Donald Trump and US politics

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

The issue here is that some people, particularly on the left, have exchanged the definition of "hate crime" to mean the expression of opinions they find unsavory. For example, wearing a Hitler costume might be considered a hate crime now, and thus "justify" "self-defense" in the form of a beating.

Are you speaking for the left as a whole, or for a tiny fringe fraction most of us liberals would just as soon be rid of? Seriously, every example I see and it's nutpicked straight from the extremes. It's like if whenever a question of trump supporters came up, we started reaching to Roosh V or Dylann Roof, or if every pro-lifer were Robert Dear.

"

I don't really believe in cyber-bullying; I think whoever invented the term has never encountered brick-and-mortor bullying... and that without pre-existance of the brick-and-mortor type, cyber-bullying has no teeth, no threat, no harm.

I hear this, and the immediate thought is, "I don't really believe in sexual harassment; I think whoever invented the term has never encountered rape." Cyberbullying is a thing. It's been studied extensively, and the results are pretty darn clear - it's bullying. It may be over the internet, but it's still bullying.

"

Forgive me for assuming, but I think the problem here is that while you're hearing them, you're not listening to them. You hear the scared, angry tone, but you don't listen to the reasons why they're so angry and terrified. It's a psychological thing; most people do it to partisan sources they disagree with.

What you're basically telling me is that I'm stupid. I'm not offended, just duly noting. Now think about what you've read from me thus far and ask yourself if it sounds stupid. Examine your assumption. I might have a spelling or grammatical error here or there, but I'm not a native speaker, so I'll ask you to disregard that.

Another bit of info - if 0 is completely emotionless and 10 is the most emotional person on Earth, I'm probably somewhere around 2. I assure you the scared and angry tone doesn't affect me too much. I listen carefully to what they say, and I hear mostly nonsense. I have a cousin who has a PhD in something feminist-related, gender equality studies or whatever they call it, and I regularly read her facebook feed (she's a prolific poster) and sometimes interact with her. I've done my best to understand her point of view.

My conclusion is her point of view is incredibly entitled, often self-contradictory and not a little bit delusional.

She's all for free speech, unless someone expresses opinions she disagrees with. She thinks she's all for equality, but she also thinks imposing a mandatory female employee quota on Apple is a great idea. If you asked her to describe herself, she would probably say she's the nicest and kindest person out there, and yet her facebook feed consists mostly of vitriol.

If I had to sum her views in a sentence, it would be - she wants to have the pie and eat it, too. She is pretty much a case study of the average Trump opponent.

Now, this doesn't mean I like Trump. I haven't paid too much attention to the elections, but from what I've seen I know he's capable of saying one thing today and another tomorrow. He also looks like a typical narcissist with delusions of grandeur. I don't like this. However, many of his proposed policies make sense to me, at least more sense than Hilary's. Many of his supporters say things which make sense to me, much more sense than Hilary's. Bottom line, if I were a US citizen, I probably wouldn't vote, but if I absolutely had to, I would vote Trump. I think he represents the lesser of two evils. I might be wrong, but this is my conclusion from the information I have.

Also, if you think Hilary is some kind of angel, I don't really know what to tell you. Politics is a dirty, amoral business. All politicians are crooked one way or another. All represent one lobby's interests or another. Trump isn't the first and won't be the last less than ethical guy to hold this office, and the same could be said about Hilary had she succeeded.

If this all sounds like a "terrible, utterly senseless idea that seems to indicate mental illness" to you, we are at an impasse as it is insanity to argue with a crazy person.

"

diablofdb wrote:

mhmmmm I stopped watching TV long ago because I was done having to listen to people who would tell me how I should think and what I should do. Now it's the same on every social media. I get a huge spam of "Hillary Clinton is soooooo cooooool, we love her alllll" and..... "OMG TRUMP IS A NAZI"


It's like if we didn't have any rights to think freely.

You have every right to think freely. You're doing it right now. And if your thoughts (and words, and actions) are awful, everyone else is absolutely free to call you on it. For example, if I like Nickelback, I have absolutely no right to complain when someone calls me an absolute tosser. People have just gotten louder, because they perceive the threat as greater. Because it is.

"

ghamadvar wrote:

"

Raycheetah wrote:

I wish someone had taught me (and others) how to stand up to bullying when I was a kid. If you learn to fight back against cowardly oppressors in childhood, there may be less of them to contend with later on in life.

Speaking of which, it looks like the "AntiFa" movement has some ideas of its own about the usefulness of bullying:

"

The “Knights for Socialism” group at the University of Central Florida (UCF) held a workshop Sunday to teach left-wing students how to “BASH THE FASH” with a “Leftist Fight Club” open to everyone but Republicans.

http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=8741

='[.]'=

"

The description explains that a local amateur boxer was on hand to teach basic hand-to-hand combat techniques at the self-defense clinic, in order to help the socialist students better protect themselves from potential hate crimes performed by those sympathetic to “Donald Trump and other Alt-Right Neo-Nazis.”

Valued poster. And nice source you chose there. Awesome job. Again.

Nice strawman (attack on source) and ad hominem (attack on me, rather than my point, which you missed) fallacies.

It's a presentation of violence as a means to protect against political foes. When was the last time anyone but a Trump supporter had to worry about physical aggression against them from the other side? "Bash the Fash?" If it was a training course to "Bash the Fags" or "Bash the Blacks," you'd be all up in arms about it, accurately recognizing it as an attempt to dehumanize another group, while emboldening its own members to use violence against them, much like... well, we all remember Germany in the late '30s and early '40s, right?

Awesome job, you. =9[.]9=

"

Budget_player_cadet wrote:

Trump is unqualified. He's a sexist and misogynist, who has openly bragged about committing sexual assault. He's more than a little bit racist, and even his own party called him on it. He has absolutely no concrete policies, and the few goals he has brought up are utterly lacking in comprehension or depth.

Really? Misogynist? How is it that Trump has delegated so much authority to women, in both his campaign, and in his administration?

Trump was a "player" back in the day. He was a rich guy and traveled in circles in which he had access to willing, attractive women, and he interacted with them in ways many celebrities whom the Left would install in the Oval Office in a heartbeat do now. He got caught crudely bragging in private about his escapades with women who knew him, knew his ways, and participated as more or less equal parties in the socio-sexual behavior of their shared circles. Was it crude? Yes. Was it rape, or even sexual assault? We can't know for absolute certain, but billionaires have groupies, too, and there have been NO serious allegations of sexual misconduct about Trump from any of those whose pussies he might have grabbed.

Trump has apologized for the remarks, and enough American women have accepted his apology for him to win their votes and the White House.

Now, about Bill Clinton... Accused multiple times of rape (with a particularly nasty MO of biting onto his victim's lip to control her with pain), his wife, recent presidential candidate Hillary ran interference for him (as she also did as a young lawyer, getting the rapist of a young girl off with time served, and then smirking about it), and he might as well be a Leftist rock star.

As for Trump's racism, that's a laugh and a lie. The best I expect you to muster is his objection in a legal case in which he was involved to being judged by a man with ties to La Raza, due to his campaign to exclude criminal aliens (not a race) from our nation, or perhaps his "Muslim" ban (Islam is also not a race, and the ban is not of Muslims in any event). Otherwise, Trump gets along well with everybody. He "hates" nobody who isn't a criminal or the like. To Trump, all Americans are Red, White, and Blue.

I'm not going to bother debating Trump's policies with you, because it's clear you lack any detailed knowledge of them, and are simply parroting the usual talking points to attack them.

Come up with specific examples of your criticisms, or go home. =9[.]9=

Keeping in mind that polls are usually best taken with some degree of suspicion:

http://polling.reuters.com/#poll/CP3_2/filters/PD1:1/dates/20170101-20170207/type/smallest

"

Trump approval:
Time Frame: Jan 01, 2017 - Feb 07, 2017 (5 Day Rolling)
February 06, 2017
1,606 Respondents

Approve 50.1%
Disapprove 47.3%
Mixed feelings 2.7%

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/trump_administration/prez_track_feb8

"

Wednesday, February 08, 2017

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 53% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Forty-seven percent (47%) disapprove.

=^[.]^=

"

Bars wrote:

What you're basically telling me is that I'm stupid. I'm not offended, just duly noting. Now think about what you've read from me thus far and ask yourself if it sounds stupid. Examine your assumption. I might have a spelling or grammatical error here or there, but I'm not a native speaker, so I'll ask you to disregard that.

Nononono.

I'm not calling you stupid. I can tell you aren't stupid. Believe me, it shows - you know what you're talking about.

I'm saying that this happens to almost everyone. You. Me. Probably Neil DeGrasse Tyson. It's psychology - political partisanship makes us more tribal, and less able to process information that disagrees with us. It goes so far that if you give partisans a pretty basic math test and tell them that it's about, say, gun control, political partisans get more questions wrong - and the better they are at math at a base level, the larger the results divide gets when you swap out gun control for a neutral issue, like the effectiveness of a skin cream.

I'm not calling you stupid. I'm pointing out that partisanship inherently makes smart people stupid. I've been trying to call it out in myself lately, because looking back, I can see that I've ignored facts because they were politically uncomfortable. I'm not an idiot. This is just the effect partisanship has on people.

"

Another bit of info - if 0 is completely emotionless and 10 is the most emotional person on Earth, I'm probably somewhere around 2. I assure you the scared and angry tone doesn't affect me too much. I listen carefully to what they say, and I hear mostly nonsense. I have a cousin who has a PhD in something feminist-related, gender equality studies or whatever they call it, and I regularly read her facebook feed (she's a prolific poster) and sometimes interact with her. I've done my best to understand her point of view.

My conclusion is her point of view is incredibly entitled, often self-contradictory and not a little bit delusional.

She's all for free speech, unless someone expresses opinions she disagrees with. She thinks she's all for equality, but she also thinks imposing a mandatory female employee quota on Apple is a great idea. If you asked her to describe herself, she would probably say she's the nicest and kindest person out there, and yet her facebook feed consists mostly of vitriol.

If I had to sum her views in a sentence, it would be - she wants to have the pie and eat it, too. She is pretty much a case study of the average Trump opponent.

I can't speak for your friend. Does she try to stop them from speaking, or wish that they were censored, or does she just disagree with them and wish they didn't have a platform to speak? I mean, I don't think Milo Yiannopolous should be prevented from speaking, but I think it's disgusting that he's getting a book deal, and that there's nothing wrong with making it clear to that publisher that we think that.

Can't really back her on quotas. I'm not aware that this is mainstream thought on the left; most people are pretty happy with affirmative action, and I have no issue defending the position that affirmative action is not an impediment to equality but rather a necessary step towards it.

"

Now, this doesn't mean I like Trump. I haven't paid too much attention to the elections, but from what I've seen I know he's capable of saying one thing today and another tomorrow. He also looks like a typical narcissist with delusions of grandeur. I don't like this. However, many of his proposed policies make sense to me, at least more sense than Hilary's. Many of his supporters say things which make sense to me, much more sense than Hilary's. Bottom line, if I were a US citizen, I probably wouldn't vote, but if I absolutely had to, I would vote Trump. I think he represents the lesser of two evils. I might be wrong, but this is my conclusion from the information I have.

I guess I just fundamentally don't get this. Which of his proposals made sense? And were they backed up by any actual policymaking? Like, it's easy to say, "We're gonna get tough on crime!" It's really, really hard to actually make any real difference if you don't know what causes crime or how to address it.

"

Also, if you think Hilary is some kind of angel, I don't really know what to tell you. Politics is a dirty, amoral business. All politicians are crooked one way or another. All represent one lobby's interests or another. Trump isn't the first and won't be the last less than ethical guy to hold this office, and the same could be said about Hilary had she succeeded.

I really dislike this kind of cynicism. "Everything is shit, so what does it matter that this guy is shit?" It matters because even by the standards of shit, he stands out as shitty.

"

If this all sounds like a "terrible, utterly senseless idea that seems to indicate mental illness" to you, we are at an impasse as it is insanity to argue with a crazy person.

I don't hold that position. At least, not any more (note to self: sent apology card and box of wine to grandma). And you clearly aren't the kind of Trump supporter I most commonly encounter (case in point: the posts by BlinkyAndPinky).

"

Head_Less wrote:

Hilarious retro-documentary video about Star Wars' Kylo Ren, but quite apropos today's infantile adult snowflakes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hiTrPotOyg

=^[.]^=