[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;568858]To the Orange Furor's adulators, accommodators, adherents, apologists, apple-polishers, ass-kissers, brown-nosers, cult followers, defenders, dupes, enablers, fawners, flatterers, flunkies, [B]fondlers[/B], groupies, hangers-on, helots, helpers, kowtowers, lackeys, lickspittles, minions, obligers, parasites, puppets, suck-ups, slaves, stooges, sycophants, thralls, tools, toadies, vassals, yes-men, and yes-women, I offer [URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4-pexSVWzM"]this 1978 song[/URL] as a tribute. (Backing vocals by Linda Ronstadt, Jennifer Warnes and Waddy Wachtel.)[/QUOTE]

You missed one, so I added it for you above, in bold. I could have added more, but they might have been too colorful for some.

The legal community is talking about the self-pardon thing again. They are exploring ways around it. As I have written before, I am not much on legalese. It seems the original authors of The Constitution made this a somewhat broad area, and a bit unclear as to who can or cannot do this. Time will tell.

[QUOTE=rogue;568776][URL="https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/8/22220366/apple-google-parler-pressure-deplatform-violence-capitol"]Apple and Google face pressure to deplatform Parler over calls to violence[/URL]
Trump has already been banned from FaceBook and Twitter. Reddit has suspended the largest Trump group.
Unfortunately the right will call this "cancel culture" and accuse these companies of censorship.
If Trump were removed from office before Jan 20 (impeached or the 25th Amendment), would they try to make Pence president for the few remaining days of Trump's term? I'm curious because if Pence became president I would expect him to pardon everyone in the Trump family.

I only want to see Trump charged with a crime if they truly believe that he can be convicted of it. Again, Republicans will call it a witch hunt, but I would love to see the Trump family spend millions of their dollars on lawyers who bleed them dry. I think that the Trump family will have a lot of difficulty finding people willing to do business with them after this term ends.[/QUOTE]


Because it's totally reasonable to destroy a platform unless they enforce censorship on their own part. Freedom amirite? I have seen plenty of call for violence on Twitter and Facebook, but i guess it's okay as long as it comes from the left.
Giving total control of the internet to our corporate overlord... there's no way it could go wrong. As long as you agree with them.
Trump was condemning the attack, too bad we cannot see that post anymore on his Twitter.
Payment processors, hosting companies deciding what you are allowed to say. But it's the right with their censorship...
And about the cult following: some people made their living by making fun of Trump for the past 4 years... some are truly obsessed about him, making up stories, just because people will believe while considering themselves the moral one.



[I]The hypocrisy of the other side is unable to convince me it could/will be any better than what they are fighting against. Feels like empty promises and one's suppose to overlook anything, just to defeat the big ol' boogeyman.[/I]

[QUOTE=thyw;568905]Because it's totally reasonable to destroy a platform unless they enforce censorship on their own part.[/quote]Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon are companies and not governments. They are allowed to make their own policy and decide how to conduct their business. They are allowed to censor. They are not required to have free speech.

[QUOTE]Freedom amirite?[/QUOTE]
You can say and shout your rantings all you want. No newspaper, magazine, TV station, nor online forum has to let you use their platform to share it. Write the next version of Mein Kampf, but don't expect a big publisher to sell it for you.

Is freedom of speech something that is absolute? No! The classic "shouting fire in a crowded theater" is not permitted. Nor can you publish certain other things such as nation secrets, child pornography, and stolen proprietary material. Any company or forum may further restrict that to prevent their liablity.

[QUOTE]Giving total control of the internet to our corporate overlord... there's no way it could go wrong. As long as you agree with them.[/QUOTE]Buy yourself a press and hand out leaflets to your hearts content. You can discuss things on the internet in many places. But, actual calls for violence can be criminal and publishers and content providers can be held liable.
[QUOTE]Trump was condemning the attack, too bad we cannot see that post anymore on his Twitter.[/QUOTE]His response was at first not a condemnation and if anything more supportive. Later his statements were very soft. Only much later did he condemn the violence. He is the sitting President of the United States he has the 'Bully Pulpit'. If he releases a statement, the national news media will disseminate it. For a sitting president to say that they are muzzled is a farce. Rather Trump has used his executive power to try to muzzle scientists that work for the government from publishing truth that he doesn't like. He spouts ideas that people have followed, to their own harm. He deliberately mislead the people of the United States about COVID, so they wouldn't take it so seriously. He mocked people that were taking cautions that were proven methods to prevent the spread.

[QUOTE]Payment processors, hosting companies deciding what you are allowed to say.[/QUOTE]They are companies and they are allowed to decide who they deal with as long as they are not discriminating based upon certain protected criteria. Being a hate monger and a liar is not protected. You can use cash and buy your own servers.

There is a very old saying: freedom of the press is limited to those who own printing presses.

These days a "printing press" could well be a server, software and an internet connection. It has rarely been cheaper or easier to own your own printing press.

To make it clear I do not condone violence from either the right or the left, but the right seems to have cornered the market since the election.

I am frustrated that social media companies are almost being given a "free pass". They are to blame for the rampant dissemination of misinformation. This is because people can anonymous post whatever they want with little (if any) consequences to themselves. I have no problems whatsoever in social media companies flagging misinformation, but when they do choose to flag misinformation, they must provide the facts to support it, but that is not the same as censoring.

I do believe that social media should not be protected if its members post misinformation. Newspapers are not protected by libel written by a journalist so social media companies should be held to the same standard by people posting to it.

None of this has been helped by the "war on news" that Trump has been engaged in for four years.

It is our responsibility to hold media (newspapers, TV, radio, social media) to the highest possible standard of honesty and transparency. It should not be able "winning the argument", but coming to a consensus. I used to be able to do that with my more conservative friends and family members, but that has become nearly impossible today because they have bought into the disinformation machine. Evidence to support this is that I am able to tell them the things I don't like about Biden or more liberal policy positions, but they cannot even say one bad thing to say about Trump or conservative policy positions. Trump has created a litmus test for his followers, either you accept everything he says and he loves you or you disagree with anything he says and you are an enemy.

DT has been using tactics out of an old playbook.
1. Divide the group by making an us vs. them. This is usually easiest by using an ethnic group or immigrant. Even better if their skin colour is different. (The Jews have been a common group. DT used Muslims and Latin Americans at first).
2. Even though you are powerful or in the more powerful group, claim oppression. (Again the Jews have been a frequent target of this in the past.) DT has used multiple groups over time. It has been "Washington", then when he got there it was more of "Congress", or the Democrats. Now he is playing the victim re the companies that have social media.
3. Show macho strength and mock any that don't hold your positions as weak.
4. Find or make 'martyrs' for your cause and laud them even though they were a minor person.
5. Make speeches that are caustic, bombastic, and divisive.
6. Alter your message after the fact and claim you always were on the winning side.
7. Never acknowledge personal faults. If needed blame the other side as abusing you.
8. Tell big lies and tell them often. Assert that falsehood is true.
9. Take old sayings and bend them to be about your cause.
10. Punish your own people for any perceived slight, no matter how small.
11. Require devotion to you as a person.
12. Surround yourself with "Yes men" that will not try to hold you in check.

[b][i]AH[/i][/b]-nold has issued a [url=https://twitter.com/schwarzenegger/status/1348249481284874240?s=11]statement[/url].[quote]As an immigrant to this country, I would like to say a few words to my fellow Americans, and to our friends around the world about the events of recent days.

I grew up in Austria. I’m very aware of Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass.

It was night of rampage against the Jews carried out in 1938 by the Nazi equivalent of the Proud Boys.

Wednesday was the Day of Broken Glass right here in the United States.

The broken glass was in the windows of the United States Capitol.

But the mob did not just shatter the windows of the Capitol, they shattered the ideas we took for granted.

They did not just break down the doors of the building that housed American democracy; they trampled the very principles on which our country was founded.

I grew up in the ruins of a country that suffered the loss of its democracy.

I was born in 1947, two years after the Second World War. Growing up, I was surrounded by broken men drinking away the guilt over their participation in the most evil regime in history.

Not all of them were rabid anti-Semites or Nazis, many just went along, step by step, down the road.

They were the people next door.
<snip>
It all started with lies, and lies, and lies and intolerance. Being from Europe I have seen firsthand how things can spin out of control.
<snip>
President Trump sought to overturn the results of an election - and of a fair election.

He sought a coup by misleading people with lies. My father and our neighbours were misled also with lies, and I know where such lies lead.

President Trump is a failed leader. He will go down in history as the worst president ever.

The good thing is he will soon be as irrelevant as an old tweet.

But what are we to make of those elected officials who have enabled his lies and his treachery?

I will remind them of what Teddy Roosevelt said, 'Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president.'

John F. Kennedy wrote a book called [u]Profiles in Courage[/u].

A number of members of my own party, because of their own spinelessness will never see their names in such a book, I guarantee you.
<snip>[/quote]
He spoke, for the first time so publicly, about having heard with his own ears and seen with his own eyes how "broken men drinking away their guilt" - his own father, the neighbor next door, and the neighbor next over - behaved toward their families when they were drunk.

He recalled a phrase from his Catholic upbringing, "a servant's heart." He said it meant working towards something larger than yourself, and that what we need is elected officials with a public servant's heart, who will work toward fulfilling this country's ideals, rather than merely for their own power or party.

IMO his optimism is misplaced. The Demagogue-in-Chief will [i]not[/i] soon become irrelevant. His apologists are swimming in denial. I posted long ago to the effect that electing this man president signified that this country had abandoned its ideals.

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;568918][b][i]AH[/i][/b]-nold has issued a [url=https://twitter.com/schwarzenegger/status/1348249481284874240?s=11]statement[/url][/QUOTE]Here is the video:
[YOUTUBE]x_P-0I6sAck[/YOUTUBE]

[QUOTE=thyw;568905]<snip>
I have seen plenty of call for violence on Twitter and Facebook, but i guess it's okay as long as it comes from the left.[/quote]Care to elaborate? And are you claiming that nobody "from the right" has ever advocated violence on Twitter or Facebook over the last four years? Because the initial filing in Chris Krebs's defamation lawsuit has a number of examples.
[quote]And about the cult following: some people made their living by making fun of Trump for the past 4 years... some are truly obsessed about him, making up stories
<snip[/quote]Was Reuters "making up stories" when it published interviews with supporters of our soon-to-be ex-president, quoting, for example, the Mayor of Sundown, Texas to the effect that he would [i]only[/i] believe Joe Biden had won the election fairly [i]if[/i] the president said so himself? And that the president had been "the only one we could trust" for the last four years?

That is idolatry, expressed by a cult follower toward a cult leader.

Oh, and the same man said that civil war was not off the table...

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;568919]Here is the video:
[YOUTUBE]x_P-0I6sAck[/YOUTUBE][/QUOTE]

Thanks for posting the YouTube link.

[b]EDIT:[/b] When I tried the video link on my phone, YouTube gave me the message "Video not available" and an Error 404.

[i][b]AH-[/b][/i]nold is being suppressed! He's being censored! He's being oppressed!

:rolleyes:

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;568926]Care to elaborate? And are you claiming that nobody "from the right" has ever advocated violence on Twitter or Facebook over the last four years?[/QUOTE]

No, he is clearly saying that the left has advocated for the same kind of violence at the same levels as the right. Some of the reported threats of violence from the left has been proven to be false (see snopes.com for examples).

It bothers me that many on the right desire a second civil war and are gearing up for one. I assume it is a small percentage, but too many Republicans in Washington aren't shouting them down.