Will Trump Supporters Listen To The Warnings?

The question is can you defend what you are saying from valid criticism? Not all ideas have equal validity or worthiness and some are dangerous.

You can usually work this out through rational and hoenest debate the problem is that many people don’t seem to want to have a rational or honest debate. And some when their views are challenged claim that the challenger is only doing it because they are bias, its a con to try and hide the fact that their ideas do not stand up to scrutiny.

Imagine you have a headache and someone (mister X) says they can cure it.

Mister X takes you to a lion’s cage and tells you to place your head in the lion’s mouth

You ask if they can give a rational and reasonable argument for doing it and they reply that they don’t need to because it’s obviously a good idea.

You say that given the nature of the animal it being a large meat eater and that by the way it seems to be very hungry that you think the most likely outcome of putting your head in its mouth is that it would bit it off.

Mister X says that your ideas are just based on your anti-lion prejudices and says you are an idiot for not following their advice.

Now do you put your head in the lion’s mouth?

How about a you compromise – you don’t put your head in but instead but your hand in the lions mouth and see what happens?

To me a bad idea is a bad idea.

Now it is interesting that Pen is seemingly putting himself up as this paragon of virtue when he is happy to lie to try and score a point that’s not exactly a very honest why of debating.

Oh and Pen if you ever want to come back to the How To Argue For Gun Control. and try and explain why it wasn’t lying I’m happy to hear what you have to say but at the moment what you said was lying.

 

I can relate to the thought, but imo it stands or falls with the argumentation of such a person if I don't listen to or value their opinions anymore. If the argumentation is sound I don't mind if a person clearly falls in the far this or that spectrum of said side. Of course it does become an association I keep connecting to such a person in a debate. But I won't hold it against them when they obviously try to make a good argument.

 

i will still take into account facts by such a person, (unless they are continuously false that hasn't happened too often here) but often with such arguments comes speculation...JUST AN EXAMPLE whether right or wrong....he got rid of the media so fascism is inevitable......that is an opinion and not a fact so if someone said that i would ignore it. but if they said 95% of world leaders that got rid of media had their country turn to fascism within 5 years, i would accept that and reply if i had anything to contribute.

 

The rise of Trump has led to inevitable comparisons to Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four and Huxley's Brave New World. These are often overdrawn, but I thought Matt Bai's today was insightful:https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumps-not-orwellian-hes-the-distracter-in-chief-100035222.html

"In some ways, though, Trump is the perfect embodiment of a Huxleyan culture, endlessly distracted by the superficial or the spectacular. He doesn’t want to control what you think — only what you think about, which is him. He cares that you’re watching the performance, and it doesn’t matter whether you watch because you love it or because you find it too grossly compelling to look away.
I’ve written before that Trump is an emotional extremist, not an ideological one. His gift is for channeling the passion in an audience, for provoking adoration or outrage or whatever’s most visceral.
Why does the president of the United States stoop to accusing Chuck Schumer of faking his tears Because low is entertaining, and entertaining is the way he maintains control. Changing the conversation before you can even remember what the last conversation was about — this is what Trump does better than anyone alive.
And the danger here is that the constant trivia can too easily distract us from decisions that have deadly serious consequences. Like Huxley’s Alphas and Betas, we can be lulled into thinking that the ephemeral is all there is."

For others, see http://www.salon.com/2016/12/24/what-truth-george-orwell-aldous-huxley-and-the-trumpified-political-reality-of-2016/
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/19/orwell-huxley-and-americas-plunge-into-authoritarianism/
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2017/01/27/orwell039s_0391984039_and_trump039s_america_401255.html
http://theredelectric.blogspot.com/2016/12/trump-postman-orwell-and-huxley.html

 

The 1st amendment only protects us from the government, not from each other. Which is why people can lose their job by saying something the boss doesn't like.

I can only agree with your assessment of polarization. I've always been an independent voter because I have had to vote across lines to support issues. Voting for faces/parties exclusively seems more like fanaticism or a popularity contest than politics. But I have to admit I fall prey to that sort of thinking as well. I wanted no part of the Clintons after the crap they pulled on America's youth in the 90s (I've described it over and over, I know). I'm just as disappointed in Obama for leaving the drug war in full gear, but again, that's an issue, not the whole show.

When this past election cycle began I set to mind that I did not want to see any more incumbents or dynastic families at the helm. Look how long we have had them lording over us, so many broken promises. Which is why I initially liked Bernie. He was about as outside of the royal court as anyone I have seen beyond 3rd party wannabes, and Ross Perot. When Trump announced, I thought it was a ploy, a really funny joke meant to stir the pot.

But Bernie was no match for the kind of juggernaut the democratic party has become and I doubt he would have beaten the republicans, he was just too soft. For decades we seem to vote like we snack in America, candy then chips then back to candy and then back to chips. We get warmonger then smooth talker then warmonger and then back to the silky smooth voice. There was nothing silky about Bernie, but there wasn't enough fight either. I wasn't surprised to see him steamrolled by the Clinton Machine but I was surprised to see him take hush money when he had them dead in the rites.

Trump is a weird hybrid I've never seen in politics. Even Perot doesn't come close. But if I agree with even 1 scintilla of Trump's message, I MUST be a white supremacist who wants to bring back slavery and barbecue Jews or what have you. I think that sort of opinion is both unproductive but also distracting. While everyone is whining and burning down their villages to "protest" Trump, he's working. He's signing orders and leveling credible threats (though some of them are deserved). None of these efforts to silence messengers is bothering Trump because they are meant to be distractions.

This business at Berkeley is a prime example. Do the students really want their campus to look like a battle zone? Sure, it looks "cool" after a night of video games based on carnage, but in the long run it serves no purpose beyond keeping dissenters busy accomplishing nothing. If they really wanted to make a difference, they'd blockade the gated communities of the wealthy and trap them inside. Instead they block people in traffic who have no say and no power. How could they be so far off the mark?

As for Kool Aid, it makes vodka go down easier.

 

http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/news/see-jon-stewart-warn-of-future-trump-executive-orders-w464293?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=daily&utm_campaign=020117_11

 

yeah there still has a way to go in that department, most businesses make you sign a conduct clause though so at least you know going in if you want to agree to that or if you dont want the job. i think more and more places will start doing it after more cases of people saying controversial things online make headlines.

 

i said what i have to say on the topic, if you want any explanations you will have to be more specific.

 

The first amendment favors businesses thanks to the supreme court deciding that, according to the 18th amendment, they are people! There's just no way any individual can compete with a company like Monsanto deciding to step on them or even just sue them for libel. When money and the guns do most of the talking worth listening to they also tend to decide who gets to talk and who doesn't!

 

i think we are talking about completely different things

 

Companies are already routinely screening people for their facebook pages and with technology going the way it is nobody will be free to say anything online without risking their careers. The only point in them having people sign a conduct agreement is simply to make it easier to sue them and blackball them and between all of these measures there is no way freedom of speech can survive.

 

yea, its why i dont put my real name on any of my accounts

 

Your ISP does, the NSA does, and who else is difficult to say. You can run, but you can't hide from all that money and guns.

 

i doubt the local factory is checking my isp.
if the nsa is worried about me talking about going to the nude beach then that is tax dollars well spent.

 

With all the people making REAL plans on the web, even though dumb enough to live stream crimes and "secret" meetings, it's hard to fathom what use the NSA would have for the conversations of a bunch of broke or semi-broke hippies let alone the vast numbers of "commoners" out there. I guess they could select a few random IP users to make examples of to scare the shit out of the rest, an IRS tactic. But the chilling effect would likely damage the economy in a big way, fast. I'll probably end up in an America gulag for all the crap I post in my gallery, maybe some place like Gillette Wyoming or Alabama (shudder).

 

Governments are not about tax dollars well spent, but pushing the agenda of whoever is in power. That's why the Soviet Union went broke. One in twenty Soviets was an informer for the KGB and they would frequently even make up lies just to make a few extra bucks or get an apartment or whatever. I'm not sure what the figures are for the entire country, but something like one in five people in California works either directly or indirectly for the government whether it be local or federal. That's part of the problem with libertarians and republicans in general is their philosophies don't even remotely resemble what is required just to maintain a modern military-industrial complex which is inhumane on a scale that is humanly unfathomable.

 

Pen

If you like facts why do you lie?

What would be nice would be an apology for lying but then hey you MO is to run so…

My point is that we cannot predict the future so we have to speculate from what we have, we don’t ‘know’ but we can warn - many warned that the financial system was heading for a fall because of the way it was set up, even if they didn’t know exactly when or what part of it was going to cause the crash. There were many warnings about the invasion and occupation of Iraq and the problems of a destabilised Middle East even if they didn’t exactly predict the rise of ISIS or that say the Russians would become involved.

I’m looking at the shit and I’m looking at the fan and I’m watching the monkey, a species know for faeces throwing.

 

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[SIZE=11pt]That is why while democracy might be the worst form of government it is better than the others.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]In a well functioning representative democracy the people put people into power that should follow the people agenda.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]The thing is if the people put into power those that push their own agenda’s and not those of the people whose fault is it the politicians or the peoples?[/SIZE]

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[SIZE=11pt]The Soviet Union was not a representative democracy[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt][/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]Can you cite where you got those figures, I Googled but couldn’t find them. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]Anyway lets accept the figure for the sake of the argument because it raises some interesting questions.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]Is this a good thing or a bad thing?[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]Would these people be employed [or be paid at the same level] if the state removed their jobs? [/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]I mean the neoliberal idea would be to cut such state employment and use the money saved to cut taxes (that favour wealth) on the assumption that the sacked workers will find other work. But in many cases the jobs they get are lower paid, if they get them at all.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]But many people believe that in the developed counties we are moving toward a post work environment, with automatisation cutting the number of blue collar work anf sophisticated software taking over many white collar jobs.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]They believe that actually to cushion the transition to the new economy (universal basic income based possibly) then the state should increasingly become an employer to ward of social and economic suffering and unrest.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt][/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]Not sure what you mean can you clarify? [/SIZE]

 

The left is just as if not more guilty of the same thing. Many people voted for Obama just because he's black and would accuse you of being racist if you dare to disagree with his policies. It was the same with Hillary. Many voted for her because she was a woman and they would call you sexist if you dared to disagree with her policies.