this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2025
980 points (98.9% liked)

Murdered by Words

401 readers
51 users here now

Responses that completely destroy the original argument in a way that leaves little to no room for reply - a targeted, well-placed response to another person, organization, or group of people.

The following things are not grounds for murder:

Rules:

  1. Be civil and remember the human. No name calling or insults. Swearing in general is fine, but not to insult someone else.
  2. Discussion is encouraged but arguments are not. Don’t be aggressive and don’t argue for arguments sake.
  3. No bigotry of any kind.
  4. Censor the person info of anyone not in the public eye.
  5. If you break the rules you’ll get one warning before you’re banned.
  6. Enjoy the community in the light hearted way it’s intended.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 46 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 143 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Plus DOGE published that their biggest cost reduction was 8 billion, but turns out it was, I shit you not, $8,000,000.00

And this is the people that are gonna let manage the treasury.

[–] [email protected] 98 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The difference between 8 million and 8 billion is about 8 billion dollars.

[–] Frozengyro 32 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Shows what you know, it's only 7.992 billion different!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago

I have the urge to slap 99.9% of your face.

^^(kidding)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago

Ew! Fuck! If you're gonna use shudder MATH, then at least have the common courtesy to CW your post!

[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Its even more egregious.

So far, doge claims it saved 45 billion on its website. When you add up the actual reciepts posted, it's 16 billion. Of that 16 billion, half is this false 8 billion, which is 8 million, with 2.5 million already paid out, so actually just 5.5 million.

So even by their records, which are not trustworthy, they may have cut 8 billion. The 100 billion number? Just something Charlie kirk made up. No other hard data at all.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago

Just something Charlie kirk made up.

When your face is that small, everything else looks much bigger.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

How are these people brazillionaires and I'm schlepping away to not get my home taken off me by the bank? I can string a sentence together and do basic arithmetic, and I can count to twenty without taking off my shoes!

[–] [email protected] 88 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Hey, I lost a lot of weight by removing my limbs!

[–] [email protected] 31 points 3 days ago (2 children)

So for the first leg you chop off, your BMI goes down. With the second one, it goes up significantly. Only chop off one leg.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

One leg and one arm though. The ideal body is very narrow lol

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 days ago

Instructions unclear, I now don’t have a head.

[–] Bouzou 8 points 3 days ago

Loose 12lbs instantly!

...by chopping off your arm!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago

Doctors hate this one weird trick!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

Plus, you got a really cute nickname! Torso Boy!

[–] [email protected] 57 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (5 children)

You can "save" a bunch of money by not paying the Fire Department. It'll look great on a budget, and then you can enjoy the beautiful skyline of your city burning!

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 days ago

This is what they're doing, but with literally everything.

The country is going to implode.

[–] captainlezbian 18 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Oh hey, I think we did that in 2017 with our pandemic response team. I hear there have been no negative consequences

[–] TheLowestStone 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

There's no evidence of negative consequences.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago

That's true! I just looked for the website and there's nothing! Yay!!! I was worried something like 1.2 million Americans were dead because of it, but apparently not!

(Satire. The CDC website still exists. For now...)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

It reminds me of sim city budget.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Is that what happened with the forest fires?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

There is a degree to which wild fires could be solved "just" by ramping up land management significantly to remove invasive species, remove dead growth and overgrowth, etc.

The wildfires have been so bad primarily because of invasive species changing what grows where and breaking down natural fire protections, combined with climate change and reduced natural wildfires creating higher fire risk conditions

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

My understanding is they also introduced Australian trees that drop huge amounts of combustible material to contribute to fires because they thrive in those conditions

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

and then you can enjoy the beautiful skyline of your city burning!

But how could I? Especially without firemen to start the glow.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

Hard to enjoy when the air quality is so bad that you can't even breath outside lol

[–] over_clox 64 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I saved about $80,000 by not buying a Cybertruck!

[–] ProfessorProteus 37 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Next time try not buying two of them. The additional $80,000 is life-changing!

[–] something_random_tho 14 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

If I don’t buy a Cybertruck every day for a year, I can afford a yacht! Now just add some avocado toast, if I’m feeling fancy.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

And a fine ooh la la to you too, Lord Fauntleroy!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

I have not bought several Cyber Trucks. At this point, I'm a billionaire myself

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

But then you don't get to lose fingers or burn to death.

[–] over_clox 2 points 2 days ago

Damn. Well that's a chance I'll just have to take..

[–] [email protected] 48 points 2 days ago

Always ask: saved, for what? The money is appropriated by congress. You're actively working to cut services and programs, not eliminating fraud, waste, or abuse in any way. Not that you'd know, because you already fired the people who track fraud, waste, and abuse for identifying your violations, repeatedly.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 days ago

Social programs are profitable, it costs more to take care of a problem than to prevent it.

[–] Supervisor194 15 points 2 days ago

Why not one trillion? I mean shit, we're gonna need 4.5 trillion to offset the giveaway to the billionaires. 100 billion is rookie numbers.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago

Watch, they'll cut everything and then they'll somehow blame the dems for mistreating Veterans, causing huge epidemics, planes falling out of the skies, children dying, instigating genocides, and wars

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Is this how nazi Germany started? Cutting all "unnecessary" projects and personnel then introducing "necessary" projects and personnel that they control...

[–] AeonFelis 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Did they? Do you have any sources? Because I did a quick search and couldn't find anything about it (though I'll admit I did not invest too much time into that search)

The Nazi regime did lots of shitty things over half a century ago. The Trump administration does lots of shitty things right now. There is an overlap - but this Venn diagram is not a circle.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] AeonFelis 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

What about it? I don't see anything there that's about "Cutting all “unnecessary” projects", and rather than "introducing “necessary” projects and personnel that they control" it looks like they directly took control on the existing ones.

The only thing that, if you squint hard enough, can remotely resemble cutoffs was the Law for the Restoration of a Professional Civil Service - which would be better equated to the DEI purge than to the cutoffs that this post is all about.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It's the concept, not the individual steps.

Gleichschaltung is a compound word that comes from the German words gleich (same) and schaltung (circuit) and was derived from an electrical engineering term meaning that all switches are put on the same circuit allowing them all to be activated by throwing a single master switch.[4] Its first use is credited to Reich Justice Minister Franz Gürtner.[5] It has been variously translated as "coordination",[6][7][8] "Nazification of state and society",[9] "synchronization",[5] and "bringing into line".

Every country requires different steps, so you can't copy paste them. Germany was (and still is) a multi-party democracy using plurality voting. Some of the institutions are the same, but not all. Nazification has to be tailored to the system. One important step is to replace opposition at every level. If you haven't noticed, the US is in the middle of a coordinated cleansing at federal level right now.

[–] AeonFelis 0 points 2 days ago

Some generalization is always required when drawing equivalences, but if you generalize too much your logic becomes circular. For example - let's overgeneralize to the max:

  • We determine that what the Trump administration did was bad because it's similar to what the Nazi regime did.
  • We determine that what the Trump administration did was similar to what the Nazi regime did because both things were bad.

Of course, I'm not claiming that you took it that far. Instead of going all the way to "evil", you've only generalized up to "grabbing power":

  • We determine that the Trump administration is grabbing power because it does something similar to what the Nazi regime did.
  • We determine that the Trump administration something similar to what the Nazi regime did because they were both power-grabbing moves.

Now, this version does require some non-circular arguing - showing that DOGE's project cuts are actually power-grabbing moves in disguise. But there are two problems with it:

  1. Power-grabbing is not a Nazi-specific thing - many groups have seized political power during the course of history. And not all these groups were evil - at this level of generalization, one could argue that democratic revolutions took power from monarchs and had to convert the institutions to be democratic. And even among the evil movements that did this - the Nazi were uniquely evil, because of other things they did.

  2. You were trying to masquerade this generalized argument as a more specific argument:

    Is this how nazi Germany started? Cutting all “unnecessary” projects and personnel then introducing “necessary” projects and personnel that they control…

    This is a very specific argument - "here is a specific tactic the Nazis used to grab power, and the Trump administration uses the same tactic!". The logic here is not circular. The only problem with it is that it isn't true.

Comparison to Nazism is the nuclear weapon of debates. Trumps administration did some things that warrant an exemption from Godwin's law. Concentration camps for immigrants is one of them. Purging minorities from federal jobs is another. But this? The very fact they are trying to grab power? This does not justify a comparison to the Nazis.

[–] TheGiantKorean 2 points 2 days ago

All it cost was two airplane-fulls of people and hundreds of peoples' livelihoods, among other things.