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Politics: Biden, Brexit and Beyond
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Do we really though? Because I’m thinking the best way forward is either strenghtening or revamping the UN so it actually funtions like it should and not just some wall decoration.
I don’t think the UN really works for global power games. You have at least 3 big powers that don’t really want to play nice and just want to maintain or expand their power. Big players like US, China and Russia but also regional powers like Turkey, Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia etc will just sabotage any deal that could limit their ambitions.
Yeah I know it’s UNrealistic, or at least for the time being (time being meaning probably a lot of decades even centuries still) but hey, that would be the ideal solution.
Also… saw that Biden signed an exec order to stop the building of the wall… soooooooooo… how long until the starts it up again? I’m gonna say 4th year… mayyyyyyyybe pass it on to Harris, but probably not (I mean, both of them will put up their chuck of course)… but hey, nice (if useless) symbolic gesture.
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The wall itself is pretty much a useless symbolic gesture though isn’t it?
Coming from an island nation with a moat of at least 22 miles of choppy ocean that doesn’t stop people coming in.
The crazy thing is that all along US companies employ large numbers unregistered workers, it’s not even a secret half the time who those employers are. Nothing seems to be done because of bowing down to the altar of business and deregulation. So the US simultaneously ‘clamps down’ on illegal immigration while also fuelling the main reason for people to go there.
I remember reading the right wing Cato Institute group writing that the scale of illegal immigration in the US created an economic advantage of tens of billions of dollars a year over the EU. They weren’t even hiding that access to a workforce with no rights is a driver for the US economy.
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The wall itself is pretty much a useless symbolic gesture though isn’t it?
2_astronauts_always_has _been_meme.jpg
The crazy thing is that all along US companies employ large numbers unregistered workers, it’s not even a secret half the time who those employers are. Nothing seems to be done because of bowing down to the altar of business and deregulation. So the US simultaneously ‘clamps down’ on illegal immigration while also fuelling the main reason for people to go there.
I remember reading the right wing Cato Institute group writing that the scale of illegal immigration in the US created an economic advantage of tens of billions of dollars a year over the EU. They weren’t even hiding that access to a workforce with no rights is a driver for the US economy.
In all honesty, if the wall was ever going to be effective the businesses that lobby the Republicans would never have allowed it to be built. But as plenty of people pointed out, the vast majority of illegal immigrants in the US enter the country legally and overstay their visa.
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What the fuck, Lorcan? Why are giving us only a tiny piece, the barest sliver?
WHAT ARE YOU HIDING???
You need to complete these four courses at five grand a pop for the next part of the image.
So I’m getting the discounted rate?
Yeah, mate’s rates for sure
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The wall itself is pretty much a useless symbolic gesture though isn’t it? Coming from an island nation with a moat of at least 22 miles of choppy ocean that doesn’t stop people coming in. The crazy thing is that all along US companies employ large numbers unregistered workers, it’s not even a secret half the time who those employers are. Nothing seems to be done because of bowing down to the altar of business and deregulation. So the US simultaneously ‘clamps down’ on illegal immigration while also fuelling the main reason for people to go there.
It is, and it is a maginficient waste of money, which makes me chuckle… but you know, ever since Clinton started it (with Joe Biden voting for it, btw), every single president has added to it… so I’m assuming at some point it’ll be actually completed (it covers about 50% of the border as of now, it seems), since it seems to be one of those trans-presidential programs… you know, the nation-building crap that’s not affected by political changes…
But yeah, it’ll never stop either drugs or illegals, and in fact the US better pray it doesn’t stop illegals, otherwise they’re fuckity fucked. I’ll repeat it, I look forward to it being completed, just so that it can stop the hordes of gringos trying to flee the US when day after tomorrow happens =P
Anyways, neither the US or Mexico seem to want that whole illegal immigration mess to stop, as much as they keep blabbing about it. Both get waaaay too much money out of it (although as usual, the US benefits more).
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It would be, and honestly there’s a plethora of global problems that can’t really be solved without a strong global institution.
The thing is the UN would have to supercede the authority of nation states to be able to get them to do what the UN wants. Nations won’t let that happen. I don’t even think it is a very good idea to have something like that, you might be assuming it would be a benevolent power but it might just as easily be a tyranny.
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The Lincoln Project used an old Saved by the Bell PSA to troll Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) January 21, 2021
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In a move that will shock absolutely no one, McConnell is already threatening to fillibuster the Senate organizing resolution unless the Dems agree not to ever get rid of the fillibuster. For those curious, the organizing resolution is what will allow the Dems to assume all the Senate committee chair positions. McConnell is basically making the perfect argument for why the fillibuster needs to go with the stance of “if you don’t agree to allow me to continue to block everything you want to do, I’ll just block everything you want to do until you change the rules to prevent it”.
And, predictably, if the Dems do get rid of the fillibuster he’ll make some passive agressive comment about reaping what you sow and the blame Dems for everything ever. Secretly he wants the fillibuster gone too, he just never wants to be the one to do something first. He needs to be able to point the finger at Dems and say “we’re only doing this because that one time you did this thing that we forced you to do. You only have yourself to blame!”
The world will be a better place when he’s gone.
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He’s the worst man in America and that goes for when Trump was president too.
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The crazy thing is that all along US companies employ large numbers unregistered workers, it’s not even a secret half the time who those employers are. Nothing seems to be done because of bowing down to the altar of business and deregulation. So the US simultaneously ‘clamps down’ on illegal immigration while also fuelling the main reason for people to go there. I remember reading the right wing Cato Institute group writing that the scale of illegal immigration in the US created an economic advantage of tens of billions of dollars a year over the EU. They weren’t even hiding that access to a workforce with no rights is a driver for the US economy.
That is the weird thing about the Wall. Imagine if Biden said that he wanted a few billion dollars for a public works program to funnel money into the economies of the southwestern states. Republicans would go crazy over that. However, Trump says he wants that money to build a wall – basically the same thing – and the Republicans are more than supportive while the Democrats go crazy.
I agree that we need a massive amount of public works to stimulate the economy, but it would be nice to basically upgrade everything – and yes, including border security and safety – than what would be the productive equivalent of digging holes and then filling them up. There is really no such thing as a waste of government money since irrespective of what it purports to be for, it basically just becomes money that flows into the economy at large – unless it gets funneled to offshore accounts.
The Democrats could have done a Judo throw in this by agreeing to the “border security proposal” and then taking it over so that the focus was on addressing humane concerns for people crossing the border and human trafficking AND tagging on all sorts of “related” things like improved access to the internet for rural areas (where the immigrants go to work), better education facilities and improving the power grid even which would help in national security as well as everything else. By focusing on the “Wall” I think many politicians missed a lot of opportunities to accomplish practical benefits for a lot of Americans.
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Trump and his family are gone and so is McEnany, Guliani, Conway.
Now it is time for McConnel, Gaetz, Hawley, Graham, Cruz, Rubio, Roebert, and this crazy Marjorie Green who just filed to impeach Biden just to make a name for herself.
They got to go.
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Trump was so tiring. His tweets and quotes by him and his people, every week the past four years… Fauci looks so relieved taking the stage now.
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Seeing Bernie Sanders and AOC… They need to define Socialism better to the public and differentiate what they have in mind as opposed to what happened in Venezuela for example.
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That is the weird thing about the Wall. Imagine if Biden said that he wanted a few billion dollars for a public works program to funnel money into the economies of the southwestern states. Republicans would go crazy over that. However, Trump says he wants that money to build a wall – basically the same thing – and the Republicans are more than supportive while the Democrats go crazy.
That’s because there’s a significant chunk of Republicans who are fine with spending money when its hurting people they don’t like.
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The world will be a better place when he’s gone.
Indeed… and I’d add Pelosi to the list… while not nearly as bad as a person, she also needs to fucking go. And a few others too… like there should be term limits, but if not, at least age limits. 100 year old people shouldn’t be deciding shit for anyone else.
Also, no fucking way they get rid of the fillibuster… that’d take balls, and as we know that’s something the democrats lack. Shit, they’re not even open to modifying that stupid rule…
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Also, no fucking way they get rid of the fillibuster… that’d take balls, and as we know that’s something the democrats lack. Shit, they’re not even open to modifying that stupid rule…
Well… if they’d actually do something for people who are making $30,000 a year or less, they wouldn’t have to worry about it.
I’m not so much concerned about age. Any significant cognitive decline should disqualify, but plenty of old people are able to make terrific decisions just because they have so much experience to draw on. There is nothing necessarily different in the fitness of a 30 year old or 70 year old to hold office.
I’m more concerned that our Presidents and, more importantly, the people in their administration who actually draw up policies and run them do not really have a strong understanding of the struggles average people face and the effect their policies actually will have on the average working person.
Ironically, I think that the candidates most likely to have a real working class background will be older because they will have come from a time when there was a large, strong working class. Just like it was hard to be a winning candidate in the 60’s and 70’s who wasn’t a veteran or did not serve in the military.
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Seeing Bernie Sanders and AOC… They need to define Socialism better to the public and differentiate what they have in mind as opposed to what happened in Venezuela for example.
Why would they when what they’re going to do is as far from socialism as anything could be?
Biden and Harris are middle-of-the-road Democrats, which means that in any other country, they’d be seen as conservative middle-right-wing.
The thing is the UN would have to supercede the authority of nation states to be able to get them to do what the UN wants. Nations won’t let that happen. I don’t even think it is a very good idea to have something like that, you might be assuming it would be a benevolent power but it might just as easily be a tyranny.
Oh, but we do have such bodies, they are called the WTO and the IWF. Both are global institutions that the member states need and that have mechanisms to punish them if they don’t play by the rules. We just missed the boat on tying either of those institutions to democratic or human rights standards.
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Oh, but we do have such bodies, they are called the WTO and the IWF. Both are global institutions that the member states need and that have mechanisms to punish them if they don’t play by the rules. We just missed the boat on tying either of those institutions to democratic or human rights standards.
Exactly, the supranational organizations on one side are concerning as the faith in a nation and its constitutional limitations are the best guarantee of democracy and liberty. Governments get around them by joining together in syndicates that supercede national sovereignty and then implementing emergency powers and administrative exceptions inside the nation through their security services so that people aren’t allowed recourse or appeal to their civil or constitutional rights due to the broad and vague standards of “national security.”
Often, though, in America, people are routinely denied the ability to defend themselves simply because the State makes it too expensive to afford. Municipal judges in many rural areas simply won’t allow a defendant to request a public defender because they know it will cost too much for the county or city to pay for it. And even when PD’s are available, they have too many cases to really defend even if the defendant is obviously innocent.
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The world will be a better place when he’s gone.
Indeed… and I’d add Pelosi to the list… while not nearly as bad as a person, she also needs to fucking go. And a few others too… like there should be term limits, but if not, at least age limits. 100 year old people shouldn’t be deciding shit for anyone else.
Also, no fucking way they get rid of the fillibuster… that’d take balls, and as we know that’s something the democrats lack. Shit, they’re not even open to modifying that stupid rule…
Yeah, something needs to be done to keep congress from being made up of a bunch of elderly folks who’ve been in their seats for decades. I mean just the other week Dianne Feinstein filed paperwork to run for re-election in 2024. She’s 87 years old right now. Her judgement is already a bit questionable these days. No way in hell a 91 year old should be running for another 6 year term in the Senate. It’s absurd. If she’s still alive come 2024, hopefully someone can talk her in to retiring. Otherwise, someone needs to primary her. But honestly, I’d happily see every single geriatric member of congress on the Dems side be forced to retire in exchange for no more McConnell at this point. The guy has been the most destructive politician in the US for a while now.
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The European union didn’t prevent the war in Yugoslavia, and EU countries participated in many other wars besides. I really don’t see how they or the UN were effective in stopping wars.
The counter argument is there wasn’t any between the members, which there had been pretty continuously for centuries before. Yugoslavia wasn’t in the EU and neither were the various places like Argentina or Afghanistan or Libya we fought wars in.
In that way you could say this aim was successful: In 1951, the Treaty of Paris was signed, creating the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). This was an international community based on supranationalism and international law, designed to help the economy of Europe and prevent future war by integrating its members.
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The counter argument is there wasn’t any between the members, which there had been pretty continuously for centuries before. Yugoslavia wasn’t in the EU and neither were the various places like Argentina or Afghanistan or Libya we fought wars in.
That makes EU membership sound a bit like a protection racket.
“Nice country you got there. Be a shame if someone were to… start a war in it.”
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This is appalling. A mass outbreak of Covid at the Swansea DVLA office. The cause? Management stupidity and arrogance:
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Yeah, something needs to be done to keep congress from being made up of a bunch of elderly folks who’ve been in their seats for decades.
Is that something term limits?
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To be fair the EU has done a lot of good things, like getting the big Western European countries to get along better. But they have not been very good in avoiding war in the vicinity, like Eastern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. So its influence is limited and sometimes negative.
I also think we jaded old EU countries sometimes forget just how good the EU has been for some of the newer members. When I was in Latvia and Estonia, there were EU signs all over the place, pointing out the things that had been built or restored with EU help, and there was a lot of pride in flying EU flags.
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Is that something term limits?
That’ll have to do for now. Unfortunately, this crop of legislators has proven notoriously resistant to the Covid option.
Well, back to the laboratory, I guess.
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What do you mean ‘next’? Try already, the Brexit war has quietly raged for years without the EU doing anything and, contrary to lofty pronouncements of it being done, will continue to do so.
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They’re all over the UK too. I passed one yesterday, which felt kind of ironic.
Was it on an Aldi, or a Lidl?
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They’re all over the UK too. I passed one yesterday, which felt kind of ironic.
Was it on an Aldi, or a Lidl?
Over the road from the Aldi-Lidl shopping complex.
I am completely serious
I’ll try to remember to take a photo on my walk this week.
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Was Qanon an A.R.G. throwing together illuminati c-theory with a revival of Satanic Panic?
Frank Herbert once said back in the 70’s that there can be no psychological warfare because any psychological “weapon” that could actually harm your enemy would eventually backfire and destroy you too.
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Yeah, if the Dems figure out how to reverse voter suppression in the US, the Republicans will never win an election again. That’s still the biggest irony of all with Trump screaming about voting fraud while there actually was a huge scam going on, only that that was all in his favour.
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Yeah, if the Dems figure out how to reverse voter suppression in the US, the Republicans will never win an election again. That’s still the biggest irony of all with Trump screaming about voting fraud while there actually was a huge scam going on, only that that was all in his favour.
Not to mention the governor of Georgia who Trump was recorded tying to strongarm into finding votes for him was A-OK with gerrymandering and voter suppression – just not with overturning the election once they’d failed to put the fix in.
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And the stupid continues…
QAnon Thinks Trump Will Become President Again on March 4
Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 19th president of the United States on March 4, 2021.
This is the latest conspiracy that QAnon followers have embraced in the wake of President Joe Biden’s inauguration last week, and extremist experts are worried that it highlights the way QAnon adherents are beginning to merge their beliefs — about the world being run by an elite cabal of cannibalistic satanist pedophiles —with even more extreme ideologies.
The latest claims being made by QAnon supporters echo those of the sovereign citizen movement, a group of people who believe they are not governed by the same laws as everyone else. That belief has led to violent confrontations with law enforcement have viewed them among the top domestic extremist threats facing the country.
“There was some crossover between QAnon and the sovereign citizen movement before, but I’ve seen sovereign citizen ideas about the United States being a ‘corporation’ become more popular within QAnon and beyond in January,” Travis View, a conspiracy theory researcher, told VICE News.
“It’s concerning because it means QAnon is borrowing ideas from more-established extremism movements.”
Sovereign citizens believe that a law enacted in 1871 secretly turned the U.S. into a corporation and did away with the American government of the founding fathers. The group also believes that President Franklin D. Roosevelt sold U.S. citizens out in 1933 when he ended the gold standard and replaced it by offering citizens as collateral to a group of shadowy foreign investors.
Sovereigns use indecipherable legal filings based on arcane texts to separate themselves from the legal entities the government has supposedly created in their name in order to sell to investors.
When that doesn’t work, followers of the sovereign citizen movement have reacted violently. In May 2010, for example, a father-son team of sovereigns murdered two police officers with an assault rifle when they were pulled over on the interstate while traveling through Arkansas.
Now, QAnon followers have latched on to the theory and adapted it to suit their needs.
Over the weekend, QAnon groups on Gab and Telegram, where most QAnon supporters have found a home since they were kicked off Twitter and Parler was de-platformed, commenters have been sharing documents describing the 1871 act, claiming it proves that Trump will be sworn in on March 4.
The source for this date is the fact that 1933 was also the year when inaugurations were changed from March 4 to Jan. 20 — to shorten the lame-duck period of outgoing presidents. QAnon followers believe that Trump will become the president of the original republic, and not the corporation that they believe the 1871 act created.
While there was some crossover between QAnon and the sovereign citizen movement prior to Trump’s election loss, the conspiracy theory has gained a lot of traction in recent days, as QAnon followers struggled to reconcile their beliefs with Biden’s inauguration.
The crossover between the two groups was highlighted last November when Neely Blanchard, a QAnon supporter from Kentucky, was arrested on suspicion of killing Christopher Hallett, a sovereign citizen follower. Hallett was attempting to help Blanchard regain custody of her children at the time.
The claims about the U.S. being a corporation have also begun to gain traction outside the main QAnon groups.
“Can someone tell me why I’m 22 years old and I just learned that the United States is a corporation, not a country,” one TikTok user asked in a video posted over the weekend and viewed 47,000 times.
In the comments, other TikTok users repeat the lie about Trump being inaugurated on March 4.
In the wake of Biden’s inauguration, QAnon followers initially appeared despondent, lashing out that QAnon was a sham. But within days, and at the urging of the movement’s biggest influencers, QAnon followers started to come around, and begin to believe in “the plan” once again.
And when March 4th comes and goes with nothing happening? I look forward to drinking those tears once again.
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I look forward to drinking those tears once again.
For the greater good!
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And when March 4th comes and goes with nothing happening?
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And when March 4th comes and goes with nothing happening?
The people in that video are obviously not true believers of the Lord’s word.
But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only
Matthew 24:26
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But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only Matthew 24:26
Not even Jesus knew. He was going around strongly implying his followers would live to see it.
Seriously, there are always wildly popular Christian churches and preachers* that may not know the exact time, but every one of them tells people they will live to see it — and they’ve been doing it for a few hundred years now.
Pat Robertson Prophesies Winner of Election Followed by These End Times Events | CBN News
(*not the same preachers for hundreds of years of course, as they all keep dying of non-Rapture related causes).
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At some point in 10 or 20 years, Donald Trump will die, and his supporters will be talking about how he faked his own death, and how this is just the final step in his masterplan to reclaim the White House. It will happen any day now!
By that point they’ll probably be convinced that Ivanka or Baron Trump are actually just clones of Donald and his mind was installed in their bodies so that they can lead us out of the darkness and into their golden showers of utopia.
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Sarah Huckabee Sanders Is Running For Governor. Here Are Her Most Egregious Lies.
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Sarah Huckabee Sanders Is Running For Governor. Here Are Her Most Egregious Lies.
She has the charisma of a dumpster full of dried vomit.
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Now now. Don’t go so hard on that vomit dumpster.
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Now now. Don’t go so hard on that vomit dumpster.
Well, the vomit dumpster is more physically attractive than she is.
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He’s a dual British and American citizen so he can run for mayor if he likes. There are no laws of birth for any position in the UK, hence the current PM was born in New York.
He’ll get nowhere near it though, he’s a fringe character at best trying to get publicity for whatever it is he does.
One notable thing about the UK is it is very easy to stand for office. Not too sure about Mayor of London but for an MP you need only 10 nominations from people in that constituency and a 500 pounds deposit (which is returned if you get 5% or more of the vote). Hence on election night you get this cast of jokers standing against the PM who have paid the money really just to get on TV.
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What I find interesting – and more than a bit concerning – about the present environment is the near “perfect storm” of scam artists (from worthless dietary supplements or homeopathic “cures” or multi-level marketing pyramid schemes), conspiracy theories, disinformation campaigns and politics-for-profit candidates. The scary idea about Trump – and it just seems to become more likely the more I look into his career – is that his campaign was essentially an accidentally overly successful scam. That his intent was to essentially open up a market for the gullible, most senior, conservative voters for his brand – sorta the same way Alex Jones constantly pushes overpriced vitamins and other dietary compounds as part of his brand.
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I woulda voted for Elmo outta that line up. No contest.
Wait… is that a cyberman? What was his platform – destroy all humans?
That is Count Binface, who previously stood as Lord Buckethead. He has a 30 point manifesto.
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London Bridge to be renamed ‘Phoebe Waller’.
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Ceefax to be brought back immediately.
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Investment in 20,001 more police officers.
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Nationalisation of the model railways (and Adele).
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Ross Kemp to be the next poet laureate.
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Massive expansion in recycling in all sectors except Hollywood movie plots.
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£1 trillion a week for the NHS.
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Sir David Attenborough to be on the fourth plinth at Trafalgar Square (or a statue of him, I don’t mind which).
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Any Czechs on the Irish border are to be allowed to stay there.
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Philip Green’s estates to be used as land for social housing.
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Piers Morgan to be zero emissions by 2030.
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Legalisation of the hunting of fox-hunters.
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Regeneration of the “Intu” Shopping Centre, Uxbridge.
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Speakerphones to be banned on public transport.
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Donald Trump’s life to be the source material for a new pantomime at the London Palladium, starring Julian Clary as Trump and Gary Wilmot as Barack Obama.
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Shops that play Christmas music before December are to be closed down and turned into public libraries.
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Abolition of the Lords (all of them this time).
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Universal Credit to be repealed and, more importantly, renamed. (Nowhere else in the universe would enact a policy devised by Iain Duncan Smith)
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BBC commentator on all state occasions to be Craig Charles.
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Katie Hopkins to be banished to the Phantom Zone.
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The hand dryer in the gents’ toilet at the Crown & Treaty, Uxbridge to be moved to a more sensible position.
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The BBC to bring back Grandstand, no matter what sports it can afford the rights to.
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Jacob Rees-Mogg to be prorogued.
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New voting age limit of 16 to be introduced. New voting age limit of 80 to be introduced too.
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Nuclear weapons: a firm public commitment to build the £100bn renewal of the Trident weapons system, followed by an equally firm private commitment not to build it. They’re secret submarines, no one will ever know. It’s a win win.
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University tuition fees to be charged to any politician who has ever voted for university tuition fees, plus interest.
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Stop selling arms to repressive regime. Start buying lasers from Count Binface.
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Novelty candidates in British elections must not be controlled or exploited in any way by film producers in the United States.
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On Brexit: there must be another referendum, about whether there should be another referendum.
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Oh and I’ll throw in free broadband.
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That is Count Binface, who previously stood as Lord Buckethead
Wait, Lord Buckethead is not Lord Buckethead anymore? What the fuck?
…ah, I see, Lord Buckethead still exists, but the guy in the suit has to use a different name, so now there’s two characters running in elections with buckets on their heads. Well, I suppose you can never have enough of those.
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Wait… is that a cyberman? What was his platform – destroy all humans?
No, that wouldn’t help differentiate him from the Tories.
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He’ll get nowhere near it though, he’s a fringe character at best trying to get publicity for whatever it is he does.
That’s what people said about Trump.
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Facts don’t convince people in political arguments. Here’s what does.
In his inaugural address last week, President Joe Biden called for unity. But how can Americans come together, given what seems to be growing political contention and deep divides?
New research suggests the answer can be found in stories, not statistics. People respect those they disagree with more when their position comes from a place of personal experience, not facts and figures, finds a new series of experiments published Monday (Jan. 25) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This is especially true when the personal stories are rooted in experiences of harm or vulnerability.
“In moral disagreements, experiences seem truer than facts,” said Kurt Gray, a psychologist and director of the Center for the Science of Moral Understanding at the University of North Carolina.
Respectful debate
Partisan gaps on issues ranging from race relations to the role of government in helping low-income people have grown in the past few decades. The Pew Research Center has found that across 10 issues tracked since 1994, the average gap in opinions between Democrats and Republicans has grown from 15 percentage points to 36 percentage points.Many studies on political differences focus on persuasion and how people’s opinions change, but opinion change is rare, Gray told Live Science.
“In today’s political climate, we need to think of a more, basic foundational goal, which is just being willing to engage in respectful dialogue with a political opponent,” Gray said.
For the new research, Gray and his colleagues focused on how facts versus experiences affected people’s perceptions of their opponent’s rationality and their respect for that opponent. Over 15 separate experiments, they found that, although people think they respect opponents who present facts, they actually have more respect for opponents who share personal stories.
The researchers tested this idea in multiple ways. First, they told 251 participants to imagine speaking to someone they disagreed with on a moral issue, such as abortion, and asked the participants to write about would make them respect their opponents’ opinions. Just over 55% said opinions based on facts and statistics would increase respect, while a smaller percentage — 21% — said personal experiences would do the trick. In a second, nationally representative study, researchers asked 859 participants to imagine interacting with one opponent who based their opinions on facts and one opponent who based their opinions on experience. The participants rated the fact-based opponent as more rational and said they would respect that opponent more than the one who argued from experience.
But follow-up studies revealed that most of the participants had it backward. In actual face-to-face interactions, online debates and debates between talking heads on television, experience-based arguments actually garnered more respect between opponents than arguments based on facts.
In one study, the researchers had someone pose as a passerby who was engaging people in political discussions about gun rights and gun control. In the resulting 153 face-to-face conversations about guns, independent coders rated the responses to the topic as more respectful when the faux activist based their opinions on experience over facts. The same was true in the YouTube comments. In 300,978 YouTube comments on 194 videos about abortion, the conversation was more respectful when the videos focused on personal experiences instead of facts and statistics; commenters used a more positive tone, more positive emotional words, and more words associated with affiliation and togetherness.
Similarly, people were more respectful of New York Times op-eds based on personal experiences rather than stats, and opponents on CNN and Fox News interviews between 2002 and 2017 were more respectful, and treated their opponents as more rational, when the conversations were based on experience.
The power of experience
Further experiments found that stories were most associated with increased respect when the experiences were relevant, harm-based and personal. People respected opponents most when they’d been through something themselves, followed by when they shared the experience of a friend or family member, and they were least impressed when someone based an argument on a stranger’s anecdote or story they’d read about.Then, the researchers explored the idea that perhaps some people’s experiences seemed more trustworthy than others. First, they asked 508 participants to read fact- or experience-based arguments from people who agreed and disagreed with them on guns. The results showed that people doubted political facts presented by their opponents far more than facts presented by someone they agreed with. There was not nearly as large of a gap in doubt, however, between experiences presented by opponents and experiences presented by someone on the participant’s side.
Ultimately, people can always come up with a way to doubt or discount facts, Gray said, but personal experiences are harder to argue away.
“It’s just so hard to doubt when someone tells you, ‘Look, this terrible thing happened to me,'” he said.
The researchers also tested whether people would discount certain life experiences more than others. Given that the experiences of people of color and women are often downplayed, they investigated whether participants would be dismissive of the experiences of a Black woman who disagreed with them on gun control. Again, personal experiences beat out facts for increasing respect for the opponent. In another study, researchers compared how people responded to views on immigration from a scientist. In that study, personal experiences again garnered the most respect, followed by scientific research. Facts cited by a layperson were deemed least worthy of respect.
Personal experiences have fueled recent movements, such as Black Lives Matter and the #MeToo movement, Gray said. Even if personal experience does not ultimately lead to persuasion, respectful discussion is an important underpinning of democracy, he said.
“I don’t want this to sound like you shouldn’t be able to condemn people’s views,” Gray said. “[But] you can still have respect for someone as a human being and appreciate the roots of their views, and you at least need to know what those views are.”
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Good point. You’ve convinced me Count Binface will win!
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Proud Boys leader was ‘prolific’ informer for law enforcement
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys extremist group, has a past as an informer for federal and local law enforcement, repeatedly working undercover for investigators after he was arrested in 2012, according to a former prosecutor and a transcript of a 2014 federal court proceeding obtained by Reuters.
In the Miami hearing, a federal prosecutor, a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent and Tarrio’s own lawyer described his undercover work and said he had helped authorities prosecute more than a dozen people in various cases involving drugs, gambling and human smuggling.
Tarrio, in an interview with Reuters Tuesday, denied working undercover or cooperating in cases against others. “I don’t know any of this,” he said, when asked about the transcript. “I don’t recall any of this.”
Law-enforcement officials and the court transcript contradict Tarrio’s denial. In a statement to Reuters, the former federal prosecutor in Tarrio’s case, Vanessa Singh Johannes, confirmed that “he cooperated with local and federal law enforcement, to aid in the prosecution of those running other, separate criminal enterprises, ranging from running marijuana grow houses in Miami to operating pharmaceutical fraud schemes.”
Tarrio, 36, is a high-profile figure who organizes and leads the right-wing Proud Boys in their confrontations with those they believe to be Antifa, short for “anti-fascism,” an amorphous and often violent leftist movement. The Proud Boys were involved in the deadly insurrection at the Capitol January 6.
The records uncovered by Reuters are startling because they show that a leader of a far-right group now under intense scrutiny by law enforcement was previously an active collaborator with criminal investigators.
Washington police arrested Tarrio in early January when he arrived in the city two days before the Capitol Hill riot. He was charged with possessing two high-capacity rifle magazines, and burning a Black Lives Matter banner during a December demonstration by supporters of former President Donald Trump. The D.C. Superior Court ordered him to leave the city pending a court date in June.
Though Tarrio did not take part in the Capitol insurrection, at least five Proud Boys members have been charged in the riot. The FBI previously said Tarrio’s earlier arrest was an effort to preempt the events of January 6.
The transcript from 2014 shines a new light on Tarrio’s past connections to law enforcement. During the hearing, the prosecutor and Tarrio’s defense attorney asked a judge to reduce the prison sentence of Tarrio and two co-defendants. They had pleaded guilty in a fraud case related to the relabeling and sale of stolen diabetes test kits.
The prosecutor said Tarrio’s information had led to the prosecution of 13 people on federal charges in two separate cases, and had helped local authorities investigate a gambling ring.
Tarrio’s then-lawyer Jeffrey Feiler said in court that his client had worked undercover in numerous investigations, one involving the sale of anabolic steroids, another regarding “wholesale prescription narcotics” and a third targeting human smuggling. He said Tarrio helped police uncover three marijuana grow houses, and was a “prolific” cooperator.
In the smuggling case, Tarrio, “at his own risk, in an undercover role met and negotiated to pay $11,000 to members of that ring to bring in fictitious family members of his from another country,” the lawyer said in court.
In an interview, Feiler said he did not recall details about the case but added, “The information I provided to the court was based on information provided to me by law enforcement and the prosecutor.”
An FBI agent at the hearing called Tarrio a “key component” in local police investigations involving marijuana, cocaine and MDMA, or ecstasy. The Miami FBI office declined comment.
There is no evidence Tarrio has cooperated with authorities since then. In interviews with Reuters, however, he said that before rallies in various cities, he would let police departments know of the Proud Boys’ plans. It is unclear if this was actually the case. He said he stopped this coordination after December 12 because the D.C. police had cracked down on the group.
Tarrio on Tuesday acknowledged that his fraud sentence was reduced, from 30 months to 16 months, but insisted that leniency was provided only because he and his co-defendants helped investigators “clear up” questions about his own case. He said he never helped investigate others.
That comment contrasts with statements made in court by the prosecutor, his lawyer and the FBI. The judge in the case, Joan A. Lenard, said Tarrio “provided substantial assistance in the investigation and prosecution of other persons involved in criminal conduct.”
As Trump supporters challenged the Republican’s election loss in often violent demonstrations, Tarrio stood out for his swagger as he led crowds of mostly white Proud Boys in a series of confrontations and street brawls in Washington, D.C., Portland, Oregon, and elsewhere.
The Proud Boys, founded in 2016, began as a group protesting political correctness and perceived constraints on masculinity. It grew into a group with distinctive colors of yellow and black that embraced street fighting. In September their profile soared when Trump called on them to “Stand back and stand by.”
Tarrio, based in Miami, became the national chairman of the group in 2018.
In November and December, Tarrio led the Proud Boys through the streets of D.C. after Trump’s loss. Video shows him on December 11 with a bullhorn in front of a large crowd. “To the parasites both in Congress, and in that stolen White House,” he said. “You want a war, you got one!” The crowd roared. The next day Tarrio burned the BLM banner.
Former prosecutor Johannes said she was surprised that the defendant she prosecuted for fraud is now a key player in the violent movement that sought to halt the certification of President Joe Biden.
“I knew that he was a fraudster – but had no reason to know that he was also a domestic terrorist,” she said.
Of course he’s denying it. He doesn’t want to be labeled a snitch and that’s not a good look for the leader of a group. I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t turn on his own group or others to save his own ass.
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New research suggests the answer can be found in stories, not statistics. People respect those they disagree with more when their position comes from a place of personal experience, not facts and figures, finds a new series of experiments published Monday (Jan. 25) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This is especially true when the personal stories are rooted in experiences of harm or vulnerability.
This is entirely true, and sharing people’s stories (with their consent) was a huge part of getting people on-board for Repeal.
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Good point. You’ve convinced me Count Binface will win!
Stop the Count!
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We mentioned a while back about the California campaign in changing minds on gay marriage. It was sadly soured by some intern exaggerating numbers but on Radiolab they went and recorded the conversations and you could hear it working. A gay man was chatting to an old fella who was a ‘no’ vote and instead of campaigning or pushing his agenda he just chatted away to him and the guy was widowed and they got chatting about a lifelong love and being able to share after death and he’d got him to change his mind over about 15 minutes.
Alain De Botton also champions images. Reporting numbers has very limited impact compared to showing a problem. He was using the old Michael Burke Ethiopia pictures of 1984 but it came to pass not long after I heard his talk. The news was reporting numbers on refugees dying in the Med for weeks but it was that picture of the toddler drowned on the beach that radically changed public opinion (at least for a while) to sympathise rather than condemn.
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Frank Luntz is a fairly notorious Republican strategist, but I find this interview fascinating on a deep political operator’s view of the damage Trump has done to his own party.
Still, he’s known for his ability to lie, but it is a good perspective to have for the divisions in the party.
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Isn’t that the guy who used to appear on the Colbert Report?
Possibly – maybe without the beard. In the end, he works for the GOP’s core leadership and obviously Trump’s become a liability for them. The core of the modern GOP is essentially “rich people who don’t want to pay taxes” who don’t really care about all the social conservative or religious conservative issues but that’s what wins elections.
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Just awful. https://t.co/CmRD91Kuxw
— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) January 28, 2021
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Frank Luntz is a fairly notorious Republican strategist, but I find this interview fascinating on a deep political operator’s view of the damage Trump has done to his own party.
Still, he’s known for his ability to lie, but it is a good perspective to have for the divisions in the party.
Is that the frontline video? It says “video not available” for me.
I remember watching that, Luntz is a creep and I didn’t buy his tears but it is very insightful. People like him bear a lot of responsibility for the current mess.
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Not politics, but economics supported by politics, this view of “Silicon Valley” start-ups as Ponzi schemes sounds a lot like what was happening before the dot.com crash.
As a result of these factors, many investors were eager to invest, at any valuation, in any dot-com company, especially if it had one of the Internet-related prefixes or a “.com” suffix in its name. Venture capital was easy to raise. Investment banks, which profited significantly from initial public offerings (IPO), fueled speculation and encouraged investment in technology. A combination of rapidly increasing stock prices in the quaternary sector of the economy and confidence that the companies would turn future profits created an environment in which many investors were willing to overlook traditional metrics, such as the price–earnings ratio, and base confidence on technological advancements, leading to a stock market bubble.
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