brimstoneSalad wrote:Thousands of, if not more, intersectionalists actually believe that: basically that your personal poverty doesn't matter or isn't real unless it's institutional oppression, because you can get out of it (as Sanders did). They see white people as experiencing occasional temporary poverty, or sometimes choosing poverty, which they see as different from being forced into it and having no way out -- the "no true Scotsman" of poverty. Sure, they may have a low income, but "it isn't real poverty".
A good example of this attitude is the guy at the beginning of this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3ofna1Mtl0
The guy in that video was talking about oppression, which I don't consider to necessarily be related to poverty.
Sure, there are lots of overly-PC people who believe that, for example, there is no such thing as racism against white people because white people have the power. But that's not the same thing.
brimstoneSalad wrote:How could Sanders believe that nuclear power and GMOs are bad? He's clearly crazy, and rejects obvious and scientifically uncontroversial reality on multiple points. I don't doubt he may believe this. If he didn't clarify it, you can't claim he doesn't.
No, he's not clearly crazy at all. And everyone has blind-spots.
He's wrong on nuclear energy, and he supports GMO labeling policy, but is not necessarily anti-GMO. In one statement, he wrote that he doesn't support labeling for health reasons, but for consumer rights. He contradicted himself on this, probably because he doesn't really care much about the issue and is slightly pandering.
brimstoneSalad wrote:He has lied. He's just better at covering for himself, which makes me trust him less. Trump is more transparent.
I trust vocal assholes much more than subversive ones; to me, Trump seems more predictable.
He's only lied once, and that's disappointing, but I still consider him honest because of how he's been so transparent on important issues and principled his entire political life. Like I said with the gay rights issue about standing up for gay people in the military.
I think you said something about how his reasoning there was because of his beliefs about war, but that doesn't really explain it. There was no reason for him to respond to that part; it wasn't about the bill's contents. It was just an attack towards the people who support the bill, saying they're the same people who support "putting homos in the military". Not only that, but he voted against 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' back in 1993 (around the same time as that speech) when it was very politically unpopular to do so. He has integrity and principle. A slimy politician would have done what was politically expedient and voted for that bill, but Bernie didn't.
brimstoneSalad wrote:Which is why I'm less concerned about Hillary believing these things too. You're showing another double standard here, though:
Even if Trump did want to punch protesters, it's not going to impact his policy. It's irrelevant to the politics.
So what if he does endorse violence at his rallies? Irrelevant to his politics.
You're assuming a connection here. I don't think that policy is only what is important. If you incite violence, that's a very serious problem, regardless of your policy. Things beyond policy are important also... Do you disagree with that?
The thing about the situation with Bernie is that, even if he did believe these things (which I don't think he does), it wouldn't impact
anything. Violence doesn't impact policy, but it's still bad. Bernie's beliefs about the struggles of white people are pretty much totally irrelevant.
brimstoneSalad wrote:As per point 3, it's still irrelevant.
Sanders let the BLM people speak: he gave them a platform. That's inciting violence too, by giving a potentially violent movement the tools to do so.
Did you see the video?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oV-ZSP0zAuI
I actually thought his reaction was pretty classy. He offered to shake the hand of one of the protesters, and let them speak despite how rude they were and gave them a moment of silence that they wanted.
There was no reason to believe they would incite violence.
brimstoneSalad wrote:Sanders supporters may be doing more actual violence than Trump supporters.
Woah, what? Where did that come from?
brimstoneSalad wrote:I think that's more relevant than the many possible hoaxes around Trump rallies, where protesters have created violence in order to make Trump look bad.
Lots of rumors....
Do you have evidence? Because we do have evidence of Trump supporters attacking supporters who were already being removed from the rallies.
Going through those links:
ALEX JONES?
...Do you know who Alex Jones is?
He thinks that everything is a conspiracy. He thinks that Hollywood has zombie movies to desensitize people to being killed en masse by the government or something.
And his testimony is so blatantly false:
They are not Sanders supporters by-and-large. This is an operation directed by supporters of Hillary Clinton, paid for by George Soros and Move-On
Move-On completely supports Bernie Sanders after it's members (including me

) voted to support Bernie over Hillary overwhelmingly.
He is a total conspiracy nut. He is not a credible source at all, and neither is that article (notice how it implies he's not really a conspiracy theorist).
This is not credible at all. It's totally meaningless.
Infowars is Alex Jones' news show. If all you have is Alex Jones to support this, that makes it all the more clear to me that the democrats are not the problem.
As to the video, it showed that people hate Trump and like Bernie.
He got more thumbs ups from Bernie people because more people like Bernie, demonstrated by statistics. Trump is the most unfavorable, so it's not surprising he got flipped off a lot. One Bernie guy got up in the face of the guy, but he didn't actually hit him. And getting thrown a water bottle at you isn't the same as being punched in the face when you're already in police custody.
Also, unlike Trump, Bernie consistently condemns violence, and he has never incited it.
That's from another crazy source (Jim Hoft). Though there may be some truth to it, but again, that doesn't really say much in and of itself because there is no connection between Bernie's message and those actions. It's like what Sam Harris says about how Islam is more dangerous than Buddhism because of the violence in the religious texts. Buddhists can be violent in the name of Buddhism, but Buddhism is all about peace and doing good, while Islam commands its followers to kill 'infidels'. And we'd never expect to find violent people if we left them with Buddhist texts in isolation on an island after a few years, while we very well might with Islam.
Also, those weren't necessarily even Bernie people; they were anti-Trump people.
brimstoneSalad wrote:Who knows how much truth is in either side.
These articles and accounts can be analyzed. There is a difference between the opinion of Alex Jones and a video on CNN.
Of course, Internet trolls. That doesn't really mean anything. Bill Maher gets similar comments on Twitter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpmyTud0Soo
brimstoneSalad wrote:He was talking about something very specific there: using a limited amount of violence necessary to stop an assault.
If people misunderstood that, how is that any more Trump's fault (when he clarified) than misunderstanding what Sanders says when he didn't?
That wasn't at all clear if he was, and I'm not even sure that's what he was saying. He wasn't just talking about stopping assault; he was saying we should beat people up so much that they get "carried out on a stretcher". That's not limited violence to stop assault; that's a disgusting and insane violent mob.
In addition, Trump knew his supporters were prone to violence when he was making these comments, but he made them anyway, knowing they could easily be misunderstood.
And Trump didn't clarify. He denied he ever said anything supportive of violence when he clearly did. He never took back anything he said or apologized.
brimstoneSalad wrote:Has anybody been seriously injured or killed?
Does it matter? There has been violence as incited by Trump.
brimstoneSalad wrote:
This is all irrelevant, though: What I care about is what these people will actually do as president.
Policies aren't all that're relevant. If you incite people to beat each other up, but expand Medicare, you're still a bad guy.
brimstoneSalad wrote:To the contrary, he has been a consistent supporter of nuclear power.
That's meaningless. He has said nothing about supporting it because of its role in com-batting climate change. Do you think he's really studied it?
I doubt it.
brimstoneSalad wrote:That alone in terms of policy means more than anything Sanders has advocated.
I completely disagree. Nuclear energy is important, but not more so than all of what Bernie advocates for combined.
brimstoneSalad wrote:So he decided to pander to them and support them instead. Anything they do with that platform he gave them is on his head.
He didn't support them by letting them speak (though he does support BLM, as a representative said in the protest video).
Again, there was no reason to assume they'd say anything violent.
brimstoneSalad wrote:Allegedly. Do you have evidence?
What? Of course. It's not alleged; there are videos of Trump supporters attacking peaceful protesters. I'm surprised you seem to think there might not be violence at these rallies.
Just one of many examples:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZISxk0x6kL0
brimstoneSalad wrote:And why does it matter? None of this does.
Of course it matters. It's violence.
brimstoneSalad wrote:If Trump didn't intend to incite violence, then that should be the end of it as far as his character goes.
I don't think so. At best, he was being very reckless.
brimstoneSalad wrote:
If you want to look at the consequences, Sanders being opposed to nuclear power would be worse than if Trump's supporters all picked up machine guns and started shooting people in the streets.
I don't care that they maybe hit a couple people or pushed somebody around at some point, and it's very likely Sanders supporters have done as bad or worse. Is Sanders to blame?
Attacking somebody's character, and attacking the consequences of the person's actions are totally different things.
In terms of consequences: Hillary > Trump > Sanders
In terms of character, Sanders may be the nicest and least dishonest person (he's still a liar, but maybe less of one). I don't care much about that, and it's all speculation because they're all slimy liars, and they all have batshit crazy beliefs.
You know I don't agree with that stuff. I'll get back to you about your other reply soon.