One time some internet troll demanded that I be banned from the internet.
I told him to stick a crowbar in his wallet and hire a First Amendment lawyer.
He/she/it would spend 45 minutes laughing at the troll, five minutes explaining why I couldn't be "banned from the internet," and 10 minutes working out the bill.
If you read JDs book he’s no stranger to inventing his own section. JD Vance was no poor boy from Appalachia. He was tucked under the wing of one of the richest man in the world Peter Tiel who got him into and paid for him to go to Harvard.
He and Trump were made for each other. Just invent your own fiction and say it to people believe it. To hell with truth.
Peter Thiel did not pay for Vance’s education at all. Vance did not go to Harvard. He went to Yale. They did not meet until Vance was already out of college.
The irony is Vance was a classic "DEI candidate." Geography and SES are used as much as race to try and create a diverse student pool.
I suspect that much like Clarence Thomas he's incredibly insecure about the fact he had some of the way opened for him by his background. Also, like Thomas rather than embrace the fact that he was afforded an opportunity he might otherwise not have gotten he'd rather punish everyone that comes after him to feel as though he "deserved" to get in on the "merits" of his application.
That is correct, Thats why Vance and Trumo are going after Harvard rather than Wharton at U of Penn or Yale.
Good news is all that time weith Thiel, Vance did one investment that faiked msiuerably that why Trump saw another loser as bad as he is. Trumo had over 200 faikures so Vance has a loing way to go yet, Give him time. If you fail at business and are a real loser like both trump and vance, go into politics and call veryone else a loser because yiu have to project you own foibles on others. Trumpo is a real loser and BK many compoaniues and more importantly, morally bankrupt.
U Penn may like a word here on the premise that they "haven't been gone after" - they were - and they caved early on. As did U Michigan, unfortunately. In the case of Michigan, the former president had a "finding out" moment after he left to go to Florida to be a U president there.
JD Vance is horrible. But I doubt he can exert total control over the GOP, as Trump has. He does not have the mythical Hitler power that Trump has. People do not fear him like they fear Trump. When Trump goes, 25 potential replacements will be trying to gouge each others' eyes out to grab power, and none will succeed. I don't understand the root of Trump's unearthly power over the party, but I'm sure JD does not have it. No one else does. The party will disintegrate as fast as the Libertarian intellectual movement after Ayn Rand died and went to Hell... as fast as Anton LaVey's Satanic Church collapsed when he joined his maker.
The odious orange blob obviously does have some charisma. I can't see it, he's always been an utterly abhorrent person as far as I can tell, but people are drawn to him. I am also doubtful that Shady Vance can command the same degree of influence over the GOP and their supporters, so I have some modicum of hope that the orange blob pops his clogs sooner rather than later and the house of cards collapses.
I agree and this is why they are doing everything to prop up the F47 cognitive decline horror we see before our eyes. ConOld is melting down and his handlers are panicked. JD has no ability to hold MAGA together.
Vance is not liked, which will turn a lot of Maga against him. Trump's power behind the throne is Miller. He is the one who comes up with these Nazi-like movements, and he is behind the way the DHS is bringing in military against the protests. Now he has taken over DHS and demoted "Secretary" Noem to PR, so things will get worse.
Miller’s mentor after high school was David Horowitz. This man was founder of David Horowitz Freedom Center. Right wing neoconservatism activist. Horowitz introduced Miller to Jeff Sessions Trump’s AG. Speech writer. Volunteer to work on Trump’s campaign, after Session recused himself much to Trump’s chagrin.
I’m betting kompromat plays a role. He’ll have access to that, plus Sugar Daddy Thiel’s spy system, fueled by Elon’s identity theft. On the other hand, MAGATs are waking up to the fact that they’re not “only going to take benefits away from black folks.” (Actual quote from a friend’s food stamp/Medicaid dependent daughter)
WV: majority white, highly dependent on government handouts, high rate of gun ownership, less than 2 hours from DC.
I like what you said, but worry it’s still wishful thinking: I do not think the other half of the country will go back to hiding under rocks. They will try by hook and by crook to win anyway they can and to suppress even more votes by the other half of the country.
I read more than one “allegedly straight news article” in the NYT the day after No Kings Day* and all they reported about was Trump’s money-wasting military parade cum planned sop to his ego.
* So to clarify: the articles talking about Trump's parade did not mention the "split screen moments" all over the world that had brilliant anti-Trump counter p-programming. That's why I am cynical that we will have an easy way at reversing the evil he's drawn out from their prior rocks if he's not around.
📌A "Trump Birthday case-in-point: There’s an article out how the SS trust funds and Medicare hospital fund will run out of $ in less than 10 years: don’t you think that dedicating that parade $ to saving the Funds would be a worthy “present to himself”?
And the SS article goes on to remind us that no one earning more than $175,000 a year even contributes to Ss. We know why Congress doesn’t want to raise that piddling cut off given that our Congress people using our tax dollars make more than that, I believe, and also millionaires are being minted everyday, don’t we? Instant way to save the Trusts if ALL income-earning people pay into it.
And just requiring ALL to contribute if they earn more than that would save the funds, but Congress doesn’t want “the little people and serfs” to even have a chance at a non-almost poverty retirement.
The GOP has been objecting to SS since the 1930’s and Medicare since the ‘60’s. They did not need Trump to remind them to be cruel and selfish. (Some Christians…)
Thiel’s thick in the TechBro coup. He’s a big fan of the twisted Curtis Yarvin and unfortunately, this dystopian billionaire dream of a ‘post-Constitutional State’ is underway. This Admin is trying to silo all the data that DOGE has been mining (that was, and is, their true purpose) underThiel’s Palantir. Welcome surveillance society. They’ve already used the data to financially ‘murder’ tax-paying immigrants through the Social Security system. And SCOTUS is fine with the continued violations of our privacy and FOIA rights in this harvesting and recoding for access to the few.
Not sure if jd is smarter than the tangerine taco. I used to think he was,, but the more he talks the more idiotic he sounds. He’s not even a ‘smartass’ he’s a ‘DUMBASS’
Junior Douche Vance has the personality of wet cardboard. While he has much more dangerous ideas due to the connections to Thiel et al., he doesn't have the "je ne sais quoi"(for lack of a better term, and being VERY generous!) Orange Julius has. He doesn't even know how to talk to "normal" people , like he did in the donut shop, and yet he wrote an entire book about them. Poseur.
Somehow, I never thought of dumpy pants 🩳 as having a certain je ne said quoi, but then I never thought of his maladroit odors as he ne said quoi before! Thanks for the laugh 😂😺.
He went on Bluesky and was provocational until he was banned so that now he can complain about the intolerant left.
JD Vance is not particularly intelligent, but he's crafty and calculating. It makes him more dangerous than Trump because he's both more ruthless and more disciplined.
He lasted 12 minutes too long. And as for Clarence Thomas what I would write about him would be erased and probably have me thrown off this wonderful site.
I fucking love this! Every word. It’s hard to choose which person encapsulates pure evil in this regime, but in my honest opinion JD Vance takes the award! I seriously take one look at him and see evil. He gives me the heebee-jeebees.
It’s hard to choose for sure. I think the ppl cloaked in religion are scariest from my perspective. The evil that truly thinks they can do no wrong because God is on their side. —that’s JD Vance.
Vance should be banned from ever removing his lips from Trump's butt. But seriously, Vance is looking forward to taking over from Trump as the billionaire's puppet. His lips are actually permanently pressed against the ass of his mentor, Palantir's Peter Thiel. Vance will be an even worse nightmare if he is allowed to succeed Trump.
Vance is right up there with quite a few politicians who hammered Trump in no uncertain terms in 2016 and then completely forfeited their integrity in an attempt to remain relevant by either kissing Trump's ring, sticking their nose up his ass or using other facial parts to tickle Donald's fancy. The top contenders for The Cowardly Lion Award are : (1) Vance, (2) Ms. Lindsey Graham, (3) @TedCancun Cruz, (4) Missouri Senator Mike Lee and -------------------------------fill in the name of your favorite GOP lily-livered, yellow belly invertebrate.
As much as I disagree with the substance of his arguments, I don't understand (and I confess I haven't studied the Bluesky TOS) why the posts shown generate a ban. They're wrong, absolutely. But wrong, in a democracy, isn't reason to ban. It's reason to respond. And yes, I know, that would do nothing to change his mind. But that's not the point. The point is, if we don't adhere to the foundations of democracy, who will?
Also, whether I agree with them or not Bluesky is free to set its own policies. He violated those policies. They are empowered to decide on the fate of those who do.
But it's a no-win. As X aptly demonstrates, these people constantly behave badly to get banned, and then whine if they do. And if they don't, they turn a social media platform into a cesspool and all the good people leave.
I was most disappointed he'd been banned, because I showed up fully intending to excoriate him in such a way he had wished he was merely being burned by being thrust onto the surface of the sun, but sadly I was late to the game and lost the opportunity to do so.
Not so. That's blaming the victims of trolls. While I don't disagree that it's best not to engage a troll, not engage them does not absolve them of trolling.
I’m with you on this. While it’s nice to sometimes have a “safe” space to engage with folks who share your beliefs, staying completely insulated from the “other” is no way to engage in (or save) democracy.
The problem, Dana, is that you have not lost your mind. You have not given yourself over totally to tribalism, so you retain a shred of decency and objectivity. Consequently, you still have an operating mind, can make arguments, and reach conclusions supported by evidence.
That makes you a dinosaur, Dana. There are others, scattered here and there, on the right, left, but mostly in places free of such labels. But unlike dinosaurs of old, you will survive the next extinction-level event. Yours is not the fate of denizens of places like this thread or bluesky. Bodily, they will press on, so worry not, but their minds are already gone.
Complimentary, but the patterns of discourse are set by social norms. We who oppose the exemplary bullshit under discussion can teach ourselves to not play by there script. Consciousness raising is hard, but necessary if we are to save our democracy. Step by step.
When the sitting Vice President of the US, whether Vance, Harris, Pence, or Biden, shows up on the 'other side's' platform and, briefly without vulgarity, lays out a succinct position citing only a passage from the Supreme Court, even if not from a friendly Justice, and then invites comment, you immediately lose the argument and any pretense of credibility by accusing him of violating the terms of service (by sh-tting in the punchbowl) and banning him.
This is true even if you are correct, albeit not demonstrably, that he was not acting in good faith based on your preexisting view of him. Of course, none of the above is a denial of your right, or that of the platform, to take those positions.
However, doing so necessarily comes with costs, including (as stated) a loss of credibility, particularly concerning claims of acting in defense of democratic norms. Even more severe is the loss of an opportunity to publicly engage, corner, and defeat a high official in an exchange that he has initiated, whatever his motives, and which, therefore, he cannot withdraw from without losing face and, with it, the argument.
So it is decidedly not a feature of the adults' table to respond as the platform and its supporters did. It was adolescent and disqualifying, arguably even a tacit admission that there was no convincing response that could be made, so better not to engage at all.
The problem with metaphors is, that while they're generative, they're inexact. JD Vance is the VP. We re in a democracy. We're not at a dinner table throwing poo. The question isn't what to do at the dinner table, it's what to do in the situation discussed. My observation/argument is simple: if everyone either a) ignored him, or b) gave a brief, substantive answer with no emotional engagement, the trolling wouldn't reinforce the cycle of polarization that energizes his base. Metaphorically, when your child figures out that a temper-tantrum doesn't get your attention, they stop.
Yes, but it's also against the rules to get onto the buffet table, pull down your pants, and take a sh-t in the punch bowl, and with good reason.
The flaw in your argument is that you give these people the credit of making bad arguments in good faith. There's nothing good faith about these people. This is at best trolling, and more likely pre-meditated animus.
JD Vance didn't show up on Bluesky to thoughtfully debate anything. The DEI lawyer showed up to lecture us on a topic he knows nothing about - gender, biology, genetics, and physiology.
I'm a medical doctor, and more than happy to go head to head with any of these people. But there's little point in doing that with Vance, at least not directly, so in engaging him one plays to the bleachers.
I don't assume good faith on the part of any troll. I'm making an argument, in fact, that presumes bad faith and tactical rationality. They want attention, as validation (emotionally) or as a tool. IF they don't get attention, or they don't get the kind they want, they'll stop, because it's a waste of their energy.
These guys are obsessed about something that does not affect them. Give some effort to something that does: governing instead of gas lighting, and politicking. These people aren't serious. They are clowns.
But they are dangerous clowns. The LGBT teen rates of suicidal ideation and attempted suicide are at least 3-5x those of their non-LGBT peers. For trans kids, the rates are over 80%. The #1 cause of teen homelessness is being LGBT, because their parents kick them out.
People like Vance spout pseudo-intellectual garbage that people hide behind to justify treating these kids like refuse.
I am distressed to hear that he started in on trans people right away. I am mother of a trans woman and my god people. They don’t choose to be trans. It isn’t something new. I am fed up. The supreme court is so corrupt. I am just waiting for them to deny there are transgender people. I hate this back water country. Get a book and read. My child is grown but she was literally tortured in school, even by teachers. And now the entire country wants to make laws telling her, her heath care is their decision. She is a citizen of this forsaken hell hole. She works a regular job, pays tax, votes. If we could leave, we would. I hate Ohio , I hate the US and I hate every republican that walks the earth.
Let’s hear him cry about his freedom of speech now. Bluesky isn’t a govt entity trying to deport a congresswoman for speaking against dear leader.
He knows as much about the Constitution as he does about the Catholic catechism!!…..zip, nada, niente
Couldn't agree more
One time some internet troll demanded that I be banned from the internet.
I told him to stick a crowbar in his wallet and hire a First Amendment lawyer.
He/she/it would spend 45 minutes laughing at the troll, five minutes explaining why I couldn't be "banned from the internet," and 10 minutes working out the bill.
Are you serious??!!
I beg your pardon?
Reported twice - go fuck yourself in your face, fucking MAGAt. Go back to Flyover Loserville with the rest of life's losers, you AI chatfuck.
No, I just reported you.
So did I.
He probably will!
And I am the czar of all the Russias, you Artifical Idiot failure.
That account is banned—-Jason
Thank goodness
Oh, how I wish there were laugh emoji’s on this forum!
There are:
This one: 😂😂😂
And this one: 🤣🤣🤣
You can find many more on https://emojipedia.org/
The smartest idiot I know. The only reason Trump gas t been torched is because the alternative is even more horrific.
If you read JDs book he’s no stranger to inventing his own section. JD Vance was no poor boy from Appalachia. He was tucked under the wing of one of the richest man in the world Peter Tiel who got him into and paid for him to go to Harvard.
He and Trump were made for each other. Just invent your own fiction and say it to people believe it. To hell with truth.
Peter Thiel did not pay for Vance’s education at all. Vance did not go to Harvard. He went to Yale. They did not meet until Vance was already out of college.
I despise JDV, but facts matter and thank you for the correction.
The irony is Vance was a classic "DEI candidate." Geography and SES are used as much as race to try and create a diverse student pool.
I suspect that much like Clarence Thomas he's incredibly insecure about the fact he had some of the way opened for him by his background. Also, like Thomas rather than embrace the fact that he was afforded an opportunity he might otherwise not have gotten he'd rather punish everyone that comes after him to feel as though he "deserved" to get in on the "merits" of his application.
That is correct, Thats why Vance and Trumo are going after Harvard rather than Wharton at U of Penn or Yale.
Good news is all that time weith Thiel, Vance did one investment that faiked msiuerably that why Trump saw another loser as bad as he is. Trumo had over 200 faikures so Vance has a loing way to go yet, Give him time. If you fail at business and are a real loser like both trump and vance, go into politics and call veryone else a loser because yiu have to project you own foibles on others. Trumpo is a real loser and BK many compoaniues and more importantly, morally bankrupt.
U Penn may like a word here on the premise that they "haven't been gone after" - they were - and they caved early on. As did U Michigan, unfortunately. In the case of Michigan, the former president had a "finding out" moment after he left to go to Florida to be a U president there.
It did not go well for Santa Ono.
Correction - he went to Yale.
Of course . Same story , different school
You would benefit from just checking your facts before posting. 😀
He’s still an opportunist liar . He’s not a self made man who pulled himself up by his bootstraps from a poor life in and Appalachian
Is my point different if it’s Yale rather than Harvard ?
I suppose you can read pencil my posts if you like, but I find it petty.
Hardly
JDork went to Yale, allegedly.
"I was born in a furniture store late one night, the product of a liaison between a night watchman and a love seat."
He went to Yale, and I don’t think he met Thiel til after law school, pretty sure.
He met him in law school in 2011, when Thiel did a talk at Yale law.
I bet he and Pete Thiel are more than friends. Heard Thiel really likes men who wear eyeliner.
I believe he went to Yale Law.
Omg, I didn’t know Peter Thiel paid for his school and groomed him?
No one knew this because it’s not true. See comments in threads above.
JD Vance is horrible. But I doubt he can exert total control over the GOP, as Trump has. He does not have the mythical Hitler power that Trump has. People do not fear him like they fear Trump. When Trump goes, 25 potential replacements will be trying to gouge each others' eyes out to grab power, and none will succeed. I don't understand the root of Trump's unearthly power over the party, but I'm sure JD does not have it. No one else does. The party will disintegrate as fast as the Libertarian intellectual movement after Ayn Rand died and went to Hell... as fast as Anton LaVey's Satanic Church collapsed when he joined his maker.
The odious orange blob obviously does have some charisma. I can't see it, he's always been an utterly abhorrent person as far as I can tell, but people are drawn to him. I am also doubtful that Shady Vance can command the same degree of influence over the GOP and their supporters, so I have some modicum of hope that the orange blob pops his clogs sooner rather than later and the house of cards collapses.
Question: why are these horrible people so obsessed with someone else's kids!💩 get a life of your own!!
I agree and this is why they are doing everything to prop up the F47 cognitive decline horror we see before our eyes. ConOld is melting down and his handlers are panicked. JD has no ability to hold MAGA together.
Thank the Buddha.
Vance is not liked, which will turn a lot of Maga against him. Trump's power behind the throne is Miller. He is the one who comes up with these Nazi-like movements, and he is behind the way the DHS is bringing in military against the protests. Now he has taken over DHS and demoted "Secretary" Noem to PR, so things will get worse.
Miller’s mentor after high school was David Horowitz. This man was founder of David Horowitz Freedom Center. Right wing neoconservatism activist. Horowitz introduced Miller to Jeff Sessions Trump’s AG. Speech writer. Volunteer to work on Trump’s campaign, after Session recused himself much to Trump’s chagrin.
We passed ‘worse’ three weeks ago
I’m betting kompromat plays a role. He’ll have access to that, plus Sugar Daddy Thiel’s spy system, fueled by Elon’s identity theft. On the other hand, MAGATs are waking up to the fact that they’re not “only going to take benefits away from black folks.” (Actual quote from a friend’s food stamp/Medicaid dependent daughter)
WV: majority white, highly dependent on government handouts, high rate of gun ownership, less than 2 hours from DC.
I like what you said, but worry it’s still wishful thinking: I do not think the other half of the country will go back to hiding under rocks. They will try by hook and by crook to win anyway they can and to suppress even more votes by the other half of the country.
I read more than one “allegedly straight news article” in the NYT the day after No Kings Day* and all they reported about was Trump’s money-wasting military parade cum planned sop to his ego.
* So to clarify: the articles talking about Trump's parade did not mention the "split screen moments" all over the world that had brilliant anti-Trump counter p-programming. That's why I am cynical that we will have an easy way at reversing the evil he's drawn out from their prior rocks if he's not around.
📌A "Trump Birthday case-in-point: There’s an article out how the SS trust funds and Medicare hospital fund will run out of $ in less than 10 years: don’t you think that dedicating that parade $ to saving the Funds would be a worthy “present to himself”?
And the SS article goes on to remind us that no one earning more than $175,000 a year even contributes to Ss. We know why Congress doesn’t want to raise that piddling cut off given that our Congress people using our tax dollars make more than that, I believe, and also millionaires are being minted everyday, don’t we? Instant way to save the Trusts if ALL income-earning people pay into it.
And just requiring ALL to contribute if they earn more than that would save the funds, but Congress doesn’t want “the little people and serfs” to even have a chance at a non-almost poverty retirement.
The GOP has been objecting to SS since the 1930’s and Medicare since the ‘60’s. They did not need Trump to remind them to be cruel and selfish. (Some Christians…)
You just might be onto something there 🤔
Trump doesn't have mythical power....his power is in his purse....plain and simple. Bribery, lying, money. And he knows how to use all 3.
Stop Vought, Miller & Vance not just Trump.
The whole corrupt administration needs to go. ASAP!
I agree! Miller and Vought are really evil. They're the ones behind all the horrible things Trump is doing.
Exactly!
OK OK I’ve got my details a little mixed up but I know that Peter Thiel did a lot to help JD Vance and JD Vance is an opportunistic self-serving beat
Thiel’s thick in the TechBro coup. He’s a big fan of the twisted Curtis Yarvin and unfortunately, this dystopian billionaire dream of a ‘post-Constitutional State’ is underway. This Admin is trying to silo all the data that DOGE has been mining (that was, and is, their true purpose) underThiel’s Palantir. Welcome surveillance society. They’ve already used the data to financially ‘murder’ tax-paying immigrants through the Social Security system. And SCOTUS is fine with the continued violations of our privacy and FOIA rights in this harvesting and recoding for access to the few.
He paid for his Senate campaign which he probably won because of the money. Thiel did
Not sure if jd is smarter than the tangerine taco. I used to think he was,, but the more he talks the more idiotic he sounds. He’s not even a ‘smartass’ he’s a ‘DUMBASS’
🤙
Sadly he has been reinstated
Smart ain’t everything, as Vance has ignobly demonstrated yet again. You can be all brains and no sense which isn’t worth “a hill of beans”.
I can't believe he even went on Bluesky in the first place.
The Fake Hillbilly sometimes makes the Bloated Yam look competent.
Sometimes.
Barely..
Junior Douche Vance has the personality of wet cardboard. While he has much more dangerous ideas due to the connections to Thiel et al., he doesn't have the "je ne sais quoi"(for lack of a better term, and being VERY generous!) Orange Julius has. He doesn't even know how to talk to "normal" people , like he did in the donut shop, and yet he wrote an entire book about them. Poseur.
JDunce is the P25 pawn.
Somehow, I never thought of dumpy pants 🩳 as having a certain je ne said quoi, but then I never thought of his maladroit odors as he ne said quoi before! Thanks for the laugh 😂😺.
He went on Bluesky and was provocational until he was banned so that now he can complain about the intolerant left.
JD Vance is not particularly intelligent, but he's crafty and calculating. It makes him more dangerous than Trump because he's both more ruthless and more disciplined.
Yes
Vance is known in most circles as the Hillbilly Horror; it fits…:)
Very rarely!
He’s a troll. He thrives on negative attention and he can't get it on Shitter.
He did it to get banned, to claim fragile liberals squashed his speech. Everyone just should have muted him and let me spray his bs into the void.
Hey JEB go on iot to those Beverly Hills, with that mighty ass crude.
He lasted 12 minutes too long. And as for Clarence Thomas what I would write about him would be erased and probably have me thrown off this wonderful site.
You would get many likes!
He’s nothing more than Thiel’s puppet. I can’t stand an opportunist like him, who will step all over everyone to further his own agenda.
He has no agenda, he simpoly licks Trump's,, Musk's and Thiel's assholes in that order.
Respectfully- he sure does have an agenda. Believe he was one of the Project ‘25 authors
😱
They seem to enjoy fellating apartheid humping nazi pieces of shit. 🤮🤢
Nothing proves that more than the fact that he compared Trump to Hitler but now agrees with everything the Felon says and does!
I fucking love this! Every word. It’s hard to choose which person encapsulates pure evil in this regime, but in my honest opinion JD Vance takes the award! I seriously take one look at him and see evil. He gives me the heebee-jeebees.
He is slimy, but I still think Miller is the worst.
It’s hard to choose for sure. I think the ppl cloaked in religion are scariest from my perspective. The evil that truly thinks they can do no wrong because God is on their side. —that’s JD Vance.
It’s the empty eyes- soulless.
Agreed!
Vance should be banned from ever removing his lips from Trump's butt. But seriously, Vance is looking forward to taking over from Trump as the billionaire's puppet. His lips are actually permanently pressed against the ass of his mentor, Palantir's Peter Thiel. Vance will be an even worse nightmare if he is allowed to succeed Trump.
That's why we have to impeach him first in 2027.
But there needs to be a "high crime or misdemeanor." Being a racist asshole isn't against the law, sadly.
A high crime or misdemeanor is anything Congress says it is. There is no appeal. Still, Republicans will never go for it.
I personally love it. At least Trump is a bully with dementia but this jackass, there is no excuse.
There's a reason he's called Corporal Couchfucker.
ikts Jeery MCQuire on high octane ....show me the money.. That's JD (Just Dumb) Vance.
I think everyone needs to troll him
Vance is right up there with quite a few politicians who hammered Trump in no uncertain terms in 2016 and then completely forfeited their integrity in an attempt to remain relevant by either kissing Trump's ring, sticking their nose up his ass or using other facial parts to tickle Donald's fancy. The top contenders for The Cowardly Lion Award are : (1) Vance, (2) Ms. Lindsey Graham, (3) @TedCancun Cruz, (4) Missouri Senator Mike Lee and -------------------------------fill in the name of your favorite GOP lily-livered, yellow belly invertebrate.
Mike Lee is NOT from Missouri, but Utah. We have our own assholes, Eric Schmidt and Joshie Hawley, thank you!
All true, sadly!
He is vile.
Hoping that there are platforms that will hold to standards and not allow trolls, however powerful their positions, to spew their hatred on those.
As much as I disagree with the substance of his arguments, I don't understand (and I confess I haven't studied the Bluesky TOS) why the posts shown generate a ban. They're wrong, absolutely. But wrong, in a democracy, isn't reason to ban. It's reason to respond. And yes, I know, that would do nothing to change his mind. But that's not the point. The point is, if we don't adhere to the foundations of democracy, who will?
They're wrong, and they're intentionally posted to troll. Trolling is forbidden on Bsky.
Trolling is a co-creation. If people don't respond as if to trolls, there is no trolling. The key recognition is not playing by the trolls's script.
Also, whether I agree with them or not Bluesky is free to set its own policies. He violated those policies. They are empowered to decide on the fate of those who do.
But it's a no-win. As X aptly demonstrates, these people constantly behave badly to get banned, and then whine if they do. And if they don't, they turn a social media platform into a cesspool and all the good people leave.
I was most disappointed he'd been banned, because I showed up fully intending to excoriate him in such a way he had wished he was merely being burned by being thrust onto the surface of the sun, but sadly I was late to the game and lost the opportunity to do so.
Not so. That's blaming the victims of trolls. While I don't disagree that it's best not to engage a troll, not engage them does not absolve them of trolling.
Blame is one thing. Effectiveness is another. Trust me, there are times when I've tried to be funny....
I’m with you on this. While it’s nice to sometimes have a “safe” space to engage with folks who share your beliefs, staying completely insulated from the “other” is no way to engage in (or save) democracy.
The problem, Dana, is that you have not lost your mind. You have not given yourself over totally to tribalism, so you retain a shred of decency and objectivity. Consequently, you still have an operating mind, can make arguments, and reach conclusions supported by evidence.
That makes you a dinosaur, Dana. There are others, scattered here and there, on the right, left, but mostly in places free of such labels. But unlike dinosaurs of old, you will survive the next extinction-level event. Yours is not the fate of denizens of places like this thread or bluesky. Bodily, they will press on, so worry not, but their minds are already gone.
Complimentary, but the patterns of discourse are set by social norms. We who oppose the exemplary bullshit under discussion can teach ourselves to not play by there script. Consciousness raising is hard, but necessary if we are to save our democracy. Step by step.
And to your point of "the patterns of discourse are set by social norms."
And what are the social norms JD Vance brings? Or honors? He couldn't comply with the basic terms of service.
You reach in your diaper and fling poo at your fellow diners, you don't get to sit at the grownups' table.
Or even the kids' table, it seems.
When the sitting Vice President of the US, whether Vance, Harris, Pence, or Biden, shows up on the 'other side's' platform and, briefly without vulgarity, lays out a succinct position citing only a passage from the Supreme Court, even if not from a friendly Justice, and then invites comment, you immediately lose the argument and any pretense of credibility by accusing him of violating the terms of service (by sh-tting in the punchbowl) and banning him.
This is true even if you are correct, albeit not demonstrably, that he was not acting in good faith based on your preexisting view of him. Of course, none of the above is a denial of your right, or that of the platform, to take those positions.
However, doing so necessarily comes with costs, including (as stated) a loss of credibility, particularly concerning claims of acting in defense of democratic norms. Even more severe is the loss of an opportunity to publicly engage, corner, and defeat a high official in an exchange that he has initiated, whatever his motives, and which, therefore, he cannot withdraw from without losing face and, with it, the argument.
So it is decidedly not a feature of the adults' table to respond as the platform and its supporters did. It was adolescent and disqualifying, arguably even a tacit admission that there was no convincing response that could be made, so better not to engage at all.
The problem with metaphors is, that while they're generative, they're inexact. JD Vance is the VP. We re in a democracy. We're not at a dinner table throwing poo. The question isn't what to do at the dinner table, it's what to do in the situation discussed. My observation/argument is simple: if everyone either a) ignored him, or b) gave a brief, substantive answer with no emotional engagement, the trolling wouldn't reinforce the cycle of polarization that energizes his base. Metaphorically, when your child figures out that a temper-tantrum doesn't get your attention, they stop.
Yes, but it's also against the rules to get onto the buffet table, pull down your pants, and take a sh-t in the punch bowl, and with good reason.
The flaw in your argument is that you give these people the credit of making bad arguments in good faith. There's nothing good faith about these people. This is at best trolling, and more likely pre-meditated animus.
JD Vance didn't show up on Bluesky to thoughtfully debate anything. The DEI lawyer showed up to lecture us on a topic he knows nothing about - gender, biology, genetics, and physiology.
I'm a medical doctor, and more than happy to go head to head with any of these people. But there's little point in doing that with Vance, at least not directly, so in engaging him one plays to the bleachers.
See my prior on metaphors.
I don't assume good faith on the part of any troll. I'm making an argument, in fact, that presumes bad faith and tactical rationality. They want attention, as validation (emotionally) or as a tool. IF they don't get attention, or they don't get the kind they want, they'll stop, because it's a waste of their energy.
These guys are obsessed about something that does not affect them. Give some effort to something that does: governing instead of gas lighting, and politicking. These people aren't serious. They are clowns.
But they are dangerous clowns. The LGBT teen rates of suicidal ideation and attempted suicide are at least 3-5x those of their non-LGBT peers. For trans kids, the rates are over 80%. The #1 cause of teen homelessness is being LGBT, because their parents kick them out.
People like Vance spout pseudo-intellectual garbage that people hide behind to justify treating these kids like refuse.
Thank you!!!!
Bless your Heart!
Spared us the maga bs!!!
His account was reinstated 🙃
I guess we all have to join a private chat now that he's not invited to. I dont want him looking at our stuff.
Just block him 🥰 that’s what I did. We need to isolate him if Bluesky is going to allow him to platform there
Definitely remember to block him.
UGH
If you try to go to the account you get "403 Forbidden"
Boo hiss
Drat!
I am distressed to hear that he started in on trans people right away. I am mother of a trans woman and my god people. They don’t choose to be trans. It isn’t something new. I am fed up. The supreme court is so corrupt. I am just waiting for them to deny there are transgender people. I hate this back water country. Get a book and read. My child is grown but she was literally tortured in school, even by teachers. And now the entire country wants to make laws telling her, her heath care is their decision. She is a citizen of this forsaken hell hole. She works a regular job, pays tax, votes. If we could leave, we would. I hate Ohio , I hate the US and I hate every republican that walks the earth.