Why the Owner of TheDonald.win Finally Pulled the Plug (msn.com) 232
All the content at TheDonald.win has now been replaced with a single post, explaining that the mod team had been struggling to deal with a flood of content from "a small group of extremists."
The Washington Post tells the story of the 41-year-old Army veteran who owned the domain — and ended up hosting the entire community that had been banned from Reddit's TheDonald forum.
"You might be happy being some ethno-nationalist, but I'm not," said Williams, recalling his exchanges with a handful of particularly hardcore moderators. "I don't want anything to do with this...."
Williams finally took decisive action on Jan. 21, two weeks after the Capitol assault, after waking to news that a group of other moderators had started their own site and used it to attack him. Soon, Williams used his power as the Web address owner to knock TheDonald offline. Then he defended himself publicly against his former compatriots, who had criticized him as a "rogue" and a selfish coward. Williams, who lives in Texas and has three young children, also endured death threats, online harassment and FBI questioning, he said...
The November election, followed by Trump's baseless claims of widespread electoral fraud, further intensified the viciousness on TheDonald. Williams said he'd become increasingly aware of what he believed were intentional efforts by nefarious actors to push the site's boundaries...
[E]ven as a Trump loyalist, scenes of Trump's supporters — some of whom almost certainly met and organized themselves on TheDonald — overrunning the Capitol depressed Williams, he said. The site soon featured in critical news reports, criminal investigations and articles of impeachment for Trump. The domain registrar, Epik, warned that the site would get kicked offline after a flood of complaints about hateful, threatening content. Incoming queries from the FBI, Epik and journalists writing about TheDonald's role in the Capitol attack inundated Williams, for whom moderating the site already had become something of a full-time job. Williams also knew that members of TheDonald community had indeed used the site to instigate the assault. "People definitely used the site to communicate and coordinate," he said, echoing the conclusions of independent researchers...
He now is spending his time caring for family and trying to get a new site, America.win, up and running. Unlike TheDonald, it will not offer unfettered discussion. It will be, he said, more of an aggregator of what Williams considers important content about free markets, individual liberty and other "common patriotic causes."
He has a parting message for those who might still be caught up in the roiling forums of the sort he once joined, then moderated, then killed off: Things often are not as they seem. QAnon is not real. What may look online like a magical, mystical voice of secret wisdom may just be a guy hiding behind the Internet's veil, trying to keep it all going, hoping it doesn't spin out of control.
The Washington Post tells the story of the 41-year-old Army veteran who owned the domain — and ended up hosting the entire community that had been banned from Reddit's TheDonald forum.
"You might be happy being some ethno-nationalist, but I'm not," said Williams, recalling his exchanges with a handful of particularly hardcore moderators. "I don't want anything to do with this...."
Williams finally took decisive action on Jan. 21, two weeks after the Capitol assault, after waking to news that a group of other moderators had started their own site and used it to attack him. Soon, Williams used his power as the Web address owner to knock TheDonald offline. Then he defended himself publicly against his former compatriots, who had criticized him as a "rogue" and a selfish coward. Williams, who lives in Texas and has three young children, also endured death threats, online harassment and FBI questioning, he said...
The November election, followed by Trump's baseless claims of widespread electoral fraud, further intensified the viciousness on TheDonald. Williams said he'd become increasingly aware of what he believed were intentional efforts by nefarious actors to push the site's boundaries...
[E]ven as a Trump loyalist, scenes of Trump's supporters — some of whom almost certainly met and organized themselves on TheDonald — overrunning the Capitol depressed Williams, he said. The site soon featured in critical news reports, criminal investigations and articles of impeachment for Trump. The domain registrar, Epik, warned that the site would get kicked offline after a flood of complaints about hateful, threatening content. Incoming queries from the FBI, Epik and journalists writing about TheDonald's role in the Capitol attack inundated Williams, for whom moderating the site already had become something of a full-time job. Williams also knew that members of TheDonald community had indeed used the site to instigate the assault. "People definitely used the site to communicate and coordinate," he said, echoing the conclusions of independent researchers...
He now is spending his time caring for family and trying to get a new site, America.win, up and running. Unlike TheDonald, it will not offer unfettered discussion. It will be, he said, more of an aggregator of what Williams considers important content about free markets, individual liberty and other "common patriotic causes."
He has a parting message for those who might still be caught up in the roiling forums of the sort he once joined, then moderated, then killed off: Things often are not as they seem. QAnon is not real. What may look online like a magical, mystical voice of secret wisdom may just be a guy hiding behind the Internet's veil, trying to keep it all going, hoping it doesn't spin out of control.
Turns out fascism is hard. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Turns out fascism is hard. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's all fun and games, until the FBI shows up at your house and holds you responsible for what you said and did.
Re: (Score:2)
So when is Schumar, Pelosi, Waters, and Cortez going to be held accountable?
Re: (Score:2)
Her Anglicized name is Alexadria Ocasio, Cortez is her maternal last name.
Re:Unless you're a member of Congress (Score:5, Insightful)
The Democratic Party was happy to be associated with the 93% of protests that were peaceful. Since the police have known since the 1970s that the fastest way to turn a peaceful protest into an uncontrolled riot is to meet it with disproportionate violence and remove its leadership it's pretty much a given that they knew what they were doing by attacking the other seven percent with chemical weapons and grabbing its leaders. They got what they wanted, a riot where they could beat the shit out of people and mace babies in arms, and you morons got the nice broad brush you could paint the entire movement with. Now you can hang your banner, put on your codpiece, and strut around declaring Mission Accomplished!
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, they were happy to associated with almost all of them. Then you have events like Minneapolis where things were pretty peaceful until some Aryan Cowboy kicked off the violence.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/28... [cnn.com]
Re:Unless you're a member of Congress (Score:5, Insightful)
They caught some Boogaloo Boys in Las Vegas with molotov cocktails that they intended to throw at police to try and get them to fire into the crowd, which of course begs the question of how many didn't get caught.
Re: (Score:2)
Was he an actual protester, of just someone who went to the BLM protests because he wanted to to cause trouble while the police were distracted with the protest? I'm still not clear on that.
Re: (Score:2)
Eh, when it comes to unjustly prosecuting and imprisoning minorities, Harris has nothing to apologize to the Republicans for. I'll allow it.
Re: Turns out fascism is hard. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but "opinion" that term that people use, when they want to sell us *belief* as their *view*.
Where views are based on actual experiences from actual reality, and differ only because perceived reality is relative and can't be questioned because that's the only reality everyone of us actually *has*.
And beliefs stay that way, regardless of them conflicting with actual real-world experiences (aka schizoid illnesses), or even of conflicting with themselves (aka split personality syndrome).
In other word
Re: Turns out fascism is hard. (Score:5, Insightful)
From your fine article: "The handshake between business and labor was just one component of a vast, cross-partisan campaign to protect the electionâ"an extraordinary shadow effort dedicated not to winning the vote but to ensuring it would be free and fair, credible and uncorrupted."
That doesn't sound like a steal to me.
Re: Turns out fascism is hard. (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe you should find a different article to promote your point of view then, as the one you posted just shit all over it. Classic all-time blunders. Planning a land war in Asia next?
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder if the intent was even to back up their point of view, or just to provide a link to make people think it had credibility.
Re: (Score:3)
Don't be such a gullible piece of poo. Read what the article says they did, but ignore the conclusory arguments about their motives, or -- more fairly -- assume they had bad motives in what they did.
People who act in bad faith always see conspiracies to act in bad faith everywhere. You're the piece of shit here.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I don't see anything in that article that reflects "bragging about how they used fraud to steal an election from a sitting dictator." What specifically in the article supports that claim?
You missed the sarcasm. No, they didn't use fraud. They used very legal means like not getting into fights with the proud boys, not turning up when "patriots" smashed the Capitol, sending observers to elections when rightwing observers were harassing black vote counters, and so on.
They didn't steal an election, they did what they could to make sure that both votes and the outcome of the election reflected the will of the majority of legal voters.
And the sitting dictator was of course no other than the
Re: (Score:2)
When's the last time a dictator got voted out?
Re: (Score:2)
So that article is behind a paywall, where I have to pay with my email address. And I'm not going to do that.
Got any valid articles?
Re: Turns out fascism is hard. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't want to burn karma posting evidence.
So that's a "no".
Every time that facts are posted, they are instantly downmodded.
From where I'm sitting, it looks like you're upset that what you think is factual isn't.
Moderations should not be anonymous.
No, comments should not be anonymous.
If you can't come up with some evidence to support your position, however, you shouldn't post any comments at all.
Re: Turns out fascism is hard. (Score:4, Informative)
If you are going to post links to epoch times, you should know that it is a propaganda arm of the Falun Gong (Chinese Scientology) and really not an accurate source for information
Re: (Score:2)
The Washington Times isn't any better, it's owned by the Moons and their Unification Church, as is UPI News Service (although they're more light handed with UPI.)
BTW, the Shun Yen Dance Troupe that tours the US and Europe is also a Falun Gong propaganda operation. We went to see them a couple of years ago and while I found the ballet to be nice the story line presented was annoying.
Re: (Score:2)
If you saw the Real Bodies plastination exhibit, you may have also seen some Falun Gong practitioners [newsweek.com], although they likely provided no oral diatribe
Re: (Score:2)
So which claims in that article are wrong? Or are you just parroting CCP propaganda about Falun Gong [wikipedia.org]?
Re: (Score:2)
I've found Epoch Times to be about as reliable as Watchtower, and for much the same reasons.
https://www.jw.org/en/library/... [jw.org]
Re: (Score:2)
This is a good read on Falun Gong cult-like profiteering model [dailykos.com]
A long history of lies and profiteering off of gullible people is what I see
Re: (Score:2)
Can you cite any source that was edited by the platform hosting it? It would look less like CCP propaganda that way.
Or maybe your intent was to confirm that you cannot find anything wrong with the article linked above, and are in fact just parroting propaganda.
Re: (Score:2)
thank you for demonstrating Gaslighting
Re: Turns out fascism is hard. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't want to burn karma posting evidence.
Then reply to this post as an Anonymous Coward and present your evidence. No karma burned.
Re: Turns out fascism is hard. (Score:4, Funny)
I don't want to burn karma posting evidence.
It that why Team Trump never presented any evidence in all their court cases?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
It that why Team Trump never presented any evidence in all their court cases?
Technically the reason was that there wasn't any, but don't expect his cult members to ever admit that.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Turns out fascism is hard. (Score:5, Informative)
of those that actually considered the evidence
This means "of those which were not laughed out of court for being so bad"... My college grades would have been better if my professors had to ignore those tests where I partied rather than studying, and my homework assignments which I never did or turned in.
Also, that same article said that of the ~80 total lawsuits, only 3 dealt with voter irregularities (well, 3 which were not laughed out of court). And only 3 others dealt with voting machine issues. So I think your argument is 6/80 or 7.5% of the lawsuits support the "election was stolen" narrative, which is a pretty terrible number.
The article also neglects to mention that the lawsuits that were laughed out were the ones that alleged large-scale issues; the remaining ones are for tiny numbers of ballots which will not change any results no matter how the lawsuits are resolved.
Basically, the "study of election law suits" and the articles describing it are excellent examples of using carefully chosen truths and carefully ignored context to give an impression which is largely false.
Re: (Score:3)
Even the fake hearings that Giuliani held were laughable, and you could see him trying to get his star witness to sit down as she was hurting the case.
Re: Turns out fascism is hard. (Score:2)
It is when the reason for lack of standing is that you didn't even file in the right jurisdiction.
Re: Turns out fascism is hard. (Score:5, Informative)
Depends on the ruling. The one where Texas sued other states in the Supreme Court? That was laughed out of court. Sure, the decision was very politely worded, but the meta-meaning of "what the fuck are you even!?!?!?" was loud and clear. When even Thomas's dissent was "we should hold the hearing, because I interpret the constitution to say that we should *always* hold a hearing, but guys, what the hell?" you know that you've made some poor life choices.
To be fair, I don't recall if that lawsuit was rejected due to standing, and a quick search isn't giving me good results. But since rejecting based on standing is saying "there was no point in you filing this lawsuit in the first place, it's invalid, please go away", I think that "laughed out of court" is not a bad shorthand for many cases.
Yes, not all of the dismissed lawsuits were "laughed out of court". But many were, and if an argument starts with "well, just because 70% of our results are laughable garbage doesn't mean.." then it's not an argument that will or should convince many people.
Re: Turns out fascism is hard. (Score:5, Informative)
Post some actual links where the courts denied the cases because of "obvious bullshit" instead of standing and other lame reasons.
Surely you can Google "judge laughs at Trump campaign lawyers" on your own.
Did you watch any of the open hearings in the swing states where it was very clear from those speaking that blatant fraud occurred?
Hearings like this one? [youtu.be] There was maybe blatant drinking involved, perhaps.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Turns out fascism is hard. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, yes. This started in the 90s; conservatives found that their laughable accusations against Bill Clinton were being ignored by most media since that media demanded crazy things like "proof" and "evidence". So people started the "mainstream media is far-left" crap, to give gullible people a justification to ignore facts which disagreed with their beliefs.
*People* who work in mainstream media have become more left-leaning; that is mostly expected when right-wingers describe fair media as "enemies of the state". But the media itself, while never perfect, has prioritized provable facts over partisan allegations.
If Biden has trouble making an intelligble speech or has trouble walking down a ramp, it will be on CNN. But CNN won't claim that he's senile without such evidence. OANN, well, has never seen the need to wait for evidence. And that, my friends, is the difference between "far left" media and rightwing media.
Re: (Score:2)
Because when the facts are against you, and your religion demands that Trump is the once and future ruler of America, then you label the facts as lies, label the main stream media who report the truth as liars, and point to obscure unverifiable reporting from wierdo fringe groups with overt political bias.
Point to an actual court case as this will be public record.
Re: (Score:2)
It's re-cancel culture. They accuse the left of doing it but it's just as rampant on the far right as well. Fox removed their lips from Trump's ass to take a breath and they were suddenly declared to not be loyal enough, not be patriotic enough, not be American enough. The thing that cultists hate much more than non believers are heretics, and Fox is the heretic. Now it's NewsMax being accused of heresy for not standing fully behind Lindell's insane ramblings. OANN may be on the chopping block next, st
Re: Turns out fascism is hard. (Score:5, Insightful)
Trump actually cared about the common people.
Were you actually able to type that with a straight face?
Re: (Score:2)
Meanwhile, Trump called his vice president a traitor and had his fascists troops erect gallows, attack the Capitol while chanting "Hang Mike Pence", kill a police officer, and the evidence indicates they were going to try to kill congressmen by gassing them in tunnels.
Re: (Score:2)
I laughed pretty hard at that line!
Person who had recently expressed socially unacceptable ideology retreats to "libertarian" hideout tent, news at 11! XD
It had to happen eventually, (Score:4, Funny)
Epik claims sound bogus. (Score:2)
I asked Rob to comment [twitter.com], because that's not how Epik rolls.
Etno-nationalist? (Score:2, Funny)
Is that code for "racist"?
In a society where "racist" gets abused for all kinds of ridiculous things, including *being* actually racist while calling others that distorted "racist"...
Re: (Score:3)
Not quite, you need to be a racist to be an ethno-nationalist, but it means a person who supports the establishment of an ethnostate. There are online dictionaries with all these words in them. You may also want to look up "racist" and "colorblind" and see that they're not opposites.
Re: (Score:2)
Not exactly opposites no, but for those who believe skin color matters for anything, yes, discriminating on skin color is the exact opposite of not discriminating on skin color.
Re: (Score:3)
The actual, literal, definition of racism (From the OED 2nd Edition; so pretty much as definitive as it gets.) though, is that it's a synonym for racialism which, in turn, is race-based prejudice based on the belief that one's race is superior to the other's. I got curious and looked it up when people kept saying that it's impossible for anyone who's not white to be a racist because racism requires a power dynamic where one race holds power over the other(s).
So while the SJW crowd is wrong because racism d
Re: (Score:2)
There is actually one particular dictionary from the '70s that basically defines racism as being synonymous with white supremacy, which the people who say that only white people can be racist keep using.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No, it's code for neo-N@zi. They tried to rebrand themselves because N@zi has some PR issues attached to it, and it lets them get in with MAGA and other slightly more moderate groups.
That's how they recruit. Get in with any group they can, political or video games or anything at all. Pretend to be something else, present their ideas in a more moderate form before they get to the genocide part.
Re: (Score:2)
"Western Culture Chauvanist" == racist. Overtly racist in some places, but dog whistle racist in other places. Ie, they think multiculturalism is bad, western European Christian culture is superior to all others (even though most of them are not even remotely religious), and people with different beliefs or cultures should leave their countries. Basically, like the white supremacists except that they're trying very hard to not to mention race directly, lest potential members get scared away before they'r
Re: (Score:3)
Amusingly they also think that all European cultures are homogeneous and somehow resemble US culture. Sure, in Spain they dance Flamenco and in Germany they Polka, but they're all just like us, right? At the turn of the 20th century there was still quite a bit of disagreement in the US as to whether the Irish and Italians were actually "white".
Re: (Score:2)
The Nehalem had a better idea- choose the four who acted the best, and kill the rest.
Re: (Score:2)
Not as much as I love those who're convinced that they and they alone are above being "manipulated". You know the type. The ones who spend entire minutes searching the web for alternative news sources until they find one that fits their own misconceptions, stereotypes, and personal biases.
And out of curiosity, which "public school view of history" triggered you here? The fact that most of the US was settled by European immigrants? The fact that slaves came from Africa? The fact that Native Americans lived h
Re: (Score:2)
Probably should have left needles on the beach.
Knowing history... (Score:5, Informative)
1) There were plenty of people in the western hemisphere before European exploration began
2) European exploration --> settlement --> population growth decimated the population of those who were there first (look up "smallpox" for a nice example of how).
3) European / white population did bring slaves, mostly Africans, referred to them as property, and started a very dirty war to preserve that arrangement.
Europeans had many advantages over the native population for several reasons.
For centuries before exploration of the west really kicked in, Europeans mostly had not yet developed various sanitation technologies and modern understanding of disease. Various diseases ran through the Europeans during those centuries, leaving survivors who were were generally less prone to the worst effects of those diseases.
For centuries before exploration of the west really kicked in, and for several centuries contemporary with that time, Europeans were experiencing a nearly constant state of war somewhere on the continent. Unsurprisingly, they developed relatively powerful technologies optimized for waging war.
That oh genius of history would be a comfortable definition of "shithole".
Nobody says that the Native Americans were gentle angels living in balance, singing happy songs of peace all the time. But there is no questions that this was absolutely their place. When the Europeans arrived, they brought their technology and cultural norms, with the result that the original people where slaughtered either by disease or war or both.
There are plenty of scholarly books and papers, "curious reader" books and papers, and during the last half century or so, decreasingly biased media presentations of that history.
Re:Knowing history... (Score:5, Informative)
had not yet developed various sanitation technologies
Is that a nice way of saying, "were the filthiest people in all of recorded history"? Peasants literally slept with their livestock for warmth and to keep them from being stolen, think about the amount of crap a single cow can deposit overnight. Pigeons and chickens roosted in the rafters, crapping on everything. Dogs were everywhere and house training didn't even exist as a concept, and pigs were kept in or near the kitchen for ease of feeding. Flies, lice and fleas were seen as a penance sent from god rather than as disease carriers, and while rats were killed because they ate the harvest cats, weasels and owls were suppressed as the associates of demons. Much meat was tenderized by aging, hanging in the open air until it began to rot and relax. In much of Europe peasants displayed their "wealth" by the height of the manure piled against the wall of their house. Bathing and washing clothes, along with most other personal hygiene steps, were discouraged by the church since they would provoke sinful thoughts. A modern person drinking the water of any river of the time would die of cholera or dysentery within days.
The result was that they were mostly immune to, and carriers of, every disease known to mankind. Ports in Africa and Asia quarantined European sailors to their own ghettos for centuries, attempting to control the spread of disease and limit the production of filth. The American peoples didn't stand a chance, and 90% of everyone from Point Barrow to Tierra de Fuego died.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't forget about the jingoist 1776 Report commisioned by the Trump administration, portraying the founding of the country in a more traditional whitewashed manner, the founding fathers being saintly men doing good work in all ways, and ignoring actual documented historic fact. The intent was to instill "patriotism" in schools. It's still being praised in the right wing press, and the left and center are lambased for not accepting the made up truth in it.
My guess is that the far right is just pissed that
The *real* reason he pulled the plug (Score:4, Insightful)
... is not because he is a good person who doesn't believe in QAnon BS. This is a man who was a moderator on r/TheDonald, posted pictures of bullets in response to Trump's claim of vote count fraud, and tweeted that Trump supporters should "siege the corrupt Federal Apparatus that seeks to chain you all up" using the hashtag #DCMustFall. I'm pretty sure the only reason he wasn't at the Capitol on January 6 is because there isn't an aircraft powerful enough to transport his fat ass.
No, Williams' change of heart only happened after the FBI came knocking and it finally dawned on him - as many other Trump supporters - that shitty actions have shitty consequences.
Fuck this fat sack of shit for enabling other sacks of shit like him. If there is a hell, he will burn in it.
Re:The *real* reason he pulled the plug (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure the only reason he wasn't at the Capitol on January 6 is because there isn't an aircraft powerful enough to transport his fat ass.
No, Williams' change of heart only happened after the FBI came knocking and it finally dawned on him - as many other Trump supporters - that shitty actions have shitty consequences.
“Whether or not Williams condones racism and anti-Semitism is irrelevant. His site helped incite and facilitate one of the most egregious assaults on American democracy,” said Rita Katz, executive director of SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors online extremism. “He doesn’t get to pretend he wasn’t part of the problem.”
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
He doesn't get to pretend he wasn't part of the problem
I say the same thing about every Trump voter, and every "conservative" who votes for Trupist politicians in Republican primaries.
Re:The *real* reason he pulled the plug (Score:5, Informative)
Can you point me to ANTIFA's web site? All I find are a bunch of groups working against racism.
Re: (Score:2)
No, Williams' change of heart only happened after the FBI came knocking and it finally dawned on him - as many other Trump supporters - that shitty actions have shitty consequences.
It's easy to be self righteous, but Trump's last actions as President convinced many who fell for the Qanon tripe that they were actually just used as useful idiots and cannon fodder. And what dawned on quite a lot of them was that shitty actions were actually shitty actions. Which they were not aware of.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
OMG STRAWMAN! The_Assimilator never said it was a crime. He was merely pointing out the guy is a shitty person.
If I told you that I spend an hour every day trying to think of ways that I could kill my entire family and get away with it....just thinking about it, nothing more...I think you'd agree I have done nothing criminal. But I think you'd also agree I'm a pretty shitty person for it. Now go reread the post you replied to.
Re: (Score:3)
At least you're not continually posting online about how everyone else in your family are actually traitors to America and that perhaps it would be a good idea if all free-thinking American patriots should get together and storm your house and deal with the issue.
Accompanied, of course, by photos of bullets, nooses, Confederate flags, and proud Americans standing around in tactial gear caressing their guns and carrying firearms.
They moved to https://patriots.win/ (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Did you see that site ?
I almost went blind when I visited it, it looks like one of the old 90s AOL sites. All they need to add is blinking text to give it that true crazya** look
I then hand to deep scrub my cache so that terrible look will not infect other WEB sites.
Re: (Score:2)
I believe it once had blinking text but too many people kept thinking it was actually blinking in Morse Code and kept trying to decipher the secret signals...
Re: (Score:2)
It's a sad day when I can't tell if you're being satirical or not. If you were that's funny as hell, if you were being factual then that's just plain depressing.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I used to do that on the Free Republic web site when that was still a thing. Got lots of death threats, but the only thing that actually happened was that they put my email on a bunch of spam lists. All hat, no cattle.
Jerks (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The Ex-VPOTUS known as Al Gore, unaware that most people think he is an asshat, decided that HE should be the voice against Climate Change. He used science to back his message.
Because he was already seen as a political shit nugget by both Republicans and many Democrats, people attacked him and his message.
But, how does one refute "science"? -- With "bullshit." Deny science. Deny truth.
So Climate Change became political. Science became
Re: Jerks (Score:3)
You think Gore started the GQP's descent into lunacy? The initial response to HIV/AIDS. Reaganomics (aka "Voodoo Economics" as coined by HW Bush). Young Earth Creationism. The belief that life begins at the moment of conception. Leaded gasoline.
There is a very long history of conservatives denying reality when it conflicts with Christianity or Ayn Rand (as though the two are even remotely compatible).
Re: (Score:3)
At least some of the Flat Earthers are serious. I remember checking out their web site in the late '90s, the kind of thing a complete computer newbie could create as a first attempt in Web Design 101. Big blocks of text and some hand-drawn maps of how they thought it all worked (aircraft travel faster around the edge than in the middle for example, which is why it's only a few hours between Sydney and Singapore even though they were on the extremely stretched edges). I'm sure the movement is different no
Re: (Score:3)
if the left wants to accept the inconvenient truth that 13% of society commits 50% of the violent crime.
Duh. That's the difference between left and right. The left admit that statistic (which I think is inaccurate, but not really that far off), consider it a problem, and want to do something about it using scientifically designed and tested processes to alter the behavior and prevent recidivism. The right declares without proof that there is no other alternative than incarceration, which for over a century has been proven to not work, and obstruct any other solution.
Re: (Score:3)
Try posting it with a username and links to documentation at a respectable web site, not freerepublic or thedonald but the DOJ or mental health organizations. That will get an entirely different reaction than some anonymous coward posting what sounds like bullshit. The reason why I replied to you is someone did just that, so I looked and found that they were correct.
Re: (Score:2)
Present it like a troll, and get modded troll. Surprise!
Why are ACs so dumb?
Infantile (Score:2)
All these mod points I've already spent go down the drain, but this post really struck me.
It boils down to "I don't have to behave because some of these other kids are misbehaving."
Most people grow out of that kind of thinking after, oh, kindergarten. Yet, I see this kind of argument all the time from people who are ostensibly old enough to post to /. I bet a lot of these people are even old enough to vote in whatever jurisdiction they reside.
Sure, point out the hypocrisy of some of the so-called leaders,
So America.win = Mont Pelerin Society propaganda. (Score:5, Interesting)
The terms he uses are staight out of their propaganda textbook.
What they actually mean, is
1. Extremist libertarianism. Where "freedom" means the freedom to not care about *your* freedom. Like removing worker rights, environmental protection, and even human rights. Dismantling all the social amenities our great-grandparents fought so hard for, and go back to a job situation like in China or during the Rockefeller era.
2. Mooching on society by using all their amenities, but paying nothing for it, so that we have to pay for all of it. Aka "no taxes" (for them and only them).
3. "Privatization". Taking everything from your society (for free, of course), and making it theirs, until you live in a company town, and a company planet, and in permanent debt that makes you unable to get out of slavery. (American students and home owners already somehow know that from somewhere. As do Indian farmers that were forced to buy patented crops.)
They are a Swiss-based global group of over 500 openly fascist lobbyists, forum trolls and terror cells.
And responsible for so much shit, they make China and Russia look like powerless banana republics.
Re:So America.win = Mont Pelerin Society propagand (Score:5, Insightful)
mod +1 for the historical reference.
until you live in a company town, and a company planet, and in permanent debt that makes you unable to get out of slavery.
One of the groups most commonly associated with "Trumpism", that being Applachian populations, should be familiar with that concept, and I cannot figure out for the life of me why they don't see the connection. They are voting and protesting in support of exactly the people and social structures that kept them down for centuries.
From "Sixteen Tons" written by that revered social commentator Merle Travis, and performed by Tennessee Ernie Ford:
St. Peter don't you call me, 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
Re: (Score:2)
Nevada governor touts proposal to allow tech companies to create local governments [thehill.com]
Because it was such a good idea in the 1800s...
Re: (Score:3)
Then skip town leaving taxpayers with the bills.
Small? (Score:2)
> "a small group of extremists."
Any small group of people hardly can cope with a larger group of people.
Being the latter extremists or not seems irrelevant.
Re: (Score:2)
Not sure of your point here. Pretty sure the problem was the fact that a "small group of extremists" outnumbered the mods.
Re: (Score:2)
I came for the comments (Score:2, Funny)
Site was never really down (Score:3)
The site is still up at "patriots.win". The admins gave their side of the story there- they claim they couldn't contact the guy, and everyone had agreed to share ownership, but that never worked out. They said they were worried about the guy turning it into some doxxypot thing, and that was their reasoning for migrating the whole site over to patriots.win.
The real question I have is, why is any of this not mentioned in the summary- which is a relatively big summary. Specifically:
1- The fact that the website is still up at patriots.win
2- The fact that there's an entire team of moderators and administrators running this, with their own take on events
It's less strange that the site is being cast as if it tolerates or promotes racism or fascism- generally, anyone who has supported Republicans has been accused of this for decades, and any savvy reader of the press will be used to these accusations, I hope. It's still odd to see it accepted uncritically as a summary, of course.
Doesn't ring true... (Score:3)
If he *really* wanted no part of those ethno-nationalists; if he *really* didn't support the "stolen election" narrative; if he *really* didn't believe in the qAnon lies; if he *really* didn't support Trump's attempted coup on 1/6; if he *really* didn't support the kidnappig and murder of democratic representatives and senators, if he *really* didn't want to throw away democracy and set trump up as an authoritarian dictator... why did he set up the site and parrot, promote, and support all of those talking points in the first place?
This smells of mere damage control and an attempt to dodge responsibility (Ironic considering his party's "personal responsibility" fetish.) after the FBI started looking at him and lawsuits by the voting machine manufacturers started to emerge.
To save all mankind... (Score:2)
I, who normally oppose New Rules propose the following new rule for all social media sites, and any general news outlet sites:
The top 1/4 of the screen shall have an image of the "On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog" [wikipedia.org] cartoon, and it shall stay in place on the user's screen without regard to any scrolling or panning.
For four+ years, "mainstream" media and their websites pushed a massive lie that Trump had colluded with Russia and stole the 2016 election, based largely on "anonymous sources" and so-c
the reality is... (Score:2)
This, and all the other stuff where internet companies are suddenly finding their balls and banning him, it's all because his star power just dropped by an oder of magnitude and will NEVER recover. It's all about the $$$$ and not a single sliver about principles. Where were their principles 12 months ago?
A lot of handringing over Trump possibly ... (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, Trump got elected and a bunch of people held protests over what many considered to be major character flaws.
But... and help me here because I can't remember this, at what point did those protestors storm the Capital building, break in, and threaten to kill the Vice-President, the Speaker of the House, and Federal lawmakers?
Re: (Score:2)
Reason.com? Couldn't find anything on the Weekly World News website?
Re: (Score:2)
I presume that "including individuals shot and killed by police and armed civilians in self-defense" includes deaths inflicted by self-appointed vigilantes like Kyle Rittenhouse?
Further, I'd even question your use of "connected with the unrest". The list on Forbes, for example, lists some muggings, robberies, and so on whose only "connection" seems to be that they occurred in the same city on the same day.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/j... [forbes.com]