To be fair... he's invested most of his life to politics, probably under the assumption that he'd be able to make life better for those he represents. Then his choice of party took a hard right turn and developed a culture of "toe the line or you're out", and he chose the former, possibly with the best of intentions, or possibly just by default.

I don't know about Rep. Collins in particular, but I can imagine there are many stories like this. None of this excuses the damage they've done, including the fact that everyone who follows makes it harder for others to dissent, but I do hopethat this is the case, and that more and more of them see the impact of their decisions and speak out for what's actually right.

You’re right, it was a GREAT year for Joe, America’s economy, and pocketbooks. The best gdp growth in decades (CDGDP up 10%), amazing jobs numbers (6.4 million!), and the fastest stock market rise that put money in even your wallet.
2020 was the no good very bad year where jobs, gdp, and the stock market plummeted like never before.
Such a dumb tool, Bob. “Democrats are awful, Trump is great….reality be damned.”

Forget 22 and 24….Biden is going to use Trump’s plans, so no vote totals ever, sieze voting machines before tabulation, claim all Republican votes are fraudulent and discard them, and use the military to crush any dissent. If that doesn’t work, Kamala will just certify the alternate electors and they’ll vote for Biden. Perfectly legal, moral, ethical, and democratic right? Enjoy, you already say that’s totally reasonable and legal. Turnabout is always fair play. D’oh

I try to be as smart as I am able to, my means are humble.

Do you presume that everyone in Texas who proclaims himself a christian is obliged to have the same official christian opinion on abortions?

Dissenters to be burned at a stake on Sunday.

I do not claim to know "very fundamentals" but I am sure there are many interpretations even in Texas of what christianity is or should be. Which exactly do you have in mind?

I am glad videosift is graced by the presence of the Texas supreme christian fundamentalist who knows what people in Texas should think, the penalty for nonconformity being to "fuck off out of Texas". Sounds very unchristian to me, but what do I know about christians in Texas, right?

Well enjoy your 15 minutes of fame, Texas. Abortions dont care, they will keep on being performed, just secretly, dangerously and expensively. Lawyers will be happy. Poor people will die. In the name of preserving the life of a cluster of cells which might or might not have gone on to become a human, actual humans will be harmed.

always hear about 'common ground' this well should be it. Whether if you want to cite civil liberties or the golden rule - this is unacceptable.

partially agree w/bob, the Pasco Sheriff P.D. should be sued down to blue jeans, chambray shirts, and whistles as full police issue. but it's a shame to rely on lawyers to get public officials to act in a manner appropriate to serving the public. other government overseers should be the first in line at the gauntlet to flog the wrongdoers.

as bob would say, what is happening is unconstitutional. there is agrement on that. likely a case that this behavior infringes anywhere for the 4th to 8th amendments.

as bob should say but is unlikely to speak against his own party members, it reeks of fascism, nazis, and Gestapo tactics. as it started with the lowest and they worked their way up the ladder of undesirables...very much so in the way the GOP did w/Flake, up to Romney on to Cheney...difference/dissent is death.

it's like asking demons to uphold order in heaven.

but gives one faith, that even 33 can see the obvious...or some of the obvious...if he can see this, he can see Jan 6.

https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000007606996/capitol-riot-trump-supporters.html?src=vidm

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” -Joseph Goebbels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbels

@newtboy
-Including race as a determining factor in your admission score
as a 'liberal' ideal
This IS happening broadly, link to how and arguments for why it is 'good'
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/10/03/harvard-beat-an-effort-end-its-use-race-factor-admissions-what-will-supreme-court-do/
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/news/2019/10/01/471085/5-reasons-support-affirmative-action-college-admissions/

-Enforcement of a race based "day of absence" where based on your race you were to be 'kicked off' campus for the day
Specifically the day of absence was at evergreen:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreen_State_College#2017_protests
Similarly reverse racist attitudes though are common enough, like chasing out a student journalist here for simply covering an event:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kVGtqp7usw

-"deplatforming" people for having dissenting opinions
Jordan Peterson is the biggest example, but my local uni has also banned pro-life student clubs too, so maybe I'm a little Canada biased on this?

-The entire circle-jerk of intersectionalism:
---"whiteness" needs to be defined as something inherently negative
Here's the Standford course on it if you or your parents wanna enrol:
https://explorecourses.stanford.edu/search?view=catalog&filter-coursestatus-Active=on&page=0&catalog=&q=CSRE+32SI%3A+Whiteness&collapse=

---"Racism" needs to redefined as not simply racial prejudice, but racial prejudice PLUS power(you know, so only white people can be racist under the new definition)
Likewise offered at Stanford, unless this is the lone critical race theory course that doesn't champion the above prejudice+power definition.
https://law.stanford.edu/courses/critical-race-theory/

---"systemic racism" getting defined as anything with unequal outcomes, so if asian students do too well in math it must mean the system is favouring them and we need to step in


And I'm out of time,

but seriously I'm a little baffled this was remotely controversial? Identity politics is a game the left has been playing at HARD for at minimum the decades since Affirmative Action was launched. The notion that the idea would eventually get national level push back should have been easy to see coming.

I think it's super important people recognize that Bob's point here is actually very correct.

A huge part of Trump's support IS reactionary against runaway liberal ideals.

The most blatant was on University campuses:
-Including race as a determining factor in your admission score as a 'liberal' ideal
-Enforcement of a race based "day of absence" where based on your race you were to be 'kicked off' campus for the day
-"deplatforming" people for having dissenting opinions
-The entire circle-jerk of intersectionalism:
---"whiteness" needs to be defined as something inherently negative
---"Racism" needs to redefined as not simply racial prejudice, but racial prejudice PLUS power(you know, so only white people can be racist under the new definition)
---"systemic racism" getting defined as anything with unequal outcomes, so if asian students do too well in math it must mean the system is favouring them and we need to step in

All of that filth was and still is almost universally wide spread through Academia as 'liberal' good ideas.

People need to very seriously wake up and recognize how many of the quiet folks who openly detest Trump, are also going to silently still vote Republican because of their disgust and push back at the above ideals.

Lol...which fake news, OAN or Trump himself, because national polling has Biden up an average of 7.2%, up to 13% nationwide. You have to go pre Covid to find a national poll with Biden only 2% ahead.

Another red tsunami....yep, can't wait. This one should be bigger than 2018.

Rigged mail in votes....you mean like Republicans have been caught doing time and time again in the last two elections, thousands of times, candidates/campaigns illegally collecting ballots from elderly and changing their votes, mail men collecting ballots and applications and changing them or destroying them, even judges voting for their dead husbands.....all Republicans every one.
You know Trump always used mail in voting, and is registered in multiple states.

Now, again, for the umpteenth time, let's hear about these "known instances" of democrats committing vote fraud from the last decade you claimed to know about months ago. You've had two months to come up with one single instance, and failed, because at best you're a feculent liar who makes shit up constantly just to feel better about your indefensible positions and actions....or a feculent liar of a foreign troll who makes shit up to sew dissent in America by making thinking adults believe the Republican party is nothing but lying morons braying to each other while the nation burns.

Bye Don 2020...after 4 years of Trump, we now do need to make America great again....it's going to take decades to undo the damage.

You are a dangerous moron spreading dangerous lies from a fake president.

I suppose all those other countries are just going along with the hoax, killing their own citizens because they hate Trump....because he's such a good leader and ally.....but then why is Brazil so bad, their leader loves Trump, why is he faking the virus? *facepalm. Why are ignoramuses always so ready to believe the entire world is conspiring perfectly, without dissent or whistleblowers, to further a self injurious lie against just them...all out of pure spite? That's clinical, delusional, hyper paranoia without reason or logic.

No surprise you are on the ignorant and wrong side of yet another issue. At least you're consistent.

Well, we’ve finally found an area where I lean more left/liberal than you do.

I hate how little evidence seems required to class someone ‘alt-right’ and equally how little effort is needed to re-class anyone ‘alt-right’ as a fascist, racist and nazi. It’s beyond intellectual laziness, and stinks of modern day witch huntery sometimes.

For the video here though, I can even hypothetically cede that all too you, and lets just pretend the guy in the video is 100% a committed, public Hitler enthusiast.

Even then, if all he wants to do is stand in the street with a sign, as he is in the video, then I lean left/liberal enough that I still believe you then meet him with words and counter protest, reveal his ideas as the vile poison they are. You do NOT get to use force and violence to chase him off by shoving him out, physically making him leave, and trying to steal his sign or assault him.

If he crosses the line of messages that promote violence, then the police get to use force to bring him in front of a judge and charge him. Angry mobs crushing dissenting opinion though is NOT the way forwards.

Would you do me the courtesy of reading what I say before rejecting it? I specifically said: "Somebody like Saddam Hussein usually didn't care about Jack Bauer style, minutes count specific intel."

Jack Bauer style meaning like your revelation of a closely guarded secret after waterboarding...

Saddam would do things like sending his police to a disloyal man's home, and them simply handing over a video of them torturing his son or raping his wife/daughter whom they still had in custody. We don't have to like it, but it absolutely was effective in crushing dissent from not only that guy, but as word spreads a lot of other start wondering if resistance is worth the cost.

Our world is absolutely filled with examples of violence, rape and torture being used as powerfully effective weapons and ignoring it doesn't wish it away. The fact it these things are so powerful makes them all the more awful and more important we discuss it.

Pretty good video. Specific things:

Too many prostitutes: Most of the non-Thai people that complain about this went to the wrong places in Thailand. Pattaya was a tiny fishing village before the Vietnam war. Then, soldiers started getting shipped into the country for R&R. The Thai government didn't really know what to do with them, so they sorta passed the buck and decided to send them to Pattaya to relax. Bunch of stressed out dudes there, nothing to do, high demand for alternate activities ... the market answered.

Fast forward to today, and Pattaya knows exactly what put it on the map. I hate that place -- it is like what would happen if you took the worst/sleaziest elements of Vegas and Tijuana, and then built a "city" around it. Shittiest beach in Thailand, chock full of sleaze, disgusting. However, it is one of the most major tourist destinations. Gee, why could that be? Is it in spite of the nature of the place, or because of it? No false advertising here, you know what you're getting when you book a trip there. And if that is your thing, more power to ya.

Now, I don't want to act like prostitution exists in Pattaya and Soi Cowboy / Patpong in Bangkok, and is absent elsewhere. Far from it. Every town, down on to tiny ones, likely has a red-light district and brothels. The ones you hear about are sex tourism pits like those major ones, but the trade is alive and well pretty much everywhere -- and mostly caters to local Thais.

I've honestly never been to such an establishment or sought those services (in 11 years of being here), but I don't care that they are available. The most significant negative is that they are NOT well-regulated like, say, what I've heard about Amsterdam. Prostitution is technically illegal in Thailand. So the de-facto situation is that brothels have to pay protection money to police in order to avoid getting shut down or "inspected", etc.

Corruption is a major problem -- much worse than prostitution, in my opinion.


Too many ladyboys: It is certainly true that there are more trans people per capita here than pretty much anywhere else that I know of. It took me a while, being a country kid from Kansas, but I see that in pretty much the same light as the German narrator in the video at this point. Acceptance is good. You do you, man.

As a stereotype on the flip side of the coin, I think the ladyboys tend to be great in custom interaction kinds of jobs. Cashiers at 7-11, waitpeople at restaurants, etc. Polite, attentive, helpful. And often the most willing to attempt to use English. A lot of the best students that I've taught English to have been ladyboy leaning.


Freedom: I'm with @Mordhaus here. When your personal liberty is mainly due to the apathy / incompetence of the governing authority, and they may choose to get off their asses and revoke that at any time ... perhaps it isn't something to brag about. Very basic stuff like dissenting speech and protesting is met with being carted off for little re-education chats, etc. Pretty scary shit, actually.


Basically I tend to think that just like anywhere on Earth, there's a lot of good here and plenty of bad too. There's plenty of legitimate gripes with cultural elements and stuff in Thailand, but the most common ones (that the video pretty accurately listed) are pretty insignificant in my opinion.

He doesn't make shit up, but he does tend to exaggerate.

His main schtick is that all universities are filled with precious snowflakes that can't handle any dissenting opinion outside their safe spaces, which just isn't true.

Sure there have been a few high profile stories of people being waaaaaay too zealous about "not offending people", but those are remarkable because they're rare. Most universities still happily engage in controversial discussions.

Also "leftist"... that is not a thing. It's hard to have a genuine debate with people when you caricature their positions.

Is there a pro-gun talking point that was missed? Maybe you wanted her to personally attack a teenage victim?

I suspect you feel it wasn't a fair exchange because the opposing side got to voice opinions. Suppressing the dissenting views is the most effective way to defend the indefensible.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/taibbi-russiagate-trump-putin-mueller-and-targeting-dissent-w517486

Not as informative as Greenwald's recent piece on Hamilton 68, but you just gotta love Taibbi's style.

"By an extraordinary coincidence, virtually all the "anti-system" movements and candidates that so terrified the political establishment two years ago have since been identified as covert or overt Russian destabilization initiatives, puppeteered from afar by the diabolical anti-Western dictator, Vladimir von Putin-Evil."


And on this decade's most effective propaganda effort so far, the Hamilton 68 dashboard:

"That these people now are being upheld as heroes of liberalism is incredible. Only a few short years ago they were widely derided as the very dumbest people in the country, raving paranoiacs who humped every false lead from Niger to Ahmed Chalabi's hotel suite in order to justify invasions, torture, secret prisons and the establishment of a monstrous, intractable, and illegal surveillance regime. And now we're letting these same people dominate every news cycle when this time, years early, they're already admitting they might be wrong?"