Look man, you sound like one of those people who for weeks assured me that Mitch McConnell was a dead man. Fully a vegetable. No question, and that I was an utter fool for saying it probably wasn’t true. That of course it had to be true. Just look at the track record of this administration. They lie all the time. Of course he’s a vegetable.

Turns out, it was all conspiracy theory nonsense.

I literally linked an executive order at the top of my last post which was this administration doing the right thing. You didn’t engage with it because it was unimpeachably good. His track record isn’t 0% unless you want to refute the one I linked literally last message in this thread.

It’s not good. This administration has been overwhelmingly bad. But if your desire to hate this administration makes you engage in doublethink where you have to call things evil that in literally any other circumstance you would call good, you probably need to take a step back.

I’m not saying not to be wary. I’m not saying not to have a critical eye. But this isn’t bad on its face. Maybe it will be later, but as a first step, it’s one in the right direction. Nothing about it so far is something to hate on. Maybe that will come later, and if so I’ll gladly jump on the dogpile.

But as written, so far, it’s good. And even in a worst case, it will survive into a new administration who will administer it better. That’s still something good to be looked forward to. So far little to no action has been taken against this issue, so I look to any positive motion as a net good, even if it’s helmed by crooks for now.

Executive order 2025-23844 raises the wages for all federal employees by 3.8 percent: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/12/23/2025-23844/adjustments-of-certain-rates-of-pay

Is this a scam to line the pockets of Trump cronies, or is it a Trump policy you agree with? If the former, why was it okay when every president before Trump did it. If the latter, then we agree that there are in fact good policies out of this administration, and we therefore have to engage with them on a case by case basis.

And in the case of this method of going after cyber criminals, I’ve seen versions of this policy in both the House and Senate every few years for the past 20yrs or so. It always has bipartisan support but gets held up in committee, usually over legal concerns. It’s a good policy that everyone agrees with. It may get shot down as illegal, but it’s a good policy.

And sure, notionally it could be used to funnel money to Trump cronies, but that will be in how the payment structure gets laid out. Most versions of this in previous iterations allowed the company to keep some percentage of recovered assets, with the government paying little to nothing for administration and overhead. Worked like truly old school privateering.

Now, we will have to wait and see how the actual payment structures end up being laid out, but under that system (which seems likely based off historical attempts at this sort of legislation), would you agree that it would be exceptionally difficult for this to be some secret way of funnelling money to Trump cronies, and therefore admit it is just good policy?

I’ll freely offer up that, if it turns out to just be huge, billion dollar vehicles awarded to limited bid contract companies that were recently stood up, that it was a bad thing. If that’s the way it goes, I’ll freely eat crow.

But if it goes the way I think it likely will, and that it’s a bounty system and it gets awarded to companies with a history of cyber security expertise, will you eat crow and admit that it was a good thing after all?

Trump is on camera eating tacos. Am I now morally required to say all Mexican food is bad? Trump loves dogs. Am I required to go around kicking dogs now?

If your hatred for the administration has you in a place where you feel the need to deny the reality of your own eyes in order to justify your hatred, you’re living in a fantasy land as deep as any MAGA fanatic.

This administration is evil. They’re doing terrible things. No question at all. But that’s not going to make me swear off tacos just because Trump likes them too.

Go look through the list of executive orders. I promise you that there are some in there you will fully agree with. Not many. And many are morally abhorrent, no question. But they exist. And saying otherwise is just closing your eyes, covering your ears, and saying “nanananana, I refuse to engage with nuanced reality.”

Trump says he loves dogs. He’s a huge fan of them. Am I morally required to hate dogs now? Is it supporting the Trump administration if I also love dogs?

Do you think Trump is writing every order that crosses his desk? Of the hundreds of things he signs a month, many are things that are just the output of the normal workings of government.

For instance, here’s one from last year increasing funding for medical marijuana research: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/12/23/2025-23846/increasing-medical-marijuana-and-cannabidiol-research

Here was one giving pay increases to all federal government employees: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/12/23/2025-23844/adjustments-of-certain-rates-of-pay

Am I required to be against both of those as well? How is paying government employees (not contractors, people in direct employ of the government) putting money into his cronies pockets?

Just because he’s a terrible president doing terrible things doesn’t mean I need to deny reality in order to vilify him. He’s bad. He’s doing evil things. No question at all. But if you’re so far in the weeds that you’re taking positions like, “Trump ate a taco, so all Mexican food is actually disgusting,” then you’re living in as big a fantasy land as any MAGA nutjob.

Did you read the order? It seems to have legitimate government oversight.

It’s administered by the DHS/FBI, and targets are determined by them. Work is done via their direction and oversight, and only by companies that have been vetted to be able to do the work responsibly.

That seems like literally exactly what you’re asking for. So what’s the issue?

I don’t like this administration either, but that doesn’t mean I have to be instantly morally against literally everything they do. There are in fact issues that are still bipartisan, and dealing with elder scammers is one of them. This is just a good idea.

This is one of those things I don’t actually hate. Not in general, but this particular use case.

Like, overseas criminals have stolen your grandmother’s life savings. Those criminals’ home countries have said that they are unwilling or unable to investigate or prosecute them. So what should be done?

There’s not a lot of great solutions, but empowering vetted, domestic cyber security experts to attempt to reclaim the stolen property seems like as good a solution as we’re gonna get?

You can call it “privatizing law enforcement” if you want, but I do think it’s a problem that needs solving, and I don’t know what solution would be better?

If you have better alternatives I’d love to hear them though.