "holy book" of theirs. The holy war never ended, you just choose to ignore it, as did the rest of Europe. Islam an organization of hate!

Groan.

[Anonymous Coward]

quits.

Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! TRUMP WON'T WORK WITH US!

Re:Opportunistic

[Dorianny]

BLM protests the brutal tactics used by Police departments in impoverished black neighborhoods and especially the killing of unarmed black people by police authorities. Some of these incidents have been committed by black police officers and some of these departments are headed by black captains. The movement is not directed at any particular race even thou it may seem that way since the black community is underrepresented in the countries police forces. Now I am sure you can find some BLM supporter that made some racist statement but that doesn't speak for the movement in large

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[DickBreath]

Are you suggesting that voting for the Great Orange Jackass might not have been the smartest choice?

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

My friend makes $3275.32 a month working from home with Google!!!

(Sorry... just to make Slashdot's death complete.)

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[bravecanadian]

What happened to all the personal responsibility the righties are supposed to have and value?

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

9mm - what a pussy.

Re:Opportunistic

[MightyMartian]

There are violent BLM members. No denying it. But BLM itself doesn't stand for violence, nor is that its goal.

White supremacists, on the other hand, do stand for violence, do stand for racism. You can criticize BLM for perhaps showing some tolerance for hooliganism, but groups like Vanguard America are, to the every last one of them, violent extremists who, like their spiritual forebears, use political conservatism and the First Amendment as cover for their evil ideology.

So no, it ain't the same, and I wonder why you are trying so hard to defend the white nationalists, white supremacists and Neo=Nazis, and trying so hard to make BLM and Antifa into some sort left wing version of them? Is it a silly attempt at equanimity, or perhaps do you sympathize with people who hate blacks, Jews, and believe white people are the master race? Go on, explain yourself.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you find antifa and BLM disgusting but say nothing of the literal nazis marching chanting heil trump preaching a message of all non whites must die? That doesn't phase you tho.

No you aren't fighting for America. You are fighting for an ideology that is hateful and disgusting. But keep telling yourself that you are right.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean those African-American protestors that shot cops to bring the odds down?

Or are you talking about the obama administration allowing prop 8 opponents getting all the donation records from their opponents?

You want to go there? Let's GO there.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[AutodidactLabrat]

No, they just stopped leaning over for rightards

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[EndlessNameless]

Do you realize that if you keep antagonizing moderate on your right by calling them nazi, they might actually become such [and run over leftist cuckholds without shame] ?

If a little bit of antagonism leads them to murder, they are human garbage and belong in jail.

Likewise, if you cannot control your violent or homicidal tendencies, you belong in jail.

Seriously... sticks and stones, and all that. Grow up.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Stormy Dragon]

Feel free to leave. No one will miss you.

Re:Opportunistic

[MightyMartian]

Because moderate conservatives should stand hand in hand with their white supremacist brethren, is that it?

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[AutodidactLabrat]

Ah, it never was NEWS.
The cited sources MAY be news, but Slashdot has no investigators and never claimed to have any.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

Or racists that chant, "Dead cops now", and "Pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon" or variants thereof, and shoot cops dead.

"Cops" are a race?

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[bravecanadian]

s/dividing/divided .. USA has been divided for years and it's not something that started all of a sudden when Trump took office. America is undergoing the tyranny of SJW's and has been for years. Trump simply exposes it for the hysteria that it is. He's very clumsy in doing so, but at least he isn't walking away from the over-inflated snowflake issues and all that comes from it. He may be a big bad bully but that doesn't make him wrong on all accounts.

Oh, and for the record, I'm not a US citizen, I'm looking at this from the other side of the ocean, wondering WTF got into you people.

The fact that you believe this drivel is astounding.

As another non-US citizen, Trump is a complete dumpster fire in every way.

He isn't exposing things or confronting issues.. he's making issues worse with his horrible understanding and statements about them..

Re:Opportunistic

[MightyMartian]

I've identified the Neo-nazi! You can always tell a Neo-nazi, they always find a Jew to blame.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[AutodidactLabrat]

1. Hillary won the votes by 2.86 million, remember that always
2. Russia's fake news, blog bombing and comment robots created astroturf in the flyover states for Trump.
3. That's called Campaign Donations In Kind, and when done by a foreign government, as the CIA says, is a felony.
If anyone at Trumpland coordinated with this campaign donation, that is a separate felony AND an act of sedition.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[AutodidactLabrat]

Who brought the guns, the pipes and the shields?
To fight for this country, shoot the bastards who did bring deliberate and premeditated violence.
Anything else is fighting for Putin.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[AutodidactLabrat]

Do you realize that if you keep antagonizing moderate on your right by calling them nazi, they might actually become such [and run over leftist cuckholds without shame] ?

Not by 2.86 million votes.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

So what store has the best price on Tiki torches?

Re: Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

Another big bad alt right tard with a gun. Threaten to punch him and he will threaten to shoot you. Because he's to chicken shit to fight like a man. Typical.

people like you should not own guns. You hide behind it like a bitch. Man up alt right tard.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

No you asshole - because i may hate what you say but I defend your right to say it and be heard. That includes YOU who only support minorities so long as they AGREE with your white bread ideology.

Cracker.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

DigiShaman: I'm a murican! not a racist!
DigiShaman: Fucking immigrants.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Many sides are to blame for the dissolution of the Councils. Noone is saying it, so I'll say it, where are Hilary's missing emails? JOBS! What about that infrastructure bill, huh? I prefer John McCains who don't vote against my healthcare bill. THE MOOCH! JOBS!

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[sheph]

For some feminists that definition isn't far off. Plenty of them hold a radical viewpoint that is discriminatory, allows for violence, and other socially unacceptable behavior that could be associated with fascism. But indeed anytime you start painting any group with a broad brush it's likely to be inaccurate. Not saying your wrong just pointing out that there's an element of reality there which makes it a poor analogy.

Re:Opportunistic

[NicknameUnavailable]

Pretty sure I did nothing of the sort unless you're making the claim all major business leaders and CIA agents are Jews (which I wouldn't agree with.)

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

just like we would all like the "violence by black" to come down a few points.

oh, wait that's apparently racist to say.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Pfhorrest]

I agree, that userid is not one that has been around 15 years. Mine, yes, that one, no. Guess she could have got an ID after being an AC for years....

Um? You're talking about user scsirob (246572), while you are OYAHHH (322809). Last I looked, 236,572 is less than 322,809 (commas added for clarity). And I, Pfhorrest (545131), was definitely here in 2002, 15 years ago, so both of you, with UIDs lower than mine, were here at least 15 years ago too.

Re:Opportunistic

[hondo77]

...and you are a racist, whiny bitch.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

The bigots have become emboldened now that they have a sympathizer in the WH. They have become more aggressive in the last year or so (really since Trump accepted David Duke's support and didn't seem to understand why that was a problem). I have been told that the left, as well, has become more aggressive...I have not seen that, but cannot say for sure.

The problem, as I see it, is that the bigots want to solve a problem that literally nobody else feels is a problem - not just that, that they see as something beneficial. It may not be a perfect analogy, but there are some comparisons to be made between bigots and anti-vaccers. Between the ignorance leading an aggressive and decisive charge and an unwillingness to enter into a dialogue that doesn't begin with baseless assumptions, really the only difference seems to be the firearms.

I have, over the course of my life, engaged many MANY racists. Having grown up in an area that housed multiple "White Supremacist" groups (Northern Idaho between 1965 and 1990) there was plenty of opportunity. What was consistent throughout pretty much ALL of those Q&A sessions (some of which lasted for hours...others mere minutes) was the near-religious ferver with which they argued their point.

Ask them why they think whites are "better" and you'll hear a variation of: Just look at them. It's obvious. (much akin to the "Of course God exists, just look at a tree to see that")
Point out that there have been plenty of intelligent minorities (with supporting evidence etc) the response is generally something like: "That's liberal/Jew/cuck propaganda. That was really invented by a white guy and it was STOLEN from him."

Race is a discussion that obviously needs to be had. The other party must understand the rules of debate and discourse (even if just a little bit) before that conversation can be had, and sadly most of these hatemongers seem to be vastly undereducated in that regard.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

> So, while the ratio of conservatives to liberals on /. now seems about 50/50 to me it has absolutely not always been that way.

Indeed, the rise of the alt-right on sites like this has chased away liberals who have grown tired of wrestling with pigs.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[bravecanadian]

Do you really think this is a left vs. right issue?

Everything has to be portrayed as a left or right issue to keep people distracted and fighting among themselves instead of working together to solve the actual problems.

Based on the idiotic posts in this thread, that plan is working out really well.

Re:Opportunistic

[DigiShaman]

Who's defended them? When both BLM and Antifa have caused actual real physical violence, destruction of property, and general lawlessness, we don't hear much of anything, let alone its prosecution.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

since the black community is underrepresented in the countries police forces.

Going to have to call bullshit on that, and yes, I did bring a citation.

Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS): Local Police Departments, 2013: Personnel, Policies, and Practices

Click on the PDF link, and go to Page 5, Figure 5. Black officers are right around the 12% mark. Nationwide, blacks are about 13% of the US population. You couldn't ask for a more representative sample.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't understand. Racism doesn't work that way. Its strictly "he who smelt it dealt it." Thus BLM is at least as racist as neo-confederates and nephew-nazis.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Evil Kerek]

1. No she lost. Vote total is irrelevant. It's SUPPOSED to be that way. We are NOT a democracy. Why you libs insist on ignoring this is beyond me (well we do know). Also, you would campaign WAY different if you were going for total votes for electorates. Regardless, it simply is meaningless. Always has been. Always will. There were a set of rules. You don't get to say 'really, we won, because we are going to ignore the rules'. Well you can say it all you want. The rest of us will just giggle.

You've shown your ignorance facts by leading with that silly comment so I'm just going to ignore the rest of it.

And remember this always: Trump won. Hillary lost. Supreme Court secured. That's really all that matters.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[sheph]

I don't think he said anything that was divisive. He acknowledged that both sides have engaged in behavior unbecoming of a civil society. That's not siding with Nazis, it's an accurate observation. I believe the whole Nazi ideology is poison and needs to die. However, holding that viewpoint is not mutually exclusive to pointing out that the antifa folks are just as bad for different reasons. How many times have these antifa folks burned cars, incited violence, broken windows, etc? Why should they get a pass?

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Hylandr]

You could could pay people to walk down the street carrying anything you want shouting 'Heil Musk', that will not make Musk a Nazi sympathizer.

First time people are paid to scream 'Heil Trump' Everyone starts calling him Hitler, and the dumbest ones believe it.

Antifa is a terrorist organization and the 'left' is pathetically obvious in their tactics.

I am sick of the division the media ( entertainment industry ) are fostering, and we as American's are tolerating.

Everyone grow the fuck up and knock it off already.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody calls moderates Nazis or anything else - we call Nazis Nazis - and we will run them into the ground.

Two weeks ago, William Shatner was compared to a Nazi and called "alt-right".

http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/william-shatner-attacks-snowflakes-social-justice-warr-1797386393

And recall that last year, the former president of Mexico compared Donald Trump to Hitler.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-donald-trump-felipe-calderon-mexico-wall-20160228-story.html

Neither William Shatner nor Donald Trump are Nazis.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[squiggleslash]

Remember when Republicans called Democrats "commies" for 30-40 years, so all the Democrats nominated and elected President a watered down Stalin?

Me neither.

Must be a Republican thing, if you call them something they become it out of spite. Those sick, bed wetting, gun breaking, running-around-on-gravel-with-no-shoes-on, punching themselves in their own testicles if they're male, Democrat-voting, Republicans.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't know Nazi sympathizers and apologists were moderates now.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

probably Walmart, where all the out-of-work racists shop.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[jediborg]

I come to slashdot for the community that tears apart mainstream science articles that overly hype or misrepresent the content of the actual study

I come to slashdot for the politics of open source vs. proprietary closed source code.

I come to slashdot for the articles regarding politicians attempt to compromise our communication networks in the guise of 'safety' or 'fighting terrorism/pedophiles'

I come to slashdot for articles about new tech breakthroughs that could effect our lives in the near-future

I don't come to slashdot for general politics, if there is only one article on the front page related to an issue that every other news blog/website is loosing their minds over, i'm fine with that. Better one article about the subject that is vaguely related to tech than dozens of articles about the same damn thing like /r/politics

Re:Opportunistic

[Evil Kerek]

I suppose it depends on your point of view. They SAY BLM doesn't stand for violence, but they do nothing to stop it nor condemn it when their protests turn violent...which happens pretty regularly.

So whatever.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

I did not know that police was a race

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you realize that if you keep antagonizing moderate on your right by calling them nazi, they might actually become such [and run over leftist cuckholds without shame] ?

I don't think I've ever seen a moderate that thinks "cuckhold" is the cutting edge of insults. And it's not that common to see people calling the moderate right nazis.

In case it wasn't obvious from the above, I don't think you are a moderate so my guess is that the reason why you get called a nazi is that you preach beliefs that are quite close to those that facists had. (As the terms 'facist' and 'nazi' have become quite mixed nowadays)

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't realize Trump was CNN. No, the people dividing America in the worst possible way is anybody who plays identity politics to their advantage. We have Trump who said "violence from all sides is wrong" and we've got people like you upset because you think he should have said "violence from white supremacists is wrong". One of these is playing identity politics, one of them isn't. Fact: Everybody needs to chill the fuck out. Fact: Everybody needs to quit with the violence. Fact: Everybody needs to stop with the childish name calling so reasonable discussion can occur. Going around calling everybody you disagree with a nazi is high in the running for the worst thing one can do to work on improving things. And the left right now is doing a lot of it, basically doing everything they can to stoke the fires. Anybody who tries to talk about the greater implications on free speech overall and in no way is endorsing what the actual nazis are saying and doing are getting slapped with the nazi label by people like you simply for trying to not be short sighted and think of the bigger implications rather than the feel good short term bullshit. We're saying the path you're on is dangerous for freedom and liberty overall, and you're calling us names.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool story bro

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

For better or worse he's going to be President of the United States for the next three years and a couple months. Everyone, those dozens of CEOs of "American" companies included, would do well to remember that.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

These corporate shills won't do anything to help the country unless we force them to.

I hope Intel likes it when the US government becomes AMD's number one customer to improve the competitive market in semiconductors.
I hope Apple likes it when we tariff their products. That's if they're lucky. They have no right to our market and could be completely excluded if I had my way.
I hope they all like it when we pass a hypocrisy tax for complaining about US society/government, then doing business with some of the worst governments in the Middle East and Asia.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

And you have proof of this plan, how? Picking up CIA communications through your tooth fillings? George Soros sent you an invoice? Or was it more like you heard it on some nutjob's tv or radio show, whose only motivation is getting as many whackos like you to believe his shit so he can sell you gold (it'll only increase in value!) or food buckets (just add water for 30 years of rancid delight!)?

Re:Opportunistic

[LubosD]

Antifa is an organization that openly embraces violence. So they are very much like the Nazis.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

Lashing out in anger over many decades of systemic abusive authority (you have never had to deal with it so don't try and claim to understand of deny it) is a far cry from seeking the ouster or death of another based solely on their race.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

1. No she lost. Vote total is irrelevant. It's SUPPOSED to be that way. We are NOT a democracy. Why you libs insist on ignoring this is beyond me (well we do know).

No, you are the one who insists on ignoring this. What the GP said is that she won the total votes. The GP did NOT say that she won the election, and the GP nor did he say that wining the total votes mean some thing. It is just a simple FACT (referring to the number of total voting only). However, the person, whom you voted in, on the other hand, seems to not be able to admit that is the fact (including yourself) regardless.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump condemned every side that commits violence. It's hysteria to take umbrage at his failing to specifically call out one particular side of things. From the way people are reacting you'd think he closed his statement with a heil Hitler.

  I don't like Trump, as I consider him a serious threat to free speech. Still, he was right on this one. Violence is bad and should be condemned. People guilty of it should be brought to justice regardless of their political affiliations.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose it depends on your point of view. They SAY BLM doesn't stand for violence, but they do nothing to stop it nor condemn it when their protests turn violent...which happens pretty regularly.

So whatever.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/dallas-shooting-black-lives-matter-leaders-respond/

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some guy at a university in another state got doxxed as a Nazi. He was never at the rally and had no connections to it. "We call Nazis Nazis" is just posturing by a group that sucks at figuring out who is actually a Nazi.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

> As another non-US citizen, Trump is a complete dumpster fire in every way.

And yet not a single example from you.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

If calling a person names is enough to make them turn to violence and genocide, I'd suggest that they this person wasn't such a great person to start with.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

But they aren't done dividing us as a country yet. This will continue as long as people will still believe in the tripe they are pushing.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[squiggleslash]

I believe he is referring to the excellent and well researched Youtube videos:

FEMINISTS BUSTED11!! - by unpcgamer82
Sarkeesian - EXPOSED! - by CARLOFSWINDON772
SJWS REVEALED!!! - by nogirlsallowed81

Also this is covered extensively in the book "SJWs and Feminists? Am I right? Right?" by Milo "Account suspended" Yiannocannohavotwitto. He comments extensively on the subject here.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not a US citizen, I'm looking at this from the other side of the ocean, wondering WTF got into you people.

I'm an American, and I've been wondering the same thing. Can I come and join you? I've been looking for someplace sane...

Losing face.

[fahrbot-bot]

This NY Times article, quotes Trump's tweet:

Rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum, I am ending both. Thank you all! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Aug. 16, 2017

But I'm more inclined to believe that Trump is disbanding the councils to avoid being embarrassed by the publicity of the people on those councils quitting. On the other hand, they don't seem to be really doing anything productive anyway:

Moreover, the panels have not been seen to be particularly effective. After a few high profile events for the groups early in the Mr. Trump’s presidency, there have been few meetings since, and none more are planned.

“So far they haven’t done much,” Ms. Admati said. “They had a few meetings with a bunch of fanfare, but it was more symbolic than anything else.”

Perhaps their intended purpose was simply to make Trump look good and the councils haven't achieved that. Certainly people quitting them en-mass doesn't help that effort either.

Re:Losing face.

[thegarbz]

On the other hand, they don't seem to be really doing anything productive anyway

In order to do anything you need the space to do it. There's hardly a gap in the schedule between trying to start WW3, trying to tear America apart, and tweeting while sitting on the shitter.

Re:Losing face.

[Gussington]

But I'm more inclined to believe that Trump is disbanding the councils to avoid being embarrassed by the publicity of the people on those councils quitting.

Well he failed at that too...

Re:Losing face.

[hey!]

The initiatives were only announced six months ago. You wouldn't expect them to be effective yet.

The real problem was a lack of direction. In effect this response was to form a committee and leave it to itself to get something done.

Re:Losing face.

[Anonymous Coward]

The real problem was a lack of direction. In effect this response was to form a committee and leave it to itself to get something done.

So, you're saying having those in the political classes--politicians, bureaucrats, and those people whose jobs are to ensure that their employers get the sort of government corruption that benefits them--getting to regularly stick their dicks in would be an improvement?

The most effective committee is one which is left to itself to get something done, as long as the people in that committee are both willing and capable of deciding to Get Shit Done. Admittedly, the highest priority may be to ensure that management (or the equivalent) will not get a chance to 'remedy' its oversight in leaving your committee parasite-free, but any group which can't manage that with six months either isn't trying to get anything done, or shouldn't be entrusted even with changing a lightbulb.

Re:Losing face.

[hey!]

So, you're saying having those in the political classes--politicians, bureaucrats, and those people whose jobs are to ensure that their employers get the sort of government corruption that benefits them--getting to regularly stick their dicks in would be an improvement?

Actually, yes. It was a federal task force, and naturally the mandarins (or their policy dicks) needed to be involved.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody forces you to read political articles. You could even block all political stories automatically, if you were tech savvy enough.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think Trump is a watered down Hitler, you're a fool. On the other hand, GOP calling everything "socialist" probably is behind the rise of Millenial support for "socialism". It doesn't become a smart strategy just because the other side does it.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

In what way is BLM, a group arguing that it's bad to kill black people, racist?

"Don't kill black people" and "Kill or deport everyone who isn't white" are not two sides of the same coin!

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[desdinova 216]

I'm sure the Koch Brother, Both Bushes, and Fox News contributed

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah let's go there. How many police have been killed by African American protestors?

Now how many African American's have been killed by police this year?

And let me guess, you think that everything is ordered by BLM isn't that right? Because that is the argument I have seen time and time again when people try and deflect from white supremacy to African Americans. Why are you so unwilling to discuss the growing problem of white nationalism? ?an you even have the discussion without irrationally deflecting to something unrelated.

Re:Opportunistic

[scourfish]

In my opinion, lashing out in a way that involves harming others or destroying their property is not justifiable, with the exception of imminent danger.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not surprising that the alt-right appears to have grown. That's what happens when you make a label so broad that the only common factor is to say that it describes everyone who doesn't agree with you. It's similar to how 'liberal' has become a snarl word to describe everybody to the left of Reagan.

Re:Opportunistic

[Evil Kerek]

Except the facts do not bear out that police forces are institutionally racist. Not even kind of.

What IS a fact is blacks kill more blacks than any police force.
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-t...
vs
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
And bear in mind the police number isn't only a list of deaths, regardless of justification. So the number is REALLY small. (Sorry the dates don't jive, best I could do - but the point is there)

Which is a worse issue?

What IS a fact is that blacks have the highest proportion of children born out of wed lock. (a whooping 75%)
http://www.politifact.com/trut...

But, nah, let's not fix any of that. Let's get straw man to blame it all on. Let's have less policing. I mean it works so well in Chicago.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

Group A: Formed due to belief that people of non-white skin color and of certain regions of the world are sub-human and deserve to be exterminated.

Group B, C: Formed to combat Group A as well as other social inequalities as a result of decades or centuries of oppression.

Group B and C are obviously equivalent of Group A. /s

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[atrex]

Actually, the Electoral College is a handcuffed and corrupt body. If the Electoral College functioned the way it was originally intended then every member of it would cast their votes as they saw fit for whichever candidate they thought was better. However, it's members have been handcuffed by a variety of state constitutions that force a state's electors to vote according to their state's majority opinion. Electors don't vote as they see fit as originally intended. The Electoral College is in no way a Representative body when members of a given state cast all their votes one direction over a 51%/49% public vote in their state. If Electoral Votes were actually representative of the popular vote in each state during the last election, then neither candidate would have received 270 votes.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[desdinova 216]

has Netcraft confirmed it?

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe some day we can discuss issues without labeling others based on their beliefs about one or two subjects. Maybe we could even get candidates that have nuanced opinions that have nothing to do with party rhetoric.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[networkBoy]

Well I thought it came with Oompa Loompas...
I want my money back.
~

I *still* don't regret my vote for Johnson, particularly since I'm in CA.

So what?

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

Other than hanging out with the POTUS, did these "boards" actually accomplish anything? Was there any legislation drafted that came from this? Obama had something similar called "President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness" which also seemed to amount to nothing; it was abandoned "due to a lack of engagement from council members".

Re:So what?

[Tablizer]

Obama had something similar called "President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness" which also seemed to amount to nothing; it was abandoned "due to a lack of engagement from council members".

O quitter: "This is a bunch of vague mumbo jumbo about synergy and 'expanding education opportunities' that puts me to sleep. I'm outta here."

T quitter: "WTF did he just say? I don't wanna be associated with that loon. Sayonara!"

Re:So what?

[JohnFen]

Other than hanging out with the POTUS, did these "boards" actually accomplish anything?

They made it a little easier to engage in the sort of crony capitalism that Trump loves so much.

Re:So what?

[Ron Goodman]

Well, they accomplished humiliating that fat fool, so there's that.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[jedidiah]

The Electoral College operates the exact same way the Congress does. It prevents the bigger states from being big bullies and pushing everyone around. Otherwise, the smaller states would have no interest in being part of the Union.

If you are butt hurt about the Electoral College then you should be equally butt hurt about the Congress. They are both designed the same way for the same reason.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Popularity"?! "Increased traffic"?! Whatever Slashdot you're thinking of surely isn't this Slashdot!

Both Alexa and Google Trends suggest that the public's interest in Slashdot and the traffic here are both dropping.

I think the situation here is more comparable to what's happening to Firefox. A once great product has driven away its best users through unwanted changes. In Slashdot's case, these unwanted changes include the disastrous Slashdot Beta, as well as an increase in the number of left-leaning, purely political stories.

From what I can see, Slashdot is dying much like Firefox is. It's a slow, painful, drawn out affair.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

If that orange-haired pussy-grabbing racist sexist traitorous piece of shit in the WH has his way, none of your 'tech' news or 'nerd' shit will matter because THERE WILL NOT BE A COUNTRY ANYMORE.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[spun]

It's a right wing cesspit, what are you even talking about?

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[networkBoy]

"I'm just a regular joe with a regular job, I'm your average white suburbanite slob..."

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[bondsbw]

But a state's representation in Congress is often a mix of Democrats and Republicans. A state's representation in the Electoral College is generally single party.

So no, the EC does NOT operate the exact same way Congress does.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Glad Intel isn't fucking racist.
Glad Merck isn't fucking racist.
Glad the AFL-CIO isn't fucking racist.

FTFY

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

You can argue until your blue in the face. The fact is more people have died thanks to BLM than these Neo Nazi rallies.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[jedidiah]

You are confusing your own media narrative with reality. You are a classic Usenet troll creating a fiction about their opponent and then proceeding to argue against that rather than facts.

They aren't literal Nazis. You are just calling them that because you think it gives you an excuse to strip them of their rights.

THAT is actual classic Nazi behavior.

The rules apply to everyone equally. That's a very key element of this whole "democracy and equality" thing.

In your sick twisted little world view, those that actually stand up for American values are accused of being Nazis in an attempt to silence them.

It doesn't matter even what a genuine Nazi is saying, that's never worse then people actually employing violence to silence others.

Yes, the guy punching the Nazi is actually worse than the Nazi.

They left but did they really?

[Anonymous Coward]

I really doubt they left. These people were just groups of lobbiests. The CEOs will just send their lobbiests directly instead of collaberating through a single group of lobbiests.

TLDR; Nothing is changing. Welcome to washington DC.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[jedidiah]

> Honest question. Why do you continue to support him?

The other option thinks that it's OK to use violence to silence political opposition. There is no other option unless you want to vote for a Green or a Libertarian.

Re:Opportunistic

[MightyMartian]

You're the one who brought up Soros.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

Just look at how violent this Nazi is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqXWhG6IZ50

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[jedidiah]

So petty virtue signalling is better than telling Trump things he needs to hear. You really don't make me feel very good about voting Democrat in the next election. If you are an accurate reflection on the Democrat mindset then it's horribly unhinged and divorced from any sort of pragmatism.

That's an extra bonus above and beyond advocating the labeling people as Nazis so you can act like one yourself.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps they realized they would get nothing monetary by staying, so took the first opportunity to bale using this incident as a scapegoat.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, now, calm down; It's not the same, BLM members can be of any race while kkk members can only be white...ish.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL we don't hear anything because it isn't happening anywhere other than on Fox News and Breitbart. Just like all of Hillary and Obama's alleged "crimes" that the GOP has talked about for ages now, but for some reason doesn't want to prosecute now that they'r ein power. Perhaps all this talk of crimes was just that, talk?

In a similar vein, rightwing talk about how violent BLM are is just talk not backed up by reality.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Barlo_Mung_42]

This failure of the American political system is news for everyone and should matter to everyone.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hacker News has a "reality-based community"?! What the heck?!

I've found Hacker News to be one of the worst discussion forums and communities on the web. It's even worse than Reddit, I think. At least Reddit allows for some diversity of opinion in general, even if specific subreddits are totalitarian hellholes. But at Hacker News there is none of that. There's that "dang" admin who polices all of the discussion there, and totally ruins it.

Even if there wasn't "dang" there to limit the discussion, I think that the closed-minded nature of the community there, combined with what I see as a really broken moderation system, allows for severe censorship. This is a problem here at Slashdot, too, but it's nowhere near as bad as it is at Hacker News.

Just look at how Hacker News treats the Rust programming language. They worship it, and anybody pointing out its very real and serious flaws is essentially "executed", for lack of a better term. If you don't add to the Rust hype, you will be attacked and downvoted, possibly until banned. At least at Slashdot we can discuss Rust's problems without being attacked and torn to shreds.

It is good to compare Slashdot to Hacker News. But it shouldn't be a case of making Slashdot more like Hacker News. It should be the opposite. Slashdot should strive to do the exact opposite of Hacker News, because I think that doing the opposite of Hacker News is what leads to a healthy online community.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

In Charlottesville, the evil right side had guns and were peaceful until the antifa came in.

Translation:

[Rick Schumann]

Trump gets called out by his betters for being a jerk (again!), throws a hissy-fit (again!), decides to take his ball and go home (again!). He's a narcissistic toddler that got into the gun cabinet and I can't wait for him to be gone.

Re:Translation:

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially considering the guns in that cabinet.

Re:Translation:

[Anonymous Coward]

How about the narcissistic Messiah who couldn't bring himself to use the word terrorism as people were being cut down in the name of Allah? What about his weak condemnation of BLM after one of their members cut down police during an otherwise peaceful protest?

Seriously, sick of hearing this shit. The man would never do right in your eyes. He could pay off the national debt, bring all the troops home and single handedly cure cancer and you'd still moan like a 4 year old who wanted ice cream instead of pudding.

You fucker who have the blinders on are the ones who are fucking over the people even more than the politicians. I hope you pay dearly for your goose stepping antics.

Re:Translation:

[Anonymous Coward]

But the orange-haired prick won't do ANY of those things you mentioned, he'll just continue to FUCK EVERYTHING UP worse than it's ever been. Then when he's run out of D.C. on a rail he'll claim it was all some conspiracy to set him up to fail from the beginning and point fingers everywhere but at the guy in the mirror.

Oh and by the way? Obama may have been a fuck-up in his own right, but President Pussy-Grabber is ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE worse, to the point where people are thinking back NOSTALGICLY about the Bush era and even the Clinton era, THATS HOW BAD THINGS ARE NOW.

Just admit it: You back the wrong orange-haired horse, and now you're left with either admitting you were wrong, or slitting your wrists. IDGAF which one you do.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[edtice1559]

If you believe in your ideas and you win the election in terms of the rules but can clearly see that you've lost in the market place if ideas, you try to make your case. Obama won both popular and electoral votes but set out to be "everybody's president." When you win an election despite losing the popular vote *and* you know your ideas are wrong, you try to push through as much bad policy as you possibly can under the premise that you won't ever win another election. The Republicans aren't governing like winners, they're governing like hillbillies who get to spend a weekend at a mansion.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[jedidiah]

Of course. They don't buy into your party line. Therefore they are Nazis. Forget any sort of nuance. Forget that there's a diverse range of actual bigots. They're all just Nazis.

No. It's just convenient. You don't actually have to acknowledge who they are or what they say. You can just screech Juden at them put a yellow star on their jacket and shove them into the ghetto.

Re:Opportunistic

[MightyMartian]

Yeah, I'm thinking white supremacists are a helluva lot more dangerous than any left-leaning protester/activist groups:

https://www.adl.org/sites/defa...

Re:Opportunistic

[lactose99]

Oh god, you actually believe that crap?

I have some lizard people running the country I have to show you. Seriously, I heard about it on InfoWars!

Re:Opportunistic

[desdinova 216]

so now it's Soros and the CIA colluding, earlier you said it was Soros, Clinton, and Obama.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it me, or has Slashdot become a media outlet for the left?

You're deluded, /. is infested with 'alt-right'/ white supremecist types these days. Any so called 'anti-Trump' stories (i.e. ones that mention things that have actually occurred involving Trump) are just clickbait for them.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[skids]

Man, you are up in that conspiracy rectum really deep. Be sure to come up for air.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[edtice1559]

Most business leaders lean Republican so that fact that they are abandoning the administration is very telling. A country needs good advocates for more conservative policies otherwise you end up with social safety nets that you can't afford. (Social safety nets are generally good but not if they bankrupt the county). The current Republicans aren't good conservative advocates. They seem to think that tax cuts for the rich are a magic wand that can achieve all policy goals. They are downright hostile to facts. I was a Republican 20 years ago and sometimes hope to be one again. But for all of their faults the Democrats tend to at least believe their own bullshit.

he was a FUCKING TRAITOR

[Anonymous Coward]

is that too hard for you to fathom?

He FOUGHT TO THE DEATH TO DESTROY THE UNITED STATES

my GOD you are STUPID

Re:he was a FUCKING TRAITOR

[penandpaper]

You do realize that Robert E. Lee was against secession, right? He was more loyal to Virginia and at the time people were more loyal to their state than to the federal government. Even Abraham Lincoln asked him to lead the Union Army.

Read a history book.

Re:he was a FUCKING TRAITOR

[CQDX]

In Lee's time people were deeply attached to their home state. The Army was mustered through the states. When it came to pick a side he said something to the effect that he couldn't fight his home state. He didn't so much as join the Confederacy but rather resigned to command the troops of his home state of Virginia.

Re:he was a FUCKING TRAITOR

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that Robert E. Lee was against secession, right? He was more loyal to Virginia and at the time people were more loyal to their state than to the federal government. Even Abraham Lincoln asked him to lead the Union Army.

You do realize that Robert E. Lee took up arms against the United States, right? He was less loyal to the country, and entirely willing to forsake his sworn oath to defend the country against enemies, foreign and domestic. He rejected the chance to serve in the Union Army, and instead chose to wage war against it.

Read a history book.

Read one yourself.

Getting it right? By re-framing it through the morals of the day... That is not getting it right. Why not put another statute up next to it to show future generations what we think?

They won't let us do that either. They claim having another statue there, creates some sort of problem. Do you think nobody ever suggested your idea?

They were a product of their time and to judge them against our morals is wrong. You miss the lessons learned. You miss the motivations. You are ignoring history.

They were judged and condemned in their own time, and yet afterwards, those who could not accept it, erected statues to glorify them, and ignore the lessons learned, deceive about the motivations, and attack anybody who challenges their own false narrative.

How far does your offense go in destroying history?

How far do we need to go before we crush the lies?

Robert E. Lee isn't the monster the left make him out to be.

Robert E. Lee isn't the hero his apologists make him out to be.

He held a position that persisted for hundreds of years. Slavery was an issue for hundreds of years.

And? By your own claims, he knew secession was wrong. He did it anyway.

All of the founders had slaves...

And here's a factual manufacturing of your own. What's with that? You can say MANY did. You cannot say all.

In fact, there's evidence that several of them opposed slavery. Not all unfortunately. It was one of their great moral failings.

I have heard many support that because "3/5ths compromise" yet not realize that it was slave owners that wanted slaves to be counted equally!

Yes, because it would have given them an advantage. A captive population that had no say in government, but nonetheless, increased their representation. However, you may not know this, but many of the people who complain about the 3/5's compromise are attacking the Northern States for that suggestion, as if it was their judgment reduced the value of a man. Not, you know, the people OWNING slaves.

Are we to burn the constitution and abandon the ideals because they have because we judge them with today's standard?

As Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, the US Constitution is not the best building block to use today, no. Remember the hysteria over that? Or do you think we should be fools, and wrap ourselves in the Constitution, as many on the right do today? They're the ones with the moral standard you should question.

Yet...you don't, do you?

ISIS destroys antiquity because blasphemy. We do it because offense. I see no difference.

Here's the difference: You still want to destroy ISIS. We still want to destroy White Supremacy.

Those statues do not tell us where we are going or where we are. They tell us where we have been. By destroying them and moving them out of sight we forget our past. We lose a part of us that help us become better.

Nope, by destroying them or at least, moving them out of sight, we remember the past, and reject the part of us that makes us worse. Those statues are a false icon used to lie about

Re:he was a FUCKING TRAITOR

[penandpaper]

Only responding to one thing.

You do realize that Robert E. Lee took up arms against the United States, right?

Yes and it cost thousands of lives. After the civil war they had to put the nation back together after the bloodiest conflict the US has known. That means there was Pardons for ex-Confederates.

People that think like you hold grudges and don't know when to let water be under the bridge. When the war was over the nation had to heal and overcome the divide that killed so many. When John Wilkes Booth killed Lincoln and fled to the South he thought he would be embraced as a hero. He was not and he fled, was chased, and killed because he betrayed the peace that too many had died for and everyone wanted.
 

Re:he was a FUCKING TRAITOR

[h33t l4x0r]

The problem is, if you went to public school in the south, you were taught that the confederacy were the good guys, the northerners were the aggressors and that the civil war had nothing to do with slavery. These are the original US "Alternative Facts".

Re:he was a FUCKING TRAITOR

[Anonymous Coward]

Only responding to one thing.

Hopefully you read it. I've seen no indication that you have the slightest awareness for the concerns of others. Even a modest effort would be worthwhile on your part. Just acknowledging your claim about all of the founding fathers owning slaves is unsubstantiated would have done a lot.

That you didn't, weighs against you.

You do realize that Robert E. Lee took up arms against the United States, right?

Yes and it cost thousands of lives.

Hundreds of thousands of lost lives are on his conscience.

Shame on him. For a traitor and a fool. But at least he had the sense to repent. Those who seek to glorify him do not. Though he still had his faults, for example, opposing suffrage for the freed blacks, under the false cloak of beneficent concern.

Not that any of his devotees admit that. They make him a saint and a martyr, they grant him a crown of gold, and ask his blessing. All the while, seeking to make much of many deplorable ideas and notions.

After the civil war they had to put the nation back together after the bloodiest conflict the US has known.

And they didn't. Or they did, by letting the rot fester and grow, in no more than a decade. Shame on them.

Better had they cleansed the infection.

That means there was Pardons for ex-Confederates.

Yes, they were spared the rope they so richly deserved, and that turned out to be giving them all the rope they needed to lynch and hang blacks, to engage in decades of segregation and general oppression. Voter disenfranchisement happened in a mere decade. Unlawful governments seized power. Discriminatory Laws were passed, and all too many nodded sagely along with their wisdom.

People that think like you hold grudges and don't know when to let water be under the bridge.

People that think like me, know that somebody who doesn't know when they did wrong, who goes out of their way to deny their actions, or to glorify their villainies, know that the only thing you can do about that is burn your bridges.

But then, I have the advantage of hindsight, and I can see the failures of the "gentle" Reconstruction, and its quick abandonment.

When the war was over the nation had to heal and overcome the divide that killed so many.

It didn't. There was no healing, but instead a festering sickness that was allowed to fester and continue, even to the point where people don't even admit anything wrong was done.

The country labored under such illness for decades, a stain even worse than the original one, because it was so blindly tolerated, and only after far too long was it begun to be repudiated by the Democratic party...of course, then the Republicans began to embrace the same sentiments, under a false cloak, and even now, they act like nobody knows what they did.

When John Wilkes Booth killed Lincoln and fled to the South he thought he would be embraced as a hero. He was not and he fled, was chased, and killed because he betrayed the peace that too many had died for and everyone wanted.

He fled, and was chased by an army detachment, there is zero evidence that anybody from the South he encountered was particularly averse to his actions, nor any particular attitude of rejection. He was shot after holing up in a barn, and refusing to come out.

Nobody died for peace. They died for war, for oppression, and bigotry. Worse yet they killed for it. All driven by the slave-holding South and its grasping, vile, greed. Which had to be broken, brutally, in order to suppress them.

And now? Today? You get to make up a false narrative to advance your own story. They, who chose the path of war when they lost an election, they proclaim themselves the victim of Northern Aggression, they lament the tyranny that is Civil Rights, and say we wer

Re:he was a FUCKING TRAITOR

[penandpaper]

I don't believe you and you're going to have to provide some substantial evidence for that because I know a number of people who have gone through the school system first hand that disagree with you.

Re:he was a FUCKING TRAITOR

[deathguppie]

He fought for the right to own humans. That is the core of the issue. He cannot be anyone's hero without explicit understanding of that fact. Not a lot of black americans idolize Robert E. Lee.

Re:he was a FUCKING TRAITOR

[penandpaper]

It's a picture, used to tell a story of lies.

It's a picture that has the onus on you to find out more. Others thought it relevant and important for you to see and so it is up to you to find out what, if anything, it means for us today. It doesn't tell us anything about where we are or where we are going but where we came from. You have to figure out if it means anything and if you can apply that to be a better person.

Do you want a story

History is a story. It's compelling because it happened with real people and real events that affect us today. Telling history as a story is more about making it interesting. Regurgitating facts make history boring. You can tell the truth by telling stories of history. Every event and figure has a story.

Find one statue of him that displays that message.

You mis-understand. The onus is on you to find the message. Others thought it important to put it there. As a statue, it stares you down to learn why it was stood up. Any plaque or paragraph will be partial. There is always more history more lessons to learn. It doesn't matter whether one statue or any statue says what you want it to say. The point is that the figure in question is another person from a different time. And like us was a product of their time. There is something powerful in recognizing that historical figures are like us. Yet, it's also a warning that we are just as fallible as they.

Any statue of Martin Luther King Jr. won't tell you the full struggle of his life or his cause. A few well verse sentences are the tip to wet your appetite but you have to learn more to find out why people respect or admire him enough to put up statues. If in the future religion becomes as offensive as racism is today (why not for how many people have died to it) and people decide to tear it down MLK monuments because he was a religion man (err follower of hate filled ideology that has killed millions) ... It's sad but that is what we are doing now.

Re:he was a FUCKING TRAITOR

[penandpaper]

And slavery has been around since the beginning of human history and was debated for centuries by his time. In fact, it's still going on today. I think putting it as "anyone's hero" is disingenuous. He was well respected in his time by both sides and still respected for a variety of reasons (particularly military) but also as a means to remember the Civil War.

It's not about idolizing the figures. It's about remembering. History is uncomfortable.

Re:he was a FUCKING TRAITOR

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a picture, used to tell a story of lies.

It's a picture that has the onus on you to find out more.

Nope, the burden is on the people who want to paint a picture. They don't get to tell a lie and force me to put up with it.

Others thought it relevant and important for you to see and so it is up to you to find out what, if anything, it means for us today.

It means the people in the past allowed something they should have never let be done. That is fortunately something we can easily rectify today.

Undoing the blood taken by the secessionists in the South? Hardly.

It doesn't tell us anything about where we are or where we are going but where we came from.

Are you sure you really thought about the words. before saying this? Because what you just said means I'd have to believe that there is no meaning to it. That contradicts your own words just a sentence ago.

You have to figure out if it means anything and if you can apply that to be a better person.

We did figure it out. We figured out they really were white supremacist scum who wanted to create a story advancing their cause of bigotry. My applying it is to get rid of it. That makes me a better person, that makes the world a better place.

Are you sure you're paying attention here?

Do you want a story or the truth?

You accidentally a key phrase. Do you want a story or the truth?

Which is it? A story or the truth?

History is a story.

History is full of false stories, that's for sure. People love writing those. Hence all the greater importance to oppose it. In Germany, in France, in America, and in Australia, Japan, Russia, Mexico and Panama. All across the world, we must stand up against it.

It's compelling because it happened with real people and real events that affect us today.

Yes, people are easily mislead by such stories. You emphasize why it is so very important to remain committed to the truth. Even mistakes cause problems.

Telling history as a story is more about making it interesting. Regurgitating facts make history boring. You can tell the truth by telling stories of history. Every event and figure has a story.

Telling stories actually makes it not real, and you are right, people try to make it interesting and appealing. They tell stories, not truth. That's a problem. Especially when they try to portray their stories as real.

Find one statue of him that displays that message.

You mis-understand. The onus is on you to find the message.

No, you. You say it's the message. Find me one statue telling me that message. Just one.

It's your burden. I'd like to see you do it. That would be nice.

Afterwards, of course, I'll point out to you a dozen that don't. So you still won't achieve much. But at least you'll be taking your onus on yourself.

No surprise that you're avoiding it. You know that isn't the message anybody is sending at all.

Others thought it important to put it there.

Yes, for example, to celebrate white supremacy. I disagree, and seek to remove their message.

I'll put up a new one: Here stood a tribute to the White Supremacists, we took it down, because they were wrong.

As a statue, it stares you down to learn why it was stood up. Any plaque or paragraph will be partial.

You are confusing partial, with partial. Incompleteness is one thing. Lying is another. And the ones that lie, are the ones that should be removed.

There is always more history more lessons to learn.

There's always more lies to be put down.

It doesn't matter whether one statue o

Re:he was a FUCKING TRAITOR

[dave420]

Statues of racists without context are not remembering anything but nonsense. Put the statues in museums, and everyone can still learn, but not have to put up with celebrations of racists in their daily lives. That seems fair.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

By that standard, the US military is also an organization that openly embraces violence...

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[skids]

In Charlottesville, the evil right side had guns and were peaceful until they found some clergy to attack

FTFY

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[AmiMoJo]

You know the far right is on the ropes when they stop trying to defend their position and start pushing conspiracy theories about actors paid to put on a fake Nazi march and fight with the (real) leftists.

Of course, all these actors are so loyal to the cause, none of them have come forward with proof (like a paycheck).

This one is weaker than Pizzagate, on a par with moon landing denial.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, that's just racist isn't it?

Re: Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahahah... as if you leftist pussies would stand toe to toe 1:1. That'd go against your collectivist nature.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[jedidiah]

That means holding ALL perpetrators of violence responsible.

Liberal activists looking for a fight don't get a free pass. This is especially true for the ones that specifically advocate political violence.

The left has no interest in real non-violence any more. Some of them give lip service to it but their rhetoric sounds more like people looking to get in a brawl. Nobody is interested in acknowledging the troublemakers or calling them out.

If anything, liberal media outlets cover up their nonsense.

Re:Opportunistic

[Bodhammer]

All 500 of them?

Re:Opportunistic

[cyberchondriac]

Not at all, that's a strange takeaway from my comments. I'm suggesting you're looking at only part of the problem, I'm not defending the cancerous part you are looking at.
Would you suggest I'm wrong for judging violent communist vigilantes by their most extreme members?

Its in the same vein of the name "Black Lives Matter" which, in and of itself, doesn't actually literally suggest that non-black lives don't; yet some people seem to see or hear an imaginary "more" at the end of the phrase which isn't there. It's also imaginary for some to think all people calling attention to *all* involved parties in that violence Saturday are somehow giving the nazi's and white supremacists a free pass and defending them; all the groups involved have a spectrum of extremism and a cancer.
I acknowledge Nazis and White Natl'l for the close-minded retards they are, but at the same time I don't consider Antifa or BLM heroes by any stretch.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

The more that people like you misuse the term "Nazi", the less of an effect it has. It's already getting to the point where when somebody like you makes a false accusation about somebody being a "Nazi", the target of your false accusation will just shrug her shoulders, roll her eyes, and continue on with her day. People like you have stripped the term "Nazi" of all meaning thanks to your repeated misapplication of the term.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump condemned every side that commits violence. It's hysteria to take umbrage at his failing to specifically call out one particular side of things.

I guess you *really* do believe that there is an equivalence between the neo-nazis who would if given the chance systematically murder half the US population, and their assorted opponents. Yes, they are real Nazis, they are not ashamed of it, and they want to bring about the 'final solution' in the USA. They discuss it openly. I can only guess you are either entirely ignorant of history or you actually sympathise with them.

Sad.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[ir0nHat]

It would be great if the Electoral College Member was selected by the November Congressional district vote as opposed to the winner take all. The two College Members that represent the Senators should be based on the total of the state vote. Each party puts forth a slate from their state conventions and the person seated is based on how the party won the congressional district. The United States is republic, not a democracy and the Electoral College reflects that. If people want the popular vote to select the President pass a Constitutional Amendment.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Hylandr]

*Rolls Eyes*

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Major_Disorder]

We aren't bashing Trump for being Trump but for being a POTUS that is dividing America in the worst possible way

Incorrect. He has united the world like on one else ever.
Instead of thousands of little groups, now there are only two. One group hates him, the other loves him. I think you can all guess which group I am in. But I will just sit up here in Canada with my healthcare, and watch the festivities.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Hylandr]

Obvious shills are obvious.

Re:Opportunistic

[eclectro]

But BLM itself doesn't stand for violence, nor is that its goal.

They most certainly do. Here they are marching for dead cops in New York and Dallas There was protest in London with the same chant.

It's time for the left to own their own alt-left bullshit as they seem to like to call out the alt-right at every turn as your post exemplifies.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

Cops and Klan go hand in hand. Help these communists bail their comrade out of jail for destroying a US monument.
https://twitter.com/imastringbean/status/897569490111787008

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

Islam isn't fascism, and it isn't an organization. It is a religion, like Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, and many others. Some people who practice Islam are fascist. Some people who practice Islam form organizations. Do you need a Venn diagram to understand this concept?

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, 'cuz racists and neo-Nazis are REALLY good for this country

Uh yes? Where would this country be if one had let Red Indians stay in charge? Frolicking buffalos on the plains rather than motorways and industry? How do you justify killing off and locking away the original inhabitants of a land without some racial supremacy philosophy while still maintaining an order of society based on piety?

Racists and neo-Nazis may well be good for "this country". But if your heart and brain are in the right spot, you will not want to pay that price. It's dishonorable.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't really matter what someone's beliefs are when they're brutalising innocents. (innocents hereby defined as people who are NOT brutalising people)

The reason why people are comparing them are due to their behaviour, and the willing participation of both sides in violent conflict for ideological reasons, it's just that the organised authoritarians are more effective than the unorganised authoritarians in this instance.

I'll also point out that this has been a long time coming with the steady radicalisation of both sides, it's just that most media are left-wing by nature, so if you base your worldview on only that, you may have a distorted view on things.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? You're going to compare cops assassinated (about a dozen btw and still counting) with police action shootings? Well if you want to go there more WHITE PEOPLE have been shot by cops than cops assassinated by African Americans this year. Feel better?

And let me guess, you think that any white standing up for liberty and constitutional values is a nazi right? Because that is the argument I have seen time and time again when people try to stand up for free speech and independent thought they're "white privileged" or nazis or, worse, uncle toms.
Why do you completely ignore the fact of the growing problem of black nationalism? I notice you don't even bother to bring up that aspect as if there's only "one" group trying to gain racial separatism. Like LaRaza?
Oh I'm sorry, I deflected form your deflection because you couldn't even rationally or properly respond to my points without deflecting.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Major_Disorder]

I come to Slashdot for Vi vs Emacs flame wars, and Linux vs Windows flame wars.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

How many times have these antifa folks burned cars, incited violence, broken windows, etc?

Bingo! Antifa damages property. The KKK, Neo-Nazis, and gun-toting psychos injure and kill people.
Which is worse? Would you rather have your car destroyed or be killed?

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

The comments for this submission prove you wrong. About 85% of them are accusing somebody of being a 'Nazi', or are attacking President Trump, or are rambling on against the 'alt-right'. The few comments from moderates and conservatives are the only reasonable and intelligent comments.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

now, now, that's just leftist propaganda. Facts mean nothing to these people.

Re:Trump doesn't need advice,

[Anonymous Coward]

He doesn't need to worry about being hung by the neck

It's "hanged"

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama won both popular and electoral votes but set out to be "everybody's president."

Oh HELL no he didn't.
Anybody that wasn't on board with his "utopian vision" was a back water racist hick and he made that abundantly clear.
You also should be happy that the Republicans aren't "governing like winners" because you would NOT like the results.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[DRJlaw]

I come to slashdot for...

Other people come to slashdot for other things. Accept it. Don't read and comment on postings that you're ostensibly not interested in.

Better one article about the subject that is vaguely related to tech...

Which this is...

than dozens of articles about the same damn thing like /r/politics

This is the only article on the disbanding of certain Presidential advisory councils that included a slew of technology leaders. Your wish has been granted twofold.

Re:Opportunistic

[cyberchondriac]

Have you been in a cave? They're complaining about white cops and the police culture.

Re:Opportunistic

[angel'o'sphere]

The holy book of Islam reads more or less like the bible.
It is obvious you never read any of both.

Why spread your hate here? Get a psychological consultant instead.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Is it me, or has Slashdot become a media outlet for the left?"

It has. The amount of cancer here today is disgusting.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

as a US citizen I disagree: he definitely is exposing things -- the 30% who are believe that their hardships and woes come at the hands of blacks, muslims and anyone who disagrees with these "facts".

Is Trump confronting the issues? No, I think he is barely aware that they exist due to him living in his own world. He has no comprehension of what white supremacy is or what their goals are, but he knows that David Duke says nice things about him, so that makes David Duke a "great guy".

Contrary to popular belief, Trump doesn't dislike people for disagreeing with him. Rather, he hates people for showing him up. The guy who wrote 'Art of the Deal' for him got the job in part because he had written a scathing article about Trump. It was free publicity and Trump *liked* how the guy portrayed him.

Trump is actually pretty easy to understand and trivial to predict. His staff is comprised of people who are fail to see the obvious, no matter how often their faces are rubbed in it. After writing that speech condemning neo-nazis they actually thought he wouldn't set the record straight about his real feelings?

Maybe this country needed a Trump, someone to bring the racists out from the closets they've been hiding in. The truth is that they are far, far more numerous than the 70% non-white supremacist population thought. Because their racist friends didn't express their racist sentiments for fear of being judged according to political correctness standards. Trump showed them (however inadvertantly) that it was *okay* to be racist. They discovered that they weren't alone (the 1 to 2% who had already discovered this have been perpetrating our domestic terrorism for a while now).

These cowards find strength in their numbers, but they were always there.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Says the loudmouthed idiot. Go away MM.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Yunzil]

This Trump-bashfest isn't for nerds, and it does not matter.

Yes. Yes it does.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[mean pun]

So petty virtue signalling is better than telling Trump things he needs to hear.

That was what Elon Musk said months ago when he got flak for joining one of these councils. To his credit, he was a quick learner.

Yes, there are plenty of things Trump needs to hear, but he doesn't listen.

Re:Opportunistic

[Train0987]

The only ideology worse than Nazi is Communism. Those "left-leaning protester activist groups" are mostly communist front organizations.

They closed ...

[CaptainDork]

... after realizing that Trump was bad for business.

Re:They closed ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump Logic:

Losing is Winning!
Chaos is Organization and totally intended!
Pushing Allies Away is Strength!
Giving Comfort to the Enemy is also Strength!
Shutting Down Agreements that Work is The Art of the Deal!
Reviving Failed Policies of the Past is also The Art of the Deal!

And as always, Trump is the Bigliest!!

Re:Opportunistic

[drinkypoo]

Antifa is an organization that openly embraces violence. So they are very much like the Nazis.

Well, they're very much like the Nazis if defending yourself from violent attacks is the same as ethnic cleansing. Which is to say, not in the slightest.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course. They don't buy into your party line. Therefore they are Nazis.

I'm pretty sure the ones with Nazi flags, Adolf Hitler t-shirts, and avowed membership in organizations that call themselves Nazi are, in fact, Nazis. Those are the ones being called Nazis, the ones who are actual Nazis. Not everyone with different political views or distasteful messages, just the Nazis.

No. It's just convenient. You don't actually have to acknowledge who they are or what they say.

They say that they are Nazis. We "acknowledge who they are or what they say" by calling them Nazis. Calling a Nazi a Nazi does not make you a Nazi. We're not playing by elementary school playground rules.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would hope that the fact you got modded down to -1 allows you some room to reflect on why your statement makes very little sense.

But in truth I expect nothing from Trump and his voters but more bullshit. That's why you're so easy to stop.

Consider: only hundreds of right wing extremists showed up this weekend, and thousands showed up to oppose them.

You've already lost. You just don't know it yet.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither William Shatner nor Donald Trump are Nazis.

The one acting like it is not known as an actor.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Dirk Becher]

If a single person can divide a country with one or two statement, there is a good chance the country was divided to begin with.

We didn't win in Korea or Vietnam

[CQDX]

Do you advocate tearing down the Korean War memorial in DC? The Wall for those killed in Vietnam?

The statues of Confederate soldiers and generals are to remember their leadership and sacrifice regardless of the politics behind the war. Even the US Army, the Union Army, has numerous honors for Robert E. Lee and other Confederate generals.

Re:We didn't win in Korea or Vietnam

[Captain Splendid]

Do you advocate tearing down the Korean War memorial in DC? The Wall for those killed in Vietnam?

I was going to give you shit for more stupid false equivalency, but it's late, so my answer is: Sure, why not?

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

Lashing out in anger over many decades of systemic abusive authority (you have never had to deal with it so don't try and claim to understand of deny it) is a far cry from seeking the ouster or death of another based solely on their race.

If a person uses violence against me because someone who is similar to me repressed someone who is similar to them, then they are a racist. I have every right to defend myself against any violence against me. I am particularly uninterested in dissecting the motives of violent racists assholes.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Freischutz]

The Electoral College operates the exact same way the Congress does. It prevents the bigger states from being big bullies and pushing everyone around. Otherwise, the smaller states would have no interest in being part of the Union.

If you are butt hurt about the Electoral College then you should be equally butt hurt about the Congress. They are both designed the same way for the same reason.

In that case the system works exactly as intended because the way it works now is that the small bankrupt states bully the bigger solvent ones.

Re: Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

The Antifa guys are definitely not just defending themselves.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please explain the nuance that we are missing from those marching in Charlottesville.chanting "Blood and Soil!" and “Jews will not replace us!”

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[dbrueck]

Look, I don't like the Rs or the Ds, but I think you're being very one-sided here. Both sides govern basically the same way. Both sides, when not in power, are full of fake umbrage when those in power do the same things the losers did the last time they were in power. Both sides have absurdly short memories. Both sides will do or say pretty much anything to win.

I'm all for pointing out the "sins" and hypocrisy of either party, but to try to say one side is even the slightest bit better than the other is a huge stretch - it relies on wearing some seriously rose-colored glasses or willful ignorance. Both parties are more alike than they are different.

Obama won both popular and electoral votes but set out to be "everybody's president."

LOL. The same could be said for every president. As in, every president and their winning party will tell you that's exactly what they've set out to do. Guess what? With each election, the losing side feels less and less like this is true. I thought Obama was an ok president, but his ability to reach out and unify with the "other" side seemed very much on par with all other recent presidents.

When you win an election despite losing the popular vote

I take issue with this because it's trying to change the rules of the election after the fact by implying that it was a false or flawed victory. All candidates knew the electoral votes were the only thing that mattered, and they strategized accordingly. The fact that Hillary won the popular vote does not in any way make Trump's victory less legitimate, but your statement seems to imply exactly that.

I wish Trump had not won, but he did. And guess what? Had he won the popular vote and lost the EC vote, he'd be saying the exact same things you are - trying to undermine a Clinton victory. It'd be B.S. in that case, just as it is now. It's as meaningful to say "Trump won despite losing the left-handed vote" or something - 100% irrelevant.

FWIW, I'm glad the EC exists. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. But it prevents California from being able to single-handedly choose the president each time, so... yay.

*and* you know your ideas are wrong

Oh, wow. Pause and listen to what you're saying. Do you really, truly, honestly think that's what the Republicans are all about? For the record, I'm not a Republican and I didn't vote for Trump. But if you've conjured up this notion of them being this hateful group of people who actually know they are in the wrong but are just being devious, then you've become part of the problem are as much to blame for the state of things as they are.

All across the political spectrum are people who care deeply for their country, care deeply about issues, have families, are real people, and who are trying to figure out the best solution to complex problems. I don't think very highly of many of the national politicians, and yet I'd wager that most of them - on both sides of the aisle - are sincere in their belief in their platform's positions.

The issues that divide the parties do so because the issues are complex and nuanced - there is not a single major issue that has a black and white, obvious solution, especially once you get into the nuts and bolts of implementing a solution. All actual solutions will be less than ideal, all solutions will involve tradeoffs, and all solutions will require everyone to compromise.

Because of this, they are hard to solve to begin with. But if both sides start demonizing the other side like you're doing, it pretty much guarantees that nothing will get done because that sort of bitter attitude prevents good faith negotiation and discussion.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[swillden]

For better or worse he's going to be President of the United States for the next three years and a couple months.

Maybe, maybe not. He's rapidly losing the support of Republicans in the House and Senate, and he really, really needs that support. The House has the power to impeach and the Senate has the power to remove him from office after the House impeaches. You know the Democrats would love to do both of those things (even knowing that Mike Pence is ready to step in), so Trump really needs to keep the Republicans on his side.

And then there's Mueller's investigation. Were a smoking gun proving Trump intentionally colluded to throw the election to have been found a few months ago, Trump might have survived it simply because the Senate would have refused to give him the boot. That is no longer true. He's become enough of an embarrassment to the GOP that if Mueller finds something even moderately bad, the Reps will kick him to the curb. And as time goes on, the Republicans are getting more and more fed up with him. A few more months of the current trends and they're going to be right there with the Democrats, looking for a reason to boot him, or worse.

At this point, I give Trump even odds of completing his first term, but that's only if he gets rid of Bannon, and starts accepting advice in the fairly near future. If he doesn't, the odds tilt heavily toward not making it four years.

I don't think he'll actually get the boot, mind you, he'll resign first. He never actually intended to be president and the job is nothing like what he thought it would be, so he might not even wait to be impeached, but instead resign in a fit of rage, blaming the media, Congress, disloyal staff and everyon else for his failure to accomplish anything of note. He may do it in the hopes that it will stop the Mueller investigation, but I strongly doubt that it would. I have no idea if Pence would pardon him if anything criminal came to light. Wouldn't shock me if Trump doesn't have any idea what Pence would do, either.

Bottom line, Trump had better figure out how to act like a president if he wants to be president for another three years and five months. And he'd really better step up his game if he wants another term. Either that or attempt to pull a Nicolas Maduro, but I don't think that would succeed in the US.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nazis breathe O2. You breathe O2. Therefore, you're a nazi! pwnt!

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[angel'o'sphere]

Putting people based on /. posts into a conservative or liberal box is pretty stupid.
And that is the main reason the USA voting system does not work.

Defining your self 'Conservative' is even more idiotic. So every time a new idea comes up, you are against it, because you are 'conservative'? Har har ...

I for my part want to be put into the box called 'rational' as I feel equally insulted regardless in what other box you put me.

Re:Opportunistic

[nine-times]

I agree. I find it really disappointing how many people here seem to be looking for ways to excuse Nazis. They go through a lot of trouble to make it seem "fair" and "objective" by drawing false equivalences, and trying to distract from real issues.

Because first, as you point out, BLM is not in itself a violent extremist hate group. Its fundamental message is, "It's not ok for police to kill black people." To all the people saying, "white lives matter," yes, of course that's true. That goes without saying, literally, which is the point. The reason they aren't saying "white lives matter" is that we all know white lives matter without even saying it, but some of us don't seem to realize that black lives matter too, equally as much.

But I digress. The point is, though there may be some violent people associated with BLM, they're not equivalent to Nazis. Any group can have some violent members, but you have to look at the group as a whole, and it's just not fundamentally a violent group.

But aside from all of that, it doesn't matter. Even if BLM were a violent extremist group, it's irrelevant. It doesn't serve to justify Nazi groups, not even a little. We should condemn the Nazis, full stop. No justification or equivocation. Other people's bad acts are for another conversation.

Because when you say, "Sure the Nazis are bad, but BLM is bad too!", it doesn't count as a condemnation of the Nazis. What you're actually doing is taking a combative rhetorical stance, assuming that your opponent is on the side of BLM, and you're taking the side of the Nazis. Sure, you're literally saying that the Nazis are bad, but then you're defending them by comparing them to a group you assume your opponent will want to defend.

You also see this approach where Trump supporters will say, "Maybe Trump has done some unethical and illegal things, but Clinton is a crook!" Even if we were to assume that Clinton was a criminal, that's not a valid argument that we should ignore Trump's misdemeanors (and possibly high crimes).

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[WillAffleckUW]

It's you.

Fun Fact: America doesn't like Nazis.

I'm sorry if that's a shock to you, but there it is.

As to why the story is in tech news, it's specifically referring to the business and manufacturing councils that tech firm CEOs were on.

Re:Opportunistic

[MightyMartian]

There hasn't been an effective far left/Communist movement in the United States since the 1930s. You might as well say "The only thing more dangerous than Nazis is ZOMBIES!!!!" Yes, Communists killed more people than Nazis, and PRC under Mao is responsible for the single largest mass death of people in history (the millions who died of starvation during the Great Leap Forward). But I don't know of any Communist regimes that explicitly picked out ethno-racial community and targeted them for complete extermination. You could argue Stalin tried it with the people of the Ukraine, but you will notice there are still lots of Ukrainians in Eastern Europe, and very few Jews, whereas after the Second World War, two out of every three Jews who had lived in Nazi-occupied areas of Europe had been murdered. So go on, keep peddling your moral equivalency.

The report I quoted shows that the "far left" is responsible for only a very small fraction of the number of extremist murders in the United States, whereas White Supremacist groups are responsible for MOST of the extremist murders in the US.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course. They don't buy into your party line. Therefore they are Nazis.

Pretty sure we're calling them Nazis because they held a rally where they displayed Nazi symbols and chanted Nazi slogans. Are you seriously arguing against calling those people Nazis or Neo-Nazis? Or are you arguing that those people were only part of the rally, and only some of the people at the "white nationalist" rally identified with "Nazis"?

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[jimtheowl]

A remarkable source of inspiration indeed.

Re:Opportunistic

[PopeRatzo]

If they wish to enforce Sharia Law against law abiding American citizens, yes,

Can you give us any examples of American Muslims who want to enforce Sharia law on all Americans?

You know, you're a special kind of jackoff, DigiShaman. A loudmouthed, bigoted jackoff. You got nothing bad to say about neo-Nazis who loudly express their desire to put Jews, Muslims and "mud people" in ovens, but you literally make up some shit about how you're going to be forced to follow Sharia Law. You and motherfucking Trump. Disgraziati.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

Soooo, pretty much like what happened in VA?

Dallas: "Black activists have raised the call for an end to violence, not an escalation of it. Yesterday's attack was the result of the actions of a lone gunman

Charlottesville: President condemns violence of a single car driver....

Hmmmm......interesting similarities. The OUTRAGE!!!!! Where is there justice in this crazy messed up country

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

When the hell did standing up FOR Neo-Nazi's become the righteous thing to do as opposed to standing up TO Neo-Nazi's?! Jesus fucking Christ!

Re:Opportunistic

[DigiShaman]

They're neo-Nazis. Given there's nothing good to say about them, why would I need to lead any commend with how bad they are? Nazis are going to be Nazis. They're going to hate. It's what they do. As for the Islamic holy war on the West, pushing for Sharia Law, you obviously haven't been paying attention to ISIS or Iran. Entire nation-states that either support it, or falling into civil war over it. But yeah, you sleep well knowing it hasn't happened in your corner of the world....yet. Give it time before a bunch of leftist fucks welcome the legalization of rape.

I guess Trump won't pander to big business

[bwanagary]

Based on my 4 decades experience in big business these CEOs who joined the Business and Manufacturing Council did so to further their own interests by either creating or influencing the presidential industry and commerce policies.  When they discovered that these councils were not convened for them and their own interests, and it wasn't an opportunity to solidify their place in the market they just bailed.  If they were on the council for the betterment of American industry, business, the American people, employees, working conditions or any other non-self-serving interest they'd still be there - of course!  Speaks for itself.  When the going gets tough the self-serving bail. This is what integrity and leadership look like. Not perfection - that's not part of the presidential job description.  Leadership and integrity of purpose - those are part of the job description.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Zero__Kelvin]

What planet are you living on. At the rate he is burying himself Christmas might even come early this year.

Ban DNC

[Anonymous Coward]

I like the removal of statues that remind people of slavery. They are not taking it far enough.

We need to ALSO disband the DNC and outlaw it. The party that started the civil war to keep slavery. The party that recently had a former head of the KKK as a top senator, and the "mentor" of their presidental candidate. The party that wanted to prevent women and blacks from having the right to vote.

I am deeply offended by ANYONE supporting the racist/misogynist DNC. That party needs to be disbanded and their racists leaders need to be put in jail. We have had enough of having to listen to members of theirs, like Robert Byrd, filibuster the civil rights act.

If the confederate history is bad to have, lets get rid of the political part that started it!

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you ask the police officers families in Dallas about that one.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Zero__Kelvin]

Actually that is just an elaboration of what it means for Trump to be Trump.

Re:Opportunistic

[PopeRatzo]

As for the Islamic holy war on the West, pushing for Sharia Law, you obviously haven't been paying attention to ISIS or Iran

So no, you can't give a single example of an American Muslim calling for Sharia Law to be enforced against all Americans.

You're garbage.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[naughtynaughty]

They aren't literally members of the old Nazi party but they literally call themselves Nazi's and spout the same slogans. It isn't necessary to accuse them of being Nazi's when they are sporting Swastica tattoos and chanting blood and soil.

So taking them at their word and referring to them as Nazi's seems quite reasonable.

Reasoning with Nazi's, whether they are literally Nazi's or just acting like Nazi's, isn't going to be any more successful today than it was 80 years ago, though I'm sure the Commander-in-Chief could convince himself that he could have made a great deal with them and prevent WWII.

I'm pretty confident that being a Nazi is worse than punching one in the face. Maybe we can ask some of the WW2 vets who were sent to Europe to do more than just punch Nazi's in the nose. But, sure, punching Nazi's in the nose is a crime and I don't recommend it. If you want the moral equivalent of a Nazi I'd go with a serial killer. I'd put them on about the same level of worseness.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

omfg u r dum

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[ScentCone]

The fact that you believe this drivel is astounding.

Why is it amazing? It was a perfectly accurate observation. That you're trying to wish away the reality of the situation, and were either blind to the lefty/media nonsense we've been suffering since long before the November election, or know you're lying but are hoping everyone else is too dumb to notice ... tells us all we need to know about your understanding and agenda.

Yes, is IS exposing things. The political left has come completely unhinged, shrieking for months about completely fictional things (Hillary lost because Trump worked with the Russians, not because she was an awful, corrupt, serially lying candidate who didn't even VISIT places like Wisconsin while campaigning, though she still blames Trump and Russia for that - hilarious), and displaying a parade of incredible hypocrisy at every turn. The left's childish tantrums in such areas is grandly on display because of who they're railing against. One doesn't have to be an actual Trump supporter to be very glad the liberals weren't rewarded with the Clintons being handed, again, the power they so crave.

So sure: he's confronting issues. He confronted Clinton's casual assertion that she wanted to use the Supreme Court as a surrogate legislature to make up for the fact that her party has lost nearly a thousand legislative seats, most of the state governorships, and both houses of congress. Trump named a rational, strict constitutionalist to the court, confronting that peril with perhaps the most important thing he could or will do.

He's already swung a big, sharp ax at the insanity of counterproductive, redundant, stupidly expensive federal regulations. That confrontation alone was worth his annoying personality. But it's nice that he's also confronting illegal immigration - which has dropped enormously just because of the change in enforcement priorities since he took office. There are things he can't gracefully confront in short order. Like, say, those charming black-masked "antifa" thugs who like to smash and burn things and beat people bloody in order to muzzle impure, insufficiently lefty thought and speech. He confronts it, but of course the lefty media immediately calls anyone who condemns planned, organized lefty violence a racist.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[rholtzjr]

Aaaaah, finally a sane voice in all this craziness.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[MightyMartian]

Hey, I'd be fine with calling the White Supremacists, Skinheads and Neo-Nazis "Nazis". We can call the White Nationalists "Nazi Collaborators". There's some nuance!

Re:Opportunistic

[NicknameUnavailable]

To claim the average Jew is anything like Soros is about as anti-Semitic as it gets, might as well say all white people are Hitler, all Mongolians are Ghangis Khan, all Russians are Stalin, and all Chinese are Mao while you're at it.

Re:Opportunistic

[NicknameUnavailable]

Shouldn't really surprise you that the globalists all fight for team globalist.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[desdinova 216]

there are multiple stories that Trump doesn't listen to anything he needs to hear.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[alvinrod]

I don't believe that being a Feminist implies "death to all men" as there are some like Christian Hoff Sommers that are quite opposed to the brand of feminism that tends to get a person labeled as a feminazi. The modern wave of feminism may not consider people such as Sommers as feminists though so there's some debate to be had there still.

Nazism on the other hand basically requires antisemitism or white race-based nationalism by definition. These things are parts of their 25-point program that was promulgated early in the party's history.

I don't know if earlier more radical feminists were big on things like "death to all men" as a whole. Dworkin certainly had some things to say about men that weren't particularly nice, but I don't think she advocated for killing them in the same way Nazi's wanted to exterminate the Jews. The SCUM Manifesto certainly did though and it is interesting to note that the author Valerie Solanas tried to kill Andy Warhol, but I don't think there was a wide degree of support for her or her book.

The people posting the "death to all men" stuff on Twitter or Tumblr blogs are probably about the same as the people posting edgy right-wing shit on 4chan, mostly younger teenagers or college kids that aren't going to do anything because they spend their life in doors on the internet. The mainstream internet feminists that get associated with the social justice crowd certainly advocating that position or aren't publicly stating it at any rate.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[drinkypoo]

If you are butt hurt about the Electoral College then you should be equally butt hurt about the Congress. They are both designed the same way for the same reason.

It's interesting you mention that; they are both incorrectly proportional for the same reason, which is specifically to make them unfair in precisely the way that you believe to be justice. See, the purpose of the electoral college was never to ensure that that populous states couldn't walk away with the election; it was literally to take the vote out of the hands of the people so that they couldn't get carried away. At least, that's what Alexander Hamilton intimates in Federalist Paper No.68.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Quirkz]

Using the word "won" is highly misleading here. She received more votes, but more votes doesn't "win" anything in this context. And, since most of us ought to understand that aspect of the electoral college before we leave elementary school, it's a really useless point for people to keep bringing up.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would hope that the fact you got modded down to -1 allows you some room to reflect on why your statement makes very little sense.

Consider: only hundreds of right wing extremists showed up this weekend, and thousands showed up to oppose them.

You've already lost. You just don't know it yet.

I'm not an extremist, I'm normal. Fuck both sides, one was paid by Soros and the other was steered by the CIA, the idiots on the street are on the same side and they don't even know which side that is. On Friday the one man arrested on the right wing extremist side was a "former" CIA agent, who happened to organize the whole event. Meanwhile Soros has been funding BLM and then Antifa to stir shit for years. The goal of "both" sides is the same: to cause a collapse they can come out on top of before their political games and economical lies stop working to control the commoners.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Any state can change how their electoral college votes are distributed from a winner-takes-all to proportional.

They wont though. Why would they? California would have contributed some votes to Trump's victory if they moved to a democratic system. Why be pro-democracy when it means 15 votes go to Republicans and 40 go to Democrats when you can just choose the status quo and no one that votes for anyone other than a Democrat has their voice silenced?

Democracy is only valued when the outcome is what people in charge want it to be.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[drinkypoo]

They aren't literal Nazis. You are just calling them that because you think it gives you an excuse to strip them of their rights.

They are functionally equivalent to Nazis, down to their imagery and ideology. Why would the appropriate response be any different?

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

uhoh. America did not f*** up choosing a president.

The current administration had a message those abandoned by the deindustrialization of the mid west liked (bring back manufacturing jobs and kick out the immigrants taking our jobs), you know those people the left has been ignoring and left to rot for ages. Thats what you got happening right there.

Naturally the current administration is probably not really going to do much for that group, another 6 to 12 months and they'll all realize they got lied to.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[loonycyborg]

Trump's not nearly as bad as George Bush Jr in that regard.

Re: Opportunistic

[drinkypoo]

The Antifa guys are definitely not just defending themselves.

No, they're defending others, too.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[buss_error]

Why you libs insist on ignoring this is beyond me

For the same reason there were over 60 "symbolic" votes in the House to repeal ACA. (For a total cost of 180 million dollars) - by the way, how's that repeal going for ya?
For the same reason there were 13 investigations into Benghazi (One of which cost 13.8 million dollars). By the way - how many times was she found guilty? Oh yeah - none. Including the last investigation run by republicans.
For the same reason there were redistricting in voting districts to ensure republicans won.
For the same reason republicans push the false narrative that there is a lot of vote fraud going on - to disenfranchise those that won't vote republican.

You don't get to say 'really, we won

Ok. But 61% of the people don't think "We won" with Donald John Trump as president. This is the second time in 20 years America got a president the majority didn't want, policy not to their liking, and the minority republicans force their agenda on an unwilling nation.

The other odd thing to my mind is how frequently republicans fall into displacement/transference mental illness. EG: Obama is gonna declare martial law, oh noes! But here's trump, talking about "delaying the 2018 and 2020 elections to ensure that there isn't massive voter fraud again." and republicans are fine with that. You complain and shout down people over fears of what they might do, while they go about doing exactly what they accuse others of trying to pull.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Obama won both popular and electoral votes but set out to be "everybody's president."

Not sure what planet you're on. Obama ruled from the left, not the center. He persecuted conservative organizations. He sold out on NK. He sold out on Iraq. He sold out on Iran. He bowed to and appeased our enemies everywhere. The only "everybody" you could possibly mean is the entire world.

That's not in America's interest.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you been in a cave? They're complaining about white cops and the police culture.

Have you? NWA was calliging out racist black cops in the mid-80s, and I am sure they weren't the first.

Check your confirmation bias.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it me, or has Slashdot become a media outlet for the left?

No, skippy, reality has an unfortunate bias to the left because the stupid shite the right spews is largely indefensible, makes no fucking sense, and isn't supported by facts or evidence.

So keep telling yourself the world is 6,000 years old, or tax cuts to the rich benefit anybody but the rich, or that it makes any fucking sense to have a society in which people die slow and painful deaths because they can't afford healthcare.

Conservative economics is every bit as much as insane as Soviet era Communist economics ... they're both utterly false and complete fucking works of fiction.

These days, the "left" is anybody who doesn't believe in the complete and utter BS the "right" is spewing.

Even the idiots who voted for Trump somehow manage to keep up the cognitive dissonance required to say "love Trump, but I'm glad he didn't kill off my healthcare so I won't die next month".

Trump is a delusional pathological liar, adored by fawning idiots who have no critical reasoning skills or understanding of the world around them. Who some how act like this idiot is somehow going to save their pathetic little lives.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Electoral College operates the exact same way the Congress does.

That's terrible then. Frightfully so. I shudder at the thought.

It prevents the bigger states from being big bullies and pushing everyone around.

It does no such thing.

Otherwise, the smaller states would have no interest in being part of the Union.

And so instead, we discredit the election system for the sake of a phony, ineffective solution? GREAT JOB.

If you are butt hurt about the Electoral College then you should be equally butt hurt about the Congress.

Um...we are, or haven't you noticed the numerous complaints about malappoirtioment, gerrymandering, and even lack of term limits? There's a reason why Congress polls so poorly. It doesn't represent the people.

They are both designed the same way for the same reason.

Poorly, because the Founding Fathers were incompetent fools who failed TWICE to develop a proper government, and that we're lucky somehow lurches along with some semblance of effectiveness?

Look at how quickly they had to write the 12th Amendment, and they STILL didn't fix things properly.

So petty virtue signalling is better than telling Trump things he needs to hear.

Trump doesn't listen, what's the point of a feel-good membership on a pointless council that accomplishes nothing except legitimizing an incompetent boob?

You really don't make me feel very good about voting Democrat in the next election. If you are an accurate reflection on the Democrat mindset then it's horribly unhinged and divorced from any sort of pragmatism.

And as a critic of Democrats, you make me feel very good about not voting for Republicans in the next election. Your mindset is horribly unhinged and divorced from any connection to reality.

That's an extra bonus above and beyond advocating the labeling people as Nazis so you can act like one yourself.

Yeah, about that...

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really like the nazis. More like weimar era communists. Their METHODS however are exactly like the Nazi SA though. And the weimar era german communists.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[desdinova 216]

the Conservatives have been trying to play identity politics for at least 25 years with the rise of Rush Limbaugh on talk radio.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

You're projecting so hard we can see your dreams on the moon. They're Nazi dreams. Own it and stop being a pussy.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

George Soros paid me to tell you that he runs the CIA too.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[HiThere]

How many stories have you submitted to the firehose? (I'll admit, I haven't submitted any, but then I'm not the one complaining.)

That said, yeah, I think it's just you. But there sure is a lot more politics and less tech than there used to be.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[bestweasel]

Only conservacuck libtards use emacs.

Re: Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

it's just that most media are left-wing by nature to those on the right.

FTFY

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Locke2005]

Simply put, CEOs of publicly traded companies have a fiscal responsibility to their companies. They constantly ask the question, "Will this increase or decrease the value of company shares?"As soon as it becomes apparent that it will DECREASE the value of the stock, they get the hell out of there! Note that this is not a complete explanation, since some of the people that resigned were not the CEOs of publicly traded companies. Apparently they also thought it would be bad for them to be associated with the Trump train wreck.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you have to ask what they're trying to get from Trump. The statement they're making isn't that they don't support Trump, the statement is do what we want you to do or we'll make you look bad. Not hating hate groups enough should have no impact on business and manufacturing councils. They're just whining trying to get good PR and trying to get Trump to give them something. Expect them to go back after the news stories die down as they can't let those powerful positions fall into someone else's hands.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[rfengr]

Shatner is Jewish too.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Chas]

In the American system, simply getting more votes doesn't get you victory.
Thus, its not a "win".
It's a statistical curiosity, nothing more.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Great, now go tell Trump.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only a Nazi would say that!

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is you jumping to wild conclusions based on a few words helping.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

The axis of evil

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[vlad30]

This is where people can't separate one thing from the other and help to move the country forward

Re: Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they're defending others, too.

Who?
Show me one fucking story, just one, of an Antifa member defending a single person being "attacked"?

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[riverat1]

I'd be more sympathetic to that argument if gerrymandering wasn't a thing.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

Name-calling == not having an argument at all.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[JohnFen]

Everyone, those dozens of CEOs of "American" companies included, would do well to remember that.

I doubt there's a single person who can forget it.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[skids]

But then we need a word to refer to them all as a group. I got it! How about "assholes"?

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

So was Hitler.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[OYAHHH]

Maybe I missed a digit, bad eyesight. Ugh. I'll trust your opinion, taint worth my time to track it down.

Regardless, I definitely have been here a long time. Have a good day..

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[OYAHHH]

> Defining your self 'Conservative' is even more idiotic. So every time a new idea comes up, you are against it, because you are 'conservative'? Har har ...

Your assertion assumes I agree with your definition of "Conservative". Probably not so.

Have a great day.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really, it shows the flaw in keeping the electoral college in an age where it isn't relevant, actually.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[thegarbz]

Get your head out of the sand. Trump is well and truly hated by much of the right too.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[OYAHHH]

I've been given ultimatums by far to many liberals to bother with trying to work "together" any longer.

Not saying conservatives don't do the same thing.

But, I'll stick to voting my conscience, electing the people who will do what I desire. It is a lot easier.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[OYAHHH]

Ha ha, you may be right. And I bet I get finished quicker as well. And if you don't like that C-g to you.

politics had sidelined the mission?

[mnemotronic]

Obviously not want to step on anyone's toes, CEO Brian Krzanich resigned the council on Monday and said

politics had "sidelined the important mission of rebuilding America's manufacturing base ...

Nice suckup there Brian.

Actually it wasn't politics, it was just a relatively minor Trumpian faux-pas. It wasn't the worst or dumbest thing he's ever done, or will do. It's is if, after 9/11, George Bush had said that the people working in the World Trade Center had been just as responsible for the attacks as the people on the planes. Or after the San Bernardino massacre, Obama has said "14 Americans got an unpleasant surprise as they came together to celebrate the holidays. The injuries and possibly worse were the result of actions by everyone present". Trump knows where his voter base is and didn't want to upset anyone with harsh, politically incorrect labels like "intolerant" or "hate-monger" or "racist" or "dickless inbred, syphalic-brained diarrhea guzzler".

Re:politics had sidelined the mission?

[Anonymous Coward]

politics had "sidelined the important mission of rebuilding America's manufacturing base ...

American manufacturing is up up up and 9 of 10 jobs have been lost to automation. The first candidate that approaches things from perspective, rather than the lie of 'we're going to bring them back' is going to sweep into power easily. I have a firm belief that most Americans appreciate the truth.

It should start with 'Long weekend every weekend!' but nobody seems to want to work towards that.

Re:politics had sidelined the mission?

[Anonymous Coward]

sorry - 9 of 10 jobs lost :-)

Re:politics had sidelined the mission?

[mnemotronic]

It should start with 'Long weekend every weekend!' but nobody seems to want to work towards that.

The French do. Their economy isn't so hot but they sure know how to relax and enjoy life. Americans and, I think, Japanese, believe in the "work very hard and die as soon as possible" ethic. That way your next of kin get to deal with the paperwork. Woo-Hoo! Let's hear it for the highly-motivated self-destructing slave labor class!! Thank you sir! May I have another?!

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[OYAHHH]

My gut says msmash is largely responsible.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow you're not American? Normally black and white, divided / not divided style thinking is a sure sign we're talking to not only an American, but also a political card carrying flag waving nutjob.

The fact you think that Trump is simply exposing something that pre-exists is truly a marvel. You should donate your brain to science so we can all figure out how it went so horribly wrong.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[thegarbz]

Trump condemned every side that commits violence. It's hysteria to take umbrage at his failing to specifically call out one particular side of things.

Yeah like the side that started it, the side that breached the conditions of the rally, and the side that killed someone with intent and seriously injured many more. They totally fit in with the rest of the group.

Get some fucking perspective.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then don't fucking read it or comment on it!

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

Citation please you slimy fuck.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dafuq? "Liberals called me mean names and now that means I have to be an extremist murderer!"

To the irrational and unhinged who don't think to themselves "holy fuck, I'm surrounded by Nazis and we're on the same side what the fuck am I doing here" ... you bet your ass it does.

You're either smart enough to realize you're a fucking extremist asshole and left a long time ago, or you fucking double down on that bullshit. These clowns are all one tantrum away from being the one driving the car.

Do you honestly think these people who think running down "leftist cuckholds" is a good idea aren't batshit crazy idiots one whiny ego bruise away from doing this shit? They're all unstable losers who need to blame the world for their problems, and a little name calling is probably enough to crack that bag of crazy open.

Trump supporters all have tiny brains, fragile egos, and don't have a solid grasp on reality. They are the worst sort of special little snowflakes, because they'll become even more unhinged at the smallest provocation ... like the fucking idiot Trump they adore so.

Trump is every bit the rabid little fascist as Kim Jong Un .. and his followers are the same. They just think being a screechy little idiot is actually some principled stand.

Face it, America is gripped by scary and irrational idiots who are all whining little punks crying in their pillows and cleaning their guns.

America has become a pathetic fucking laughing stock where rational thought it apparently fucking optional. And you have an irrational fucking moron as president ... who behaves almost as erratic as every other piss-pot megalomaniac dictator. And his follows are just as fucking crazy.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Media has been advertising that Nazi gathering for months now. Yet only 100 racist assholes show up from the whole country. Makes me hopeful for the future of the republic.

However, the media-industrial complex turns this 100 nazi assholes, battling the other 100 BLM/anti-first assholes, into "Trump is racist," somehow. Why? Because the fake Russia story is no longer working out, but the deep state needs its trillions for new nukes and planes, and cheap labor, and undocumented democrat voters.

Re:Opportunistic

[cyberchondriac]

Have you been in a cave? They're complaining about white cops and the police culture.

Have you? NWA was calliging out racist black cops in the mid-80s, and I am sure they weren't the first.

Check your confirmation bias.

Check yours.

Ambush-style killings of police up 167% this year. (2016) You think that's just coincidence?
These assassins had BLM affiliations or sympathies.
https://www.usatoday.com/story...

Here are some very anti-white racist statements by BLM co-founder Yusra K. Ali.
https://archive.fo/kpjIG/e8a79...

Remember this?
http://www.washingtontimes.com...

Many lawsuits pending for their violence:
http://www.wnd.com/2017/07/aut...

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

White is by definition racist. That's what "racist" means.
All whites are racist at some level, and need to pay.

Re: Opportunistic

[DigiShaman]

How about an entire poll.

https://www.centerforsecurityp...

Now go fuck yourself and be gone!

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Gussington]

Everything has to be portrayed as a left or right issue to keep people distracted and fighting among themselves

I suggest you get out more. Congress came together to sanction Russia, and they seem to be coming together more and more in opposition to pretty much anything Trump says. Left and Right is trash talk, if you get past the headlines, there's a lot of problem solving happening in Congress and the Senate.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Quirkz]

That's a fine conclusion to draw. I always thought it seemed unnecessary, though as I kid I worried more about unfaithful delegates than scenarios like this one. Still, "we should change this to something more sensible" isn't the same argument as "if we had changed it to something more sensible in the past, things would be different now, so let's talk about that imaginary world a lot."

Re:Opportunistic

[MightyMartian]

If you think the US is Communist, then you really have no idea what the fuck Communism is.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[pslytely psycho]

"The other option thinks that it's OK to use violence to silence political opposition."

Most disingenuous statement ever. Since the (White Nationalists, KKK, Alt-right, insert favorite right leaning extremist here) advertised in advance they would be armed. They came looking for a confrontation. Trump endorsed it, then condemned it, then endorsed it.
It was funny watching the Creamsicle Charlatan's head nearly explode as he tried to defend the indefensible.
Great comedy troupe, shitty government.

Re: Opportunistic

[PopeRatzo]

https://www.centerforsecurityp... [centerfors...policy.org]

You're going to cite a poll done by Frank Gaffney? You pitiful scumbag.

This is Frank Gaffney:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/...

And even HIS poll doesn't show what you (and he) says it shows. Read the motherfucking poll, not Gaffney's "analysis". You alt-Right jackoffs really are a sick and twisted bunch, you know? And you've done a whole lot more damage - perpetrated a whole lot more terrorist attacks - than Muslims or BLM or any other group in the US. You, buddy. You're the baddie.

Behaviour is not the same ideology

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump condemned the behavior during the protest of the sides involved.
That does not mean that he makes a moral equivalence between the ideologies of the sides involved.

Let's say a protesting group (group Y) supports some horrible terrorist who killed law enforcement officers.
Then another group (group X) during the same protest is paying respect and tribute to the killed officers.

Group Y acquired permit. Group X did not.
Both groups started physical fight.
Both groups should be condemned for violence.

condemning both groups for violence, however, does not mean that their ideologies are morally equal.
To make that equivalence of ideologies, is repulsive to even think about.

Re: Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

What IS a fact is blacks kill more blacks than any police force.

Let's see, 40 million blacks in the US, the largest single police force has around 40 thousand officers?

Exactly what meaning do you think your statement has? Do you just randomly babble crap and not think about it?

Besides, the DOJ has found systematic racism in numerous police forces, including Baltimore, Chicago, Ferguson, Los Angeles and New York City.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

More like America fucked up in letting major corps run the show. They'll never let the peasants elect someone that goes against them ever again.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're just full of it. If you can't see the damage Antifa and BLM are creating, and choose to focus strictly on the alleged white supremacists, then you're nothing but a hypocrite. It has always taken two to tango. And Trump has done nothing to divide this nation in comparison to what his predecessor did. If you refuse to see that, then you're either an echo chamber, or a shill.

I agree with the other individual. I'm trying to figure out what on Earth is wrong with you folks on the left. In 61 years on this rock, never have I seen behavior like you're displaying. If losing makes you go China Syndrome on us, then maybe you should consider avoiding politics. Have you ever been in the service during times of trouble. Do you even have a clue as to how nasty the civil version of what you are pushing is? If you keep it up, you're liable to find out. Just sayin' ...............

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut the fuck up, faggot.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

NO, you forget that historically the progressive left has been the political group backing multinational corporations. this is obviously an attempt by big business to enact their socialist/communist agenda and end all profit making and private property.....oh, wait. um, ill get back to you on this.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

blm and antifa causalties since the 20th century: 0. nazi and klan casaulties since the 20th century: over 50 million. yep, just the same.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[skapunker21]

"I like football and porno and books about war.
I've got an average house, with a nice hardwood floor."

Re: Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

Even that poll doesn't try to claim that American Muslims want Shariah law enforced on other Americans. And the vast majority say the Constitution is still more important than Shariah.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[naubol]

https://news.vice.com/story/vice-news-tonight-full-episode-charlottesville-race-and-terror

Contains plenty of those 'not-nazis' talking about how their long term goal is eradication of 'others'.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

She lost the Electoral College, which is how the President has been chosen since the early 1800s. Remember that always.

Stop moving the goalposts to apologize for a shockingly arrogant campaign that caused a career politician that everybody expected to win in a landslide to fail to beat the most flawed Presidential candidate ever nominated.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

So because the President is intended to be elected by the States, and the States have chosen how their electors should represent them, it's handcuffed because some people appointed to a completely unaccountable body can't just choose to do whatever the fuck they want?

Sounds like having State laws that bind the electors to the vote State's wishes as the State's appointed representatives is working exactly as it should.

Compliments to shareblue on their effort in /.

[Anonymous Coward]

And Trump for being one of the few people in the country that still has the balls to admit that maybe Antifa itself shares part of the blame, as they decided to counter-protest armed like a small army AT THE SAME PLACE and AT THE SAME TIME which is VERY OBVIOUSLY NOT GOING TO END WELL.

White supremacists are cancer.
Communists are cancer.
An-Caps are cancer.
Antifa is cancer.
BLM is cancer.

And the sooner the mainstream media stops pretending that only a subset of those are cancer the better off the country will be.

Re:Compliments to shareblue on their effort in /.

[Anonymous Coward]

"counter-protest AT THE SAME PLACE and AT THE SAME TIME"

You might want to look up the meaning of the term "counter-protest." The results may surprise you!

EVERYTHING IS A CANCER

False equivalence and equivocation. Unfortunately your post exhibits typical human psychological behaviour: you're dehumanising your opponents.

The ideology of white supremacy is a cancer; no doubt about it.

White supremacists? Well, I'm sure some of them are nice as pie in a lot of situations, while others are scum, just as with any bunch of people. The problem is that they have been infested with a serious memetic flaw that is damaging and destabilising to humanity and to some of the people around them. White supremacy is the cancer.

The other ideologies? Not a cancer. The people? Again; nice as pie, some scum, just as with any bunch of people.

Might I also suggest to any white supremacist or even white nationalist reading this that they get genetically tested to discover their true ancestry. The results may surprise you!

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

And what is the interest of the bigger states of staying in the union?

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hillary won more votes in a system where certain states always vote a certain way. Which causes many voters (on both sides) to stay home. If the vote was popular we'd see completely different vote totals.

You know that. Thus your statements are meaningless.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder what idiots are doing on slashdot...

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[MachineShedFred]

Wish I had mod points.

Nazis are deplorable, and there is no place for racist thugs in modern society.

That being said, the rights enshrined in the Constitution allow for ignorant hillbilly racist fuckheads to be ignorant hillbilly racist fuckheads (as long as it doesn't violate someone else's rights), just the same as it allows for me to be able to call them ignorant hillbilly racist fuckheads without fear of legal sanction or prosecution. And, just like the ignorant hillbilly racist fuckheads will bear the consequences of their ignorant hillbilly racist fuckhead ways, I will bear the consequences of my choice to proclaim them as such under the rights of free speech.

For some reason, this concept is either too hard to understand, or just willfully ignored by some people. And, even though I called them ignorant hillbilly racist fuckheads no less than six times, I'm sure someone will reply saying that I'm a nazi supporter in all seriousness, because I didn't immediately join in lock step with wanting to lock them all up and throw away the key (or something more violent) because of their belief in ignorant hillbilly racist fuckheadism.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you like it when none of that actually happens, because it would be incredibly short sighted, horrible policy, or straight-out illegal.

I think I speak for roughly 320 million Americans when I say that we're all glad you don't get your way.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[MachineShedFred]

Or they don't want to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the first President in modern history to claim there were "really good people" in a fucking white supremacist rally shouting anti-semitic slogans long before the violence started.

Any truly good people would have found their car keys and used them to get the fuck out of there when the torches and jew hate started. That "press conference" was unbelievable, and I blame nobody for running as far from this administration as they can.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

It downmods like the one you got which depress the fuck out of me and make me want to never come back here. Fucking alt-reich snowflakes.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

For fucks sake, they call themselves Nazis, they are not being labeled by anyone but themselves. Are you utterly stupid, or just a closet Nazi?

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're entitled to your opinion, but ignoring or feeding the monster is worse, and then at some point you would no longer be entitled to your opinion.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[naubol]

For better or worse he's going to be President of the United States for the next three years and a couple months. Everyone, those dozens of CEOs of "American" companies included, would do well to remember that.

This is an awfully nice place you have here. Shame if anything were to happen to it.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

> wish to enforce Sharia Law against law abiding American citizens

Haha. Ahahahhahah. Hahahhahahahhaa.

You're stupid. And disgusting. But really, really, stupid.

I partially agree

[aepervius]

While I agree it is astounding, your comparison with what cheapened with more or less a revolution, is not correct. The US is supposed to be a stable democracy and there are laws and judicial ways to get a status removed. Mob rule is not one of them. What next ? If a mob decided to destroy one of the general of the north, would you accept it ? Maybe a Rosa Park statue by white supremacist ? If you don't like the idea, then maybe you are accepting mob rule for the viewpoint you like... And refuse it for those you dislike... Then it ain't a state of justice and law anymore. The one destroying the status should have tried/continue to try for a legal way, and if the legal way fail, campaign loudly on media to show the politician refusing to remove the status. Destroy the narrative that it was just to remember confederate, when most of those were done at a time of jim crow laws, EVEN in state which sided with the union (and therefore cannot be about the confederation but certainly about racism), point out that the groups setting up those statues did it for racist reason (IRC daughter of confederacy).

But taking it into your own hand and destroying public property is not good, and should be punished. Otherwise what will be next ? Public lynchage ?

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Feminists [...] I've yet to see them decide to start running over people with cars, threaten jews and other minorities

Valerie Solanas, the mother of radical feminism, wrote the SCUM Manifesto, in which she calls for the systematic extermination of men, as punishment for the supposed sins of men and "patriarchy". (Honestly, it makes Mein Kampf look tame.) Julie Bindel, a reporter at The Guardian, has called for all men to be put into camps ... or simply shot. Tens of thousands of feminists tweet #killallmen.

In terms of the sheer number of people calling for genocide, and in terms of the political power those people have, feminism today far exceeds Nazism.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump is no Hitler. Hitler had a plan. A modicum of patience. And the decency to off himself.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

That means holding ALL perpetrators of violence responsible.

Liberal activists looking for a fight don't get a free pass. This is especially true for the ones that specifically advocate political violence.

The left has no interest in real non-violence any more. Some of them give lip service to it but their rhetoric sounds more like people looking to get in a brawl. Nobody is interested in acknowledging the troublemakers or calling them out.

If anything, liberal media outlets cover up their nonsense.

NO SOUP FOR YOU!

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am converted! I have seen the light!

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[schleimkeim]

well, you have to ask yourself did America seriously fuck up in choosing a President?

You need some suitnignogs to leave the ship to see that? I mean, watching the guy trying to talk for 3 minutes is enough to see that he is a complete and utter moron with no right to be in any place of power at all.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

The suspected age of a USERID is completely irrelevant. I've been visiting Slashdot almost daily since 1998 and have never and will never register a name. This site definitely leans left. Always has. That never bothered me. It's the mindless Microsoft bashing that always grinded my gears.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

There was no right answer. A bunch of terrible candidates.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh, the simplicity of the conservative mind. Always coming up a few meters short. Let me help you out here. Nazis want to use violence to kill Jews and non-Whites. Antifa wants to use violence to stop Nazis. Now, go lay down because I know you must be dizzy after reading that and trying to comprehend it.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for articulating this. I have personally wondered about the recent trend in left articles here but thought it may have been new mods or something.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[serviscope_minor]

I looked up feminism in the dictionary today and found it was redefined to "the paranoid bullshit in x0ra's head".

So I guess you're right!

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[angel'o'sphere]

The definition of a conservative is that he wants to conserve the status quo. Hence the word: "conservative".

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe white votes should count for more too?

It is a retarded and dishonest system, but that is pretty much the US trademark currently.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

He is Right. He just also happens to be so fucking wrong.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

It has to be left vs right because if it became about anything less tribal then the people standing with him might actually consider whether they wanted to be associated with him, but as long as it's there team under attack they don't even bother considering whether there might be some merit.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except they aren't. Sure plenty of elected republicans are saying something but they're being very careful not to critiscise Trump directly in part because they know that polling shows that a huge part of the base still supports him. They're saying enough to avoid critiscism for saying nothing and nothing more.

Trump in 6 months?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, trump didn't divide the US. The puppeteers with Obama and the mediadivided the US. Trump is the result. They were so arrogant that they just assumed that Hilary would be annointed.

You mean after the President

[Anonymous Coward]

Gave shade and or is a White Nationalist.

Re:Opportunistic

[Plus1Entropy]

The first one doesn't mention BLM at all. Furthermore while ambush killings went up 167% in 2016... well that's because it went from 6 in 2015 to 16, which ties it with 2014. So yeah I can explain it pretty well, the sample size is very small and thus the data is very noisy.

ZOMG it went up by infinity percent because last year it was 0 and now it's 1!

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

... Both Bushes ...

Billy is one, I know that for sure. Which is the other Bush? ;-)

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[BadTuna]

So,

"But look at all the good Hitler did!" is something you'd defend also?

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

This is roman_mir, you know, he has no idea how to communicate with anybody else in an effective fashion. He just babbles and sputters.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a registered Democrat, and I don't like black people or Jews...

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet we're told that is why Muslims become terrorists...

Get your story straight.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been around for over a decade. Their changes to AC posting are the primary reason for me going elsewhere.

What kind of idiotic business strategy tells engaged users to fuck off?

Re: Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

DOJ when run by a BLM member found that police were racist?! Shocking!

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but the protection is only that the government won't punish you for calling them the way you see them.

Punching a Nazi is, unfortunately, assault.

A strange game.
The only winning move is not to play.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

How many votes did Russia change by hacking the US voting machines? How many people changed their votes because of what was in Podestas emails? Why is it ok to reward HRC for cheating her way through "the process" but not ok for trump to win through the process?

Idiot

It's Google's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Google is Antifa. Pretty much.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics.

The problem with your analysis is that its not evenly distributed. There are plenty of towns with zero black officers on the force, they are obscured by the areas which do have a lot. Furthermore, it does not examine the question of management. Individual officers can only do so much, they don't decide what neighborhoods to patrol or the standards for use of force as or even for nuisance level enforcement that disproportionately affect minorities.

Yeah, real life is very complicated, and a single nationwide statistic doesn't even begin to cover it.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

Facts without context are the stock in trade of bigots.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[squiggleslash]

Yes, I think watered down is the right term. While he's promoted violence against protesters, threatened to jail opponents, refused to accept the results of the election even after he won it - and is making plans to disenfranchise large segments of the population; while he has scapegoated vulnerable minorities including blacks, muslims, and hispanics, and promoted hatred against them, and while he has indicated support for neo-nazi groups, and included at least two people with links to neo-nazi groups in his staff, he has not yet promoted wars of aggression or murdered those groups he's scapegoating.

So yes, I would strongly advise using the term "watered down" at this time.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

You dont have to like them. Just don't advocate killing them, and try not to discriminate.

Really not too tough.

Re: Opportunistic

[DigiShaman]

Actually, I AM the good guy. I stand to fight, and destroy oppression around the world. That includes Islamists, Nazis, Antifa, BLM memembers, and anti-abortionists that would blow buildings. I'm not alt-Right, but I do lean right insomuch as taking a stand for Liberty; something the left never does. The Left is down-right motherfucking Orwellian! And yes, the Nazi movement has far far more common with the Antifa (anti fascists) that you would ever admit (yes, the irony is rich) .

Nothing gives me a hard-on like seeing leftist institutions fail. I literally jump for joy when it happens; because the lessons of left-ism couldn't hurt enough. Pain, is natures way of saying "don't do that you fucking idiot". So yes, I have a nice drink to when the USSR failed, N.Korea imploded and stays in the dark, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, (Middle East in general with theocratic control) or any of these oppressive dictatorships and institutions of oppression fail. It's glorious!! It's a reminder to the youth of the world of "see, that's fail, don't do that, learn from that god awful mistake."

If you stand with any of these left-ist institutions of fail, then you are the enemy of humanity!

Re:Opportunistic

[dunkelfalke]

I don't know, why you bother. roman_mir is insane. Has been for years.

Lithuanians, Estonians and Latvians toppled statue

[gDLL]

I know it's pointless arguing with lefties but.... Lenin was NOT part of their culture/people/nation, he was just a foreign invader. I'm not american but i guess you consider those southerners as some other nation. Either you consider them americans and accept their history, or not. PS: no worries after American gets invaded this will all become moot.

defending child rape

[gDLL]

By "defending child rape" you mean defending their children from soldiers rape. No?

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend...

[Anonymous Coward]

So you find antifa and BLM disgusting but say nothing of the literal nazis marching chanting heil trump preaching a message of all non whites must die? That doesn't phase you tho.

No you aren't fighting for America. You are fighting for an ideology that is hateful and disgusting. But keep telling yourself that you are right.

One can fight for a person's right to free speech, due process, and the general rule of law, without having to endorse their particular ideas.

Per Evelyn Beatrice Hall: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

While their beliefs are abhorrent, there is nothing illegal about what the Nazis were doing: they got a permit to march / demonstrate fair and square. Did the counter-protesters? Is the US a nation of laws, or of vigilante justice?

Re: Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

Listen, it takes two to tango, Jim. One group (the ones with the permit) was prepared for violence, and the other group called their bet, and constantly escalate the situation. They are both wrong, and as much as Trump is a buffoon, he's not wrong to call a spade a spade.

The nazis or whatever you want to call them have a disgusting message, but they wouldn't have to bring shields and weapons if the BLM / antifa respected their right to peaceful protest, and didn't have poor impulse control.

There is a narrative in the media to divide the country, and you all are falling for the bait.

Re:Opportunistic

[cyberchondriac]

So that unprecedented slew of ambush style cop killings between the time of Ferguson riots and 2017 didn't happen?
You don't think that was a result of BLM and/or their rhetoric? It was just random coincidence, I'm sure. Way to look the other way.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am on the side of individual freedoms

Questionable at best
 
 

anti-collectivism

Ayn Rand made up that term but never actually defined it, hence you can use it to mean pretty well whatever you want.
 
 

anti-socialism

That statement you actually can support with your own writings.
 
 

anti-fascism

That statement is an outright lie. You are arguably the most vocal proponent of fascism on slashdot today.
 
 

anti-communism

That is another of the rare statements you make that actually goes with what you write in other comments.
 
 

anti-religion

You are not fooling anyone with that line of shit there, roman. Compared to you the pope is an atheist. This post, like so many others that you write, is just another one of your attempts to bring people into the ranks of the religion that you so tirelessly promote here.
 
 

anti-government

Questionable at best. You have many times told us who you want to see in charge of government. If there is a government - even run solely by your own personal lord and savior with him not beholden or responsible to anyone else - there is still nonetheless a government.
 
 

anti-income-and-wealth-taxation

Considering how fondly you speak of the things that you take advantage of that are produced with the proceeds of income and wealth taxation, it is highly unlikely that you are actually fully opposed to taxation. More likely you - like so many others like you - are just opposed to being expected to pay taxes yourself.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus christ, do they have a membership list and a policy statement? I should be alarmed.

You're an actual idiot.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember, in newspeak, 'underrepresented' means 'smaller percentage than white people' when talking about black people, and 'smaller percentage than males' when talking about women. They'd be saying underrepresented if black people made up 30% of the force.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[gnick]

You could could pay people to walk down the street carrying anything you want shouting 'Heil Musk', that will not make Musk a Nazi sympathizer.

It would if he came out and defended them. People who sympathize with nazis are known as nazi sympathizers. "A lot of fine people" with a permit my ass. The idea that those protesters were somehow paid by the left is too stupid to address.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

And as time goes on, the Republicans are getting more and more fed up with him. A few more months of the current trends and they're going to be right there with the Democrats,

Yesterday, when he doubled down on his "both sides" rhetoric, and added in that there were "some good people" among the neo-nazis, I think he just finished that few more months up ahead of schedule. Enough Republicans are ready to throw him under a bus now that the impeachment can start. If he had any sense, he'd take a cue from Nixon and resign, but most likely we are about to make history with the first president removed from office through impeachment.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is apparently something to be vilified nowadays...

When did doing an honest day's work, raising a family, and generally minding one's own business become wrong?

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

USA is not Communist. It just gives a horrible name to Free Market Capitalism by destroying individual freedoms

Free market capitalism itself gives a bad name to free market capitalism. The USA is just very good at free market capitalism so it exemplifies capitalism's bad parts, just as it exemplifies the good parts.

USA is Collectivist

The whole idea of a nation state is that a collective of people is now suddenly associated under one nation, ruled by one government. That one government may have multiple levels with checks and balances (like the US does), but it is still a collective, with those in the collective now under a collective label (e.g "American")

When your Constitution says the government won't infringe on certain rights of the people... who is "the people"? A collective, with the definition of who is in it decided ultimately by the government. A government that the Constitution created. Repeat for emphasis: the Constitution CREATED government and increased collectivism.

Who is in the collective of "the people" starts simple as "anybody within our borders at time of nation's founding", but then you'll always get into details on who's a citizen or who counts only as 3/5ths of a person, or who is "legal" or "illegal" immigrant, who gets to run for office, etc. These should look familiar as they are some of the things talked about in the Constitution.

what USA is supposed to be - a country of Free People not Ruled by any form of government, not ruled at all but Free *from* government.

Nonsense. The US is founded as a country where STATES are united for some common things like defense while still retain a high degree of autonomy while being ruled by a federal government (understand the words "United" and "States"). When the Constitution was ratified, this actually created ANOTHER government people are ruled by (replacing the British one they just overthrew... so instead of a boss far far away, you now get a boss living right next to ya and could micromanage you more!... which is exactly what happened). Before the ratification, people weren't free from their their state government. After the ratification, they're weren't free from state AND federal government (a federal government that is stronger than the previous continental congress). They might not even by free from local governments and powerful organizations, like their church.

China is also not Communist, it is more Capitalist than USA for sure

More nonsense. China is not more capitalist than the USA. They're running a more communist version of a capitalism, where the central government interferes with (they call it manages) the economy. For example, China has much less problem with government taking partial or total ownership of businesses. China has much more centralized planning in doing things like infrastructure. China also manipulates its currency (more than the Feds do to USD). The Chinese government tightly controls what businesses can even operate in China (see: Google pulling out as they didn't want to comply with China's censorship rules)

In this very story there are enough replies that offer Communist 'solutions' to the problems created by people who would rather see Communism than Free Market Capitalism in USA.

That's evidence the US is still running by the principles in which it is founded. Nowhere in the Constitution says the US has to be a free market capitalist country. Nowhere in the Constitution forbids it from going communist. If anything, the Constitution supports people (I would assume many of those comments and solutions were made by Americans) having a say in how the US as a collective will run, no matter what their ideas are. That is what makes the American form of government so special compared to the alternative where kings and nobles and dictators decide everything.

C

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Look I think everyone with a brain agrees that white supremacists are dangerous jerks. However in civilized society even disgusting jerks have the right not to be physically attacked for their beliefs. The Nazi/white supremacists went to Charlottesville looking for a fight. Club wielding Antifa and BLM protesters gave them one.
That is not okay. This was not a case of protesters clashing with police. This was two groups beating on each other, while another group of unarmed and peaceful protesters, one of whom was murdered by a vehicle, were also injured in the ruckus.
It was a failure on the part of the police, the courts (Which allowed a known violent group a permit to march) and at some level the state government.
After the fight on Aug 11 the governor of Virginia should have called up the National Guard. By the time he actually did so the next morning, forty five minutes before the first act of violence it was too late. At that time the permit to march had already been pulled. So both protesters on both side were in violation of the law, and the violence occurred not at the original march site, but at the alternative site that the city had proposed for the march, but which the court blocked. The crowds, on both sides, were in violation of the law. Violence was perpetrated by members of the crowd, on both sides.
Unfortunately a women who by all accounts was a peaceful protester was killed by an individual who came to Virginia from out of state likely looking for a fight. Even she was in violation of the law since the city pull the permits due to the August 11 violence.
There are no innocents here, just some people who are more guilty than others.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope they're all disgusting. All of them should be thrown in jail for inciting to riot.
Both sides can chant whatever they want. That's what free speech is all about, but as soon as they start swinging clubs and tiki torches they all should go to jail.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama - a watered down Stalin.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't matter even what a genuine Nazi is saying, that's never worse then people actually employing violence to silence others.
Yes, the guy punching the Nazi is actually worse than the Nazi.

Where does the guy running someone down with a car fit into that scale? Or the guys that accused an innocent person of being the driver without verifying first? Or the vigilantes that then sent the innocent guy death threats causing his whole family to have to flee their home for their safety?

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Besides, if you're pro trump, shouldn't you be anti trump by now? Like he hasn't done any of the main things he said he would, and in fact did the opposite in some cases.

For many voters it was about a single issue...stealing a supreme court nomination from the democrats. Mission accomplished

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Sindar By Choice]

Bottom line, Trump had better figure out how to act like a president if he wants to be president for another three years and five months.

The fascinating thing is that before his election, everyone was wondering if his OTT bluster and straight up idiotic antics were just a ruse to appeal to the dipshits in the country.
Endless hours of cable news pundits discussing this topic had many in the US convinced that Trump was just "playing an idiot" to get elected...

Well, we've seen over and over and over again that indeed, he actually is a fucking idiot, and that the honeymoon is most definitely over.

Trump has so completely driven off the cliff, no parachute will save him now.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[edtice1559]

It's not trying to "change the rules" of the election. Nobody is suggesting installing Hillary. The political term is "mandate" and the Republicans clearly didn't get one. That's why they are struggling so much to govern right now. You don't have a mandate with 49% of the vote. Do I really, truly, honestly think that's what the Republicans are all about? Certainly not all of them. There may be no good neo-Nazis, but I have no doubt that there are good Republicans as individuals. However, having watched the Republican primary debates, every single candidate would answer each and every question with an inspiring vision of a great society followed by declaring that they would achieve that outcome by cutting taxes for the rich. I don't believe that cutting taxes for the rich is a panacea and I can't imagine any thinking person actually subscribes to that. So if you are going to stand up and proclaim such a thing, you aren't being intellectually honest. The Democrats consistently put policy before politics and genuinely believe in their policies (even though some of them are a bit unreasonable). The Republicans put politics first because they only policy they care about is corporate welfare. Many of the ideas that the Democrats put forward scare the life out of me, but at least I know that, when elected, they will try to implement policies that they think will make our country better. The Republicans, tax cuts for the rich only. Bad social policy that tries to help people isn't ideal. But it's better than bankrupting the country to put a few extra bucks in billionaires' pockets.

I am getting tired of winning just like he said.

[Anonymous Coward]

roflmao

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Hylandr]

Good Thing Trump didn't defend either side.

He called both sides out for bad behavior. And he's right. Both sides were in the wrong. Pure and simple.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

it industry is no interest now for the geek, now working only marketing and PR(OS,browser,games and hardware)

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[mjwx]

You know the far right is on the ropes when they stop trying to defend their position and start pushing conspiracy theories about actors paid to put on a fake Nazi march and fight with the (real) leftists.

This isn't a new thing, it's something they spent the entire election campaign doing. They didn't promote their own policies and values, they spent all of their time trying to sling shit at Clinton. Well, Americans got the government they voted for.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[AutodidactLabrat]

Read the 14th Amendment chump
No, it is NOT supposed to be that way, at least since 1868

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[AutodidactLabrat]

2.8% is not a "statistical curiosity"
it is a direct contravention of the 14th Amendment Guarantee of "equal rights, privileges and immunities"

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[AutodidactLabrat]

T... It prevents the bigger states from being big bullies ....

No, it prevents the 14th Amendment guarantees from working!!

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[AutodidactLabrat]

Says no one who has ever read the 14th Amendment
Equal does not mean equal STATES it means equal CITIZENS with equal power to choose our leaders!

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[mjwx]

Exactly right. I don't think Paul Ryan is a Nazi. I don't think Mitch McConnell is a Nazi. I don't think Ted Cruz is a Nazi.

Let's be pretty clear here, the majority of Republicans are not Nazis. But then again, those marching in Charlottesville with their white nationalist and white supremacist flags and sheilds are not your average Republicans. They are, well, yes, that's right, they're Nazis, and their so repugnant and evil that just about goddamned Republican out there is running from them as fast as possible...

With the exception of the Republican President of the United States.

I dont think anyone in their right mind is calling normal conservatives Nazi's. Whilst Nazism and Fascism is a far-right philosophy, nationalism, it's also inseparability intertwined with authoritarian rule. I think it's fair to say that the majority of Americans, regardless of political leanings want a dictatorship. Put simply, not everyone who leans right is a Nazi (and the corollary, not everyone who leans left is a communist).

Most Republicans are rational people, so are most Democrats. The sad thing is, the media has polarised political issues so much, its hard to hold the middle ground due to the bleating of the extremists on either side.

The thing that separates Nazism from regular classical (Italian) Fascism is that Nazism specifically institutionalises racism, both in believing that some races are inherently inferior (untermesch) and others are inherently superior (Ubermesch). Apologies for any mispellings in German. The problem with Nazism and White Supremacist is that they are extremist ideologies and not at all rational, hence they do irrational things when opposed. What surprises me is that there are people defending them, I would have thought any right minded republican or conservative would be trying to distance themselves from these groups, wanting to make sure it was known that these groups do not represent the majority of republicans (as a white male, I'd be quite offended to be lumped in with Nazis and white supremacists simply for being white and male, fortunately being a white male I'm immune from such generalisations).

The point is, these groups are extremist and should be opposed not because they're on the far right, but because they're too far to the right. I'd say the same about extremist left groups, but none seem to exist any more because we opposed them into extinction.

I honestly believe that the biggest threat to western nations is not any external power or foreign terrorist organisation, but the rise of extremism in our own countries. For the US, UK and other Anglo nations, this is the extreme right as we're nations that tend to lean right and are more tolerant of it. It seems entirely possible that the extreme right can gain enough support that they get to dictate extremist laws or use violence to enforce their ideology. The extreme right needs to be opposed and contrary to popular opinion it cant be done with the extreme left, the opposite of extremism is rationalism, to oppose the far right, we should support the moderates.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[phorm]

Well hell, if you can't trust nogirlsallowed81's youtube expose, who CAN you trust?!

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[strikethree]

They are, well, yes, that's right, they're Nazis, and their so repugnant and evil that just about goddamned Republican out there is running from them as fast as possible...

With the exception of the Republican President of the United States.

I am curious. What makes you think that the President of the United States is not "running" from them?

I have read his words and see nothing supporting the self-titled "Nazis". I did notice that his words did seem to disparage the ... anti-Nazis(?) but they applied equally well to the "Nazis".

Perhaps I missed something here but I see nothing that would lead a rational person to believe that the President offered ANY support to the "Nazis". I am seeing a hysterical amount of spin and bias along with a lot of innuendo... but this makes me even more suspicious that this outrage against Trump is being manufactured. Requiring him to "run away as fast as possible" is absurd. He is the President and should not be manipulable. Simple condemnation should be enough... and I read his words and they contained condemnation.

For the record, I wanted neither Trump nor Clinton for president and support neither of them.

Re:Opportunistic

[strikethree]

I did not read DigiShaman's posts because they were modded too far down for me to see without effort; however, I did want to comment on the Sharia law on all Americans thing.

Islam is designed to gather as much control as possible, as are some other religions. Sharia law is demanded by many (how many? can't give exact numbers) Muslims. Many places where a government is weak have implemented Sharia law, except Saudi Arabia where the government is strong and supports Sharia law explicitly.

Fearing that Sharia law will come to America is a legitimate fear. It is practiced in some Muslim communities in addition to regular "law and order" regardless of whether or not a government recognizes it.

The lack of ability to point to a specific American Muslim person supporting Sharia is not a huge problem. I am sure it would not be difficult to actually ask American Muslims if they would support Sharia law and find some that say yes. Here is a link discussing actual numbers but take it with a grain of salt: http://www.pewresearch.org/fac... as there is no number given for American Muslim support for Sharia. It is still safe to say that there is more than one.

All of that being said, hatred, stereotypes, racism, nationalism, religionism(?), sexism, etc are all repugnant to me.

Christianity (maybe others too?) teach that God is Love. That is respectable (but I am not Christian). If you act with love in your heart, you will find that violence and such is a VERY rare need in this "modern" world.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Media has been advertising that Nazi gathering for months now.

Citation Needed.

Re: Opportunistic

[drinkypoo]

Show me one fucking story, just one, of an Antifa member defending a single person being "attacked"?

Step 1: Remove head from asshole
Step 2: Read this fine article

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

The Oklahoma City bombing was in response to the US governments handling of David Koresh and Ruby Ridge. If we're going to equate white men murdering people to white supremacist, you might want to check how many black men are sitting in jail for murder.

Re:Opportunistic

[Anonymous Coward]

That's interesting, because there's been over 59 million abortions in the US alone since 1973. World-wide since 1980, over 1.46 billion.

Feminazi that shit out.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not demonizing when you have facts and results that prove their intent. Their words are empty, but their actions show you everything you need to know.

A Republican would rather see a homeless person die than take care of them. They don't deserve any political consideration when their platform is one of control and oppression.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's your point? I only see that as a reason to withdraw from the economy, from politics, and from public discourse. The well is poisoned, and I won't drink.

If you and others want to embrace an oppressive regime, you'll get to reap those consequences while I and others will sit here saying, "I told you so."

I do not expect the new administration to do anything to improve my life. I have no faith in our government because it has proven itself to fail to take care of its people.

I might consider them worth listening to when their actions match something worthy of America's name. I am deeply ashamed of being an American, and our leaders don't help that.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[dbrueck]

It's not trying to "change the rules" of the election. Nobody is suggesting installing Hillary. The political term is "mandate" and the Republicans clearly didn't get one. That's why they are struggling so much to govern right now. You don't have a mandate with 49% of the vote.

So the whole concept of a mandate (from the people, I'm assuming is what you mean) is fairly pointless when US elections typically get only 60% of eligible voters to even cast a vote. Let's follow your logic through: from your comment I'm assuming you feel that Obama's 2008 win with 53% of the vote counted as a "mandate"? He won with 69.5 million votes. In 2016 Trump got 63 million. To say that one got a mandate from the people when the other didn't seems like there must be a pretty incredibly thin line between what qualifies as a mandate! Guess what? The reality is that *neither* of them received any sort of mandate. The US has about 200 million eligible voters but about 80 million of them don't cast a vote for either a D or an R in any given election. Obama got about 34% of the eligible voters to vote for him. Trump got about 32%. Those are both quite low and both quite close - either they are both mandates or, much more likely, neither are.

There is no firm definition of what would even count as getting a mandate from the people, but if you can only get about 1 out of 3 people to throw their support behind you, that probably doesn't cut it.

(and BTW, I'm just going to skip over the whole notion that the Republicans are struggling to govern and that the source of that struggle is the lack of a mandate - that seems like quite a stretch and you didn't provide any evidence to support it, so... moving on!)

Do I really, truly, honestly think that's what the Republicans are all about? Certainly not all of them. There may be no good neo-Nazis, but I have no doubt that there are good Republicans as individuals. However, having watched the Republican primary debates, every single candidate would answer each and every question with an inspiring vision of a great society followed by declaring that they would achieve that outcome by cutting taxes for the rich.

You're missing the point: just as you like the D convention and were repulsed by the R convention, there are a similar number of people out there who liked the R convention and were repulsed by the D convention. You don't seem to be even open to the idea that the vast majority of the "others" are rational, caring human beings. Both parties have the nutters on the extreme, and unfortunately those types make for entertaining news coverage, but on neither side are they representative of the vast majority of the people in either party.

I don't believe that cutting taxes for the rich is a panacea and I can't imagine any thinking person actually subscribes to that.

This is a straw man argument. Please show me where any candidate came out and said "the solution to our problems is to cut taxes on the rich" (their position, not your wild interpretation of it). And then show me where that candidate came anywhere close to claiming that such a move would be anything close to a "panacea". You have taken their position and used your own bias to distill it down to something absurdly simplistic and not actually representative of their position.

Again, it seems like you've dreamed up a caricature of the other side and are arguing against that. I know, I know, it's far easier to feel good about a position if you can demonize and/or belittle the opposing point of view, but the reality is that both sides' positions on every single issue are far more nuanced than you seem willing to believe. Defense spending, abortion, gay rights, states vs federal powers, entitlements, budgets, healthcare, and on and on - every single one of those involves tradeoffs and less than perfect choices.

At a very high level, pretty much all sides want prosperity, fairness, the good of the country, e

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[dbrueck]

It's not demonizing when you have facts and results that prove their intent. Their words are empty, but their actions show you everything you need to know.

I agree! Oh, wait, are we talking about Republicans or Democrats?? (your statement applies equally to both)

A Republican would rather see a homeless person die than take care of them. They don't deserve any political consideration when their platform is one of control and oppression.

You sound like someone who is living in an echo chamber. Here's a tip: for every news story you read on a liberal website, go find the same or another story on a conservative one. Do the opposite if you tend to get most of your news from a conservative source. I know, it's more work than in the good old days, but that's the nature of things.

Any time you reach the point where you just can't comprehend how the other side can be so dense / cruel / evil / selfish / whatever, then it's a pretty good indicator that you have fallen into the trap of being insulated from reality. Too much of your information is coming from a source that shares your biases. Too many of your social media friends share your political views. If you think the other political side is full of demons, then you've become part of the problem.

The process of confronting your biases is painful but liberating. You should try it.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[gnick]

"One side had a permit" and "many fine people" sound like more of a defense than anyone marching alongside swastikas deserves.

Re:Opportunistic

[Plus1Entropy]

16 ambush shootings in 2016 is not unprecedented, because 16 ambush shootings occurred in 2014. Horrifying, yes, but not unprecedented. From the article you cited:

It ties for the deadliest year for such attacks, matching 2014's 16 ambush-style killings.

The reason the increase is so high is because 2015, the year immediately after Ferguson, there were only 6 (A 167% increase from 6 is 16). If you fit a trend line to those 3 points (16 in 2014, 6 in 2015, and 16 in 2016), it would be flat. Since 2014 and 2016 are both the deadliest years, there may be a trend that exists from before 2014. If the trend began before 2014, then what you're saying doesn't match up with the timeline of events.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not relevant? So you want the US to be lead by California, New York, Florida and Texas? Because without the electoral college, that's what will happen.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[ebvwfbw]

This has everything to do with the left and marxists. That woman that took down the statue? Notice how they don't talk much about her? Well she thinks North Korea is great - http://conservativetribune.com... .

This is what they do, come in, rile up people and overthrow the government and then we can be like Cuba or Venezuela. Kiss everything you have goodbye. No more property rights, no more anything really. Rename things, blow them up, remove them, etc. We have our own little isis people doing the same thing we see in the middle east.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Go murder a reporter.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Hylandr]

A permit is irrelevant. Permits allow you to gather, not excuse bad behavior.

There were people in both sides that were equally guilty of misdeeds. To berate only one side would imply endorsement the other.

The bottom line is there were two groups of people out to start trouble. The real question is what is this being used to distract the gullible public from?

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[stealth_finger]

Actually, the Electoral College is a handcuffed and corrupt body. If the Electoral College functioned the way it was originally intended then every member of it would cast their votes as they saw fit for whichever candidate they thought was better. However, it's members have been handcuffed by a variety of state constitutions that force a state's electors to vote according to their state's majority opinion. Electors don't vote as they see fit as originally intended. The Electoral College is in no way a Representative body when members of a given state cast all their votes one direction over a 51%/49% public vote in their state. If Electoral Votes were actually representative of the popular vote in each state during the last election, then neither candidate would have received 270 votes.

Well if each member can just vote for whoever they see fit and their votes are the only ones that count then what would be the point in the whole election charade?

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Mr.CRC]

"Congress came together to sanction Russia"

Is that supposed to be a good thing?!?!

Re:Opportunistic

[Mr.CRC]

E.g., I will defend the RIGHTS of religious people to have their beliefs.

OTOH I personally consider religious people to be collectively deluded.

Do you COMPREHEND the difference?!?!

It doesn't matter what the idiot "nazis" have as viewpoints. If they are not committing any crimes, then their right to free speech must be defended.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Anonymous Coward]

Gosh. What an amazing retort! I know you're a true believer and all, given how you feel the need to say SOMETHING in response, even when you clearly don't have an argument to make, but I have to ask you, "why?". Why do you believe so passionately in something you can't even logically defend?

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[slashdotwannabe]

Funny. They wear Nazi regalia and use Nazi salutes and pursue Nazi messages of intolerance. It's walking like a duck and quacking like a duck. Who gives a fuck if they are "actual Nazis". We kicked the "actual Nazi"'s asses in WWII -- and for good reason. Of course they aren't fucking "actual Nazis". The fact that you need to be so pedantic over how some people are confusing intolerant assholes with "Nazis" and "Fascists" (something else they aren't) rather trying to defend their goals just goes to show how bankrupt your argument is. Either you can't defend it, or won't defend it. Instead you quibble with the shorthand people use to label it.

They're intolerant in a society that is built of a requirement for tolerance. We're a country literally founded on the notion of accepting all races and religions of people from all over the world, and they want to be intolerant. In the pursuit of their narrow, bigoted agenda, they want to fuck it up for the vast majority of us who are happy to live and let live. That makes them assholes as well.

There, are you happy now?

There's a paradox in a society built on tolerance: the only thing we cannot tolerate is intolerance.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[slashdotwannabe]

So petty virtue signalling is better than telling Trump things he needs to hear.

1. It isn't "petty virtue signalling". Refusing to associate with racists is "actual virtue".

2. There is no point in "telling Trump things he needs to hear" if he "isn't interested in listening".

You really don't make me feel very good about voting Democrat in the next election.

3. Vote for whoever the fuck you want to; why do we give a shit? The post you're replying to has nothing to do with "Democrats", so the fact that you took it as an opportunity to say you won't vote Democrats tells us you weren't going to anyway.

If you are an accurate reflection on the Democrat mindset then it's horribly unhinged and divorced from any sort of pragmatism.

4. You're projecting.

5. When the fuck did "pragmatism" become a thing when it comes to fighting against bigotry and racism?

That's an extra bonus above and beyond advocating the labeling people as Nazis so you can act like one yourself.

You seem to be unclear about how Nazis acted if you think AC's "thank god they aren't racist" is comparable to gassing millions of innocent people or starting two wars.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[AutodidactLabrat]

Not relevant, says the 14th Amendment
And you want America ruled by Kentucky?
Or do you prefer Mississippi?
The Constitution says EQUAL rights, privileges and immunities
From that very day the EC was as unconstitutional as the 3/5ths votes of slaves.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[AutodidactLabrat]

And Texas would have added to Hillary's win.
Why be pro-slavery when slavery is outlawed?
The EC was created for the sole purpose of keeping the slave holding states in the Union by promising outsized control over elections
Now we have the 14th Amendment, forbidding this
Why has the SCOTUS refused to hear a single challenge?
Since Nixon that is.

Re:Has Slashdot been sold?

[Gussington]

"Congress came together to sanction Russia"

Is that supposed to be a good thing?!?!

It counters your claim that everything is portrayed and left or right. Republicans and Democrats ignored political sides and acted in the best interest of the country.
Whenever politicians put country before party it is a good thing.

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[Chas]

2.8% is a statistical curiosity when simple majority isn't a "victory" condition.

And no it is NOT a contravention of the 14th Amendment..

You are guaranteed the right to vote and the privileges that come with it (if you're a citizen).

But the electoral system determines that the presidency isn't merely a popularity contest.

Otherwise California would always have unassailable say in who becomes president. Even if the rest of the country voted for someone else. The electoral system requires that a would-be president have a broad base of support across the country.

Re: Opportunistic

[mlw4428]

Hey - how bout that anti-stateism?

Re: Has Slashdot been sold?

[AutodidactLabrat]

14th Amendment says equal rights
EQUAL rights to elect President
The EC is unconstitutional.