The WOKE Thread (Merged from WTF?)

[Magnum]

8 minutes ago, Sua Sponte said:

I grew up with my parents smoking weed, they are great parents. I've seen alcohol ruin more lives than people that smoked weed, yet alcohol is legal minus all the "blue laws" Southern states have. If weed was so dangerous, then why is it legal in multiple states? 

Did you miss the point pawnman said "I'd go so  far as to legalize every drug." Wasn't talking about just weed.

[CDAWG]

I’m of the mindset that it is ridiculous to make anything that grows from the Earth naturally illegal. Refining that product into something harmful is another thing.


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[busdriver]

We've attempted to attack the supply side of the drug problem for decades.  It has had zero effect.  Heroine used to be the drug of trainspotting and 90's bands, now it's suburban.

Pfizer doesn't murder it's competitors for trade violations, they go to court. 

If we took a fraction of the money spent on the "war on drugs" and put it towards treatment, the country would be far better off.

 

[Clark Griswold]

Quit seeking Utopia

1 - The War on Drugs is really the Battle with Dangerous Drugs as Part of the War on Crime.  It will never be over because you can never stop fighting a mortal enemy that you can never kill.  Crime, criminals, dangerous and illegal behavior and substances will always be with us.  Because they come from the inherent flaws in every person and the people yet to be.  It's tiring and draining but it must always be fought.  Can we pick our battles and fight better?  Sure, but ending the Battle/War is not an option, it's just a fact of life.

You never get a break from history.

2 - Wars in Shitholes.  Sometimes necessary (not often though), should be fought mercilessly (ends faster, achieves feasible end state usually and deters other a-holes thus preventing other wars) against our actual foes in said shithole.  Due care should be taken to spare the innocent and deliver aid to those we can help but they are secondary to killing our foes and are often a distraction and enticement to other goals that do not further the interests of the United States.  Get in, get done with your mission(s) and get the Hell out.  We can't save the world, make people become like us or think that they will see things our way if we just try harder  We can win fights, defend/assert our interests and constructively use our other instruments. 

Be cautious but not too cautious.

3 - Immigration.  It's like salt, just a little bit makes the food better too much ruins it.  Greater numbers?  No, we have been taking in enormous amounts of immigrants the last 30+ years and we need to take a break, assimilate, tighten our labor market and not believe the delusion that we have magic soil and a values system that overpowers the negative parts of other cultures of people who have been migrating to the US of late and encouraged to retain said cultures and that assimilating is wrong.  With the devastation that the COVID virus and subsequent economic shutdowns have caused, adding more workers to the labor market here will not improve the situation for the working, middle or professional classes but it will MASSIVELY help the Investor/Corporate class who will only have more workers competing for a pool of jobs that does not expand proportionately to growth in workers. 

Open borders?  Nope.  The cost of open borders is the dignity and living standards of your working, middle and now professional classes.  I don't care what bullshit some pie in the sky academic like Bryan Caplan says will happen and how wonderful it will be.  "They" fucked up before, they told us how wonderful NAFTA would be and would not hollow out the core of manufacturing in the US, "they" told us that admitting China to the WTO and giving MFN trading status would eventually cause political and cultural change as they economically grew, still waiting for that, etc.... just two examples of how "they" either don't have a fucking clue about how the world works (people lie, cheat and steal and you must interact with them based on those facts) or they don't care what happens to the masses and are just willing to sell them down the river.  Emotional I know, but seeing people push an idea that they themselves will never experience the negative ramifications of while then chiding people without money or privilege about how they just need to get over it makes my blood boil.

People lie, cheat and steal; they always will act accordingly.

Edited July 20, 2020 by Clark Griswold

[HossHarris]

8 hours ago, CDAWG said:

I’m of the mindset that it is ridiculous to make anything that grows from the Earth naturally illegal. Refining that product into something harmful is another thing.


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Drink a lot of hemlock, do ya?

[brwwg&b]

26 minutes ago, HossHarris said:

Drink a lot of hemlock, do ya?

Well, CDAWG didn't say go fill your gullet with anything you can find sprouting from the Earth. BTW, it is legal to grow hemlock.

[Breckey]

Anybody want to discuss the fully kitted out Federal officers in Portland? Why do Federal officers need to wear head to toe multicam and look like they're going to raid a compound? I know that companies make black and blue tactical gear.

 

 

[Sim]

 

[nsplayr]

4 hours ago, Breckey said:

Anybody want to discuss the fully kitted out Federal officers in Portland? Why do Federal officers need to wear head to toe multicam and look like they're going to raid a compound? I know that companies make black and blue tactical gear.

Not a fan. Everyone who was tweaking over Jade Helm should be damn near ready to start the revolution over federal law enforcement without name tags or badges doing snatch-and-grabs from unmarked minivans on the streets of a US city against the wishes of the Governor, Mayor and Sheriff. The protest situation in Portland is not great, but I once again raise the idea that all parties need to de-escalate violence, not ramp it up with even more aggressive tactics. Good primer on some of the legal questions here.

Also meme for the lolz to make my point more succinctly:

[brabus]

I think we continue to prove how we as a nation are completely incapable of the middle ground. Violent protestors, looters, etc. need to get shut down immediately. It’s bullshit they’ve been allowed to do what they’ve done. BUT, they need to be shut down legally and with as minimal force as required to get the job done. The shit going down with this federal action is just as much the type of stuff we fight to prevent as stopping the dipshits taking over portions of cities and destroying/looting/trying to dismantle the country. They’re both bad, and the people who don’t see that are blinded for one or more reasons. 

[brickhistory]

4 hours ago, nsplayr said:

Not a fan. Everyone who was tweaking over Jade Helm should be damn near ready to start the revolution over federal law enforcement without name tags or badges doing snatch-and-grabs from unmarked minivans on the streets of a US city against the wishes of the Governor, Mayor and Sheriff. The protest situation in Portland is not great, but I once again raise the idea that all parties need to de-escalate violence, not ramp it up with even more aggressive tactics. Good primer on some of the legal questions here.

 

As reported by the same outlets who brought you "Russia, Russia, Russia."

Have you known ANY USG program that wasn't leaked especially if it makes Orange Man Bad point?  If rioters are being arrested, I'm looking for proof that they have been unconstitutionally done so.  Not the reporting on the "peaceful" protests thus far.

 

But you were fine when Obama smoked an American citizen simply on his say-so.

[nsplayr]

28 minutes ago, brickhistory said:

As reported by the same outlets who brought you "Russia, Russia, Russia."

Have you known ANY USG program that wasn't leaked especially if it makes Orange Man Bad point?  If rioters are being arrested, I'm looking for proof that they have been unconstitutionally done so.  Not the reporting on the "peaceful" protests thus far.

 

But you were fine when Obama smoked an American citizen simply on his say-so.

Don't attack strawmen like the media or "leakers." Can you defend what's going on?

The Governor of Oregon, Mayor of Portland and local Sheriff are all telling federal LEOs to leave. The President confirms that federal LEOs are there at his direction. Cucinelli (acting deputy DHS) acknowledges that federal LEOs are using unmarked vehicles to snatch-and-grab suspects and that in at least one instance (the guy who's story is out there), they grabbed the wrong person.

https://www.npr.org/2020/07/17/892277592/federal-officers-use-unmarked-vehicles-to-grab-protesters-in-portland

I an not libertarian, not even close. Many times I'm supportive of federal action that goes against the wishes of individual states in the name of having a unified national strategy to combat shared challenges. I am also generally supportive of law enforcement and tend to give the benefit of the doubt to those folks.

So I'm asking folks who are more libertarian than me - can we agree that law enforcement officers dressed in multicam tac gear and without name tags or badges should not be driving around American cities in unmarked vehicles snatching people off the streets?

Violent protests are bad and I don't support them. Portlanders, bless their hearts, are strange. But in trying to contain and eventually end protests that tend to get chaotic at night, let's not jump to supporting a wildly disproportionate escalation of force by law enforcement agencies that are not supported by any level of local officials in the area in question.

I'm also 100% fine with killing Awlaki, yes, I've said that many times. I was there, literally trying to kill him personally if the opportunity presented itself. I'm also a card-carrying member of the ACLU but they were wrong to oppose his targeting and killing.

Having seen some of the intelligence that was made available to us, he was unquestionably bad, dangerous, an imminent threat, and actively working to inspire more attacks against Americans. The fact that he was a US citizen who fled to Yemen where there was basically zero hope for arrest should not and did not shield him from justice. If AQAP were a foreign state actor and he as a AMCIT had joined up with them, we would be justified in killing him on a battlefield. AQAP being a non-state actor does add some gray area to the equation, but not much IMHO.

Edited July 20, 2020 by nsplayr

[Negatory]

Watch this video and tell me that police reform isn’t a thing that needs to happen. A previous Naval officer wants to go talk to the feds and ask them why they are there constitutionally? They break his hand in 10 seconds and cover him in pepper spray. You better believe that if had as much as thought about pushing away the idiot who started beating him or defending himself they would have arrested him.

You and I will never know who those guys who abused their power were. And there’s a problem with that. The worse problem? There are dozens of videos that have emerged in the last month like this where policed think they are invulnerable. Not over-exaggerating.

My vote, make a UCPJ, make all police sign an oath that holds them liable to a higher standard, and actually hold them accountable. The military in my opinion does a great job of separating the good core of the organization from the people who don’t uphold organizational values. I’m sure there are ways to stop or at least limit abuses of power by the police, and that starts with reform.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/07/20/us/portland-protests-navy-christopher-david.amp.html

Edited July 21, 2020 by brawnie

[di1630]

WTF does it matter how the police are dressed?

I’m all for a good peaceful protest but the simple fact is, the far left cannot stop at that. They’ll push things further and further until they get a reaction.

No problem with police in tactical gear, don’t give a foook the design.

And I laugh when Antifa is smacked down.

I’m a softcore libertarian but when people go too far (usually the left) I expect the taxpayer funded gov’t to lay the smack down to protect the average citizen.

I thought maybe I’d vote for the libertarian this election like I did in 16....now I’m firmly in the Trump camp.

The progressive left must be stopped.


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[Negatory]

Authoritarianism is okay as long as it’s only used on the other guys.

[Breckey]

There's always more to the story.

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/portland-place-couple-who-confronted-protesters-have-a-long-history-of-not-backing-down/article_281d9989-373e-53c3-abcb-ecd0225dd287.htm

Quote

The McCloskeys have filed at least two “quiet title” suits asserting squatter’s rights on land they’ve occupied openly and hostilely — their terms — and claimed as their own. In an ongoing suit against Portland Place trustees in 2017, the McCloskeys say they are entitled to a 1,143-square-foot triangle of lawn in front of property that is set aside as common ground in the neighborhood’s indenture.

It was that patch of green protesters saw when they filed through the gate. Mark McCloskey said in an affidavit that he has defended the patch before by pointing a gun at a neighbor who had tried to cut through it.

Quote

The protest moved north on Kingshighway again. At Portland Place, protester Derk Brown’s live feed shows he is one of the first protesters to pass through the iron gate held open by protester Tory Russell.

Although the McCloskeys have displayed photos of a crumpled gate as evidence the protesters broke it down, the feed shows the gate is intact. It was not clear when it was damaged.

Quote

The first few protesters who enter the private neighborhood swerve away from the McCloskey house to walk in the street.

Immediately, Brown’s feed captures Mark McCloskey under a massive portico on the east side of his mansion. “Hey!” he can be heard shouting. “Private neighborhood! Get the hell out of my neighborhood!”

None of the protesters are on his property — even the disputed triangle.

 

[Sim]

Arguing with liberals is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter how good I am at chess, the pigeon is just going to knock over all the pieces, crap on the board, and strut around the table looking victorious.

[magnetfreezer]

20 hours ago, Breckey said:

There's always more to the story.

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/portland-place-couple-who-confronted-protesters-have-a-long-history-of-not-backing-down/article_281d9989-373e-53c3-abcb-ecd0225dd287.htm

 

Several other articles such as https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/06/30/were-mark-and-patricia-mccloskey-within-their-rights-to-point-guns-at-protesters/ mention the entire neighborhood was private property (gated). If that is the case the protestors were still trespassing when they entered the neighborhood streets.

[Negatory]

On 7/19/2020 at 10:43 PM, Clark Griswold said:

Quit seeking Utopia

1 - The War on Drugs is really the Battle with Dangerous Drugs as Part of the War on Crime.  It will never be over because you can never stop fighting a mortal enemy that you can never kill.  Crime, criminals, dangerous and illegal behavior and substances will always be with us.  Because they come from the inherent flaws in every person and the people yet to be.  It's tiring and draining but it must always be fought.  Can we pick our battles and fight better?  Sure, but ending the Battle/War is not an option, it's just a fact of life.

You never get a break from history.

 

What do you think about the fact that legalization of marijuana has been relatively successful in many states and countries up to this point? That is, it hasn't caused mass homelessness or deaths or mental illness, and its legalization has actually made its purchase safer while allowing the government to collect revenue (and simultaneously defunding drug dealers). 

Does this make you think that an overarching "war on drugs" is maybe a bit too broad? Maybe the policies of the past were... wrong?

Edited July 22, 2020 by brawnie

[Negatory]

21 hours ago, di1630 said:

WTF does it matter how the police are dressed?

I’m all for a good peaceful protest but the simple fact is, the far left cannot stop at that. They’ll push things further and further until they get a reaction.

No problem with police in tactical gear, don’t give a foook the design.

And I laugh when Antifa is smacked down.

I’m a softcore libertarian but when people go too far (usually the left) I expect the taxpayer funded gov’t to lay the smack down to protect the average citizen.

I thought maybe I’d vote for the libertarian this election like I did in 16....now I’m firmly in the Trump camp.

The progressive left must be stopped.


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WTF does it matter how the protestors are dressed?

I'm all for a good peaceful protest but the simple fact is, the far right cannot stop at that. They'll push things further and further until they get a reaction.

No problem with protestors in tactical gear, don't give a foook the design.

And I laugh when right nationalists get smacked down.

I'm a softcore libertarian but when people go too far (usually the right) I expect the citizens of the state to push back to protect the average citizen's constitutional rights.

I thought maybe I'd vote for the libertarian this election like I did in 16....now I'm firmly opposed to the Trump camp.

The authoritarian right must be stopped.

[di1630]

WTF does it matter how the protestors are dressed?

I'm all for a good peaceful protest but the simple fact is, the far right cannot stop at that. They'll push things further and further until they get a reaction.

No problem with protestors in tactical gear, don't give a foook the design.

And I laugh when right nationalists get smacked down.

I'm a softcore libertarian but when people go too far (usually the right) I expect the citizens of the state to push back to protect the average citizen's constitutional rights.

I thought maybe I'd vote for the libertarian this election like I did in 16....now I'm firmly opposed to the Trump camp.

The authoritarian right must be stopped.

Yeah ok. If you think a bunch of civilians forming a violent mob and wrecking property is the same as police protecting that property, JFC.


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[Negatory]

28 minutes ago, di1630 said:

Yeah ok. If you think a bunch of civilians forming a violent mob and wrecking property is the same as police protecting that property, JFC.


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Yeah ok. If you think a bunch of law enforcement hiding their identities and assaulting citizens with no charges is the same as police protecting property, JFC.

 

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Edited July 22, 2020 by brawnie

[Negatory]

This is what happens when all of your arguments are ad hominem, appeals to authority, and straw man fallacies.

[brickhistory]

Somebody found their old debate book glossary...

 

 

Curious to know if "left nationalists" are ok.  Is it the political leaning or the "nationalist" part that so offends you?

[Negatory]

It’s the assault and arrest of law abiding citizens that bothers me. And it’s the mindset of those that blindly support all police at all costs - even when there are equivocally some that have grossly abused and are abusing power literally right now.

Not the arrest of looters or people that are breaking the law. Lock em up.

Edited July 22, 2020 by brawnie