[erimir]

Originally Posted by davidm

It’s pretty rich … ever since the end of World War II, when Harry Truman invented the National Security State, the U.S. has done nothing but intervene in the elections and internal politics of other nations … shall I make a list?

I was talking about Putin, not America and Russia in general.

Putin's regime is very different from that of Stalin's or Khrushchev's. Stalin was a monster, but he did mostly limit his murder to areas within the USSR. But if we are comparing the post-WW2 US and Russia, I would think that killing millions of Ukrainians should probably enter into the fucking equation.

But anyway, the relevant comparison is Putin vs. Obama/Clinton.

But — oh noes! Someone had the temerity to meddle in our elections! How dare they do that? Only we have the right to do that!

Bey has already explained how this is a fallacious argument.

I don't consider the overthrow of Mossadegh, or funding the Contras, or supporting Pinochet's coup to be good things.

I will note, however, that given that the US is the most powerful military in the world, has the world's reserve currency, and so forth, installing a narcissistic sociopathic moron in the White House has consequences far beyond the US. Overthrowing the government of Grenada, for example, was undoubtedly a bad thing the US did, but helping Trump get elected affects literally billions of people, and Grenada affects less than a million. Making the US an even more malign actor in the world is irrelevant to you, because the US has done bad things? This is pretty shitty reasoning. Perhaps if the consequences would be limited to just the US, or just those who supported those actions, you'd have a point. As it is, it's basically just an endorsement of collective punishment and spite (given that the punishment won't even be limited to Americans - after all this thread was about how Trump is doing bad stuff in Israel, yes?).

Oh, yes, that’s the reason Hillary lost … because Russian trolls put up a bunch of fake news on Facebook … not because she was a shitty candidate with a history of warmongering … oh no, it couldn’t be that … it was Russian hacking, of course

Hacking the DNC and Podesta generated thousands of stories in the media, not just Russian social media propaganda. Clinton lost by 0.8% or less across three states, it only needed to have switched 0.5% of voters from Clinton to Trump, or 1% from Clinton to third-party/third-party to Trump, or some combination thereof. The notion that this is ludicrously implausible... is in itself ludicrous.

But it's not surprising coming from an innumerate who thinks that you couldn't possibly get 500 votes for Gore out of 97,000 Nader votes in Florida.

Watser? and I said mean things about Hillary!

You said stupid things about Hillary, and Trump, and politics and elections in general. What I'm doing here is continually calling out how bad your arguments and views are.

Still, it’s his fault, and mine, for refusing to drink the Killary Kool-Ade.

It's not particularly any of our faults, we are just ordinary citizens.

But that doesn't make the aforementioned arguments and views any less stupid.

Originally Posted by davidm

Please spare me your insipid sanctimony. No nation that has done so many wrongs to other nations -- including the Native American nation and the nations of Africa, whose people it systematically enslaved -- has any call to whine about someone else "hacking" its precious election

I am not America. I didn't do any of those things. And I didn't and don't approve of any of those things. You're talking to me, not "America". And at any rate, it's still fallacious reasoning.