Consensus Taker

@damintoell @DavidMWeissman How about the right-wing kid from the Parkland shooting that got his Harvard admission revoked after performative leftist outrage at old racist comments he made to friends in a private video game chat? Does that count?

@ConsensusTaker @DavidMWeissman Roseanne, Mel Gibson, etc. did not have “old comments” that got them in trouble. Keep coping and whining. I’m sorry only other disingenuous losers are buying into your fake outrage.

@damintoell @DavidMWeissman You just made a bunch of assumptions about what I think because you want to lawyer you’re way out of an obtuse comment you made that didn’t square with observable reality. I’m sorry you can’t admit the obvious. But I’m not the one “whining” here.

@damintoell @DavidMWeissman Please. The whole point of this aside is to call out exactly how hypocritical lefties are when it comes to dismissing *some* people’s “old” comments and not others — and they do so purely along partisan lines. IDC a whit about offensive comments…bc I’m not a rabid partisan.

@damintoell @DavidMWeissman I’m not outraged at all. I’m just explaining my original point since you asked me to clarify it. Not everything has to be litigation, counselor. Sometimes you can just accept a fair criticism of leftists.

@ConsensusTaker @DavidMWeissman Okay, write the mayor’s wife off the show. I don’t know what you want from me. Nothing you’re saying contradicts my position. You just want to perform about how outraged you are.

@damintoell @DavidMWeissman Actually lefties care A LOT when they can make hay out of OOB comments made by righties: Roseanne Barr was written off her own show. Donald Sterling was forced to sell his NBA franchise. Paula Deen lost her career and sponsorships. Mel Gibson was blacklisted from Hollywood.

@ConsensusTaker @DavidMWeissman Instead we get performative offense-takes from the right. No one cares.

Blink-Juan82 🤟🤟🤟

@damintoell @DavidMWeissman The point they’re making is that left-leaning people don’t care when other left-leaning people say things that would otherwise be fodder for performative offense-takes if said by right-leaning people.

@ConsensusTaker @DavidMWeissman Which point and how?

@damintoell @DavidMWeissman You’re making their point.

@alanthefisher We see it with the wildlife bridge. We’ve been seeing it with the housing rebuilds after the Palisades fires. Bureaucratic delays have consumed the Golden State. Everything in CA seems to be mismanaged. You don’t have to be a partisan to take issue with this.

@alanthefisher In this regard, I’d ask you to consider whether it isn’t you that is just as ideologically captured as you seem to be claiming your political opponents are. It simply doesn’t take as long, or cost as much, to build worthwhile infrastructure. But we saw this w/ the Bay Bridge…

there are so many astroturfed conservatives against CAHSR because the second that there is a working train between 2 cities in the US that can hit 200mph it is fundamentally over for the argument of "that doesn't work here" The oil lobby will do everything possible to stop that

My proooofs on the internet youtube.com/watch?v=HM8Ee6…

@RuLooking4This2 @sportsfanCal @kdemoff @NFL Important to note that he picked up the ball before it stopped moving. My understanding is that if the ball had settled, the play would’ve been whistled dead and the challenge would not have been successful.

I haven't even gotten into the fact that the rules analyst in the "Booth" had to call down to his best friend to have it overturned. Wanna talk about some dark shit. We just choose to disagree on this one. Best of luck to your team... As long as they're not playing the Rams. 😉

Withdrawn but not forgotten in today’s NFL you can pick up a ball after a play is whistled incomplete, turn around with it and walk back towards midfield and four minutes later have it count for two points 🤔🤷‍♂️

Ayn Rand (1963): "Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism.  It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man’s genetic lineage.  ...Racism is a doctrine of, by and for brutes.  It is a barnyard or stock-farm version of collectivism, appropriate to a mentality that differentiates between various breeds of animals, but not between animals and men.... The theory that holds “good blood” and “bad blood” as a moral-intellectual criterion, can lead to nothing but torrents of blood in practice. ... "It is hard to say which is the more outrageous injustice: the claim of Southern racists that a Negro genius should be treated as inferior because his race has “produced” some brutes—or the claim of a German brute to the status of a superior because his race has “produced” Goethe, Schiller and Brahms. These are not two different claims, of course, but two applications of the same basic premise.  The question of whether one alleges the superiority or the inferiority of any given race is irrelevant; racism has only one psychological root: the racist’s sense of his own inferiority. ... "In its great era of capitalism, the United States was the freest country on earth—and the best refutation of racist theories.  Men of all races came here, some from obscure, culturally undistinguished countries, and accomplished feats of productive ability which would have remained stillborn in their control-ridden native lands.  "Men of racial groups that had been slaughtering one another for centuries, learned to live together in harmony and peaceful cooperation.  America had been called “the melting pot,” with good reason.  But few people realized that America did not melt men into the gray conformity of a collective: she united them by means of protecting their right to individuality."

@elonmusk @Dan16676935420 I have a better idea for improving X (and making it better than every other social media app forever). Not sure where to share/send the idea tho.

@Dan16676935420 To prevent spam bot attacks, the dislike button will be for subscribers/verified accounts only

Very excited for the dislike button. Especially since X is such a positive, uplifting platform full of sane people and little to no bots. I literally can’t imagine it going wrong.

@RobbieTroofinho @maverick_oi @BlendedUnicron @MarkSimonHK @ilangoldenberg Of course it’s premature to declare the IRI’s inevitable collapse…but it’s equally premature to assure its survival. I mean, it’s only been two weeks and Iran has lost all of its senior command, its entire navy, its air defenses, and >90% of its missile and drone capacity.

@maverick_oi @BlendedUnicron @ConsensusTaker @MarkSimonHK @ilangoldenberg haha agree...but when they were in-power, cuttin deals, it was even dumber to ditch the deals, watch em get marginalized, and then enrich the fuck outta 400kg of uranium

This article is compelling and smart. I’ve seen it forwarded around a lot. Let’s walk through why it’s wrong.  1. The author argues that Iran’s military infrastructure especially its drones and missiles are being systematically taken apart.  True. But in the aftermath who is going to keep it that way? After the 12 day war Israel and Trump declared Iran’s capacity to make war “obliterated” and set back for a generation. Less than a year later they went back to war because of how quickly Iran was rebuilding. This campaign is much more comprehensive, but the same problem still applies. How to avoid being stuck in the aftermath in a “mow the lawn” scenario where the US has to expend tremendous assets that could be directed elsewhere in the world - especially towards the Indopacific. And where the region operates at a new unstable normal where all previous taboos on military action are off. 2.  He argues that the nuclear infrastructure had to be disassembled because one president after another had just let Iran’s nuclear program grow. Not true. Obama had managed to dramatically and verifiably reduce Iran’s nuclear capacity through the JCPOA. Trump killed that. 3. He argues Iran is self harming by stopping its own oil from going through the Strait of Hormuz. This was always an assumption before the war, but they’ve managed to shut down the Strait for everyone else while still exporting 1 million bbls per day of their own stuff.  That makes this much more sustainable.  4. He Argues that Iran’s proxy networks are dramatically weakened. True, but also as we’ve learned from previous conflicts they will regenerate and it’s impossible to root them out with a military strategy alone if there is no political follow up to create a better alternative. That is why Israel is on the verge of a major campaign in Lebanon only a year and a half after supposedly setting back Hezbollah for a generation. These fights are costly Pyrrhic victories that will just need to be fought again and again and again unless there is a political strategy to consolidate victory which both Israel and the US have failed at since October 7th.  5. Finally, the author argues that we need to ignore the President’s own words about regime change and the Iranian people rising up and focus on what the military is doing.  But that’s not how war works. War is fought to achieve a political objective. If there is no clear objective set out by the political leadership it’s impossible to translate battlefield victories into a consolidated win.  By setting the bar at regime change Trump has made it extraordinarily hard for the US to be perceived as winning even if the military executes the plans. Perception is a big part of the battle in war. And again the costs are incredibly high. And as the author argues, the only way this works is if there is a plan to contain and keep Iran down in the aftermath. Do we have any faith in Trump to do that? Again that is going to be incredibly expensive and require a presence like what the US left in the Middle East after the first Gulf War to contain Saddam.  That’s something we could afford in 1991 when the US was a unipolar power. But not in 2026 when we have a real competitor in China that we need to manage.  aljazeera.com/amp/opinions/2…

@benmoores2 @Nutzyq95 @Luciandrade So your entire argument that you can defend yourselves is theoretical. “We CAN make these weapons, LEU satellite mesh networks, and 5th Gen fighters, we just haven’t YET.” Good on theory, but coming up a bit short on practice, eh?

@Nutzyq95 @Luciandrade Nutz, insulting me and misunderstanding some fairly basic statistics isnt going to help you name a single system Europe cant produce any time soon. Should I assume you cant do it?

We noticed Buzz.

@RobbieTroofinho @maverick_oi @MarkSimonHK @ilangoldenberg Can we all agree John Bolton is a wanker before we go any further? 🤣

@maverick_oi @ConsensusTaker @MarkSimonHK @ilangoldenberg im not sure i understandur point....john bolton himself is on record as saying everytime he proposed invading Iran, DoD basiccally rejected because of SoH and gulf carbon extraction fire control. if you're disputing this provide some tangible basis for doing so.

@RobbieTroofinho @maverick_oi @MarkSimonHK @ilangoldenberg Are you saying the Islamic Republic’s military and nuclear capabilities have NOT been degraded in the past 2 weeks?

@maverick_oi @ConsensusTaker @MarkSimonHK @ilangoldenberg but they havent stopped it now. invasion and/or occupation are deemed too costly even with the IRI supposedly at its weakest point... we've already discussed this.

@RobbieTroofinho @maverick_oi @MarkSimonHK @ilangoldenberg Care to bet money on it not happening?

@maverick_oi @ConsensusTaker @MarkSimonHK @ilangoldenberg apologies: removal of the programme and/or regime is not happening now at their weakest; so had they been stronger it still wouldnt have happened. arguing they would have been stronger is thus immaterial to the discussion.