nigel99

Not telegram, but I’m setting up a private sub reddit to hopefully keep the banter going. Over the past 20+ years I’ve been active in this site I’ve learned skydiving lessons, made great friends and changed my views on life. The mods have done a great job over the years in keeping it relatively civil and so we have a spectrum of views and it’s not a pure echo chamber.

Ron still posts occasionally, so does Bigun. I think (Reese?) New Zealander was banned years ago. You’re wrong by the way - we no longer debate guns and religion here! It’s no all about being woke.

Well maybe Mexico will pay for the wall now .. To keep the illegal immigrants from moving south.

That’s what I read. Essentially this was treated differently than ‘normal’.

I’m glad Joe stepped in for Hunter. Although I think it acknowledges that the US judicial system is politicised. There becomes a time when you have to adapt to the new rules to survive. With MAGA it’s the law of the jungle.

It still doesn’t change the fact that you’re unable to defend the indefensible. There is no legitimate reason to support a racist and extremist rally. Trump hosted one of the leaders of the supposed groups that he condemned and said he was ‘very impressed by him’. He surrounds himself with racist pricks, and his little fanboy Elon is no doubt eager to recreate apartheid South Africa.

Made me laugh though

When you have to split hairs further and further until you get to the atomic level to justify a comment you have a problem. That doesn’t even touch on the fact that Trump invited one of the leaders of the groups that he allegedly renounced to a dinner. Then said he was very impressed by him. I’ve got more respect for the nazis and racists that have the backbone to stand behind their beliefs than I do for Trump and the apologists who share their views but don’t have the backbone to take the heat of standing by their convictions.

Trump excluded those groups from his narrow definition. Considering it was a far right event, there doesn’t appear to be any logical and justified reason to be present and showing support for the cause. Reframing the question, what valid reason or cause would a ‘very fine person’ have to support the cause of the organisers?

I simply asked for an example of someone who wouldn’t fall under that banner. Snopes has the extremely narrow definition that you’re adopting. The same article points out the fact that the false statement is that Trump called all of them very fine people. So do you agree with Trump that the KKK and militia groups have very fine people as they are differentiated from the 2 very specific groups he called out? Also Trump had dinner with one of the leaders after the event in 2022 ““Trump is really impressed with Nick Fuentes,” Ye said in the video.” Not a very strong condemnation.

Ok, so who at the event on the side of the neo nazis doesn’t fall under that umbrella term and why were they there? I believe Trumps father had known links to the KKK. So let’s take Trump at his explicit word. Do you agree with him that the KKK has very fine people? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite_the_Right_rally Based on these groups who were at the rally can you suggest an example of a legitimate “fine person’ who would be there?

Isn’t it a bit disingenuous to use the argument “It wasn’t an exact quote” regarding the laptop, but then argue against the message from Trump regarding “very fine people” as he didn’t specifically mention the white nationalists? I’ve always been a little uncomfortable with how Trumps business crimes have been portrayed. It may be normal process in the US that federal convictions are counted per transgression. But calling him a 34 times convicted felon seems inflammatory. It was one crime, with 34 individual documents. If this was applied to all of his cases then the classified documents should be 100’s of felonies? Don’t mistake this for me condoning his behaviour, he should have been prosecuted just as harshly and quickly as Edward Snowden and others.

Didn’t he recently claim to be a 3000 year old time traveling vampire? I wonder why the pizza basement adrenachrome crowd haven’t jumped on this as an admission he drinks babies blood?

Trump has no problem finding nuts

One of the effects of COVID was that many organisations were stung by the supply chain problems and managed risk by on shoring manufacturing. Secondly Trumps policy on tax incentives in his first term did encourage some companies to move manufacturing to the US (my previous employer took advantage of this). I’m not sure what the lag is between an incentive and the outcome being realised as factories need to be built and processes implemented. There is a possibility that Trump may be able to take a little credit for this.

I don’t think I will ever understand how Trump managed to take over the whole US establishment.

I don’t think you can single out individual republicans as racist. Many people are racist and I think this is partly reflected in the US election results and may explain why some democrats stayed home. From what I’ve seen I think it’s fair to say the Republican Party tends to pander to racist tendencies and this is reflected in their rhetoric and policies. Of course any party that panders to racists is likely to have a higher membership in that group. Racism can be very difficult to overcome. I grew up in Southern Africa (Zimbabwe) and despite coming from a family that were not racist - compared to the general population, I still struggle to put aside preconceived notions. Growing up in a culture where in general the white population was more educated than the black population, you end up with a distorted belief that whites are smarter than blacks. Despite being out of the country for 30 years, I still have to catch myself on occasion. My kids on the other hand grew up in the UK and we had black neighbours, they don’t have the same disadvantage. Consequently I empathise with people who struggle, but it doesn’t excuse behaviour or give them a pass to perpetuate false stereotypes. Leaders whether they are political, religious or otherwise have a moral obligation to set a positive example. For that reason Trump should be held to a higher standard than most.

Can you explain how Biden weaponised the justice system and his son is in jail and Trump is free?

You have a politicised justice system the instant political perception influences their actions. I must admit that I have a morbid fascination with seeing how quickly the American empire is collapsing. I always felt that first world countries would have more checks and balances than 3rd world countries. I don’t know when the rot started in the US system, not being a history buff I can’t go back that far. But it seems that by early 2000’s it had already started (it was interesting going back to that time period in speakers corner a few months ago). It feels like the decline has reached critical mass and is now not only unstoppable, but accelerating rapidly. I feel very sorry for and concerned about friends and innocent people caught in the decline. I would love to see Musk destroyed, it would be great to see a total boycott of twitter, star-link and Tesla.

However, years ago one of the BBC commentators said “The US is like a petulant teenager lecturing the world and doesn’t realise other countries are all grown up” I think that pretty accurately sums up the US, one of my pet peeves is the arrogance of some Americans (we are the gold standard of democracy, only Americans have free speech, everyone wants to be an American, or everyone aspires to the American dream). Ultimately we have a choice, be miserable and scared, or embrace the tragedy as comedy. As skydivers I think there is a moral obligation to adopt black humour to get through the next few years.

You know you’re a banana republic when politicians and the rich are above the law.

https://youtu.be/HLNhPMQnWu4?si=EdWahRSZMGudXs0q John Cleese provided the advantages of extremism.

https://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/south-texas-el-paso/news/2024/11/22/texas-ag-investigating-advertising-group-for--possible-conspiracy--to-boycott-social-media-platforms Not even a month after the election and the enslavement begins. Texas AG has opened an investigation into companies boycotting Twitter/X

I’m sure he would love to be US Ambassador to Iraq. (Currently there is legislation going through the 2nd reading of parliament to lower the age of consent to 9)

Definitely not extremist, because Fox News is watched by a significant portion of the US population! … Sorry got that wrong, definitely extremist as most of the world don’t watch Fox.