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this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2023
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hunter biden matters to republicans because he's the only thing they can hang on joe biden, who has been honestly masterful in the way he's navigated the late and post-pandemic.
I honestly don't understand why they act like Joe Biden is the only politician with a child who has addiction issues and/or failed relationships. Donald Trump Jr. is also divorced and has had alcohol addiction problems. During the Biden/Trump debates I almost wanted Biden to mention Don Jr's problems since Don Sr kept bringing up Hunter, but fortunately familial attacks are beneath Biden.
If they cared about what close relatives of presidents were doing, they should be investigating Jared's deal with the Saudis.
The Kushner family sounds almost even more dysfunctional than the Trump or Biden families combined. Jared's dad has been in jail for a while because he solicited a prostitute for Jared's uncle(elder Kushner's brother-in-law) because he wanted to prove to his sister that her husband was a bad person and divorce him. Jared and Ivanka's kids will probably have to have a lot of therapy, not to mention Jared's cousins and their children.
you're still assuming good faith. stop it. they're not interested in developing a well-rounded worldview and a rational approach to solving the problems that face America. They're interested in seizing as much power as possible and hurting their opponents as much as possible. Once you realize that, their actions start to make perfect sense. Acting like Joe Biden is the only politician with a problem child serves that end. Ignoring Don Jr's obvious coke and booze habit serves that end. There is no guiding philosophy to them, no principles they serve, no basis of human decency in which they even pretend to embed themselves. They've gone full Lee Atwater: they know who they're enemies are and they'll hurt everyone as long as their enemies get hurt too.
People's mistake is thinking fascism is an evil ideology that uses any tactics necessary to achieve its goals.
What they don't realize is that "ideology" and "tactics" need to be reversed in this statement: fascism is a cynical tactic that uses any ideology necessary to achieve its goals.
It will hate groomers on Tuesday and find grooming "the only way to raise responsible, patriotic citizens" on that same exact Tuesday, later in the afternoon.
It will hate nepotism and family connections in the same breath as it calls Ivanka "smart" for wielding her presidential clout to enrich herself.
It will defend the sanctitude of the life belonging to a fetus right up until the main threats to that fetus are poor access to medical care, financial stress leading to miscarriages, and our unsustainable car infrastructure killing off pregnant mothers right alongside every other type of person. THOSE fetuses were killed by the laws of nature of course, (and they certainly lack a level of sanctity that competes with Americans' right to be forced to drive twenty minutes to the nearest grocery store and ninety minutes to their place of employment on threat of homelessness. That "right" is inviolable.)
There's no ideology here. No utopia on the map. No belief about how to improve society. There is merely the last, dying , defiant warcry of a certain subset of corporations. A subset that profits more from maintaining underclasses than they do from providing a product to a stable society. A subset that needs to keep reminding black people that if they don't like working for dirt wages at Amazon, they can always get the police involved and die with a police officer's knee on their neck.
And the question isn't, "can our ideology defeat theirs?" Because there was never a single belief to defeat in the first place. The question here is "can democracy survive?"
And so far, it's holding up better than it did in Italy and Germay. 1930s Germany wouldn't have thrown the Patriot Front in jail. Wouldn't have convicted the Wolverine Watchmen, either. Certainly wouldn't be prosecuting the Proud Boys who showed up to Jan 6.
Thanks for saying what needs to be said over and over.
My concern is this is all going on the slow cooker. Sending proud boys to prison so they can be trained into better terrorists for next time. The right wingers who were willing to take decisive action were able to organize, meet up, and commit violence against democracy while our surveillance state did... Essentially nothing to prevent it?
I can see that. Like how Hitler wrote Mein Kampf during his 264-day incarceration in Landsberg Prison for his Jan-6-style insurrection attempt.
What? No that's not it. They highlight this because when liberals all respond saying they don't care about this they help reinforce to republicans that they shouldn't care about Trump's prostitution stuff or "grab em by the pussy". It makes liberals look like people doing a performance who don't actually hold those things as principles because they're entirely willing to toss them aside for certain issues.
I don't have a dog in this race because I'm not american.
I'm not American either but my wife is so I know more about this than I would like. Like Hunter Biden is not in government and all he has done is smoke crack, have sex with prostitutes, swindle money from corpos by saying who his dad is and have a massive shlong so I don't see the connection.
Like american politicians in general come off to me as the most insincere people in the whole world. Like half of them probably do cocaine regularly, quite a few are obvious child molesters, pretty much all of them abuse their position just to fill their wallet with platant insider trading and the rest are owned by major corporations. No one there needs help to seem like it's just a performance. Like the only thing in American politics that seems sincere is republicans hating minorities, they are just making that their central focus even if it's not popular.
I'm American and have so far not had to see Hunter Biden's cock, but now I know it's massive. Good. Now I know republicans just LOVE showing off massive cocks to everyone they can.
To be fair this isn't limited to america. Liberals in europe are equally as detestable and insincere. Macron being the premiere example. I think it's just highly noticeable in american politics because they have no left.
Does Macron even count as a liberal? He outright said the French revolution was a mistake and a monarchie would have been better. That along with trying to do some police state shit makes it seem he's just an authoritarian.
Modern liberals all believe that. Liberals gave up the social and economic justice beliefs of the Enlightenment as soon as they attained power post-revolution, socialists inherited the Enlightenment thought and became the new left opposition pushing for real justice.
Unfortunately a lot of people who claim to be socialist just follow Stalin's and Lenin's ideology of authoritarianism not much better than fascism with a history of executing actual socialists the moment they get into power. Thankfully Eastern Europe, having lived through the horrors of Stalin's regime, are better at seeing through that bullshit.
Also while most of liberal policies are just a way to make the rich richer, believing monarchy is the way to go and wanting a police surveillance state does not seem to be a common belief.
I want you to ask some of the jews that were liberated from death camps whether they think socialism was "not much better than fascism".
You're calling people like Jeremy Corbyn a monster, who regularly defends the ussr, correctly so. That's how far off the deep end you people are in terms of understanding of this topic.
I am originally FROM eastern europe(Czech) and this is just false. You are talking to people born in the 80s and 90s, brought up on an education system designed with a hefty quantity of anticommunism. You are not talking to people that actually lived under socialism at an age where they can remember any of it.
We have data to back this up anyway:
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2010/04/28/hungary-better-off-under-communism/
http://www.balkanalysis.com/romania/2011/12/27/in-romania-opinion-polls-show-nostalgia-for-communism/
https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/homesick-for-a-dictatorship-majority-of-eastern-germans-feel-life-better-under-communism-a-634122.html
http://praguemonitor.com/2011/11/21/pol
http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/for-simon-poll-serbians-unsure-who-runs-their-country
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Poll-Most-Russians-Prefer-Return-of-Soviet-Union-and-Socialism-20160420-0051.html
https://news.gallup.com/poll/166538/former-soviet-countries-harm-breakup.aspx
You are objectively and measurably wrong. You are repeating repetitive garbage that you have seen moronic far right americans on reddit who have their brains riddled with the legacy of two red-scares repeat over and over again. Which you too repeat as fact despite it being simply not true.
But of course you'll completely ignore all of this absolutely factual information and still repeat garbage again next time because you people don't care about reality, you invent your own. When information that should make you self-crit and reevaluate your world view is presented to you the reactionary attitude you hold causes you to discard it.
Me and my whole family is from and currently in Eastern Europe you numbskull. As a bonus my mom's side of the family is originally from the karelia region where they escaped the soviet occupation once already. I grew up with horror stories from my parents and grandparents about the soviet regime. Also my extended family is about 10% lighter thanks to that regime. And anyone defending that bloody dictator's regime is a monster, yea.
It's 4 am so I'm not gonna go over the whole wall of surveys with a comb but here's my thoughts out em: I'm not surprised about the poll for Serbs, they do seem to love their genocide. As far as the 2 polls that says life was better under the USSR I guess their country must have really gone to shit now.
Considering the USSR did some considerable ethnic cleansing with their death camps in siberia and replacing the local population with their own and the breakup itself causing a lot of economic issues I can entirely believe that those countries consider the breakup itself to be harmful. Also note that the last poll leaves out 4 countries that definitely would consider the breakup to be good which is very weird. If you wanted a poll that said the breakup of the USSR was harmful you definitely want to leave out the Baltics.
Then you should know from talking to literally any elders that you're talking shit.
Lmao so you're a Finn that's proud of having fought on the nazi side of ww2 then and are unhappy with the soviets over it. Cool.
This is absolute nonsense. You are a historical revisionist who invents reality to suit themselves. 90% of people who entered soviet work camps left them alive perfectly well, calling them death camps is absolutely absurd. Frankly I'm not going to bother responding to you any further because this just continues to give you opportunities to spew literal actual bollocks into the thread.
Estonian actually, Karelia is were my mom's parents escaped from to get away from the soviet occupation but I don't fault the Finns for using help from the nazies to ward off a soviet occupation, considering the nazies weren't going to occupy Finland it was a lesser of 2 evils.
As I mentioned: the tales of soviet cruelties come from my parents and grandparents. Unfortunately my great grandparents never came back from the soviet death camps and there are no records of where they were taken which is a common thing for people losing family to those camps, soviet record keeping for those was shit. I'm lucky to know this much, most people just disappeared with no records at all. I guess they learned their lesson from the nuremberg trials and just destroyed their records.
Also feel free not to engage, I'm not too interested in some kid from the UK who fell for tankie bullshit and wasn't impacted by the soviet regime but I do love to argue.
Stopped reading. Fuck off nazi. Not only did Finland take part in the holocaust by exterminating the Roma living in Finland (or forcing them to fight in the nazi suicide squads), but Estonia also handed over Jews to the Gestapo.
If anti-communists could stop admitting that they admire the nazis within 2 or 3 comments of starting their anti-communism you might actually be dangerous and effective at spreading your bullshit but you can never fucking help yourselves.
Ah yes, perfectly ok to defend the soviets committing a genocide, but the moment a country accepts help from nazies against soviet genocide they become nazies. Weird it doesn't bother you that soviets allied with the nazies and split Europe amongst one another in their treaty. Obviously nazies are fucking despicable but so are soviets and both did genocides. Yea, you can go fuck yourself too red fashist.
No mate because, as I pointed out, they weren't fucking death camps and you're an idiot. You can not cite a single academic source saying that, because none exist.
This has now devolved into you making up genocides that the soviets did not perform in order to justify your support for the nazi genocide of roma performed by finland. Screaming "red fashist" at the end doesn't help.
I'm on the side of objectively good people like Che, Nelson Mandela and Albert Einstein. You're on the side of Hitler and Mengele you absolute tool.
I didn't even make you take the position of defending the nazis, you CHOSE to take this position without prompting.
You saying they are not does not make it so. Soviets were smarter than nazies and didn't keep records as I said so the only numbers are estimated but like the lowest death count you can find is 1.5 miljon but the highest I can find is 8 million. But since most sources agree: prisoners close to death were released and they either died on the way somewhere else or at their destination. The total guesstimates of the total population at their death camps ranges from 14 to 25 million. This also doesn't count the people deported to random villages in Siberia, never to be seen again or the famines they caused by either intentionally or by ridiculous incompetence.
Also note I was defending the Finns not nazies. You can imagine how bad the soviet regime was if nazies seem like a good alternative.
Sure, you're the perfect angel, defending soviet genocides and other atrocities.
I wonder if any of the jews that were freed by the soviets (all of them) would agree. Nah.
Lmao you're pulling figures from the black book of communism now which is widely regarded as a joke. Fucking hilarious.
I also genuinely do not give a fuck about any nazis they killed. Which you are definitely including in your camp deaths as a bad thing. You are literally going to bat for nazis that absolutely deserved execution.
Lol, the black book of communism has numbers like 100 million so no I wasn't. Did your brain break and you just revert to some npc talking points?
So now you are celebrating soviet atrocities, yea you definitely have the moral high ground here.
I'm definitely celebrating the deaths of nazis. Yes.
You are both denying and celebrating the victims of soviet gulags. I guess anyone who the soviets hate is a nazi to you and that would not really surprise me, I have talked to red fashists from the US before, you're the first from the UK though.
I'm getting really bored now. Do you have anything worthwhile to add or just more bullshit?
Not really. You want over most of the red fash talking point I usually get already. The only empty square on my bingo card is "read theory" but we never went over how authoritarian rule is against everything socialism and Marxism stand for. But yea, I have to rotate my phone just to be able to hit reply to this last one and that too much effort to do twice so I'm done too.
Why would I tell a person that defends the nazis to read theory? That's something socialists say to other leftists.
Dude, you’re arguing with a fascist-loving teenager. Talk about wasting time.
I'm late thirties actually.
I'm begging you to ask some of the surviving jews that were freed from nazi death camps whether they think socialism is the same thing as fascism. They might kick your teeth out though.
Then it's just sad.
Nah mate. You're just out of touch with mainstream politics here in Britain. Jeremy Corbyn defends the USSR. Diane Abbot defended Mao on national tv. John McDonnell's job is "to overthrow capitalism". Or the time John threw Mao's little red book at Osborne. Etc etc.
Mainstream elected MPs. Mainstream opinions.
Yanks are just out of touch with what a political left looks like because they have no left. It makes you think "this person must be a teenager" because the american left simply doesn't exist and you can't imagine what the left over here in europe actually looks like because you have no baseline experience of a left to draw from.
These people are the elected soft left demsocs lmao. But all of this shit would cause americans to start screaming the word tankie or whatever because it's so far outside their experience and education.
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Lmao you are forgetting who actually attacked whom and nothing said in this thread suggests Finns are proud of having to fight with the nazis.
Decimation was considered a harsh punishment even by the standards of the ancient Rome and was abolished. The fact that you use 90% survival rate to defend the ussr just shows how delusional you bolshevik tankies are.
Oh and by originally from do you mean the American originally from where your great great great grandfather was from there but you never been in said country or barely know anything about it? Or do you mean actually from the Czech republic?
I currently reside in Britain. Half my family are Czech. I have no american relatives.
We're not really saying "we don't care." What we're saying is: Hunter Biden isn't on the ballot. There's no evidence that Joe Biden did anything illegal so this isn't changing our voting plans. If Hunter did something illegal, he should get an appropriate punishment for it, but this should also apply to Don Jr, Ivanka, and everyone else.
Instead, Republicans want to "get" Hunter Biden on something - anything - and tie Joe Biden to that by virtue of being Hunter's father. However, they also don't want anything Trump's kids do to be tied to Trump. It's an obvious double standard employed for political gain without any regard for the truth.
It’s not Trump vs. Hunter Biden, but Trump vs. Joe Biden, so this sounds like the typical brainworm-reasoning that you get from right-wingers.
Donald Trump himself is the one doing the bad stuff, Biden‘s son‘s actions can’t be pinned on his father. Especially so because Hunter is not in in the government, unlike the monsters that are Trump‘s spawn.
Ok Boris.
Oh grow up. I'm half Czech, half British and reside in the UK. I also moderate the UK's largest leftist subreddit /r/greenandpleasant.
Duly noted, Ivan.
oh you're right in that this serves an overall strategy they call "flooding the zone", which is where you try to make your actual hideousness seem equivalent to your opponents in order to encourage people to just check out of politics. In 2016 one of Trump's key campaign strategies was getting Clinton voters to stay home on the idea that "they're all the same anyway, what does it matter?" But the fact is liberals do care, and they want to see justice done. Hunter Biden has been charged with federal crimes and plead guilty, and there's no liberal backlash because he did that shit. They tried this with the Epstein plane too. They were like "But Bill Clinton was on the plane too" and most people's reaction was "he can have the cell next to Trump's".
They don't need an overall backlash though. They just need some people to do it, even in this thread there's a bunch of people doing it. This then becomes all the evidence that people in the other tribe need to believe it on the whole as a widespread thing.