Will Trump Supporters Listen To The Warnings?

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Balbus, Jan 26, 2017.

  1. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    Politics is part of overall culture.
    Laws can be changed by changes in cultural views and changes in laws can affect cultural views. In fact the idea that laws can change cultural views is the entire premise of Progressivism.

    We can change the culture of many of these "backward" nations by promoting their infrastructure and educational systems, by helping to exposure them to "advanced" cultural ideas, helping them to reduce of poverty and provide meaning full employment, and by example.
    In short, by integrating them with the modern world.

    I don't know what fake refugees are, but refugees will, in time become part of the nation they seek refuge in, or they'll leave.
    That's not to say they won't change that nation. There's no question that the millions of Italian immigrates that entered the U.S. around 1900 have had a positive influence on the U.S. Yet they were one of the groups most discriminated against. The largest mass lynching ever to occur in the U.S. was against Italians, who were considered to be worse than blacks.
    But, it does take time.

    As to your comment about Jesus and Mohamed. You are forgetting that both Christians and Muslims also follow the Old Testament and Jesus.
     
  2. Asmodean

    Asmodean Slo motion rider

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    That's because 1) the culprit wasn't an extremist in the first place, and 2) having mental issues often play a role in 'lone wolfs' terrorist crimes. Why in earth NOT compare it to the batman premiere killer or one of the many other mass shootings in the USA? Solely because the culprit came from a muslim family and had a problem with homosexuality? Weird...

    What are you talking about when you say 'the islamic community': what did they do? I still don't see any valid reason to keep muslim immigrants as a whole out just because they're muslim and from the wrong middle eastern country (in which Saudi Arabia isn't included :D

    So this president is great and just what your country needed because he doesn't sugarcoat things... uhm. What if that is his ONLY pro? :p Unless you dig corporations, money and shitting on the environment of course.
    Ever considered the idea he's the greatest bluffer ever and just because he doesn't sugarcoat things he's the same way as Obama, if not ten times worse, with saying things how it suits him instead of how they really are? It's already clear he's full of shit. You don't have to be left leaning to acknowledge that (as many many republicans are already admitting).
     
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  3. Okiefreak

    Okiefreak Senior Member

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    Yes there are plenty of nice folks here in Oklahoma and elsewhere in the Bible Belt, but plenty of jerks in the legislature. For an overview of LGBT laws in my state, see "Oklahoma Sets New Record for Attempts to Discriminate Against Gay People" Also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Oklahoma Of course, some of the more blatant efforts to discriminate against gays were overturned by the federal courts. Our legislators pass these laws because they think they will please their constituents, who tend to be led by the nose by the conservative churches.
     
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  4. Asmodean

    Asmodean Slo motion rider

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    Im sorry you forgot: it's just because of the topic we were discussing: a country's/the presidents policies on how to deal with muslim immigration. :p
    Nobody said the atrocities of the perpetrators aren't the real issue there, nice try ;), just because they're not the center of the argument here.


    It was a mixture of both. The guy wasn't a fundamental believer his whole life and it is safe to say he had mental issues. What your post basically screams is merely how you want that massacre to be labeled/identified. It has to do with islam therefor we should not compare it or put it in the same category as other mass shootings in the USA by other disturbed people. Fact is wether muslim fundamentalism plays a role or not (don't worry i don't think anyone here is denying it was an influence in that case), mental issues can still be the major factor. Especially when it is an american born citizen who didn't have a fundamental religious life. Very useful to look beyond just that one thing (without denying it played a role)

    I doubt it. Mental issues would be considered there too. How much it would be proclaimed that the christian affiliation played a role would depend on the details there too

    edit: spelling
     
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  5. Okiefreak

    Okiefreak Senior Member

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    Mention of African countries with Christian majorities came up in the context of a post by a Trump supporter stating that Muslim countries were persecuting gays and countries with Christian populations were not. This led to demands to produce the names of said Christian countries that were hostile to gays. The governments themselves sponsor anti-gay legislation, notoriously Uganda which had the death penalty for gay sex until it received international condemnation. Obama's reluctance to use the word "Radical isalamic Terrorism" was the result of a sensible policy of not linking an entire religion to the acts of particular individuals or groups, so as not to give ISIS and alQaeda free advertising for recruiting terrorists. My observation is that terrorist acts by Christians are not described as instances of "Radical Christian terrorism".
     
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  6. Meliai

    Meliai Banned

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    To tie the conversation of homosexual persecution back to the topic of the thread, lets not forget the fact that Mike Pence supports conversion therapy for gays.

    America and the western world have come a long way in our acceptance for the LGBTQ community but there are people in government belonging to the more extreme Christian right who would like to erase all that progress
     
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  7. Asmodean

    Asmodean Slo motion rider

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    Takes one to know one ;)

    No worries, I can do both. Maybe you need to look closer who is beating up and mistreating gays in your country: it's not just foreigners or muslims.
     
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  8. Meliai

    Meliai Banned

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    From a statement he made in 2000 -

    This certainly sounds to me as if he is advocating the use of federal funds for conversion therapy


    http://web.archive.org/web/20010519165033fw_/http:/cybertext.net/pence/issues.html

    A couple of other statements from the same site for your viewing pleasure :

     
  9. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    Pence's statements appear to me to be another example of having it both ways.
    Both Snopes and Politifact rule the claim as unsettled.

    Pence uses language that allows his statement on gays to be taken either way, this allows his base to feel he supports conversion therapy while allowing him deniability.
     
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  10. Okiefreak

    Okiefreak Senior Member

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    How can we make the Southern Baptists or the United Methodists or the Catholics for that matter more accepting of homosexuals? Quite a challenge! can be stubborn two. I meet regularly with some women for religious discussions We've been going over Hamilton's Making Sense of the Bible and last week we were looking at the passages that say that women are cursed, should defer to men and be submissive to their husbands. Hamilton provides a pretty cogent argument as to why these interpretations are wrong and obsolete, and I was backing him up, but these women--Anglicans, no less, didn't want to give up their biblical literalism. Killing the neighbor's dogs? I don't think that's much of a problem for Muslims who aren't crazy or confused. Islam is generally not into killing dogs. Dogs are considered unclean by some schools of Sharia, although the Maliki school says that just applies to wild dogs, not domestic ones. But even for the other schools, that means the believers can have them as pets, just not house pets. Huntin' dogs are fine, exceptions are made for service animals, and a dog in the doghouse is okay, too. Muslims (except for those under Maliki Sharia, do have to wash seven times after coming in contact with a dog's saliva. The Qur'an (18;18) mentions that a dog guarded the cave of youths hiding from religious persecution.
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ingrid-mattson/whats-up-with-muslims-and_b_1144819.html
    https://www.thoughtco.com/dogs-in-islam-2004392
    Reports of efforts to keep people from walking their dogs in the park lest it offend Muslims are deeply suspect--either fake news, the product of someone's desire to stir up animosity toward Muslims, or misguided political correctness gone berserk. As for the neighbor's dog, killing that would be un-Islamic, a violation of the Qur'an's injunction to be merciful to all creatures and a matter for the police.

    Changing culture is certainly a difficult process. One thing that doesn't seem to work is the frontal attack. Judaism is an example of a religion that survived millenia of that. Many of the distinctively Jewish traditions were developed to preserve the identity of a people under attack. Most people who feel they're under attack close ranks and dig in their heels, so all the anti-Muslim blather from FOX and the AltRight that Muslims are all jihadists at heart and you can't trust any of 'em would serve to drive any moderates into the radicals' arms. President Obama's much criticized policy of avoiding the label "Radical islamic Terrorism" seems to have been a sensible approach in this regard. It is also important to avoid ghettoizing the minority culture, by making it difficult for them to assimilate. If you're bent on trying to influence a culture, it would be important first to have an informed understanding of the culture you're trying to change. Take Islam, for example. There are some 1.7 billion Muslims in the world today, 3.3 million of whom live in the United States. Muslims come in many varieties. Apart from the major division between Sunnis and Shia, there are theological divisions among Muslims: Kalam, Ash'ari, Maturidi, Atheri. And different schools of Sharia jurisprudence: Hanafi, Maliki, Ja'fari, Shefi'i, and Hanbali. The Sufi orders are important groups of Muslim mystics whom you will find generally peaceable.

    The next step is self-examination. As Jesus said, before worrying about the speck in our neighbor's eye, first give attention to the log in our own eye. Learn about the history of western imperialism and how it impacted Muslim countries. Learn about the activities of the "Seven Sisters" multinational oil companies, the CIA, U.S. support for authoritarian governments in the region, and knee jerk support of Israel. American right wingers like to ask the question rhetorically "Why do they hate us?" The aforementioned line of study might provide some clues. After that, try visiting a local mosque: observe worship services, and/or join some Muslims in regular table fellowship (Be sure the food is halal). I wouldn't try to change people by argument. The change will come, if it comes at all, by gradual spreading of mutual understanding by osmosis. We should be open to change as well. Probably, we alone will not do much to change the world, but it's a start, and could become contagious, particularly if enough others join in. Epidemics begin that way. I've been enjoying table fellowship with a group of atheists for several years. When I started, I didn't know what to expect, but after I observed how they interacted with their families and decided they were good people. I later brought a staunch Catholic friend along and he eventually came to the same conclusion.

    But the major engines of change in the world have been economic and technological: globalization, the internet, automation, urbanization,etc. Politicians may try to stop the tide like King Canute, but resistance is futile. Secularization is holding all the cards. At best, we can try to guide the processes in a more humane direction. Culture consists of a set of memes which ,as Richard Dawkins taught us, compete in the evolutionary struggle for survival. Economic and technological change provide the environment to which these memes must adapt or die. Neither Islam nor the Alt Right can prevail in the long run without considerable modification.

    As for your remarks about the carpenter and the warlord, the differences might not be as stark as you think. Since Constantine made the Prince of Peace into General Jesus, Christians haven't been exactly shy about resorting to war and violence. As for the Prophet Mohammad, he didn't start out a warlord. During the "Mecca period", three years longer than the Medina period, he tried the peaceful approach. During the "Medina period", no more Mr. Nice Guy. Unfortunately, the prevailing hermeneutic used by Musiim scholars accepts the principle of "abrogation" in which the later passages supersede the former. That said, the deliberate killing of innocents, women and children is hard to justify on the basis of the Qur'an. The schools of Islamic law expressly forbid the harming of civilian noncombitants, and forbid suicide.The twisting of scripture into a rationale for terrorism and suicide bombing came as a result of jihadists like Qutb, bin Laden and al Baghdadi who portrayed such violence as a necessary measure to defend Islam against aggressive western adversaries. Islam is not a monolith.
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/14/diversity-of-islam-pew-report_n_1774203.html
    http://www.islamicity.org/4966/tolerance-and-diversity-in-islam/
    http://masrif.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=92:islam-and-diversity-by-az&catid=39:blog&Itemid=58
    http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/10/1022_031022_islamdiversity.html

    Maylasia's Anwar Ibrahim and Indonesia's Abdurrahman Wahdi demonstrated that it is possible to have a peaceable Islam, open to dialogue with the west.
     
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  11. jpdonleavy

    jpdonleavy Members

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    but many cultures are un-, or under- represented in current immigrant numbers.

    More to the point we're not obligated to accept cultures whose tenets are alien to our core values - even if those values are often dishonoured by individuals; humans being frail 'n all
     
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  12. Balbus

    Balbus Senior Member

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    OK you go off camping and it all kicks off….

    Alright I’ll give some musings on change, history and warnings…

    I found if really funny the way the righties here went incandescent with rage and fake righteous indignation that I made the blindingly obvious comment that in many places (that are not Muslim) homosexuality is still treated with hostility by sections or large numbers of people.

    And only after several pages when the obvious became to them obvious did they grudgingly admit to the truth.

    The point to me is that so much has improved in numerous places over the last few years but that’s not a reason to be complacence, for certain sections on the right to think that the battle is won in places like the US and UK just to me highlights that they never really understood or cared about the issue but just wish to use it for their own agenda, in the case as a means to attack ‘Muslims’ as a group.
    But agendas have consequences.

    The US lead anti-leftist policies of the cold war and the neo-con right shaped the middle east, they helped create the circumstances that brought the mad mullahs into power in Iran, they have had a hand in the expansion of Islamic fundamentalist ideas, to fixated on the belief that ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ to see they were not their friends either. And they destabilised the region in a desire for a fantasy of control and brought about the situation it is in now.

    Since Ataturk there have been those in Muslim counties that were reformists and radicals, which leaned to secularism and progressive ideas, their opponents were the conservative and religious. In the years after WWII the US increasing supported the latter against the former but the thing is that these mainstream conservative and religious groups were often corrupt and unthinking of those that wanted a change and with the more left wing opposition gone the vacuum was often filled by radical Islamic groups and ideas.

    Warnings were given but ignored all along the road…

    In US domestic politics to me a similar thing happened, the establishment to a large extent purged left wing ideas form us society, but the establishment was often corrupt and unthinking of those that wanted a change and in the vacuum there grew the radical right.
    I wonder if Americans will heed the warnings along that road…
     
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  13. Balbus

    Balbus Senior Member

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    To me a lot of the warning I was thinking about was that Trump and especially the Republican Party were not the champions of many of the people that supported them and got them into power

    I think the way The Republicans view healthcare (and tried to act on it) is just one example of that – thing is has that warning been noted?
     
  14. psymon*

    psymon* shadilay

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    ^ spoken like someone who has no clue regarding how flawed the system is or how expensive Obama's Affordable HeathCare Act is! It is not affordable at all.

    This year the cost is going to increase by 35 percent making the cost close to having private healthcare. That increase has nothing to do with Trump and was projected in 2016. With private healthcare I can choose my doctor and get the care I want rather than being frustrated with a lot of mismanagement and abuse of the tax payers fund for this program, with limited care available. Close to 1 billion in tax payers money was paid out to illegal aliens while Americans can't get care with Obamacare.

    Why not try asking Americans what they think of the program rather than believing what you read in your narrow view from a news source that us biased.
     
  15. Balbus

    Balbus Senior Member

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    P

    Well to me the problem with Obamacare was that Obama could not get the support for a full single payment universal healthcare system like the NHS

    Which consistently has comes out as way better and cheaper than the US system.

    These are stories and statistics that I regularly wheel out during conversations with my American friends and family. And while they usually accept the evidence that I offer up (albeit somewhat grudgingly), they always insist that, sure, it sounds like a great service, but there’s no way it can be financially viable, right? But here again the evidence defies assumptions. The Commonwealth study confirms that the cost the UK pays for delivering the best healthcare in the world is less than any other industrialized nation: only $3,405 per capita. The most expensive healthcare system, by contrast, is the US, at $8,508 per capita – more than double the UK, while delivering much worse results.
    https://www.opendemocracy.net/ournhs/jason-hickel/take-it-from-american-britain%27s-nhs-is-as-good-as-it-gets
     
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  16. soulcompromise

    soulcompromise Member HipForums Supporter

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    I think about universal healthcare quite often. One of the major drawbacks is people don't want to pay for it. I can't understand where people get this notion that someone is going to hand them something for free.

    But what are you actually getting for your hard earned dollar if we do go to a single payer system? The article you've referenced suggests that it would be great leaps in the right direction! We would not have lengthy waits or problems getting life-saving care when needed.

    I've heard stories about the system in Canada delaying care for cancer and things like that; the reason being that it's sort of first come first serve. I wonder what the truth is about universal health care.

    I've done a paper on Bernie Sanders. He wants to bring a single payer system to the United States of America. I think it's worth a try! But how do you implement something of that magnitude? Aren't we then putting all our eggs in one basket? I don't know the answers.
     
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  17. psymon*

    psymon* shadilay

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    ^ wartches the people tag team and state a lot of propaganda bs and pat eachother on the back.

    ignores them

    For those who think for themselves.

    That map of the brain Image relating it to ones left and right brain is about the stupidest thing I have seen.
    Left size - democrats, right side - republicans.

    Left brain is the logical, problem solving side, language side
    right brain is the creative side, often antisocial side. Introvert side.

    What point are you trying to make with this brain being attributed to how one votes?

    By this view creative people should vote for republicans.

    That brain imaging is taking the right side of the brain, the creative side, introverted side, and attributing this side to conservatives/republicans. And left side of the brain, the logical side, mathematical/academia side, language side and attributing it to liberals/democrats.

    About the stupidest thing I have seen in here, and people think this actually means something?
     
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  18. Balbus

    Balbus Senior Member

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    Think the NHS is in poor health? Try being ill under the US system By Arwa Mahdawi

    There are, I have found, many advantages to being a Brit in America. My accent makes me seem 20% hotter and more intelligent than I really am and I can get into places by insinuating that I know the Queen (yeah, we hang out all the time in Brixton). However, one definite disadvantage of living in the US is the state of its healthcare system.

    While cost is its largest pain point, complexity is another: the system is geared more towards patience than patients. When I went to elect my benefits at my last job I had to choose between a Silver PPO 2000 or an HMO 40/60 (Gold) or a PCHP EPO or a POS 20 or a HDHP plan. I had no idea what any of that meant and, after attempting to unpick acronyms for a while, I just gave up and chose one at random. The bureaucracy escalates from there: you have to fill out about 15 different forms when you go to see a doctor, and get an endless stream of letters from your insurer. I’m not sure what these letters say, as I normally stick them in a drawer and hope they go away.

    The irony is that many Americans consider the NHS to be not just inferior to their own system but “evil” and “Orwellian”, the stuff of socialist nightmares. The healthcare is rationed, they think, and you have to wait years, maybe decades, for an appointment. Hospitals are clogged with people desperately looking up DIY heart bypass surgery tutorials on YouTube because they have been waiting so long to see a doctor. When you are finally treated, it’s by a chap in a bowler hat with terrible teeth who prescribes a stiff upper lip and sends you home to die.

    These perceptions are the result of decades of lobbying by US conservative groups to stop increased government involvement in healthcare via scare stories of procedures in Britain. Efforts peaked just before Obamacare was passed in 2010, when million-dollar NHS-bashing ads were run on US TV networks. The ads may have stopped but the misinformation remains.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/03/think-nhs-in-poor-health-try-being-ill-in-us-system

    **

    My favourite bit of right wing propaganda against Obamacare was when it was claimed that if Professor Stephen Hawking were British and had to use the NHS he would be dead.

    Oh here it is -

    US financial newspaper Investor's Business Daily has said that if Stephen Hawking were British, he would be dead.

    "The controlling of medical costs in countries such as Britain through rationing, and the health consequences thereof, are legendary," read a recent editorial from the paper. "The stories of people dying on a waiting list or being denied altogether read like a horror script...

    "People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the UK, where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless."

    The paper has since been notified that Hawking is both British and still among the living. And it has edited the editorial, acknowledging that the original version incorrectly represented the whereabouts of perhaps the world's most famous scientific mind. But it has not acknowledged that its mention of Hawking misrepresented the NHS as well.

    "I wouldn’t be here today if it were not for the NHS," Hawking told The Guardian. "I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived."
     
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  19. Balbus

    Balbus Senior Member

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    Soul

    Don’t get me wrong I’m a great fan of the NHS but it is far from perfect (and especially after years of right wing meddling to make it ‘market’ orientated some things have got worse) and I know supporters of Obamacare agree that it’s not brilliant (mainly because of the many compromises made to get it passed).

    BUT and it is a big but - they're both a billion times better that the ‘healthcare’ bill the Republicans are trying to push upon the American people which is frankly a piece of shit.

    And it is a piece of shit because it isn’t a healthcare bill and never was it is plain and simply a tax cutting bill for the wealthiest people in the US.

    It shows contempt for a majority of Americans and a cynical belief that they are so dumb that they will not notice and that they can bamboozle them repeatedly into voting against their best interests.

    The problem is that in that regard history has shown them that that is correct, many Americans have repeatedly voted to kick themselves in the teeth even after multiple warnings have been given.

    I ask again how long does it have to be before these American heed the warnings?
     
  20. soulcompromise

    soulcompromise Member HipForums Supporter

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    Is this Stephen Hawking thing serious? I think he IS British!

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking
     

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