Political Memes and Quotes

So I'm not sure if you read my whole post or just the last question. I seemed to lay out two specific readings of what the meme potentially expressed to me, and I laced the wording with enough sarcasm that it suggested both of those concepts were 'stupid' or more accurately, anti-democratic. And if I'm wrong about those interpretations of the meme then that would be considered misleading. So I don't think I left you any need to predict the ways I was thinking.

As for the Parody thing, that would mean you're intending to create "a humorously exaggerated imitation of (a writer, artist, or genre)". If that's the case then it's going way over my head.

My impression of this meme is that it's advocating state-violence against people exercising their first amendment right of assembly. If you had a picture of people looting in the first frame it might be a slightly different story. I'm assuming you're a supporter of the second amendment, so should the hundreds of thousands people who have a grievance with their government over policing policies skip right over the first amendment and go straight to the second amendment to address those grievances?

 

​

The earliest instance of the meme I can find is a Buzz-feed post from August of 2017.

My point of view is that we all need the rules of law and order nowadays, but I cannot comment on which specific acts of lawlessness inspired that meme at the time.

​

 

Are there any cows in Canada?

 

You may be right that I'm overthinking it. I'll admit that I'm raw on the subject because I am an American living in the heart of American city that has dealt with rioting, looting and protestors over the last week. And during the one night looting they police sat back and watched the whole thing from a distance, but during the 7 nights of peaceful protesting they assaulted unarmed citizens with pepper spray, batons, rubber bullets, and chemical weapons banned by the Geneva Convention (tear gas). So after picking up friends from the hospital after they suffered directly from of police violence I'll admit that I was pretty angry seeing a meme advocating for police violence when I was hopping on here to jerk off and relieve some stress. So what's happening in the US is personal to me in a way different from someone watching on TV hundred of miles away and that does inform our different perspectives. Honestly, I probably should just avoid this part of the forum because it seems like an conservative echo chamber and dissenting voices just mess up the flow.

It's my opinion is that if one values "Law and Order" over "Justice", then they'd value an authoritarian government like Iran over a democracy like America or Canada.

Lastly, I agree I was wrong to criticize Gadget for the meme creator's artistic choices, but I think it's fair game to question why he agrees with the message the meme sends because he chose to post it.

 

​

​

​

 

I guess for the record, in case anyone is wondering: I'm a libertarian. I don't often visit this part of the forum, but when I do, I like to see actual discussion around topics, because that's how progress is made. I don't care who leans where, it doesn't matter; everyone's entitled to an opinion, especially on political matters, and my only rule is that everyone plays nice. We're all adults, I think we all can agree to disagree, if nothing else.

 

Lol would not surprise me.

 

Quick question about "unmasking". How can unmasking be targeting a specific American citizen when finding out the identity of that masked individual is the whole point of the unmasking request?

I rarely agree with President Trump, but he's said some pretty accurate things about Ted Cruz.

Trump: "He'll say whatever he wants to say. I actually think he's a very unstable person. I really believe that. I think he's a very unstable person. But I've never had somebody take something that you believe in and just say the exact opposite."

Trump: "This guy Ted Cruz is the single biggest liar I have ever dealt with in my life. I mean it. ... He will lie about anything. I've met much tougher people than Ted Cruz. He's like a baby. ... He's like a little baby. Soft, weak, little baby by comparison. But for lying, he's the best I've ever seen. ... A guy like Ted Cruz, he has no clue. He never employed anybody. He's a nasty, nasty guy."

Trump: "The evangelicals didn't vote for him. And you know why? Because they don't like liars. They're really smart people. They don't want to vote for a liar. ... This guy Cruz lies more than any human being I've ever dealt with. He holds up the Bible and he lies."

Trump: "Ted Cruz, he's seriously — he's got a mental problem. Ted Cruz is a liar. He's got a problem, that he's a liar. I've never seen anybody [lie] to that extent."

Trump: "I think he's crazy — honestly, I think he's crazy."

 

​

​

​

 

Fucking shit

 

"A straw man fallacy occurs when someone takes another person's argument or point, distorts it or exaggerates it in some kind of extreme way, and then attacks the extreme distortion, as if that is really the claim the first person is making."

@Timcast could really use a dissenting voice in his show because a lot of his arguments are comically weak. It's also a shame to see because declaring "the left is insane" essentially shuts off all dialogue when he claims to be defending free inquiry and acceptance of dissenting opinions.
A non-exhaustive list of the things he said that could use fact-checking or context-checking (in no particular order):
- Sawant doesn't live in a mansion. The medium home price in Seattle is $760,000 so she lives in an average house. It's just an expensive place to live because it's a city.
- Sawant is a socialist, the CHAZ is primarily anarchist, she has nothing to do with it beyond supporting the protesters.
- The Defund Police movement is entirely about reducing the role of police so that they are primarily responding to things they're actually needed for rather than every ill of society. Police need to show up to violent crimes and places where their level of force is needed. Other services are better suited to respond to mental health problems, homeless issues, traffic violations, etc. We have fire departments for fires, ambulance services for medical emergencies, why not specialized services for specialized problem rather than making the cops do "everything that's left over"? Minneapolis is firing their whole department and then re-hiring officers who meet a certain standard, which is exactly what Camden, NJ did five years ago and it has been an unmitigated success.
- I just watched Bill Maher's monologue and he was mocking the WHO for their comments on asymptomatic transmission of the coronavirus. After talking about the CDC and WHO reports he says "The CDC and WHO put out a joint statement staying 'What the fuck are we doing again?'" to a laugh track. Maher is a germaphobe who's terrified of this virus and if Tim didn't catch that and thinks it's cognitive dissonance than that reflects very poorly on Tim's analysis skills.
- Gov. Cuomo is in New York, why use a single quote from him to tell protesters in Seattle to stand down or cast shade on him for a Wendy's burnt down in Atlanta?
- Tim seem very eager to use a few individual opinions to generalize for the entire "left". A single opinion article he read (in a newspaper he probably hates) is enough to convince him that Defund the Police means Abolish the Police. The CHAZ, a 6 block area in a super-liberal neighborhood, doesn't represent the entire left.
- Calling half of the country the "lunatic outrage mob" is about as useful as calling half of the country stupid bumpkin cult-followers. He rails against the tribal nature of our politics but feeds directly into it. If he could hear his own message through another person's perspective, instead of screaming into the void of the internet, he might provide a more refined and useful perspective.
- Comparing systemic racism to peanut allergies is absurd on its face and shows either of lack of knowledge or compassion. I really hope I don't have to point out the many ways why.

 

I don't dispute that facts affect or interact with each other, but I don't think that makes any point I made less factual. It's almost like you're using the straw man fallacy to dispute my arguments even after my entire post was pointing out a straw man fallacy.

To the Bill Maher thing, you're completely right but I mistakenly left a hanging modifier which made my point confusing. The "that" I meant Tim didn't catch was that Bill was mocking the CDC and doesn't agree with them, not that Bill is a germaphobe. Tim's argument for cognitive dissonance is that Bill believes it's foolish for Trump to have large gatherings but that the virus doesn't spread through close proximity or on surface areas, but Bill doesn't actually believe the later so there's no dissonance there.

As for CHAZ, I never argued liberals aren't passively supporting it. My comment was refuting the big headline on the article Tim relies upon that says "The firebrand behind Seattle's CHAZ: Councilwoman and socialist Kshama Sawant...". She actually has very little to do with the CHAZ beyond the passive support you mentioned. I also don't think CHAZ is all the right-wing media has made it out to be. I suggest reading the local Seattle Times for a direct perspective (both good and bad) on what's actually going on. Fox News had to admit they photoshopped the picture of an armed guard onto a bunch of their images because the Seattle Times called them out on misrepresenting the situation. They also showed a picture of a burning building in Minnesota while reporting on the "chaos" of CHAZ.

I think there is an important conversation to have about defunding the police (or not). My argument was the Tim is failing to properly represent the conversation and using a straw man fallacy to beat up on something that (as he mentions in polling) very few liberals actually agree with. The larger conversation that most liberals do agree with is that the role of the police needs to change for the sake of the cops and communities they're supposed to protect. Stopping speeders is absolutely important, but why do you need a gun and training in lethal force to do that? 95% of speeders would likely pull over for a "Traffic Enforcement Agent" who gives you a ticket and you go on your way without deadly force entering the equation. For the 5% who don't stop, then the TEA radios the cops and reports reckless endangerment and they can begin a chase. Just like a cop might radio and ambulance if they arrive on the scene and medical assistance is needed.

Overall it seems Tim plays so fast and loose with the facts and overgeneralizing based on isolated examples that his credibility on even the legitimate points he makes is already in tatters.