Friday, November 27, 2020

My Reply To A University Of Toronto Conspiracist Friend Who Is Convinced That Alleged "Evidence" Of Voting Machine Fraud Proves Joe Biden Stole The Presidency

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Dear Ron,

Here is how my own epistemological integrity obliges me to interpret the video you sent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cI9JJaEmkSQ 

There is only one alleged "fact" (technically "hearsay") on which "your" entire argument concerning "Dominion malfeasance" is based.

That "Fact," (as described by Joe Oltmann, a self-professed infiltrator of an Antifa chat group), goes like this. 

Oltmann: "Somebody interrupts, 'What are we going to do if Trump wins?' I'm paraphrasing this. So I didn't write down word-for-word what he said. But Eric (Coomer, an employee of "Dominion Voting Systems" who apparently took part in this unrecorded conversation) responds: 'Don't worry about the election. Trump's not going to win. I made fucking sure of that.'" 

Ron, I don't just believe in "the rules of evidence." I revere them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_(law)#:~:text=The%20law%20of%20evidence%2C%20also,fact%20in%20reaching%20its%20decision.

Please note well. 

I only believe in actionable, indictable evidence that would be deemed worthy of admission in an American court of law. 

I do not believe in supposed "evidence" that does not qualify as actionable or indictable.

Yes, mistakes are made. 

Evidence is sometimes improperly evaluated.

But as a system, American jurisprudence is pretty damn good. 

Unlike many right-wingers, I do not deceive myself with the seductive allure of "perfectionism." https://newsfrombarbaria.blogspot.com/2020/09/savonarola-and-pending-apocalypse-of.html
 
"The terrible thing about our time is precisely the ease with which theories can be put into practice.  The more perfect, the more idealistic the theories, the more dreadful is their realization.  We are at last beginning to rediscover what perhaps men knew better in very ancient times, in primitive times before utopias were thought of: that liberty is bound up with imperfection, and that limitations, imperfections, errors are not only unavoidable but also salutary. The best is not the ideal.  Where what is theoretically best is imposed on everyone as the norm, then there is no longer any room even to be good.  The best, imposed as a norm, becomes evil.”  
"Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander,” by Trappist monk, Father Thomas Merton

Furthermore, the phone call that is discussed in the Oltmann video does not come close to clearing any "evidentiary bar" that my head, heart and intuition can respect. 

Although there is no admissible proof -- one way or the other -- that Eric Coomer said what Joe Oltmann alleges, I cannot deny, with any certainty, that Oltmann gave an accurate account of a conversation he claims to have had; a conversation which allegedly included one "Eric Coomer," a man who was not identified by name during the conversation itself, and - notably - a man Oltmann had never even heard of, and is therefore unable to identify.

In any event, the alleged conversation does not qualify as trustworthy, actionable evidence.

Rumors, innuendo, bravado, brazen lies, "what-about-ism" and "lots-of-people-are-telling-me" characterize the pelagic bogosity of Trump and his cultists, whose deliberate deception - if  not frank falsehoods - are wretch-worthy.

Later in the broadcast, when Metaxas uses Oltmann's hearsay evidence to declare: "This is satanic evil," my shitometer (which is damn good) says Metaxas is so full of shit his back teeth are turning brown. Then, consistent with his silly, misguided, whiny nature, Metaxas falsely declares "We all know Snopes is kind of a joke at this point... They're left wing and you can't really take them very seriously."

I want to be clear on this point.

I routinely cross the aisle, calling every issue as I see it. But my instincts and my consciously-chosen political philosophy is fundamentally left-wing because - ultimately - "the heart leans to the left."

On the other hand, Trump's "heart" -- and the "hearts" of his "cultists" -- lean toward cruelty, an affliction that typically besets "The Saved," stunted, narrow-minded, self-righteous, vindictive ideologues ever eager to fling "the damned" into "The Unquenchable Lake Of Fire."

"More Of Trump's Cruelty"

I acknowledge that all humans - and all human institutions - are fallible, but I do not go down the road of impossible "perfectionism" as "The Saved" do.

Religion, Perfectionism, Savonarola and The Pending Apocalypse of The Republican Party (This Post Was Written In 2012)

What I see writ large across the face of American politics is that contemporary American right wingers - particularly QAnoners and "Christian" "conservatives" - have fallen into a psycho-epistemological trap that demands their allegiance to falsehood because it will be exceedingly difficult for them to "back out" of the tenuous (but sticky) web they've spun for themselves. And were they to attempt an escape from the trap they've set for themselves, they would elicit earth-shaking identity crises. 

I see such identity crises bringing about psychotic lapses and right-wing militia violence as tens of millions of cosmically-shaken people attempt to "crater everything" and "start all over" by evoking a new Dark Age.

In my view, one cannot be as fallaciously wrong as these accomplished liars and not NEED to "prolong the lie" as the only alternative to their world falling apart.

Image result for "pax on both houses" Bertrand Russell  
It is an inconvenient truth that 70 million "Americans" would rather eat shit than embrace factuality and authentic thought .

If these absolutists (of one stripe or another) let Truth in, their world will fall apart.

And along with that headlong collapse, their make-believe identity evaporates.


Note Well: There is no (perceived) threat greater than "losing one's religion."

And the loss of one's conservative, authoritarian, absolutist and (typically) punitive "religion" is a prospect worse than death.

Many of these authoritarian absolutists - perhaps most - would rather die than engage the broad lineaments of Truth.

Pax on both houses: Tyranny's Best Kept Secret: It's ALL About ...

Here's how "far gone" we are:

During my 1950s' childhood, any "weirdo-relative" living in an in-law apartment would have become a candidate for "insane asylum committal" as soon as s/he started spewing the kind of lunatic ideation that consumes Trump Cult, a coven of crazies who subscribe to QAnon, a new secular religion with its own messiah (i.e., Donald Trump) and its own resurrection (i.e., John Kennedy Jr. is not dead). 

And that's just the beginning.

Tom Hanks, Oprah Winfrey and Hillary Clinton are members of a vast Hollywood (and Democratic Party) cabal which operates a massive sex slave trade that also kills children to cannibalize them in Satanic blood rituals.

If you've got the stomach, you can learn more about this epochal normalization-of-insanity at: 

Image result for "Pax on both houses" big lie

Image result for "pax on both houses", sagan 
Let me detail the epistemological rot with the following illustration. 

Yesterday, Trump gave a 63 second-long press conference, and in that presser he told two lies.

Do you hear what I'm saying? 

Suckhole sludge-mouth actually told two provable lies in sixty three seconds: https://news.yahoo.com/trump-unexpectedly-held-63-second-180600141.html

Lie #1 was Trump's assertion that 30,000 is a "sacred number" when, in fact, that number is entirely -- quintessentially -- secular.

Lie #2 was Trump's assertion that reaching 30,000 is a milestone "nobody thought they would ever see."

In fact, EVERYONE witha single functioning synapse knew that reaching 30,000 was an inevitability.

These may not be Big Lies, but - in addition to revealing Trump's profoundly twisted sense of the sacred - they also represent Trump's uncontainable passion for falsehood. 

As I often say: "Trump is the only human being who could 'put on a clinic' for Satan... and make Lucifer pay to attend."

How Lying To Ourselves Leads To Political And Psycho-Social Catastrophe
https://newsfrombarbaria.blogspot.com/2020/11/how-lying-to-ourselves-leads-to.html

Exactly 3 Years Into His Presidency, Trump Had Lied To The American People 16,241 Times There Are Not That Many Visible Stars On A Perfectly | made w/ Imgflip meme maker  

Kimmel Illustrates All 3 Years of President Trump’s 16,241 Lies: "More Lies Than Visible Stars"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2020/01/jimmy-kimmel-illustrates-three-years-of.html

"Trump Is A Traitor By Virtue Of Normalizing Falsehood And Teaching Americans To Do The Same"

"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature." George Bernard Shaw | made w/ Imgflip meme maker

The interminable torrent of sludge that circulates among American conservatives-and-conspiracists is breath-taking.

There has never been anything like it.

It is a "new thing under the sun."

Image result for "pax on both houses", hey, conservative christians  
In 2016, iconic conservative pundit, P.J. O'Rourke hit the nail on the head:

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"She's wrong about absolutely everything, but..."

Reason Magazine: "Don't Buy The Debunked Dominion Voting Machine Conspiracy Theory"

Trump's campaign officials and attorneys are peddling this nonsense with help from credulous Fox News hosts, but their theories don't stand up to scrutiny.

 https://reason.com/2020/11/16/dont-buy-the-debunked-dominion-voting-machine-conspiracy-theory/

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Concerning the photographic evidence that conspiracists value so highly, please examine the image that appears when you click on the following link, and then be sure to scroll to the bottom of that webpage:

Artificial Intelligence Makes Photographic And Videographic Evidence Untrustworthy Forevermore

If you are interested in getting out of the epistemological/evidentiary jam that we are all in, I encourage you to check out the following link: 

You Can Now Buy A "Fake Person" -- A Person You Would Swear-To-God Is Real


Dominion Voting Systems
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_Voting_Systems
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Dominion Voting Systems Corporation
Dominion Voting Systems logo.svg
Private
IndustryElectronic voting hardware
Founded2002; 18 years ago
Founders
  • James Hoover
  • John Poulos
Headquarters
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Denver, Colorado, US
OwnerManagement
Staple Street Capital
Subsidiaries
Websitedominionvoting.com

Dominion Voting Systems Corporation is a company that sells electronic voting hardware and software, including voting machines and tabulators, in the United States and Canada.[1] The company's headquarters are in Toronto, Ontario, and Denver, Colorado.[2] It develops software in-house in offices in the United States, Canada, and Serbia.[3]

Dominion offers two main types of technology related to voting. First, machines that directly receive and process votes, or touchscreen devices,[4] which voters directly use to vote. Second, the tabulation of paper ballots cast by non-electronic means—for example, absentee ballots—via optical scan[5] voting systems.

While Dominion voting machines have been utilized in countries around the world, its two main clients are Canada and the United States. 

While Dominion voting machines have been utilized in countries around the world, its two main clients are Canada and the United States. Dominion systems are employed in Canada's major party leadership elections, including those of the Liberal Party of Canada, the Conservative Party of Canada, and the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario; and they are also used across the nation in local and municipal elections. In regards to the United States, Dominion products have been increasingly utilized in recent years. The company drew extensive attention during the United States presidential election of 2020, when devices manufactured by Dominion were used to process votes in twenty-eight states, including the swing states of Wisconsin and Georgia,.[6]

After President Donald Trump was defeated by President-elect Joe Biden in the 2020 election, Trump and various surrogates promoted conspiracy theories about Dominion, alleging that the company was part of an international cabal to steal the election from Trump, and that it used its voting machines to transfer millions of votes from Trump to Biden.[7][8][9] There is no evidence supporting these claims, which have been debunked by various groups including election technology experts, government and voting industry officials, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).[7][8][9] These conspiracy theories were further discredited by a hand recount of the ballots cast in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia; the hand recount found that Dominion voting machines had accurately tabulated votes, that any error in the initial tabulation was human error, and that Biden had defeated Trump in the battleground state.[10]

Operations

United States

Dominion is the second-largest seller of voting machines in the United States.[23] In 2016, its machines served 70 million voters in 1,600 jurisdictions.[24] In 2019, the state of Georgia selected Dominion Voting Systems to provide its new statewide voting system beginning in 2020.[25]

In total, 28 states used Dominion voting machines to tabulate their votes during the 2020 United States presidential election, including most of the swing states.[26] Dominion's role in this regard led supporters of President Donald Trump to promote conspiracy theory's about the company's voting machines, following Trump's defeat to Joe Biden in the election.

2020 election controversy

Following the 2020 United States presidential election, Donald Trump and some other right-wing personalities amplified the hoax originated by the proponents of the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory that Dominion Voting Systems had been compromised, resulting in millions of votes intended for Trump either being deleted or going to rival Joe Biden.[8][9][7] Trump was citing the pro-Trump OANN media outlet, which itself claimed to cite a report from Edison Research, an election monitoring group.[27] Edison Research said that they did not write such a report, and that they "have no evidence of any voter fraud."[27]

Trump and others also made unsubstantiated claims that Dominion had close ties to the Clinton family or other Democrats.[28] There is no evidence for any of these claims, which have been debunked by various groups including election technology experts, government and voting industry officials, and CISA.[7][9] On November 12, 2020, CISA released a statement that confirmed "there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes or was in any way compromised." The statement was signed by various government and voting industry officials including the presidents of the National Association of State Election Directors and the National Association of Secretaries of State.[9]

Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani made several false assertions about Dominion, including that its voting machines used software developed by a competitor, Smartmatic, which he claimed actually owned Dominion, and which he said was founded by the former socialist Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez. Giuliani also falsely asserted that Dominion voting machines sent their voting data to Smartmatic at foreign locations and that it is a "radical-left" company with connections to antifa.[29][30]

In a related hoax, Dennis Montgomery, a software designer with a history of making dubious claims,[31] asserted that a government supercomputer program was used to switch votes from Trump to Biden on voting machines.[31] Trump attorney Sidney Powell promoted the allegations on Lou Dobbs's Fox Business program two days after the election, and again two days later on Maria Bartiromo's program, claiming to have "evidence that that is exactly what happened." Christopher Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, characterized the claim as "nonsense" and a "hoax."[31][32] Asserting that Krebs's analysis was "highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud," Trump fired him by tweet days later.[33]

Powell also asserted she had an affidavit from a former Venezuelan military official, a portion of which she posted on Twitter without a name or signature, who asserted that Dominion voting machines would print a paper ballot showing who a voter had selected, but change the vote inside the machine. Apparently speaking about the ICE machine, one source responded that this was incorrect, and that Dominion voting machines are only a "ballot marking device" system in which the voter deposits their printed ballot into a box for counting.[34]

*****
Alan: Here is my bottom line.

Ultimately, conspiracism works to the advantage of right-wing autocratic regimes like the one Donald Trump has done his damnedest to embody.

Except for Trump's criticism of the Iraq War, I see this malignant, malevolent, corrupt and corrupting man as an embodiment of distilled evil. 

To be clear, I define evil as "taking pleasure in destruction for destruction's sake." 

And although I realize that, from time to time, conspiracies are real, in the main "orthodox conspiracism," always eager to extrude another conspiracist theory whenever right-wing political aspiration is contradicted by reality, almost all alleged conspiracies are attempts to bolster identities of people who feel themselves (and their core values) threatened by the intrusion of reality. 

And so, with no concern for the rules of evidence, every adverse, unwanted datum -- every fact that represents an "inconvenient truth" -- is discarded as "fake news," or whole-cloth falsehood. 

However, there is one conspiracy - an exceptionally persistent conspiracy - that is real. And it has a pedigree at least as old as monarchy.

"The Original And Enduring Conspiracy: It's About Keeping The Filthy Rich, Filthy Rich"


"The Rich Plunder The Poor, Then Pile The Blame On The Dispossessed" | The Rich Plunder The Poor Then Pile The Blame On The Dispossessed | image tagged in plutocracy,divide and conquer,fat cats,filthy rich,ungodly rich,the one percent | made w/ Imgflip meme maker

Trump is a porcine vulgarian, a misogynist, a racist and a plutocrat - a pathological lying cheat of whom it is just slightly hyperbolic to say: "He only tells the truth by accident."


Trump tells tens of thousands of lies because he doesn't know what truth is. 

And how could he? 

Trump is an essentially uneducated dolt who doesn't read and who teaches others to be contemptuous of science and learning.

"Trump Is A Traitor By Virtue Of Normalizing Falsehood, And Teaching Americans To Do The Same"


"How sad it must be for Trump supporters to believe that scientists, scholars, teachers and journalists have devoted their entire lives to | made w/ Imgflip meme maker
The Death Of Epistemology: Update

There are two ways of lying, as there are two ways of deceiving customers. If the scale registers 15 ounces, you can say: "It's a pound." Your lie will remain relative to an invariable measure of the true. If customers check it, they can see that they are being robbed, and you know by how much you are robbing them: a truth remains as a judge between you. But if the demon induces you to tamper with the scale itself, it is the criterion of the true which is denatured, there is no longer any possible control. And little by little you will forget that you are cheating. 

"People See Through You"
("You've been lying so long, you don't know what's real. You're a figment of your own imagination, and people see through you.)
Bruce Cockburn


Image result for "pax on both houses", conspiracy 
I leave you with this.

Adamant conspiracists have sold their freedom for a mess of pottage.

They cannot -- in any meaningful way -- deviate from conspiracist orthodoxy.

When a gun-toting domestic terrorist killed 26 people in a Texas church (simultaneously wounding 20 others), my conspiracist friend, "The Thinking Housewife," immediately regurgitated the laundry list of online conspiracy theories, supposedly proving that the alleged carnage was a false flag attack just as "The Thinking Housewife" cried "false flag" over the slaughter of innocents at Sandy Hook, and the mass murder of 49 people (and wounding of 53 others) at "Pulse" night club in Orlando, Florida etc., etc. Ad infinitum. Ad nauseum.

 
My personal friend (and Fred Owens' former employer) edits a medium-sized newspaper in Floresville, South Texas. Elaine -- a devout Polish-American Catholic and FEROCIOUS second amendment advocate (like everyone else in her community) knew -- personally -- Every Single One of the adults who were killed in that mass murder. However, when confronted by this truth, conspiracists flatly refuse to admit -- indeed they CAN NOT admit -- that all those people were killed by a lunatic gunman. 
And so, every conspiracist is a "prisoner of his own device," a self-deluded individual who cannot tolerate any chink in their well-armored wall of Absolute Truth, no gushing hole in the dike. For if they do, "The Big Lie" that they tell themselves will unravel completely.

When I confronted Elaine with the widespread conspiracist belief that the mass murder of her friends was some kind of hoax, she blew it off saying "well, there are always a few weird people who believe such nonsense." 

Yet Elaine herself believes Trump is a "secular savior" - and perhaps a divinely-ordained savior. 

It would not surprise me to learn that in your heart-of-hearts you harbor similar beliefs about Malignant Messiah, beliefs that fill you with such shame -- conscious or unconscious -- that you cannot bring yourself to state them openly.

Here are three posts that go a long way toward describing my late-life understanding of our social, political and psychological worlds. 

If only to understand "where I'm coming from," I encourage you to read them. 

I believe they are all insightful, and that the first two expound ideas of revelatory and lasting value.

How You And I And Everyone Can Create REAL Damning Evidence To Justify Any Damn Thing - Divorce; One's Religious Faith As "The One, True Religion"; Donald Trump As A Godsend; The Advisability Of Provoking Armageddon, Hitler's Heinous Extermination Of Jews
"Fear And Anxiety Drive Conservatives Political Attitudes": How The Values Of "Strict Father" -- Or "Nurturant Parent" -- Control Our Political Views

Throughout this letter I have tried to persuade you to look through a lens of meta-level analysis.

I hope your response does not send you down another rabbit hole of endlessly proliferative conspiratorial minutiae -- the analysis of "porta-potties" in aerial photos... the inappropriate "looks" on the faces of bereaved Sandy Hook parents -- and other manifestations of pervasive myopia whose purpose (be it primary or secondary) is to keep one's focus on "the trees" with NO regard for the fully-contextualized "forest."

"The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich": Hitler And Goebbels' Replacement Of Truth With Falsehood

Follow-up correspondence after the seascape below.


From: RF
Sent: Wednesday, November 25, 2020
To: Alan Archibald

 

I think this interview might take the top of your head off.

 

Let me know what you think.


RF

 

Dear A

This is quite a treatise on conspiracy theories and the trump cult.

Great work. I hope Ron reads it at least.

Love

F

image.png

Thanks, F!


If you did not watch the video Ron sent -- and I imagine it wasn't a very attractive prospect -- these folks often have a calm, reasonable, almost innocent - and eager - manner.

Like they're aspiring for their first grade teacher to paste a gold star on their foreheads.

The interviewer, on the other hand, is a Yale-trained asshole who I think is mostly trying to pay his "Manhattan bills" - and to that end will pander in any way necessary.

But the actual informant comes across pretty persuasively (even though he has but small, threadbare evidence that would not be admissible in court) - the kind of guy who would be a friendly face and a good conversationalist after a Sunday morning church service. You know... in the "Fellowship Room" with coffee and donuts.

But they don't know how to think -- at least not critically -- and certainly have no clue about "the rules of evidence."

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(Yes... I mean that last sentence.)

Love

A

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