You're using an example of ethnic nationality to counter my example of civic nationality. Those things are not the same, or similar.

I don't really know anything about Black People United, but as you've described it they are a PAC which aligns themselves with an ethnonationalistic group. If they then went a step further and aligned themselves or that group with a foreign country then it would be a matter of civic nationalism. If they then went further than that, and coordinated with representatives of that foreign country then they could no longer be considered independent. That would then be a comparable example to AIPAC.

Let's try something a little simpler. I don't like to throw around accusations of treachery, but the mere existence of the notion of treachery should be sufficient to put to bed your claim that supporting a foreign country is a right. This should clearly preclude not just a right to commit traitorous actions, but given the flexible nature of international relations and the inflexible nature of rights, this should preclude a right to non-traitorous such actions as well. That is not among your rights, and it doesn't make any sense that it would be. What would be the corresponding obligation, and how could that be reconciled with a "government of the people?"

Your insults are tiresome. They imply an arrogant person, mired in righteousness.

The title of that magazine is "PC Magazine: The Independent Guide to IBM Personal Computers." They do have an issue published in 1984 though, titled "The IBM Compatible Universe."

Just to throw in my few cents on the original topic: I think the grandparent is right. As consoles become more and more similar to PCs, opportunities to cut costs diminish. This was one of the problems with the Xbox 1 (not the Xbone): it was almost entirely off-the-shelf PC parts, and so cost cutting was a very expensive affair for Microsoft.

The Democrats send plenty of spam. It's likely that this accusation is just false on all counts.

The only solution is to clean the FTC of corrupt partisan hacks. There's really no other option, since this guy is just going to keep making accusations until Gmail only allows Republican emails.

Yes, ha ha. Very good.

All right, a little exercise: Instead of doing quippy little line-by-line responses that don't form cohesive arguments and don't actually get us anywhere, let's try something else.

If we break this down, there are basically two elements that we are talking about. First, you are making much ado about the distinction between working for and working on behalf. I pointed out that this is the same distinction made by the Citizen's United decision to rationalize the existence of super PACs. Super PACs are exempt from campaign finance laws, provided that they act independently (i.e.: working on behalf). They can do whatever they want with an unlimited amount of money, as long as they don't coordinate with the beneficiaries of their efforts. Because as long as they don't coordinate, they're just independent people exercising their speech.

In reality, this "no coordination" rule is violated all the time (i.e.: working for) without repercussions. But even super PACs don't coordinate with the same flagrant disregard as AIPAC does. Of course AIPAC is not a super PAC, and so is not bound by that rule, even though it acts just like a super PAC. And so this is not a violation of the law, but it certainly is a violation of the principle of independence that you are so intent on selling.

Your counter argument to this first element has been... uh. I'm not sure. I don't get the impression that you understood what I was getting at there. Hence my reiteration of the argument.

The second element was about rights. I responded to the other person about that here.

Then there were some other bits that don't make sense, along with a bunch of insults. I'm willing to chalk this up to miscommunication.

Well yes it's true that the word "support" is doing too much here, but there's an important distinction: we're not talking about supporting specific foreign interests. No one is suggesting that you can't agree with the Israeli government when it comes to any individual point of policy. Instead we're talking about wholesale alignment with a foreign power.

I can't think of any examples of that which would be permissible, and it certainly doesn't seem like anyone should have that right. I can think of plenty of negative examples though, how about the Russia-aligned Ukrainians living in Donbas? They're sometimes referred to as "Russians" living in Ukraine, because of their Russian ethnicity, but they are Ukrainian citizens living within the borders of their own sovereign country. Independent from Russia. Did they have a right to ask Russia to invade? Do they still have that right, even now?

Those same Ukrainian citizens, aligned with a foreign power, elected a Russia aligned president who, after his ousting, asked Russia to send Russian troops into Crimea. This ultimately turned into an invasion of Crimea. Was this okay? It doesn't seem okay.

Okay... I think you may you may be too invested in this, you're just making broad declarations instead of cogent arguments.

I don't know the whole story of the origins of the Committee of Unamerican Activities, but the biggest problem with that group was that they were persecuting an ideology. It's true that a lot of American communists at that time aligned themselves with the Soviet Union, but the committee was really about stamping out challenges to capitalism and the ruling class. It was not really about suppressing foreign influence (even though it was often framed that way).

Insofar as Americans have a "right" to agree with whatever, that right is to an opinion that they form of their own accord. If Americans believe that war with Iran is preferable to a peace deal, and the Israeli government also happens to believe that, then fine. But that's not what's going on here. AIPAC is explicitly aligned with a foreign power.

Why would material support be the deciding factor on whether a foreign power is exerting undue influence? Are you saying, for example, that all of Russia's election interference is A-OK because they're not literally bribing people?

You are also either wholly endorsing the Citizens United decision, and the resulting super PACs, or you're missing the point there. I'm not sure which, but your uncompromising defense of lobbying seems to suggest that you like it.

I think you've gone overboard here. Yes, the distinction between working for and working on behalf does matter a bit in the technical sense (though this is the same excuse that's used to justify super PACs...), but it's not such a big difference and the line is blurred here anyway.

For example, AIPAC spent $40 million to oppose the nuclear deal with Iran in 2015. That's explicitly pushing Israeli policy goals. Or maybe I should say Netanyahu's policy goals, he thanked AIPAC explicitly for their help when he gave a speech at the AIPAC Policy Conference. It's hard to argue that these are just independent Americans acting independently. Even super PACs are seldom that blatant about their coordination.

Also, you said something above that was a little thought provoking. "Americans have the right to support Israel." ... Do they? I don't see why Americans would have the right to support a foreign country. I guess this depends heavily on how you're using the word "support," but ultimately Americans are expected to have allegiance to one country only. As you point out, someone who has allegiance to another country can't be trusted to vote.

My entire post was focused on trying to figure out why people hate Biden. It was not on trying to convince people to hate Trump, I don't know where you got that impression. I did say that I hated Trump, and gave one reason for that.

Your critique is pointless. The hatred comes from the consequences of Trump's actions, all of the harm that he causes and all of of the many many people that he hurts. If you believe that Biden is similar, and you don't hate him, then you are someone who lacks empathy. I do not repudiate or regret my hatred, it is righteous and deserved.

I think it's really remarkable how effectively right-wing media got people to hate Biden. The most boring of presidents. I only heard a few of the accusations against him, which ranged from molesting children (ironic!) to accepting bribes (also ironic!), but nothing was substantiated and the Republican-run investigatory committee ultimately had to admit that they had found no evidence of wrongdoing. Eventually. Then they made some more accusations, because that's what they do.

Under other circumstances this should have generated scorn at the Republicans who were constantly saying, "b-b-but Biden!" But for some reason that never happened. At least not among the Republican loyalists. So why not? Well, exit polling for the last election said that the greatest portion of people who voted for Trump cared most about the economy. This despite the fact that the economy was doing extraordinarily well in 2024, and that Trump's promised changes would almost certainly be a disaster.

So my best guess about all the hate is that right-wing media somehow got people to blame Biden for the pandemic. Those people don't laud our miraculous economic recovery coming out of the pandemic, instead they blame for the hardship. And that this is where most of the hate is really coming from. People are willing to believe the ridiculous accusations, and believe that Trump would be better for the economy despite all evidence to the contrary, because they already hate Biden for the pandemic.

Regardless, to answer your question: No, I haven't forgotten Biden or Obama. It is their examples, of what an honest president can be, which makes me hate Trump all the more.

It isn't making that attribution, nor is this an interview with a dead guy. Most of the interview was with the dead guy's living father, who vouched for the accuracy of the AI's portrayal and explained why he wanted to do things this way.

Oh come on, you're going too far here. Of course it's different, Trump actually does make that phone call. He does pardon his lackeys. He does use his position to enrich himself and attack people who criticize him. It's not just threats, not just promises, not worrying about things that he might do. This is drastically different from previous presidents.

If you're trying to criticize the fact that the executive branch has been acting with greater autonomy... sure. It's hardly insightful, but partisanship has been increasing and our government has been getting increasingly dysfunctional ever since the Contract with America. This is a much-discussed fact that I think everyone knows by now. Working with congress requires some degree of willingness to cooperate, and that has been dwindling.

Trump, of course, takes this to an extreme. In principle he could and should be working with a fully cooperative congress right now, with all branches controlled by his party. Instead he mostly ignores congress, and threatens them when the senate won't immediately rubber-stamp his sycophants.

This is one of the paths of a dictator. First you join a political party and do everything you can to silence the opposition. That's step one. Step two is to silence your own party. Dictators do this because parties are people who work together for common goals or ideologies, and Dictators have no ideology and only one goal.

And finally, if we're just idly wishing for things, the executive branch can't be dialed back. The executive branch is the branch that actually does things. Doing things is important. But, that said, I don't see why we need a president.

I use RSS more for Youtube than anything else, though I get a lot of entertainment content through it. I don't want to make it easier for Google to track me, and they don't let you make an account anymore without giving them a phone number, so I just have all the Youtube channels that I like in an RSS reader. And then I download the videos to watch them.

The claim by the plaintiff is that the law was, "designed to make computer-generated parody illegal." With the implication that this is unacceptable, and that the law should be struck down for this reason. ... Why don't we just do this explicitly? Computer generated parody does not provide an avenue of expression, it does not enrich our lives, it does not educate us or enlighten us, it does not serve any meaningful purpose.

And, all these robots with their foreign parts are taking jobs from our honest American parody-smiths. GTFO I say, no one wants you here. I'm not racist, I just think they belong where they belong and I belong where I belong. They're bringing down property values.

Okay... so if we're including stupid facts then this interview is, "this AI made a statement." That is a fact. It's a stupid fact.

I suppose that statements can be more important when the interviewee is a politician or somesuch, and their statements have policy implications. I don't think that the majority of interviews double as policy statements in that way. They're just someone's opinions.