Robert wrote: ↑Sat Sep 30, 2023 10:57 am
Bootstrap wrote: ↑Sat Sep 30, 2023 6:40 am
Filibustering a topic is also a form of control, flooding a thread with everything you would rather discuss than the subject.
Many do this, in the Political threads, from both sides.
I think that's the problem. It's actually a pattern that can be called trolling. Staying on subject and not getting personal is probably the best way to avoid that.
Robert wrote: ↑Sat Sep 30, 2023 10:57 amIt does get quite old that several here have to constantly drag in anything negative from Trump, but they ignore all the negative with the Bidens. It is also annoying when some ignore the negative abut Trump, but I do not see the constant drag in of anything that could be the slightest bit negative about the Bidens.
I see the balance differently. And I think the balance looks different if we use the same standards for both sides, which is the main thing I am promoting. The same standard of evidence. The same standard when we evaluate the seriousness of an accusation. Let's set things up where we can make fair, considered comparisons.
Two days ago, Trump was found guilty of fraud in the State of New York. Not a peep here. Nobody started a thread to discuss that. Two days ago, an impeachment inquiry was held. None of the three witnesses called by the Republicans believed that there is currently evidence for an impeachment against Joe Biden. That may change over time, but right now Donald Trump is facing quite a few criminal trials, and Joe Biden is not. If we had a thread for each trial facing Trump, MN would look very different than it does now.
Unless you insist that all politicians must be equally guilty, regardless of what they do, regardless of the level of evidence, there's simply a lot more evidence of wrongdoing by Trump. I the major findings of the following are based on mountains of evidence, and the facts remain facts, despite the political rhetoric:
1. The Mueller Report
2. The conviction of the Chief Financial Officer of the Trump Corporation
3. The first impeachment, involving corrupt political dealings in Ukraine
4. The second impeachment, involving January 6th
5. The January 6th report
6. The findings of every single election board
7. The findings of every single court that has looked at challenges to the election
8. The damages that Fox had to pay for knowingly spreading lies about Dominion Voting Machines, even though their own emails showed they did not believe these lies.
No other president in American history has faced criminal indictments. Or credible allegations of rape. Or tried to tax deduct hush money paid to a prostitute during an election. So since the above were done, we now have:
9. Sexual abuse and defamation against Jean Carroll
10. Stealing classified documents, showing them to people and bragging about them, not taking precautions to keep them secret, lying about what he has, and refusing to return them
11. A ruling that Trump himself committed fraud by making wild claims about the value of his properties - and wildly different claims to the tax authorities
12. A federal trial about Trump's role in January 6th - after the Mitch McConnell explicitly said that a criminal trial was the appropriate remedy for this.
13. A Georgia trial about Trump's attempt to shake down Raffensberger and intimidate him into changing the results of the election
14. The Stormy Daniels hush money case
That's not all, but there's a pattern here. All of those things are currently ongoing or recently settled cases against Trump. I don't think there has ever been another president like this.
Robert wrote: ↑Sat Sep 30, 2023 10:57 amTrump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) which has been referred to here before is a condition where someone takes anything done by Trump and views it and distorts it to the most negative way possible.
In other words, only a deranged person would make a list of the times that courts, election boards, and investigations have concluded that Trump engaged in serious wrongdoing. That kind of person should be treated as an outsider, not part of our political group think. But what other objective measure would you use?
And of course, if that person would call your side deranged, he would be treated very differently. There is a style of political passion that is built largely on this dynamic. And there's a strong element of denial that turns it into gaslighting. So people use words like "deranged", then insist that it isn't name calling. Or they accuse people who disagree with them of "hate", but are shocked when others think that accusing others of hate can be a way of spreading hate.
The solution is not to mandate what you are supposed to believe in order to be perceived as sane. The solution is to encourage reasonable discussion if we are to discuss these things at all - look at facts and evidence, using the same standards for both. Back in 2016, we did not know whether Trump had done anything wrong or not in the election. So back then, I withheld judgment and waited for things to come out. My posts back then had a lot of "if true, this would be serious". That's where we are at with the claims against Biden now. They may turn out to be true, with strong evidence. They will be a lot more newsworthy then. But when all three witnesses called by the Republicans say that evidence is not yet there, it's a little premature to claim that it has been proven.
And even if that were proven, it doesn't really compare to all the things that have been determined already about Trump. With more to come in upcoming trials. Perhaps some day we will have a similar list of findings for Joe Biden, but we certainly don't have that yet. Or for any other president.
Robert wrote: ↑Sat Sep 30, 2023 10:57 amWe have people on both sides of the political debate. When one side is constantly berated, it creates tribes and forces people to coalesce into camps. Instead of us finding common ground and supporting one another, we go at each other.
I would be perfectly happy if we would stop talking about politics here. But I think that in general, the MAGA tribe is promoting itself quite strongly here, and people only object if someone pushes back on that. And I think that as Christians, we really do need to reject that level of loyalty to ANY political tribe.
Is it biblical? Is it Christlike? Is it loving? Is it true? How can I find out?
