Talk politics.

Next up: the opposition parties in Turkey become history, and Erdogan's party wins the next election by 97%. Then Erdogan is declared Supreme Leader for life. Sound familiar?

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No, not at all. I'm hearing it for the first time. Our media don't report on such things. Especially when they're being done by our pals. We're not supposed to discuss this.

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Well, it's evil opposition anyway. Good riddance, and all.

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Yeah, dear powdered Brussels poodles. Keep being "deeply concerned" and keep "closely monitoring" the situation.

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peamasii.livejournal.com

Zaman Media = conservative religious fundamentalists who are looking for a coup d-etat. Good riddance.

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Erdogan = Power-hungry neo-Ottomanist wannabe-sultan who's looking to become for-life Dear Leader and surround himself with servile cronies while fucking up all his neighbors. Gotta love him for shutting out the mouthpiece of religious fundamentalists, eh?

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Zaman was quite outspoken in their comments about Erdogan - which is easy to predict, having in mind who controls the newspaper. Well, I guess that ends that. Hurriyet was the other newspaper that showed at least a little anti-Erdogan bias, but it had its offices conveniently burned a little bit during the recent anti-Kurd pogroms. Erdogan was close friends with Gülen at some point, but since he's not exactly known for his loyalty (just ask Israel, Assad, Putin, etc), this development is hardly a surprise.

As for the fundamentalist media, sure it was. When we're discussing such things the question we should be asking ourselves is, do we cheer at free speech being stomped upon when it happens to people we do not sympathise with, or does free speech actually mean something to us.

Edited Date: 7/3/16 18:58 (UTC)

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How does a newspaper inspire a coup d'etat in a country where the president holds all power in a firm grip, all his political rivals are now political corpses and have ended up in jail, and where the previously primary source of coup d'etats, namely the military, has been turned into an obedient puppy to the president? I'd really like to know how Erdogan's actions are not a blatant over-reaction.

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ddstory.livejournal.com

Oh, look. Erdogan is starting to show his true face (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f4247e08-e44e-11e5-a09b-1f8b0d268c39.html#axzz42F8fH0e6). He's got some last-minute ~~demands~~, er, ideas, as he calls them.

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It was the same people that were bewailing the fact that Turkey was not being allowed into the EU. Episodes like this one definitely do not help make their case.

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But Poland and Hungary and France are free to suspend civil liberties on a whim and that is what the EU wants? OK.

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Yeah, I heard ya the first 12498 times you repeated that.

France is suspending civil liberties? Oookaaay.

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It has and it's codified it into its constitution. When Americans do this to our own suspected terrorists, that's what it's called when we do it. La Belle France doesn't get a pass on it either.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/10/french-mps-to-vote-on-controversial-changes-to-constitution

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The French Constitution is one of the most liberal in the world. The US one could only learn from it in that regard. Stripping convicted terrorists of citizenship does not place it anywhere near Turkey's or Russia's authoritarianism. No matter how desperately you want to prove otherwise, it doesn't place Russia or Turkey anywhere near France in terms of democracy, either.

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Sure, after the French kept killing and butchering people and came this close to an outright military coup over the failure of their empire in Algeria and their grand vision to exterminate the Arabs there to Frenchify the place. Is America to adopt the role model of Vichy, or the Paris Commune, or Robespierre lopping off heads at tens of thousands as a first resort?

I forget, establishing ethnic standards of citizenship is only evil when backwards Middle Eastern brown skinned people do it. White Europeans doing this has never been problematic at any point.

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Do you ever have a reference that's not at least 50 years separated from the present time?

You're on a roll again, aren't you. Now you're going to say a few things to a few people that you're later going to apologize about. So I suggest we skip that part.

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"But look! They do that too over there!" sounds like a rather lame argument in support of Turkey's accession to the EU. "Sure, our bad, turns out 've got some guys who do bad things too. Sorry, you're welcome to keep doing your own bad things, and more. Oh, by the way, welcome aboard!"

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Well, hell, I am from the United States. Our only standard for admitting people into the USA is invading places or organizing coup d'etats that ask for admission.

But it is a bit late to lock the barn door after the horse was stolen and to only discover standards matter when Muslims do it.

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There goes your high horse, then. It ran away straight through the unlocked barn door.

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I don't like riding high horses, I tend to fall off of them pretty easily. I do, however, enjoy goring the sacred cows of Americans and Europeans alike because if I'm happy to call my own subculture within the USA (white Anglo-Saxon Southerners) a bunch of savage barbarians who deserve some democracy, Iraqi-style with perfect sincerity, why am I going to be kinder to cultures that aren't mine if I sincerely think some large-scale bombing as a means to urban renewal would greatly improve the South?

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You keep goring horses, then.

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Yes, and because I'm extremely crude about my own people, very sincerely so, I'm mistaken enough to think it's not offensive to say this about other cultures because I say it about mine. It's several years to late to see that but I finally figured it out. Ah, well. Can't undo the past, only try to make the present and the future better.

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As long as France is free to redesign its constitution down autocratic lines and Hungary and Poland are free to suspend civil rights at will without the EU even pretending to give a shit, all this whining about Turkey just smacks of "How dare these people with an active terrorist movement blowing up babies react with predictable means for people in such situations! We totally care about people who suspend freedom of speech as long as they're Muslim and not in the EU so we can't actually do anything about it."

As opposed to showing their standards on human rights and civil rights mean something by enforcing them with actual EU states. Oh, right, Brussels makes states vote on what it wants until they change no to yes. Silly me, if it's that undemocratic with what Brussels wants, why should it pretend to give a shit about being something it's not?

Edited Date: 8/3/16 04:45 (UTC)

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I've responded in your post. Don't want to waste too much time responding to what is a very one-sided standpoint anyway.

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I'm surprised you even responded what with your statement that you wouldn't talk to or respond to anything I wrote. If I had a dime for every time some butthurt fellow on the Internet made such a statement and failed to follow through...I'd own Livejournal, LOL.

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Well, you do stay classy.

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You called me out in a post and expected me not to point out you point blank said "I refuse to talk to you anymore"? If you make it easy for me, don't complain about my giving an easy response back.

But sure, I apologize for pointing out exactly what you said and your not only refusing to do it but going so far as to directly call me out. When I've done that, I've been called out on it by moderators (albeit to be fair I was actually calling out the moderators by names so they had ever right to do it). I apologize as well for expecting people to mean things when they say them and figuring if they don't I have a right to note that they don't bother with following through statements.

And frankly, yes, I am a bit more dickish lately and for that I apologize in general.

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Stop apologizing. It gets lame after the 3rd time. Just use your brain before speaking the next time.

Edited Date: 11/3/16 07:22 (UTC)

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Doubling down already? Fuck that shit. I'm locking this whole thing.

Edited Date: 11/3/16 07:23 (UTC)

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Note: If you don't want to be trolled, do not troll, yourself.

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Fair enough, the next time someone says "I refuse to talk to you anymore or acknowledge your existence" and fails to follow through with it, I'll simply ignore them. I should have learned this lesson back when Gunslnger said that and promptly proceeded to get after me even when I didn't actually goad him on, which to my shame i did as often as he did to me.

But I've never pretended to be a good or especially noble person in the first place.

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No you won't. We both know that. You'll do the exact same thing, and this time I won't just be giving you mild advices.

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Indeed, it is responses like these that only reinforce the creeping impression that you're not one worth wasting time talking with.

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I understand that I really screwed the pooch with what I said to you and how I said it. I will not make any bones about that.

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I would've said a few things to you right now, even risking serving time off, but I don't think I care that much at this point. Not worth the time and nerve waste.

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If I had a dime every time you vowed to behave like an adult "from now on", well... I'd be Donald Trump by now. At least.

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I admit it freely that I'm a person who can act very badly and boorishly a lot of the time. That's why I've made several posts in the Mod thread admitting I'm fully aware of my own faults and asking for ways to solve problems instead of letting them fester and add an additional aggravation not needed. I'm not going to pretend I've been acting like anything but a boor and that it's all people doing stuff to me. I behave badly, actually enjoy it at the time, and regret it later and fail to see that a pattern like this does alienate people.

Speaks poorly of my judgment, even moreso to do so noticing a pattern and not effectively being able to stop it. But there it is. I admit freely that my judgment is poor and I act badly and crudely too much lately, and I don't like doing it and am willing to do whatever it takes to smooth things over and not lead to more sniping at people in posts, which is a stupid waste of time.

Internet drama's a waste of time that could be avoided by forthrightly solving problems. I'm willing to do that if Dreamville, Luz, and the other people I've acted like a jackass toward are. And I again take full responsibility for my actions and won't say anything about anyone else motivating them. It was me, and I am sorry for that.

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This thread isn't about you.

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Why is anyone surprised? The deal was that Turkey would hold back the migrants and the West would ignore Mr. Erdogan's growing authoritarianism. Both sides seem to be holding up their ends of the bargain.

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And Erdogan is making further demands, and Europe is making further concessions. How's that proper business?

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It's Danegelt, and it's older than capitalism. Hell, Danegelt is older than Danegelt.

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Danegeld.

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Either (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Danegelt) seems to work. I went for the one further away from the modern pronunciation to make it sound more Olde Englishy.

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The point is, it's not really bargaining if one side constantly moves the goalposts.

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ddstory.livejournal.com

Reminds me of GOP's "bipartisan" efforts regarding any of Obama's policies. ;)

Come meet us in the middle! Oh, the middle has moved again? Whoopsie!

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Putting ultimatums is not bargaining. It's blackmail.

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It's a specific type of blackmail called foreign policy. It's just unusual that the world's leading economic block and the only superpower are on the side that are losing to the czar of a country in decline and a wannabe autocrat. Until the West can figure out a workable strategy, this is what we're going to see.

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Of course. The EU has no one to blame but themselves, since they completely missed their chances to prepare themselves for this situation.

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