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[delphonso]

Who determines what is truth? Liberal fact-checkers? The government? For free speech to exist you need a public debate, not silencing opponents. It's obvious why so many are vaccine hesitant, and they aren't by and large the Trump demographic.

I think you might be stuck in a liberal circle-jerk that makes you blindly accept anything the MSM tell you as fact.

Bumber this is highly insulting. Most of the topics in the news have research and evidence we can look at to fact-check. All the anti-vax stuff flies in the face of international cooperation and research. Evidence from actual legitimate published studies is being shot down by the Right's media. The "evidence" or "facts" the Right pushes are consistently pre-published and poorly done studies. Ivermectin is a great example of this particular issue. Institutional racism, transgenderism, and even economic strategies all have plenty of evidence from real scientific studies that goes against what the Right is pushing.

I reckon most of the people in this thread you deem as lefties don't ingest mainstream media - mostly because we're actual leftists, not The Democrats (who are objectively center-right.) And even there, we have a broad range of differing opinions, the nuances of which seem to escape you.

You're thinking of the 1st Amendment. The term "censorship" applies to any organization:

Censorship can be conducted by governments,[5] private institutions, and other controlling bodies.

Sure, I'll give you this - but what is the issue here, if it isn't governmental censorship? As roboto says - if I get banned from r/StoptheSteal, should I winge about not having a real debate? You yourself called it misinformation - which it is, objectively. This isn't a debate, Bumber. There are people out there actively running offense to make you ignorant, and they seem to be winning.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

What does conservative even mean in 2021? Not trying to be rude or provocative, but I really don't know. To be frank, I've only ever known it as a byword for those who do not care and do not want to care about others (on both a personal and vaguely national level).

When I was a kid it was sold to me as those who are responsible with their money; "fiscal conservatives", but as I've gotten older and kept in touch with those same people it doesn't seem much like they're interested in the conservation or responsible use of money or any other resource. Largely, it seems like they are concerned with conformity, hierarchy, worth (the value of a life, et al.), and idk... this competitive mindset that all humans are dirtbags who would destroy each other without a firm hand guiding the ship of state. In one way or another, most specific issues seem to boil down to these things.

I ask because from the POV of anyone who isn't a modern "conservative", and I'm not really sure if that term is correct, maybe "reactionary" or "nationalist" or "in support of magnates/oligarchs/strongmen" is more accurate, it's essentially having a conversation in bad faith. There are problems with the USA--big, glaring, lethal problems that hurt and kill Americans on the daily. Do conservatives deny that? If they do, how do we even proceed to engage a group of Americans who think things are Goin' Great^tm that actually we're in quite a dangerous and volatile situation in both American and International politics/history? If they don't, are they apathetic--they don't care as long as they get theirs? Or are they malicious--in support of destroying or oppressing what they perceive as "other", a group outside of those we consider to be "American"?

It's a difficult problem, because life really isn't that great for the vast majority of Americans and the current discourse is basically all backsliding into brutality and control or trying to prevent that. It's a difficult problem because all of the problems that are huge huge issues today are very important--but they're really just distractions for all peoples in the US to prevent us from asking our government, "Hey, why ISN'T our life better???" That's over simplifying it, but aside from absolute loony-bin radical right-wing agitators who will basically say anything to rile up a crowd, I have no idea what a "conservative" stands for or what they want, or why they're so opposed to others have better lives.

[Micro102]

There's always the occasional dumb event that every conservative media group talks about at once, because they need every single instance they can point to to defend their insane beliefs. One group of college students acts poorly, and 4 years later it's used as evidence that there is a national (if not global) attempt to silence conservatives. Funny how there were no links for the other examples. Perhaps a little less defensible, hmmmm?

I get the feeling that if someone was convicted of trying to falsify the DNC giving orders to media to silence someone, Bumber wouldn't suddenly go "O! this attempt to frame the DNC for giving order to the media means other accusations that they gave orders to the media are false!". But he will declare that the Steele dossier is wrong because someone else forged a separate claim (assuming it's actually forged. There isn't exactly a good track record for accuracy here and the link that Bumber provided doesn't necessarily say this).

[Lord Shonus]

Bumber, censorship is government run - none of these news networks or social media platforms are government owned. They're beholden to their stock owners only - which is like...good modern capitalism. If I go on facebook and tell everyone zuckerberg should eat my ass and that gets removed, that's not censorship.

You're thinking of the 1st Amendment. The term "censorship" applies to any organization:

Censorship can be conducted by governments,[5] private institutions, and other controlling bodies.

You missed the whole thing where Congress was threatening consequences to social media companies for allowing the spread of misinformation. They wouldn't have cracked down on speech as they did if they weren't being pressured. They operate with special privileges granted by the government, so they're actually quasi-governmental organizations.

Social media has no special privileges of any kind. They are not "quasi-government organizations" whatever the hell that means. More importantly, it is your orange God who was doing all the threatening,  entirely because they allowed people to criticize him rather than allowing only blind worship.

[Kagus]

Look, I may disagree with Bumber on, well, many things... But I do know that he's not a Trumper. And that should be recognized.


Speaking of the miraculous tangerine man, I stumbled across this stellar image that was posted on a complete wackjob conspiracy subreddit, whereupon I needed to sit and recover for a moment.

Spoiler: "Trump is the Spiral, the Fibonacci Sequence, the Golden Ratio" (click to show/hide)

[Loud Whispers]

Putting the golden rat in golden ratio

[Starver]

So, Trump's been ratioed...

[voliol]

The hair being required for it to work is hilarious.

[None]

Frequently this 'public debate' and 'both sides' stancing is made on topics for which there are not 'both sides' but one factually accurate, statistically correct, reputably validated, expert-verified side, and, well, ideological opposition to that. Hence the disdain for 'liberal fact checkers,' since the absence of ground to factual ground to stand on, it's easy to call the system rigged and its experts as ideological enemies, then make a mess of the discussion by flooding a discussion with whataboutisms that don't require any personal responsibility.

What does conservative even mean in 2021? Not trying to be rude or provocative, but I really don't know. To be frank, I've only ever known it as a byword for those who do not care and do not want to care about others (on both a personal and vaguely national level).

When I was a kid it was sold to me as those who are responsible with their money; "fiscal conservatives", but as I've gotten older and kept in touch with those same people it doesn't seem much like they're interested in the conservation or responsible use of money or any other resource. Largely, it seems like they are concerned with conformity, hierarchy, worth (the value of a life, et al.), and idk... this competitive mindset that all humans are dirtbags who would destroy each other without a firm hand guiding the ship of state. In one way or another, most specific issues seem to boil down to these things.

I ask because from the POV of anyone who isn't a modern "conservative", and I'm not really sure if that term is correct, maybe "reactionary" or "nationalist" or "in support of magnates/oligarchs/strongmen" is more accurate, it's essentially having a conversation in bad faith. There are problems with the USA--big, glaring, lethal problems that hurt and kill Americans on the daily. Do conservatives deny that? If they do, how do we even proceed to engage a group of Americans who think things are Goin' Great^tm that actually we're in quite a dangerous and volatile situation in both American and International politics/history? If they don't, are they apathetic--they don't care as long as they get theirs? Or are they malicious--in support of destroying or oppressing what they perceive as "other", a group outside of those we consider to be "American"?

It's a difficult problem, because life really isn't that great for the vast majority of Americans and the current discourse is basically all backsliding into brutality and control or trying to prevent that. It's a difficult problem because all of the problems that are huge huge issues today are very important--but they're really just distractions for all peoples in the US to prevent us from asking our government, "Hey, why ISN'T our life better???" That's over simplifying it, but aside from absolute loony-bin radical right-wing agitators who will basically say anything to rile up a crowd, I have no idea what a "conservative" stands for or what they want, or why they're so opposed to others have better lives.

The conservative party is about owning the libs. There are meritable places for the concepts of fiscal conservatism and tradition, but the conservative party does not represent that, bear the title though they may. The glaring problems in America don't matter so long as the opposition is getting hurt- democrats, new money, poor people, minorities, women, whomever is Not Them. If you'll sup from my particular propaganda machine, I'll recommend the two episodes that Behind the Bastards does on Rush Limbaugh to demonstrate how we got here and understand what kind of poison our dads were all listening to on their morning commutes. Meaningless opposition is just all the party has left, so that's the behavior that their party drills into its constituents.

Unfortunately, the libs banked on life-saving medicine and proactive disease prevention as the healthiest messages to broadcast, so the opposition is digging for the conspiracy, outlier data point, or quack medicine to prove they have a point to make despite it being no point at all, having nothing to present when analyzed.

More or less unrelated to all of the above: Republicans oppose raising the debt ceiling for expenditures already marked and passed in Congress- they've opposed raising the debt ceiling while Obama was in office, too, but had no issues supporting it with Trump in office (with support from the democrats as well, something something falling in line). It needs to happen regardless of the pending infrastructure bill, which is happening on reconciliation (and so is filibuster-immune), but the reconciliation infrastructure bill is likely not to be done before the debt caps out. To complicate that, the reconciliation bill is the only place to tack it in a way that republicans cannot filibuster it, since republicans have wholly sworn to oppose the debt ceiling bit with the threat of filibuster and it's not likely to find 60 senators willing to override that.

They're willing to tank the economy they pumped so much money into so long as it crashes down while a democrat is in office for party clout.

[McTraveller]

It's also amusing to ponder the reality that many of these large companies that control information have more resources than many governments.  These companies have more annual revenue than the GDP of many countries.  Don't for a second think that just because "they aren't a government" they don't wield immense power.

Censorship imposed by media companies is more dangerous in the USA than the government, solely because we don't have guarantees that companies have to allow free speech.

[Dostoevsky]

More or less unrelated to all of the above: Republicans oppose raising the debt ceiling for expenditures already marked and passed in Congress- they've opposed raising the debt ceiling while Obama was in office, too, but had no issues supporting it with Trump in office (with support from the democrats as well, something something falling in line). It needs to happen regardless of the pending infrastructure bill, which is happening on reconciliation (and so is filibuster-immune), but the reconciliation infrastructure bill is likely not to be done before the debt caps out. To complicate that, the reconciliation bill is the only place to tack it in a way that republicans cannot filibuster it, since republicans have wholly sworn to oppose the debt ceiling bit with the threat of filibuster and it's not likely to find 60 senators willing to override that.

One technical note/response here - the current bounds of the reconciliation bill do not include altering the debt limit, so even if this reconciliation bill was getting done in time they can't just add debt ceiling language to it. They'd have to amend the Budget Resolution first to add the relevant instructions, which would take time and at least one more Senate 'vote-a-rama'.

One other quirk of doing debt limit via reconciliation is that they'd have to do it by monetary amount rather than by date, which is politically less appealing for obvious reasons in addition to being more volatile in terms of timing needed for another debt limit bill.

More importantly, doing debt limit in reconciliation would likely guarantee the death of bipartisan debt limit legislation, which would be a huge problem in all sorts of ways - whatever one thinks about current deficits and debts, forcing a US default is not a great method for raising the issue.

[McTraveller]

I still haven't figured out exactly how the treasury / debt limit thing is supposed to be a reasonable system.  Sovereign debt and government payments is a baffling social construct not constrained by any kind of physical reality.

My example is always the naive confusion between dollar value and actual wealth; headlines and articles say things like "oh a US default will erase $15 trillion from household wealth" which is incorrect; the instant the book value of all those stocks and bonds changes by $15T, the actual physical goods in the country, and the physical capability of the population to create new goods and perform services, did not change.

If our society is collectively so stupid that we just decide to quit working because a number changes in a computer somewhere... well then I suppose we deserve what we get.

[Dostoevsky]

As to why it's a thing that congress has to deal with, it's something of a relic of the times when the federal government's role (and money flow) was a lot smaller, and is partially tied to dealing with massive short term expenses (e.g. war). This CRS report gets into things a bit (see esp. the portion starting at page 5), though it's nothing comprehensive.

As to the connection between this giant ephemeral number and the physical things that exist and their systems... in a certain sense I'd say it's an attempt to make a reputation system at a scale that no longer really works or makes sense, but is still in some sense necessary. A US default won't magically eliminate things, but since US debt has been one of the most reliable investments historically there will be a crisis of finances and the US's ability to pay for things in the immediate short term. This would mean e.g. prioritizing a limited portion of social security to go out while suspending other spending in order to balance the books. Hypothetically they could try what Weimar Germany did to pay their debts, but historically that hasn't panned out too well. Or maybe the markets will decide the default isn't enough to lose faith in the system, and everything will continue to creak along anyways.

[Gentlefish]

Look, I may disagree with Bumber on, well, many things... But I do know that he's not a Trumper. And that should be recognized.

I mean, if that should be recognized we should also recognize the obvious "remove kebab" reference (referring to an anti-mulsim propaganda video and used by the alt-right and neo-nazis as a meme to advocate "religious cleansing") in their personal text.

What does conservative even mean in 2021? Not trying to be rude or provocative, but I really don't know. To be frank, I've only ever known it as a byword for those who do not care and do not want to care about others (on both a personal and vaguely national level).

Conservatism refers to the social hierarchy. They wish to conserve it. I.E. they believe some people "belong" on top and everyone else should work simply for the privilege of being exploited by those elites.

A lot of the animus from them comes from their fear that leftists (and liberals even though that's still kind of a conservative ideology these days) are just trying to climb higher up the hierarchy than they're "supposed to be" and not, you know, tear the whole thing down.

In other words, conservatives believe you belong where you are on the foodchain (for various reasons) and you shouldn't complain when it's inevitably at the bottom.

[Vector]

I mean, if that should be recognized we should also recognize the obvious "remove kebab" reference (referring to an anti-mulsim propaganda video and used by the alt-right and neo-nazis as a meme to advocate "religious cleansing") in their personal text.

lolwat