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Was Voltaire right? A reflection on January 6

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
I never played any musical instrument.
I have no music education.
I don't perform anything.
I hate poetry.
But I have memorized several limericks.
I've even composed a few.
Favourite limerick of all time (no sex!?)

There once was a bishop whose brain
Was deranged through the use of cocain,
To a copse, dark and wild
He lured a small child
And beat it to death with his cane.

Or do you prefer the more traditional:

There once was a girl from Devizes
Whose tits were of two different sizes.
One was really quite small
It was nothing at all,
But the other was large, and won prizes?
 

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
On the contrary it's not even being hidden. Everyone knows that the internet was deliberately manipulated to exclude information about Biden's son which would have changed the outcome of the election.
Really? Everyone knows that?

Oddly, I don't -- does that mean I'm nobody?

Oh, and just so that we keep it all honest, do you have any evidence of this "internet was deliberatly manipulated to exclude information about Biden's son?" I mean, since you've made the claim so blatantly, and claimed we all know it, we'd really appreciate some source material, which I've no doubt you have in abundance.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Favourite limerick of all time (no sex!?)

There once was a bishop whose brain
Was deranged through the use of cocain,
To a copse, dark and wild
He lured a small child
And beat it to death with his cane.
Very Charles Addams...or Edward Gorey.
I like it.

My limericking is typically about a person, current event, or issue.
For example, Wirey had the Hershy squirts when taking medicine
after his brain tumor surgery. Finishing his meds was wonderful,
so it had to be immortalized in doggerel....

His netherly regions were squalid
& joyless, so he became stolid.
But giving up pills
is bringing new thrills.
His doo doo is finally solid!

He once gave me a challenge to
write a limerick about "Enis".
I avoided the obvious.

There once was a girl named Enis,
a harlot of a diff'rent genus.
With only one tooth,
and keeping it couth,
we'll keep what she shan't do between us.

Haikus were briefly popular on RF.
Not with me though.

A difficult form has haiku.
Syllabic design they eschew
To cut up a word
in morae's absurd.
I can't figure out what to do.

Ode to bacon.

I think it must be a perversion
to have a pork product aversion
If your faith is make'n
you forgo the bacon,
it's time to consider conversion.
 
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Stevicus

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
I was listening to Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) reflecting on his work on the January 6 Committee, and something he said struck me as quite astute.

He was talking about the fact that after the 2020 election so many efforts were made to get judges (many appointed by Trump himself) to throw out results base on "fraud" -- all totally without any evidence whatsoever, and all summarily tossed out of court --and yet, Trump and his enablers seem to have managed to convince a very large number of Republicans that the November election was faked and January 6 was necessary. Raskin mentioned that "maybe Voltair was right."

What Voltaire said is that "anyone wbo can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." And in this case, given that there is STILL no evidence for election fraud, but that election fraud is STILL the rallying cry for millions -- it's a palpable absurdity. And believing it made a lot of people commit an atrocity on January 6 -- and a lot more people to continue to condone that atrocity right up until this very day.

While we're at it -- how do you "deprogram" millions of conspiracy-deluded people at once? Seems like an impossible task, to me.

Well, as it currently stands, the election results of 2020 are as they are. Whether or not there are those who believe that it was fraud is beside the point. They can believe whatever they want; it won't change anything. While there are still charges pending over Jan. 6 and possible charges against Trump, that's in the hands of the Justice Department and the legal mechanisms already in place in government. It no longer requires the people's belief or any "deprogramming" to set that process in motion.
 

F1fan

Veteran Member
Well, as it currently stands, the election results of 2020 are as they are. Whether or not there are those who believe that it was fraud is beside the point. They can believe whatever they want; it won't change anything. While there are still charges pending over Jan. 6 and possible charges against Trump, that's in the hands of the Justice Department and the legal mechanisms already in place in government. It no longer requires the people's belief or any "deprogramming" to set that process in motion.
Dude, your post has nothing to do with show tunes. What's wrong with you?

I suspect many of the Big Lie believers still hold on to the grievance and think they were cheated. But polls show his oppularity waning, and his influence not quite what it was. Republicans and right wing media are jumping off the Trump bandwagon (I suspect they know trouble is coming) and want to cut ties now instead of trying to defend him. The Trump supporters are like a religion, and they didn't form their beliefs based on facts and a reasoned case, they believed because there was a charasmatic guy, and right wing media constantly reinforcing the nonsense. I'll bet the interest in Trump will decline more and more over time as the conservative voter is occupied with other candidates and issues. I don't know if the conservative base will ever find a replacement for Trump, and they might lose interest in politics due to there not being the constant cheer leading from a Trump character. I don't see DeSantis having the same kind of appeal. His grievance is too conceptual while Trump's was more primal. It's going to be interesting to watch the evolution of the conservative voter, and the republican leadership, over the next two years.
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
On the contrary it's not even being hidden. Everyone knows that the internet was deliberately manipulated to exclude information about Biden's son which would have changed the outcome of the election.
Please provide evidence for this but not from politically aligned sources.
 

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
Well, as it currently stands, the election results of 2020 are as they are. Whether or not there are those who believe that it was fraud is beside the point. They can believe whatever they want; it won't change anything. While there are still charges pending over Jan. 6 and possible charges against Trump, that's in the hands of the Justice Department and the legal mechanisms already in place in government. It no longer requires the people's belief or any "deprogramming" to set that process in motion.
My point was more about whether the sadly misguided believers that it was fraud remain a danger to democracy in the future -- i.e. whether they are still capable of more atrocities. Things like, as we have seen, threatening election workers and their families, for instance.
 

Wildswanderer

Veteran Member
Please provide evidence for this but not from politically aligned sources.
FBI reached out to Twitter before Post broke Hunter Biden laptop story
Media’s suppression of Hunter Biden’s laptop was election interference
Twitter suspended The New York Post’s account and barred anyone from sharing the story. Facebook similarly throttled its dissemination. Other than The Post and Fox News, no major news outlets would touch it except to aggressively discount it.
 

Estro Felino

Believer in free will
Premium Member
Let's say that a woman was shot. That was avoidable, of course.
Was it necessary to shoot her?
 
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Wildswanderer

Veteran Member
Really? Everyone knows that?

Oddly, I don't -- does that mean I'm nobody?

Oh, and just so that we keep it all honest, do you have any evidence of this "internet was deliberatly manipulated to exclude information about Biden's son?" I mean, since you've made the claim so blatantly, and claimed we all know it, we'd really appreciate some source material, which I've no doubt you have in abundance.
Like I'm said do the research.
It's easy to find even now.

Twitter suspended The New York Post’s account and barred anyone from sharing the story. Facebook similarly throttled its dissemination. Other than The Post and Fox News, no major news outlets would touch it except to aggressively discount it.

There's no need to actually tamper with voting machines when all you need to do is conceal information.
 

F1fan

Veteran Member
It's a fact. It's not even debatable.
The MSM spiked the story because they knew the affect it would have.
There was dubious reporting from right wing media that made the story little more than tabloid trash. Given it was little more than gossip MSM gave it appropriate attention: very little. This is why it has continued in right wing media and not in MSM.

If anything this demonstrates how ethical democrats have been, as thre are few stories of democrat corruption for right wing media to report on. Hunter's laptop is all they have, and little more than a mountain made out of a mole hill.

Meanwhile there is ongoing headlines of republican corruption, led by Trump, even though he is gone. Look at headlines of Santos and his blatant lies about who he is. He could be facing finance corruption charges if his lies led to donations. When will ethics become important to conservatives?
 

Wildswanderer

Veteran Member
There was dubious reporting from right wing media that made the story little more than tabloid trash. Given it was little more than gossip MSM gave it appropriate attention: very little.
Little more than gossip? Are you serious?
It's all been proven true.
 

Stevicus

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
My point was more about whether the sadly misguided believers that it was fraud remain a danger to democracy in the future -- i.e. whether they are still capable of more atrocities. Things like, as we have seen, threatening election workers and their families, for instance.

Things like that have been an ongoing problem since before the Civil War. But we're still going.
 
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