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Re:Penn to reduce graduate admissions, rescind acceptances a... by matthewdgreen on Sunday February 23, 2025 @02:38PM (#43152430)
One of the common moves I’ve seen with Trump and particularly his defenders is to take an issue that’s real, then convert it into a weapon. So imagine my dog is overweight and needs to go on a bit of a diet: well, what if we took that same dog and reduced its calorie intake by 75% until it starved to death. Then while I’m standing over the corpse, I explain to you that “this isn’t something I was making up, there was a real problem there.”

Even if, against all odds, you really are in favor of reforming things, killing a bunch of dogs pretty much guarantees a good-faith conversation can never happen. At some point you just need to decide if you’re on the side of truth or bullshit.

Re:Penn to reduce graduate admissions, rescind acceptances a... by rayiner on Sunday February 23, 2025 @03:10PM (#43152745)
That’s just a roundabout way of saying you disagree with us about how to solve the issue, and assign a different relative valuation to the outcome where the process-oriented careful approach fails to achieve any change. You’re welcome to do that, but that’s just living in a democracy.

E.g. Obama promised sunlight and reforming the intelligence community. But in the end he didn’t do anything because he trusted the institutions and processes too much. So we voted for Tulsi to take a chain saw to the CIA.

Re:Penn to reduce graduate admissions, rescind acceptances a... by selimthegrim on Sunday February 23, 2025 @03:56PM (#43153137)
Tulsi is an ideological tool of BJP/RSS/VHP. Who knows how many people she is going to pawn the family jewels to.
Re:Penn to reduce graduate admissions, rescind acceptances a... by rayiner on Sunday February 23, 2025 @05:01PM (#43153634)
Tulsi is America First, just like BJP is India First. That makes her a natural antagonist of Liberal Internationalism and Islamic Global Socialism. But I have seen no evidence to make me doubt her fierce nationalistic loyalty to the U.S.
Re:Penn to reduce graduate admissions, rescind acceptances a... by selimthegrim on Sunday February 23, 2025 @08:39PM (#43155042)
I see radical Islamic terrorism (TM) wasn’t marked down at cliché Walmart so you stopped by the mix and match barrel next to the DVDs on the way out. Maybe rootless cosmopolitanism will be on sale next time since its trademark expired along with Mickey Mouse’s.
Re:Penn to reduce graduate admissions, rescind acceptances a... by rayiner on Sunday February 23, 2025 @09:19PM (#43155236)
Did I hallucinate that islamic socialism that was a boot on Bangladesh’s neck for decades? Islamic socialism was the dominant ideology in the islamic world among the elites, and still is among the diaspora. It’s real—it has a wikipedia page!

Regardless, I wasn’t using the term as a pejorative. What Islam, socialism, and liberal internationalism have in common is that they’re inherently cross-national, universal ideologies. That puts them in conflict with strong nationalism.

Tulsi is an american nationalist. For example she was okay with Assad, because she (correctly) felt Assad wasn’t a threat to america, was keeping a lid on Al Qaeda, and didn’t care about “human rights” in Syria. That view is just american nationalism. But it pisses off liberal internationalists and muslim socialists. Because their own outlook is universalizing, they assume her support for keeping Assad in place must indicate support for Assad’s policies and ideas.

Re:Penn to reduce graduate admissions, rescind acceptances a... by pcwalton on Sunday February 23, 2025 @06:22PM (#43154217)
> So we voted for Tulsi to take a chain saw to the CIA.

If "we" means "the minority MAGA base", then sure. But Gabbard has never been popular. Her favorability is at -13.7 in the RCP average [1], was never above water even during the heat of the campaign, and is at about -20 now.

[1]: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/tulsi_gabbard...

Re:Penn to reduce graduate admissions, rescind acceptances a... by rayiner on Sunday February 23, 2025 @07:33PM (#43154664)
Tulsi is #8 and #9 on Trump's platform: https://www.donaldjtrump.com/platform. She was featured prominently in the campaign, along with Elon and RFK Jr.: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/donald-trump-returns-t.... Traditional conservatives might not like her, but they knew full-well that she was part of the bargain.

That's just how political parties work! No single faction needs to carry a majority--but everyone votes together fully aware of what the platform is. And Trump kept his promises to his coalition partners and appointed both Tulsi and RFK Jr., and John Thune of all people busted his ass to get her confirmed. (Democrats should try this approach.)

Re:Penn to reduce graduate admissions, rescind acceptances a... by tptacek on Sunday February 23, 2025 @08:03PM (#43154839)
The DNI doesn't run the CIA. In fact, between the CIA director and the DNI, it's rather the other way around. I don't know what the heck that has to do with a discussion of indirect costs, but I'm bored and didn't want to let that weird claim stand.
Re:Penn to reduce graduate admissions, rescind acceptances a... by rayiner on Sunday February 23, 2025 @08:30PM (#43154997)
Fair point.