The WOKE Thread (Merged from WTF?)

[GrndPndr]

3 hours ago, VTguy said:

That's a fair point. I'd agree that multi-cam is a ridiculous look for cops and agents working a protest in Portland, Seattle or any other urban area. From my limited understanding, the guys we're seeing in the news are HSI SRT, USMS SOG and CBP BORTAC. These are dedicated tactical teams at the federal level and I'm guessing the multi-cam is simply what they have on hand. They aren't regular cops. They certainly wouldn't be my first choice for riot control duties. But their deployment is limited and anecdotal in the context of the greater debate about police militarization. They aren't representative of the 800k or so street cops around the US. 

CIRG also.  Mostly multi-cam, some blue.  They have interesting air assets too.

[arg]

13 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

 

 

 

There are no laws, organizations, or functions that discriminate based solely on skin color.

Affirmative action?

 

[TreeA10]

Statement read to AF promotion boards in the mid 90's: "Special consideration should be given to women and minorities for possible past discrimination."

[ViperMan]

On 7/16/2020 at 6:40 PM, brabus said:

Concur. Now can we get back to when that Japanese kid down the street is going to pay me my owed reparations for Pearl Harbor? I’ve suffered long enough...

You mean the movie Pearl Harbor, right? I agree, I'm still traumatized.

[ViperMan]

On 7/18/2020 at 9:16 AM, brawnie said:

Since this is an anonymous forum where people share anonymous thoughts, I'd like to hear why you all are planning on voting red this year? Specifically, what policies are actually making you interested in the republican platform? Because I can't find many convincing ones? I voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004 and McCain in 2008, but since ~2009, I feel republican views have shifted out of line with my own.

I think your frame is backwards. This isn't an election for things. It's an election against things.

[Negatory]

That’s one way to look at it. I’m sure both sides see it that way to a large extent. I’m sure it’s been that way for many many elections.

It’s one of the large problems with the two party “lesser of two evils” election system we have. Now you don’t have to backup what policies you stand for - you can just say what you don’t want and hope it turns out okay.

[arg]

Pretty well known(except for Biden) that his VP pick will be a black chick. Racism?

[Guardian]

Preferentially pick someone based on genitalia or skin color and not ability for the appearance of equality or inclusiveness.....

I’m not sure. That’s a tough one.

[dream big]

On 7/29/2020 at 4:12 PM, brawnie said:

That’s one way to look at it. I’m sure both sides see it that way to a large extent. I’m sure it’s been that way for many many elections.

It’s one of the large problems with the two party “lesser of two evils” election system we have. Now you don’t have to backup what policies you stand for - you can just say what you don’t want and hope it turns out okay.

How has a Trump presidency hurt you or anyone you know? How has your life changed from 2008-2016? I ask these questions to most Trump haters and I usually get something alone the lines or “He said mean things.”  
 

This is a President who has been attacked for crazy talk such as pulling out of Syria and Afghanistan (STS.). I thought liberals were anti war? Or was that only a fad to make Bush look bad in the 2000s?

[herkbum]

As one comedian said, “not all Trump supporters are racist, but all racists are Trump supporters.”

I quit reading after this quote. Such an asinine statement.


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[BashiChuni]

1 hour ago, brawnie said:

we’ve added more debt to the national debt and balance to the federal reserves than anyone

interesting statement

[Negatory]

53 minutes ago, herkbum said:

 

I quit reading after this quote. Such an asinine statement.


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Predictable

[Negatory]

39 minutes ago, BashiChuni said:

interesting statement

Balance to the federal reserves balance sheet, does that make it more clear? Expected to hit upwards of $10T this year.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttrends.htm

[brickhistory]

I'll give you the wild spending point.  Shameless and so Weimar Republic like.

As to most of your other points about, paraphrasing, "if the president does it, why can't I?"

So can I surveil my political enemies using instruments of national power?

Can I execute a US citizen based just upon my say-so?

I assure you that many, many people felt as you do now but about the previous president who was very, very divisive.  But were called a racist if they disagreed.  Neat trick, that.

I look at criminal justice reforms under the previous administration and to this one and note who actually did something.

I look at foreign relations as conducted under the several previous administrations and this one and pick the America first bent of this one.

I look at violence spiking and the perpertrators of it and note which "side" supports and which doesn't.

No doubt I'll get a "typical," or "racist," or "Ok, boomer," since I disagree with your view point.

Trump vs. Biden/whoever will actually be President.  Based on past performances, I know who has actually accomplished "things."  Agree or not with those things, one of those two (plus) candidates has a track record of accomplishments and is a billionaire.  The other has been a Washington politician for 40 years and is a multi-multi-millionaire.

[FLEA]

1 hour ago, brawnie said:

I have quite a few. And I know that all it takes is for you to quote the one thing you disagree with for you to feel like I’m entirely wrong, but I encourage you to suppress that notion and respond in kind.

It’s given my friends the courage to unabashedly post QAnon videos without a second thought. It’s allowed for people I once respected to just say “do your own research” and “fake news” about things that are scientifically proven, such as vaccines, global warming, or even eugenics. It’s allowed my friends that I grew up with in the South to feel comfortable saying “Why shouldn’t I be able to tell a black person I’m proud of the fact that I’m white?” The culture of discourse over the last 3 years has markedly worsened. People don’t feel like they have to back up anything. “The president doesn’t, why should I?“

A byproduct of the Trump presidency is that anti-intellectualism and racism has been allowed to grow significantly and unabashedly in the last few years. And these are people I know. As one comedian said, “not all Trump supporters are racist, but all racists are Trump supporters.” On top of that, he’s not doing anything to try to calm down tensions. I have a gay brother in law that was assaulted for the first time while out with his partner. It makes me feel like I live in a less unified country.

On top of that, we have made no effort to improve our economy for the future, we have no significant effort to build infrastructure for me to live in in for the next 50 years, we’ve added more debt to the national debt and balance to the federal reserves than anyone, we’ve started an irrational trade war with China that we are going to lose based on poor planning - my family owns a soybean farm and have absolutely loved the last few years (sarcasm) - we pulled out support for the Kurds (after I spent 9 months of my life flying directly over them protecting them) in an irrational and unguided Middle East plan. Foreign policy is now just say “America First,” forget the “haters,” and disregard the last 30-40 years of geopolitics.
 

America has slashed long term plans when it comes to Global Warming, which is a thing. In the last week we saw sea temps that were 10 degrees F above baseline near the poles. There is no plan to deal with rising wealth inequality in America - and that directly affects everyone. Tax cuts haven’t enabled me or my friends to create significant wealth, instead enabling us to earn pennies less when productivity has increased orders of magnitude. Our economy is almost entirely services based and only getting worse, and Trumps best publicized bet at fixing it is bring back coal mining. Ygbsm. Good luck with our airline jobs when they get automated. My nieces and nephews have no ability to actually earn money or move out of their house when they graduate college anymore due to lack of job prospects. I think I recently read a statistic that more people 18-34 are living with their parents than with a partner for the first time in history. America is trying isolationism in 2020, which sounds cool on paper - only care about yourself - but doesn’t work when China and Russia are laying seeds for productive alliances in Africa, Asia, and South America over the next 100 years. Our foreign policy vision is terrible, and it will affect the future of America if we try to maintain this course. We need fundamental national strategy change if we want to maintain our statuses as a superpower.

In 2008-2016 we did make some progress as society and in the world, in my opinion. Only about 2 people here have actually talked about what they liked in this presidency, whereas everyone else (I’m pretty sure you included) just says that I’m wrong and won’t answer my initial question. I still don’t understand what policies the majority of Republicans push for that have been enacted in the last few years, and I’d love to hear them.

Your critiques on his part policy seem to fall in line to a media agenda to paint them as irrational and misguided. Your an officer dude, you have to be able to read between the lines on some of this stuff and realise POTUS doesn't make those decisions in a vacuum and media has no way of knowing what the environment around those decisions are. People bring him researched options and he makes choices. Usually the people that bring him choices are informed and briefed by career employees and not appointees. There is a circle in Washington that has been discussing the same shit for years. It's a mix of federal employees, academics and senior uniformed members. 

I can name a dozen reasons why all of your policy critiques were GREAT ideas although I don't personally agree with 100% of them. So before you discount the country for anti-intellectualism I'd suggest you review your own geopolitical playbook and figure out why some of these things could have been a good step for the country because you automatically assume the items you listed were "bad things". 

I think the current POTUS has the best geo-political strategy we've seen since Bush #1 up to the point he ended the Cold War. Leagues better than Clinton, Bush #2 and Obama. Why? Because Trump recognizes there are capacity limits for our foreign influence and being the only world super power, especially one bogged down for 20 years by a counter terrorism quagmire, doesn't give you carte blanche to effect the world any way you want.

I got other news for you too man, foreign policy is America first. That is the basis of Western sovereignty and is nearly universally agreed upon by ethicist and academics who discuss the role and purpose of a state. Every country's government acts in their own interest. If you think Germany, the Kurds, South Korea or any of these other partnerships we broke glass on think we are "friends" you are full of it. They are going to stab us in the back the moment our interest misalign.

Trump's vision is quite simple. America's best bet at influencing foreign politics is by being a stalwart example of domestic statecraft for other countries to model. Focus on ourselves first, and our virtue and prosperity will become attractive enough for other countries to model. But if you want to go adventuring all over the third world to build partnerships, my question is, who's going to pay for it? You complain about rising deficit but then half your post levies complaints that we aren't spending enough. 

Speaking of economic ironies, you bemoan the fact that jobs are stagnant and trending to a service economy but also bemoan withdrawal from environmental protection agreements and a trade war with China. Can you not see that these things are interconnected? A business only does one of two things. It either provides goods, or it provides a service. If we aren't providing goods, we have to provide a service. The US is trending to a service economy because it is too expensive to setup industrial manufacturing here, hence no goods. One reason that it is expensive is because of strict EPA laws that mandate companies have to front cost for compliance and how their waste is handled. For a while we were able to float on certain tech sectors because China didn't have the technological know how to upstart this on their own. But since we decided to allow 20 years of industrial espionage in an effort to preserve "a good relationship" we have now lost that edge as well. Bro, the world isn't sunshine and roses. You can have your EPA laws and warm fuzzies with China, but don't wake up pissed you are working at Starbucks at 35 then. You made a choice. 

But I think what annoys me about your post most of all is your use of the term progress. Because you don't recognize when you say that you mean progress by YOUR standard. What you don't realise man, is this all comes down to values, and in general Americans have the same values but they tend to order them differently. So when you say "progress" you have belittled every single person who doesn't order values the same as you do. You don't think conservatives love the environment? Bro have you been to a Cabellas? However, a some conservatives are making the concious decision that people having means to put food on the plate is a higher value than protecting a climate that we honestly have little understanding of how it's change will impact global sustainability. Some people are making a concious choice that economic prosperity is the most important thing to get control of first and then interest can be taken in foreign influence, the environment, etc....

[Guardian]

Rocked it Flea!

Personal opinion. Trump is the best president we have ever had. By leaps and bounds. And he doesn’t put up with drama or victim culture. Which is why the current mix of politics is so explosive. Because there is a lot of that on the left right now.

[Negatory]

Appreciate the actual responses. I disagree with some points, obviously, but at least we are talking about policy now.

Ill respond later.

[Sua Sponte]

1 hour ago, Guardian said:

Rocked it Flea!

Personal opinion. Trump is the best president we have ever had. By leaps and bounds. And he doesn’t put up with drama or victim culture. Which is why the current mix of politics is so explosive. Because there is a lot of that on the left right now.

Politics is so explosive right now because both sides would rather yell into their respective echo chambers with their tribalism and throw insults to the opposing side. This is fueled by the media craving of ratings spinning a story to conform to their narrative. 

Edited August 6, 2020 by Sua Sponte

[Sua Sponte]

1 hour ago, brickhistory said:

 

Can I execute a US citizen based just upon my say-so?

 

Very interesting analysis on the topic.

https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5571&context=flr

[brickhistory]

Great.  A legal opinion.  One with which other lawyers disagree.  EDITED TO ADD:  read page 1194 "Justifying the Extrajudicial Killing of an American Citizen."  

Not a lawyer, but pretty much against any President ordering the execution, no matter how deserved, of an American citizen without due process.  Even a trial in absentia at least ensures a legal defense.  And the SOB who got smoked deserved it.  Did his 16 yr old kid who also got shredded deserve it?  Maybe, maybe not.  But an American was executed via a Presidential order without a trial.  No matter how the legal "proceedings" are described, no judge and/or jury decided the defendant's fate.

Take up arms on the battlefield against America and get killed fighting and I shed no tears and say "well done" to the good guys.  Cursor an American and have him catch a Hellfire and I get uneasy about the executive branch becoming all-inclusive.

Pretty sure if Trump did it, folks would be upset.

And if any president can do it, as has been done, what prohibits such a strike on some lonely stretch of New Mexico highway one day?  After all, it's a judgement call.

Edited August 6, 2020 by brickhistory

[FLEA]

5 minutes ago, brickhistory said:

Great.  A legal opinion.  One with which other lawyers disagree.

Not a lawyer, but pretty much against any President ordering the execution, no matter how deserved, of an American citizen without due process.  Even a trial in absentia at least ensures a legal defense.  And the SOB who got smoked deserved it.  Did his 16 yr old kid who also got shredded deserve it?  Maybe, maybe not.  But an American was executed via a Presidential order without a trial.  No matter how the legal "proceedings" are described, no judge and/or jury decided the defendant's fate.

Take up arms on the battlefield against America and get killed fighting and I shed no tears and say "well done" to the good guys.  Cursor an American and have him catch a Hellfire and I get uneasy about the executive branch becoming all-inclusive.

Pretty sure if Trump did it, folks would be upset.

And if any president can do it, as has been done, what prohibits such a strike on some lonely stretch of New Mexico highway one day?  After all, it's a judgement call.

Its certainly a grey area. I like that you point out if this dude was carrying an AK in Syria when a 2 ship of A-10s rolled in, fuck him, he's a traitor. But its a bit different when you go to a country we aren't even recognized as having a presence in, surveil him for months while he isn't actually engaged in any fighting, and eventually decide your presidency is just easier if he goes away. 

I've heard a rumor that the first pilot that was asked to take the strike stepped out of the seat and they tried to article 15 him for disobeying a lawful order. It was dropped later on. 

[Sua Sponte]

13 minutes ago, brickhistory said:

Great.  A legal opinion.  One with which other lawyers disagree.

Not a lawyer, but pretty much against any President ordering the execution, no matter how deserved, of an American citizen without due process.  Even a trial in absentia at least ensures a legal defense.  And the SOB who got smoked deserved it.  Did his 16 yr old kid who also got shredded deserve it?  Maybe, maybe not.  But an American was executed via a Presidential order without a trial.  No matter how the legal "proceedings" are described, no judge and/or jury decided the defendant's fate.

Take up arms on the battlefield against America and get killed fighting and I shed no tears and say "well done" to the good guys.  Cursor an American and have him catch a Hellfire and I get uneasy about the executive branch becoming all-inclusive.

Pretty sure if Trump did it, folks would be upset.

And if any president can do it, as has been done, what prohibits such a strike on some lonely stretch of New Mexico highway one day?  After all, it's a judgement call.

Yeah, that's sorta how interpreting the law works. If you're wondering, an "opinion" is what the SCOTUS and every other court in the U.S. issues too. And I know for a fact you didn't read the article because the law professor doing the analysis agreed with you. The Trump Administration has let it be known that they interpreted the AMUF more broadly than previous administrations.

[brickhistory]

So, one hallowed POTUS actually executed an American on his say-so alone.

One has said they interpret the policy more broadly.

 

Actions vs. words, it would seem.

Again.

[Erthwerm]

6 hours ago, brawnie said:

A byproduct of the Trump presidency is that anti-intellectualism and racism has been allowed to grow significantly and unabashedly in the last few years. And these are people I know. As one comedian said, “not all Trump supporters are racist, but all racists are Trump supporters.”

I've seen anti-intellectualism be popular for a long time before Trump. It would appear to me that you're just parroting buzzwords. Additionally, there are plenty of racists out there who aren't Trump supporters. But hey, if you want to let a comedian's act dictate your political leanings, by all means, go ahead. 

6 hours ago, brawnie said:

On top of that, he’s not doing anything to try to calm down tensions.

I agree with you there. 

6 hours ago, brawnie said:

we pulled out support for the Kurds (after I spent 9 months of my life flying directly over them protecting them) in an irrational and unguided Middle East plan.

I have friends who fought in Sadr City, Iraq during the surge. President Obama wanted to start giving more control to the Iraqi Army and they lost Sadr City to ISIS. Stuff like this happens in war. 

[otsap]

2 hours ago, Sua Sponte said:

Yeah, that's sorta how interpreting the law works. If you're wondering, an "opinion" is what the SCOTUS and every other court in the U.S. issues too. And I know for a fact you didn't read the article because the law professor doing the analysis agreed with you. The Trump Administration has let it be known that they interpreted the AMUF more broadly than previous administrations.

Rule of thumb, when you start a sentence with "If you're wondering,...", and no one asked, strongly consider deleting it.  Really, I'm just hoping my sarcasm detector is inop and you weren't trying to sound that douchey.  But in the event you were serious, semantics cut both ways.  To wit: Brickhistory said "legal opinion," which includes your linked article, law review articles, some op-eds, etc.  You are referring to a "judicial opinion," a subset of legal opinions noted for setting precedent.

As a slight aside, I took National Security Law during law school from a professor who was the CIA's general counsel during Bush #2 and argued for the legality of Hellfire strikes and the drafted the definition of "unlawful combatant."  When asked by another student "how can you support those policies," he said, "that was my job."  He never elaborated on his true stance.  Just thought that was interesting.