DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus Unity Without Accountability?

LOL

That's exactly the type of response I expected from you. When you can't dispute the facts, mock them.

You're entirely wrong -- both quantitatively and in your broader understanding of statistics.

Quantitatively - The margin of error from statistical uncertainties in polling (or any other binary process which follows a Bernoulli distribution) is defined as sigma_p = sqrt(p*(1-p)/n)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernoulli_distribution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margin_of_error

For 836 people and percentages between 10% and 50% (for the different subgroups), this converts to errors that are between 1% and 1.7%, just like the poll said.

More importantly, you are qualitatively wrong in your understanding of the dependence of polling errors on N (the total population number).

If you have a random draw n from a population N, and assuming N >> n (that is, n is not a substantial fraction of N) -- then the uncertainty in your poll of n people is independent of the size of N. Note, for example, that N never appears in any formalism of a Bernoulli distribution.

This is paradoxical to some people -- when a population is 74 million people (as you mentioned) how can they be represented by only 836? However, the importance of each of those people also gets smaller as the population gets bigger. If you miss a subgroup of 1M people in your statistic -- it matters much more if the whole population is 5M than if the population is 100M.

TL;DR - Samples of 836 people are valid at the level of ~2-3% statistically (so long as you can randomly draw from the population, as mentioned in my very first post). The difficult of drawing randomly from a population does not necessarily get any harder as the population gets bigger.

A sample of 836 people is equally valid whether you are polling Parma, OH - Cleveland OH, or the USA.

WOW...how many times have we seen as your reply?

That has aged well right?

Probably as many times as you’ve claimed trump as being your grand wizard.

I gave an informed reply. People like yourself, and now I can include Peen in that group, refuse to address any points, have an actual discussion or add anything of value. So you get what you deserve.

It’s obvious Peen holds everybody responsible but trump and his supporters. Just like trump does. After all trump is the grand wizard in charge of chaos. So they have to obey their master.

Regarding statistics and polls .... what you said may be 100% true based on math and modeling.

But - and it's a huge 'but' - all of your theory is predicated on finding 836 'representative' samples or people to sample. I think that's impossible because there is a wide spectrum of opinions and ideals. Just my take. No matter what the subject, no matter where you pull your 836 subjects from. jmo based on human nature and the real world.

Yes - but that is the qualitative problem.

As the population gets bigger -- the opinions of small groups of people get less important.

For example, it is much harder to poll Alaska accurately than it is to poll the US accurately. This is due to the very sharp rural/urban divide in Alaska which makes it difficult to accurately match people who do/don't have cell phones, do/don't have house phones etc.

You may say -- "But to poll the US accurately you have to poll Alaska too!" - but that is false. You can poll Alaska very badly and still get a good poll for the US overall, because Alaska isn't very important to the average person in the US.

Bro it doesn’t matter to trump supporters.

Lets talk about accountability and a little whataboutism.

Scenerio......Barrack Obama just incited a riot by asking his followers to march on the US capitol building to overturn the election and to fight to keep their country. Then the mob mostly black men, some armed with bombs and guns ascended on the capitol killing 5. Who’s accountable? Certainly not Obama right ?

America Needs to Break the Back of its Fascist Movement Now — Or Else

America’s Been Appeasing its Fascists for the Last Five Years. Now It’s Time to Throw the Book at Them, and Then Some.

You know who has the right idea right about now? Arnold Schwarzenegger. He just released a video calling the “riots” at the Capitol “America’s Kristallnacht.”

There’s a dangerous current surging in America.No, not (just) the violent fascist coup during which paramilitaries beat a cop to death with a fire extinguisher inside the Capitol.

An even more dangerous one: the idea that the people who carried out this coup deserve mercy.

Let me assure you as a survivor and scholar of authoritarianism. There is only one way to deal with fascism, terrorism, authoritariaism, coups, what Americans call “sedition.”

Zero tolerance.

America needs to break the back of this fascist movement, now, severely — or it will pay an even more severe price in years and decades to come. A price in violence, rage, blood, and unrest. The highest of prices. No, I’m not kidding — and though you might feel a chill, I think you know it, too. It’s us or them.

There must be no quarter given to forces like Trumpists. There never should’ve been in the first place, but I digress. Let me explain why, even though I’m sure you already know.

Trumpists have revealed themselves to be a neo-fascist movement. A serious and real one. Having been unable to achieve their goals through consensual, peaceful democratic means, what did they do — the very first time they lost? They engaged in violence. Not just any kind of violence — sporadic, minor-league, harmless. They stormed the nation’s Capitol and shed blood.

Now, this act carries a very significant meaning. It says something. It is not some kind of random eruption of bottled up rage and suffering, for which we should all have empathy and mercy. It was not the tantrum of a child, or the outburst of a spoiled toddler — these were grown adults. It wasn’t the meaningless violence of a lunatic — these people planned their attack carefully. It wasn’t the huff of a scorned lover — these people wanted to destroy, not just walk away disappointed. It wasn’t a fraternity prank, a form of hazing, a legitimate protest, a night at the comedy club.

This wasn’t a tantrum, a huff, an outburst. So what was it?

This was deliberate, organised mass violence, led by the head of state, with a deep and abiding political, social, and cultural point.

What were those points? Let’s take them one by one.

The political point began with “If you beat us at the ballot box, we will come for you with guns and rifles and bombs, right in the heart of your democracy.” But it didn’t end there. It said, also: “We will profane your democracy’s most sacred and historic symbols. Because we don’t believe in them. We don’t believe that everyone deserves to share in them. All the power in this society is either ours, or it will be no one’s.”

In other words, the political message of this violence was to teach the rest of the country a lesson. We are the powerful ones. It is you or us. Either society will be what we want it to be, or we will not allow there to be a society at all. This is just the first of many such acts to come. It’s us or you.

What does that mean, exactly? It means what fascism always does. The choice between fascism and civilisation always goes like this. It’s our violence or your peace, it’s our brutality or your decency, it’s our authoritarianism or your democracy, it’s our hate and domination or your consensual, modern society.

They are the ones who don’t want there to be a choice. They are the ones for whom there is no compromise.

Why is that? Because their worldview is binary. Think back to Nietzsche, the intellectual godfather of fascism. His worldview was binary, too. You were were either a master or a slave, were strong or weak, an ubermensch or an underman, an overman or an underman. There was no gray area — which is what democracy and humanity are all about, finding the shades and nuances and differences, and appreciating their subtlety and hue and beauty.

This binary worldview is what fascists since that day have carried forward. Whether they know it or not is another question, but it’s there in Trumpism, and it’s easy to see. Either you’re a “real” American or you’re not, either you’re “legal” or you’re not, either you’re fetishistically devoted to Papa Trump, or you’re an “enemy of the people.” They either adore or hate. They have no capacity — none — to think, reason, contemplate, reflect. To say, “though you are different from me, I appreciate you all the more for just that reason.”

That is what makes a fascist.

Or one of the key things at any rate. The political message of all this violence is therefore to say: It is our way, or no way. It is us, or you. If you’re not one of us, you’re not really a human being at all — you are on the side of the subhumans, a “race traitor” or worse. Fascists want a society cleaved in two — a fanatical, hateful place, made of the weak and strong, the human and the subhuman, the pure and the impure, and everything in politics, institutions, agencies, associations, are to be devoted to that end.

That is why you cannot compromise or even negotiate with fascists. They have no room for compromise and negotiation. They want a totalitarian society — no compromise is possible. They will use violence to get it — no compromise is possible. So what is there to bargain over?

Precisely nothing. Sure, they might play a good game of lying about all the above — but that’s all they’re really doing, making a fool of you long the way.

You cannot negotiate or compromise with fascists because by definition such a thing isn’t possible. And if you try, the fool ends up being you.

What happens if we do try to compromise with fascists? That brings me to the social and cultural points of all this violence. Remember, fascists cannot compromise, inherently, as a limitation of their totalitarian, bipolarized worldview. It’s them or you.

So if you compromise with them, there’s only one result. They think you’re weak. Gullible. Foolish. Knowing that you won’t punish them, what do they do? They escalate.

That’s history’s pattern. How did the Nazis end up taking control of Germany? Well, nobody punished them when they were beating people in the streets, hating Jews, or putsching Beer Halls. The idea was to try and compromise with them. Later, much of Europe, notably France, would make that same mistake, all over again. And that mistake has been made by society after society. How did the Muslim World fall? It tried to compromise with its own fascists. The story is always the same.

Compromising with fascists therefore corrodes the social norms of a healthy, civilised democracy. Instead of confronting fascism head-on, it creates norms of submissions, denial, and complicity. Little acts of complicity become OK — they are just what we have do to “heal,” or get by, or forget.

Meanwhile, the fascists are forever escalating, laughing at the weakness of such people. Where have we seen this pattern? In America from 2016 to 2020.

Remember how Trump was treated with laughter from intellectuals and many politicians? How pundits and columnists refused to take the idea he was about to lead a fascist collapse seriously? I do, because they attacked me viciously for warning of it, but don’t cry for me: I raise that as an example. America itself is a case study in how attempting to compromise with fascists corrodes healthy democratic norms.

What did Trump and his flock do in response to America perpetually trying to compromise with them — pundits in denial, opposition complicit, majority silent? They escalated. They escalated from rhetorical hate to concentration camps to kids in cages in them to hated minorities hunted in the street to Gestapos beating and disappearing those who finally protested all this.

Compromise breeds escalation. That is how America got to a fascist coup: five solid years of compromise with fascists, until they escalated to the point of violently storming the Capitol and taking selfies, because they thought they could get away with it.

So there is a social message of all this violence, too. It’s hidden — maybe barely hidden — but I feel as if many Americans are still missing it. It’s this. “We can do something this awful, and mostly get away with it. That is how much we can corrode your norms and values. We can do the very worst things imaginable in this society, and not receive nearly the punishment we deserve. That is how badly we have weakened you.” Do you se the message? It’s always the same: the message of a bully, a thug, a mobster. It’s about instilling fear.

It’s about terror.

The social message of all this violence is to terrorize. “We can get away with it” is successful terrorism. It’s inherently scary to think that someone can do awful things, and not get the punishment that they deserve. What punishment is that, by the way? Well, it’s what society’s already agreed on, at least. A violent coup at the Capitol, for instance, is hardly trespassing or mischief or even criminal damage. It’s sedition and treason.

The social message of the violence is to terrorize. It’s to say: “We will get away with it, on some level, and so you should be scared of us, of our power, because those who can get away with it will keep on doing it again and again, escalating it.”

To not do justice to terrorists is to let the terrorists win.

That lesson goes both ways, by the way. When America tried Arab terrorists in secret courts, that wasn’t really justice, either — and so America never healed from those wounds. It might never heal from these wounds either, the wounds of coup and sedition and treason, if justice is never done for them, too.

That is because justice is the only healing. Injustice is injury. Injustice to the rest of us — those fascists being charged just with trespassing and mischief, LOL — is injury to all of us, to our democracy, to our civilised values, to our efforts to vote, to our peacefulness. It’s not a joke. It is a lasting and serious harm. And to “heal” that harm isn’t done by — as Biden and Kamala seem to be suggesting — going easy on the fascists, trying to forget. Healing is accomplished through justice.

Think about that in your own life. How “healed” do you feel from relationships in which you were victimised and abused and no justice was ever done? Not much, probably.

That’s the cultural point of all this violence. It’s to say: “We’re never going to let you heal. Every time you make progress, we’re going to be there, causing you harm, inflicting grave injury on you, doing violence to you. It’s us or you. You will never heal so long as we are around. We will keep on opening up those old wounds, and they will bleed rawer and redder.”

The cultural point of all this violence is to make — to keep — Americans victims. To make them feel fatalistic, powerless, hopeless. To glumly resign themselves to the fact that justice isn’t done. But people like that are what abusers want to create — victims. People who never have a happy, confident, beautiful sense of their own power, efficacy, purpose, destiny, truth.

The cultural point of the coup is to rub Americans noses in their powerlessness all over again so that they don’t get any ideas, which is what they might have got after the election. Ideas about their own power and efficacy and might of collective action. About what society and and should be, a peaceful and civilised and decent place. It is to triumph again in the way of creating a new example to remind Americans about their own powerlessness with — “they got away with it! And there was nothing we could do!!” — and thus create, all over again, the fatalistic, apathetic, resigned American that the world is so accustomed to.

That is why it’s so, so important that justice be done. Fully. The way it should be. They weren’t rioters, they were fascists, and that wasn’t an insurrection, that was a coup. And it should be punished and treated as such. For the three reasons I’ve outlined above. Let me repeat them and simplify them.

One: you can’t compromise with fascists because they are totalitarians to begin with. They only believe in a violent, hateful, ignorant, binary worldview, and so any compromise is a lie, a trick, a strategy, doomed to fail.

Two. You shouldn’t compromise with fascists and terrorists because it creates a norm with a very special name all its own: appeasement. And there is no road to ruin swifter and surer than appeasement — just ask history, or America 2016–2020, which appeased its way, one weary, surrendering step at a time, from rhetorical hate and scapegoating to concentration camps to kids in cages to Gestapos beating moms in the streets, all the way to a violent coup at the Capitol. That’s not some kind of coincidence — it’s stark proof of an old, old truth. The only way appeasement ever ends is with the fascists and terrorists winning.

Three. You give terrorists no mercy because when you do, they have succeeded at terrorising. They have demonstrated that they can get away with it, and that’s scary: it has chilling effects on society, it emboldens them, it keeps their movements alive, it lets them laugh at the wrist-slap, which is exactly what scares the sane and thoughtful person who opposes them.

When you give terrorists mercy and quarter, they have succeeded in their mission, which was to terrorize. They have scared you into treating them lightly, into submission, to relent. Why else would you go easy on them, unless you were terrorized?

This moment — right now — is a major, major test for America. A democracy that tolerates fascists and terrorists doesn’t often stay one for long.

The back of the fascist, terrorist movement Trumpism is now metamorphosing into — having failed at using political ends to achieve its means — must be broken. From top to bottom. Now. It must be given no quarter and shown no mercy. It should be left a thing as spineless as…the Dems, weak, cowering, afraid to step a millimetre outside its cage, unless it changes and renounces its way. Why? Don’t you know?

Perhaps I still have to remind you what we survivors of fascism say. Have been saying, since the day Trump began his inexorable rise to power, the very thing that the pundits and columnists and intellectuals attacked and mocked us for — and proved their own folly and hubris. It is the very, very first thing we will say, when it comes to matters of human affairs. It only takes two words to say, to teach this gravest and most fundamental of lessons about fascism, and those two words are why America should have a zero-tolerance policy for its fascists right now. What are those two words?

Never.

Again.

Umair
January 2021

https://eand.co/america-needs-to-break-the-back-of-its-fascist-movement-now-or-else-d415b4b75a3f

Am I speaking a different language? Again, I wasn't arguing the quantitative... I can double-check wiki and/or pull up the Minitab tutorial just as easily as you did. It's the application (qualitative, as you put it).

Admittedly, I'm not familiar with the sampling procedures for that website. Perhaps they take precautions to ensure a random sampling. I just see such a small sample for such a charged topic as leaving yourself open to letting the vocal minority skew the results.

You said it shouldn't be taken seriously because it's only 836 people.

It might be a bad poll - but your objection is BS.

The problem is the presumption that the statistical sample is “representative” of the total population. It was not, therefore the reasoning is flawed. Mail in votes were skewed heavily towards Biden, same day votes were skewed towards Trump. That was intentional and the skew was promoted by Trump when he railed against mail in votes and Democrats promotes for mail in votes.

Part of the strategy.

However it is a basis statistics issue. As my Dad and those in the football forum have said, there are liars, damn liners and statistics.

It is not any easier to find 10,000 people who are representative of the US population (with 3% accuracy) than it is to find 836 people who are representative of the US population (at 3% accuracy).

The size of the sample doesn't matter between these numbers -- and at the quoted level of accuracy.

Republicans want to obtain unity by ignoring the actions of trump. I say the better path to unity would be near unanimous vote for impeachment in the house, then again in the senate to remove.

Won't happen because Republicans don't really want unity.

the trump supporters here don’t want unity either. Most all them disappeared and crawled back under that rock where they’ve lived for years before trump.

I see no reason that unity and accountability should be linked together or understand any justification for making one a precondition for the other.

First, accountability is best achieved through the law. Sometimes the law is fair, sometimes it is not fair. Sometimes justice is carried out fairly, sometimes it is not. Despite the imperfections in the system, it is still the best way we have to pursue accountability among citizens rather than to carry out accountability in an adhoc manner, e.g. mob rule, cancel culture, and vigilantism.

Second, I do not even understand the calls for unity. What specifically do people mean by unity? This country is not supposed to be a dictatorship, where one person’s set of ideas reign supreme and everyone else steps in line. In the United States, it is okay if people do not agree on many things. We have a form of government in place that accounts for that and gives each and every person the opportunity to have their own unique set of positions on the full array of issues. If our representatives are not unified, that is fine as well. They should have different positions, in fact, I would argue that they are at their worst when they are unified, because that usually means that they are looking out for their collective best interests at the expense of the interests of their constituents.

Now, it could be that those calling for unity do not actually mean unity, but rather, simply want people to calm down and respect each other to a degree that life and property are not put in danger. Seems like a reasonable objective to me, but personally, I am starting to become ambivalent to the whole thing, if partisans want to go at it with each other, there is little that the non-partisans can do to prevent it, so maybe we stop calling for unity and just let them battle it out.

The ability of partisans not to see their own behavior reflected in their opponents is astonishing to me. Who does this sound like to you?
1. Celebrates civic unrest and protests
2. Rationalizes use of force against authorities
3. Downplays resulting violence because only a fraction of protestors became violent
4. Creates inflammatory information about opposition leaders to undermine their credibility
5. Leaders label opposition protesters with grossly exaggerated terms such “domestic terrorists”
6. When press and journalists shows protests turning violent, they are criticized for not showing the protest in its entirety

Maybe recognizing this can help people realize that it is not our different opinions and ideas that are causing unrest and violence but our individual choices and actions.

So, it seems to me we can achieve non-violence through unity, but that means giving up our individual beliefs and ideas, an entirely un-American concept if I have ever heard one. I think a better solution is to reflect on our own behaviors and principles and try to figure out what allowed this country to work through past disagreements during times of civility and determine how we can bring back those principles that allowed us to disagree but disagree respectfully.

Sorry - you've had some good takes in the recent weeks. These are 100% false equivalence.

Oh well.

My key point wasn't to making the case that the two sides are entirely equivalent, but to give my opinion that accountability and unity do not really need to be linked in any way.

It is interesting to me that the comparison of the two sides is the part that you chose to focus on. Those were just my observations of things that I see as similar which happen to be playing a role in this conflict. If you think that I am missing some nuanced information or points that you feel justifies the actions of one side vs the other, then I would be interested in reading more about your opinions on the that.

How can you unite if parts or all of one side or the other feel in their heart that there isn't open and honest accountability?

Uniting isn't a speech or the words you say - it is living it, breathing it, doing it. Actions. Attitude. Alignment.

We don't need to be united in truest sense of the word. We can have differences of opinion and we can solve problems by debating issues, being open minded, and compromising.

It is great to pursue accountability, justice , and all that, but its not a perfect system. People get off the hook every day for things that are wrong and we don't always agree on what is or is not wrong. For example, my opinion on accountability when it comes to Julian Assange or Edward Snowden is significantly different from most Americans, but in no way do I believe that we should toss out the possibility of all future compromise just because I am on the currently losing side of that issue.

From my point of view, In order to have comprehensive accountability, then their needs to be one singular source that determines right from wrong and that source needs to be able to enforce their will on the citizens. That involves the citizens sacrificing most of their freedoms.

I think holding people accountable - transparently - is probably more important than unity. Most especially with those that are governing and leading. Seems like a slippery slope to "not the rule of law" if you shrug your shoulders and say "Yeah but justice is so hard".

It's why I and others said prosecute the looters and rioters, investigate Biden Jr .... accountability and law and order is important.

I think you may be misunderstanding what the intent of the unity that is spoken of actually means. At least from my perspective. I think what is meant is that while we will still have our differences in ideologies, we won't see each other as the enemy.

Everyone is not going to agree. Unity doesn't mean we should all see things the same way. What it means is that we start to see that as Americans, we all want what we believe is the best path forward for America. We all have the best intentions in our beliefs.

And it's fine that you perceive what we are seeing as strictly based on " our individual choices and actions" and to a great extent I agree with you. But to boil it all down to that it would mean ignoring the fact that one party elected a man as president that says things to incite people. Like, "If the democrats get elected they will destroy America as you know it". "They are communists!", "We have to fight!".

You see, inciting people to violence isn't the same thing as having different ideologies. It's calling people with different ideologies the enemy of your nation. Here is what unity looks like...



It's not that we all agree. It's that we have differences and there is no need to sow the seeds of hate to have those differences.

Accountability and arrests:

Guy that threw fire extinguisher at police officer.


Confederate flag in Capitol guy (and son).

More accountability. What a guy.

If you are stupid enough to put that crap on social media then do something this dumb taking action on your brilliant ideas... bury them under the jail. ALL OF THEM.

Oops.

No offense but.........

For the past 4 years, unity has been absent from the Trump/Republican vocabulary...

When the crap hits the fan in a way that it has never had before, they want to play nice....

No, that is why they lost, they need a time out, and Trump needs to go out with a swift kick in the behind.

Yes, watching democrats reach across the aisle and seeing their efforts rejected for well over the last 4 years is disheartening...


I mean, it didn't happen.. but I'm sure if it had actually happened, I would have found it disheartening.

What was Merrick Garland?

What did you want them reach across the isle on?

Separating kids from families?
Removing girls ovaries without their consent?
Giving the wealthiest a tax break they didn't need?
Ignoring science on Covid?
Making stuff up about Covid and calling it the "China Virus"?
Pandering to dictators?
Calling the free press the enemy of the people?
Talking a "good game" about China but not having a clue how to achieve anything?
Making Mexico pay for a Wall that won't do anything?
Getting illegal Mexicans to help build the Wall?
Maybe using force to move aside peaceful protesters so Trump could take a photo with an upside down bible? -- OR -- using no force and telling supporting forces to the Capitol Police to stand down, so insurgents could occupy the Capitol Building, kill a cop and run around shouting revolution and "Hang Mike Pence"?

Let me know what specifically was worthy of support.

Trump and the Republicans have gone so far to the right, arms are no longer long enough.

As 888 posted, their positions are non starters.

j/c...

It’s sad watching these people trying to stuff the toothpaste back into the tube. Just Sad.

Too late .... the Trump of Cult heard the accusations and the "news" after the election. They now "know" that the voting machines were rigged. The election was stolen. Every 2 bit crummy Alt Right web site repeated it endlessly ... they won't report the new news that highlights that what was said before was a pack of lies because the wannabe King is such a spoilt brat he can't handle that he lost.

Bringing the toothpaste out of the tube has only served to make them 20% whiter. And nobody wanted that.

Well there goes the fish Bible.