Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

Yeesh - I'm 5 miles from the Capitol as the crow flies and this is a bit much. The saddest thing is back 4 months ago or so, I bought some reinforcements for my front door locks as a bit of a doomsday prepper, but didn't install them until this afternoon. But I'm even more saddened a young woman lost her life today for this.

I've been around firearms plenty when I was a kid/teenager. But never felt it necessary to get one. I'd been halfway joking with my girlfriend that the covid zombie apocalypse might be a good reason to get into target shooting for fun. Today's events might have given some haste to the decision to keep a firearm at home.

 

Timely and on point, IMO.

 

Trump likes to reward his supporters. I can almost imagine him issuing pardons for the mob.

 

Doesn't strain credulity in the slightest. In fact, I will be surprised if he doesn't do so.

 

Trump loves them. They are special.

 

Interesting, thanks for posting (though I listened to just the first 20 minutes). Haidt's taxonomy (to choose a word) is useful, but his personal judgement/commentary not so much, as when he says the GOP has collapsed into mere authoritarianism, and the center left was always about gay marriage. I recall some research from a few years back that showed that those on the right generally can accurately/realistically describe the left's position/worldview - in otherwords they geniuanly understand it even if they disagree - whereas the left generally can not accurately describe the right's position/worldview. I seem to recall the researchers saying something similar to Haidt, that the left has one or two moral considerations - nexus is probably a better word - whereas the right has 5 or 6 and thus more complexity and range.

 

Expect more resignations and possibly envoking the 25th Amendment.

 

@rtaylor76 get some Jesus Sammich.

Also one of the rare times a pollster got something right yesterday.

 

Trump should get the hell out of the White House as quickly as he can, he cannot function as the president from now on.
And nothing can be worse for the future of the country that what happened today.

On the other hand no one really could see it coming? After 6 months of essentially legitimizing political violence in Minneapolis, Portland, Kenosha?
The media in their idiocy of thinking that if they do not report about something it does not happen?
This is a clusterfuck and it did not start today in DC, and the shit did not get real today, it started in Minneapolis many months ago

They just did, the woman who was shot and died later was reportedly an Army veteran with many years of service.
This is not going away.
I just heard that bombs were exploding or found in the Convention buildings of both parties.

And the most frightening part of it: Jack Dorsey's minions still think they are in control and still dictating what Trump can or cannot say.
How well suppressing the information worked so far? How this is working to deescalate the violence?

 

Trump is not going to leave until the 20th at 11:59 AM. Thinking it could happen IMO is a wasted effort.

No one forces him to use Twitter.

 

Today is definitely a great day to prop Twitter as a private company.
Hundreds of people just stormed the Capitol building.
Talk to anyone in the media if they can survive the day without Twitter as a journalist. And to politicians. What about private ICBMs?

 

Once again no one is required to sign up for Twitter. Twitter reminds me of SBAF: Their space, their rules.

 

I think if Dorsey cancelled Trump Twitter account on the first day of his presidency, he would do Trump a big political favor.
Maybe even saved him in 2020.

 

Ah, learning the hardest part of being on the internet.

 

I'm with Dorsey on that.

 

Social media censorship is going to have to be addressed, especially since it's often viewed (not without some justification) as politically biased. I don't understand why the social media platforms don't view themselves as utilities. Nobody holds AT&T accountable when people discuss unsavory things on a phone call. But that ship has probably sailed.

The problem is most people would rather just censor themselves about fringe topics and continue to participate on mainstream platforms rather than move to alternatives. Only the hard core free speech types or people with something super onerous or eccentric to say move to the alternatives and that makes them fringe and unlikely to take large market share from the mainstream sites.

I'm not sure what the solution is, but one needs to be found soon. In the digital age, the public square is in private hands. What makes America unique and what allows it to accommodate its diversity is free expression. In his Twain Prize acceptance speech Chappelle that the first amendment is there so we dont have to use the second. I think he's right.