MyPillow guy has to pay $5 million as promised

[Josh]

Political parties, political campaigns, and the interests behind them have sought to control media narratives since the dawn of the printing press. In fact political parties started their own newspapers which is why so many newspapers have legacy names like "Democratic Herald" and so forth. The daily paper in Little Rock Arkansas is the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and in Springfield MA it is the Springfield Republican. Where do you think those names came from? You can find similar examples all across the country. The US has a long and rich history of partisan media. FOX news is only the latest incarnation. A free press doesn't mean an unbiased press.

Today we see that continuing with social media, media campaigns, and political operatives who continually shop stories and dirt on opponents. And campaigns who try to control their media messaging and talking points. And we now have foreign governments trying to manipulate the US media and social media. None of that is new or even slightly surprising. It is the political environment in which all politics occurs in the US.

But it is not elections fraud.

I'm glad you can acknowledge that you said in your first paragraph.

The problem here is that, in my perception, you are very eager to point out when your political opponents do the above, but seem very reluctant to admit your political allies do the same thing. In effect, you seem to hold a position that your political opponents are somehow dishonest, dirty, and liars, but that your political allies are upstanding, morally upright citizens. This is a rather core problem with political division and disunity in this country.

I am well aware that politicians and partisans on both sides do this, but I think it's wrong to do. As the most ardent partisans (in my perception) in terms of the amount of posts they make and the diversity of issues they comment on, in MennoNet, support the liberal-progressive side of things, that is where I focus most of my call for balance. Back in 2014 in the MennoDiscuss days, things were a bit different. Most of my political posts back then were criticising the "right wing" side of things. I rarely see the kind of right wing "clickbait" sort of "fake news" posts now that were more common back then.

[Josh]

\
'm going to start using phrases like "ignoring the heckling" or "back to the topic" with a specific meaning in threads that are about a given topic when you or others try to silence discussion of the topic by flooding the thread. And I won't bother responding to the rest of what you post to do so. So you will know what that means.

I think we have a fundamental problem that you and others here (including me) don't quite agree on who decides what the facts are, and you keep insisting over and over that you have a lock on what the facts are. I believe that your belief that investigations, courts, trials, and so on reveal facts is a sincere belief. It is just not an opinion that I share. That means that you, me, and others aren't going to agree on what the facts are.

In these types of threads, we usually are arguing about who gets to decide what the facts are, not the particulars of the situation. We often don't agree on what a reliable source of information is.

It means that I think truth depends on facts, and the way to determine facts is to discuss the facts for or against a particular understanding. And to discuss a given topic instead of heckling.

I believe in truth, too. I don't believe that courts or investigations or police departments necessarily are on a mission to find the truth. I believe that often, they can end up finding the opposite. I'm certain you and I could agree about this in some other countries where we agree they have a corrupt government. I don't believe in American exceptionalism, so I don't believe our own American system is somehow "better".

And that I think political fights are stupid and ugly, so I don't want to spend my time and energy in that direction.

I agree that political fights are stupid and ugly. That's why I'm not sure why this thread was started. Trump hasn't been President in quite a while - I'm not sure why we need to keep talking about him. The Republican convention and primary election is a good ways away, it seems there isn't much need to talk about Presidential election politics so much until at least then. Right now we don't even know who the candidates will be for the general election.

[Bootstrap]

Back to the topic, Josh, do you have anything at all that people would generally consider a verifiable fact related to the topic? Let's not argue about who gets to decide, simply present relevant facts. It's that simple. And relevant means "about the topic of the thread". You have every right to present relevant facts, I am doing nothing at all to prevent you from doing so.

I think the facts are simple. MIke Lindell had a "Prove Mike Lindell wrong" contest with a 5 million dollar prize. Someone proved him wrong. Arbitration ordered Lindell to pay up.

Am I missing any relevant facts here? If so, what are they?

[Josh]

Back to the topic, Josh, do you have anything at all that people would generally consider a verifiable fact related to the topic? Let's not argue about who gets to decide, simply present relevant facts. It's that simple. And relevant means "about the topic of the thread". You have every right to present relevant facts, I am doing nothing at all to prevent you from doing so.

I think the facts are simple. MIke Lindell had a "Prove Mike Lindell wrong" contest with a 5 million dollar prize. Someone proved him wrong. Arbitration ordered Lindell to pay up.

Am I missing any relevant facts here? If so, what are they?

The most relevant fact here is that an arbitration finding is a long, long ways from a finding of facts. Arbitration doesn't have to follow even the standards that courts do. And arbitration doesn't have to make much of anything public, so there's no way for us to know what the arbitration hearing even did. One side can choose to disclose what it wants to, but it's very different from a public trial.

This appears to be a private dispute between Lindell and the other person, although I find making claims like "I'm right and I'll bet $5 million I'm right" to be preposterous and boisterous, on a personal level.

I think it would be best if we backed away from these things and simply acknowledge we don't know what we don't know. We could stick to the generally acceptged facts in the case, which is someone made a boisterous claim and tried to bet $5 million on it, and leave it at that. I personally think that speaks for itself.

[Bootstrap]

Back to the topic, Josh, do you have anything at all that people would generally consider a verifiable fact related to the topic? Let's not argue about who gets to decide, simply present relevant facts. It's that simple. And relevant means "about the topic of the thread". You have every right to present relevant facts, I am doing nothing at all to prevent you from doing so.

I think the facts are simple. MIke Lindell had a "Prove Mike Lindell wrong" contest with a 5 million dollar prize. Someone proved him wrong. Arbitration ordered Lindell to pay up.

Am I missing any relevant facts here? If so, what are they?

The most relevant fact here is that an arbitration finding is a long, long ways from a finding of facts. Arbitration doesn't have to follow even the standards that courts do. And arbitration doesn't have to make much of anything public, so there's no way for us to know what the arbitration hearing even did. One side can choose to disclose what it wants to, but it's very different from a public trial.

This appears to be a private dispute between Lindell and the other person, although I find making claims like "I'm right and I'll bet $5 million I'm right" to be preposterous and boisterous, on a personal level.

I think it would be best if we backed away from these things and simply acknowledge we don't know what we don't know. We could stick to the generally acceptged facts in the case, which is someone made a boisterous claim and tried to bet $5 million on it, and leave it at that. I personally think that speaks for itself.

Thanks, Josh.

I actually don't know much about arbitration findings and what they do or do not mean. I'm also not sure where to look for those answers.

[Ken]

Back to the topic, Josh, do you have anything at all that people would generally consider a verifiable fact related to the topic? Let's not argue about who gets to decide, simply present relevant facts. It's that simple. And relevant means "about the topic of the thread". You have every right to present relevant facts, I am doing nothing at all to prevent you from doing so.

I think the facts are simple. MIke Lindell had a "Prove Mike Lindell wrong" contest with a 5 million dollar prize. Someone proved him wrong. Arbitration ordered Lindell to pay up.

Am I missing any relevant facts here? If so, what are they?

The most relevant fact here is that an arbitration finding is a long, long ways from a finding of facts. Arbitration doesn't have to follow even the standards that courts do. And arbitration doesn't have to make much of anything public, so there's no way for us to know what the arbitration hearing even did. One side can choose to disclose what it wants to, but it's very different from a public trial.

This appears to be a private dispute between Lindell and the other person, although I find making claims like "I'm right and I'll bet $5 million I'm right" to be preposterous and boisterous, on a personal level.

I think it would be best if we backed away from these things and simply acknowledge we don't know what we don't know. We could stick to the generally acceptged facts in the case, which is someone made a boisterous claim and tried to bet $5 million on it, and leave it at that. I personally think that speaks for itself.

It isn't a private dispute. It is a very public dispute. That was the whole point. Lindell made a public claim, promoted it in public, and challenged the public to prove him wrong, offering $5 million to anyone who could do so. Unfortunately for him, someone did prove him wrong, and did so publicly. When Lindell refused to pay, the public dispute went to arbitration because that is how Lindell wrote the contract. And the decision by the arbitrator is also public. You can read the entire thing here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/document ... _manual_11

Nothing about this story is private.

[Josh]

Thanks, Josh.

I actually don't know much about arbitration findings and what they do or do not mean. I'm also not sure where to look for those answers.

Some people are opposed to arbitration because it makes so little public, and they are mostly a tool used by businesses that want to avoid being accountable in court to their customers. (You and I have probably agreed to thousands of binding arbitration clauses in the course of ordinary business.) So these arbitration proceedings are binding, yet we can't know what goes on in them, and don't get to see the evidence. From our perspective, it's similar to an out of court settlement.

You can take all my criticisms of courts, etc. and level them at private arbitration X 100. To bring things back to a political topic, this is an area where the right wing in this country has tended to push for laws promoting arbitration, in the service of business. We're all worse off when systems are built that best serve the powerful and don't serve the public.

[Ken]

Thanks, Josh.

I actually don't know much about arbitration findings and what they do or do not mean. I'm also not sure where to look for those answers.

Some people are opposed to arbitration because it makes so little public, and they are mostly a tool used by businesses that want to avoid being accountable in court to their customers. (You and I have probably agreed to thousands of binding arbitration clauses in the course of ordinary business.) So these arbitration proceedings are binding, yet we can't know what goes on in them, and don't get to see the evidence. From our perspective, it's similar to an out of court settlement.

You can take all my criticisms of courts, etc. and level them at private arbitration X 100. To bring things back to a political topic, this is an area where the right wing in this country has tended to push for laws promoting arbitration, in the service of business. We're all worse off when systems are built that best serve the powerful and don't serve the public.

Some business arbitration is indeed private, as are the decisions.

That is not the case here. It was entirely pubic and you can read the entire arbitrator's decision here.
It is 23 pages long: https://www.washingtonpost.com/document ... _manual_11

[Josh]

It isn't a private dispute. It is a very public dispute. That was the whole point. Lindell made a public claim, promoted it in public, and challenged the public to prove him wrong, offering $5 million to anyone who could do so. Unfortunately for him, someone did prove him wrong, and did so publicly. When Lindell refused to pay, the public dispute went to arbitration because that is how Lindell wrote the contract. And the decision by the arbitrator is also public. You can read the entire thing here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/document ... _manual_11

Nothing about this story is private.

There is a short, 23 page decision, which doesn't show any of the evidence (like would happen in a normal trial). It basically is an enumeration of opinions.

I don't think the standard for "facts" should be "whatever an arbitration panel says". Regarding Mr Lindell and Mr Zeidman, Lindell decided to have a binding arbitration clause, and Zeidman apparently thought he could win in front of an arbitration panel, so that's on them. But this gets us no closer to knowing anything about the facts at hand. (I, personally, do not believe in Chinese election interference at all - but that is simply my opinion, not facts.)

[mike]

Political parties, political campaigns, and the interests behind them have sought to control media narratives since the dawn of the printing press. In fact political parties started their own newspapers which is why so many newspapers have legacy names like "Democratic Herald" and so forth. The daily paper in Little Rock Arkansas is the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and in Springfield MA it is the Springfield Republican. Where do you think those names came from? You can find similar examples all across the country. The US has a long and rich history of partisan media. FOX news is only the latest incarnation. A free press doesn't mean an unbiased press. Tom Paine's famous tract "Common Sense printed during the American Revolution was certainly not an unbiased news source. It was propaganda with a specific tilt.

Today we see that continuing with social media, media campaigns, and political operatives who continually shop stories and dirt on opponents. And campaigns who try to control their media messaging and talking points. And we now have foreign governments trying to manipulate the US media and social media. None of that is new or even slightly surprising. It is the political environment in which all politics occurs in the US.

But it is not elections fraud.

Yes, yes, of course! Agreed on all counts! That's why the façade of unbiased journalism over the past few years has been particularly laughable.