patrick.net

sagacious1 says

Yet it remains the greatest Nation ever designed, and shall continue to be.

Democratic norms and things which make it great are under assault both from foreign influence and domestic incompetence.

I don't need any more time to issue a judgment: Trump is an empty shirt and our national dysfunction has been amped up by a factor of 5 because of him. We have begun falling from our leadership role in the world.

komputodo says

ummmmm...show up with a tranny wife?

Melania does bear a striking resemblance to Kaitlyn Jenner.

That started when obama's red line was crossed without consequence...

Rew says

We have begun falling from our leadership role in the world.

Well, we apparently just found the next hysteria.....

Oh, and I told you so.

Rew says

We have begun falling from our leadership role in the world.

Remember the golden rule? Whoever has the gold makes the rules. Has nothing to do with manners, protocols, hair styles, etc.

Rew says

. We have begun falling from our leadership role in the world.

I find it incredulous that by choosing a different path than the global mindset, equates to "falling from our leadership role". I mean, certainly one can argue his decisions and directions, yet to suggest because this administration won't follow the Global trend doesn't mean it's not leading, in fact quite the opposite. The question is, is it the right direction?

anonymous says

*Trump Handed Putin a Stunning Victory *

Ah that's cute. I haven't had one fellow Trump asskisser call me up and say "Dude!!! What the fuck! Did you see that shit? Trump handed Putin a stunning vicotry!"

Dream on Libbies, dream on.

Yep... it a true.

www.youtube.com/embed/R7f-pw2SXUU

Also note the debunked lie in the second video where the right-wing shill tries to pretend that the pre-Southern-Strategy Republican Party is the same as today's Republican Party.

Rew says

komputodo says

ummmmm...show up with a tranny wife?

Very telling.

I guess rumored Eastern European prostitute is as close as we have come so far.

Rumors and conspiracies is all the left has. The DNC is broken. This is a very good thing

anonymous says

Second, he needed to demonstrate that he understands that the greatest threat to that alliance, those values, and our security is the Kremlin.

The greatest threat to western values is coming from the left, who is all too eager to squash freedom of speech to gain power. The left doesn't care about the migrant invasion or starting WW3, or even pitting Americans against each other as long as they gain more political power.

Trump made a brilliant speech in Poland expressing that western values are worth saving. Western culture will prevail this onslaught, whereas the DNC will not.

CBOEtrader says

The greatest threat to western values is coming from the left, who is all too eager to squash freedom of speech to gain power.

Yes. That left again. Canceling press briefings, restricting press access, attacking the media: gosh darn them!

Meanwhile, the right really is doing that, and additionally pushing for voter suppression and stoking xenophobia based in a large part on economic problems. It's no accident this national populist movement is being compared to fascist regimes.

www.youtube.com/embed/y6_ckWZCHW4

This!

Rew says

Yes. That left again. Canceling press briefings, restricting press access, attacking the media: gosh darn them!

Considering that the media is wholly owned by Leftist oligarchs for the sole purpose of promoting Leftist thought, why should it be favored with special access or treated with kid gloves when it promotes lies? And you're putting "cancelling press briefings" in this category? Seriously? You've just defined "nothingburger."

Rew says

pushing for voter suppression

No, that's voter VERIFICATION! Nobody is served when illegals without a stake in the USA are encouraged to vote.

Quigley says

No, that's voter VERIFICATION!

The intent of gathering the information is to do what? Purge the voter rolls.

You know what happens when the US government tries to collect up information on where Michael Smith and Rodrigo Hernandez are registered to vote and mistakenly purge valid voters because their names are so common/mistaken? Voter suppression!

Additionally the climate of fear right now has people NOT wanting to even register in states where they are willing to collect that.

You can verify without doing this.

Funny how I'm not worried in the least if Trump sees my voter registration card. I don't know anyone else who is worried about it either. Only lawbreakers are worried about Justice catching up to them!

Quigley says

Funny how I'm not worried in the least if Trump sees my voter registration card

You think Trump is the only one going to be looking at it? You need to get out more if you don't think anyone else is worried about it.

Quigley says

Only lawbreakers are worried about Justice catching up to them!

Then I want a gun registry too. What a slippery slope we go down, isn't it?

How do the lines go ... "Only the guilty ask for immunity deals." ... "Only the failed start attacking the credibility of agents/lawyers." ... Weren't those they greatest hits from the Benghazi fiasco?

Booger says

He's talking about the 2008 election when a black guy took office. Boy did that piss off the right.

The real anger about interference in the election is that the Presidency didn't go to the Candidate with the most Big Money and Special Interest Fundraising.

"How dare the plebes vote against our monied interests!"

The tweet and shitty ass faux news story is today's news. It's also covered here:
https://patrick.net/1307911/2017-07-10-dumb-or-dishonest-person-runs-with-fox-news-intentionally-misleading-story-tweets-lies-to-the-world

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4682204/Man-arrested-walking-naked-Arizona-Walmart.html

This is what Trump needs to do to be even more embarrassing and disturbing at international conferences than he already is.

PeopleUnited blocked you huh? That makes a mockery of this thread:
https://patrick.net/1307772/2017-07-05-free-speech-repost-for-the-free-people-of-patnet

Lol@ citing Dan:

Dan8267 is banning: Bellingham Bill BlueSardine Blurtman bob2356 CBOEtrader errc FortWayne GONE Goran_K Heraclitusstudent indigenous komputodo lostand confused No news is good news NuttBoxer P N Dr Lo R Paralithodes PeopleUnited Quigley Rashomon rpanic01 socal2 Strategist Straw Man Tenpoundbass The Original Bankster

Dan8267 is banned by: BlueSardine errc Heraclitusstudent P N Dr Lo R PeopleUnited Straw Man

Hate to harp on this but the current blocking/banning system doesn't work and doesn't make sense thunderdome

First off, you have to understand that when someone bans you, it's really only a one way thing. They can still post in your threads, etc. You really have to ban them back. I don't understand why everyone doesn't do this.

Second, you need to grow up and stop being so butt hurt over the election results.

Would be a great time to announce the dividend is being raised.

When would they usually do this, given that they mentioned it after the last distribution?

Lol@ someone disliking this. Facts are something to dislike? Funny, according to the leftists here it's only the trump supporters that don't like facts.

Fucking White Male says

Lol@ citing Dan:

Dan8267 is banning: Bellingham Bill BlueSardine Blurtman bob2356 CBOEtrader errc FortWayne GONE Goran_K Heraclitusstudent indigenous komputodo lostand confused No news is good news NuttBoxer P N Dr Lo R Paralithodes PeopleUnited Quigley Rashomon rpanic01 socal2 Strategist Straw Man Tenpoundbass The Original Bankster

Dan8267 is banned by: BlueSardine errc Heraclitusstudent P N Dr Lo R PeopleUnited Straw Man

The fucking balls on people.
Entitles to ban people from posting in their Political rants directed at those they know can read it, but can't post.
But then bitch because you can still see their posts?

It's a terrible thing when somebody can pile on the ad hominems without offering ad hominem retaliation and recourse. All that pent up ad hominem energy has nowhere to go, don't want another Patnetter going postal.

Dan8267 says

Straw Man, less lying.

Where the fuck did I lie?

Ceffer says

don't want another Patnetter going postal.

Republican & Democrat voters/supporters on patnet will drive the sane..nuts.
The stupidity burns.

I don't feel that the blocking system is failing; I feel it is useful, but must be used selectively and with a certain amount of critical introspection concerning one's own failings or faults (in posting). I have a very active blocking policy, and it's kinda like how I would maintain classroom discipline if I were teaching. Psychotic, or obcessive-compulsive, or ideologue, or profane or vicious, or uncivil persons will be blocked. So will persons who routinely engage in non-sequiturs or chaotic disturbed ramblings or angry rants. The reason I block these is not because they disagree with me or distress me; it's because those who may wish to discuss along the original topic of the thread are deflected from doing so by these peoples' eruptive outbursts. If any of these persons wanted to put up a post saying they agreed not to do these things again on my threads, I would unblock them.

Secondly, if I do comment on others' threads, I feel I must be civil, pretty much limit my comments to the actual topic they started it with, be relevant, be factual, and be coherent. Above all, one should never go on other threads and be disruptive; it's just disrespectful.

There are those on this site who I disagree with about the scope of science, rationality, and the scientific method. Or those as against whom I hold different economic theories. Or some I feel get too much into Islamophobic diatribes. Or those who "can never be wrong". Or some who try to constantly misdirect my threads into topics I really prefer be on their own threads, as I see them as irrelevant to the point I originally posted. But these people are never going to be blocked on my threads, though they really make me mad at times, because they are essentially civil and their expressions are grounded in some variant of evidence or rationality, although they may come to conclusions I eschew.

I don't see why this is such a big problem unless people want to fight instead of discuss things amicably and intelligently (which is kinda why I made my [semi]joke posting several weeks back suggesting Patrick introduce a "Bedevil" feature, the opposite of the "Befriend" feature, so that those who want to abuse and belittle each other could exchange personal emails and get into it off-site)

Can't we all just get along?

This is a hell of a rise on some seriously mild volume.

Yes, up 5% today.

Straw Man says

Where the fuck did I lie?

The world is heating up due to man-made pollution. We are changing the climate, melting the polar ice, raising sea levels, raising the mosquito line, and altering rainfall patterns. These are cold, hard, indisputable facts proven by tens of thousands of lines of independent evidence.

These facts are not political opinions. If you say these facts are wrong, then you are lying. It is a lie to say that the warming of the planet is due to natural or cyclic causes. It is a lie to say that the science is inconclusive or undecided. It is a lie to say that the effects are not happening right now. It is a lie to say that the effects are not increasing exponentially. It is a lie to say that people will not be harmed by these effects.

Finally, it is a lie to say that the economy is better off allowing massive pollution to make one arbitrary set of goods cheaper. Making goods like coal and oil cheaper makes clean, independent energy more expensive by hindering investment into the development of those technologies. And since oil also makes us dependent on hostile states that sponsor terrorism, massive economic resources are wasted on needless war.

Even ignoring the destruction of environmental wealth, which is clearly worth at least quadrillions of dollars and is the vast majority of the world's wealth store, allowing pollution still is an economic drag. Pollution makes the Earth less productive. It poisons seafood. It increases health care costs. It reduces able-bodied workers.

To oppose pollution control requires greed, ignorance, and stupidity. Anyone lacking even one of these attributes would oppose pollution. For example, a person who is greedy and ignorant, but not stupid, would learn and realize that, unless he's an oil or coal tycoon, his own wealth and future wealth is being diminished by pollution.

There is no up side to pollution. It does not make goods or services cheaper. It shifts the costs of those goods and services to everyone else. That's socialism, and the one truly bad use case of socialism. It sure as hell ain't free markets to allow some products to shift their costs to non-consumers, but not others. Doing so distorts markets and causes misallocation of resources. This is economics 101. Even if you don't give a shit about the environment or other people and only care about money, you should at least have the intelligence to realize this.

#pollutionIsAnEconomicCost

Fucking White Male says

Lol@ citing Dan:

Dan8267 is banning: Bellingham Bill BlueSardine Blurtman bob2356 CBOEtrader errc FortWayne GONE Goran_K Heraclitusstudent indigenous komputodo lostand confused No news is good news NuttBoxer P N Dr Lo R Paralithodes PeopleUnited Quigley Rashomon rpanic01 socal2 Strategist Straw Man Tenpoundbass The Original Bankster

All those people are trolls and losers. I stand by that ban list. However, it is too short. I'll fix that.

It's no coincidence that the same losers show up in so many ban lists. Basically PatNet is divided into users who want sincere conversations and debates about social and political issues and users who are immature asswipes who can't get along with anyone outside of their tribe. You are among the latter, FWM.

Quite frankly, I suspect PatNet would flourish if those on my ban list simply stopped using the Internet or at least PatNet.

Tenpoundbass says

The fucking balls on people.

Entitles to ban people from posting in their Political rants directed at those they know can read it, but can't post.

But then bitch because you can still see their posts?

The only thing worse than TPB's political views is his grasp of English. I imagine him as a lunatic frothing at the mouth while repeating every conspiracy theory he finds on conservative propaganda sites. He probably has a bunker full of guns and yams.

TPB is a deranged, real-life version of the character of Apocalypsefuck.

zzyzzx says

Wouldn't that me more if an ignore user feature?

Ban and ignore can both be features. They should be independent of each other though.