American Politics III: New President, Same Old Country

[Trollzyn the Infinite]

Sen. Angus King (I-ME) says Trump should be cut off from intelligence briefings, says there's a "grave danger" of Trump revealing classified information if he receives briefings after leaving office.

If he blabs doesn't that mean we can just arrest him though?

[San Lumen]

Sen. Angus King (I-ME) says Trump should be cut off from intelligence briefings, says there's a "grave danger" of Trump revealing classified information if he receives briefings after leaving office.

If he blabs doesn't that mean we can just arrest him though?

Yes but it could cause grave harm to national security.

[Trollzyn the Infinite]

Look, bro. I used to be on the side of the "they can just go somewhere else" mentality.

But then I realized libertarianism is stupid and bigotry needs to be actively erased from society.

Why? People should have the right to be bigots. Do you want to force people to have the same opinion as you? What about someone that might have a reason to dislike another group? Imagine someone who lived in Nanjing and was raped by Japanese soldiers during the Nanjing Massacre. Should that person be forced to serve Japanese customers if they enter her store? What about a man who had a wife raped and tortured and killed by a group of white men? Should that business owner be forced to serve white men? People have different life experiences and may have a reason for being bigots.

Discourage bigotry but don't regulate it (at least for private businesses).

You are an idealist but idealism can be dangerous. I think about young idealistic students in 1960's China that beat their teachers and beat monks for not being communist enough. These students just loved their nation and wanted the teachers and monks to think like them and support Maoist thoughts. They were idealistic but tyrannical as well.

Fifty years on, one of Mao’s ‘little generals’ exposes horror of the Cultural Revolution

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/ ... revolution

Are you seriously trying to compare me to the fucking Maoists responsible for the Cultural Revolution?

Stop. Just... fucking stop, dude. This is pathetic.

[Trollzyn the Infinite]

If he blabs doesn't that mean we can just arrest him though?

Yes but it could cause grave harm to national security.

Yes but the pure fact we can arrest and charge him for exposing state secrets means he won't do it. He's too much of a coward to take that risk. He'd at least want to be under daddy Putin's loving embrace before he blabs about anything.

[Heloin]

Why? People should have the right to be bigots. Do you want to force people to have the same opinion as you? What about someone that might have a reason to dislike another group? Imagine someone who lived in Nanjing and was raped by Japanese soldiers during the Nanjing Massacre. Should that person be forced to serve Japanese customers if they enter her store? What about a man who had a wife raped and tortured and killed by a group of white men? Should that business owner be forced to serve white men? People have different life experiences and may have a reason for being bigots.

Discourage bigotry but don't regulate it (at least for private businesses).

You are an idealist but idealism can be dangerous. I think about young idealistic students in 1960's China that beat their teachers and beat monks for not being communist enough. These students just loved their nation and wanted the teachers and monks to think like them and support Maoist thoughts. They were idealistic but tyrannical as well.

Fifty years on, one of Mao’s ‘little generals’ exposes horror of the Cultural Revolution

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/ ... revolution

Are you seriously trying to compare me to the fucking Maoists responsible for the Cultural Revolution?

Stop. Just... fucking stop, dude. This is pathetic.

Welcome to the revolution Comrade Trollzyn.

[Nakena]

Yes but it could cause grave harm to national security.

Yes but the pure fact we can arrest and charge him for exposing state secrets means he won't do it. He's too much of a coward to take that risk. He'd at least want to be under daddy Putin's loving embrace before he blabs about anything.

Don't be Gauth 2.0

[Gravlen]

While I have no real interest in getting involved with this debate. If torture or enhanced interrogation doesn't work, why do Western nations train their special forces or other people liable to be captured by the enemy, to resist it?

Because they like the myth that torture works?

By 2002, several branches of the military had backed away from using waterboarding in training — and in November 2007, the Pentagon quietly banned it altogether.

The military decided waterboarding “provided no instructional or training benefit to the student,” Thomas Crosson, a Department of Defense spokesman, told HuffPost in an email. Crosson declined to release the 2007 directive forbidding the practice, citing classification issues. The existence of the document has not been previously reported, and HuffPost has requested a copy of it under the Freedom of Information Act.

The military’s decision made sense, veteran military interrogator and intelligence officer Steven Kleinman told HuffPost. Waterboarding “teaches failure,” he said. “No one succeeds. They can’t teach a strategy during that. Literally, it was absolutely so painful.”

The problem with waterboarding SERE students was that too many trainees broke, said James Mitchell, a psychologist who was deeply involved in SERE and later reverse-engineered it to develop the CIA’s torture program. “We thought it was too effective,” Mitchell wrote in a 2016 book defending his role in the CIA torture program. When members of the military were waterboarded, they “capitulated, even if it cost them their jobs,” Mitchell continued.

There’s no doubt that waterboarding is an effective way to make people talk. But it’s not necessarily a reliable way to get people to tell the truth or give up valuable intelligence, according to Malcolm Nance, a retired interrogator.

“The entire [SERE] program is designed to show you how it doesn’t work,” Nance told HuffPost. “You will say whatever the interrogator wants you to say. The severity of it makes your mouth open — your desire to survive.”

That was part of why the military ultimately turned against the practice.

Instead of making trainees more resilient to brutal treatment, waterboarding “leaves students psychologically defeated with no ability to resist while under pressure,” Brendan G. Clare, an Air Force colonel, wrote in an internal 2007 memo — obtained by Truthout in 2010. The memo recommended that the military ditch the technique.

“Once a student is taught that they can be beaten, and there is no way to resist it, it is difficult to develop psychological hardiness,” Clare wrote in the memo, which Jeffrey Kaye, the author of the Truthout report, recently made public at HuffPost’s request.

David Morris, who attended SERE school in 1995 as part of the Marine Corps, has warned that the training could have a more problematic effect.

“The experience of torture at SERE surely plays a role in the minds of the graduates who go on to be interrogators, and it must on some level help them rationalize their actions,” he wrote in 2009. “It’s not hard to imagine them thinking, ‘Well, if I survived this, then it’s OK to do it to this guy.’”

The Military Banned Waterboarding Trainees Because It Was Too Brutal — And Never Announced It

[Nejii]

Trollzyn the Infinite, If you think libertarianism is bigotry I shudder at what you’d call anything right of the middle...

Also, libertarianism is not stupid. It’s probably the closest you’ll find to a middle ground compromise. But I forget, no one really wants compromise. They want their way, hell or high water. Anything opposite to their way is Nazism or Communism.

[Kowani]

Yes but it could cause grave harm to national security.

Yes but the pure fact we can arrest and charge him for exposing state secrets means he won't do it. He's too much of a coward to take that risk. He'd at least want to be under daddy Putin's loving embrace before he blabs about anything.

ah yes
because trump is a master of rational analysis
not like he's accidentally tweeted classified info out before accidentally

[Cordel One]

Trollzyn the Infinite, If you think libertarianism is bigotry I shudder at what you’d call anything right of the middle...

Also, libertarianism is not stupid. It’s probably the closest you’ll find to a middle ground compromise. But I forget, no one really wants compromise. They want their way, hell or high water. Anything opposite to their way is Nazism or Communism.

Communism is cool and exists in libertarian forms. Also, libertarian-right is a contradiction as the nature of bourgeois institutions is fundamentally authoritarian. It just decreases the power of the state in favor of corporations.

[Comerciante]

Trollzyn the Infinite, If you think libertarianism is bigotry I shudder at what you’d call anything right of the middle...

Also, libertarianism is not stupid. It’s probably the closest you’ll find to a middle ground compromise. But I forget, no one really wants compromise. They want their way, hell or high water. Anything opposite to their way is Nazism or Communism.

The only time someone wants to Compromise as far as I have heard is when they want to delay actual positive change towards a better world citing debunked articles about why they should keep doing shitty things.

[Trollzyn the Infinite]

Trollzyn the Infinite, If you think libertarianism is bigotry

I don't and never said anything of the sort. I said libertarianism was stupid and that bigotry should be smashed.

Also, libertarianism is not stupid. It’s probably the closest you’ll find to a middle ground compromise.

It's literally not. It's a rich man's power fantasy that has for some reason attracted legions of middle class folk who think it would work out for them.

Hint: it wouldn't.

But I forget, no one really wants compromise. They want their way, hell or high water. Anything opposite to their way is Nazism or Communism.

That's-a spicy strawman.

Yes but the pure fact we can arrest and charge him for exposing state secrets means he won't do it. He's too much of a coward to take that risk. He'd at least want to be under daddy Putin's loving embrace before he blabs about anything.

ah yes
because trump is a master of rational analysis
not like he's accidentally tweeted classified info out before accidentally

I'd like to believe he's not a total idiot. The evidence is overwhelming, I know, but I try to look for the best in people sometimes.

Communism is cool

Cringe take.

[Fartsniffage]

While I have no real interest in getting involved with this debate. If torture or enhanced interrogation doesn't work, why do Western nations train their special forces or other people liable to be captured by the enemy, to resist it?

Because they like the myth that torture works?

By 2002, several branches of the military had backed away from using waterboarding in training — and in November 2007, the Pentagon quietly banned it altogether.

The military decided waterboarding “provided no instructional or training benefit to the student,” Thomas Crosson, a Department of Defense spokesman, told HuffPost in an email. Crosson declined to release the 2007 directive forbidding the practice, citing classification issues. The existence of the document has not been previously reported, and HuffPost has requested a copy of it under the Freedom of Information Act.

The military’s decision made sense, veteran military interrogator and intelligence officer Steven Kleinman told HuffPost. Waterboarding “teaches failure,” he said. “No one succeeds. They can’t teach a strategy during that. Literally, it was absolutely so painful.”

The problem with waterboarding SERE students was that too many trainees broke, said James Mitchell, a psychologist who was deeply involved in SERE and later reverse-engineered it to develop the CIA’s torture program. “We thought it was too effective,” Mitchell wrote in a 2016 book defending his role in the CIA torture program. When members of the military were waterboarded, they “capitulated, even if it cost them their jobs,” Mitchell continued.

There’s no doubt that waterboarding is an effective way to make people talk. But it’s not necessarily a reliable way to get people to tell the truth or give up valuable intelligence, according to Malcolm Nance, a retired interrogator.

“The entire [SERE] program is designed to show you how it doesn’t work,” Nance told HuffPost. “You will say whatever the interrogator wants you to say. The severity of it makes your mouth open — your desire to survive.”

That was part of why the military ultimately turned against the practice.

Instead of making trainees more resilient to brutal treatment, waterboarding “leaves students psychologically defeated with no ability to resist while under pressure,” Brendan G. Clare, an Air Force colonel, wrote in an internal 2007 memo — obtained by Truthout in 2010. The memo recommended that the military ditch the technique.

“Once a student is taught that they can be beaten, and there is no way to resist it, it is difficult to develop psychological hardiness,” Clare wrote in the memo, which Jeffrey Kaye, the author of the Truthout report, recently made public at HuffPost’s request.

David Morris, who attended SERE school in 1995 as part of the Marine Corps, has warned that the training could have a more problematic effect.

“The experience of torture at SERE surely plays a role in the minds of the graduates who go on to be interrogators, and it must on some level help them rationalize their actions,” he wrote in 2009. “It’s not hard to imagine them thinking, ‘Well, if I survived this, then it’s OK to do it to this guy.’”

The Military Banned Waterboarding Trainees Because It Was Too Brutal — And Never Announced It

That is mostly saying that waterboarding works on US subjects. They broke.

[Trollzyn the Infinite]

Trollzyn the Infinite, If you think libertarianism is bigotry I shudder at what you’d call anything right of the middle...

Also, libertarianism is not stupid. It’s probably the closest you’ll find to a middle ground compromise. But I forget, no one really wants compromise. They want their way, hell or high water. Anything opposite to their way is Nazism or Communism.

The only time someone wants to Compromise as far as I have heard is when they want to delay actual positive change towards a better world citing debunked articles about why they should keep doing shitty things.

I mean, yeah, this too.

[Nejii]

Trollzyn the Infinite, If you think libertarianism is bigotry I shudder at what you’d call anything right of the middle...

Also, libertarianism is not stupid. It’s probably the closest you’ll find to a middle ground compromise. But I forget, no one really wants compromise. They want their way, hell or high water. Anything opposite to their way is Nazism or Communism.

Communism is cool and exists in libertarian forms. Also, libertarian-right is a contradiction as the nature of bourgeois institutions is fundamentally authoritarian.

Authoritarianism is also a basis of far left politics. Which includes Marxism. Any suggestion as to otherwise is either one in denial or being misinformed.

[Xanthal]

The objective is to keep the bastard out of office--any office--for the rest of his miserable life. If he actually sees jail time I'll be fucking ecstatic.

If he was in his 40s or 50s I might agree, but he's gonna be 78 in 2023 and it's not like he takes good care of himself. The chance that he'll want to run again for high office, be able to do so, and actually get elected is pretty low in my opinion. If he does, even odds at best that he doesn't keel over mid-term. Attacking Trump now is a high cost, low benefit proposition; we'd do better to attack the factors that enabled his rise. Denying his cult a martyr is a reasonable component of that strategy.

I believe that a conviction comes with Trump being barred from office.

Not necessarily. If the Senate convicts him (unlikely) they have the option of barring him from future office (even more unlikely).

[Cordel One]

Communism is cool and exists in libertarian forms. Also, libertarian-right is a contradiction as the nature of bourgeois institutions is fundamentally authoritarian.

Authoritarianism is also a basis of far left politics. Which includes Marxism. Any suggestion as to otherwise is either one in denial or being misinformed.

It's not, and anarchism is a leftist ideology. With that being said, I feel like I'm drifting away from the libleft in the sense that we need some strong institutions to fight capitalism. I am now a Paris Communist, I think.

[Heloin]

Communism is cool and exists in libertarian forms. Also, libertarian-right is a contradiction as the nature of bourgeois institutions is fundamentally authoritarian.

Authoritarianism is also a basis of far left politics. Which includes Marxism. Any suggestion as to otherwise is either one in denial or being misinformed.

The sheer insanity of this as a political take is incredible. It's like you just say things whether or not you actually know anything about the subject.

[Omniabstracta]

snip

That is mostly saying that waterboarding works on US subjects. They broke.

No it... doesn’t?

It’s saying that they broke yes, but that they broke in the most unhelpful way possible. They didn’t tell the truth, they said what the interrogator wanted to hear. That’s not waterboarding working, especially not in the context of extracting information as we’re talking about here.

[Nejii]

Trollzyn the Infinite, If you think libertarianism is bigotry I shudder at what you’d call anything right of the middle...

Also, libertarianism is not stupid. It’s probably the closest you’ll find to a middle ground compromise. But I forget, no one really wants compromise. They want their way, hell or high water. Anything opposite to their way is Nazism or Communism.

The only time someone wants to Compromise as far as I have heard is when they want to delay actual positive change towards a better world citing debunked articles about why they should keep doing shitty things.

I was more so referencing the right and left screaming at each other about the other not willing to compromise and come together. Both in practice as well as casual blowing steam-blowing.

[Xanthal]

Authoritarianism is also a basis of far left politics. Which includes Marxism. Any suggestion as to otherwise is either one in denial or being misinformed.

Authoritarianism is a hallmark of far-anything politics. By definition if you're going to go all in on a single national ideology that half the country at best actually supports, you're going to have to force the rest into line.

[Kowani]

Even Anthony Scaramucci got invited to Trump's military send-off

[Necroghastia]

Communism is cool and exists in libertarian forms. Also, libertarian-right is a contradiction as the nature of bourgeois institutions is fundamentally authoritarian.

Authoritarianism is also a basis of far left politics. Which includes Marxism. Any suggestion as to otherwise is either one in denial or being misinformed.

Suuuuuure.

[Comerciante]

I've so far decided that identifying as any single political ideology is a terrible idea.

I'd rather just pull a Frankenstein and steal the good ideas of a multitude of political identities and hope for the best.

[Trollzyn the Infinite]

Authoritarianism is also a basis of far left politics. Which includes Marxism. Any suggestion as to otherwise is either one in denial or being misinformed.

Authoritarianism is a hallmark of far-anything politics. By definition if you're going to go all in on a single national ideology that half the country at best actually supports, you're going to have to force the rest into line.

I'm a far-centrist.