2020 US Election (Part Two)

[Lexicus]

What is Sander's endgame?

I dunno. I'm seeing all these pro-Sanders people talking about what a crime it is that the elections are still happening but then they're like "Nope Bernie shouldn't drop out" and I frankly don't get it.

 

[Patine]

I dunno. I'm seeing all these pro-Sanders people talking about what a crime it is that the elections are still happening but then they're like "Nope Bernie shouldn't drop out" and I frankly don't get it.

I'm saying the U.S. Electoral System is an ongoing racket of a crime regardless.

 

[Patine]

You guys are just proving my point that trying to rank the worst presidents inevitably just devolves into arguments without any real substance lol

Why is there inherently no substance to such arguments? Or are you one of those pretentious deconstructionist types?

 

[thecrazyscot]

Why is there inherently no substance to such arguments? Or are you one of those pretentious deconstructionist types?

No need to jump to petty insults right out of the gate with me.

I'll refer you to my earlier post...

Personally I don't really see the use in trying to tease out who the "worst" president is. Especially if you're trying to rank a president during his term. The historical impacts of a presidency won't become fully apparent for years, or even decades. Also, if you want to "rank" the presidents, you need a mutually agreed-upon scale, otherwise the whole exercise is just slinging conflicting opinions with conflicting underlying assumptions without actually addressing the root argument. I very much doubt any two of us on this forum could agree on a single scale to measure a president on.

Until you have an agreed-upon standard for ranking the presidents everyone is going to be arguing past each other. You can't have a substantive argument about this if everyone is using different standards.

The first argument you should have is about what the standards of ranking should be.

 

[Ajidica]

You guys are just proving my point that trying to rank the worst presidents inevitably just devolves into arguments without any real substance lol

No substance?
In each of my posts I put forward arguments based on things the presidents did or factors that make assigning them all the blame for some intellectually suspect.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Until you have an agreed-upon standard for ranking the presidents everyone is going to be arguing past each other. You can't have a substantive argument about this if everyone is using different standards.

The first argument you should have is about what the standards of ranking should be.

They should be ranked by the quality of their hair style!

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I dunno. I'm seeing all these pro-Sanders people talking about what a crime it is that the elections are still happening but then they're like "Nope Bernie shouldn't drop out" and I frankly don't get it.

If there's enough of a gap the primaries already conducted are like a preseason and don't count.

 

[Patine]

They should be ranked by the quality of their hair style!

The Eisenhauer would win that one flat out! An older man who goes all out bald is a man of true courage, especially in pretentious and judgemental days. Look how much Reagan, Clinton, and Trump spent on their hair - notably to have any at all.

 

[thecrazyscot]

No substance?
In each of my posts I put forward arguments based on things the presidents did or factors that make assigning them all the blame for some intellectually suspect.

Ok.

Ray-gun Reagan misses out on your list; even though he tried to bribe Iranian mullahs in violation of US sanctions and didn't care when the NSC went badly off the reservation and took actions that Congress had explicitly said the US government was not do engage in?
Given how much crap you give Bill Clinton on US drug policy, I'm sure you have an equally intense opinion on Nancy Reagan's sanctimonious "Just Say No" nonsense.

Well, besides nearly spooking the Soviet Union into nuclear war with the Able Archer war scare, and spending billions of dollars to prop up African warlords and promote two decades of bloody conflict in order to protect a bunch of racists in South Africa.

I haven't checked, but all the Cold War proxy conflicts in the third world encouraged by Ronnie Ray-Gun are up there with the deaths in Syria and Libya - and Vietnam was a bi-partisan disaster that LBJ was trying to find a way to wrap up while maintaining an anti-communist deterrence in South East Asia. LBJ came close to a peace discussion, but Nixon wanted to use it as an election issue and told the South Vietnamese to ignore LBJs peace discussions.

Also, if we really want to get into the Vietnam blame-game, I would lay the blame for our involvement on Eisenhower in his failure to support the 1954 Geneva Accords.

For starters, pretty much all your criteria seems based on foreign policy and wars. If that were not the criteria I deemed important, everything you said does nothing to convince me of your argument, because we haven't agreed to the foundations.

What I am saying should not be controversial. This is basic argumentation taught in middle and high school (granted, not to enough students...). Establish definitions, parameters, and boundaries at the beginning, then everyone can have a productive and worthwhile discussion. Part of argumentation is trying to set those bounds. Discussions without these boundaries inevitably become wildly varying with rabbit trail aplenty, tons of off-topic discussion, logical fallacies, etc. So, pretty much most discussions on here. These discussions are not without merit, it's just much, much more difficult to have a productive and constructive discussion with all the extra crap that comes along with everyone talking across each other.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

For starters, pretty much all your criteria seems based on foreign policy and wars. If that were not the criteria I deemed important, everything you said does nothing to convince me of your argument, because we haven't agreed to the foundations.

What I am saying should not be controversial. This is basic argumentation taught in middle and high school (granted, not to enough students...). Establish definitions, parameters, and boundaries at the beginning, then everyone can have a productive and worthwhile discussion. Part of argumentation is trying to set those bounds. Discussions without these boundaries inevitably become wildly varying with rabbit trail aplenty, tons of off-topic discussion, logical fallacies, etc. So, pretty much most discussions on here. These discussions are not without merit, it's just much, much more difficult to have a productive and constructive discussion with all the extra crap that comes along with everyone talking across each other.

True, but it is entertaining.

As to the current branch of the discussion, the definitions for the moment at least are established by the presence of Berzerker, who is broadly known for "foreign wars are all that matter" as a basic principle.

Just to bring you up to speed since you have been away for a while. You seem to have seen all you need to know what Patine is about.

 

[Berzerker]

Until you have an agreed-upon standard for ranking the presidents everyone is going to be arguing past each other. You can't have a substantive argument about this if everyone is using different standards.

The first argument you should have is about what the standards of ranking should be.

Dead bodies (and refugees) are my standard, that puts Vietnam and Iraq at the forefront followed closely by Syria in my life time. Warmongering is bipartisan I wish we had a peace party that was viable but the electorate seems largely unconcerned. Reminds me of George Carlin joking about disasters and tragedies, the further away they are the less excitement or concern they generate.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Dead bodies (and refugees) are my standard, that puts Vietnam and Iraq at the forefront followed closely by Syria in my life time. Warmongering is bipartisan I wish we had a peace party that was viable but the electorate seems largely unconcerned. Reminds me of George Carlin joking about disasters and tragedies, the further away they are the less excitement or concern they generate.

A peace party would be fine, if they had a way of getting comparable results in all other areas. Unfortunately, for the US to enjoy sucking up a gigantic unfair share of almost everything, we have to export something that we can provide better than anyone else, and that something is death. Exclude death dealing from the exchange and we'd never get anything like the bloated standard of living to which we are accustomed.

 

[Ajidica]

For starters, pretty much all your criteria seems based on foreign policy and wars.

That's where the discussion ended up going, if it went in the direction of domestic affairs I would have different arguments. The disastrous response to the AIDS epidemic and destruction of US industry coupled with a boom in international finance keep Reagan near the bottom for me in those areas.

What I am saying should not be controversial. This is basic argumentation taught in middle and high school (granted, not to enough students...). Establish definitions, parameters, and boundaries at the beginning, then everyone can have a productive and worthwhile discussion. Part of argumentation is trying to set those bounds. Discussions without these boundaries inevitably become wildly varying with rabbit trail aplenty, tons of off-topic discussion, logical fallacies, etc. So, pretty much most discussions on here. These discussions are not without merit, it's just much, much more difficult to have a productive and constructive discussion with all the extra crap that comes along with everyone talking across each other.

At the risk of sounding rude, have you ever participated in a discussion in your life? This isn't an idealized Greek debate and is going to be free form. If you disagree with the arguments I made, or think I was emphasizing the wrong things, post it in response. It's the back-and-forth that makes discussions interesting.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Some video from Wisconsin today:

Bernie Sanders cares about lives.
Or he is losing.
https://news.yahoo.com/wisconsin-holds-primary-vote-despite-coronavirus-crisis-145648924.html

"Let's be clear: holding this election amid the coronavirus outbreak is dangerous, disregards the guidance of public health experts, and may very well prove deadly," Sanders tweeted.

The 77-year-old Biden sees Wisconsin, where he tops Sanders in polling, as an opportunity to extend his lead. He has refrained from publicly calling for the primary's postponement, saying it was up to local officials to decide.

 

[thecrazyscot]

Dead bodies (and refugees) are my standard, that puts Vietnam and Iraq at the forefront followed closely by Syria in my life time. Warmongering is bipartisan I wish we had a peace party that was viable but the electorate seems largely unconcerned. Reminds me of George Carlin joking about disasters and tragedies, the further away they are the less excitement or concern they generate.

I'm going to bed, but will explain why I firmly believe this sort of single issue standard is fatally flawed and ultimately not useful tomorrow.

That's where the discussion ended up going, if it went in the direction of domestic affairs I would have different arguments. The disastrous response to the AIDS epidemic and destruction of US industry coupled with a boom in international finance keep Reagan near the bottom for me in those areas.

At the risk of sounding rude, have you ever participated in a discussion in your life? This isn't an idealized Greek debate and is going to be free form. If you disagree with the arguments I made, or think I was emphasizing the wrong things, post it in response. It's the back-and-forth that makes discussions interesting.

I've been here quite some time. I just regularly get tired of it and take long breaks. I've engaged in many discussions, many quite productively.

Even free form discussions need some sort of boundaries or ground rules. You can't possibly think academic training has no applicability in daily life? Sometimes keeping discussions on here on track and above spiteful back and forth seems like trying to harness the wind.

 

[Estebonrober]

Dead bodies (and refugees) are my standard, that puts Vietnam and Iraq at the forefront followed closely by Syria in my life time. Warmongering is bipartisan I wish we had a peace party that was viable but the electorate seems largely unconcerned. Reminds me of George Carlin joking about disasters and tragedies, the further away they are the less excitement or concern they generate.

so so so sooooo much that we loathe is bipartisan.

 

[Berzerker]

I'm going to bed, but will explain why I firmly believe this sort of single issue standard is fatally flawed and ultimately not useful tomorrow.

Foreign policy is the one area presidents generally control with the greatest ramifications for life and death.

 

[Kaitzilla]

I'm going to bed, but will explain why I firmly believe this sort of single issue standard is fatally flawed and ultimately not useful tomorrow.


I've been here quite some time. I just regularly get tired of it and take long breaks. I've engaged in many discussions, many quite productively.

Even free form discussions need some sort of boundaries or ground rules. You can't possibly think academic training has no applicability in daily life? Sometimes keeping discussions on here on track and above spiteful back and forth seems like trying to harness the wind.

I managed to stop getting into flame wars every day by removing the word "you" from all my posts.
It's weird, but I swear it works no matter how crazy the post is.

Spoiler :

Bob Dole, who is still alive, might have been onto something with his weird pronoun fetish.

 

[Estebonrober]

I managed to stop getting into flame wars every day by removing the word "you" from all my posts.
It's weird, but I swear it works no matter how crazy the post is.

its a good linguistic strategy !

 

[Ajidica]

Even free form discussions need some sort of boundaries or ground rules.

Yeah, we were discussing whether Reagan should appear on the 'Four Worst Modern Presidents' list with a strong focus on foreign affairs.
Seems sufficiently boundaries to me!

You can't possibly think academic training has no applicability in daily life?

I think this sort of "you haven't properly defined the terms of the debate" line is tedious and borderline useless in the sort of free flowing discussions on CFC where people drop in and out of the discussion, or may weigh in with an interesting point that is outside of the strict topic of the discussion. If you disagree with something I posted, or think I emphasized something too much, post that! I'm interested in hearing your opinions and contributions.