The Atlas Asylum of absurd/ignorant posts IX

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

The thing is, bullying isn't done "just for the sake of it." It can be a valuable way to expunge antisocial behavior without resorting to parental/state intervention.

I submit this as Exhibit A for the defense:

It doesn’t count as bullying if they deserve it.

Fergusons bad post doesn't make your post any less garbage.

[Mr. Smith]

https://twitter.com/lmresists/status/1568700820262375424

Gillibrand and all other D Senators that pressured Franken to resign need to be shot into the sun

It's besides the point, but I personally disagree.

Winning FL-SEN would have helped women more than someone who is maybe a creep being thrown out of the Senate by a woman who said she'd kick her own son out of the house if he was accused of sexual misconduct without much investigation.

Franken resigning made Democrats lose FL-SEN 2018?

I know political hacks can't figure out that there is rarely one single event that causes these elections to go a certain way, but I think the Democrats' hypocrisy and refusal to have mature, unemotional responses to the MeToo drama, including Franken, hurt them in the Senate back in 2018.

Mispelled Truman Tavern.

[°Leprechaun]

The thing is, bullying isn't done "just for the sake of it." It can be a valuable way to expunge antisocial behavior without resorting to parental/state intervention.

I submit this as Exhibit A for the defense:

It doesn’t count as bullying if they deserve it.

That is taken totally out of context. I wouldn't call being critical of Nazi beliefs, "bullying". The Nazis were the bullies, and that's an understatement.

[John Dule]

The thing is, bullying isn't done "just for the sake of it." It can be a valuable way to expunge antisocial behavior without resorting to parental/state intervention.

I submit this as Exhibit A for the defense:

It doesn’t count as bullying if they deserve it.

Fergusons bad post doesn't make your post any less garbage.

Stop bullying me.

[Aurelius]

True, but everybody hates HR.

Only people who are bigoted or sexually harass their co-workers.

[VBM]

HR is an extremely valuable job.

[Badger]

The thing is, bullying isn't done "just for the sake of it." It can be a valuable way to expunge antisocial behavior without resorting to parental/state intervention.

I submit this as Exhibit A for the defense:

It doesn’t count as bullying if they deserve it.

Fergusons bad post doesn't make your post any less garbage.

Stop bullying me.

No, you deserve it.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I agree that the Trump number is way too high, but I disagree that the Biden number is way too low. In most of Europe, Biden would be considered a far-right politician. The Republicans are off the face of the Earth in terms of how right-wing they are.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Wait, priests were making young boys perform push-ups in front of them? That's, uh, a little sketchy

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I think much of this has less to do with the culture of Atlas and more to do with the nature of conservatism itself. At best, conservatism seeks to preserve the status quo, so they haven't really though about how they might defend their beliefs. They've never had to. They're not advocating for any kind of change, so they don't have any institutions or leaders to challenge. Conservatives generally hail from echo chambers and have rarely, if ever, had their belief system challenged. They haven't been exposed to liberal/progressive line of thought. If they have, it's been a strawman or extremist outlier manufactured by Fox News or some other conservative outlet. So when they finally do encounter a left-leaning person who competently defends their beliefs, it feels like a personal attack. It's the same reason why many conservatives feel that their opinions are not welcome in a university setting. It's the first time where someone has actually made them defend why they believe what they believe. And since they've rarely critically thought about this, they become defensive. They view counterarguments as a personal attack. "I'm being attacked for my ideas." Now, there are many conservatives who DO know how to defend their beliefs and can competently engage in an exchange of ideas. The problem is that because the Republican Party has become the party of anti-intellectualism, the conservatives who do know how to debate don't really identify as Republicans and don't don the blue avatar.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

This is the right decision.

Suppose you were a wealthy white person in early 1960's Alabama who secretly supported civil rights.  Would you want your $10K donation to a group advocating for passage of the VRA to become a public record?  Do you realize what was likely to happen to this person if it did become public?

Offering a hypothetical scenario from sixty years ago involving $10,000, as a way to excuse billions of dollars flooding political campaigns from god knows where today is certainly a take.

First of all, $10K in 1960 is >$100K today, but OK fine, it could be one of the wealthiest people in the state secretly donating $1M.  

Either way, donations to anything legal should be 100% private unless the recipient notifies the donor in advance that they intend to disclose their info.  I'm an absolutist on this.  Elon Musk should be able to anonymously give $1B directly to DeSantis for President next year, Jeff Bezos should be able to anonymously give $1B to Reelect Biden 2024, and any random person should be able to give their $10, $100, or $1K anonymously to any legal non-profit activity they choose to support.

[Badger]

Wait, priests were making young boys perform push-ups in front of them? That's, uh, a little sketchy

This doesn't belong here. That is weird. JFC.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Ryan cant win in 22 is the same as KY Lean R 22

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Wait, priests were making young boys perform push-ups in front of them? That's, uh, a little sketchy

This doesn't belong here. That is weird. JFC.

Yes it is a weird post but it's also absurdly ignorant.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Never forget how leftists internationally were Ruhollah Khomenei’s cheerleaders, and that the current Iranian regime is a leftist one.

[Badger]

Wait, priests were making young boys perform push-ups in front of them? That's, uh, a little sketchy

This doesn't belong here. That is weird. JFC.

Yes it is a weird post but it's also absurdly ignorant.

Still defending a public school driving a bunch of kids to have the boys do push-ups in front of priests and preaching to girls how rewarding it is to forgive one's rapists I see. Completely on ridiculous point for you.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Wait, priests were making young boys perform push-ups in front of them? That's, uh, a little sketchy

This doesn't belong here. That is weird. JFC.

Yes it is a weird post but it's also absurdly ignorant.

Still defending a public school driving a bunch of kids to have the boys do push-ups in front of priests and preaching to girls how rewarding it is to forgive one's rapists I see. Completely on ridiculous point for you.

There are many victims of sexual trauma that would achieve inner peace if they could, indeed, forgive those that victimized them.  That does not mean restoring that person to a previous relationship (if the person was known to the victim) and it doesn't mean not seeking criminal penalties or civil damages from them.  But it DOES mean making the decision to allow the system to take its course and allow the Courts to judge a person (for this life) and God to judge him (for eternity). 

There is a difference between "forgiveness" and "restoration".

[Morning in Atlas]

Anyway, you know what I'd love? (Just branching out here...) If MTG's husband does what Paul Gosar's siblings did and campaigns against her, maybe even runs against her. Maybe he can claim he got physically abused by her (this tactic worked for Johnny Depp) or something. It would all be gold even if it was Safe MTG.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Wait, priests were making young boys perform push-ups in front of them? That's, uh, a little sketchy

This doesn't belong here. That is weird. JFC.

Yes it is a weird post but it's also absurdly ignorant.

Still defending a public school driving a bunch of kids to have the boys do push-ups in front of priests and preaching to girls how rewarding it is to forgive one's rapists I see. Completely on ridiculous point for you.

There are many victims of sexual trauma that would achieve inner peace if they could, indeed, forgive those that victimized them.  That does not mean restoring that person to a previous relationship (if the person was known to the victim) and it doesn't mean not seeking criminal penalties or civil damages from them.  But it DOES mean making the decision to allow the system to take its course and allow the Courts to judge a person (for this life) and God to judge him (for eternity). 

There is a difference between "forgiveness" and "restoration".

Then it should have been voluntary. Those who were interested in such could attend, and those who were not could simply choose not to.

[GoTfan]

Is that like how Veganites deliberately use civilians' misunderstanding of sentient and sapient to prove their intellectual and moral superiority?

Thus confirming to the plebs the justness of their hatred for the urban multicultural progressive elite.

[GoTfan]

Wait, priests were making young boys perform push-ups in front of them? That's, uh, a little sketchy

This doesn't belong here. That is weird. JFC.

Yes it is a weird post but it's also absurdly ignorant.

Still defending a public school driving a bunch of kids to have the boys do push-ups in front of priests and preaching to girls how rewarding it is to forgive one's rapists I see. Completely on ridiculous point for you.

There are many victims of sexual trauma that would achieve inner peace if they could, indeed, forgive those that victimized them.  That does not mean restoring that person to a previous relationship (if the person was known to the victim) and it doesn't mean not seeking criminal penalties or civil damages from them.  But it DOES mean making the decision to allow the system to take its course and allow the Courts to judge a person (for this life) and God to judge him (for eternity). 

There is a difference between "forgiveness" and "restoration".

If God punishes bad people, then he's got a pretty poor track record so far this century.

[Ferguson97]

The fact is that the 2020 election didn't HAVE to be conducted differently.  That was a choice, and it was a choice made, by and large, by individuals who shared the goal of ousting Trump from the White House by any means necessary.

No one likes losing, but when people act in ways that give the appearance of rigging the system for the other party, they are right to be upset to question that. 

And, no, the conduct of our 2020 election did not adhere to international standards.  I've posted that before.  When one side is silenced on social media, and while the rules of voting are changed to increase the possibility of votes that are merely harvested and counted and not truly cast (e. g. seniors in Wisconsin nursing homes) and those mail-in votes are subject to less rigid standards of verification as legitimate ballots, one is foolish to NOT question the fairness of the election.

"Our Democracy" (although that term really means "Our Oligarchy" when most pols quote it these days) can easily stand questions of the legitimacy of an election.  "Our Democracy" does not (and never has) required the naked Emperor to be treated as clothed.  But there is a presumption that the Emperor is clothed, and that presumption was afforded to every President EXCEPT Donald Trump.  THAT is the real threat to democracy; the treating as illegitimate a President who was elected against the will of collective elites as Trump was in 2016.  This does not justify the demonstration inside the Capitol on January 6, 2021, but it also does not justify lying about that demonstration by calling it a "violent insurrection", "coup attempt", etc.  And the invasions of the privacy of ordinary citizens and the violations of the Constitutional Rights of J6 defendants are bigger threats to basic Freedoms and Liberties (the stuff that makes meaningful elections possible) than Trump being a sore loser or Tweeting out that someone is a Poo Poo Head.

You use such big words as "The Big Lie" (implying, of course, that ordinary Americans who question the election's validity to this day are somehow Nazis) and "Conspiracy Theories" (implying that people are cranks for believing that something is not on the up and up when the result doesn't go their way). 

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Wait, priests were making young boys perform push-ups in front of them? That's, uh, a little sketchy

This doesn't belong here. That is weird. JFC.

Yes it is a weird post but it's also absurdly ignorant.

Still defending a public school driving a bunch of kids to have the boys do push-ups in front of priests and preaching to girls how rewarding it is to forgive one's rapists I see. Completely on ridiculous point for you.

Jumping to the conclusion that there were priests involved in any way in this story simply because it was an event at a church (not even a church with priests, probably) is ignorant and absurd. As is the insinuation that a priest is less to be trusted than, for ex., a gym teacher.

[Fuzzy Bear]

The fact is that the 2020 election didn't HAVE to be conducted differently.  That was a choice, and it was a choice made, by and large, by individuals who shared the goal of ousting Trump from the White House by any means necessary.

No one likes losing, but when people act in ways that give the appearance of rigging the system for the other party, they are right to be upset to question that.  

And, no, the conduct of our 2020 election did not adhere to international standards.  I've posted that before.  When one side is silenced on social media, and while the rules of voting are changed to increase the possibility of votes that are merely harvested and counted and not truly cast (e. g. seniors in Wisconsin nursing homes) and those mail-in votes are subject to less rigid standards of verification as legitimate ballots, one is foolish to NOT question the fairness of the election.

"Our Democracy" (although that term really means "Our Oligarchy" when most pols quote it these days) can easily stand questions of the legitimacy of an election.  "Our Democracy" does not (and never has) required the naked Emperor to be treated as clothed.  But there is a presumption that the Emperor is clothed, and that presumption was afforded to every President EXCEPT Donald Trump.  THAT is the real threat to democracy; the treating as illegitimate a President who was elected against the will of collective elites as Trump was in 2016.  This does not justify the demonstration inside the Capitol on January 6, 2021, but it also does not justify lying about that demonstration by calling it a "violent insurrection", "coup attempt", etc.  And the invasions of the privacy of ordinary citizens and the violations of the Constitutional Rights of J6 defendants are bigger threats to basic Freedoms and Liberties (the stuff that makes meaningful elections possible) than Trump being a sore loser or Tweeting out that someone is a Poo Poo Head.

You use such big words as "The Big Lie" (implying, of course, that ordinary Americans who question the election's validity to this day are somehow Nazis) and "Conspiracy Theories" (implying that people are cranks for believing that something is not on the up and up when the result doesn't go their way).

You are a liar and a manipulator of the worst kind.  You are perhaps the most morally bankrupt person on this entire forum.  Perhaps you could quote the whole post, and not just the part you think you can sell:

First off, you're not a Republican any more than Larry McDonald was a Democrat.  (McDonald was a Georgia Congressman and a nominal Democrat who was a member of the John Birch Society.)  

Second, your "Big Lie" line is tiresome.  Millions of Americans that are educated, work and pay taxes (you're in the process of one and not there for there yet for the other two) don't believe that the 2020 election was fairly administered, and they don't believe that irregularities and unconstitutional changes to voting procedures were given fair hearings in Court.  

Millions of Americans are well aware of the opposition to Trump by the "Intelligence Community".  And they are well aware of what the Intelligence Community does.  What DO they do?  In other countries, they manipulate public opinion by controlling their media, they create events to create narratives that can be used to manipulate elections and drive disfavored leaders from power.  And they do this covertly.  Lyman Kilpatrick, a former CIA Inspector General, described the perfect Covert Operation as one that remains undiscovered "from inception to eternity".  Allen Dulles once gave a lecture about the mechanics of covert operations and spoke about minor mishaps that resulted in temporary loss of cover.  Dulles stated that how damaging these slips could be depended on "the sophistication of the observer" and their ability to sense of what they were observing being something out of place.

An exaggerated response to COVID-19 designed to provide justification for massive changes in how America actually votes.  Unprecedented NGO involvement in the mechanics of elections (particularly Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook).  The implementation of widespread ballot harvesting.  These are the methods.  The deliberate relaxing of identification.  Denying poll watchers to watch recounts (Detroit). The recounting restarting in Atlanta when the GOP observers were gone.  The driver who transported Pennsylvania ballots to Lancaster, PA from LONG ISLAND.  The abnormal number of ballots ran that ONLY selected the Presidential race.  These things don't happen in every Presidential election, but they happened in 2020.  Then, to top it off, criticism of COVID-19 measures are effectively censored in ways far more typical of the Soviet Union (or Communist China) than today's American government.

People are not cranks for questioning this.  They knew 2020 was different.  They saw differences in the way things were ran and it wasn't Trump implementing the changes.  And, just like COVID-19, you're not allowed to question this.  

If you want to believe that the 2020 election was on the level, that's your choice.  Millions of Americans don't and it's not just because they're "Trump Cultists".  They know what they've observed and they have every right to conclude what is and isn't credible.  And when they've been systematically insulted, bullied, and censored, you'll forgive them when the response to them is to not believe the people telling them to shut up because everything's on the up and up.  I don't lose sleep over the 2020 election, but I'm not going to say it was fairly conducted and fairly administered, and millions of Americans agree with me.  Millions of Americans that have contributed far more to society than you have to date.

It's not about how many millions of people agree with you, or what they've contributed. You can have your own opinions, but not your own facts, as Pence and Harris et. al. said. Who *should* have won in 2020? If you say Trump, that's an opinion I can still respect even if I vehemently disagree. Who *did* win 2020? Biden. And that's a fact, that's all there is to it.

I'm not going to bother wasting my time with too many specific nitpicks of this post when you've doubtless received dozens in the past, and are adamant in your opinion, but regarding the "abnormal number of ballots" point - that's called overvoting/undervoting. People have a right to do this - they have the right to vote for whichever offices they want. They only want to vote in the presidential race? That's absolutely, 100% their choice. I don't know how you think this is some epic own or gotcha that there was a higher-than-usual number of presidential overvotes. So WHAT? It doesn't "InDiCAtE fRaUd" and I'm genuinely not sure how you think that it does. And regarding "2020 was different" - OF COURSE it was different! We had a global pandemic that took millions of lives (many of them American). So yes, it had to be conducted differently. There was mail-in voting. I do agree that some of the processes could be a little bit confusing or convoluted, but if you take the time to research rather than taking whatever out-of-context, half-baked sound-bite you're fed, you'll see that each of your little "nuggets of evidence" has a logical explanation (and no, it's not fraud). Nobody conspired to make Joe Biden president except for the American voters. Scores of Republicans (CONSERVATIVE Republicans who had previously never had their GOP credentials questioned - not centrists or even moderates or me when I considered myself a Republican - actually involved in election administration and oversight - said as much, said that although they wished the result was different and Trump had won, it wasn't within their power to unilaterally change it. I'll remind you it was DONALD TRUMP who asked Brad Raffensperger to "find him", to give him, the number of votes he needed to win GA. It was HE who wanted Raffensperger to "find" extra ballots at the last minute so that Trump could subvert the will of the voters of Georgia. It was Donald Trump and his Republicans who had said, who have said, that if they lose, that means the result is fraudulent. That's simply not how things work in a democracy, Fuzzy. You win some, you lose some. And you need to accept that. You need to not attack democracy like a sore loser when you lose - insist that you won and spread conspiracy theories and incite insurrection.

(Also, regarding the RINO part of your post - you're absolutely, 100% correct. The username is an outdated relic, and you're better off considering me as an Independent or even a de facto Democrat. I'm not a member of this Republican Party by any means whatsoever, make no mistake about it).

EDIT: Also, I'd appreciate you addressing the other points in my post (the ones on BLM and moderation bias, for instance).

The fact is that the 2020 election didn't HAVE to be conducted differently.  That was a choice, and it was a choice made, by and large, by individuals who shared the goal of ousting Trump from the White House by any means necessary.

No one likes losing, but when people act in ways that give the appearance of rigging the system for the other party, they are right to be upset to question that.  

We HAVE had stolen elections in our lifetime at all levels.  The 1960 Presidential election was likely stolen in Texas and Illinois (although it's likely that both sides were stealing in Illinois in 1960, but Daley was better at it).  The 2000 Presidential election was quite possibly stolen in Florida; we'll never really know, but it should raise issues when the Governor of Florida calls the Secretary of State in Florida in the middle of the count.  And this is true at other levels as well.  Stacey Abrams today still insists she is the rightful Governor of Georgia.  Yet Stacy Abrams is never called an enemy of democracy.

And, no, the conduct of our 2020 election did not adhere to international standards.  I've posted that before.  When one side is silenced on social media, and while the rules of voting are changed to increase the possibility of votes that are merely harvested and counted and not truly cast (e. g. seniors in Wisconsin nursing homes) and those mail-in votes are subject to less rigid standards of verification as legitimate ballots, one is foolish to NOT question the fairness of the election.

"Our Democracy" (although that term really means "Our Oligarchy" when most pols quote it these days) can easily stand questions of the legitimacy of an election.  "Our Democracy" does not (and never has) required the naked Emperor to be treated as clothed.  But there is a presumption that the Emperor is clothed, and that presumption was afforded to every President EXCEPT Donald Trump.  THAT is the real threat to democracy; the treating as illegitimate a President who was elected against the will of collective elites as Trump was in 2016.  This does not justify the demonstration inside the Capitol on January 6, 2021, but it also does not justify lying about that demonstration by calling it a "violent insurrection", "coup attempt", etc.  And the invasions of the privacy of ordinary citizens and the violations of the Constitutional Rights of J6 defendants are bigger threats to basic Freedoms and Liberties (the stuff that makes meaningful elections possible) than Trump being a sore loser or Tweeting out that someone is a Poo Poo Head.

You use such big words as "The Big Lie" (implying, of course, that ordinary Americans who question the election's validity to this day are somehow Nazis) and "Conspiracy Theories" (implying that people are cranks for believing that something is not on the up and up when the result doesn't go their way).  Elites in our society with the power to effect illicit changes of all kinds covertly rely on that belief and expect the ordinary citizen to not be a critical thinker.  To be sure, some conspiracy theories are crackpot nonsense.  But it was not crackpot nonsense to believe that Alger Hiss was a Communist Spy who had positioned himself to be a top adviser to FDR and Truman, who was positioning himself in the late 1940s to be close to John Foster Dulles in an anticipation of partisan change in America.  Millions of Democrats would not believe this; they believed that Hiss was set up.  It was only after the fall of the Soviet Union that files came to light confirming that Hiss was, indeed, a Soviet spy who was committing espionage at the highest levels.  The protection of Hiss was done, of course, to protect the legacy of FDR, which includes his negotiations at the Tehran and Yalta conferences, much of which were controversial, and people were lambasted as "conspiracy theorists" back then, but the passage of time proved them wrong.

People need to think for themselves today, and they need to question the veracity of anything they hear on the media.

I highlighted the part you left out.  I wonder how many here find that "ignorant".

[Fuzzy Bear]

Wait, priests were making young boys perform push-ups in front of them? That's, uh, a little sketchy

This doesn't belong here. That is weird. JFC.

Yes it is a weird post but it's also absurdly ignorant.

Still defending a public school driving a bunch of kids to have the boys do push-ups in front of priests and preaching to girls how rewarding it is to forgive one's rapists I see. Completely on ridiculous point for you.

There are many victims of sexual trauma that would achieve inner peace if they could, indeed, forgive those that victimized them.  That does not mean restoring that person to a previous relationship (if the person was known to the victim) and it doesn't mean not seeking criminal penalties or civil damages from them.  But it DOES mean making the decision to allow the system to take its course and allow the Courts to judge a person (for this life) and God to judge him (for eternity). 

There is a difference between "forgiveness" and "restoration".

If God punishes bad people, then he's got a pretty poor track record so far this century.

Don't tell me that.  Tell Him that.