Nesrie
3323
Around 50 posts. Something interesting must have happened, a change to… oh no, it’s gman. .nough said.
Labels and insults are so counterproductive and lazy. You just slap them on entire arguments – in fact, millions of people – to avoid having to do any critical thought. It’s too bad. And again, it’s how you get Trump.
What makes you think the crime will simply stop when more refugees and immigrants arrive? If anything, we’ve seen in Paris that these communities tend to become flashpoints for all sorts of violence and even terrorism. The drop in crime sounds great. Is it attributable to any refugee policy, or what is its relevance?
Don’t you have an article on the cops daring to stop a black guy to post?
Aaanyway…
I hope everyone is keeping track of the politics news through good podcasts. Here are two I listen to often:
https://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=510310
https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/politics-podcast/
YGG, man. How anyone didn’t take one look at Trump and find him fundamentally objectionable as a person (serial groper and philanderer, mocks people with disabilities, calls for violence at his rallies, makes sweeping racist generalizations), and worse as a Presidential candidate, is basically incomprehensible to me.
Oh, I forgot to add the part where he stiffs people the money they’re owed on a regular basis.
Timex
3329
Look dude, I’m gonna let you in on a secret:
No one here is gonna give you a pass.
Literally no one here gives even one single fuck about if your feelings get hurt. Literally no one. Maybe some day, if you earn the respect of folks here, but right now? No one gives a fuck.
If you put forth stupid arguments, or refuse to acknowledge errors, or pretend that you didn’t hold positions after being proven wrong? Expect to be called on it. Do better. Sometimes that just amounts to admitting you hadn’t thought of something, and were wrong.
This isn’t what gave us Trump. What gave us Trump is people like you, who were ultimately unprincipled, basing their entire political existence upon a misguided sense of partisan tribalism, where you were willing to dramatically shift everything you believed in on a dime, as many times as necessary, to support an objectively terrible candidate.
If you want respect, do better. Pretending like bad ideas are good doesn’t do anyone a service.
I don’t know where you get the idea that I care what people here (the ones who I don’t know, at least) think of me. However, I do think it’s your loss if you just apply labels like “racist” and “stupid” to millions of people who happen to prefer a different political candidate than you do. You shut yourself off from a lot of good people by assuming others’ motivations you have not even met. And as we see here, you clutter threads.
Timex
3331
The fact that you bitch about people being mean to you constantly.
No dude, that’s bullshit.
No one is calling them racist and stupid simply for holding “different” views.
They are calling them racist and stupid for holding racist and stupid views. Didn’t we already go over this? The multitude of racist statements by Trump? How he lies daily, or says stuff that directly contradicts prior statements, or demonstrates profound failures to understand even basic stuff?
People who support that stuff are either imbeciles, or they are immoral individuals who just don’t care about the people those policies harm. Or both.
Pretending like they are good, despite their actions, is a disservice to everyone. Moral relativism is bullshit. Conservatives used to know this, remember? If you want to be thought of as a good person, you have to actually fucking be a good person.
I don’t think I advocated moral relativism. However, I will say that there is a nontrivial argument that Trump is helping more people than he’s hurting, and that that should offset breaches of decorum in politics.
CraigM
3334
There is also one teeny tiny, MAJOR PANTS ON FIRE, problem with claiming incredulity and disappointment about insults and being mean. That the claim that Trump is anti-Pc as a selling point. That he is speaking his mind.
The GOP in general, Fox Mews in specific, and Donald Trump in even more specific, made insults, labels, and name calling their modus operandi, their raison d’etre, the essence of their being. To then decry labels as unhelpful and alienating when the unofficial Trump slogan is those two old white people in the ‘Trump, Fuck your Feelings’ shirts?
Nah, not gonna fly with me.
I reject this idea that people dislike Trump because he uses bad words and vulgar tweets. That’s a complete strawman that Trump supporters seem to go for in order to bolster their internally-consistent worldview of “as long as you ignore the rude stuff he says, he’s doing a great job.”
Those of us who are radically opposed to Trump – in ways we were not to Bush, nor would have been to McCain or Romney had they won – are concerned about the ample record of his statements indicating that he believes the media is the enemy of the people, in which he stokes racial resentment and fear, in which he hints that he would not accept the results of an election he lost, in which he vows to bring criminal charges against his political opponent, and in which he implies the justice department should be loyal to him rather than to the law.
These comments have the ring of fascism. It may turn out to be a false alarm, but it’s legitimately alarming. It’s not about politeness.
This is why, btw, I think the Access Hollywood tape has been oversold. I find it astonishing that anyone thought Trump was a fit candidate before the tape released, and when it did, and I thought (foolishly) it might sink his campaign, my reaction was: “Really? This is is what tips the scale?”
Menzo
3336
Oh, so now the criteria for being President is simply if you help one more person than you hurt? Maybe hurt way fewer people?
Did you hold Obama to this standard? Did you stop to evaluate his policies to see if they helped more than they hurt?
Doubt it.
Edit - let’s remember what the right called out a few years ago.
RichVR
3337
Over and over. It’s almost like he’s deliberately ignoring the facts or something. Almost like a troll or something.
Timex
3338
I believe that you would have a very hard time making a coherent argument that Trump is helping more people than he’s hurting.
Menzo
3339
According to white nationalists, maybe you could make that argument.
Is gman a white nationalist? I’m just asking questions here, people.
Just kidding. The answer is yes.
What if hypothetically he did – I don’t know how you would calculate it. Imagine a scenario where you have a brilliant and competent president who cuts peoples’ taxes, reduces homelessness, etc, but on the side, he’s said a few potentially racist things. Could you ever support him, or do the racist comments mean you would support a less good president (meaning one who did not really reduce homelessness, etc).
Menzo
3341
No, you idiot, because you are assuming that there’s nobody else in the world who could accomplish those things and NOT be racist.
It’s possible to not be a dick and be President. It’s even possible, yes, I will admit this, to be a Republican President and not be a terrible person.
I agree with you here. No doubt this is all true. Fortunately, the checks and balances have held.
