2020 US Election (Part One)

[Berzerker]

"Some people did something" - Rep Omar

That was about 9/11...

Fox is running with that, 'you have to wonder if she's an American first' - Brian Kilmede

Now for the context, she was talking about how millions of people were seeing their civil liberties restricted or violated because some people did something bad, ie punished for a guilt by association.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Does 'regard for the founding documents' mean "all men are created equal" or "three fifths of all other persons"???

Yeah, that can get real dicey, real quick. But I told him I wouldn't approach this from the perspective of race, so I'll pass on that easy score.

like freedom, competition, individualism, and regard for the founding documents

So now, these are what you regard as American values. Would you like to add any to the list? When you gave this list, you likely couldn't have foreseen that I would be interrogating you about your definition of American values, so you may not have chosen this list with that kind of challenge in mind. And I don't want you to feel locked in to something that wasn't your considered opinion of the matter.

I'd like as complete a list as you'd be willing to provide, exhaustive if you feel you could provide an exhaustive list--though I recognize that's probably too much to ask of anyone.

Because I'm going to want to ask you questions as to how your list (whatever it ends up being) got to be the list of American values. How it is that other possible contenders got excluded.

How did these get established as American values (or even the American values, if you make that kind of claim on their behalf)? But I don't want to really start pressing such questions until you say you're fully comfortable with your list.

I will ask you this, though, even on this preliminary list. Do you find it ironic that a society would have this set of values, since at least two of them (competition and individualism) and possibly even the third (based on how we define it (I think freedom might turn out to be as messy a blob as Marxism)) are values that drive people apart from one another? I know full well that America has made a good go of it as a nation with competition and individualism as prominent values. So maybe we'll just conclude that American has been successful, ironically, despite the fact that some of its chief values are more atomizing rather than communitarian. But do you see any irony here? It's a side question. You'd just be satisfying a curiosity, if you were to answer.

 

[Berzerker]

lets see, going by the Bill of Rights I'd think those values include religious freedom, speech, press, association and assembly, self defense (guns), freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, respect for property, trial by jury of peers, no excessive fines or cruel and unusual punishments.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Sorry, Berzerker, my questions are for Tristan only. He claimed to be able to declare which were American values and which weren't and I want to press him a bit on this, if he's willing to answer my questions.

 

[Kyriakos]

[MLK quotes against capitalism]

Do many black people support Bernie? Maybe MLK's ties to anti-capitalism can help there, or at least make it even more obvious how ridiculous it is to think that establishment democrats are better safeguards of the black minority.

 

[El_Machinae]

Oh el, that's because nobody bothers sorting out the role the grange and other humanitarians played in the generation after the rise of that flag and the shellacing they got in the gilded decades. I realize there is a dick measuring contest to be had in who had it worst and there are better winners to assign it to, but that's sort of beside the point. The meaning changed for some, it didn't for others, and generations pass. Either way, awful things happend, and they will so do. All the more frequently for the micheads.

Oh, I'm completely sure that I'm missing something. But I'm also sure that something is being missed by fine people on both sides. On both sides.

The Confederate flag has been rising lately in marches that include people who like to march with swastikas, and the swastikas feel welcome. As well, these marches are being conducted in order to defend statues that seem to have very little with the nobility that you're expressing in your post.

I'm not talking about the Dukes of Hazzard and the General Lee. I'm talking about swastikas marching with Confederate flags. Regardless, and it's a shame, the historical nobility is not known. The Confederate flag is being raised in order to protect a subset of American values, while also representing the very concept of being anti-American

Luckily, our concept of races and colors has advanced in the few decades since my grandparents were refugees. That said, color is one of the main predictors of the people attending the marches

 

[Farm Boy]

Nobility. Hah! Let me guess, we could use some more of that.

 

[Lexicus]

I'm talking about swastikas marching with Confederate flags.

Can you explain why the Confederate flag and the swastika aren't basically the same thing anyway?

 

[Sommerswerd]

Oh, I'm completely sure that I'm missing something. But I'm also sure that something is being missed by fine people on both sides. On both sides.

C'mon El get it right. The phrase that pays is... "Many sides... many sides"

Can you explain why the Confederate flag and the swastika aren't basically the same thing anyway?

Oversimplified, it boils down to the former being originally flown as the standard of Rebel/enemy Americans... emphasis on the "American" there. So despite also being a war-enemy flag, its 1)a Murican symbol, and 2)some people reeeally like it, and have the feelsies about it, having already adopted it as their "team colors". So basically you put those two together and it adds up to it getting/deserving a pass, at least in the minds of the folks who like it.

Obviously I disagree, and think its just a BS excuse to keep lionizing a toxic, blatantly racist symbol, but I do have a clear understanding of the justification. Also, I've come to realize that the very fact that we (the royal we) don't like it is a big part of why "they" do. Its a taunt of sorts, at least from "their" perspective its a statement of defiance/non-compliance... in other words rebellion.

Of course that brings us full circle to what are "they" rebelling against... which is a whole... you get the idea...Anyway I will add that I unapologetically have great feelings of joy and nostalgia for the General Lee, flag-roof and all, which I will now shamelessly handwaive.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Also, I've come to realize that the very fact that we (the royal we) don't like it is a big part of why "they" do

No, this you cannot do. "The royal we" already has a meaning. It's the phrase on which you modeled your imbecilic "royal you." You (the thick-headed singular you) can't then go use that phraseological atrocity as the model for the back-formation of a second phraseological atrocity that would usurp the meaning of the original phrase.

Your points about the Confederate flag are your usual sound-mindedness, when you're talking about nearly anything but royal+pronoun (or Star Wars).

 

[Kyriakos]

I am not touching that with a 3,048 metre pole.

 

[Lexicus]

versimplified, it boils down to the former being originally flown as the standard of Rebel/enemy Americans... emphasis on the "American" there. So despite also being a war-enemy flag, its 1)a Murican symbol, and 2)some people reeeally like it, and have the feelsies about it, having already adopted it as their "team colors". So basically you put those two together and it adds up to it getting/deserving a pass, at least in the minds of the folks who like it.

Well yeah, I understand why plenty of people think they're different. What I want to know is why El Mach thinks they actually are different, since I'm inferring from that post his problem with the Confederate battle flag is just that people flying swastikas feel comfortable with it.

 

[El_Machinae]

Can you explain why the Confederate flag and the swastika aren't basically the same thing anyway?

Yes. But not in a way that won't just invite quibbling. They're quantum leaps apart, which is why swastikas being welcome is such a problem.

 

[Kyriakos]

Well yeah, I understand why plenty of people think they're different. What I want to know is why El Mach thinks they actually are different, since I'm inferring from that post his problem with the Confederate battle flag is just that people flying swastikas feel comfortable with it.

Symbols can function using part of their meaning as well, synecdochically. Eg in various euro countries one can see confederate flags as something symbolizing just resistance. There isn't any reference to slavery in that context. Obviously it wouldn't be the same if the KKK use it.

 

[Farm Boy]

I like his phraseology it. It's nice and mushy, intentionally. Nothing royal stands on firm mentality to begin with.

 

[Sommerswerd]

No, this you cannot do. "The royal we" already has a meaning. It's the phrase on which you modeled your imbecilic "royal you." You (the thick-headed singular you) can't then go use that phraseological atrocity as the model for the back-formation of a second phraseological atrocity that would usurp the meaning of the original phrase.

Your points about the Confederate flag are your usual sound-mindedness, when you're talking about nearly anything but royal+pronoun (or Star Wars).

Unsurprisingly, I disagree. I (not the royal I) can do whatever I want phraseologically, and you (the not royal you as well as the royal you) can't stop me

I fart in your general direction. Now go away or I shall be forced to taunt you a second time.

 

[Lexicus]

They're quantum leaps apart

On the contrary, they symbolize essentially the same thing...

which is why swastikas being welcome is such a problem.

...which is why the swastikas are welcome, always have been and always will be.

edit: I mean, here's the campaign flag of George Lincoln Rockwell (leader of the American Nazi Party):

that's from his 1965 campaign for governor of Virginia.

Symbols can function using part of their meaning as well, synecdochically. Eg in various euro countries one can see confederate flags as something symbolizing just resistance. There isn't any reference to slavery in that context. Obviously it wouldn't be the same if the KKK use it.

Which is a bit like saying I can fly the hammer and sickle and it just means, you know, guaranteed employment or something and not gulags. People who employ a symbol don't really get to pick and choose the meaning it is interpreted with.

 

[Kyriakos]

On the contrary, they symbolize essentially the same thing...



...which is why the swastikas are welcome, always have been and always will be.



Which is a bit like saying I can fly the hammer and sickle and it just means, you know, guaranteed employment or something and not gulags. People who employ a symbol don't really get to pick and choose the meaning it is interpreted with.

And yet you do see the hammer and sickle used without it meaning actual communism (let alone soviet communism realities)
(at least you do in parts of Europe or online)

 

[El_Machinae]

I have no argument with people who think they were unacceptable. My concern is people who thought their attendance was forgivable.

There will be a segment of right-leaning voters that noticed that Trump first appealed to the swastikas. And that the people defending the Confederate flag are also claiming that 'Republicans' are 'more American'.

The inclusion of the swastikas, but rejection of Democrats, should freak people out.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I fart in your general direction.

You didn't specify which "you" you have in mind here, but when I saw the forum clear out for a bit, I knew it was your royal you. You!