Fuck everything about this stupid asshole. 🖕
President Trump created the longest government shutdown in U.S. history so he could get $5.7 billion for a border wall, and today he caved in exchange for $0.
@Burk I have this dream that he will take Pence and/or McConnell with him. In that case I would be willing to wait a bit longer. 🤞
@Burk totally agree. The good thing is it’s been 2 years. The bad thing is there is potentially another 2 years. Also you guys better have an Obama like figure to sort out the shit this asshole has done and then vote for him ‘merica!
@Burk This is the most political thing I think I've seen on micro.blog. If I disagreed, I could be very offended, whereupon my duty would be to ignore you.
That's one of the nice things about this platform.
@ReaderJohn I for sure prefer to leave politics out of my feed because there is so much grey area! I don’t feel there is any grey area with this particular person however.
@ReaderJohn The interesting thing is that it caused me to look up the community guidelines, and I was surprised to find that hate speech is banned, but only for attacks on people on the basis of various things, poltiical views, actions or orientation NOT being one of them, although religious affiliation IS included, and it seems like political stances are close to a religion for some people these days. So while I did find it pretty jarring and not the sort of thing I want to see around here, it was not in violation of the rules as written.
Perhaps hate speech based upon political views, statements and such should be added. // @macgenie @manton
@ReaderJohn @burk it is good that people can follow/unfollow/ignore whomever they want, for whatever reason they want. There is no retweeting or liking to make other people’s content to show up in your timeline. That said, there is a difference between political views among rational people, and people supporting a irrational tyrant. Our current President acting like the latter.
@EddieHinkle The reason I know of the Discover issue is because in fact someone I muted was still selected on the same topic to go into Discover. So I don’t agree on this point.
@EddieHinkle @ronguest That’s exactly the plan AIUI; that was one of the bugs around muting I discovered after Sameer was forced to take a break last fall (in my case, one of the muted users kept showing up in a tagmoji section, rather than the hand-curated Discover). I believe Manton also mentioned something about filtering replies from people you follow to people you have muted as being another planned improvement.
@smokey I shared my experience with continuing to see posts by a muted user probably ~6 months ago with Manton. He didn’t disagree with me but also said nothing about addressing it. You’ve seen something more recently?
@ronguest Yeah, I think this was late September (I’d have to dig into an email archive to be sure), and that was the one bug he fixed. The Discover one and the replies from people you follow to muted people were lower priority and remain unfixed.
@EddieHinkle @ReaderJohn @burk I'm in favor of encouraging diversity on this platform! I didn't vote for the current President, but millions of my fellow Americans DID vote for him and unfortunatey he certainly does get under the skin of a lot of people. I don't think we should be able to label anyone (or his/her followers) as . . . X . . . and then attack them based upon having asserted that label. Ages ago, when I was a kid, someone would get elected, say Ike or even JFK (and HE was a Catholic, horrors!) and the losing side would accept that next time, they'd have to do a better job in the election. But in the meantime, both sides went to Washington and worked to run the country and make it better. Nowadays the losing side doesn't even accept the results of the election and both sides just continue political posturing and are continually campaigning for the next election. I respect the election process in this country, as well as the office of the Presidency. If I disrespect a President, then I am also disrespecting the millions of people who voted for him/her. I don't want to do that. This situation mirrors what happened after the Civil War, when some folks didn't accept that outcome either. They erected memorials to their own local heroes, continued their same racial prejudices and practices, with the tension sliding just a bit under the surface. Can't we all do better to make this country a much better place for all of us and not make everything a matter of who's winning all the time?
@Ron I have lots of thoughts on this, most probably best served by sitting down and writing a full blog post. But the one thing I will say for now, I don’t consider this President like any of President when it comes to “winning” and “losing”. As a disclaimer I will say, I have most my life considered myself primarily Republican/conservative which should have been the “winning party”, however I don’t see the 2016 election as a “win”. For a couple reasons: 1) he won not by popular vote but by electoral college which I don’t feel is legitimate (that has also only happen 4 other times), 2) he does not behave as a President should, regardless of political affiliation. (Although there are some interesting parallels to Nixon’s behavior).
@EddieHinkle Thanks, Eddie. As for #1, the electoral college is how our election process works, as designed by the framers. Period. I was including that when I said I respect our election process. As for #2, that was included when I said he gets under people's skins. I wish he wouldn't do that too.
@Ron Unfortunately, the behaviour of both winning and losing parties always working towards next election rather than accepting the results and working as expected first is not limited to US. It’s no longer a fight of political beliefs and principles - it turns into a war. So I unintentionally tune myself out of any discussion around politics these days.
@amit That's right. I do the same thing on purpose. As I said in another reply some time in the last week, for me, discussing politics is a waste of time and I'm too old to be wasting time. I've got a lot to get done.
@jenett You may be right. Fortunately it's not my job to make the call around here about what is hate speech and what is something else. But whatever it is or was, I hope my timeline doesn't start getting filled up with a lot of that. I was mainly suggesting that the community guidelines might need some clarification.
@Ron Those folks who lost your Civil War also got back into Congress and initiated your first government shutdown in order to get around the uncomfortable truth that their former slaves could now vote.
I heard it on a podcast, so it must be true.
@Ron The framers also gave us a method for changing the constitution should it be warranted. I think we ought to have an ammendment that removes the electoral college, but I am skeptical given how invested most politicians are in the status quo.
@Burk I would like to point out that the Constitution gives Congress the power to get passed a President who is blocking a piece of legislation. The real person who caused the shutdown is Mitch McConnell who constantly blocked calls in the Senate for a vote on the bill passed by the House. It's time for Congress to start doing their job as the co-equal branch of government.
@bradenslen Brad, you have exactly stated my own attitude about politics and the part about toxicity even further clarifies how I feel. Some time in the past week or two, I commented that I considered political discussions to be a waste of my time and I'm too old to be wasting any time. I've got things I want to get done too!
@jeremycherfas It doesn't surprise me! Of course it must be true, if you heard it on a podcast. Ha ha. A Google search showed that various folks have been making lists of government shutdowns and they've been fairly common over the years. Even our mild mannered President Carter (and the best ex-President in my lifetime) had five of them, according to one listing.
@frankm I agree with you, Frank. There have only been six that have passed in my lifetime. I think the issue of the electoral college is too much inside baseball to get much traction these days.
@jenett "If I'm being disrespectful in criticizing the President. . . " I didn't say anything about that issue, but I certainly agree with you that anyone should feel free to criticize any President. That's one of the things that practically defines freedom in America. I'm pretty sure that political cartoons, for example, go back all the way to Lincoln, if not earlier. A collection of them are featured in every issue of The Week magazine and it's usually the first thing I look at. And I agree that the conversation had nothing to do with winning and losing. The part of the conversation that I participated in had to do with whether the guidelines here on Micro.blog ban hate speech based upon politics. When I looked it up, I found the rule doesn't actually ban such a thing or even mention it!
@jenett I like you too, Joe! After all, you're the ONLY one here who actually watched the documentary that I recommended & got it! I considered that as one of the most important links I ever posted here and mostly it produced resounding silence. You're also a master curator, gathering and compiling links as old as some in my Dylan bibliography. The link is by far the most important feature of the web, in my opinion.
Maybe I've completely misunderstood Manton's vision. It never occurred to me for one instant to unfollow or mute Burk. He posts lots of good stuff. I thought those two remedies were the last resort for someone who's feeling especially tortured or bothered by someone. I wasn't feeling that way about him at all. Overall, I thought the idea was to create a space where pretty much everyone would feel welcome and could blog to their heart's content. And for some reason it is usually that way. When Burk published his outburst, it was shocking to me and it sure seemed to be dripping with hate. Maybe I was wrong. Yes, I could have muted him, but what good would that have done, as it was a one time occurrence. As I said to you before, it's probably a good thing that I don't have to be involved in any moderating here, because I probably don't really get what Manton or Jean wants to accomplish with it.
That last bit about winning was just something I wrote summarizing my hope that the country could just lighten up a bit and work together to make things better, not to battle every inch of the way to win elections. Did you read that article Brad posted about The Front Porch Forum in Vermont? Now that was fantastic!!
@Ron I respect your opinions and have had some great conversations with you here, but would like to disagree with you on this point! I know discussing US politics with a level head is nigh on impossible these days (and let's face it, we have mercifully managed to steer clear of any controversial Brexit convos here), but I'd like to argue that (assuming it was the swearing you were repelled by?) that swearing is yet another effective tool in one's writing toolbox. :) I rather liked this recent article about it...
Secondly, as someone living in a non-US country, and as someone who currently has a government that isn't prioritising getting Trump onside at all costs, I don't consider @burk's comment hyperbole in the slightest.
@Ron "I respect the election process in this country, as well as the office of the Presidency." I think this is the heart of the problem at the moment... it's unfortunate that the President himself doesn't seem to have this same respect.
@herself Thanks for writing. I don't know what to do. My policy is to avoid political discussions. I tried to use reason, and have spent a LONG time responding to the person who continued to object to what I wrote. Every time I responded it got worse, not better. I don't feel very safe here anymore, which is upsetting. I should probably go away. It is my own fault for letting myself get drawn into anything political, especially about DT, whose poison is now rubbing off on me. Let me know if you have any bright idea.
@Ron I think you’ve identified a good solution in your last post: just (“agree to disagree” and) let this conversation fade away into the ether :-)
It’s gone on for a couple of days now and the posts are, for the most part, not treading any new ground nor bridging any of the disagreements. So don’t respond to any further @-mentions in it (or other posts in it that you may see in your Timeline in some other fashion). You—all of us!—have better things to do with your/our time remaining than spend it being poisoned by a discussion that is not bearing fruit. :-) There are so many more delightful topics here on Micro.blog—sunsets, chocolate-chip banana bread, cats, father and son eating in sync (in hats!), Dylan!, and so on—to enjoy :-)
@rmcrob Hey, I want you to know I appreciated the thumbs up. I've learned that there is only a very narrow way of looking at the world that is acceptable here. Best of luck to you and with your continuing studies!
@smokey I want you to know how much I've appreciated your friendship and clear perspectives here. I thought I was making progress, but it's super demoralizing in the end. Diversity is apparently highly valued these days, but that mainly has to do with the colors & shapes of bodies. When it comes to ideas, only a very narrow range of those are acceptable. Thanks for your help and the best of luck to you! 😡
@Ron I’ve had that once or twice myself! I hate feeling like I’m getting pulled deeper into a conversation I’m not even sure I want to be having, but at the same time feeling the need to further explain myself...in the end I ducked out from micro.blog for a bit and when I came back was relieved to see no one was wielding pitchforks. That said...please don’t go :)
@jenett I never intended to offend you or anyone else in any way. It's also become clear that no understanding will be reached by talking about it more. I have given up.
@herself You've described what happened very well. Thanks for your understanding. Right now I'm very demoralized and will need to get some fresh air and hopefully some sleep at some point too! My optimism is being tested.
@Ron don’t be ... demoralized that is ... we’re all on the same team in here ... and all have different ways of expressing our differences and emotions.
@herself Ha, I had to look that one up! I thought it would be Kiwi slang, but the definition I read said British slang. No, I didn't feel you did that. I think it just helped me see that I was wasting my time (or my precious time as Dylan sang it). This reminds me of another night I couldn't sleep and I got on my radio and had a long chat on Morse Code with a nice lady in Australia. There was always a good late night connection between CA and VK/ZL (the ham prefixes for stations down under).
@JohnPhilpin I like being optimistic, but I got worn down tonight. Thanks for your support. Maybe the time has come for me to concentrate on radio, rather than being the old oddball here.
@Ron Don’t think twice, it’s alright :)) Ham radio huh! That’s something I’m very curious about but have very little knowledge of. Have you done it long?
@herself Yeah, since 1960. It was my first and longest passion in my life, first licensed at the age of 15.
@Ron it sounds really interesting! Dylan was always playing when I was little. Dad was big into folk—and apparently saw Dylan play at Reed College in Portland in the early days. :)
@herself Ohhh, that probably would have been an early one. Reed . . . isn't that where Jobs went to school?
@Ron As a thought experiment, imagine the response of our community to someone who said similar things in a similar manner about President Obama.
@Ron In Nazi Germany, hatred of Jews (true hate acted out, not merely hate speech) was perfectly acceptable because everyone was doing it. Fascism takes many forms.
@jenett Good point about difference between an F-bomb thrown at a public figure and “hate speech,” though I would hasten to add that I’m very uncomfortable with any legal line between “free speech" and “hate speech” for reasons I hope people can intuit.
@rmcrob I have been baffled by Presidential “derangements syndromes” beginning with Bush II, but bafflement is suspended after Obama: there is something uniquely despicable about the current President. Parts of it are his cruelty and intentional divisiveness, but there's more.
@ReaderJohn I can’t disagree. But I would, nonetheless, prefer civil discourse even in this case. And, of course, you have provided nothing but civil discourse.
@Ron I'm not up with my Jobs history, but it does sound familiar! Dad said he (Dylan)nwas just some unknown guy who started playing on the grass that day :)