1 Also pragmatically, the utility of tactics is not symmetric, because, at the individual or at the faction level, the goals are not identical.

There's an argument that goes 'look at what they will do, if we are not willing, we choose losing'.  I disagree with this argument.  Partly because the strategic situation we are playing on is not anywhere near as simple and straight forward as can be reduced to a set of rules, or predicted fully using theory.  We can't deduce in advance the full set of available options, etc.  Anyway, trying not to wall of text...

Lying tends to cause uncertainty and confusion.  If that is your goal, than lying is an effective tactic.  And, for some folks, that is their goal and tactic.  But, if you have the conflicting goal, then the long term expedient tactic, and in many cases also short term, is trying really hard to always speak truth. 

Basically, civilization is one of my goals.  And, civilization, analyzed in far too much detail, includes a lot of capabilities for internal peaces.  So a) I have to be able to negotiate and deliver on some form of peace b) tactically, I have to operate off of some definition of peace that makes sane sense according to American cultural norms (which were heavily influenced by flavors of Christianity).

Using tactics calibrated according to the deeply insane thinking of communists is /not/ going to have any strategic utility for me. 

Furthermore, I am pretty sure that the opposition is actually weak enough that relatively subdued measures will prove sufficient. 

My two cents, but you probably don't have any reason to trust in my sanity* or honesty.

*Which I'll admit is at times pretty seriously dubious.

2 I've never liked the idea of political bumper stickers, just because my car can't defend its opinions in a parking lot, and there's nothing you can do (legally) if someone vandalizes your car, even if it happens right in front of your eyes.

-j

3 On the brighter side...Perhaps we are seeing increasing numbers of increasinly violent and extreme actions from the other side because they know they are losing.  Whether they are seeing normal people around them being increasingly put off by the sea of radical pollution around them, right up to candidates and officials seeing the internal polls that paint a very different picture than what the mainstream media and the Left (Same thing.) like to say.

4 We tell ourselves "Oh, they're getting violent because they know they're losing." I'm afraid it might actually be that they're getting violent because they think they've already won. Once they control the institutions, they think they can do whatever they want to eliminate the enemy.

5 Violence levels are cultural, by the mechanism of sanity.  Conventional flavors of religion, perhaps excluding Muslim, can conform to American standard levels of peace.  Communism, as a religion, has never really been compatible with peace ever.

Communists only ever fake peace in service to greater 'magics'.  It is fake, because they cannot see anyone else as delivering on a peace agreement.  You are always witching them, and they are sure that the only way to break the spell is with your death.

(American communists were violent, until they realized it didn't work, and hit upon subversion as a replacement 'spell'.  Now, to us it can look like subversion has also failed, but they are not processing their senses the way that we do.)

The basic mechanism here is that communists were never sane, and never peaceful.

It is not coincidence that when you really look into multiple injury/death shootings, you tend to see criminals, recreational drugs, psychiatric drugs, and folks from broken homes with only left and big bureaucratic influences in their lives.  The spree shooters are extremely disparately from left/public school backgrounds, because hanging around with just about anyone else in American culture tends to pull people with issues back to sanity and to emotional investment in /something/ positive. 

Commies were already nuts, and prone to violence, so when everyone in America is stressed and having unusual mental issues, the communists are murdering.  And, the other communists in media are amplifying the murder information, thinking that they can terrorize us into surrendering.  (They are theory obsessives who additionally think that they can predict the future perfectly from theory.  They do not think about non-official and non-academic sources of knowledge and information, and fail to realize how many of us /know/ that surrendering to communists never results in peace.)

Extra concluding thoughts:

Now, the process of them realizing that their theory does not work, and does not predict will see a decline in sanity on their part.  Might not be pretty.  But, too soon to say if this is occurring yet. 

There are probably actually very few communists.  Two months back or so, I was wanting to essay comment about this here.  Eventually gave up on that plan.  But, unless there is a lot of fraud in the violent death stats, most Americans are pretty peaceable and sane, or in other words is not left.   Even with fraud in the death stats, you can make a similar estimate from the people in your RL circles, who you actually know, who have died violently and by force.

Super noisy, complicated, and confusing situation.  Means that statistical tests for detection are gonna be very hard, with the false positives and false negatives being things that are a challenge to handle. 

Some of what is stressful for us is simply picking up on their malice somehow.  Malice can exist, can be intensified by excitement about acting on it, without there being a plausible way for the malice to cause actual harm.  This is one of the unusual mental challenges hitting just about everyone in America.

6 Say Pat, do you have a blog? You could put the link in the website blank on your comments and I'd look at it.