DTomlinson
DTomlinson's JournalUAE to launch world's First Bachelors Degree in Tolerance and Coexistence
Not an Onion headline, I'm afraid.
https://twitter.com/admediaoffice/status/1369996602350260227
My experience with a conspiracy theorist.
This was a few years ago, but since conspiracy theories seem to be everywhere these days, I thought I might as well share.
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I was at a get-together with some friends, along with a lot of other people I didn't know (friends of friends, family members - that sort of thing). Over the course of a few hours, I ended up talking to someone who was very nice, had a good sense of humor, seemed pretty cool. We were making small talk for a while, some banter back and forth - nothing out of the ordinary.
Anyway, at one point, the conversation got onto history. I think it was my fault. What happened was that I mentioned to this person that I was reading a book about World War II that I thought was fascinating,. This person said, "yeah, it's a shame so many people died, but you have to remember that Hitler was fighting Communists and that he was having real problems with all those Jews."
I was rendered speechless.
But he didn't stop there. He elaborated on his point. "The Jews call themselves the Children of Israel, but they are lying. They're taught to lie. You can't trust anything they say. George Soros and the Rothschilds are collaborating with the Muslims to make white people the minority. You know all this, yes? The media is lying to you, don't believe what they say."
I smiled (to de-escalate the situation), mumbled something about how I had to leave early, and then proceeded to do just that. I apologized to my friends for taking off in a rush, but I didn't feel bad. I just knew I needed to get the hell out of there.
Reflecting on this, what struck me was how calm he was, and how abrupt the transition was from light-hearted banter to vicious anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. He didn't really raise his voice. He even laughed about "how stupid a lot of white people are, digging their own graves by letting the illegals and the Muslims in." There was no change in tone, no anger in his voice. It was very matter-of-fact. I found this utterly chilling.
To this day, this experience haunts me. At least it wasn't a family member or friend.
Democrats have the majority. We elected them to govern. So what's the point of the filibuster?
I was under the impression that in a representative democracy, whoever has the majority governs - and if people don't like what the majority has passed, they can vote them out.
But if the majority can't pass hardly anything to begin with because they need a super-majority in the Senate(60 votes, in this case), well, how can voters possibly judge the government they elected fairly? The majority can't defend their record, because there's no record to defend, owing to the 60 vote threshold.
And Mitch McConnell, or whoever else leads the minority party (Republicans), has every incentive to obstruct Democrats - it's what Republican voters want, it's what Republican donors want, and the filibuster allows and incentivizes the Republican minority to sabotage the Democratic agenda in a way that makes it look like, to a lot of Americans who don't pay as much attention, that the Democrats (both Biden and Democrats in Congress) are to blame for the government not being able to work. After all, few people would instinctively blame the party in the minority for things not getting done.
Republicans then capitalize on disaffection among Democratic voters, lower turnout in the midterms - boom, Republicans control Congress again. And they get to this place only by doing nothing, by voting No - no bipartisanship, or at least not enough to peel off 10 Republican Senators.
Does any other democracy have something like the filibuster? It seems like madness to me. Yes, I read that book Kill Switch - the author worked for Harry Reid, so he knows firsthand how things got to where they are in the Senate.
Such a sad story. His father wanted him to be a jihadist from an early age.
And I imagine having the name “bin Laden” and being the son of THAT bin Laden, at that, did him no favors.
MBS and his supporters re: Jamal Khashoggi.
“MBS is very bold and aggressive, cleaning up everything very rapidly in the Kingdom, look at how incredibly hands-on, competent, and effective he is 
!”
Same people: “How could he possibly have been aware of the killing of Jamal Khashoggi? He doesn’t control everything! He can’t be held responsible!!”
Hmm...
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Member since: Sat Apr 11, 2020, 11:56 AMNumber of posts: 411
