When did we start just disregarding the rules around here?

[moda253]

This place is really going to the dogs and by dogs I mean people that look to slyly disparage our party and our elected politicians.

It is rife with false equivalencies, divisive comments, whataboutism, prosecuting past crimes against our party, and much much more.

I suspect that we have either a lot of trolls or people that are falling victim to propaganda and psyops warfare being waged on us. We are supposed to be the people that propel our party and back them. We are facing an administration and a republican party that looks to dismantle every bit of progress we have made for decades... Like Lots of decades. And we are sitting here overlaying our own against republican trash and stretching it to fit their narrative. What. The. Fuck?

[atreides1]

1. It's that moral high ground, thing!

[Iliyah]

2. K & R

Lots of trolls.

It will get much worse as 2018 rolls around.

[rock]

15. Bingo!

I.e. what I was going to say.

[onenote]

3. Not sure how long you've been here, but nothing's changed that much

Heck, compared to primary season, this place is a lovefest.

[bagelsforbreakfast]

4. if one could take a picture of the Right wing trolls

and psyops believers here side by side with the democrats here it would look something like this (with L.B. cast as the Troll/Believer role and the exasperated woman to his left as the Democrats)--

?cache=0c0cqakjyl&ops=936_526,prog,quality_75

[hlthe2b]

5. I'd bet some of it is the difficulty in dealing with jury alerts lately

I've never backed out of so many jury requests. After reviewing the alert, I honestly don't know what to do with them. The rules don't seem to fit as well with the current situation--in MANY ways.

[demmiblue]

6. Meta. Unrec. n/t

[cwydro]

7. I have been astounded at how many want to throw Franken under the bus.

It’s disappointing.

[moriah]

8. There is no false equivalency.

All the accusations being made against people are bad.

Some ARE objectively worse than others. Two important factors -- besides "how far it allegedly got" -- are the power the accused had over/compared to the alleged victim, and any special factors that make victims more vulnerable.

So no matter what way you weigh it or judge it or how much you believe about the truthfulness of their accusations, Franken objectively is accused of things we shouldn't have as high on the priority list as people accused of abusing the power of their office to find young, vulnerable juveniles to target.

I was raped. I was an adult. I understood when the detective on my case called to say he might not be back with me this week -- they were dealing with a case involving a child and were throwing all their resources there.

As they should have.

[DetlefK]

9. Can you name specifics?

If you are talking about the toxicity with which some people lash out against Franken, that's nothing new. About 2 years ago there was an OP about a man groping a woman, she punched him and was then arrested or something like that. People on DU argued that a woman being groped has every right to defend herself in any way, including straight-up killing the guy if she chooses to.

Yes. People on DU demanded that a man groping a woman deserves the death-penalty. Doled out by a mob in the heat of the moment.



If you are refering to the divisiveness, that has been around since the democratic primary 2016. I'm not from the US and I was shocked at the bile and hatred that the Clinton- and Bernie-fans had for each other on DU. It was like a Zombie-apocalypse: One day everything is peaceful, and the next day people are trying to kill each other.



If you are refering to the whataboutism, that could be as simple as degrading standards of civilized communication. I go to Alt-Right and Alt-Left sites sometimes and half the time the posts over there are where people vent some grievance absolutely unrelated to what the OP was about.
(The Alt-Right has the habit of bringing up Jews in every discussion and how the thing of the OP is somehow the fault of the Jews.
The Alt-Left has the habit of bringing up american imperialism in every discussion and how everything is the fault of the US/NATO.)

[moriah]

10. So one woman is a "mob"?

It highly depends on circumstances as to whether a person is going to assume a grope was a random feel, or a prelude to rape.

"Broad daylight and in front of my husband at the State Fair" -- not likely a prelude to rape, lots of witnesses. "Remove. Your. Hands." If they were even there.

"Senile President in the home-based nursing home" -- not likely he can achieve a rape. "Hey, boss, can I get some butt-armor?"

Grabbed in the dark in a lonely parking lot by someone and groped? I'm going to assume it's the prelude to something far worse and fight like fucking hell.

[DetlefK]

11. It's still mob-justice.

Self-defense to stop a crime from happening is one thing. But punishing the criminal after the crime, that's a matter for the courts, not a matter for the victim or the public.

If I kill a would-be murderer while trying to prevent a murder, then it's self-defense.
If I kill the murderer after he has killed somebody, then it's no longer self-defense.

[moriah]

12. Okay, change my scenario. If in the dark and it's not a...

... "run by, pinch, and run away" thing... yes, I'm going to fight like hell. I'm not going to keep pursuing someone if they run from my fighting, of course.

And truthfully, this isn't that difficult to reason out what a reasonable person would think and perceive a situation as.

I've wasted half a Long Island after a guy would NOT get his hand off my ass in a bar. It worked, but only after saying no, squirming, and stating firmly that I wasn't kidding wasn't making him let me go. Either the sours mix or the four clears in the eyes did.

I then walked away to them sounding incredulous. And didn't give a damn, except that it'd been a $7 drink.

[Kirk Lover]

13. I think most people here have been on Franken's 'side'. n/t

[Drahthaardogs]

14. Fuck Yes!

I have been here since 2002 as WindRiverMan and DenaliDemocrat (Army moves forced email changes, etc )

A group who only care about THEIR agenda and THEIR candidate has taken over. The are perfectly happy to allow the perfect be the enemy of the good.

This would not have happened ten years ago when we United against Bush. We literally have a fucking fascist in the White House and all they care about is themselves.

And on exit

I hope you are right and they are just trolls and not what we have become

[mythology]

16. Probably about the same time people decided that a woman could be asking to be groped

When people decided that a woman's personal autonomy didn't matter if it was a Democratic Senator doing it. Lose your bias and look at the world from other people's perspective. It might help you understand that the consistent side is the one saying believe women who come forward, not the people twisting themselves into pretzels trying to justify groping as not that bad.

[moda253]

18. Take your lecture and stick it where the sun doesn't shine

I NEVER said anything about believing women whatsoever. THIS is the exact shit i am talking about... pushing your narrative on people where it doesn't fit.

[american_ideals]

17. Yes. Remember: These "Scandals" sourced/fueled by Kremlin / alt-right

Link to tweet

From the Russian Troll monitoring dashboard (run by Clint Watts):
http://dashboard.securingdemocracy.org/

Between November 11 and November 17, we examined 55 articles that were among the top URLs shared by Kremlin-oriented accounts on Twitter. Over 40% of the URLs focused on sexual misconduct allegations; of those URLs, 42% attacked accused Democrats (or those connected to liberal causes), 4% promoted a narrative of a Saudi-linked pedophile ring, and 54% defended Roy Moore.

https://imgur.com/rBEu51V

-----------------------

Republican lawyer:

Link to tweet

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And

Link to tweet