President Donald Trump: The Thread

[Dick Allen]

Why does Trump use all the hand geatures when he is clearly reading from a telepromper? It looks ridiculous. Can't his handlers turn off Fox News and give him lessons ?

Edited August 22, 2017 by Dick Allen

[Jack Parkman]

For example, Rioting, Looting and violence during protests do not accomplish anything. They are counterproductive to the cause that you are fighting for and should not be partaken in. This is the type of behavior I call "feeding the trolls" It basically validates the racists/bigots point of view and gives them talking points, hence why it is counterproductive.

[Jack Parkman]

I mean you've shown you're not objective in any way already, but I'll dance anyways because I've had a few, but which side does the rioting and looting? (Both sides have contributed in violence.)

I'm more referring to the events that occurred in Baltimore in 2015.(remember when the Sox/O's game got postponed?) It is completely counterproductive. I don't advocate that s*** at all. Am I an uber liberal? Yeah. But the way to successfully protest is to show the world who the oppressors and oppressed are. When you are a member of an oppressed class protesting, you want to show the public exactly who the assholes are. When you do things that portray your group as the assholes it completely defeats the purpose and feeds the trolls.

When you live on the periphery of society like I do, you see things in a different light. I've been pretty strong and stern on my stances lately because of the whole Nazi thing. They threaten my very existence as a disabled person. I take it very personally when people attack my right to exist on this planet. In my opinion, I am the only one who can make a decision about whether or not I can exist.

The whole 'when a right winger says" post was to point out the ridiculousness of their "talking points." that I strongly believe they use to oppress people who are not white neurotypical males. That the same attacks that they use to attack minorities and poor people can be used to attack them, and it is just as ridiculous from both points of view. The huge issue right now is that people on both ends of the aisle are not using their brain and critically thinking.

 

From my point of view, the first thing that needs to be done on this subject is to get the majority of the country on the same page, and realize that minorities are still oppressed, but in a different, more subtle, but systematic way. Until we get to that point we're spinning our wheels. This seems like the mid-late 60s all over again. Hopefully we come out on the right side of this, and everyone is better off after this second era of social turbulence in the USA. This is part of what happens in a democracy. The biggest way to help minorities is economic empowerment. When you don't see a plausible way out of the projects or your parents' basement(in my case), you lose hope and become angry and resentful. I struggle with this at times but usually cooler heads prevail. I just don't understand how Nazis=bad is not a universal truth. That is what baffles me. I see zero moral equivalence between Nazis and hate groups who condone and preach genocide vs those who preach acceptance and inclusion. With regard to certain groups, I agree with the message, but not the methods.

Edited August 22, 2017 by Jack Parkman

[caulfield12]

I hardly think deliberately GOADING a group of liberals/Antifa and getting escorted out by the police is the MORAL EQUIVALENT of the actions we've consistently seen from NEO-NAZI hate groups...

 

If those on the right desire to say that Antifa or Black Lives Matter are the exact same thing, just on opposite sides, there's absolutely no way productive way to go forward for this country without a completely new administration (Trump and Pence both gone) in 2020.

[Jack Parkman]

I don't understand how I'm not being objective. I don't like people who threaten my existence. Trump mocked disabled people, he's on my s*** list. I felt personally attacked by the leader of my country. I understand fiscal conservatism mostly. I think it is a valid, acceptable point of view. In my mind, social conservatism is not a valid, acceptable point of view. We should always strive to be more inclusive and diverse. Social conservatism keeps people like myself disenfranchised and on the periphery of society. You shouldn't be unable to support yourself financially because of things outside of your control. You should be judged on your character and nothing more. People say you enter this world as equals and I (strongly) believe that isn't true. The best way to "to solve the poor problem" is to give poor people and opportunity to work and live comfortably for the first time in their lives. I like to call this economic empowerment. The biggest thing that people have to see is evidence that change is possible. That used to exist. It doesn't anymore.

Edited August 22, 2017 by Jack Parkman

[Jack Parkman]

I hardly think deliberately GOADING a group of liberals/Antifa and getting escorted out by the police is the MORAL EQUIVALENT of the actions we've consistently seen from NEO-NAZI hate groups...

 

If those on the right desire to say that Antifa or Black Lives Matter are the exact same thing, just on opposite sides, there's absolutely no way productive way to go forward for this country without a completely new administration (Trump and Pence both gone) in 2020.

If those on the right desire to say that Antifa and BLM are the moral equivalent of Neo Nazi hate groups, then there is no hope for this country period. We might as well blow it up and start over. We'll be fighting WWII all over again but within our own borders. This is where I was going about social conservatism not being a valid and acceptable POV. The point I was making earlier was that with some things it is not a matter of right vs left, it is a matter of right vs wrong. Can we all agree that there are certain things that are right vs wrong, and not an opinion/personal politics, but literally right and wrong? If you want to attack politics that is one thing. When you attack an entire group of people for things like "these people have a lack of work ethic" or other similar generalized character attacks, that in my mind is hate speech in disguise.

Edited August 22, 2017 by Jack Parkman

[greg775]

Good god...the partisanship on this board is sickening.

I think everyone in America should be an independent like me. That way you can just assess candidates on their own merit. For instance I am a former Republican conservative, yet in the pack of bad choices, I became a huge Bernie guy. I despised Hillary; saw Trump as a total rich chump and really didn't like anybody else except Biden, who wasn't running and McCain and Kasisch.

 

Cmon folks, both major parties are crooked; both are awful. Become an independent and assess all presidential candidates in the future on their own merits, not party.

[Jack Parkman]

I think everyone in America should be an independent like me. That way you can just assess candidates on their own merit. For instance I am a former Republican conservative, yet in the pack of bad choices, I became a huge Bernie guy. I despised Hillary; saw Trump as a total rich chump and really didn't like anybody else except Biden, who wasn't running and McCain and Kasisch.

 

Cmon folks, both major parties are crooked; both are awful. Become an independent and assess all presidential candidates in the future on their own merits, not party.

I'd love to be able to feel like i have a choice. If the Alt right had not hijacked the GOP, then maybe I'd feel like I have a choice. There are plenty of things I disagree with the democratic establishment about. There is no economic leftist party in America. These people need a voice. I cannot stress enough how economic empowerment solves a lot of societal ills

Edited August 22, 2017 by Jack Parkman

[caulfield12]

I think everyone in America should be an independent like me. That way you can just assess candidates on their own merit. For instance I am a former Republican conservative, yet in the pack of bad choices, I became a huge Bernie guy. I despised Hillary; saw Trump as a total rich chump and really didn't like anybody else except Biden, who wasn't running and McCain and Kasisch.

 

Cmon folks, both major parties are crooked; both are awful. Become an independent and assess all presidential candidates in the future on their own merits, not party.

 

The third party candidates like Jill Stein were even more awful this past election...

 

Evan McMullin said some interesting things...Bill Weld was a Republican in left-leaning Massachusetts, so basically closer to a Dem as a member of the Libertarian Party.

 

No real answers there in the Green or Libertarian Parties. Arguably, Stein contributed as well to Trump's election because of siphoning off votes in the Rust Belt (like Nader from Gore in 2000, Perot from Bush Sr. in 1992).

[caulfield12]

At least 54% and another 19% undecided (splitting the difference gives you 63-64%) of Americans want Confederate statues to remain in place...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/majority-america...-215130275.html

 

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp...m=.86c6b9582388

Mnuchin's wife boasts of travel on government plane, Hermes and Valentino fashions

Edited August 22, 2017 by caulfield12

[TaylorStSox]

Again, you've turned this into a partisan issue when it's not one. Am I allowed to beat someone's ass cause they were "annoying" and justify it by saying some random right-wing psychopath ran down an innocent person with their car? Think that defense would hold up in court? It's completely absurd and I'm not sure why you're still trying to connect scummy behavior by liberal prostestors to the Republican Party. You realize TaylorStreet is a liberal right? You realize I'm a liberal right? You're "the Republicans have done way worse" argument isn't going to work here because we aren't defending them. We're simply calling s***ty behavior regardless of political affiliation.

Great series of posts, CWS.

 

People realize that "antifas" originated from skinhead culture, right? It used to be that skinheads and antifas ran in the same circles, with opposing beliefs. They'd go to Hardcore shows, get in fights with one another, then go grab some coffee together and talk about how cool being "edge" was. Both groups were equally violent, equally misguided, led by idiots that preyed on youth wanting something to believe in.

 

The current political climate is a real indictment of the Democratic party. Here you have an idiot running the country. You have a motivated base. Yet, there's such a lack of leadership that they can't seize the opportunity. As a liberal, it's extremely frustrating to witness.

 

The Equivalence Fallacies of some of the posters in this thread really aren't worth arguing. Justifying poor behavior by comparing it to worse behavior is how children argue. Literally.

[caulfield12]

Great series of posts, CWS.

 

People realize that "antifas" originated from skinhead culture, right? It used to be that skinheads and antifas ran in the same circles, with opposing beliefs. They'd go to Hardcore shows, get in fights with one another, then go grab some coffee together and talk about how cool being "edge" was. Both groups were equally violent, equally misguided, led by idiots that preyed on youth wanting something to believe in.

 

The current political climate is a real indictment of the Democratic party. Here you have an idiot running the country. You have a motivated base. Yet, there's such a lack of leadership that they can't seize the opportunity. As a liberal, it's extremely frustrating to witness.

 

The Equivalence Fallacies of some of the posters in this thread really aren't worth arguing. Justifying poor behavior by comparing it to worse behavior is how children argue. Literally.

 

 

Sure, but what is the solution....Gandhian/MLK non-violence and passive resistance yet again?

 

 

 

It's certainly true that the violent right generally supports President Trump. Given that support, his hesitancy about criticizing even the most extreme Nazi imagery and lethal violence (he did call out "racist violence" two days later, then walked it back) creates the impression that, if he isn't explicitly sympathetic to the marching morons at Charlottesville, he at least enjoys basking in the scented glow of tiki torches. If we're balancing dangers on the great scale of suckage, that connection to the White House would seem to make the fascist right the more immediate threat.

 

But that doesn't mean we have to pick a competing brand of ideological awfulness as a viable alternative to fascism. The thugs on the left have already proved themselves to be violent and intolerant. There's no reason to favor one illiberal force over another when our country has a long history based on much different, and much better, political principles.

 

"Sooner or later... one has to take sides—if one is to remain human," Haider writes, quoting a character from Graham Greene's The Quiet American. "The liberal center has to heed the same warning," Haider adds. "In order to reject Trump's equivocations about 'many sides,' we have to take one."

 

But the character Haider quotes is a member of Vietnam's Communist party—which killed "probably about 1,040,000" people in the post-Vietnam War period, after it came to power over the united country, as estimated by the late Prof. R. J. Rummel of the University of Hawaii. What about that? That's an unpalatable side to pick in any situation.

 

We do have to pick a side. But we already have one. Despite our many differences over specific policies, most Americans have traditionally supported the side of liberty, tolerance, free speech, and peaceful political change, within broad parameters. That side is in opposition to the violent, authoritarian thugs of the right and of the left. If we regain our faith in what we already have, there's no reason to choose between rival siblings competing to rule over the ruins of everything that's worthwhile on behalf of their illiberal family.

 

http://reason.com/archives/2017/08/22/choo...antifa-and-fasc

 

The problem is we're treating skinheads/Neo-Nazis here as just a somewhat innocent, misunderstood group...if they were exactly that, why would there have any been any need to oppose them in the first place?

 

Sharks and Jets, Hatfields and McCoys, Montagues and Capulets...yet why are the hospitalized or number of serious injuries in the name of the skinhead movement exponentially higher?

 

How many has/have Antifa ever killed?

 

What about the hundreds or thousands of deaths that the Aryan Brotherhood is behind in the American prison systems? They're different from skinheads, how exactly?

Edited August 22, 2017 by caulfield12

[TaylorStSox]

Sure, but what is the solution....Gandhian/MLK non-violence and passive resistance yet again?

 

 

 

It's certainly true that the violent right generally supports President Trump. Given that support, his hesitancy about criticizing even the most extreme Nazi imagery and lethal violence (he did call out "racist violence" two days later, then walked it back) creates the impression that, if he isn't explicitly sympathetic to the marching morons at Charlottesville, he at least enjoys basking in the scented glow of tiki torches. If we're balancing dangers on the great scale of suckage, that connection to the White House would seem to make the fascist right the more immediate threat.

 

But that doesn't mean we have to pick a competing brand of ideological awfulness as a viable alternative to fascism. The thugs on the left have already proved themselves to be violent and intolerant. There's no reason to favor one illiberal force over another when our country has a long history based on much different, and much better, political principles.

 

"Sooner or later... one has to take sides—if one is to remain human," Haider writes, quoting a character from Graham Greene's The Quiet American. "The liberal center has to heed the same warning," Haider adds. "In order to reject Trump's equivocations about 'many sides,' we have to take one."

 

But the character Haider quotes is a member of Vietnam's Communist party—which killed "probably about 1,040,000" people in the post-Vietnam War period, after it came to power over the united country, as estimated by the late Prof. R. J. Rummel of the University of Hawaii. What about that? That's an unpalatable side to pick in any situation.

 

We do have to pick a side. But we already have one. Despite our many differences over specific policies, most Americans have traditionally supported the side of liberty, tolerance, free speech, and peaceful political change, within broad parameters. That side is in opposition to the violent, authoritarian thugs of the right and of the left. If we regain our faith in what we already have, there's no reason to choose between rival siblings competing to rule over the ruins of everything that's worthwhile on behalf of their illiberal family.

 

http://reason.com/archives/2017/08/22/choo...antifa-and-fasc

 

The problem is we're treating skinheads/Neo-Nazis here as just a somewhat innocent, misunderstood group...if they were exactly that, why would there have any been any need to oppose them in the first place?

 

Sharks and Jets, Hatfields and McCoys, Montagues and Capulets...yet why are the hospitalized or number of serious injuries in the name of the skinhead movement exponentially higher?

 

How many has/have Antifa ever killed?

 

What about the hundreds or thousands of deaths that the Aryan Brotherhood is behind in the American prison systems? They're different from skinheads, how exactly?

I'm gonna be totally honest with you Caulfield. I don't really read your posts.

[Dick Allen]

I hope for his sake he was joking, but Tucker Carlson on Trump looking at the eclipse without glasses:

 

“In a move that is not a complete surprise, he looked at the sun without any glasses,” Carlson gushed. “Perhaps the most impressive thing any president has ever done.”

 

 

[caulfield12]

I'm gonna be totally honest with you Caulfield. I don't really read your posts.

 

Yeah, maybe you're right...it doesn't make any difference what a single person writes here anyway, nobody will ever change their minds, one way or the other. Honestly, I can't recall anything you've ever written one way or the other, either.

 

At any rate, a new school year has started again, so now's the perfect time to do the Rabbit "long farewell."

[GoSox05]

Great series of posts, CWS.

 

People realize that "antifas" originated from skinhead culture, right? It used to be that skinheads and antifas ran in the same circles, with opposing beliefs. They'd go to Hardcore shows, get in fights with one another, then go grab some coffee together and talk about how cool being "edge" was. Both groups were equally violent, equally misguided, led by idiots that preyed on youth wanting something to believe in.

 

The current political climate is a real indictment of the Democratic party. Here you have an idiot running the country. You have a motivated base. Yet, there's such a lack of leadership that they can't seize the opportunity. As a liberal, it's extremely frustrating to witness.

 

The Equivalence Fallacies of some of the posters in this thread really aren't worth arguing. Justifying poor behavior by comparing it to worse behavior is how children argue. Literally.

 

 

Antifa originated in 1930's Germany. Has been fighting against fascism literally from the start.

 

The Lost History of Antifa

 

 

I never meet anybody in antifa over the years that ran in the same circles as nazi skinheads.

Edited August 22, 2017 by GoSox05

[GoSox05]

Trump also pretty much announcing last night that we will be at war with Afghanistan forever.

 

 

@MicahZenko

Bottom line: Trump has now expanded US military presence and/or airstrikes in EVERY combat theater he inherited from Obama.

 

 

War forever.

 

[BigSqwert]

Trump also pretty much announcing last night that we will be at war with Afghanistan forever.

 

 

@MicahZenko

Bottom line: Trump has now expanded US military presence and/or airstrikes in EVERY combat theater he inherited from Obama.

 

 

War forever.

 

Worked really well for Russia to be in Afghanistan forever.

[bmags]

We have been in Afghanistan longer at this point, haven't we?

[StrangeSox]

We have been in Afghanistan longer at this point, haven't we?

 

Soviets were there for 10 years.

 

We're coming up on 16.

[GoSox05]

Year seventeen is going to be it though, the Taliban are in trouble now. This is our year!

 

 

[StrangeSox]

Hey, we're only at 32 Friedman Units, it takes at least 40 to finally turn that corner.

[BigSqwert]

"In case you were wondering why those Confederate statues crumple like cheap plastic."

Good video at the link.

 

Greg, you may want to check it out since you seemed aghast about the statue situation.

Edited August 22, 2017 by BigSqwert

[Balta1701]

To be fair, it's not like anyone else would have done anything different. Maybe Sanders, but that's about it.

 

Removing some of the rules of engagement so we kill more civilians probably isn't the best, and antagonizing Pakistan by suggesting we'll ask for more help from India isn't the best, but the current situation is at least moderately stable. What better options do we have? This is one place where there's a legitimate government waiting to step in who we absolutely do not want to step in - the Taliban, and the only reason they have not stepped in is that we have refused to let them.

[greg775]

Good video at the link.

 

Greg, you may want to check it out since you seemed aghast about the statue situation.

 

Those cheap mass produced statues are weird. Get rid of them all now. That's so bizarre they are fake like that. Good video.