Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Kiri]

Quite sensible too, given how toxic and corrosive to civilisation the concept of human rights has been. TYVM but I'd unironically rather go back to the pre-world-war era Britain, before such nonsense was in the air.

Seeing as I'm one of the few around here who supports the 3 pillars of Western civilisation (aka Christendom)... yeah, whatever. Go tip that fedora and scream tabula rasa or muh radical individualism or whatever it is you do.

This seems somewhat incongruous to me. You say you support Christian views, but would want to go back to a time where it was perfectly fine to discriminate against women/people of colour/other minorities? Bringing back discrimination, torture, forced labour, that doesn't sound like what I hear in church. Yet, you argue that getting rid of those things is in some way toxic. Just doesn't jive to me. It's probably only sensible towards those who at least feel they don't need the protections afforded by human rights and don't really care about those who need them.

[nonameelf]

This seems somewhat incongruous to me. You say you support Christian views, but would want to go back to a time where it was perfectly fine to discriminate against women/people of colour/other minorities? Bringing back discrimination, torture, forced labour, that doesn't sound like what I hear in church. Yet, you argue that getting rid of those things is in some way toxic. Just doesn't jive to me. It's probably only sensible towards those who at least feel they don't need the protections afforded by human rights and don't really care about those who need them.

That's what a lot of these conservative arguments boil down to: "Everything was better when we got to shit on minorities."

[Redwyrm]

With apologies to Breccia

Time to guess the Defendent

"Obstruction of justice, money laundering, conspiracy to defraud the United States, making false statements to the federal government, serving as an agent of a foreign government without registering with the Justice Department, donating funds from foreign nationals, making contributions in the name of another person or allowing someone else to use one’s name to make a contribution, along with mail fraud and wire fraud."

If you said Rudy, take a subpoena out of petty cash

[riptor7364]

That's what a lot of these conservative arguments boil down to: "Everything was better when we got to shit on minorities."

"Everything was better when people respected our laws and traditions"

Fixed that for you.

[riptor7364]

That's not what's going on in the slightest... if it was the conservatives would have removed Trump from office already.

Why do you think the music Trump plays at his rallies, is the song "you can't always get what you want"? Think about it..

[nonameelf]

"Everything was better when people respected our laws and traditions"

Fixed that for you.

Yeah, the traditions of being able to shit on minorities.

Laws though? Fucking lol. Conservatives don't respect laws at all.

[Edge-]

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/22/polit...rnd/index.html

Tangentially related, as it may explain why so many Republicans backed Trump - in a scant 20 years the education level amongst Democrats and Republicans has flipped.

1994: 54% of college grads leaned Republican, 39% Democrat
2019: 54% of college grads lean Democrat, 39% Republican.

Interestingly, this largely lines up with the rise of Fox News, which started airing in 1996.

Gotta wonder how much the glorification of ignorance and the demonization of intellect and expertise has contributed to all of this.

[cubby]

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/22/polit...rnd/index.html

Tangentially related, as it may explain why so many Republicans backed Trump - in a scant 20 years the education level amongst Democrats and Republicans has flipped.

1994: 54% of college grads leaned Republican, 39% Democrat
2019: 54% of college grads lean Democrat, 39% Republican.

Interestingly, this largely lines up with the rise of Fox News, which started airing in 1996.

Gotta wonder how much the glorification of ignorance and the demonization of intellect and expertise has contributed to all of this.

That Issac Asimov quote will continue to haunt those that back the Trumpkins and their crusade against intelligent discourse. That switch in education levels is very interesting.

[Edge-]

https://www.businessinsider.com/rich...s-navy-2019-11

Debates about Richard Spencer aside, he makes a good point here -

"I don't think he really understands the full definition of a warfighter," Spencer said in a CBS News interview on Monday. "A warfighter is a profession of arms. And a profession of arms has standards that they have to be held to, and they hold themselves to."

I don't think anyone paying any attention would disagree with this. We can add this to the long list of things Trump doesn't understand including...

Health insurance
Tariffs
Walls
Solar eclipses
Infrastructure Week
Small loans

And I'll keep it mercifully short.

[Omega10]

So the only grocery store in a rural town in Florida closed. Since for most residents driving 20 miles to get groceries wasn't an option, City Hall opened their own grocery store paid for by taxes, with employees on the municipal payroll, and with profits used solely for maintaining it. But it's totally not socialism.



https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...grocery-store/

Once socialism is practiced over larger parts of the south, it will just be accepted as one of the tools used to make lives better for Americans in certain circumstances. This is truly good news.

This is also happening in Kansas. The following quote is from further on in the article:

A similar experiment has been successful in St. Paul, Kan., which has had a city-run grocery store since 2013. David Procter, who directs the Rural Grocery Initiative at Kansas State University, told The Post that another city-owned grocery store will open in Caney, Kan., in the spring, and at least one other town in the state is considering following suit.

It seems like socialism IS coming to America. Courtesy of the reddest of the red states.

[Teleros]

Yes, they have first-hand knowledge about how ineffective it is. And thankfully, they're no longer engaged in this behavior according to reports, so I'd say that's progress.

Given the other stuff they've outright lied about, you'll have to forgive me if I don't trust them one iota.

A group of fucking clowns.

Clowns they may be, and of course it's not meant to be nice, but I think I'd rather go through that than, again, the sort of stuff you get with the Gestapo or NKVD or whoever.

It's objectively immoral and unethical to any rule of law respecting society.

Hah. Oh, it may be bad under some ethical systems, and like I said even I'd consider it distasteful, which I obviously implies some level of immorality to it, but "objectively" bad under "any" such society? Hah.

Photographing bodies and celebrating death is considered physical descration. I don't know what to tell you. This is what US troops have been prosecuted under for years.

See, if you provided some of this earlier we'd have avoided a sizeable chunk of this discussion, because the actual quote from the rules governing this stuff doesn't make this clear whatsoever.

Okay that's just abhorrent. You mean the Age of Empire? You mean reversing the one thing the United States and Soviet Union agreed upon, which was that the age of colonialism would end? You mean returning to an era where this little nation in the North Atlantic systematically denied hundreds of millions of people their human rights and self rule and engaged in wars of conquest of other people's territory?

No, the bit about the state of civilisation in Great Britain.

The demolition of the British Empire was one of the most profound goods of the 20th century. The liberal international order could not exist with its perpetuation, and is only legitimate because of the end of the age of colonialism.

A lot of people on the ground out there might disagree actually, but w/e.

Oh you're one of those people. "Western Civilization", "Christiandom". What radical right wing YouTube channel did you pick that off of? Serious people don't express geopolicy in terms of "Western Civilization".

Try Vox Day.

I mean the Founding Fathers not only ended the first age of British Colonialism and took the British Empire's most important long term investment out of the Empire, but also pioneered human rights and the rule of law over a century before the actual United Kingdom did.

/spittake

You're delusional.

1. London was more concerned with the Caribbean islands because of their plantations etc. It was not at all obvious that the Thirteen Colonies would be a profitable part of the empire at the time, let alone a future superpower. Hell, it was a resource drain in many ways, given the cost of defending it from French Quebec etc, which of course is why colonial taxes were raised in the first place.
2. Canada.
3. India.
4. The colonists were considerably more expansionist than the ministers back in London. Without London reining them in, they steamrolled all the natives & rival (admittedly worse) empires.
5. Human rights? HUMAN RIGHTS?! This from the USA that maintained that only whites of good character could immigrate, that denied citizenship to the surviving natives, and that incidentally inherited all their damned ideology, including the rule of law, from the British Whig tradition.

American Democracy has been imperfect from the start

Because it was never a democracy, and was never intended to be until... wasn't it only in the 20th century that senators were elected by their state electorates, rather than the state governments?

In fact, the "Democratic Era" of the UK only began in the second decade of the 20th century.

More's the pity.

So yes, all hail the Founding Fathers. Conquering heroes who laid low the mightest empire in the world themselves

Bwahahahahaha.

13 Colonies: Lose almost every battle, have to rely on French troops & equipment.
Britain: Divided over the issue (see Edmund Burke et al). Also focused more on fighting in Europe simultaneously.
Idiot Americans today: We are beet da biggest an' meaniest empire in da world! I R edukashunated ded gud!

and whose descedents spent the decades after World War II making sure that there would be no third life for British Empire.

Oh, I'll freely grant you that. Between FDR & all the commies running rampant in his administration you certainly carved up the British Empire very well. Of course, half of it was then handed over to the Soviets to use as proxies in the Cold War, and places like Zimbabwe turned out so well, and effectively half the planet is now part of the informal/unofficial US Empire, but hey, at least it wasn't the Brits amirite ?

Correct, except that these aspects of the British Bill of Rights wasn't exactly being respected in late 18th century Britain and the American revolutionaries faced torturious deaths for their insurrection.

George Washington if he wins: A hero to the new country.
George Washington if he loses: A traitor, and executed as such.

That's always the way with these kinds of revolutions. If you try to overthrow the government, no matter which government, you should not expect much in the way of mercy. "March to the sea" ring any bells?

What do you mean "People can't even agree". That's irrelevant.

You cite the 8th Amendment, I say it doesn't always apply, referencing the Gitmo detainees, and so you do the old bait & switch to the Geneva Convention. As for that second case, habeas corpus doesn't equal all the other stuff. Furthermore, as Scalia notes, even habeas corpus can be legally suspended.

Open and shut.

As open and shut as Dred Scott v Sandford.

And here we are. The evolved standards of decency (a term used in Supreme Court arguments) have rendered the very kind of thing you advocate for to be illegal.

See this is what you're missing. Evolution has no direction, so what evolves one way today can evolve in another, or even the opposite, way, tomorrow.

And waterboarding and an electric drill are exactly the same thing.

One is very unpleasant, the other results in the literal loss of actual body parts.

Yes, I can see now that they're exactly the same thing. /s

It is the State extra-judicially and illegitimately inflicting suffering

What, and all such suffering is equal? Hah.

Fundamentally, I think the world you want to live in is a dark and sick one that we're far better to have moved past.

You think we've moved past it? Oh boy...

=====

This seems somewhat incongruous to me. You say you support Christian views, but would want to go back to a time where it was perfectly fine to discriminate against women/people of colour/other minorities?

The Bible does exactly that, you realise. Women are to be silent in church & obey their husbands, sodomy is sin that cries out to heaven for vengeance, and different peoples should generally not mix (note: being nice to strangers/visitors is good, but this is not the same as immigration or intermarriage). What I suspect you're hearing is the usual watered-down, inoffensive pap that much more worldly people are selling.

Infracted for forbidden topic

Bringing back discrimination

"Discrimination" is a morally neutral term. Do you prefer apples or oranges? Which party will you vote for? On and on it goes.

torture, forced labour, that doesn't sound like what I hear in church.

I wasn't thinking of going so far back as to pre-1833 (ie, when slavery was legal) days, TBH.

Yet, you argue that getting rid of those things is in some way toxic. Just doesn't jive to me. It's probably only sensible towards those who at least feel they don't need the protections afforded by human rights and don't really care about those who need them.

Human rights have, whatever their intent, been a net negative. I'd much rather go back to basing things on natural law, and recognising that civil (ie manmade) law cannot supersede it.

When it comes to human rights though, basically the evolution goes something like this:

Natural law + English common law = rights of Englishmen. Mutates into rights of man in the US Constitution, which was written by a bunch of Brits, and then exported post-WW2 everywhere.

However, an awful lot of the world has never developed the cultural, legal and yes, phenotypic groundwork for that. From what I've seen and heard, the Chinese for example generally just think differently to most Europeans, and the same seems to apply to many other groups around the world. Point is, it's not unreasonable to suppose that a one-size-fits-all system will work better in some places than others. To give a simple example or two, consider average low/high time preferences, or whether a society is a low or high trust one. Those things will have a huge impact on the viability of a legal system developed in one tiny corner of the world.

[Dontrike]

https://twitter.com/DavidBrodyCBN/st...278207488?s=19

People who believe that their God put Trump in office for a reason. I could go off here, but I won't. Still these people are weak and they know they can be influenced.

Plus weak on Haley who needs some deity to anoint someone we elect thru our Constitution.

She's actually not wrong, maybe God did put him there as a lesson, but it's one of those lessons you learn from, like the death of a relative or pet or why you shouldn't stick your dick in crazy. Something like that.

Trump is definitely a good lesson, but not in the way his zealots are hoping.

Also, the religious stuff of God putting him there is funny. Religion sucks.

- - - Updated - - -

So why has this thread become about torture and random shit that's not about Trump?

[Fugus]

She's actually not wrong, maybe God did put him there as a lesson, but it's one of those lessons you learn from, like the death of a relative or pet or why you shouldn't stick your dick in crazy. Something like that.

Trump is definitely a good lesson, but not in the way his zealots are hoping.

Also, the religious stuff of God putting him there is funny. Religion sucks.

- - - Updated - - -

So why has this thread become about torture and random shit that's not about Trump?

Reminds me of something I put on my facebook feed while back about Trump.

Basically said that if there is a god and god did put someone there so opposite to his teachings who praises him with his words while disgracing him with his actions, it was to teach us a lesson. To remind us that he gave us the give of intelligence and critical thinking so that we may use them, not to shut them down and blindly follow someone who tells us what we want to hear.

If God put him there, it was so that we may learn to not fall for someone like that and can actually use the gifts he gave us to reason for ourselves and work on the reality we have, not pretend its something different.

Basically if god put him there, it wasn't to lead us, it was as a test and to forsake all of our capability for logic, reason, and critical thinking and follow someone who consistently lies about everything and is a walking contradiction between their words and actions which disgrace gods very teachings, by doing that, we are failing gods text.

And made sure to include the fact that I am not a religious man myself but if I were, this is how I would honestly see this using the gifts he gave mankind.

[kaelleria]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-...mpaign-for-him

Trump Tells Allies He Wants Absolved War Criminals to Campaign for Him

What a scumbag.

[Breccia]

We're hearing some...interesting stuff about Team Trump and travel, aren't we? Giuliani sneaking to Spain. Canceled trips to Ukraine because it's not sneaking if you're being watched. Giuliani's Russian henchmen. Pence staying at Trump properties. A golf cart for a small hill. The list goes on.

I wonder what the WH Chief of Staff would say if --

"I don't exist."

Well, acting Chief of Staff Mulvaney clearly isn't responsible for these trips, as we've seen, he's been busy doing...other things, like illegally withholding Ukrainian aid. So it's probably his deputy who --

"I don't exist either."
-- White House deputy chief of staff Daniel Walsh

Walsh is one of the few...was one of the few people with Trump since the outset. He's also believed to be the most responsible for WH travel and taxpayer money going to WH aides.

[Dontrike]

Reminds me of something I put on my facebook feed while back about Trump.

Basically said that if there is a god and god did put someone there so opposite to his teachings who praises him with his words while disgracing him with his actions, it was to teach us a lesson. To remind us that he gave us the give of intelligence and critical thinking so that we may use them, not to shut them down and blindly follow someone who tells us what we want to hear.

If God put him there, it was so that we may learn to not fall for someone like that and can actually use the gifts he gave us to reason for ourselves and work on the reality we have, not pretend its something different.

Basically if god put him there, it wasn't to lead us, it was as a test and to forsake all of our capability for logic, reason, and critical thinking and follow someone who consistently lies about everything and is a walking contradiction between their words and actions which disgrace gods very teachings, by doing that, we are failing gods text.

And made sure to include the fact that I am not a religious man myself but if I were, this is how I would honestly see this using the gifts he gave mankind.

Yep, it's the usual, an angel to save us or a demon to test our faith.

Trump isn't smart enough to be either of course.

[Breccia]

Time to guess the Defendent

Citing Axios to bypass paywalls.

Subpoenas issued by federal prosecutors in recent weeks suggest a sweeping investigation is being conducted into Rudy Giuliani and his associates, with potential charges including obstruction of justice, fraud and money laundering, the Wall Street Journal first reported and the Washington Post confirmed.

Prosecutors have issued subpoenas seeking records and information related to Giuliani and two associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who have already been indicted on campaign finance violations. The investigation is being led by the FBI and the Southern District of New York, the U.S. attorney's office that Giuliani once ran.

Bolded for irony. Also, remember how Giuliani said he knew too much dirt to be fired?

"Yeah, wasn't that a while ago?"

It was, but, here's a more recent update.

"I've seen things written like he's going to throw me under the bus," Giuliani said in an interview with Fox News' Ed Henry about the characterizations and comments made in the media about him and his relationship with the president. "When they say that, I say he isn't, but I have insurance."

"This is ridiculous," he added. "We are very good friends. He knows what I did was in order to defend him, not to dig up dirt on Biden."

Hours later, Giuliani claimed on Twitter that the insurance policy he was referring to consisted of "files in my safe" that allegedly show ways former Vice President Joe Biden's family had been "monetizing" his decades in office. These files would apparently become public if Giuliani were to "disappear," he said in the tweet.

"Wait, so his 'insurance' is against the Bidens?"

Oh, no. Giuliani is lying. It's not even in the same time zone as credible. If Giuliani had info that damned the Biden family, he'd have turned it over to Trump, Barr, Nunes and Putin by now. Also, it makes no sense in context. If Trump were to throw Giuliani under the bus, why would files about Biden be insurance?

It could also be an attempted threat to keep himself off the stand, by suggesting that, on the stand, he'd just bring out all those documents. It's a lie about as transparent as the rear window of the short bus.

"You think I'm afraid?" Giuliani said. "You think I get afraid? I did the right thing. I represented my client in a very, very effective way. I was so effective that I discovered a pattern of corruption that the Washington press has been covering up for three or four years."

The interview at times became contentious, particularly when Giuliani claimed he was being used as a scapegoat by the media and various political figures.

"Damn it, the mafia couldn't kill me, your colleagues are not going to kill me!" Giuliani told Henry, referring to his time as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York in which he worked to indict members of New York City's organized crime families.

Giuliani is in trouble, and I don't just mean because his meds have run out. He has enough of a legal background to know being on the stand will force one of three outcomes:
A) He tells the truth, sinks Trump (not single-handedly, not anymore, but one of the biggies) costs the GOP the Senate and dooms the party he's spent the last 3 years ruining to watch President Warren sign the ACA into law on a table made of recycles Wall rubble.
B) He lies, gets caught immediately by those subpoena'd documents, and spends the rest of his life in jail, comforted only by the fact that his senility will make him forget most of it
C) He fights the subpoena and/or refuses to answer any question other than Nunes softballs like "so are the Bidens just the second most corrupt people in the world, or the most?" is forced to resign his White House job oh shit I forgot is forced to recuse himself from defending Trump, is likely thrown in jail for contempt at that point, and his silence is mentioned by every single Democrat on every single question in every single debate in 2020.

"Well thank you, Mister Wallace. Climate change is important, because Trump's own personal attorney wouldn't even answer --"
"Yes, thank you. We heard you the first thirty-seven times. Mr. Trump, your response?"
"I can't find a Sharpie."

[Elegiac]

However, an awful lot of the world has never developed the cultural, legal and yes, phenotypic groundwork for that. From what I've seen and heard, the Chinese for example generally just think differently to most Europeans

Certain groups of humans are inherently less disposed to human rights based on their physically expressed genetic traits, huh? That's certainly a take I have never heard expressed in any quack anthropological literature from the late 19th and early 20th centuries before. /s

Can I just say I really, really, really loathe how this administration has normalised an embrace of outright pseudoscience on everything from voodoo economics to phrenology making a comeback for reasons.

[Mayhem]

The Religious Right is getting terrified. I'll explain.

Remember a few months ago when Trump, defending his complete failure in the trade war with China --

"Which failure?"

Heh, nice. Anyhow, in public, he called himself "the Chosen One" and took a minute to strike a Jesus pose. A day or two later, he claimed it was a joke, which we've seen before, oh, "once or twice" /s

It's no longer a joke.



Yep, that's fear. Perry is worried that Trump is losing votes, and desperately trying to convince the Religious Right to stick with known thief, adulterer, and idolator Trump despite his laundry list of objective failures, basically, by pleading on God's behalf.

"How is that fear?"

Because if Trump had a solid grasp of the Religious Right's pussy, Perry wouldn't have to remind them of anything. It's not just possible, but likely, Perry knows Trump is the only person he can work for anymore and knows that more bad news -- impeachment or just more policy failures -- are coming soon to a reality TV show near you.

Every time I read about king david I am reminded of that "the family" documentory on netflix talking about prayer circles in the US.

[Teleros]

Certain groups of humans are inherently more or less disposed to certain ways of thinking based on their phenotype, huh?

FTFY . Unless of course you're a young Earth creationist and don't believe evolution has occurred at all in the human brain .