I feel the need to “defend” every single state that has ever existed. Because I’m operating on a different paradigm than you.

I care about whether claims made are true or false. “Defending” doesn’t enter into the equation for me. If you say Hitler was an evil space alien, I will push back on that, simply because it’s not true, with absolutely zero regard for whether by refuting misinformation, I’m “defending Hitler.”

Liberals seem to operate differently. They see things in terms of good countries and bad countries (and people), and they see everything in those terms. So, if a claim is complete bullshit, but it makes a “bad country” look bad, then you should accept it, or at least let it stand. And if someone tries to refute misinformation about a “bad country,” the only way they can understand that behavior is if the person saying it thinks the “bad country” is actually “good.”

To me, that’s just intellectual dishonesty. You don’t just make shit up about whoever you don’t like, and I don’t see how anyone who sees things that way could ever be trustworthy.

I play chess exactly the way you play chess. I told you this repeatedly.

Do you really not understand what’s happening here? How much more blatant do I have to be?

You used a shit ton of bad faith tactics in this conversation. I could have, and to some extent did call them out. But then you can just ignore, deny, or otherwise dismiss that.

Which is why I’m simply throwing them straight back in your face. I’ve said several times that I’m using bad faith tactics, but I’m doing that for a purpose. Because now you have to be the one to label these tactics as bad faith. And every single bad faith tactic I employed is something you did first.

Demonstration by example. Is it frustrating the way I keep asking you pointless, irrelevant questions, making it impossible to have a conversation? Maybe you’ll think about that the next time you do that, the way you did from the start. Does it piss you off the way I twist your words around, the way you do with mine? You don’t like how I pretended you didn’t answer the same way you did? Boo fucking hoo. You wanna go low, I will be right there with you. I am not afraid to get dirty wrestling a pig.

So yes, I am in fact playing chess like a pigeon, because I am playing chess with a pigeon, and I’m just following your lead. I’d be perfectly happy to have a real conversation otherwise.

By linking to a clip by System of a Down, are you saying you think my parents have down syndrome?

Sure, just as soon as you answer what I asked about what a question is. That’s not an answer.

Did you miss the part where I said I’d throw your bad faith tactics straight back in your face? You don’t like my tactics, then you don’t like your tactics, because all I’m doing is holding up a mirror.

What’s a “question?” Can you define it?

INB4 you critique “my” phrasing again

After this conversation, I assume so.

What’s a viewpoint? Can you define it? What does it mean to refute something? Can you define it?

Why aren’t you answering me? You must know what these words mean if you’re using them. Are you a dumbass?

Say whatever you like. I’ve put up with your shit long enough and I’m just going to keep doing this.

Go ahead, say I’m acting in bad faith for doing exactly what you did.

We’ve already seen exactly how you respond when I do answer your bad faith questions, so expect that too.

Why didn’t you answer my question? What does it mean to put something in “my own words?” Are you a dumbass? Why can’t you answer that when you said it yourself? What’s a “world view” by the way? Can you define that, or are you too dumb to?

you are placing your world view

Which the author is placing in their worldview. I have been abundantly clear that I do not agree with their terminology. You’re just trying to attack me on complete and total bullshit because you know you can’t address my actual point.

I’m not playing your game.

What do you mean by, “your own words?” Can you define it? What does the word “what” mean? Can you define it?

You do this blatantly bad faith shit, I’m just gonna start throwing it back in your face. I don’t care whether you call me a dumbass, I care if you’re being intellectually dishonest, which you very clearly are.

Yet again, completely ignoring the actual point so you can do this pointless nickpicking and pedantry. Not one word that you’ve said has actually been relevant to anything. Extremely predictable, again, it’s because you know it’s true and you’re defensive about it.

Christ almighty you’ll

I already told you it’s not even my fucking term.

Now, WHAT’S A WESTERNER?

Seriously? You can fucking google it, dumbass. Everyone knows what a Westerner is.

Literally just did.

Is this how I find out I have psychic powers? Who could’ve predicted this?

What they mean is the proletariat of exploitative countries, those in the imperial core, who they see as having a distinct class character from the proletariat of exploited countries.

Does that satisfy your pointless pedantry? Of course not. Now you’ll find another pointless detail to quibble over, or you’ll nitpick my definition. Because the point being made seems to have struck a nerve with you, but you can’t actually find anything to counter it so you focus on this nonsense.

If the shoe fits, wear it. I’m guessing you know it’s true, at least on some level, and that’s why you’re doing this.

You deferred to authority with your reference to a blog

Jesus Christ, any time I cite any sort of theory about anything people immediately jump down my throat with this “appeal to authority” bullshit.

I referenced the blog not because it has any sort of “authority” but because it explains the concept quite well.

I’m sorry that, apparently unlike you, I’m capable of respecting insight regardless of whether it’s written in the most proper, ideologically correct phrasing.

So I am asking to define what those classes are, and which people are bound to that definition?

No. Message the author if you want a definition. I already told you I wouldn’t use the term personally.

The overall point is quite clear regardless of that terminology. And you haven’t said a single thing to contest that point, you’re just whining about phrasing for no apparent reason.

I feel like all your objections are just about the terminology used in an article I didn’t write. I wouldn’t use the term “bourgeois proletariat” for example, but the actual point that the article is making is correct and insightful.

It’s not like you couldn’t have made a comment on the publicly known biases of the sources in question

Neither is a credible source on haircuts in North Korea.

Yeah, no shit, that’s the point.

There’s people in here blindly believing this propaganda even when it comes from such a biased and unreliable source as the NYP. That’s not because of a failure of critical thinking or because they’re just “stupid” or something, it’s because they simply choose not to engage in critical thinking at all. Because, as I said, they don’t actually care whether it’s true or not, they just enjoy getting a chance to shit on the DPRK to feel better about their own lives and their own system.

You can’t convince people based off facts and evidence if they’re basing their beliefs off of things completely unrelated to facts and evidence. Tell them the NYP is unreliable and they’ll probably just attack you for “defending North Korea” or they’ll demand you prove a negative (and not bother to read if you actually put in the effort). They simply want to believe the propaganda.

I don’t see why you’re so offended by this idea.

I don’t see what in that article says what you’re saying.

The amendments changed the law such that Taiwan could start having elections without controlling the mainland which might be termed a de facto acceptance of the situation but formally the claims have not been revoked.

Or Uranus being pronounced not as your-anus but urine-us. The “alternate/kid-friendly” option is just plain worse. It also teaches kids certain words are bad, which is a bad idea for a multitude of resons I won’t get into.

Look, there’s nothing wrong with the word “anus” but if you’re actually in the field of astronomy that particular pun starts to get old after about the 10 millionth time. Some people just want to be able to talk about the seventh planet without the room erupting in giggles every time they say its name.

Spare a thought for the poor astronomy student doing thesis work on the volatile gases of Uranus. They know, they get it, they just want to be able to have one serious conversation about it.

The way this played out before in the interwar period was that the Nazis weren’t even in power (but growing) and the SDP was in a coalition with the center-right where they supported rearmament and then the center-right president (who had been supported by the SDP) appointed Hitler chancellor which allowed him to seize power and use those weapons against the rest of Europe.

The SDP has always been shit. They supported German entry into WWI (after pledging not to), they sent the freicorps to kill communists, they supported austerity policies during the Great Depression which discredited the left and caused people to look to the Nazis as an alternative, and they enabled Hitler’s rise to power. 150 years of being clowns.

Isn’t it in their constitution?

The fact that there are multiple people in here believing both because “they were 3 years apart,” I don’t know whether that’s funny or sad.

I know I said gullible was written on the ceiling but that was a second before you looked up, now it’s written on the floor. Nope, you missed it again, back to the ceiling.

This is where you really gotta turn to that redsails article to explain how these people’s minds work:

In short: Westerners aren’t helpless innocents whose minds are injected with atrocity propaganda, science fiction-style; they’re generally smug bourgeois proletarians who intelligently seek out as much racist propaganda as they can get their hands on. This is because it fundamentally makes them feel better about who they are and how they live. The psychic and material costs are rationally worth the benefits.

Western propaganda is better understood in terms of “licensing”: the issuing of moral license for the bourgeois proletariat to profitably go along with bourgeois designs without the feeling of shame overwhelming. In this alternative account people aren’t “brainwashed” insofar as they don’t actually believe the lies, not in the way that we generally understand belief. It’s more correct to say that they go along with them

“But you don’t understand, the news man said I have permission to use this to make fun of North Korea. Why are you spoilsports trying to take away my fun?”

Critical thinking doesn’t enter into it at all.