Straight Dope Message Board

[Sunny Daze]

Thank you. 51

[QuickSilver]

Originally Posted by WillFarnaby

When people join the US military, which has murdered many millions of innocent non-“whites”, it is hard to take them seriusly when they lament white supremacy.

The US military is basically a white supremacist organization with access to stolen money and deadlier weapons. This point has been made much clearer after 9/11 for the thinking citizenry of the world. Anyone who has joined the military after 9/11 is on average much worse than WWII era German soldiers because most of those guys were conscripted slaves. Today’s military is voluntarily murderous.

Oh, you trolling wanker. Fuck right off. 52

[Doyle]

Originally Posted by iiandyiiii

If McVeigh had been a large-scale vandal, or hacked into government systems and scrambled thousands of man-hours of work, or similar, then perhaps one could have a reasonable discussion about whether his actions were in any way reasonable. But he was a mass murderer of men, women, and children -- and white supremacism (in particular the Turner Diaries, based on my reading) was fundamental to his ideology. It's both unreasonable to feel that the bombing was in any way reasonable, and it's unreasonable to believe that it didn't have anything to do with white supremacism. IMO.

Wasn't McVeigh's accomplice, Terry Nichols, married to an Asian? 53

[QuickSilver]

Originally Posted by Doyle

Wasn't McVeigh's accomplice, Terry Nichols, married to an Asian?

I hear they had a Jew lawyer. So they couldn't be racists. Right? 54

[John Mace]

Originally Posted by Lemur866

Will is a hardcore anarchocapitalist who believes that the United States went to hell in 1788 when the fascists overturned the Articles of Confederation, then it went to hell again in 1865 when the fascists won the Civil War, then it went to hell again in 1935 when the fascists implemented the New Deal, then it went to hell again in 1964 when the fascists passed the Civil Rights act.

Damn. We need someone to make America great again! 55

[QuickSilver]

Originally Posted by John Mace

Damn. We need someone to make America great again!

Oprah. 56

[Gary Kumquat]

Originally Posted by WillFarnaby

When people join the US military, which has murdered many millions of innocent non-“whites”, it is hard to take them seriusly when they lament white supremacy.

For the benefit of those of us who aren't fluent in fuckwit what does non-“whites” mean. Do the airquotes make a double negative with the "non", or reinforce it, or something else? 57

[WillFarnaby]

Originally Posted by GIGObuster

piffle.

Go ahead and deny that a lot of the strawman that you are making was changed decades ago by Harry S. Truman.

So you only made yourself to be an ignoramus of history, want to make it worse? Please proceed governor...

I’m curious how Harry Truman, Dropper of Atom Bombs On Japanese Innocents, makes you think the US military had given up on shoving white supremacy down the throats of millions of innocent non-“whites”.

A think piece from Vox will not satisfy my curiosity, so maybe I’m asking the wrong person. 58

[Morgenstern]

Originally Posted by WillFarnaby

I’m curious how Harry Truman, Dropper of Atom Bombs On Japanese Innocents, makes you think the US military had given up on shoving white supremacy down the throats of millions of innocent non-“whites”.

A think piece from Vox will not satisfy my curiosity, so maybe I’m asking the wrong person.

This clown is a full circus short of a pantload. 59

[WillFarnaby]

Originally Posted by Procrustus

Yeah, that was quite a post. I wonder if we're missing an attempt at satire or something.

You’re probably missing something, but not that.

Originally Posted by iiandyiiii

Whatever nonsense/fantasyland stuff you're talking about, it has nothing to do with this thread; if you want to start a new thread about your whackjob nutty views about the world, feel free, but I feel no need to indulge your wackiness in this one.

You trot out white supremacy whenever someone doesn’t fall into your quite narrow conception of the American political spectrum, but do not actually care about the damage your organization has done to the people of color around the world.

Originally Posted by Morgenstern

I'm giving him the benefit for a very short minute here. If he's equating those who serve their country with those who seek to violently destroy it, then things might change quickly here. I'm hoping it's satire.

Anyone who joins the military does so because of ignorance, malice, or ambition. If they are ignorant at the beginning, I doubt they remain so, therefore they fall into the other two categories after awhile.

Originally Posted by Spice Weasel

I thought he was Der Trihs!

No I advocate non-violence.

Originally Posted by iiandyiiii

It could just be his beef with me. He's been saying hateful things about me personally for a long time on this board.

You decided to out yourself as a person who benefits from state violence. Your choice. You decided to speak of others’ white supremacy. Your choice. It takes some balls for someone in your position to play victim.

Originally Posted by Sunny Daze

WillF crawls out specifically to spew his hatred in threads where he can get in random digs at liberals. I believe he's racist and that he has some mighty strange views on the Civil War. I'll have to look for those threads. I might be mis-remembering that bit.

I could get random digs at liberals in any thread. They are quite open to ridicule.

Originally Posted by Lemur866

Will is a hardcore anarchocapitalist who believes that the United States went to hell in 1788 when the fascists overturned the Articles of Confederation, then it went to hell again in 1865 when the fascists won the Civil War, then it went to hell again in 1935 when the fascists implemented the New Deal, then it went to hell again in 1964 when the fascists passed the Civil Rights act.

Yes they were all bad things.

I guess you believe with each of those events the US inched closer to its divine destiny.

Originally Posted by QuickSilver

Oh, you trolling wanker. Fuck right off.

If only it was that easy to handwave decades of state slaughter.

Originally Posted by Gary Kumquat

For the benefit of those of us who aren't fluent in fuckwit what does non-“whites” mean. Do the airquotes make a double negative with the "non", or reinforce it, or something else?

Whiteness is an artificial construct. It has changed significantly over time. For example, President Wilson believed that Germans were not white enough to escape his crosshairs. Trump is cool with the Germans, but watch out Koreans and Iranians. 60

[WillFarnaby]

Originally Posted by Morgenstern

This clown is a full circus short of a pantload.

Are you in the military?

“Remember, pillage before burning”

If so, am I hitting close to home for you? Did you join out of ignorance, malice, or ambition? 61

[Lemur866]

Is this the first time someone hijacked a pit thread about someone else and insisted that the pit thread should be about them, instead?

How much did HurricaneDitka pay you to take the heat, Will? Show us on the doll where he touched you. 62

[Spice Weasel]

Originally Posted by Lemur866

Is this the first time someone hijacked a pit thread about someone else and insisted that the pit thread should be about them, instead?

How much did HurricaneDitka pay you to take the heat, Will? Show us on the doll where he touched you.

He seems to be succeeding. 63

[WillFarnaby]

I thought I had made it about the US military, but of course, this board being populated by liberals, there is significant worship of the government henchmen. 64

[eschereal]

See, being a tedious, dogmatic shithead is not a way to actually win arguments or entice others to ponder your ideas. You just end up stuffed into everybody's “FRAGILE” carton. 65

[Spice Weasel]

Liberals are known for worshipping the military? What? 66

[Morgenstern]

Originally Posted by WillFarnaby

Are you in the military?

“Remember, pillage before burning”

If so, am I hitting close to home for you? Did you join out of ignorance, malice, or ambition?

Not in the military, but I'm thankful for those who have served and are serving. If it wasn't for them, assholes like you couldn't rant like a madman on the internet. 67

[Morgenstern]

Originally Posted by Spice Weasel

Liberals are known for worshipping the military? What?

And you thought SamuelA had an imagination. 68

[WillFarnaby]

Originally Posted by Spice Weasel

Liberals are known for worshipping the military? What?

Of course. Wilson to FDR to LBJ to Obama.

Originally Posted by Morgenstern

Not in the military, but I'm thankful for those who have served and are serving. If it wasn't for them, assholes like you couldn't rant like a madman on the internet.

The Heroes make enemies for me mission after mission. Nobody would want to hurt me if it wasn’t for their lust for adventure.

Who would stop me? None of the people slaughtered by the Heroes could ever do anything serious to me or any other person in the country.

Lol. Your world is one of great paranoia. 69

[WillFarnaby]

Originally Posted by eschereal

See, being a tedious, dogmatic shithead is not a way to actually win arguments or entice others to ponder your ideas. You just end up stuffed into everybody's “FRAGILE” carton.

I’m fragile for speaking unpopular truths to people I know will hate me for it? No the fragile ones hold on to their ideological belief in state violence because questioning it would shatter their world. 70

[bobot]

Originally Posted by Spice Weasel

Liberals are known for worshipping the military? What?

Haven't you seen all those liberals at Nascar events making a giant fucking production of the National Anthem? With their liberal stealth bombers flying over, and their liberal country stars sangin' the anthem? (With a prayer to Jesus, of course. Oh Jesus, if one of these drivers ends up crushed in the wall, please don't let any car parts decapitate a spectator, amen, Jesus.) 71

[Sunny Daze]

Originally Posted by WillFarnaby

The Heroes make enemies for me mission after mission. Nobody would want to hurt me if it wasn’t for their lust for adventure.

Who would stop me? None of the people slaughtered by the Heroes could ever do anything serious to me or any other person in the country.

Lol. Your world is one of great paranoia.

Whose WillF translation box is working? Mine is broken. 72

[Morgenstern]

Originally Posted by WillFarnaby

Of course. Wilson to FDR to LBJ to Obama.



The Heroes make enemies for me mission after mission. Nobody would want to hurt me if it wasn’t for their lust for adventure.

Who would stop me? None of the people slaughtered by the Heroes could ever do anything serious to me or any other person in the country.

Lol. Your world is one of great paranoia.

You've got more loose screws than an old Dodge. 73

[bobot]

nm 74

[iiandyiiii]

Hopefully you're a happy and non-insane person in real life, WillF. On this board, there's no point in engaging with you, since you're constantly enraged and incoherent, in addition to your fantasies of psychic abilities.

Best wishes and happiness to you and your family! 75

[Ravenman]

Before anyone actually takes anything WillFarnaby has written in this thread as something that should be given any thought, so say nothing of a reasonable response, let’s just remember that in his world, Abraham Lincoln is a war criminal and Donald Trump was “the peace candidate.”

Just think about that for a few minutes, then we can all just get on with our lives without getting involved in this freak show of politics. 76

[elucidator]

Salty as a bag of Doritos, half the nutrition. 77

[eschereal]

Originally Posted by Sunny Daze

Whose WillF translation box is working? Mine is broken.

No, yours is working fine. You will know it is broken when the output start to make sense. 78

[begbert2]

I have no fondness whatsoever for the military, or its 'heroes', but this:

Originally Posted by WillFarnaby

Anyone who joins the military does so because of ignorance, malice, or ambition. If they are ignorant at the beginning, I doubt they remain so, therefore they fall into the other two categories after awhile.

is just so spectacularly stupid that even I can't let it pass.

Most people who join the military do so because it's a paying job that they've been told will teach them skills for free while letting them help their country.

You could, in theory, argue that it requires ignorance to believe that being a member of the military helps the country. You can't possibly make a sane argument that wanting a paying job or free skills training is evil, and you can't make any sort of coherent argument whatsoever that malice or ambition has anything to do with it at all. That's just crazy.

Look, I don't think there's anything praiseworthy about being a soldier, but it's mouth-frothingly deranged to claim you have to be some kind of demon to want to be one. Stuff like that gives you so much credibility that if you told me it was sunny outside I'd grab an umbrella. 79

[Chimera]

There's a reason I have this guy on Ignore, and it is demonstrated every time he posts.

You're wasting your energy trying to engage him. 80

[begbert2]

Originally Posted by Chimera

There's a reason I have this guy on Ignore, and it is demonstrated every time he posts.

You're wasting your energy trying to engage him.

Whenever you see me making a calm attempt to correct someone that also calls them stupid and crazy, you may feel free to infer that I'm not all that invested in them changing their mind. If I really want to change somebody's mind, I don't try to lure them with vinegar. 81

[elucidator]

You get more flies with honey than with vinegar. Shit works best, of course.... 82

[eschereal]

Thank you for that: I have been striving diligently to make the flies go away and here you are encouraging people to attract them. What the hell do I want with flies? 83

[Chimera]

Originally Posted by eschereal

What the hell do I want with flies?

That's always been my answer to the flies/honey claim.

But my post was really meant as an 'in general' thing, not aimed at begbert2.

Never argue with an idiot. They'll drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience. You'll also make the rest of us wade through pages of that shit looking to see if there might be a different conversation hidden in the weeds. 84

[wolfpup]

Originally Posted by Chimera

There's a reason I have this guy on Ignore, and it is demonstrated every time he posts.

You're wasting your energy trying to engage him.

I don't have WillFarnaby on ignore because I have very, very few posters on ignore. You never know when you might miss out on something entertaining and unintentionally humorous.

I must admit that I even respond to him sometimes, because I can't resist the easy mark, like a putdown against an annoying four-year old that you happen to dislike intensely. I don't actually engage with him on an ongoing basis for the reason you imply. He's not so much an extreme ideologue as he is a mental patient, the kind of psychopath that might be found on a street-corner soapbox. 85

[eschereal]

Putting someone like WillFarnaby on ignore is like using that hand sanitizer: if you avoid exposure to pathogens, you will be ill-equipped to deal with them when you have to. 86

[Derleth]

Originally Posted by Spice Weasel

Liberals are known for worshipping the military? What?

Eh. If you're so far Left you think Chomsky is a simpering pinko who has no taste for TRUE COMMUNISM, then Leftist means, basically, in favor of such madness as voting and compromise and individual liberties as opposed to Democratic Centralism or, you know, screaming at people about how Anarchism is so a grown-up political philosophy and we must implement it RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW WAAAAH!

Seriously: The fastest way to get a true, stone Leftist to screech at you is to call them a Liberal.

Which means WillFarnaby is an Ultra-Left agitator, somewhere out beyond the merely Wobbly and into the Fell Over territory. 87

[Alessan]

Originally Posted by Derleth

Seriously: The fastest way to get a true, stone Leftist to screech at you is to call them a Liberal.

As my Dad once explained to me: radicals want to free the slaves; liberals want to improve their working conditions. 88

[Morgenstern]

Trolls like this make you really appreciate good old SamuelA's efforts. Sammy took more than one post to piss people off and even then, you didn't know if you were pissed or sympathetic, 89

[Chimera]

Originally Posted by Derleth

Seriously: The fastest way to get a true, stone Leftist to screech at you is to call them a Liberal.

Perhaps your right wing echo chamber makes you think this is a deadly insult. God knows you people have spent 10 year or more trying to make it a swear word.

But "Liberal" is a label I wear proudly. 90

[Mr. Nylock]

Originally Posted by Morgenstern

Trolls like this make you really appreciate good old SamuelA's efforts. Sammy took more than one post to piss people off and even then, you didn't know if you were pissed or sympathetic,

I was amused and sympathetic. 91

[eschereal]

I have to wonder if HD is paying these people to make posts that make him look less irrational. 92

[Blank Slate]

Originally Posted by eschereal

Putting someone like WillFarnaby on ignore is like using that hand sanitizer: if you avoid exposure to pathogens, you will be ill-equipped to deal with them when you have to.

Why would you even want to put him on ignore? It's comedy gold, intentionally or not. 93

[eschereal]

Gold? No, more like Comedy Pewter. 94

[Ravenman]

More like comedy mercury. It will eventually drive you insane. 95

[Tamerlane]

Originally Posted by Chimera

Perhaps your right wing echo chamber makes you think this is a deadly insult.


But "Liberal" is a label I wear proudly.

I'm fairly certain Derleth isn't on the right( though maybe I'm misremembering ). Regardless he is quite correct. The far left( Marxists in particular )do consider "liberal" to be an insult. I should know, I have some in the family . Here's a classic sarcastic example from Phil Ochs. 96

[Derleth]

Originally Posted by Chimera

Perhaps your right wing echo chamber makes you think this is a deadly insult. God knows you people have spent 10 year or more trying to make it a swear word.

But "Liberal" is a label I wear proudly.

If you self-describe as a Liberal, not only was I not talking about you, I likely have more in common with you than you likely suspect.

Originally Posted by Tamerlane

I'm fairly certain Derleth isn't on the right( though maybe I'm misremembering ). Regardless he is quite correct. The far left( Marxists in particular )do consider "liberal" to be an insult. I should know, I have some in the family . Here's a classic sarcastic example from Phil Ochs.

Right. Or, well, correct, although to a Burn The World Revolutionary Socialist, I am on the Right, politically, because I'm not a utopian, I'm not an idealist* or someone else who thinks that the world is spinning along a fore-ordained path made of either holy dogma or dialectical materialism. I want policies and governance, and I regard a revolutionary zeal as infantile, a way of dodging the hard problems of compromise and, more generally, dealing with people you disagree with peacefully. I'm a Progressive, in that I want accelerated social progress and do not view groups different from mine as inherently impure or dangerous, but I don't pretend to have a master plan and I certainly don't intend to follow anyone who claims to.

*(Another word some of the Extreme Left have turned into an insult. To be fair, calling something "idealist" was quite the grave insult in the USSR. Everything had to be practical and pragmatic. You know, like Lysenkoism.)

Of course, I'm an American. Most of the important infantile revolutionaries in my country are self-described Conservatives, right in the mold of Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich and the rest of the Conservative Movement.

(But in a broader historical sense, the entirety of the mainstream political spectrum in America is Liberal in the sense of broadly being Free Trade-ish Capitalist Republican, often with Welfare State characteristics, instead of Mercantilist Divine-Right Monarchist. The United States of America was founded on strong Liberal values, and the American Revolution was a Liberal revolution. Tell that to a self-described American Conservative today and you just might make their head explode.)

Originally Posted by Alessan

As my Dad once explained to me: radicals want to free the slaves

... right into the gulag. 97

[Tamerlane]

Originally Posted by Derleth

I am on the Right, politically, because I'm not a utopian, I'm not an idealist* or someone else who thinks that the world is spinning along a fore-ordained path made of either holy dogma or dialectical materialism.

If you held a gun to my head right at this moment, I'm not sure I could come up with a universal definition of political "left" vs. "right" that I'd be 100% comfortable with. But whatever nervous gibberish I did spit out as you cocked the hammer, I doubt either idealism or utopianism would figure into it.

I mean both communits and radical libertarians are utopian. And earnest young neoconservatives can be just as idealist as earnest young left anarchists. 98

[Chimera]

I may be a Liberal, but as I have said (in many variations) on this board repeatedly;

"If your Ideology requires people to not be Human, then your ideology won't work."

Communism (the ideal) requires people who are not Humans, since Human Nature doesn't work the way the ideology assumes.

Star Trek Utopianism is also bullshit for the same reasons.

I feel the same way about American Conservatism. It requires some really odd beliefs about how humans can and should act that just don't fit Human Nature. All the more so when I see people espousing and demanding that people act in ways the people making the demands do not act. 99

[Derleth]

Originally Posted by Tamerlane

If you held a gun to my head right at this moment, I'm not sure I could come up with a universal definition of political "left" vs. "right" that I'd be 100% comfortable with. But whatever nervous gibberish I did spit out as you cocked the hammer, I doubt either idealism or utopianism would figure into it.

I mean both communits and radical libertarians are utopian. And earnest young neoconservatives can be just as idealist as earnest young left anarchists.

You cut an important part of my sentence, but you picked up on an important point in my diatribe.



Increasingly, my first-cut division in political matters is Idealistic (or, when I'm feeling less charitable, Teleological) versus Pragmatic: Does this person believe the world is governed by a Big Theory? Will this person deign to talk to those they disagree with? Is this person capable of governing? Because governing is the process of compromising grand ideas to get measurable victories. If you can't do that, you lose and lose and lose until you fade away or go to war, at which point you've given your movement over to the killers, who are infinitely more pragmatic than even the most pragmatic politicians because pure ideology is a poor meal and a worse hand grenade.

In extremis, it's a decision between humans as they are now and trying to bootstrap Humanity 2.0, Now With Less Bad Stuff! And, of course, getting from humans-as-they-are to humans-as-they-should-be never involves, you know, not killing people, that would be ridiculous.

I should note that being an Idealist and being an Ideologue are not quite the same thing. An Ideologue is simply fixated on an idea, but is possibly willing to compromise on their way to implementing it. An Ideologue who's good at governing can be effective, and can do quite a lot of damage or quite a lot of good, depending on what you think of their fixed idea. An Idealist relates everything back to their Big Theory, so any compromise looks like a defeat to them. The stupidest things become purity tests, and woe betide anyone who fails.

Pragmatists cluster around the center of the spectrum, because that's where the action is, and that's where decisions happen. So, in the converse of the Narcissism of Small Differences, which involves emphasizing the small distinctions of groups similar to yours, you get the Myopia for Distant Differences, or the false conclusion that all groups distant from you are homogeneous. Therefore, to someone out in the Trump Swamp, I'm a Liberal CommieSocialist Eurofag Pinko, and to someone in the Marx Mire, I'm a Fascist Republican Brownshirt. 100