Then start it.

This whole time all you’ve been doing is posturing. You keep talking about the idea of specifics without actually talking about them. You’re trying to pass yourself off as the mature, rational authority and “adult in the room” but you can’t actually back any of it up with evidence.

From the start, you did that power play of interrogating me with random questions to test whether I was “qualified” to your satisfaction to have a discussion. Had I just gone along with it, you would’ve tricked me into acknowledging you as an authority. Now, you’re just trying to act as an authority anyway. I have no interest in that kind of bullshit, you don’t get to pretend to have made a point by playing around with social dynamics, without ever actually making one.

The fact that you’re playing these games tells me that you can’t actually back up anything you’re saying.

You’re the one who brought up student loan forgiveness as something that differentiates the democrats. Personally, I wouldn’t go around bragging about something they failed to deliver on.

I have made my point to my satisfaction. You can go off about whatever vague excuses you want. What I see is that they delivered on loan forgiveness to business owners and investors (and themselves) but not to students. You’ve yet to offer any sort of actual explanation or excuse beyond talking vaguely about how “legislation is hard.”

You wanna talk about the specifics of the legislation, go for it, I’m game. But it’s not my job to bring up excuses for the people I’m criticizing, it’s yours.

The Republicans have been more successful in pursuing their policy agenda and moving discourse to the right in part because of their stubbornness and intransigence. Democrats are always the ones that move further and further right to meet the Republicans where they’re at, and because the Republicans know they’ll do it, they keep moving right themselves. So we reach a point where the party that passes as “left” in this country is actively trying to pass tighter restrictions on immigration, is championing our outrageous military spending and arming a genocide, and is bragging about increasing gas production while placing tariffs on EVs. The strategy of the Republican base of playing hardball and laying down strict red lines on things like abortion or gun control has proven more effective than the strategy of the Democratic base of “lesser-evilism.”

Granted, part of it is that the stuff the Republicans want is generally not directly opposed to corporate interests, so their politicians can give in to their base without upsetting their donors. Democrats have to play a game of not disrupting the profits of their donors while trying to appease the base.

I agree that relief was needed, but PPP loans were basically handouts to people who were already well off. Should’ve just been another stimulus check.

Thank you for asking a question that’s directly relevant and not just some bullshit “test of knowledge.”

I’d like to remind you once again that my “vague talking point repeated all the time with no substance,” was made by the White House.

As for “how, why, and when student loans can be discharged,” those things are all determined by laws passed by Congress. Such as the law Biden voted for which made student loans ineligible for forgiveness through bankruptcy.

Apart from having been a member of Congress for decades and actively making the problem worse, you probably intend to roll out the talking point that the smol bean most powerful man on earth is part of the executive branch and thus has no control over legislation other than the veto. I recall this was one of your “test” questions from earlier. What this neglects is that the president is influential within the party and can and does frequently work with the legislature on bills. There’s a reason why we call it “Obamacare,” even though Obama didn’t formally vote on it because he wasn’t a member of Congress.

What did the democrats get in exchange for PPP loan forgiveness? Maybe they should’ve negotiated harder to include changes to how student loans work as part of that deal. But then, many Democrats as well as Republicans had PPP loans that got forgiven, so I suppose they got something out of the deal.

I can’t believe you actually did it 🤣 You really couldn’t admit that both of our questions were unfair, huh?

PPP loans were loans given out in response to COVID that were intended to help prevent small businesses survive. In reality, they were handed out left and right with little oversight.

They were part of the CARES Act passed under the Trump administration.

They’re not related to student loans except insofar as they’re both government loans (though student loans are generally managed through third parties). The White House seemed to think it was a fair comparison, though.

There were several different pieces of legislation regarding student loans, so you’ll have to be more specific about which effort you’re talking about.

It’s now 4 AM and while I may make questionable choices regarding my sleep schedule and internet arguments, I do need to get some sleep.

If you have any further questions, then be prepared to answer more of mine in exchange.

I didn’t ask you to give me a list of logical fallacies, I asked you to explain the difference between peepee and poopoo. Why wouldn’t you do that unless you just don’t know the answer? Care to explain?

You spent more time arguing why you should argue than simplify answering the question. Because of course, you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Right back at you.

Remember what I said: diapers.

If asking you to explain a simple fundamental thing for you is too overwhelming then too bad. I’m not arguing quantum physics with someone that can’t do arithmetic.

And I’m asking you to explain a much simpler, much more fundamental thing, and you can’t. I strongly recommend investing in some diapers.

Im glad I didn’t waste any more time going down a rabbit hole only to learn later you are out of your depth.

Lol you filtered me out because I showed I wasn’t going to put up with your bullshit, bad faith tactics. You won’t submit to my test of knowledge so I won’t submit to yours. I of course understand what the president’s role is and isn’t when it comes to legislation, just as you (presumably) know the answer to my question, but I’m not going to play your game for the exact same reasons you won’t play mine. Because one side doesn’t just get to dictate all the terms of debate.

Still doesn’t change the facts of the matter, which are that everything I said is correct.

Where is Mokba? It’s 2:30 AM here in Illinois.

I can’t believe you don’t even understand the difference between peepee and poopoo. They literally teach this stuff to preschoolers.

I will, but first I need you to explain something to me to prove that you’re qualified to have a conversation with me. Explain the difference between peepee and poopoo. Otherwise it will prove you don’t know the difference, this conversation will be over, and I will declare victory.

Wow, I just want to say you’re operating so clearly in good faith that I don’t know which of your good faith behaviors to praise first.

As I already pointed out, you spewed out a bunch of low effort bullshit that would take much more effort to refute, which is again, a textbook example of a gish gallop. You then demanded to control the terms of the debate by subjecting me to some sort of test of knowledge which I obviously refused to engage in, since that’s a ridiculous thing to do. Then, you took a word from the definition of gish gallop and completely removed it of context, and accused me of saying I was “overwhelmed” by your test of knowledge, which I never said. You then interpreted my refusal to engage with your terms as an admission of ignorance. So that’s at least four points of bad faith, just right off the bat.

You don’t get to randomly subject me to tests any more than I get to randomly subject you to tests. That’s not how conversation or debate works. If you’re afraid of engaging me on even terms and want to pull a bunch of bullshit, you do you, but it doesn’t change the reality of the situation, which are the things I pointed out.

I understand how American policy is formed well enough to know that policy statements on the campaign trail rarely actually manifest into anything. But here’s her statement from the campaign website, just for you:

Yes, congratulations, that is what the term means. And that’s exactly what you’re doing. You post a whole bunch of one line comments and expect anyone who challenges them to write up a whole effortpost on each. The amount of effort it takes to just spew a bunch of bullshit is much less than the amount of effort required to refute each point of bullshit.

I’ve rarely seen such a textbook example of a gish gallop.

Do I really need to? Because increasing gas production is not a good thing for the climate, and bragging about doing something that’s damaging the climate seems like a pretty clear indication that you’re not really committed to addressing climate change. The fact that she says whatever nice words about it doesn’t matter, talk is cheap.

But her whole statement is here

“Alleviating” doing a lot of work here. They forgave PPP loans (which went mostly to the wealthy) but didn’t forgive student loans like they said they would. Biden also helped create the problem in the first place by arbitrarily making making such loans ineligible for bankruptcy forgiveness

Kamala literally bragged about increasing gas production to an all time high, yes.

This thread has made me realize that while I was watching the hearings on it purely for comedy aspect, there were actually people out there being like, “Yeah that makes sense.”

Love it when the government takes away our stuff. Please, take away more of our stuff. Love me that security theater.

If you don’t like the app, just don’t use it. Nationalism is a hell of a drug.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with data security and everything to do with other social media companies lobbying to eliminate a competitor, using anti-China sentiment and fear-mongering as a justification. It’s all about the money.

This is such a condescending form of analysis that totally misses the mark. It’s basically just, “Trump was bad, but some people still like him. Why? Must be because they’re just too dumb to remember things.” There’s no actual evidence that people have forgotten any of the stuff they mention, it’s purely just that.

To attribute the issue to memory would imply that there was widespread agreement while he was in office that he was bad, which has faded over time. But Trump’s approval rating for most of his time in office hovered around 40%, similar to Biden’s. So what’s actually happening is not that people were on the same page about Trump being bad when the events of his presidency were fresh in their minds, but rather, that his supporters never agreed with/cared about the things the article is saying in the first place. Framing it around memory is nonsense.

I’m gonna have to admit to stealing that line from Dimension 20