Oh here's a good one: authoritarianism keeps more people alive than freedom, as evidenced by the Covid-19 pandemic

authoritarianism vs libertarianism is just a bizarre divide to care about. 'more rules vs less rules' as an abstract concept rather than care about what the rules actually are. its nonsense for the concept of there being Rules to be some hill to die on

Oh here's a good one: authoritarianism keeps more people alive than freedom, as evidenced by the Covid-19 pandemic

authoritarianism vs libertarianism is just a bizarre divide to care about. 'more rules vs less rules' as an abstract concept rather than care about what the rules actually are. its nonsense for the concept of there being Rules to be some hill to die on

Uncomfortable truth: some rules give you more practical freedom vs loss of abstract freedom.

Mask rules are a perfect example of this. Without them, yes you can go wherever you want and choose to wear a mask or not. And then just fully accept that anywhere you go you have a high risk of getting sick and dying.

But with them, you can go wherever you want and reduce that risk significantly.

but yeah lets argue about the abstract idea of rules instead of what they accomplish

Nah I agree with you. Freedom as an abstract is meaningless; I don't have the freedom to live without being profitable for instance, or the freedom to be healed when I'm sick. These freedoms would be accomplished by more rules, more legislation, more taxes, etc. Absolute freedom is just living in a cave and dying as soon as a bear gets you or something

The goal of society should be providing everyone with some kind of relatively comfortable life by whatever means necessary, otherwise we should just like, not have a society

Authoritarianism keeps more people alive than freedom huh?

How on earth do you explain fascist "wants to use martial law to somehow stay in power in January" Trump refusing to tell people to wear masks and is never seen wearing one himself?

He literally campaigned against Biden as if Biden is gonna force you to wear a mask and lock down the country.

More authority doesn't necessarily accomplish good things; it just provides the framework necessary to accomplish good things as quickly as possible (or also bad ones)

Authoritarianism keeps more people alive than freedom huh?

How on earth do you explain fascist "wants to use martial law to somehow stay in power in January" Trump refusing to tell people to wear masks and is never seen wearing one himself?

He literally campaigned against Biden as if Biden is gonna force you to wear a mask and lock down the country.

why is the guy who says “I don’t want mask rules” more authoritarian the guy who does

why is the guy who says “I don’t want mask rules” more authoritarian the guy who does

Let's not pretend that's an honest question because Biden isn't for enforcing mask rules or locking down the country and never was. He plans to "politely ask Americans to wear masks for the first 100 days".

Anyways my point is Trump is literally an authoritarian in all other ways and 300,000+ people so far have died under his watch because he withheld information from the public and spun anti-mask wearing and "it's a hoax" into a battle cry. He misled people into thinking that he's for protecting their freedoms even as he is currently attacking their right to vote and wants to overturn democracy right now as we speak.

idk what this has to do with the convo. we're talking about specific things being authoritarian and you want to talk about trump's record or w/e. like either authoritarianism is a measurable thing or its just 'people i dont like'

I honestly don't see how Trump is authoritarian. He's just an egocentric crybaby and if anything he took an incredibly hands-off approach during his presidency. The fact that a lot of people like him and want to listen to what he says doesn't make him authoritarian

Like he did the whole "we're gonna recount the votes, we won!" thing but that was just him having a temper tantrum

why is the guy who says “I don’t want mask rules” more authoritarian the guy who does

Let's not pretend that's an honest question because Biden isn't for enforcing mask rules or locking down the country and never was. He plans to "politely ask Americans to wear masks for the first 100 days".

Anyways my point is Trump is literally an authoritarian in all other ways and 300,000+ people so far have died under his watch because he withheld information from the public and spun anti-mask wearing and "it's a hoax" into a battle cry. He misled people into thinking that he's for protecting their freedoms even as he is currently attacking their right to vote and wants to overturn democracy right now as we speak.

I will say that while Trump misstepped in tons of ways and the anti-mask stance is hilariously stupid, he attempted travel bans extremely early, before anywhere else would, but when he put the one from China into place immediately it was met with immense backlash that made further action (such as more complex travel bans that would have greatly slowed the spread to the US) difficult and at the time it was encouraged by many others to go out and hug Chinese people to show solidarity. People did not become okay with the idea of locking down and distancing until it was too late for it to be effective.

I can't think of anything Trump did that was more authoritarian than Obama's "you must pick a corporation to pay for health insurance or the government will fine you"

Tbh Republicans don't need authoritarianism because they just convince their base helpful things are bad and insulting. Under a Biden presidency these people are going to want all the same bullshit they do now. This is what people mean when they say Trump is a symptom rather than a disease

We've had 4 years of the government basically running around aimlessly like a headless chicken, and now we get to be reminded what it's like when competent corporatists are in charge. Every left (or right) leaning centrist will disengage from politics and Trump's base will literally just reelect him in 2024 against Kamala Harris (who nobody likes)

This post was last modified: Dec 22, 2020 at 9:19 PM by Vertette.

I can't think of anything Trump did that was more authoritarian than Obama's "you must pick a corporation to pay for health insurance or the government will fine you"

not to mention trump actually took steps to stop wars and didn't even start any in contrast to obama, who gladly droned down innocents. that's not to say trump isn't a blowhard, but it's something

but idk black president good i guess. i'd like to see a competent us president one day but right now it just doesn't look like it'll happen for a while

I can't think of anything Trump did that was more authoritarian than Obama's "you must pick a corporation to pay for health insurance or the government will fine you"

not to mention trump actually took steps to stop wars and didn't even start any in contrast to obama, who gladly droned down innocents. that's not to say trump isn't a blowhard, but it's something

but idk black president good i guess. i'd like to see a competent us president one day but right now it just doesn't look like it'll happen for a while

Idpol sucks. All criticism of Obama is taboo because he's the first black president so we're supposed to be pleased with that, even though his legacy is basically a healthcare program that kept healthcare costs rising at the same rate as before while also increasing corporate profits

When I think of good black politicians I think of people like Nina Turner, but when someone is black and a leftist at the same time, liberals just use a ton of racist language to shut them down, calling them "too loud" or whatever

vertette he literally assassinated an iran military leader unprovoked and gave saudi arabia giant weapons deals

Do not fucking make trump out to be some peace maker.

oh shit i forgot that one

my point still stands, he made some good moves with south korea and israel with the rest of the middle east. not saying he's perfect tho

Another uncomfortable fact: 2021 will probably be worse than 2020, just like every year before it

The $600 "stimulus check" will be spent by most people on credit card bills, meaning it's just a method to give banks billions of dollars by laundering it through the general population so we don't revolt

The $600 "stimulus check" will be spent by most people on credit card bills, meaning it's just a method to give banks billions of dollars by laundering it through the general population so we don't revolt

don't look at what other countries are getting tons and tons of money btw