If they personally want to be, of course that's fine. Inflicting the greater harm of prohibition on other people, including non-users impacted on two ends from black market issues and civil rights loss, however, does indeed make them 'horrible monsters'. It's sadomoralism: inflicting greater harm on everyone to send a moral message than the harm that would exist if you simply allowed the activity and provided education, treatment, and rehab. It extends to all drugs, but pot is by far the most egregiously awful since it lacks the physical harm and addiction of hard drugs.
Fox News: "Now this is an amazing thing people, with its beautiful deep browns and rich filling aroma. And they've done such an amazing job with the lighting. We're witnessing something amazing here."
CNN: "Folks, this is a pile of fecal matter. It looks and smells terrible, and isn't really a great thing."
The Right: "Fake News!! Look at how biased CNN is, typical leftist media lies trying to make it look bad!!"
There's a simple reason mainstream media outside of Fox almost always portrays Trump negatively: Because what he is saying and doing are actually terrible things. It isn't bias to call a turd a turd just because the other side is hell bent on trying to distort reality by insisting it's something wonderful.
The right has an obsessive, pervasive campaign to try to turn outlets that lean a little to the left, and like everyone from time to time make an error, into incessantly lying intentional extreme-left propaganda outlets, and it's working beyond what they could have hoped for. Not only have they hoodwinked the entire right wing, even some left leaning moderates are buying into it. Meanwhile, Fox News is almost as bad as North Korea's state TV with distortion and leader-worship. On a bias scale of 1-10, CNN is a 2, MSNBC a 3, and Fox News a 9.
Oh come on, the last 2 are actually funny for anyone without the giant stick of political correctness up their ass*. (Why'd you omit the context of the 3rd, that it was a monkey, not human, who did it). The first two, not so much, but were clearly an attempt at provocative humor, and that hardly rises to the level of completely destroying your career and reputation.
* - Has 'stick up your ass' now morphed into a lynchable offense?**
You're advocating all these reform and rehabilitation classes, but fail to realize how less likely to succeed at them inmates are when you crack down so hard on entertainment and communication. You want to confine them to educational/rehabilitative material every waking hour? And take away incentives to behave? Maintaining strong ties with family and partners has been shown to be more effective at reducing recidivism and disciplinary issues, limiting that is both sadistic and directly contravenes the goal of rehabilitation.
Honestly it sounds like you're trying to reconcile an intellectual desire to rehabilitate with an emotional desire to inflict punishment. Everything you suggested depriving inmates of makes rehab much less possible, as does that being the only content available. Not to mention the soul crushing level of supervision and restriction that would be required to have a go at your 'zero crime' fantasy that seems to include the trivial like this story. The prison system you're advocating will leave people so dehumanized and demoralized that all the rehabilitation programs in the world won't prevent the sky high recidivism when they get out and act like the animals you treated them like. Have a look at the statistics, at what types of prisons result in the lowest recidivism: it's the ones that treat inmates like humans, and offer priveleges like entertainment access, computer/internet access, and keep them integrated with their families and community. Taking all that away and replacing it with nothing but edu/rehab games/movies/programs around the clock is sadistic and trying to call it a 'reform school' is an ironic joke.
And the problems with the medallion system are legendary. Sounds like they want to create another similar boondoggle with rideshare licenses, since capping them seems awfully similar to a de facto second medallion system.
If you're not familiar with taxi medallion issues, let's just start with the biggest. Their massive cost (way down from $500k, but still very high: $160-300k as of this posting) means they're rarely owned by the drivers themselves, who rent them. A slow day often means actually losing money, since fares don't recoup the rental fee. Or even if the owner collects a percentage, a slow day still can often come out below minimum wage. It's a system that pretty much exclusively enriches those who got in a very very long time ago and got them for next to nothing, or those already wealthy who can invest in high cost medallions (though those buying in right before Uber/Lyft crashed the price took it pretty hard); exploiting drivers, who can make decent money but just as often get screwed.
Drugs. And then what else are police going to do? Only 0.6% of Idaho's population is black, so harassing black people only occupies so much of their time. What's better than the low hanging fruit of drug users, especially in a state that's rabidly anti-pot, lacking even any form of medical marijuana use.
LinkNYC, that program to install porn viewing stations for the homeless right in the middle of the streets they live on? Good one.
Sarcasm about the (real) problem of porn aside; public WiFi isn't an acceptable alternative to in-home wired connections, and given the density of NYC, even the lightening-fast LinkNYC speeds we get now would be seriously degraded if big portions of whole buildings started piling on them with the bandwidth demands of a home instead of mobile. (I'm also not sure public WiFi hotspots count as a consumer ISP for the purposes of any regulation the might address municipal providers).
Cuomo is a textbook example of a spineless career politician interested exclusively in getting reelected, scarcely making a single statement that hasn't been focus grouped and reviewed by committee. He's been trying to pick up a couple social wedge issues to distract from his god awful record. He seems to expect us to believe he won't swing right back towards conservatism after the primary challenge he's facing now. A year ago he's calling marijuana a gateway drug and opposing legalization, suddenly he's facing a primary a swaps positions. Outside of identity politics stuff, dude's half a Republican. Party leadership still hasn't figured out that just supporting LGBTQIA+ rights and some feminist issues isn't enough to take the stink off of "moderates" (who, by the standards of the rest of the world, are already well right of center) who don't support traditional liberal values.
Dude's a slimeball. I hope Nixon wins the primary and blows up his political career. He's definitely another road to Trump 2020; no way enough people turn out for him.
'Soon' is one of those great words that can mean whatever you want it to mean. I have no doubt in my mind this technology will be available to the consumer "soon" when thinking in historical timescales, even 'very soon' on geological times scales, where written language was followed up very quickly by the internet.
So companies like Facebook, Google, etc, spend fortunes to create profiles that can be used to microtarget, and that's all just a waste of money, because they could just be charging the same price for ads without targeting? You kidding me?
Nope. Authoritarianism would be shutting down the press, labeling it as an enemy of the public isn't. That's opinion, whether you like it or not.
As is the view that factually invalid views shouldn't be given equal time. You want to claim *that* rises to the level of authoritarianism, but what I cited did not? Is that a joke?
Want to know what was real authoritarianism against the press? When the Obama administration illegally wiretapped reporters phones, and used the intelligence apparatus to read their emails without a warrant. I'm sure you were jumping up and down screaming about this.
The hell I wasn't. I had very little positive to say about Obama, and *frequently* railed against his many civil rights violations. His first few years of doing more medical marijuana raids than Bush. His unconstitutional drone strikes. His expansion of domestic surveillance. His crackdowns on whistle blowers. And yes, wiretapping reporters e-mails.
Look at how you assume everyone is as biased as you are, fundamentally incapable of criticizing their own "side". On what basis do you accuse me of this hypocrisy? None, other than the desire to paint any critic of Trump as hopelessly brainwashed into thinking anything Democrats do is fine.
Of all those reporters taking DNC talking points/stories and publishing them directly or handing off their articles to people in the DNC to make sure they didn't paint them in a bad light.
This, and your previous idea along similar lines, is somewhat true; but only people on a steady diet of right-wing propaganda can really think bias is *that* pervasive, especially in light of Fox News, which is so ridiculously biased to the right it makes the nuttiest SJW blog seem like a bastion of objectivity and rationality.
Sorry, I can't find any articles on that about Trump.
You can't find of any instances of Trump advocating people lose their jobs over politics? Seriously, are you joking? You're willfully ignorant here. Most recently in the news, he said government employees who criticise him should lose their security clearance (de facto their job). NFL players, journalists... you think Trump has never suggested these people losing their jobs? Get real.
But considering the previous president used those inquiries in order to strong arm police forces into not arresting people who committed violent crimes? You sure you want to go down this path and all that?
You're a bit mixed up here. Police complained that they wouldn't, because asking them to do their jobs without violating civil rights was just too much, and they didn't want to get in trouble for it. Yes, I want to go down that path.
Besides, you've got your body cameras now, which of course black activist groups are now screeching are a "civil rights violation" and all that.
Really? I've heard of very little opposition to them; and you don't exactly sound well informed on CJ issues.
You can reform the law in a manner that would allow fines that actually substantially hurt their personal assets. I'm partial to fining individuals, where personally culpable, large double-digit percentages of their net worth (including non-liquid assets like real property, stock holdings, etc) and doubling if they try to conceal wealth. I'm not at all convinced this wouldn't be just as effective without increasing the number of non-violent offenders in jail. Though I wouldn't be opposed to jail for recidivists.
Just as Democrats came out strong for Obama, skin color or gender don't actually matter all that much, the problem is really the policies that are alienating people into staying home. I don't know anyone on the left opposed to a woman just for being a woman; it's just that the ones at the top of the heap right now all seem to have toxic policies or other issues; the top of the party seem to be fighting a battle over being like Pelosi or being like Waters, not realizing both of those aren't compelling and will result in continued apathy.
You know, pointing this out always attracts downmods, but just once I'd like one of you to instead explain precisely why, if in employment and education, the accepted pool only matches the qualified applicant pool instead of the population, correcting it by giving preferential treatment based on race or gender is acceptable in a society of equality, while addressing the reasons the applicant pool doesn't match the population to begin with is not. Or exactly why it's ok to allow presumption of guilt, no cross examination, double standards, biased arbiters, no credibility findings, etc, but all for only women accusing men of sex crimes. Do you not believe this is actually widespread? That giving preferential treatment is really ok and equal treatment really is just a white male supremist tool? What is it?
Well, I have no trouble getting called racist/sexist despite being way out to the left, simply because I think we should address the root causes of inequality (most of which simply acknowledging the existence of results in breaking out the pitchforks) and treat everyone equally, instead of having lesser requirements for women and minorities (except Asians, apparently, who don't seem to count), and won't support eliminating due process for sex crimes to allow guilt-on-accusation from women, even to the point of having it be 'expert testimony' that catching them lying about a bunch of facts is actually proof of the accusations truth, and disallowing cross examinations and independent arbiters. Not to mention the great hate crime of thinking group differences rooted in biology exist. Judging people by the content of their character is now labeled a tool of white male supremacy, and the soft bigotry of low expectations is the standard for appearing 'not racist'.
You're trying to mix in legitimate complaints to dilute the fact that both sides really aren't always equal and that 'alternative facts' are not of equal merit to real facts. Let's start with that phrases origin; that Trump's inauguration crowd was bigger than Obamas... that's patently, objectively false, and the administrations 'alternative fact' stating otherwise should not be given equal weight. The position that humans don't influence climate change does not have equal merit, nor deserve equal time, to the administrations position that it doesn't (or that it's good, depending on that days version). The position that the tax cut wasn't predominantly a giant giveaway to the rich who received the lions share of the benefits is also an objectively false claim, not just another 'opinion' or 'alternative fact' that should be given equal time and weight. On occasion, there's a case like this that falls to the right; but let's not pretend they're not much more reliant on falsehoods to advance their agenda.
And you know what else stinks of authoritarianism? Labeling the free press the enemy of the people. Threatening to retaliate against critics. Using the bully pulpit of the Presidency to advocate companies fire your political enemies. Supporting civil asset forfeiture and ending inquiries and consent agreements related to police civil rights abuse. Strong authoritarianism is a trait shared among both major parties.
Sanders would be well positioned to win. But if he doesn't run, or (just as likely) the party tips the scales to force nominate another widely despised candidate like Warren, Harris, or god f'ing forbid Hillary again, all of whom they continue to insist can only possibly be opposed on the grounds of their genitals, and not their right-wing economics/pro-corporate positions, supporting abridgements of rights and due process in the name of national security, platforms heavy on identity politics pushing enhanced rights for a few while light on traditional liberal values like advancing civil rights and criminal justice reform for all*, and all the other wonderful positions that made Democrats stay home in such record numbers that we got Trump... yeah in that case it's going to be Trump 2020.
* - Not all of these apply to all of them; and in a previous thread after what someone else said I had retracted a complaint about this point in particular being applied to Warren; but I now reinstate it, based on her positions on identity politics issues being front and center, her positions on civil rights/criminal justice being harder to track down with only vague positions on her official platform, many of which seem to support large increases to custodial sentences for high level financial crimes better addressed through massive fines, then a pro-police organization proudly touting its awful legislative accomplishments which suggests a moderate with 64% rating (NAPO). Also on the natsec issue, she seems to only oppose the bulk collection PATRIOT Act provisions, and has not condemned its other terrible provisions (that I can find), so it's a yes to this category too.
And I don't believe for one minute a Democratic president caught lying about an affair wouldn't be covered in the press. They want clicks, and that's way too juicy to lose out on the clicks to the right-media side, where any claim they wouldn't cover the other teams dirty laundry should be met with uproarious laughter.
Besides, depending on how the payments were structured and timed, there is absolute concern regarding campaign finance laws, which you don't get to break simply because it's a personal affair before holding office, and *any* potential crime by a president is big news, even at the 'it may or may not have been a violation and we're looking into it' stage.
This, from the administration that has labeled the free press the "enemy of the people"? That used the phrase "alternative facts" to push an obvious lie, a tactic they continue to whip out all the time? Who insist on blind loyalty to the Party and the Party Leader, attacking any dissent in their own ranks? Though I guess we shouldn't be surprised, as blatant, shameless hypocrisy is part of the deal.
Ah if only things actually worked that way. In reality, they'll still want their ad to be seen by their target group, so will have to buy more ads in order to accomplish that. It would ad little, if anything, to the cost of the ad buy, as the less precise the targeting, the cheaper the ad. Forgot about that part huh?
Sarcasm aside, no matter how much it offends SJWs, certain ads are more/less effective when shown to groups divided on 'protected' attributes, and since a less obnoxious version of your scenario actually will be the outcome. Because they couldn't have just done something like stop the use in housing ads, less effective ads will lead to pressure to show even more ads. So yeah, mostly blockable tracking might work out better.
Sorry, stopping every Hispanic person you see and demanding proof of citizenship, all without cause, is not an acceptable way to enforce immigration law, to the extent that's even a local law enforcement issue by itself anyway. You're being intellectually dishonest, and not even to the right person as I'm not hot on letting illegals stay myself. Stopping Hispanic people just for being Hispanic IS a civil rights violation, and what he was convicted of.
Aww I got a "-1 The Truth Makes Me Mad" mod again. Oh noes. Like pardoning someone just convicted of contempt charge for refusing an order to stop civil rights violations by his department is respecting the rule of law, like talking about pardoning yourself. Not to mention the things Trump has said about pardons. The moderation around here really is going to shit.
Well, as someone who attracts the ire of right and left alike, there's definitely bad moderators on both sides of the aisle. Where your post ends up often depends on either who hits it first, or how mad the truth makes them (both the right and left). But that factual validity and intellectual honesty are not even a factor is definitely a valid criticism, because so many/.ers on both sides completely suspend the logic, reason, and truthful parts of their brain on political topics. After all, there's no dedicated moderators here, just random users with mod points, assuming they're not in the metamod penalty box from when the fact and integrity challenged hit up metamods...
What's made it a lot worse was the change to the metamoderation system; where instead of judging whether a given moderation is appropriate, you just thumbs up or thumbs down the comment. It's absolutely terrible, and is definitely resulting in mod points being taken away inappropriately.
ps, [generic age old gripe about moderation options]
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If they personally want to be, of course that's fine. Inflicting the greater harm of prohibition on other people, including non-users impacted on two ends from black market issues and civil rights loss, however, does indeed make them 'horrible monsters'. It's sadomoralism: inflicting greater harm on everyone to send a moral message than the harm that would exist if you simply allowed the activity and provided education, treatment, and rehab. It extends to all drugs, but pot is by far the most egregiously awful since it lacks the physical harm and addiction of hard drugs.
[Picture of a turd]
Fox News: "Now this is an amazing thing people, with its beautiful deep browns and rich filling aroma. And they've done such an amazing job with the lighting. We're witnessing something amazing here."
CNN: "Folks, this is a pile of fecal matter. It looks and smells terrible, and isn't really a great thing."
The Right: "Fake News!! Look at how biased CNN is, typical leftist media lies trying to make it look bad!!"
There's a simple reason mainstream media outside of Fox almost always portrays Trump negatively: Because what he is saying and doing are actually terrible things. It isn't bias to call a turd a turd just because the other side is hell bent on trying to distort reality by insisting it's something wonderful.
The right has an obsessive, pervasive campaign to try to turn outlets that lean a little to the left, and like everyone from time to time make an error, into incessantly lying intentional extreme-left propaganda outlets, and it's working beyond what they could have hoped for. Not only have they hoodwinked the entire right wing, even some left leaning moderates are buying into it. Meanwhile, Fox News is almost as bad as North Korea's state TV with distortion and leader-worship. On a bias scale of 1-10, CNN is a 2, MSNBC a 3, and Fox News a 9.
Oh come on, the last 2 are actually funny for anyone without the giant stick of political correctness up their ass*. (Why'd you omit the context of the 3rd, that it was a monkey, not human, who did it). The first two, not so much, but were clearly an attempt at provocative humor, and that hardly rises to the level of completely destroying your career and reputation.
* - Has 'stick up your ass' now morphed into a lynchable offense?**
** - Oh shit has that?
You're advocating all these reform and rehabilitation classes, but fail to realize how less likely to succeed at them inmates are when you crack down so hard on entertainment and communication. You want to confine them to educational/rehabilitative material every waking hour? And take away incentives to behave? Maintaining strong ties with family and partners has been shown to be more effective at reducing recidivism and disciplinary issues, limiting that is both sadistic and directly contravenes the goal of rehabilitation.
Honestly it sounds like you're trying to reconcile an intellectual desire to rehabilitate with an emotional desire to inflict punishment. Everything you suggested depriving inmates of makes rehab much less possible, as does that being the only content available. Not to mention the soul crushing level of supervision and restriction that would be required to have a go at your 'zero crime' fantasy that seems to include the trivial like this story. The prison system you're advocating will leave people so dehumanized and demoralized that all the rehabilitation programs in the world won't prevent the sky high recidivism when they get out and act like the animals you treated them like.
Have a look at the statistics, at what types of prisons result in the lowest recidivism: it's the ones that treat inmates like humans, and offer priveleges like entertainment access, computer/internet access, and keep them integrated with their families and community. Taking all that away and replacing it with nothing but edu/rehab games/movies/programs around the clock is sadistic and trying to call it a 'reform school' is an ironic joke.
And the problems with the medallion system are legendary. Sounds like they want to create another similar boondoggle with rideshare licenses, since capping them seems awfully similar to a de facto second medallion system.
If you're not familiar with taxi medallion issues, let's just start with the biggest. Their massive cost (way down from $500k, but still very high: $160-300k as of this posting) means they're rarely owned by the drivers themselves, who rent them. A slow day often means actually losing money, since fares don't recoup the rental fee. Or even if the owner collects a percentage, a slow day still can often come out below minimum wage. It's a system that pretty much exclusively enriches those who got in a very very long time ago and got them for next to nothing, or those already wealthy who can invest in high cost medallions (though those buying in right before Uber/Lyft crashed the price took it pretty hard); exploiting drivers, who can make decent money but just as often get screwed.
What the fuck is there to do in Idaho?
Drugs. And then what else are police going to do? Only 0.6% of Idaho's population is black, so harassing black people only occupies so much of their time. What's better than the low hanging fruit of drug users, especially in a state that's rabidly anti-pot, lacking even any form of medical marijuana use.
LinkNYC, that program to install porn viewing stations for the homeless right in the middle of the streets they live on? Good one.
Sarcasm about the (real) problem of porn aside; public WiFi isn't an acceptable alternative to in-home wired connections, and given the density of NYC, even the lightening-fast LinkNYC speeds we get now would be seriously degraded if big portions of whole buildings started piling on them with the bandwidth demands of a home instead of mobile. (I'm also not sure public WiFi hotspots count as a consumer ISP for the purposes of any regulation the might address municipal providers).
Cuomo is a textbook example of a spineless career politician interested exclusively in getting reelected, scarcely making a single statement that hasn't been focus grouped and reviewed by committee. He's been trying to pick up a couple social wedge issues to distract from his god awful record. He seems to expect us to believe he won't swing right back towards conservatism after the primary challenge he's facing now. A year ago he's calling marijuana a gateway drug and opposing legalization, suddenly he's facing a primary a swaps positions.
Outside of identity politics stuff, dude's half a Republican. Party leadership still hasn't figured out that just supporting LGBTQIA+ rights and some feminist issues isn't enough to take the stink off of "moderates" (who, by the standards of the rest of the world, are already well right of center) who don't support traditional liberal values.
Dude's a slimeball. I hope Nixon wins the primary and blows up his political career. He's definitely another road to Trump 2020; no way enough people turn out for him.
'Soon' is one of those great words that can mean whatever you want it to mean. I have no doubt in my mind this technology will be available to the consumer "soon" when thinking in historical timescales, even 'very soon' on geological times scales, where written language was followed up very quickly by the internet.
So companies like Facebook, Google, etc, spend fortunes to create profiles that can be used to microtarget, and that's all just a waste of money, because they could just be charging the same price for ads without targeting? You kidding me?
Nope. Authoritarianism would be shutting down the press, labeling it as an enemy of the public isn't. That's opinion, whether you like it or not.
As is the view that factually invalid views shouldn't be given equal time. You want to claim *that* rises to the level of authoritarianism, but what I cited did not? Is that a joke?
Want to know what was real authoritarianism against the press? When the Obama administration illegally wiretapped reporters phones, and used the intelligence apparatus to read their emails without a warrant. I'm sure you were jumping up and down screaming about this.
The hell I wasn't. I had very little positive to say about Obama, and *frequently* railed against his many civil rights violations. His first few years of doing more medical marijuana raids than Bush. His unconstitutional drone strikes. His expansion of domestic surveillance. His crackdowns on whistle blowers. And yes, wiretapping reporters e-mails.
Look at how you assume everyone is as biased as you are, fundamentally incapable of criticizing their own "side". On what basis do you accuse me of this hypocrisy? None, other than the desire to paint any critic of Trump as hopelessly brainwashed into thinking anything Democrats do is fine.
Of all those reporters taking DNC talking points/stories and publishing them directly or handing off their articles to people in the DNC to make sure they didn't paint them in a bad light.
This, and your previous idea along similar lines, is somewhat true; but only people on a steady diet of right-wing propaganda can really think bias is *that* pervasive, especially in light of Fox News, which is so ridiculously biased to the right it makes the nuttiest SJW blog seem like a bastion of objectivity and rationality.
Sorry, I can't find any articles on that about Trump.
You can't find of any instances of Trump advocating people lose their jobs over politics? Seriously, are you joking? You're willfully ignorant here. Most recently in the news, he said government employees who criticise him should lose their security clearance (de facto their job). NFL players, journalists... you think Trump has never suggested these people losing their jobs? Get real.
But considering the previous president used those inquiries in order to strong arm police forces into not arresting people who committed violent crimes? You sure you want to go down this path and all that?
You're a bit mixed up here. Police complained that they wouldn't, because asking them to do their jobs without violating civil rights was just too much, and they didn't want to get in trouble for it. Yes, I want to go down that path.
Besides, you've got your body cameras now, which of course black activist groups are now screeching are a "civil rights violation" and all that.
Really? I've heard of very little opposition to them; and you don't exactly sound well informed on CJ issues.
You can reform the law in a manner that would allow fines that actually substantially hurt their personal assets. I'm partial to fining individuals, where personally culpable, large double-digit percentages of their net worth (including non-liquid assets like real property, stock holdings, etc) and doubling if they try to conceal wealth. I'm not at all convinced this wouldn't be just as effective without increasing the number of non-violent offenders in jail. Though I wouldn't be opposed to jail for recidivists.
Just as Democrats came out strong for Obama, skin color or gender don't actually matter all that much, the problem is really the policies that are alienating people into staying home. I don't know anyone on the left opposed to a woman just for being a woman; it's just that the ones at the top of the heap right now all seem to have toxic policies or other issues; the top of the party seem to be fighting a battle over being like Pelosi or being like Waters, not realizing both of those aren't compelling and will result in continued apathy.
You know, pointing this out always attracts downmods, but just once I'd like one of you to instead explain precisely why, if in employment and education, the accepted pool only matches the qualified applicant pool instead of the population, correcting it by giving preferential treatment based on race or gender is acceptable in a society of equality, while addressing the reasons the applicant pool doesn't match the population to begin with is not. Or exactly why it's ok to allow presumption of guilt, no cross examination, double standards, biased arbiters, no credibility findings, etc, but all for only women accusing men of sex crimes. Do you not believe this is actually widespread? That giving preferential treatment is really ok and equal treatment really is just a white male supremist tool? What is it?
Well, I have no trouble getting called racist/sexist despite being way out to the left, simply because I think we should address the root causes of inequality (most of which simply acknowledging the existence of results in breaking out the pitchforks) and treat everyone equally, instead of having lesser requirements for women and minorities (except Asians, apparently, who don't seem to count), and won't support eliminating due process for sex crimes to allow guilt-on-accusation from women, even to the point of having it be 'expert testimony' that catching them lying about a bunch of facts is actually proof of the accusations truth, and disallowing cross examinations and independent arbiters. Not to mention the great hate crime of thinking group differences rooted in biology exist. Judging people by the content of their character is now labeled a tool of white male supremacy, and the soft bigotry of low expectations is the standard for appearing 'not racist'.
You're trying to mix in legitimate complaints to dilute the fact that both sides really aren't always equal and that 'alternative facts' are not of equal merit to real facts. Let's start with that phrases origin; that Trump's inauguration crowd was bigger than Obamas... that's patently, objectively false, and the administrations 'alternative fact' stating otherwise should not be given equal weight. The position that humans don't influence climate change does not have equal merit, nor deserve equal time, to the administrations position that it doesn't (or that it's good, depending on that days version). The position that the tax cut wasn't predominantly a giant giveaway to the rich who received the lions share of the benefits is also an objectively false claim, not just another 'opinion' or 'alternative fact' that should be given equal time and weight. On occasion, there's a case like this that falls to the right; but let's not pretend they're not much more reliant on falsehoods to advance their agenda.
And you know what else stinks of authoritarianism? Labeling the free press the enemy of the people. Threatening to retaliate against critics. Using the bully pulpit of the Presidency to advocate companies fire your political enemies. Supporting civil asset forfeiture and ending inquiries and consent agreements related to police civil rights abuse. Strong authoritarianism is a trait shared among both major parties.
Sanders would be well positioned to win. But if he doesn't run, or (just as likely) the party tips the scales to force nominate another widely despised candidate like Warren, Harris, or god f'ing forbid Hillary again, all of whom they continue to insist can only possibly be opposed on the grounds of their genitals, and not their right-wing economics/pro-corporate positions, supporting abridgements of rights and due process in the name of national security, platforms heavy on identity politics pushing enhanced rights for a few while light on traditional liberal values like advancing civil rights and criminal justice reform for all*, and all the other wonderful positions that made Democrats stay home in such record numbers that we got Trump... yeah in that case it's going to be Trump 2020.
* - Not all of these apply to all of them; and in a previous thread after what someone else said I had retracted a complaint about this point in particular being applied to Warren; but I now reinstate it, based on her positions on identity politics issues being front and center, her positions on civil rights/criminal justice being harder to track down with only vague positions on her official platform, many of which seem to support large increases to custodial sentences for high level financial crimes better addressed through massive fines, then a pro-police organization proudly touting its awful legislative accomplishments which suggests a moderate with 64% rating (NAPO). Also on the natsec issue, she seems to only oppose the bulk collection PATRIOT Act provisions, and has not condemned its other terrible provisions (that I can find), so it's a yes to this category too.
And I don't believe for one minute a Democratic president caught lying about an affair wouldn't be covered in the press. They want clicks, and that's way too juicy to lose out on the clicks to the right-media side, where any claim they wouldn't cover the other teams dirty laundry should be met with uproarious laughter.
Besides, depending on how the payments were structured and timed, there is absolute concern regarding campaign finance laws, which you don't get to break simply because it's a personal affair before holding office, and *any* potential crime by a president is big news, even at the 'it may or may not have been a violation and we're looking into it' stage.
This, from the administration that has labeled the free press the "enemy of the people"? That used the phrase "alternative facts" to push an obvious lie, a tactic they continue to whip out all the time? Who insist on blind loyalty to the Party and the Party Leader, attacking any dissent in their own ranks? Though I guess we shouldn't be surprised, as blatant, shameless hypocrisy is part of the deal.
Careful what you wish for. That would make adblockers copyright infringement tools, as they too modify the page.
Ah if only things actually worked that way. In reality, they'll still want their ad to be seen by their target group, so will have to buy more ads in order to accomplish that. It would ad little, if anything, to the cost of the ad buy, as the less precise the targeting, the cheaper the ad. Forgot about that part huh?
Sarcasm aside, no matter how much it offends SJWs, certain ads are more/less effective when shown to groups divided on 'protected' attributes, and since a less obnoxious version of your scenario actually will be the outcome. Because they couldn't have just done something like stop the use in housing ads, less effective ads will lead to pressure to show even more ads. So yeah, mostly blockable tracking might work out better.
Sorry, stopping every Hispanic person you see and demanding proof of citizenship, all without cause, is not an acceptable way to enforce immigration law, to the extent that's even a local law enforcement issue by itself anyway. You're being intellectually dishonest, and not even to the right person as I'm not hot on letting illegals stay myself. Stopping Hispanic people just for being Hispanic IS a civil rights violation, and what he was convicted of.
Aww I got a "-1 The Truth Makes Me Mad" mod again. Oh noes. Like pardoning someone just convicted of contempt charge for refusing an order to stop civil rights violations by his department is respecting the rule of law, like talking about pardoning yourself. Not to mention the things Trump has said about pardons. The moderation around here really is going to shit.
Well, as someone who attracts the ire of right and left alike, there's definitely bad moderators on both sides of the aisle. Where your post ends up often depends on either who hits it first, or how mad the truth makes them (both the right and left). But that factual validity and intellectual honesty are not even a factor is definitely a valid criticism, because so many /.ers on both sides completely suspend the logic, reason, and truthful parts of their brain on political topics. After all, there's no dedicated moderators here, just random users with mod points, assuming they're not in the metamod penalty box from when the fact and integrity challenged hit up metamods...
What's made it a lot worse was the change to the metamoderation system; where instead of judging whether a given moderation is appropriate, you just thumbs up or thumbs down the comment. It's absolutely terrible, and is definitely resulting in mod points being taken away inappropriately.
ps, [generic age old gripe about moderation options]