Copy/Paste Post #3 - Cyber Attacks ≠ Illegal Voting

What about that viral post that talks about one thing and then compares it to something completely separate and different that aren't even in the same ballpark? Does it often feel sometimes when you're having these conversations with an individual that again takes this author's stance from a place of fear and really manipulative tactics in terms of trying to draw out emotions to get you either to Run to their side or be like just angry at the way they're approaching it. And I take great pleasure in being able to just sit back, do research, have simple questions, and not fall into the trap of arguing something that we don't need to argue because there's nothing to argue. And really digging more into what's occurring here and why are they in different ballparks in terms of this next point the author is about to make. It, uh, it's a fun one. It's a doozy, as they say. So author says Russians influencing our elections are bad, but illegals voting in our elections are good. All right, again, what does one have to do with the other? I don't know about you, but I get annoyed when I'm trying to have a conversation about complex issues that are happening in our country when somebody can't talk about one topic, pause, and allow the other person to respond, and— or just keep it on that topic. Frequently what happens is it bounces from one topic to another to another, and usually that's because somebody's getting more emotional. They may say they're getting passionate about it. That very well may be the case, But it doesn't make it a productive conversation. It doesn't allow you to actually dig in to something nuanced and complex. It just keeps us ping-ponging and really going nowhere except that pretty shiny silver ball rolling down the middle of these 2 flippers coming at one another, and we get a low score. Everybody— nobody wins. Player 1, player 2, pinball. Aside. So really, when we think of these points, the first one that comes to mind, it's something called a straw man tactic. So they're saying Russians attacking our country via their cyber warfare and trying to, you know, get into our elections is bad. And then they're trying to compare it to something completely different, like illegals voting is good. So they're implying that there's somebody out there arguing, a whole group of people are aside saying illegal voting is good. That's what we should have. I don't think anyone's making that argument at all. So this is called the straw man tactic, where they are trying to pit you against something that doesn't exist. There are not people arguing that it is good. illegals to be voting. They may be arguing and advocating for them to have a pathway to citizenship, for them to have protected human rights, for them to be treated the same as you should treat thy neighbor and all of that. And that's completely different, isn't it? It's not quite the same. So I'm not really much a fan of this author in a variety of ways, but this one really, you know, as Peter Griffin would say in Family Guy, grinds my gears because Trying to deceive is one thing. Trying to deceive and manipulate by trying to tell me that this is a real argument and then having me distracted into defending something that's not real, it's just a gigantic waste of time. And that makes me upset. That's the thing that gets me fired up, right? Is if we're gonna have these conversations, Let's be curious. Let's seek to learn, and let's ask the questions that dig us deeper into what's really happening here, what's really the problem, what's at stake. So the other, just more simple question: if we're talking Russians influencing elections and illegal voting is bad— again, that's fake, there's nobody arguing that— but objectively, aren't both bad? Did I just stop him dead in his tracks right then and there? Aren't both not good? Uh, one is a foreign power and influence and could be individuals, but in this example, it is Russia with a coordinated military-grade cyberattack. I don't know how familiar the listener is with the power of cyber threats nowadays, but there are insurance policies that most big businesses, and in fact soon smaller businesses, have to take out that show They are protecting their networks so nobody steals your Social Security number, your personal identifiable information, passwords, all this kind of stuff. I'm sure we've all experienced that fun email notification that XYZ place had a data breach and they have your information. Better change your passwords, get a service like DeleteMe to get your stuff off the interwebs. Well, there we go, a free ad. It is a good service. There's all these things that could be happening. There's not necessarily real hackers like the old school awesome movie behind a computer that are being nefarious, trying to break into systems. It's more somebody like that that creates through AI and bots a number of ways that they look for vulnerabilities in networks and to exploit and gather and gain information. So if I'm the Russian military government organizing one of these attacks, That's pretty crazy big. That's massive in scale. And they are disrupting a sovereign election. They're disrupting the integrity of our republic and what we're built on. And that's flippin' awful on a scale that's massive in terms of the repercussions and what could stem and boil out of that. I mean, Cold War number two, except hotter. And you know, there's a lot of things that could have came from that that would have been really tragic, really awful based on scale. So objectively, they're not the same. If illegals were voting or trying to, and they did that thing, it's a federal crime, and they would be arrested and hopefully, you know, taken care of however you want to call it. And that is an individual crime. I'm not sure that any individual crime compares in scope to an entire country being attacked in terms of elections and the ramifications that that would all entail. Pretty safe to say. So really, What is the real problem here? What are we really getting at? If the amount of illegals voting is literally microscopic statistically, and I can back it up, it is 0.0001%. Does it matter? No. And that's back to what I said at the beginning. It's not a real argument because there's nothing to argue about. It's so microscopic, it doesn't matter, it's not happening. And even if it were happening at a greater scale, I don't know anybody that is saying it's a good thing for illegals to vote. They might be saying something different. Wouldn't it be a good thing if they had an easier pathway to citizenship, that we weren't so backlogged, that the courts weren't so backed up, that the process itself was more realistic? I mean, I'm just an average guy and I can think of 100 ways that I would do it better. But the problem is we have too many of these arguments that don't make sense, that get us nowhere, that aren't productive, and we don't get to the core of the real issue, which is we have a systemic problem with the ability for those that want to gain citizenship here to have their version of the American dream, to work hard, love their families, to earn a reasonable wage and advance themselves in this country. country don't get that opportunity as easily as they should. It's ridiculous. So it's a systemic problem. That's really what we have to ask ourselves when we see an author making a post like this, is dig into it and understand that he's riling folks up to come from a place of anger and emotion and fear and not be thinking with the smart part of our brain to do some more digging and understanding what's really happening. And what's really happening is we just don't have a system that makes it easy for people to be here. And that's the sad truth. And that's another point vanquished. What else you got, author? Bring it.