I fear that claims that a "domestic terrorism" threat exists will create an industry that at some point, will be too large and profitable to dismantle.
I disagree. He has, in my opinion, fallen for the very "creeping extremism" that he once decried. He does not appear to think rationally any more about the level of threat he perceives, nor of the source or logical outcome of the scenarios which play through his head.
The whole Hunter Biden laptop situation is a great example. He decried the fact that media was not covering the allegation, despite the leaps of faith were necessary to consider these allegations in good faith. He ignored the disparity of the threats - the risk that Hunter Biden might be trading off his family name versus the risk that white supremacists might attack the national capital in an attempt to overturn democracy.
> I fear that claims that a "domestic terrorism" threat exists will create an industry that at some point, will be too large and profitable to dismantle.
Cool. A reasonable fear on the face of things. I mean, I cannot see how, but it is a reasonable fear I suppose. However the problem which raises its ugly head is that Greenwald appears to not give a shit that domestic terrorism just took a large swing at the basis of US democracy, or that support for these terrorists appear to be well entrenched in the police, military and political classes. I mean, by all means avoid the profiteering that the Republicans brought to the threat of Muslim terrorism, but by no means ignore the fact that there exists a large pool of disenfranchised white men who are eager to throw another punch in the direction of their perceived enemies.
> gnored the disparity of the threats - the risk that Hunter Biden might be trading off his family name versus the risk that white supremacists might attack the national capital in an attempt to overturn democracy.
The capitol attack took place two months after Greenwald's article, I really don't see how he was supposed to know about this.
And the white supremecy crowd had been quiet before then? They hadn't killed anyone or made threats or been called to "stand down and stand by?" That they hadn't been rabble-rousing across social media? That they were not evidently whipping themselves into a frenzy? That many people weren't highlighting the sudden increase in right-wing terrorism and killings and saying 'Hey, something's up. Perhaps we should be pursuing these guys?'
Dude, I'm totally with you on the danger of extremists, specifically right-wing extremists in the US context.
Greenwald's not talking about that, he's pointing out that very similar arguments were used to pass a bunch of terrible laws back in 2001. And he's right.
Certainly, there are problems with passing knee-jerk laws that restrict privacy, and these should be clearly laid out. However, many of the people and mindsets that created the PATRIOT act are still in DC, and it's wise to be aware of what's probably going to happen as a result of the Capitol Hill attack.
Personally, I think spending all that money on infrastructure would be much more likely to solve the problem, but that's communism apparently. \s
I think I get where you're coming from, and I agree with you on infrastructure spend, etc. Totally, 100% agree. My city has embarked upon a 30 year upgrade of its rail network, for example, and we're already seeing vast improvements, 5 years in.
My problem with Greenwald in general and his recent articles in particular, is that he does apparently believe in context. He is the very model of a flag-waving, freedom-lover who believes that any loss of freedom by any individual going forward is unthinkable. Whether that individual is a corporation (such as his defense of Facebook whose perverse incentives of using conflict and polarisation to drive daily usage have driven much of this conflict) or an actual, factual person who has committed crimes and is now decrying that they should be kept from committing others, does not seem to sway him.
Freedoms are not absolutes. Freedoms are constructs, and spectrum-based at that. Greenwald seems to think that they are atomic, and that splitting them in the face of real need is the scarlet mark of a militaristic thug.
Laws are required to deal with right-wing terrorism, which is the biggest terrorist threat the US (and the West) faces. Much of the incitement of this threat is coming from social media and traditional media organisations who make money and pander influence through exaggerating fears and stoking hatred. Laws are required to tackle these issues five days ago, yet Greenwald thinks that reusing old (somewhat imperfect) laws now is a plot to wage a new domestic war, rather than a way of getting action happening today while coming up with better alternatives (or not) tomorrow.
Lastly, a President who calls on terrorist groups to "Stand down and stand by" and who later calls on them to "Stop the steal", a President who lies about whether elections were fair, who lies about having a COVID vaccination plan (preferring, as we saw today, to have literally nothing prepared or ready), a President who steals and grifts and offers pardons to criminals who have paid him - well, let me say, anyone who defends such a President is either an idiot, or has an ulterior motive for their shirt-rending, freedom spewing diatribe.
Context matters. And context shows Greenwald to be an ass.
>the risk that Hunter Biden might be trading off his family name versus the risk that white supremacists might attack the national capital in an attempt to overturn democracy.
Aah that hurts man... I almost wanted to correct you but I convinced nothing will convince you anymore. Consider yourself a victim of the media. Greenwald therefore was right.
> but I convinced nothing will convince you anymore.
Yes, that pesky need for evidence in order to get me start making leaps of faith to accept the premises required.
> Consider yourself a victim of the media. Greenwald therefore was right.
Why? Honestly, why should I?
Prove the premise, don't ask me to blindly accept it like an elderly patient being euthanized with a pillow. No "shh, shh, shh, don't struggle, just accept it". No "it's all for the best, don't think about it."
If you want me to accept evidence, demonstrate it. For example - the whole DKIM thing proves very little beyond a snippet of an email was sent and received by two entities. It doesn't prove it came from the laptop received by the technician, it doesn't prove that the email held up as evidence was read by Hunter Biden, or that it pertained to anything more than a social setting, or, well, that it has the context that Greenwald so desperately wants it to have. There are fewer assumed entities in the scenario where a hacker has access to Hunter Biden's account and sends the email knowing they will be able to pick it up later. I'm not inclined to believe either scenario off the bat - but one scenario is certainly more plausible than the other.
Greenwald desperately yearns for everyone to believe that both sides are as bad as each other. He wants the Biden family painted in the same light as the Trump family demonstrate day after day. Why? I don't know. But I don't buy into this premise without evidence.
Lol no, The "nothing will convince you anymore" was meant exactly like that. Therefore no attempt was made to convince you at all. The "premise" was a obviously a joke that went right over you.
Imagine watching a group of people barge into the seat of our government and try to forcefully throw out the votes of Americans and then unironically complaining about those same people being censored.
I'm neither agreeing nor disagreeing with you. But I'm asking you to elaborate on specifically who some of those normal people are, and which specific freedoms of theirs are being restricted.
Well, from my perspective at least, it seems that democrats are assuming all the hundred or so million Trump supports are necessarily some combination of brainwashed, racist, or terrorist. And this response to the Capitol riot is one symptom of that kind of thinking where the actions of a few hundred people are being used to try to de-platform/cancel/boycott many tens of millions of people.
The whole attitude seems very patronizing and condescending because the reality is almost all Trump supporters are “normal” people that don’t want pointless violence.
This also causes a very unfortunate and potentially catastrophic feedback loop where Democrats project the actions of extremists onto all Republicans and convince themselves that all republicans need to be canceled/re-educated. This, I would not doubt, becomes a sort of self full-filling prophecy of possibly turning more fringe republicans extremist because they rightfully would feel they are being unjustly persecuted based purely on not even the views that they hold, but based on the views Democrats imagine that they hold.
Nobody has an absolute legal right to use a platform. And no platform has an absolute legal right to be hosted by an infra provider. Both the platform and the provider are private sector actors with almost unlimited control/freedom over what they choose to allow on their property.
You're on firmer ground if you argue a moral (rather than legal) right to these things. But to the extent that these moral rights have been violated, that deprivation was undertaken by private sector actors; not by the government or Democrats.
> The last two weeks have ushered in a wave of new domestic police powers
No, they haven't, and you can tell this because Greenwald can't point to a single extension of domestic police powers. All he can point to is people talking, in the future tense, about applying existing domestic police powers against a long-recognized threat which, out of political favoritism, has not in the past been targeted the way other (often less dangerous) domestic threats have been.
There are certainly some legitimate grounds for concern about that, too, but they are bypassed and obscured in Greenwald’s dishonest and tiresome anti-“liberals” partisan fearmongering.
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[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 54.1 ms ] threadI fear that claims that a "domestic terrorism" threat exists will create an industry that at some point, will be too large and profitable to dismantle.
I disagree. He has, in my opinion, fallen for the very "creeping extremism" that he once decried. He does not appear to think rationally any more about the level of threat he perceives, nor of the source or logical outcome of the scenarios which play through his head.
The whole Hunter Biden laptop situation is a great example. He decried the fact that media was not covering the allegation, despite the leaps of faith were necessary to consider these allegations in good faith. He ignored the disparity of the threats - the risk that Hunter Biden might be trading off his family name versus the risk that white supremacists might attack the national capital in an attempt to overturn democracy.
> I fear that claims that a "domestic terrorism" threat exists will create an industry that at some point, will be too large and profitable to dismantle.
Cool. A reasonable fear on the face of things. I mean, I cannot see how, but it is a reasonable fear I suppose. However the problem which raises its ugly head is that Greenwald appears to not give a shit that domestic terrorism just took a large swing at the basis of US democracy, or that support for these terrorists appear to be well entrenched in the police, military and political classes. I mean, by all means avoid the profiteering that the Republicans brought to the threat of Muslim terrorism, but by no means ignore the fact that there exists a large pool of disenfranchised white men who are eager to throw another punch in the direction of their perceived enemies.
The capitol attack took place two months after Greenwald's article, I really don't see how he was supposed to know about this.
Greenwald's not talking about that, he's pointing out that very similar arguments were used to pass a bunch of terrible laws back in 2001. And he's right.
Certainly, there are problems with passing knee-jerk laws that restrict privacy, and these should be clearly laid out. However, many of the people and mindsets that created the PATRIOT act are still in DC, and it's wise to be aware of what's probably going to happen as a result of the Capitol Hill attack.
Personally, I think spending all that money on infrastructure would be much more likely to solve the problem, but that's communism apparently. \s
My problem with Greenwald in general and his recent articles in particular, is that he does apparently believe in context. He is the very model of a flag-waving, freedom-lover who believes that any loss of freedom by any individual going forward is unthinkable. Whether that individual is a corporation (such as his defense of Facebook whose perverse incentives of using conflict and polarisation to drive daily usage have driven much of this conflict) or an actual, factual person who has committed crimes and is now decrying that they should be kept from committing others, does not seem to sway him.
Freedoms are not absolutes. Freedoms are constructs, and spectrum-based at that. Greenwald seems to think that they are atomic, and that splitting them in the face of real need is the scarlet mark of a militaristic thug.
Laws are required to deal with right-wing terrorism, which is the biggest terrorist threat the US (and the West) faces. Much of the incitement of this threat is coming from social media and traditional media organisations who make money and pander influence through exaggerating fears and stoking hatred. Laws are required to tackle these issues five days ago, yet Greenwald thinks that reusing old (somewhat imperfect) laws now is a plot to wage a new domestic war, rather than a way of getting action happening today while coming up with better alternatives (or not) tomorrow.
Lastly, a President who calls on terrorist groups to "Stand down and stand by" and who later calls on them to "Stop the steal", a President who lies about whether elections were fair, who lies about having a COVID vaccination plan (preferring, as we saw today, to have literally nothing prepared or ready), a President who steals and grifts and offers pardons to criminals who have paid him - well, let me say, anyone who defends such a President is either an idiot, or has an ulterior motive for their shirt-rending, freedom spewing diatribe.
Context matters. And context shows Greenwald to be an ass.
Aah that hurts man... I almost wanted to correct you but I convinced nothing will convince you anymore. Consider yourself a victim of the media. Greenwald therefore was right.
Yes, that pesky need for evidence in order to get me start making leaps of faith to accept the premises required.
> Consider yourself a victim of the media. Greenwald therefore was right.
Why? Honestly, why should I?
Prove the premise, don't ask me to blindly accept it like an elderly patient being euthanized with a pillow. No "shh, shh, shh, don't struggle, just accept it". No "it's all for the best, don't think about it."
If you want me to accept evidence, demonstrate it. For example - the whole DKIM thing proves very little beyond a snippet of an email was sent and received by two entities. It doesn't prove it came from the laptop received by the technician, it doesn't prove that the email held up as evidence was read by Hunter Biden, or that it pertained to anything more than a social setting, or, well, that it has the context that Greenwald so desperately wants it to have. There are fewer assumed entities in the scenario where a hacker has access to Hunter Biden's account and sends the email knowing they will be able to pick it up later. I'm not inclined to believe either scenario off the bat - but one scenario is certainly more plausible than the other.
Greenwald desperately yearns for everyone to believe that both sides are as bad as each other. He wants the Biden family painted in the same light as the Trump family demonstrate day after day. Why? I don't know. But I don't buy into this premise without evidence.
Standard cult thinking.
The whole attitude seems very patronizing and condescending because the reality is almost all Trump supporters are “normal” people that don’t want pointless violence.
This also causes a very unfortunate and potentially catastrophic feedback loop where Democrats project the actions of extremists onto all Republicans and convince themselves that all republicans need to be canceled/re-educated. This, I would not doubt, becomes a sort of self full-filling prophecy of possibly turning more fringe republicans extremist because they rightfully would feel they are being unjustly persecuted based purely on not even the views that they hold, but based on the views Democrats imagine that they hold.
You're on firmer ground if you argue a moral (rather than legal) right to these things. But to the extent that these moral rights have been violated, that deprivation was undertaken by private sector actors; not by the government or Democrats.
No, they haven't, and you can tell this because Greenwald can't point to a single extension of domestic police powers. All he can point to is people talking, in the future tense, about applying existing domestic police powers against a long-recognized threat which, out of political favoritism, has not in the past been targeted the way other (often less dangerous) domestic threats have been.
There are certainly some legitimate grounds for concern about that, too, but they are bypassed and obscured in Greenwald’s dishonest and tiresome anti-“liberals” partisan fearmongering.