Another gem from Larry’s social media- Jack
As a Professional Internet Zoologist I have taught you guys about Common Internet Shit Gibbons and Moon Ferrets. Today’s lesson is about another strange and pathetic creature which roams the internets called The Moral Equivalence Police.
Officers of the MEPD can be counted on to kick in the door and loudly announce themselves in any thread where you are talking about specific events where one side of the political spectrum has done something stupid.
“MORAL EQUIVALENCE POLICE! REPUBLICANS ARE JUST AS BAD! EVERYONE ON THE GROUND!”
So, imagine that you you’re talking about some specific current event, where a democrat made some obvious ridiculous lie in public, like say, yesterday.
“MORAL EQUIVALENCE POLICE! TRUMP LIED ABOUT (insert thing here)! SHOW ME YOUR HANDS! SHOW ME YOUR HANDS!”
MEPD officers are related to Whataboutists, but they can be differentiated because they’re more about retaining the karmic balance of the universe, where there is no relative good or evil, and everything is always perfectly balanced in sucking equally. While, Whataboutists just hoot loudly about any random topic that they think makes the opposition look worse.
MEPs are not exclusively left wing, and the MEPD does not discriminate in recruiting. However, the majority of them are liberals (as can be determined by their brilliant rainbow plumage). Right wing MEPs are rarer, but sadly, not endangered.
Being simple, stimulus/response based creatures MEPs struggle with the concept of time or proportion. So if you are talking about a major serious event that happened yesterday, like a democrat got caught setting fire to a bus full of orphans, nuns, and orphaned nuns, a senior bull MEP will crash through you window and go-
“MORAL EQUIVALENCE POLICE! I REMEMBER WHEN NEWT GINGRICH SAID A MEAN THING IN 1993! DROP YOUR PHONE AND STEP AWAY FROM THE INTERNET!”
The key to dealing with MEPs is to not make any sudden moves. Insult them slowly, and carefully, in a way that their stupid dumb brain can eventually process. Then tell them to come back with a warrant and block them. Trust me, absolutely nothing of value will be lost.
“Trump cut funding to a government department!” (Which, by the way, is part of the Executive Branch, which the President has full authority over according to the Constitution) “Trump is Morally Equivalent To Hitler!!”
I always get a kick out of how I’m told Republicans and Democrats are the same.
Yet for some reason, all the civilizational destroying movements, which are all backed by perverted billionaires, are funding Democrats.
The parties are equally terrible and undeserving of support. American politics has been dominated by principals over principles for the 3 decades I’ve been old enough to vote. Policies are condemned or supported based on the identity or party affiliation of the people in charge instead of being evaluated objectively based on principles of good governance and inalienable rights. Politicians quickly switch sides on an issue and condemn what they previously endorsed or start endorsing what they previously objected to as soon as there is a change in party dominance. This allows for consistent growth in intrusive over reaching government tyranny and the steady erosion of individual rights regardless of which political party is currently in power.
People are going to do people things, and historically that is short-sighted and short-time gains over any long-term view.
Even leaders with vision can either get caught up in the short & easy, or are seceded by someone that blows everything.
Charlemagne comes to mind.
am not a fan of either party. That does not mean I dislike every member of either party. I have a problem handing over my free will by saying “I am (INSERT PARTY NAME HERE) so I will do what ever they say and believe what ever they want me to believe.” Not going to happen. I will research and decide on candidates from what ever party or non party and decide who is the best based on my beliefs. With that said I also will not condemn someone for what they decide. Just because I have a different belief does not mean I will be an ass to people that feel/act/decide different than I do.
^^ THIS ^^
In the same vein, I won’t hand over my free will by saying, “I hate (this or that party or politician) and oppose anything he/she/they stand for” (as many on the Left have done lately regarding Trump).
It’s the same basic problem in both cases; effectively allowing someone else to determine one’s personal moral values. Whether it’s one’s ostensible allies or one’s opponents doesn’t matter, nobody should be setting their virtues or vices by any rubric other than their own.
That said, while the basic problem is the same, opposing everything someone else supports carries an additional problem: it lets your opponent make your moral decisions for you…
… and the opportunities for epic-level trolling are endless.
As a hypothetical example, the Left has openly considered expanding the Supreme Court, so they can pack it with liberal Justices. The Left has also all-but-declared itself to oppose anything Trump stands for.
Now suppose Trump proposes expanding the Supreme Court and packing it with constitutional/conservative Justices. (He doesn’t even have to be serious about it, just mention it in passing on Twitter/X.) But watch the Left fall over themselves making statements about how expanding SCOTUS is the Worst Idea Ever. That should give Right-leaning MEPs something to do: Record those statements and play them back every time one of them talks about expanding SCOTUS ever again.
I’m gonna disrepute your asserverlation there, otherwise Burr and Hamilton would still be drinking buddies.
Just had the idea that could save Hollywood…!
“Jason Statham IS Captain America IN— !”
Just had the idea that could save Hollywood: “Jason Statham IS Captain America IN…”
I though this was going to be about people who police claims of moral equivalence in order to protect the “uniquely evil” status of such things as the Holocaust and the n-word.
Holocaust I can see, just because of how the idiots are claiming that every little thing is just the same as the Holocaust.
The n-word? Nah, it’s just another epithet, except two socio-cultural groups decided to elevate it (or lower it) to a new level and make it a shibboleth. I wager it would have gone the way of a lot of others. When was the last time you heard someone call someone else a “ski” as an insult? (I’ll skip the others, because some filters still flag a few of them even though almost no one knows who they refer to nowadays.)
There can be no pluralism about the importance of pluralism.
(From my USSR childhood in the 90s. And oh boy, still relevant now in Israel and the US.)
BREAKING NEWS! Starbase Texas just voted to incorporate, 173 to 4!
Where are the Aliens from the Four Horsemen Universe?
Texas in that verse, is one of the places that has a “Starport” for the aliens who come and go to a much more primitive earth, usually involving hiring humans for mercenary gigs
I wish the one about the Gurkhas was continued
The one about Liberian Mercenaries trying to help their nation, only to be repeatedly backstabbed or shat upon by their government who wants more bribes and are okay with them leaving because they’re just an extra source of cash for em
Got multiple sequels from what u can tell, over there
I just ignore them. I have better things to do with my time!
I always just lumped these kinds of people under the term ‘Contrarians’. Low functioning mentalities that tended to take the opposite side of a position just because they want to dominate others to make themselves feel superior. Not really capable of critical thought or self reflection. But it also gets used by professional disinformationalists, especially the Leftists, as part of their toolbox of conceptual distortion strategies.
You know, their confuse/deny/evade tactics.
Ever heard of “MidWits”?
It’s sad that academia’s been ruined by them
So, do NOT let school get in the way of your education
A lot of this is due to the culture of Moral Relativism in our current society. It’s easy to find someone on the Other Side that is horrible, then point at them as a comparison to make you look better.
What’s lost is the whole thing about values, virtues, and principles- whether or not someone is actually living up to what they profess to believe.
I think a difference in culture should also be accounted for and a listing of all their positives and negatives
Western and East-Asian cultures have a Guilt Culture and Shame Culture respectively
Yeah, very brutal for the latter, especially when the first one to leave work will be overcriticized as NOT being a “team player” and/or getting super pissed AF at em for NOT joining up for after work drinks when you just want to sleep
But they actually do what they can to maintain an image and legit be clean looking….okay that varies but them thanking their customers for playing and apologizing publicly when caught in a scandal shows a degree of humbleness being expected.
A little harder to summarize Western culture, but I feel there’s a lot less shame, though there still is shaming by the more collectivist knowing or unknowingly. Way less care for appearances and proper behavior for the average person.
Admittedly, I would go for the latter simply in order to avoid over-pressure about “Face”
I know a LOT of people hate DEI, especially with how the Equity part rams in those who don’t actually have the skills for the job
But I have to admit one thing that Lefties unconsciously admit, is that not everybody can work as hard and gain the same or good results….so for the sake of fairness, promote that person regardless of incompetence
It’s not about the money, it’s about the image and ability to feel good about helping someone even if the after effects or side effects are bad from what can be considered nepotism
Even in western cultures, there’s massive differences in how people operate. A Frenchman, an Aussie, and a German will be very different in how they view and react to various group dynamics. The German will be very blunt to the point of insult about an obvious flaw. The Aussie will go ahead and just bring it up as an insult- and throw in a few bonus insults to boot. The Brit will be subtle almost to the point of being non-communicative- and that depends on where he’s from.
I think due to current Western IdPol, there’s now an emphasis on being “safe”
“Safe Spaces”, “Safe Horny” and “Safe Edgy” and being politically correct as possible to the point that those normally “rude” or “blunt” or even polite but likely to slip in insults types
Suddenly freeze and/or do what they can to avoid making any “offense”
It’s why for the British, they’re not resisting their boys all being lumped in as a bunch of future mass murderers
Seriously, they’re using that Netflix show “Adolescence” as a means and justification to crackdown on their young males, instead of actually doing anything regarding their gangsters
It’s all so very simple:
1. Some teenage boys are committing crimes
2. Punish all teenage boys
Well, all the white boys, anyway. The Boys Of Colour are just striking back at their oppressors. By…gang-raping teenage girls. But It’s Their Culture!
Which will have the paradoxical effect of pushing yet more young men into following pseudo-masculine influencers like Tate who push a fake, caricatured version of what being a real man is.
Working to force male children into the culturally preferred mold of simpering, sniveling, cringing, limp little soy boys isn’t how you do it.
Instead, holding up and praising real men with real virtues is- and England is full of real, honest to goodness heroes that aren’t materialistic, self obsessed male Kardashians.
I’ve sometimes thought in terms of Silly Moral Equivalents. If you’ve ever J-walked, then you can’t judge mass murder Pol Pot. Seems to be a continuation of the lunatics’ idea that nobody can judge anybody…unless they think you are judging someone, then they bring down the wrath of their judgement.
All part of life in a Post-Truth culture. If morals are relative, then people turn to themselves as the benchmark of morality. Stuff I like is good, stuff I don’t like is bad.
You doing stuff I don’t like is exactly the same as bad people who do stuff I don’t like. But people I like doing the very exact thing is good, because I like them- they’re just Living Their Truth.
I would also point out that Bob’s failing to live up to his standards does not excuse my failure to live up to mine, just because our political views are different.
If an action is objectively wrong, it doesn’t matter who does it or what their political views are. Wrong is wrong.
Facing the fact that, for instance, using a private jet on a political tour to decry wealthy oligarchs is hard. Throwing out some incident where Musk did a thing is easy, and you don’t have to think about your own ideological shortcomings.
The best lessions I ever learned about these types of critter, I learned from the books of Robert Heinlien. Also the Biblical lession of “COOHMP!” (Come Out Of Her, My People!) , referring to the slavery of Babylon…
Elon Musk isn’t going around ranting about how wealth and power are Eeevul and must be taken from the ‘oligarchs’ by force, while indulging in conspicuous displays of the privileges of wealth and power. Such as private jets and 3 mansions.
AOC is still demanding that we pay off her student loans. Some folks, you send ’em to college and you just wind up with an educated idiot.
And the real issue here is the failure of the Democratic Socialist to live up to the principles they so loudly tout.
Their cope is to either point at someone else ‘more evil’ as a distraction (“lookit over there!! An ebil billionare!!”), or offer some excuse why they are more equal than the other animals and downright deserve the thing they would deny to others.
It’s a general rule that anyone offering the excuse of “Yeah But They Did It/Do It Too!!!” is trying to distract from a moral failure. And it’s an excuse that doesn’t fly- it definitely did not work on my parents.
Those student loans were for useless degrees for a bunch of wannabe elites who ironically are worth way way less than the guys who got skills via other means
And there’s no talking of how useless said degrees and graduates are, alongside stopping new useless degrees from being popped out
Well, one thing we can thank #MeToo and CancelCulture for is for helping in reducing the number of guys attending those places
the guys who got skills via other means
I actually don’t have a problem with STARs — Skilled Through Alternate Routes — especially in the tech sector. (Actually, I have one problem with it: it’s a “new” concept, but it should have been a thing a long time ago.)
If a self-taught guy or girl can code — and code and document well — or builds and maintains top-end-capable gaming computers for him/her self and friends as a hobby (and so understands designs, components, and upgrades), should it matter that they don’t have a degree in IT?
Some businesses say yes, it matters. But I maintain that they are missing out on a TON of capable applicants by limiting themselves exclusively to degreed candidates.
They successfully navigated the hurdles and stumbling blocks put in their way by some college?
From what I’ve been hearing, it’s like the college faculty read Doorways In The Sand and decided modeling their curriculum after Fred Cassidy’s would be a great idea.
@Imaginos1892: More like, they bypassed college but learned the skills most professionals learn in those cesspools, and learned them at an equivalent level of expertise. Sometimes greater expertise.
They know their stuff. They just don’t have the fancy calligraphied paper that says they know their stuff.
I meant the degreed candidates. The products of creeping credentialism.
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Not everybody should go to college. Some folks, you send ’em to college and you just wind up with an educated idiot.
How does AOC still have student loans? She’s making a Congressional salary. It doesn’t matter where she went to school, she could have paid off the loans in the first six months to a year.
And because her Congressional salary is taxpayer-funded, that would be us paying her student loans even if she wrote the check from her own account.
What she’s trying to get is for us to pay her twice: once for salary, again for student loans she could be paying.
(And for those Moral Equivalence Police, I paid off my 10-year-term student loans in under 7 years, because I was liable for it and didn’t want to carry the debt. Before you assume: No, if “student loan forgiveness” ever happens, I will not be reimbursed that money. [Yes, I’ve asked.] And no, that has nothing to do with why I think “student loan forgiveness” is a terrible idea; I think it’s a terrible idea because a student borrower — myself included, back in the day — signs a contract to repay the loans, between themselves and the financiers. Student loan contract terms are a great deal more lenient than most other loans, but it’s still an enforceable contract, and it’s the student borrower’s responsibility to repay the loans, nobody else’s, and certainly not the government/taxpayer’s.)
At this point, I suspect this is a classic “Relatability” grift. Sandy is pretending to be just like all those poors who show up at her rallies who don’t have all the Congressional perks & off the books graft going on for them.
Nothing new about this, really.
Oh, kind of like when Shrillary painfully faked a bad Southern accent, to try and make herself sound “relatable” and not like a New York elite?
😀
“Student loan contract terms are a great deal more lenient than most other loans …”
That used to be true. Not sure it’s true anymore now that student loans aren’t dischargeable in bankruptcy. I haven’t looked at current loan terms, but Sarah Hoyt has kids who went through college recently. And in https://accordingtohoyt.com/2025/04/29/why-yes-revisiting-student-loans-again/ she says “the way interest accumulates on these things and the fact they are non-dischargeable in bankruptcy AGAIN makes them on par with loan shark stuff.” She doesn’t go into detail so I don’t know precisely what she means about the interest, but it appears that things may have changed since I paid off my student loans 20+ years ago. (She does mention, in the comments, that people who take more than 5 years to repay their loans will have already repaid more interest than the principal was in the first place. If she’s right, then those of us who had loans from before about 2012 should look at current loan structures before assuming they’re still the same as our loans were).
Fair point, and times have indeed changed. But I believe you can still infinitely postpone repayment on student loans if you can claim you don’t make enough (which, as interest accrues, actually becomes easier to prove over time). And as long as you’re in contact and negotiating with the financiers, it doesn’t hurt your credit much.
That’s how people getting ready to retire still have outstanding student loans — decades after graduation — yet managed to finance homes and cars their entire adult life. (Yes, I know people who have done this; they make 6 figures per year and are approaching retirement, but still have outstanding student loans.)
Try that with a mortgage or credit card bill and see how far you get.
I don’t buy that. To accrue an interest bill equal to the principal in 5 years would take either 20% simple interest or 15% compound interest. Aren’t student loans in the 5% – 8% range? That would take 10-12 years to double. Much longer for all of them, if you’re making payments.
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There are forms of stupidity that businesses can’t indulge in. There are no such limitations on the stupidity of government.
@Imaginos1892: And some student loans have their interest subsidized by the government until the student finishes school and the loans go into repayment. From the borrower’s point of view, the principal remains unchanged until they start paying.
Unless the student defers payment for a REALLY LONG time, those probably won’t ever double.
WorldConNews! Battleswarmblog.com goes bot!
Warhammer 40K going on lawsuit binge. Apparently blindly launched mass lawsuit going after any site or game that uses the word Warhammer, regardless of context… majority of defendants pursued even for use of word with no relevant connection to other games.
Okay, I think this explains why FlashGitz hasn’t made a new video in nearly 5 months
Praise Be To Space King!
Wizards of the Coast to rename the D&D melee weapon that does 1d4 of Bludgeoning damage, the “battle-hammer”.
Alternatively, Wizards of the Coast to file a counter-suit for malicious stupidity; the “warhammer” is a historical weapon predating the “Warhammer 40K” game by hundreds of years — they can’t simply copyright the word “Warhammer” absent the “40K”, any more than WotC can copyright and sue anyone who uses the words “wizard” or “coast” independently.
Not any stupider than MicroShaft trying to patent ‘Windows’ though…
The combination of greed and corporate/bureaucratic stupidity never fails to burn my tookus.
It’s a thing that only the Brightest Minds with the Right Degrees from the Best Schools could come up with.
Or some kook with a poorly written book series trying to lawfare themselves into success for that matter.
One would think the former wouldn’t be as stupid as the latter, but that’s people for you.
My first “real” job was with a company, one of whose flagship products was named a normal word with a lowercase ‘i’ in front of it. (I won’t name the company or product, for privacy purposes.)
The company got sued by Apple, after Apple started releasing iMacs, iPods, iPhones, and iPads.
After way too much legal wrangling, the lawsuit got tossed to the curb because my company could point to the thoroughly-documented facts that: 1. The two companies operate in entirely different industries; 2. Our ‘i’ isn’t just a cute brand name, it refers to a key functional component within the product; and 3. Our ‘i’ product was on the market approximately a decade before Apple’s first ‘i’ product.
But that doesn’t lessen the stupidity that a Big Tech company like Apple essentially tried to retroactively enforce intellectual property rights on the letter ‘i’.
ISTR that Apple Computers got some flak starting out from the Beatles, because the Beatles’ trademark was an apple. And TSR (the original D&D publishers) wanted to trademark a lot of common-use words because they were used in D&D.
I usually just thank them for a textbook example of the Invalid Argument labeled, “Pointing to another wrong”
Y’all know what is truly frustrating about the Interwebz is that these products of unmarried parents show up to hijack a previously adult discussion and you can’t shoot em.