Why are you so angry

People are dying or getting very sick from this so wear a mask and keep your distance from others. Why is that hard?

So Trump could tweet "I hate niggers" and you would object to Twitter banning him for it?

I simply view it differently. Drawing the line at a clear violation of criminal law allows for a vast swath of dangerous rhetoric from the president. It's incredibly easy for someone to encourage violence without explicitly saying "kill these people". And it's hard to take the "public interest in hearing a leader's messages" seriously because that presumes a populace that punishes a leader for aberrant behavior. The politics of the right in America are so dysfunctional and sick that Trump's 4 years of horrible tweets carried practically no consequences from the right. Even after he incited an insurrection, he's still the leader of the Republican party.

It seems your position on anything involving Trump always falls back on "only voters should hold him accountable"... even though institutions like Congress and Twitter have an interest in punishing him. Letting him get away with anything shows these institutions are weak and ineffective. Then, when it's clear Republican voters don't want him held accountable, you consider that acceptable, as if the opinion of the mob is all that matters.

What are you rambling about? The debate was about censorship/bans/deplatforming/the limits of free speech rights, not about decyphering the hidden or not so hidden message behind certain statements. I might be upset about tweets by AOC or Pelosi or so and rail against them, but I dont want to see them censored or banned. I can support someone else's right to voice his opinion, even if I strongly disagree with this opinion.

To quote Voltaire: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Feb 11 2021 02:56pm

let's fact check your claims:

"merkel" - wrong. the article (from mid january btw) mentions three of our 16 states, and those measures were up to the states, not the federal government.
"concentration camps" - wrong. those hard hit states were considering detention (not forced labour and murder) for people repeatedly violating quarantine.
"for people that don't wear masks" - wrong again. it was explicitly considered for people who repeatedly and intractably break quarantine, endangering everyone around them and spreading a deadly virus.

you're literally wrong on all counts. you are just uncritically repeating the ignorant conspiracy bullshit that one of your fellow right wing crazies made of that attention grabbing article. it's amazing how that turns into 'merkel wants concentration camps for mask sceptics' in your science- and fact-denying bubble.

oh, and one last thing: the daily mail is basically the uk equivalent to breitbart - a right wing rag full of conspiranoia and propaganda. i know that's right up your alley, i'm just letting you know because i'm sure you're not aware of that.

See, this is the crux: who is it that gets to define what is "dangerous rhetoric" or "aberrant behavior"? In my opinion, letting some unelected, unaccountable person from twitter's speech police define political norms or the overton window is far more dangerous to the well-being of the body politic than putting up with some rowdy language by a norm-defying politician.



First, I dont give a single fuck about Twitter's interests. They definitely are not the ones who should issue the verdict on Trump. Congress is evidently split on whether punishing Trump is in its interest.
Second, the Trump years have indeed shown how weak and ineffective Congress has become as an institution. But in my opinion, this is not a consequence of Congress being misconstructed, it's a consequence of our hyperpolarized times. The twitter thread by Ezra Klein that you linked the other day nails it: during times like these, impeachment is a toothless instrument because the political cost it would ask the president's party to incur is just too high.

Third, the rule of the "mob" is not all that matters - the opinion of the entire electorate determines his political fate. If moderates, independents or swing voters were willing to exile every Republican lawmaker who votes against impeachment, the party would be left no other choice than to get rid of him, no matter how furious his base would be. Likewise, the voters did hold Trump accountable for his norm violations in November, he lost his very winnable reelection bid because a critical mass of persuadable voters (particularly college-educated whites from upscale suburbs) turned on him. And if the Republican party or its primary voters were stupid enough to nominate Trump again in 2024, in spite of the insurrection, they would be punished by suffering a landslide loss. Trump's behavior did have consequences for himself, and also for the party supporting him (a loss of power). They're just not as cataclysmic as you would have liked.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Feb 11 2021 02:58pm

to quote mahatma gandhi: "don't build your whole belief system on cute aphorisms you read on the internet - especially if you don't even know who they're from - it just makes you look like an ignorant jackass."

free speech has limits. always had and always will. maybe you should actually study voltaire instead of misattributing quotes to him because you think they help you defend your draft dodging, pants shitting game show host.
inciting a violent insurrection obviously is one of those limits. your pathetic attempts to draw an equivalence between that and policies you don't agree with is noted - and dismissed. no one was 'deplatforming' trump for his shitty trade or foreign policy - stop being such a dishonest hack.

This post was edited by fender on Feb 11 2021 03:09pm

1 million people die from obesity every year

I didn't know I could breathe on somebody and give them obesity.

It does kill a million people though. Idiot Fauci doesnt seem to care.