• givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Asked for comment, the White House did not cite a specific law Mr. Trump believed was being violated, but a White House official pointed to settlements that media companies, including ABC, have agreed to pay after Mr. Trump’s legal team filed lawsuits against them, and suggested Mr. Trump was attempting to rein in “extreme left-wing bias in television.”

    If you try to appease a fascist, you only embolden them…

    • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      I can’t decide if they have no idea what leftism is, are lying about what it is, don’t care what it is, or a combination of the three. The things labelled as extreme left wing in America is laughably fucking ridiculous. This is a country where for a time there were "libertarians* who literally booed a libertarian presidential candidate for suggesting drivers licenses should exist.

      I will never understand this idea that any government control that exists should only exist to hurt people. The only explanation I can come up with is generations of anger piling up to the point that it’s a miracle we haven’t killed each other already.

      I get being angry, I sure am. Way too much of the time. And I get that people can be brainwashed by billionaires/propaganda. But goddamn, common sense seems to have vanished.

      People were sold the idea that rich people getting paid hundreds of times more than everyone else, and taxing them less was good for everyone. Are people actually stupid enough to believe this? I feel like a child old enough to understand money in the slightest would immediately assume it was a manipulative lie.

      People were sold the idea that laws creating fairness in healthcare were evil.

      People still are very racist. Literally blew my mind as a young child in elementary school when I learned that people were hated for being a different color. Just seems like something you have to be taught. Don’t get me wrong, I get the type of light racism, where you sort of fear people you aren’t familiar with and who seem strange from your perspective, is inevitable. That kind of racism can be curbed easily though. Spending so much energy thinking about how problems are all the fault of random strangers… How do people even get to that point? They must learn it from their parents and then never question it.

      People buy the idea that any new gun law is literally evil And bizarrely, somehow against God himself. I come from a conservative religious family and even they admit that of course guns are dangerous and some new laws are needed.

      People believe that trans people just popped into existence as a satanic evil farce meant to harm their children. Despite the fact that we’ve known for a very long time about people that fall outside the “norms” Of sexuality and gender.

      People reject science despite the fact that for centuries life has gotten exponentially more livable as a direct result of science and medicine.

      People believe oil companies that the earth isn’t warming even though most of those people are old enough to have seen a noticeable shift in weather patterns. Less snow, more storms, etc.

      People think Christianity, which self identifies as a religion of peace and love, requires them the hate or kill those different from them. And to will away any trace of empathy they might have for those people. Polar opposite of most of the new testament.

      Sorry for the rambling rant, I guess my point is that we live in a world where not only does “the truth have a ‘liberal’ bias”, the most basic common sense positions held by modern humans have been politicized and demonized by a bunch of obviously corrupt pieces of shit. And it’s certainly the worst aspect of being human right now to see it getting worse. Fucking disgusting and so counterproductive. Leftism imo probably ought to just be about how to achieve most of the same goals that the right should have. Instead, we argue whether or not certain people have the right to exist or be shown any compassion on a personal or societal level. 🤮

      • CainTheLongshot@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        My somewhat conservative brother told me the other day that if we tax billionaires, they will be forced to lay off employees.

        I just don’t have enough time and dry erase markers to break down how to effectively setup a BETTER economy where we can tax billionaires and still have a low unemployment rate, and not be beholden to fake job creators who were going to do layoffs anyways because line needs to always go up.

        • KokoSabreScruffy@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          My somewhat conservative brother told me the other day that if we tax billionaires, they will be forced to lay off employees.

          My dad is the same “If we do X that benefits us something bad will happen” and then… the bad thing happens anyways… either it be increasing prices or laying employees off

        • AA5B@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          I’ve tried to phrase it as “as much as we are taxed”. Some of them understand “tax billionaires” as “tax the hell out of them”. While people here may think that’s reasonable, how about we start with “as much as we are taxed”?

          While I dont want to pay taxes any more than anyone else, I can’t really object to paying a higher rate than people with less income. But why aren’t wealthy people taxed at least as much?

          Everyone (US) is at least somewhat familiar with different tax brackets even if they don’t understand them, so it should put it in better perspective that billionaires have at some point much lower effective tax rates than the rest of us, and it should be more clear how unfair that is. Not that it helps so far

        • Cosmoooooooo@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Stop giving them the benefit of the doubt. They’re listening to the talking heads of nazi propaganda, who always give their listeners two ways to fight people calling out nazi propaganda.

          Billionaires can afford to pay people!

          nazi: No, they can’t, it’ll increase unemployment!

          nazi: Jobs other than billionaire jobs suck!

          You’re right, you don’t have enough time and dry markers to counter all their bullshit. Even if you did, they’d deflect to something else.

          Nobody’s “a little conservative” anymore, that’s another nazi lie.

          • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            I have started calling this administration and any diehard supporter of them Nazis, but I really don’t find it helpful to call literally all of them Nazis – particularly those with idiotic economic attitudes. They’re already saying “Nazi” just means you disagree, stupid leftist!

            No, Nazi means you support a racist authoritarian inhuman government. Not that you’re stupid when it comes to economic policy.

          • CainTheLongshot@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            I only say somewhat because he doesn’t actually support (or voted for) this admin. He only voted for him in 16, and quickly realized how stupid he is. He has voted Democrat the last few elections, but differs in how we actually fix things.

            So basically your average centrist right now.

            What’s strange is that he was a huge Bernie supporter back in 16, and that was the reason he flipped to R that election. So it’s odd he’s deepthroating billionaire propaganda now. He also doesn’t watch any news outlets, and mostly gets his info from TikTok, which his feed is probably all Joe Rogan clips at this point.

            • Soggy@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              That’s not “strange” that’s just contrarian anti-establishmentarianism. No positive stances, only negarive ones.

        • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Yeah, unfortunately that is sort of the core of what actual conservatism is. “Don’t change ANYTHING, that’s SCARY!”

          And then what “conservatism” has become today, also leads to the same result: “Let us all protect the vulnerable billionaires! At ANY cost!”

            • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              Interesting video. Thanks for that. I wasn’t saying that conservatives actually ever lived up to what they used to say they were striving for, though. I was speaking in a hypothetical sense, granting them the benefit of doubt, admittedly undeservedly.

      • ifGoingToCrashDont@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Completely agree and thank you for saying exactly what needs to be said. I oftwn ask how did we get here? This timeline is so far off from the one I came to expect even like 10 years ago. How do we get back to a more stable, less angry society?

        • Evil_Incarnate@sopuli.xyz
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          2 days ago

          Somehow stop media from profiting from emotions. You get mad at a Facebook post and post a reply about it. Facebooks algorithms see that you respond to this type of posts so it gives you more and sells advertising that makes you mad too. Radio has for fifty years put people on air that say things to stir negative emotions because it’s easy to make people mad. And people tune in again to get mad at them over and over.

        • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Yeah, I ask myself that too. Maybe this has all been boiling under the surface for a long time, but the acceleration feels quicker and quicker since Trump became an every day household name.

          I know a lot of the political polarization we have now is due to Newt Gingrich normalizing obstruction-no-matter-what as a political strategy. But it still kind of doesn’t make sense to me no matter how I think of it. People really ought to be less manipulable than this. The internet must be a large chunk of the problem, but we obviously cannot put that cat back into the bag at this point.

    • ThePantser@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      You can’t cite precedent for your own lawsuits that were settled. Settlement doesn’t create precedent.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        It’s 1000% sets a precedent, maybe not a “legal precedent” but words have meaning and you’re using them wrong or don’t know what they mean.

        • ThePantser@sh.itjust.works
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          2 days ago

          He is saying it’s “illegal” to criticize him. So no, settlements should not work in this instance. But this is Heil Cheeto we are talking about so nothing makes sense anymore.

          • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            Precedent: something done or said that may serve as an example or rule to authorize or justify a subsequent act of the same or an analogous kind

            https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/precedent

            Legal precedent: In the modern legal system, the term precedent refers to a rule, or principle of law, that has been established by a previous ruling by a court of higher authority, such as an appeals court, or a supreme court. Courts in the U.S. legal system place a high value on making judgments based on consistent rules in similar cases. In such a system, cases based on similar facts have a fair and predictable outcome. To explore this concept, consider the following precedent definition.

            https://legaldictionary.net/precedent/

            I’m sorry if you’re still confused about how the legal system has their own definitions, but there’s no way to explain this anymore without coming off incredibly condescending

            • Omgpwnies@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              Every reference to precedent in that definition relies on a court ruling to create it. A settlement is specifically avoiding this step, and as a result does not create precedence. Further, by the definition you posted, higher-level courts do not have to follow precedent set by a lower level court. Since the case did not go in front of a judge, any jusde is a higher level court, and is entitled to completely ignore the settlement.

              • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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                2 days ago

                Every reference to precedent in that definition relies on a court ruling to create it

                In the definition for “legal precedent”…

                Because that’s the specific legal term in the legal system…

                The settlement wasn’t a “legal precedent” because it was a settlement.

                But, it was literally a precedent and why he’s pushing this now

                You cave to a fascist/bully once, it sets the precedent that you will cave and they will press you again.

                I legitimately don’t understand why people aren’t getting the distinction…

                • atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works
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                  2 days ago

                  It’s because you aren’t understanding the distinction. Settlements are not part of a legal preceding. They are by definition the parties agreeing to arbitrate outside of the legal system. There is no more precedent set by a settlement than any other random two assholes making a deal in private.

  • kikutwo@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I hereby declare any criticism of me to be illegal also. In this way it is now illegal for anyone to reproach my criticism of the piece of garbage currently in the white house. Plus, no backsies, so this can’t be undone. Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!