Lexicus
Deity
Locked up thousands of innocent children in prison camps and probably raped a couple of dozen women
2020 US Election (Part One)
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Locked up thousands of innocent children in prison camps and probably raped a couple of dozen women
Berzerker
Deity
No, Pence is Trump adjacent
Obama was the deporter-in-chief, but how do you compare that with Iraq, Libya and Syria?
I really don't care. What Trump is doing with the courts is ample incentive for me to want him gone.
It will probably destroy more poor people and minorities than all the mideast deaths put together.
And I'm still not convinced to put all their deaths at Obama's feet.
It will probably destroy more poor people and minorities than all the mideast deaths put together.
And I'm still not convinced to put all their deaths at Obama's feet.
Lexicus
Deity
Obama's status as deporter-in-chief was because the official definition of deportation was changed either near the end of the Bush administration or toward the beginning of his eight years, forget which. Nonetheless Trump has overseen a dramatic expansion of immigration enforcement.
Enabled a base that decided to start shooting people based on accents and skin color. Then changed the nature of the judiciary.
We'll see how it shakes out. Some people have a calculus for causing immediate harms compared to long-term harms. They're more angry at the drunk driver than the cigarette executive who masked cancer studies. Those calculations are based more on intuition than anything else.
Trump prefers separating children from their parents as a deterrent. And then lose track of what he has done to whom so nothing can be remedied. Those acts of inhumanity alone should qualify him as a criminal.
I was thinking about this yesterday on my way home from work, and as funny as this comment was... its not even hyperbole, really. The Republican/Conservative voters show much more of an ability to pick their candidate and then just handwaive any transgressions or flaws the candidate might have, whether through willful blindness, double standards, or outright forgiveness... as one of my favorite posters here often references... whatever gets the job done, and they pull the lever for their team. Democratic/Liberal voters seem much more insistent on a perfect or near-perfect candidate and they are much more ready to write off a candidate for any past transgression(s), large or small.
Then I started thinking about how increasingly harshly this is going to playout for Democrats in the years to come. With the internet, social media, digital photography, cellphone cameras, email, near 24-7 surveillance, etc., future candidates are going to have waaaaay more embarrasing and compromising stuff turning up during campaigns and way more scrutiny of their past record. And they are going to get hammered for it on way more internet forums, and youtube political shows in addition to the 24-hour national news. If the support for a Democratic candidate whithers easily because so-and-so on the internet posted some propaganda against them, while the Republicans just dismiss criticism of their candidates as "fake news"... hooboy… the Democrats (and their constituents) are in for some hard times.
When I think more about it. The mindset of the Democrats base makes it almost mandatory that the candidate they run is extremely young and relatively new to public office, because the longer the record, the more stuff your voters are going to have to be able to handwaive… and while Republican voters have mastered it... the Democratic voters... not so much...
Not sure what the solution is if any... just thinking out loud my CFC pals.
Lexicus
Deity
There is no solution. Part of the definition of being conservative is thinking the ends justify the means, so naturally your team's flaws are forgiven. And part of the definition of liberal is agonizing over issues of conscience.
It's doesn't even need to be phrased so harshly. A conservative is more likely to protect the in-group. I'd not expect liberals to vote against the liberal candidate in a two-party system. They just don't hustle to protect their candidate if the candidate is less-than-ideal.
Israel denies entry to Reps. Omar and Tlaib hours after Trump’s push for a ban
I know that the 'base' doesn't see it this way, because they're committed to a negative-sum worldview.
But think about this:
A government employee used official government communication in order to impede a citizen's ability to travel to an ally's country. Ostensibly based on things she's said.
Remember the super-cute days of "I don't agree with what you say, but I'll protect your right to say it"?
Good luck convincing the base that the President is now taking steps to damage the citizenry, despite the intent of the First Amendment.
Lexicus
Deity
I think I must be the only one who sees this as fairly unremarkable. Everyone is making much of Trump's supposed role, and most of the reporting has framed this as yet another of Trump's many outrages against decency and "norms", but I see it as much more a consequence of Israel's complete collapse into right-wing authoritarianism.
There is something off, to me, about the tone of criticism: as if it is all Trump's fault is one part of that, but another part is the basic point that leftists outraged about this don't seem to understand what it means to say that Israel is an apartheid, quasi-fascist state. It is that, and it is only going to act less and less like a liberal democracy as time goes by.
I'm absolutely not saying that it's Trump fault. First off, I think that Israel is well-within its rights to be rude to people who're critical. I could drill down as to whether I am bothered by this specific action on their part, but I don't need to.
I'm saying that Trump actually took action. He did it for politics, and we all know that. But it's also the action of a President, using the White House, regarding a citizen's Freedom of Speech.
He has a sworn duty to protect that freedom. He has a political incentive to perform that duty half-assedly. But his actual actions were to actually take pro-active efforts to damage that freedom.
The offense isn't that Israel is too authoritarian. The offense is that the President acted against the Constitution for personal gain.
I'm saying that Trump actually took action. He did it for politics, and we all know that. But it's also the action of a President, using the White House, regarding a citizen's Freedom of Speech.
He has a sworn duty to protect that freedom. He has a political incentive to perform that duty half-assedly. But his actual actions were to actually take pro-active efforts to damage that freedom.
The offense isn't that Israel is too authoritarian. The offense is that the President acted against the Constitution for personal gain.
Lexicus
Deity
I wasn't really talking about you, I was talking about all the reporting and "takes" I've seen on social media, sorry if that was unclear.
Remember that Israel has a law saying that people who support BDS are barred from entry to the country. Making the exception because the individuals concerned were members of the US Congress would have been an act of propaganda, an act sanitizing the authoritarianism.
I am having a lot of trouble understanding how these two sentences can coexist. You don't have a problem with authoritarianism in Israel, but the US President acting in an authoritarian manner is unacceptable?
Thanks for posting this, it's a good point.
I'm framing it as a critique of Trump, because it's the 2020 thread. A person's support or tolerance or acceptance or revulsion of Isreal's practices in this matter are independent of whether someone finds Trump's behaviour acceptable. Or, they should be. He attacked a citizen's freedom of speech, instead of defending it.
Lexicus
Deity
Fair enough.
I think you'll find in practice that this isn't the case, and that's exactly the problem I have with the reporting: there is an implicit acceptance of Israeli policy that is required to portray Trump as the problem here.
In practice, I can predict someone's tolerance of deficits based on who's in power and the person's declared political position. And I can predict their position on mass shootings as well. But, I get your point.
Lexicus
Deity
Yes. The Republican Party, which is more or less the same as the ‘conservative movement’, is practically Orwellian in its self-denial, especially with their use of the terms ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts’, and also in its admittance that ultimately they really just care about hurting other people before they lose their war.I was thinking about this yesterday on my way home from work, and as funny as this comment was... its not even hyperbole, really. The Republican/Conservative voters show much more of an ability to pick their candidate and then just handwaive any transgressions or flaws the candidate might have, whether through willful blindness, double standards, or outright forgiveness... as one of my favorite posters here often references... whatever gets the job done, and they pull the lever for their team. Democratic/Liberal voters seem much more insistent on a perfect or near-perfect candidate and they are much more ready to write off a candidate for any past transgression(s), large or small.
Then I started thinking about how increasingly harshly this is going to playout for Democrats in the years to come. With the internet, social media, digital photography, cellphone cameras, email, near 24-7 surveillance, etc., future candidates are going to have waaaaay more embarrasing and compromising stuff turning up during campaigns and way more scrutiny of their past record. And they are going to get hammered for it on way more internet forums, and youtube political shows in addition to the 24-hour national news. If the support for a Democratic candidate whithers easily because so-and-so on the internet posted some propaganda against them, while the Republicans just dismiss criticism of their candidates as "fake news"... hooboy… the Democrats (and their constituents) are in for some hard times.
When I think more about it. The mindset of the Democrats base makes it almost mandatory that the candidate they run is extremely young and relatively new to public office, because the longer the record, the more stuff your voters are going to have to be able to handwaive… and while Republican voters have mastered it... the Democratic voters... not so much...
Not sure what the solution is if any... just thinking out loud my CFC pals.
Also… let us please pretend for a second that I am John Spartan and you are Lenina Huxley.
‘It's “handwave”, not “handwaive”’.
Berzerker
Deity
supports invading Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya resulting in millions of refugees and hundreds of thousands of deaths
meh, no biggie... I can vote for him
meh, no biggie... I can vote for him
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