Donald Trump and US politics

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Crackmonster wrote:

These trump threads really amaze me, they pack so many replies in no time and just keep stacking.

I just love triggering snowflakes and bath into their salty tears.



- Hillary did Harambe

The #tinytrump is going around on twitter, here some examples:













edit:Forgot this one

Spoiler tags. They're a thing. You should consider using them.

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Budget_player_cadet wrote:

Spoiler

This is a thing.

Spoiler tags. They're a thing. You should consider using them.

Náh, I'm good, thanks for the advice anyway.

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Budget_player_cadet wrote:

The entire purpose of this law is to ensure that there is no legal backlash for discriminatory behavior in public businesses. And let's be clear here. If the issue was businesses run by religious individuals who refused to cater to interracial couples because it violated their religion, I don't think anyone would be trying to paint this as anything more than bigotry. So why is "my religion says marriage is between one man and one woman and that tenet needs to be respected by law" different from "my religion says marriage is between two people of the same race and that tenet needs to be respected by law"?

Discrimination and bigotry aren't the same thing, so no, I'd paint it differently.

First off: we're talking about business service here. The worst effect of "discrimination" in this context is no transaction. We're not talking about violence here; there is no potential for harm.

There is such a thing as righteous discrimination. For example, an employer wants to higher an employee who is skilled at the tasks vital to the position and who is reliable. Discriminating against those who lack such skills, and against the unreliable, is essential to performing the hiring task well. So the goal is not a type of culturally Marxist failure to discriminate in any manner, but instead to isolate characteristics that matter from those that don't (skin color, etc), and discriminate according to the former.

I don't think the government should be involved in telling anyone which characteristics are or are not relevant, regarding decisions involving an individual's private business or property. I believe businesses should have the right to deny service to any customer for any reason, no matter how stupid, insane, or vicious. Protecting freedom of speech and religion, and property rights, is an explicitly higher priority in my book that combating the people who choose the wrong criteria for discrimination.

If a baker won't bake you a cake, don't get the government to force him; find a baker who gladly will. Remember, politics is downstream from culture, not the other way around; by the time a society is in the position to pass legislation forcing non-discrimination of certain groups, it's already achieved the cultural equality to make the passage a moot point as far as benefit goes, assuming a free market.

So no, I fully recognize the right for any business to refuse to cater to homosexual couples, or to refuse to cater to heterosexual couples, or refuse to cater for no solid reason whatsoever.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

First off: we're talking about business service here. The worst effect of "discrimination" in this context is no transaction. We're not talking about violence here; there is no potential for harm.

This is only true for goods that are either unnecessary or that have an alternative seller that isn't discriminatory.

As an extreme example, if the power company refused to sell electricity (both necessary and usually a local monopoly) to asian people, that would be incredibly harmful.

There exists a position between "there should be no anti-discrimination laws" and "bakers should have to draw pornographic homosexual acts on their cakes by law".

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pneuma wrote:

There exists a position between "there should be no anti-discrimination laws" and "bakers should have to draw pornographic homosexual acts on their cakes by law".

To be clearer, I strongly believe there should be anti-discrimination laws; I just believe the sole target of said laws should be the government itself. I'm 100% in support of those signs at the DMV that list all the things they, a government agency, cannot discriminate against. I do think the government should act as a cultural exemplar in that capacity.

Also, it should go without saying that violence (except in self-defense against violence) should be criminalized, investigated and prosecuted. Such behavior shouldn't be tolerated regardless of motive.

But other than that, I am strongly against any form of government involvement in independent discrimination. I think fighting bigotry is primarily cultural, not political, and should be fought by artists, entertainers, writers, pundits, protestors — not by politicians. I like boycotts; I myself don't buy Chick-fil-A, despite living conveniently close to one.

Here's the crucial point: Defending the first amendment is far more important than fighting bigotry, for the same reasons that defending the second amendment is more important than practicing one's marksmanship — the latter depends upon the former for relevancy. Ultimately, the first amendment resists bigotry while political correctness concedes to it.

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鬼殺し wrote:

When asked very politely and very patiently by an Orthodox Jewish reporter about rising concerns of anti-semitic behaviour since the election, President Trump responded that he isn't an anti-semite and that he hates being called an anti-semite.

He didn't say a single word about those concerns or frankly anything beyond taking a very impersonal question very personally.

This is a staggering show of ego and utterly unpresidential.

This is who you voted in, and who you support, conservative America.

Who you unleashed on the world because he promised to make your country great again.

Every day he makes enemies of former supporters (the ultra Orthodox backed his campaign) just by taking everything so fucking personally.

Your turn will come, because in the end, it's Trump vs the World, and you're part of the former for only as long as he doesn't think you're insulting him. The sad part is he's so oddly insecure and egomaniacal that even those walking on eggshells around him, as that Jewish reporter did, may inadvertently give him cause to feel insulted.

This is who you chose.

Good fucking job, conservative America.

Read a book or two on Andrew Jackson. All this pearl clutching about being 'unpresidential' is a sad substitute for real criticism.

I tend to agree with Scott Adams' recent take on his blog

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/157317171676/how-to-evaluate-a-president

What we're seeing right now is consistent with the hypothesis that he's learning on the job. Much like you or I might if we were thrust into the position with no prior political experience. There are going to be things in the first 6 months that you wish you had a do-over on.