Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Bryan See on September 07, 2016, 11:09:27 am
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Have you heard of a new PAC called Not Who We Are (https://notwhoweare.us/), which has been formed to help all of you at HLP write an open letter denouncing the Republican candidate for President, Donald Trump, and spread across our affiliate communities?
From the site's about page:
To defeat Donald Trump, we need to build a movement from the bottom-up, in every corner of the country. We can’t leave it to politicians or the media – it’s up to us to take a moral stand and to protect our friends and co-workers most at risk from mass deportations, religious bans and other forms of hate.
Now's the time for you to do so. It is important, because a Trump presidency will lead to the ban of the internet, the suppression of the exchange of free ideas, and the stopping of our progress we've made.
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You forgot to mention he eats babies and bathes in the blood of unicorns.
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A whole PAC?
Just for us?
AWESOME
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does the pac contain diamond ores? I need some diamond ore right naw.
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You forgot to mention he eats babies and bathes in the blood of unicorns.
I do. Donald Trump has shown to be racist, xenophobe, bigot, sexist, misogynist, serial liar and birther. In the Sept. 1 speech, his immigration stance remains unchanged, and many Latinos and Hispanics were outraged, with many self-deporting his campaign. It is just like the start of the Trump campaign last year, when he mentions the Mexicans, whom he viewed them as "not the best", rather they bring "drugs and crime", and as "rapists".
He also mocked a disabled reporter last November, at the same time started a feud with Megyn Kelly. He disparaged a Hispanic judge and attacked a Gold Star family member, and refused to disavow endorsements from hate groups, white supremacist and Neo-Nazi movements. He also encouraged a foreign hostile nation to perform espionage acts.A whole PAC?
Just for us?
AWESOME
That's great! But we need to act fast. Two months to US Election Day.
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You forgot to mention he eats babies and bathes in the blood of unicorns.
I do. Donald Trump has shown to be racist, xenophobe, bigot, sexist, misogynist, serial liar and birther. In the Sept. 1 speech, his immigration stance remains unchanged, and many Latinos and Hispanics were outraged, with many self-deporting his campaign. It is just like the start of the Trump campaign last year, when he mentions the Mexicans, whom he viewed them as "not the best", rather they bring "drugs and crime", and as "rapists".
He also mocked a disabled reporter last November, at the same time started a feud with Megyn Kelly. He disparaged a Hispanic judge and attacked a Gold Star family member, and refused to disavow endorsements from hate groups, white supremacist and Neo-Nazi movements. He also encouraged a foreign hostile nation to perform espionage acts.
You might want to lead with that instead of
ban of the internet, the suppression of the exchange of free ideas
because AFAIK, he said exactly nill regarding the Internet that other mainstream candidates haven't said, and unlike other candidates, was not part of the administration that started to erode free speech on campuses recently.
He is the worst candidate in the race, you don't have to make up bogeymen.
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You might want to lead with that instead of
Nope, quite the opposite. There is way too much emphasis in the criticism of Trump on his immigration policy. And too little emphasis on the fact that Trump has blatant disregard for the rights of actual US citizens, such as freedom of speech, as evidenced by his statements about "closing up" the Internet, fighting against online porn (as if the US wasnt too puritan and sex-negative already) and desire to sue his critics. You might wanna lead with that.
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You might want to lead with that instead of
Nope, quite the opposite. There is way too much emphasis in the criticism of Trump on his immigration policy. And too little emphasis on the fact that Trump has blatant disregard for the rights of actual US citizens, such as freedom of speech, as evidenced by his statements about "closing up" the Internet
You mean the one where he incompetently said he would ban the internet for ISIS? As opposed to, Clinton's "deny them online space"? Yeah, totally different.
fighting against online porn (as if the US wasnt too puritan and sex-negative already)
You mean this (http://enough.org/presidential_pledge) pledge? The very same one that Clinton supports (http://www.sbpublicaffairs.com/16133-2/)?
and desire to sue his critics.
This is probably the only relevant thing you mentioned, since it's about the only thing I could find that is actually different from other candidates.
P.S.
This campaign has been the perfect example on how two candidates can have the exact same position (https://twitter.com/trevortimm/status/674106837965398016) on an issue and have the press have opposite reactions to it.
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What really frustrates me about Trump is that he just seems to be saying whatever seems to get him the most points at the moment. Just take a look at this:
http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/sep/04/mike-pence/pence-says-trump-has-been-consistent-immigration-v/
Trump's big issue, immigration. Flip-flop-flip-flop. He does this with everything. For me, its an unmistakable sign that he's not running for POTUS because he wants to Make America Great Again. He's running for POTUS because he wants to be POTUS. This sort thinking is always a problem with democracy (or indeed, any system in which the candidate has any input on his/her own rise to power), but so far, every other presidential candidate had some real agenda besides "I wanna be the president".
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Good lucks to you guys to stop him. If he is elected, I have no idea what will happen, but nothing good for sure.
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Has Trump really managed to bring all of HLP together in agreement on a single conclusion that he is the worst possible option in the current US election?
We might need to mark this on a calendar.
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The apocalypse has its silver linings after all ;)
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Just several hours ago, we've learned that Donald Trump has amassed 88 retired military leaders who endorsed him, to replace all the military staff in the US, deemed as a "rubble". This is one of the examples of old (whose born in the first half of the century) trumping young (including new generations of humanity), and Trump's fear of new people.
He also repeatedly expressed his excessive praise for Vladimir Putin, who's a thug, a murderer, an aggressor and autocratic leader of Russia who choose the opposite - more than a lifetime in power, filled with arbitrariness and corruption, as the murdered Boris Nemtsov put it. That's pretty an example of evil trumping good, as former 2012 Republican candidate for President Mitt Romney put in in his March speech against Trump.
Republicans such as Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio, Michael McCaul and Lindsey Graham expressed their disqualification toward's Trump's friendliness with Putin. Their messages range from being a false narrative, to Putin being a human rights-abusing and murderous thug and an autocrat leader filled with total arbitrariness and corruption, as well as high approval ratings raised after the 2014 annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation.
And the most worrying concern is that our progress could be stymied forever (with future manned space missions, including Elon Musk's Mars mission, thwarted) and our planet (and our human race) could be renamed permanently under one name by Putin. Anyone who prefer to use old names will suffer the same fate as those who are hated by Putin, and by extension, Trump.
Have you wrote open letters against this kind of regressing world presented by Trump himself? If you haven't, it's the time to do it now.
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Has Trump really managed to bring all of HLP together in agreement on a single conclusion that he is the worst possible option in the current US election?
We might need to mark this on a calendar.
No.
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No.
:beamz:
Anyone else want to ruin the moment?
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What about the modern White Rose Society (http://theantimedia.org/join-the-whiteroserevolt/) movement, which has risen to fight off neo-fascism across the world (including Donald Trump's so-called Fourth Reich and possibly Vladimir Putin's rising criminal neo-totalitarianism)?
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No.
:beamz:
Anyone else want to ruin the moment?
As one of the Canadians here...
*Grabs popcorn*
You are all entirely screwed
Just remember though, there is other options outside of the two Parties
Shame the way the system works is irrelevant in regards to that
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/*the HLP leftist clique asserts it has hegemony.*/
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/*the HLP leftist clique asserts it has hegemony.*/
:headz:
Next?
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/*the HLP leftist clique asserts it has hegemony.*/
:headz:
Next?
Hi there. :pimp:
I should make it clear that officially, HLP takes no position on political or social issues. Members here are free to agree or disagree as they see fit.
Personally, I anticipate no little amusement when the SJWs go apoplectic after the inevitable Trumpslide this November.
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Just a note, Putin didn't really praise Trump much (contrary to what Trump often claims). In the most referenced moment, he actually called him "flamboyant" or "colorful", but the word was mistranslated as "bright", which has different connotations. What he said was very cautious and amounted to "Well, he's certainly quite a persona", which is hard to disagree with. Trump, on the other hand, in a manner typical to his campaign, both praised and condemned Putin.
In the end, they do have many similarities, but one should remember that the US is a vastly different country to Russia. They need different kind of leaders. Putin is just the man to run a place like Russia, while the Americans needs Trump like they need a hole in the bridge, as we say in Poland. :)
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Personally, I anticipate no little amusement when the SJWs go apoplectic after the inevitable Trumpslide this November.
I wonder whether that'll be enough to stave off the sense of impending fascism for you.
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Considering that fascism is a left-wing ideology, a Trump election would be a good step away from that.
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Considering that fascism is a left-wing ideology, a Trump election would be a good step away from that.
what strange definition of fascism are you using????
Fascism /ˈfæʃɪzəm/ is a form of radical authoritarian nationalism that came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe, influenced by national syndicalism. Fascism originated in Italy during World War I and spread to other European countries. Fascism opposes liberalism, Marxism and anarchism and is usually placed on the far-right within the traditional left–right spectrum.
I'll have to warn you, if you're going to claim that the most prominent fascist governments in recent history were actually left-wing (using a contemporary definition of what left wing means), you're going to get an earful.
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Hi there. :pimp:
:snipe:
Here it appears we finally had something we all agreed on, and you guys had to go and ruin it. Sigh.
Personally, I anticipate no little amusement when the SJWs go apoplectic after the inevitable Trumpslide this November.
Yeah, it'd be hilarious when an incompetent racist narcissistic demagogue who's sole real achievement is looking out for himself at the expense of everyone else (http://www.newsweek.com/2016/08/12/donald-trumps-business-failures-election-2016-486091.html) gets elected to the US Presidency and has to deal with a North Korea armed with - unbelievably as it may seems - functional nuclear missiles (http://www.vox.com/2016/9/9/12863700/north-korea-nuclear-test-five-bad?utm_content=buffer6bf7b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer). That'll be a riot.
I mean, this aside from the outright contempt Trump demonstrates for pretty much all of the Constitutional rights (2nd amendment possibly excluded, but remains unknown), his support for torture, his outright contempt for and complete lack of understanding about the US military ("we'll set up a court" OK genius), his attacks on both the independent investigative agencies and the judiciary, his attack on a Gold Star family, his outright racist and unconstitutional beliefs about banning Muslims, and the uproarious assertion that he'll not only get a wall built between the US and Mexico, but Mexico will pay for it. No matter how bad Clinton is, Trump is demonstrably unfit. The fact that there are Americans that can ignore all of that in their despise for Clinton or contempt for the "mainstream media" floors me. Clinton and Trump have both lied, but this is not a difference of degrees. Trump's lies are breathtaking fallacies, and it seems none of his supporters care.
And fascism is not a left-wing ideology. Never has been. Feel free to check the definitions.
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what strange definition of fascism are you using????
The one promoted by its founders. The Wikipedia definition you quoted is a common misconception -- probably because it's Wikipedia. In addition to being an offshoot of socialism, the core principles outlined in the Manifesto of the Fascist Struggle - such as universal suffrage, an eight-hour workday, an progressive taxation - are left-wing.
I mean, this aside from the outright contempt Trump demonstrates for pretty much all of the Constitutional rights (2nd amendment possibly excluded, but remains unknown), his support for torture, his outright contempt for and complete lack of understanding about the US military ("we'll set up a court" OK genius), his attacks on both the independent investigative agencies and the judiciary, his attack on a Gold Star family, his outright racist and unconstitutional beliefs about banning Muslims, and the uproarious assertion that he'll not only get a wall built between the US and Mexico, but Mexico will pay for it. No matter how bad Clinton is, Trump is demonstrably unfit. The fact that there are Americans that can ignore all of that in their despise for Clinton or contempt for the "mainstream media" floors me. Clinton and Trump have both lied, but this is not a difference of degrees. Trump's lies are breathtaking fallacies, and it seems none of his supporters care.
Objections to Trump almost always take the form of "he said something bad". Objections to Clinton almost always take the form of "she did something illegal".
"No matter how bad Clinton is" is an awfully cavalier way to sweep away violation of classification protocol, accepting funding from foreign governments, insider trading, perjury, co-opting media reporting, primary election fraud, and a long list of dead political opponents.
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what strange definition of fascism are you using????
The one promoted by its founders. The Wikipedia definition you quoted is a common misconception -- probably because it's Wikipedia. In addition to being an offshoot of socialism, the core principles outlined in the Manifesto of the Fascist Struggle - such as universal suffrage, an eight-hour workday, an progressive taxation - are left-wing.
This is hair-splitting. In practice, fascists spent quite as lot of energy on being not seen as socialist; Your use of this historical factoid, accurate though it is, is little more than a rhetorical cheap shot to deflect criticism.
Trump is an authoritarian. He is certainly not a "liberty" kind of guy. His political idols are fellow authoritarians like Vladimir Putin, for crying out loud. His various inadequacies in terms of his understanding of what democracy is and, specifically, what the american ideals of it are are well documented.
Your glee at the chance that this idiot might win and thus make people who you disagree with unhappy is ... baffling. You are seemingly (and I hope this is untrue) celebrating the chance that you're getting someone in the oval office who is deeply, utterly unsuited to the job because it will make liberals mad. Not because you're sold on his vision of a better america (because he doesn't have one). Not because you're taken in by his rhetorical skills (because, again, he doesn't have any). Only because he is going to troll the left.
Is that how petty, how utterly childish american politics are this season?
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The one promoted by its founders. The Wikipedia definition you quoted is a common misconception -- probably because it's Wikipedia. In addition to being an offshoot of socialism, the core principles outlined in the Manifesto of the Fascist Struggle - such as universal suffrage, an eight-hour workday, an progressive taxation - are left-wing.
This is hair-splitting. In practice, fascists spent quite as lot of energy on being not seen as socialist; Your use of this historical factoid, accurate though it is, is little more than a rhetorical cheap shot to deflect criticism.
Eh, you're one to talk. That entire paragraph is rhetoric. Whereas I cited verifiable historical fact.
Trump is an authoritarian. He is certainly not a "liberty" kind of guy. His political idols are fellow authoritarians like Vladimir Putin, for crying out loud. His various inadequacies in terms of his understanding of what democracy is and, specifically, what the american ideals of it are are well documented.
Your glee at the chance that this idiot might win and thus make people who you disagree with unhappy is ... baffling. You are seemingly (and I hope this is untrue) celebrating the chance that you're getting someone in the oval office who is deeply, utterly unsuited to the job because it will make liberals mad. Not because you're sold on his vision of a better america (because he doesn't have one). Not because you're taken in by his rhetorical skills (because, again, he doesn't have any). Only because he is going to troll the left.
Is that how petty, how utterly childish american politics are this season?
It's not glee, it's schadenfreude grim satisfaction. It's because if the shoe were on the other foot, the SJWs would not hesitate to crow about a Clinton victory. Some of them are already saying that Trump needs to be so utterly and thoroughly defeated that he and his like will never be politically viable again.
Trump is, first and foremost, a nationalist. Authoritarianism is secondary. I support Trump because he is the first viable politician in quite some time to push back against the globalist agenda. He's pushing back against US military adventurism which has pissed off allies and turned non-entities into threats. He's pushing back against trade agreements like NAFTA which has crippled the economy and TPP which will. And he's throwing political correctness to the wind, which is a refreshing change from the muzzling of free speech that has become so prevalent.
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This is hair-splitting. In practice, fascists spent quite as lot of energy on being not seen as socialist;
Fascists usually call themselves National Socialists, so is that really true? I think it is much more accurate to say that they spend a lot of energy on being seen as NATIONAL socialists, in contrast with INTERNATIONAL socialists. Thats where the core difference lies. But both are arguably socialists.
But one has to be careful so that discussion like this does not degenerate into discussing semantics instead of politics, a very easy trap to fall into.
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Fascists usually call themselves National Socialists, so is that really true?
Right, and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is totally a democratic republic, because nobody ever names things in misleading ways ever.
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It's not glee, it's schadenfreude grim satisfaction. It's because if the shoe were on the other foot, the SJWs would not hesitate to crow about a Clinton victory. Some of them are already saying that Trump needs to be so utterly and thoroughly defeated that he and his like will never be politically viable again.
And the various chants about how Clinton should be incarcerated or killed are ok by you.
Trump is, first and foremost, a nationalist. Authoritarianism is secondary. I support Trump because he is the first viable politician in quite some time to push back against the globalist agenda. He's pushing back against US military adventurism which has pissed off allies and turned non-entities into threats. He's pushing back against trade agreements like NAFTA which has crippled the economy and TPP which will. And he's throwing political correctness to the wind, which is a refreshing change from the muzzling of free speech that has become so prevalent.
How do you get any confidence about Trump's position on things, given how much he's wavered on all of them?
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'SJW' apparently now means 'the entire ****ing left'.
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Anyway, Goober, you may as well just **** off and go back to fiddling with the forum formatting out of spite, because you're going to have about as much luck defending your idiotic political views here as you did defending your young-earth creationism or your belief that women are primarily of value as brood mares. If, god forbid, Trump wins in November, I hope you at least get enough joy out of your week of smirking to make up for the subsequent four years as you realise you're right up there on the shortlist for the Chump Of The ****ing Century Award along with the other 130 million odd fools.
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Trump is, first and foremost, a nationalist. Authoritarianism is secondary. I support Trump because he is the first viable politician in quite some time to push back against the globalist agenda. He's pushing back against US military adventurism which has pissed off allies and turned non-entities into threats. He's pushing back against trade agreements like NAFTA which has crippled the economy and TPP which will. And he's throwing political correctness to the wind, which is a refreshing change from the muzzling of free speech that has become so prevalent.
We can only hope his authoritarian tendencies are secondary. He is too much of a wildcard to really know that. Trump's positions you enumerated are indeed very tempting, but does he really mean them, and will he prioritize them in practice more than the authoritarian stuff? At this point he can be chaotic good, chaotic neutral or chaotic evil, but chaotic he surely is a lot, and voting him in as a POTUS is thus a big global risk. That said, the other side is not much better and I would hate having to choose between Hillary and Trump, or Reps and Dems in general. Thank God for multi-party systems and actual political diversity.
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I prefer Trump over Clinton as President of the USA.
Not that I'm allowed to vote on it as a Western European.
What others believe or prefer is up to them. We'll just have to see in a few months who wins and what happens to the world as a result, for good or for worse.
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It's not glee, it's schadenfreude grim satisfaction. It's because if the shoe were on the other foot, the SJWs would not hesitate to crow about a Clinton victory. Some of them are already saying that Trump needs to be so utterly and thoroughly defeated that he and his like will never be politically viable again.
And the various chants about how Clinton should be incarcerated or killed are ok by you.
If she is tried and convicted, she should certainly be incarcerated. These are serious allegations and there appears to be sufficient evidence, by a wide margin, to prosecute. I haven't heard of any chants saying she should be killed.
How do you get any confidence about Trump's position on things, given how much he's wavered on all of them?
He is a deal-maker, so he is going to say different things at different times to see what people feel strongly about and what they don't. But his positions (https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions) have been posted on his website for months and have remained consistent.
'SJW' apparently now means 'the entire ****ing left'.
There are SJWs on both the left and the right. The term does not encompass the whole of either.
Anyway, Goober, you may as well just **** off and go back to fiddling with the forum formatting out of spite, because you're going to have about as much luck defending your idiotic political views here as you did defending your young-earth creationism or your belief that women are primarily of value as brood mares. If, god forbid, Trump wins in November, I hope you at least get enough joy out of your week of smirking to make up for the subsequent four years as you realise you're right up there on the shortlist for the Chump Of The ****ing Century Award along with the other 130 million odd fools.
Good, good, let the hate flow through you.
This is but a foretaste of the apoplexy I mentioned.
We can only hope his authoritarian tendencies are secondary. He is too much of a wildcard to really know that. Trump's positions you enumerated are indeed very tempting, but does he really mean them, and will he prioritize them in practice more than the authoritarian stuff? At this point he can be chaotic good, chaotic neutral or chaotic evil, but chaotic he surely is a lot, and voting him in as a POTUS is thus a big global risk. That said, the other side is not much better and I would hate having to choose between Hillary and Trump, or Reps and Dems in general. Thank God for multi-party systems and actual political diversity.
I think we saw a foretaste of President Trump with his trip to Mexico. That went spectacularly well.
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The one promoted by its founders. The Wikipedia definition you quoted is a common misconception -- probably because it's Wikipedia. In addition to being an offshoot of socialism, the core principles outlined in the Manifesto of the Fascist Struggle - such as universal suffrage, an eight-hour workday, an progressive taxation - are left-wing.
What a remarkable interpretation of history that is.
The Nazis, who popularized fascism following its invention in Italy, adopted the term National Socialism as an alternative term for fascism explicitly because of the ground gained by both Communists and Socialists in the preceding decades. By co-opting a minor few socialist policies which were already being enacted in decidedly non-socialist (at the time) countries like Britain and the United States, they also were able to popularize authoritarian policies ordinarily considered right-wing at the time and in the decades since. These include a decidedly social-conservative agenda which was not strongly enforced, particularly in Germany, prior to the rise of the Nazi Party, and a direct opposition toward human rights and equality. Moreover, the notions of left and right politics did not carry the same type of meaning in the early 1900s that they do now, particularly in Europe then versus the modern US now. However you slice it, fascism has virtually nothing in common with socialism or Communism, despite the intentional habit early Fascist leaders had of borrowing terms from both of those political movements that were popular.
Fascism was a response to, not a part of, the socialism of the 1900s-1930s. This is literally the only definition accepted by reputable modern historians.
Objections to Trump almost always take the form of "he said something bad". Objections to Clinton almost always take the form of "she did something illegal".
"No matter how bad Clinton is" is an awfully cavalier way to sweep away violation of classification protocol, accepting funding from foreign governments, insider trading, perjury, co-opting media reporting, primary election fraud, and a long list of dead political opponents.
I'm not typically a defender of the Clinton's, but in this case: name one thing (just one) that Hillary Clinton has done that is verifiably illegal and should have been prosecuted. Negative points awarded if you answer includes "emails" as that automatically means you're asserting you're more qualified to opine on the law than the combination of the FBI and the US Department of Justice.
Trump is, first and foremost, a nationalist. Authoritarianism is secondary. I support Trump because he is the first viable politician in quite some time to push back against the globalist agenda. He's pushing back against US military adventurism which has pissed off allies and turned non-entities into threats. He's pushing back against trade agreements like NAFTA which has crippled the economy and TPP which will. And he's throwing political correctness to the wind, which is a refreshing change from the muzzling of free speech that has become so prevalent.
His push against military adventurism also appears to include firing all the current generals and then going adventuring after ISIS, which (though deplorable) poses no tangible threat to the United States. NAFTA has been nothing but an economic positive for the US - you're certainly not shipping jobs to Canada or Mexico (tell me, do you know anything about NAFTA? Trump certainly doesn't. Any idea what its provisions actually provide for?). As for throwing political correctness in the name of free speech, he's also the candidate who appears to believe the Khan's should not have had free speech, who has said flatly he wants to "open up libel laws," and who has no conceptual understanding of the powers or restrictions of the Constitution. Half of what Trump proposes is both illegal and unconstitutional, and the other half is outlandish buffoonery guaranteed to harm the majority of the citizenry of the United States. Trump's nationalism is little different than any authoritarian - it's a great way to get people to put you in power so you can put the boot on their necks. Trump hasn't looked out for anyone other than Donald Trump in his entire existence; what makes you think he'll start now? His economic "reforms" definitely aren't designed to help anyone who isn't a millionaire or billionaire already, and Trump's declarations about businesses moving offshore are pretty ****ing ironic considering he has done it with just as much vigor as anyone else. Of course, we don't know quite to what extent since he won't release his tax returns (the first Presidential candidate in 40 years), but his son tells us they have quite a number of economic ties to Russia. What could possibly go wrong?
I would say anyone willing to vote Trump deserves what they'd get, but unfortunately they're not the only ones that would get it. The United States is better than this. At least, I always thought it was. Now I wonder.
I think we saw a foretaste of President Trump with his trip to Mexico. That went spectacularly well.
You mean the visit where he failed to get the Mexican President to agree to his signature proposal, tried to lie about the fact by saying they never discussed it, and was laughed out of the room when the Mexican President proceeded to explain he said no. That visit? The one where Trump failed to stand up for the one drum he's been banging basically since he started in the primaries?
Holy hell.
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Anyway, Goober, you may as well just **** off and go back to fiddling with the forum formatting out of spite, because you're going to have about as much luck defending your idiotic political views here as you did defending your young-earth creationism or your belief that women are primarily of value as brood mares. If, god forbid, Trump wins in November, I hope you at least get enough joy out of your week of smirking to make up for the subsequent four years as you realise you're right up there on the shortlist for the Chump Of The ****ing Century Award along with the other 130 million odd fools.
Good, good, let the hate flow through you.
This is but a foretaste of the apoplexy I mentioned.
I suppose feeling joy at being called an idiot is a fulfilling way for an idiot to live his life. It will, at least, make it easier for you to put up with Trump as president.
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If she is tried and convicted, she should certainly be incarcerated. These are serious allegations and there appears to be sufficient evidence, by a wide margin, to prosecute. I haven't heard of any chants saying she should be killed.
Hillary Clinton is, by quite a margin, the one most scrutinized person in US politics. There have been numerous investigations that have all exonerated her.
Meanwhile, Trump's shady dealings get little media coverage. Why is that, I wonder?
Oh, and do you not remember this (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/republicans-debate-kill-hillary-or-merely-jail-her/2016/07/20/5fb65424-4ec7-11e6-a7d8-13d06b37f256_story.html)?
Or the very trollish way in which he said that "those second amendment people could do something about her".
Yes, I know. That could mean anything. It's the sort of weasely formulation internet trolls would use to not break forum rules.
He is a deal-maker, so he is going to say different things at different times to see what people feel strongly about and what they don't. But his positions (https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions) have been posted on his website for months and have remained consistent.
He is a dealmakeer, yes.
Not a good one, as it seems, going by his business performance.
That aside, what he actually is is someone who will say what gets him applause with the crowd. He doesn't care what he is saying, as long as it will allow him to win. Trump is, by quite a margin, the most dishonest (or ignorant, who knows) person in the race, and he is banking on his supporters a) being as ignorant as he is and b) being utterly taken in by right wing conspiracy theories.
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The one promoted by its founders. The Wikipedia definition you quoted is a common misconception -- probably because it's Wikipedia. In addition to being an offshoot of socialism, the core principles outlined in the Manifesto of the Fascist Struggle - such as universal suffrage, an eight-hour workday, an progressive taxation - are left-wing.
What a remarkable interpretation of history that is.
The Nazis, who popularized fascism following its invention in Italy, adopted the term National Socialism as an alternative term for fascism explicitly because of the ground gained by both Communists and Socialists in the preceding decades. By co-opting a minor few socialist policies which were already being enacted in decidedly non-socialist (at the time) countries like Britain and the United States, they also were able to popularize authoritarian policies ordinarily considered right-wing at the time and in the decades since. These include a decidedly social-conservative agenda which was not strongly enforced, particularly in Germany, prior to the rise of the Nazi Party, and a direct opposition toward human rights and equality. Moreover, the notions of left and right politics did not carry the same type of meaning in the early 1900s that they do now, particularly in Europe then versus the modern US now. However you slice it, fascism has virtually nothing in common with socialism or Communism, despite the intentional habit early Fascist leaders had of borrowing terms from both of those political movements that were popular.
Fascism was a response to, not a part of, the socialism of the 1900s-1930s. This is literally the only definition accepted by reputable modern historians.
That's a lot of words that don't actually say much. And what you did say is plainly historically incorrect. Fascism, socialism, and communism are all closely related -- Mussolini was very popular on the left in the 1920s. And, you know, "a response to" is another way of saying "an offshoot of". Fascism was, as its proponents called it, a Third Way, a movement rooted in socialism that sought to create a workable compromise with capitalism.
I'm not typically a defender of the Clinton's, but in this case: name one thing (just one) that Hillary Clinton has done that is verifiably illegal and should have been prosecuted. Negative points awarded if you answer includes "emails" as that automatically means you're asserting you're more qualified to opine on the law than the combination of the FBI and the US Department of Justice.
Whatever I name is just going to be a target for you to shoot at, given that you've already set up your own target on the emails.
I would say anyone willing to vote Trump deserves what they'd get, but unfortunately they're not the only ones that would get it. The United States is better than this. At least, I always thought it was. Now I wonder.
Indeed, the US used to be better than this, but right now Trump is the best available option.
You mean the visit where he failed to get the Mexican President to agree to his signature proposal, tried to lie about the fact by saying they never discussed it, and was laughed out of the room when the Mexican President proceeded to explain he said no. That visit? The one where Trump failed to stand up for the one drum he's been banging basically since he started in the primaries?
You're mischaracterizing the response to the proposal. Trump got Mexico to agree that both countries had a right to build a wall. What was "never discussed" was the payment. But that's how negotiations work: they don't happen all at once; they happen in stages. First the wall, next the payment.
Hillary Clinton is, by quite a margin, the one most scrutinized person in US politics. There have been numerous investigations that have all exonerated her.
Meanwhile, Trump's shady dealings get little media coverage. Why is that, I wonder?
Hillary does have an unnatural ability to escape the consequences of her actions. I wonder why that is too. It might be that prosecution isn't justified, or it might be that the corruption is more widespread than just her. But we know for a fact that others who have done the same things that Hillary did have not escaped punishment.
I don't think Trump's shady dealings have any legs to them. If they did, the media would be going after those, not after whatever sexist comments he happened to make on a given day.
Oh, and do you not remember this (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/republicans-debate-kill-hillary-or-merely-jail-her/2016/07/20/5fb65424-4ec7-11e6-a7d8-13d06b37f256_story.html)?
Some interesting things I hadn't heard before. For some of them I don't know the context, but all of them could be placed in the context of punishment taking place after a trial and conviction.
Or the very trollish way in which he said that "those second amendment people could do something about her".
Yes, I know. That could mean anything. It's the sort of weasely formulation internet trolls would use to not break forum rules.
It is. It's interesting; Trump has a way of saying things that can mean different things to different people. How you respond reveals how you think.
That aside, what he actually is is someone who will say what gets him applause with the crowd. He doesn't care what he is saying, as long as it will allow him to win. Trump is, by quite a margin, the most dishonest (or ignorant, who knows) person in the race, and he is banking on his supporters a) being as ignorant as he is and b) being utterly taken in by right wing conspiracy theories.
Trump wants to secure his place in history. If he succeeds in Making America Great Again, he will certainly deserve that place. If he walks back his promises, the backlash will be swift and severe. I'm sure he's not going to do that.
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'SJW' apparently now means 'the entire ****ing left'.
I mean
It's not inaccurate
Hillary Clinton is, by quite a margin, the one most scrutinized person in US politics. There have been numerous investigations that have all exonerated her.
If I recall correctly, them all exonerating her is exactly the problem people have
She shouldn't of been given a free pass, that is essentially what folks take issue with
Regardless, both of these options are entirely ****ty
I'm honestly surprised I don't see more of that rhetoric around here
Hell, I'm surprised I don't see more people mentioning the fact third options are actually a thing
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Just a note, Putin didn't really praise Trump much (contrary to what Trump often claims). In the most referenced moment, he actually called him "flamboyant" or "colorful", but the word was mistranslated as "bright", which has different connotations. What he said was very cautious and amounted to "Well, he's certainly quite a persona", which is hard to disagree with.
Actually, the American idiom would be "quite the character." And yes, that's very hard to argue with.
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Hell, I'm surprised I don't see more people mentioning the fact third options are actually a thing
Because the Libertarians are not an amateur party who had someone stage striptease at their convention and with someone even less capable of doing the job than Donald Trump. I mean, if you can't answer a question you'd know by reading my local newspaper...
Third options aren't a thing.
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Hell, I'm surprised I don't see more people mentioning the fact third options are actually a thing
Because they're not. Any third party candidate will just end up splitting the left or right wing vote and it only benefits the opposite party. See Theodore Roosevelt and the 1912 election.
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That's a lot of words that don't actually say much. And what you did say is plainly historically incorrect. Fascism, socialism, and communism are all closely related -- Mussolini was very popular on the left in the 1920s. And, you know, "a response to" is another way of saying "an offshoot of". Fascism was, as its proponents called it, a Third Way, a movement rooted in socialism that sought to create a workable compromise with capitalism.
No. You don't get to make up history. (https://www.britannica.com/topic/fascism)
Fascism was - in Italy, in Britain, in France, in Germany, and in Spain - an explicit, targeted, intentional counter to the policies of the socialist parties and Communist parties in those countries. It had the support of far-right-wing groups including authoritarians, traditional monarchists, Nazis, racist/xenophobic paramilitary groups, and was opposed by socialists, Communists, and select conservatives in some nations (e.g. Britain, though in Britain the fascists were a direct split off of the Conservative party). Fascist parties intentionally adopted the word socialist into their party names in order to lessen opposition as - in the cases of Germany, Italy, and Spain - they literally outlawed, suppressed, and murdered members of the various socialist parties (e.g. the SPD in 1933, Germany). No actual historian, dictionary, or encyclopedia considers fascism to be a left-wing movement as the term was understood in that time period, nor is it considered a left-wing philosophy today. If you do, you are objectively incorrect.
Whatever I name is just going to be a target for you to shoot at, given that you've already set up your own target on the emails.
Ah, the "I'll say whatever I want but won't bother to back it up with facts" defense. Bold, and taking a leaf right out of your candidate's playbook. Unfortunately, we're not about to let you get away with it here. You were saying about Clinton's illegal actions?
You're mischaracterizing the response to the proposal. Trump got Mexico to agree that both countries had a right to build a wall. What was "never discussed" was the payment. But that's how negotiations work: they don't happen all at once; they happen in stages. First the wall, next the payment.
I'm not mischaracterizing it at all. Trump's campaign said they did not discuss who would pay for a wall. Mexico's President said he explicitly said Mexico will not (and indeed, Trump has absolutely no means to convince Mexico to do so under international law). Given the breathtaking frequency and boldness of Trump's lies to date - indeed, its usually easier to list when he's told the truth as of late - I'm inclined to trust the word of an actual elected leader over a blowhard of a failed, dishonest businessman.
But we know for a fact that others who have done the same things that Hillary did have not escaped punishment.
Citation required.
I don't think Trump's shady dealings have any legs to them. If they did, the media would be going after those
Unbelievable. The media has been publishing reports on Trump's abysmal business record and shady dealings on a monthly if not weekly basis. His base - as evidenced by your own reactions - doesn't care.
Trump wants to secure his place in history. If he succeeds in Making America Great Again, he will certainly deserve that place. If he walks back his promises, the backlash will be swift and severe. I'm sure he's not going to do that.
Wow. Do you know what this "Making America Great Again" nonsense is? Recollection bias. False memory. "Things were better in MY day" bull****. The United States of America is already a great country. It has its problems, and its weaknesses, but nothing Trump has said will actually make it better for average people, and in point of fact it will make it much worse.
By the way, I'm still waiting to hear what provisions of NAFTA have been bad for the United States.
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I'm really counting on Bad Lip Reading to make some gems from the debates between these two. Only good thing to come out of this election.
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And, you know, "a response to" is another way of saying "an offshoot of".
I've got a rather massive problem with that statement, would you kindly clarify what it means ?
Because the I think "a response to" tends to equate "made to oppose", while "an offshoot of" tends to equate "a descendant/another form of".
Like, trumpism is (in part) a response to SJWs = trumpism is an offshoot of SJWs. That seems rather contradictory.
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Hillary Clinton is, by quite a margin, the one most scrutinized person in US politics. There have been numerous investigations that have all exonerated her.
If I recall correctly, them all exonerating her is exactly the problem people have
She shouldn't of been given a free pass, that is essentially what folks take issue with
Right, yes, she should have been convicted of her crimes like that fellow who did pretty much the same thing. You know, her predecessor (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/08/colin-powell-hillary-clinton-email-state-department?CMP=share_btn_tw)? Colin Powell?
Yeah, the hearings and committees and public airing of dirty laundry were quite the bloodbath back then. I mean, it was so unbelievably vicious, everyone sort of started to pretend it never happened.
No, I'm not saying that just because Powell did something, Hillary Clinton should be allowed to make the same mistakes, but where exactly was the public cry for Powells' head over this?
There's this narrative going around that Hillary Clinton must be suspect and dishonest because she's investigated all the time, and that she must run an extensive conspiracy to keep all those investigations from ever returning a guilty verdict. Noone ever seems to stop for a minute to ask why, if she is this powerful, she is ever investigated in the first place.
Meanwhile, Trump gets applause for not being politically correct, while at the same time Clinton gets criticized for the same thing when she makes disparaging statements about Trump's supporters. There's huge amounts of double standards going around here, I think.
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'SJW' apparently now means 'the entire ****ing left'.
I mean
It's not inaccurate
It's really one of those definitions that says more about the person making the definition rather than the person being defined.
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Timely: http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21706525-politicians-have-always-lied-does-it-matter-if-they-leave-truth-behind-entirely-art?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/ed/artofthelie
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Meanwhile, Trump gets applause for not being politically correct, while at the same time Clinton gets criticized for the same thing when she makes disparaging statements about Trump's supporters. There's huge amounts of double standards going around here, I think.
When you find yourself always going "Yeah, but this other guy is worse" you've seriously got to ask yourself what the hell went wrong with the Presidential choices
Neither of these people should be President
There's this narrative going around that Hillary Clinton must be suspect and dishonest because she's investigated all the time
I don't recall seeing the narrative as such
I recall it being as these investigations actually pulling **** out of the woodwork, and then the decisions made in regards to this came to nothing
No, I'm not saying that just because Powell did something, Hillary Clinton should be allowed to make the same mistakes, but where exactly was the public cry for Powells' head over this?
Powell isn't becoming President, that's the main difference. Then again, what the public gets hissy over these days is largely weird and disproportionate anyhow so using that as a baseline is not exactly the best idea regardless
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Please give some examples of **** pulled out of the woodwork.
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When you find yourself always going "Yeah, but this other guy is worse" you've
Welcome to elections since the beginning?
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(https://ibin.co/2uk7s0lKbqLM.jpg)
(https://ibin.co/2uk7x0TzRfNc.png)
(https://ibin.co/2uk7zBz9YpZG.png)
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Saw this on someone's car the other day. Got a great laugh out of me:
(http://i.imgur.com/d3bbKbF.jpg)
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Just one question: why do you think Trump has any chance of winning this race? Republicans themselves are asking whether Trump is even trying to be a serious contender.
As far as I'm aware, Trump's already pretty much lost the game. Hillary is currently advertising in Arizona, which means she thinks she'll have a shot on winning the state. Arizona!
Trump needs to win the four contested states, and he isn't doing particularly well in any of them as far as I'm aware. All of them are polling Clinton ahead. The only possibilities to reverse the tables are the debates, but I wouldn't count on Trump winning Clinton there.
We are likely looking at democrats winning the House, Supreme court and the presidency. Boggles the mind why Republicans allowed Trump go as far, any other candidate would have fared better against Hillary. Now they are likely going to lose all that, which is probably for the better.
If this is about the Clinton / Trump game being at 50 / 50, that's likely because tight race will sell news better. CNN's recent poll was not reproducible.
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(http://i.imgur.com/d3bbKbF.jpg)
Best bumper sticker ever.
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Well, this certainly is interesting. Trump has been blasting US foreign policy (http://ttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/09/08/trump-attacks-u-s-foreign-policy-political-press-corps-in-state-owned-russian-television-network/) in Russian television network interview.
While US foreign policy has been quite bad for the last 20 years, how does blasting it in a foreign media interview help? Or get rid of the smell of Russian money flowing to the US presidential elections?
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Link doesn't work for me. But that looks like an amateur mistake. I suppose Trump says what he thinks which is good in principle, but sometimes it's wise to say nothing instead. Unfortunately, the art of knowing when to speak and when not to is lost on him. He compensates by thinking different things, per the needs of whoever he's currently talking to. :) Well, either that, or it's just another bald-faced lie designed to score him points, this time with the Russians.
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Please give some examples of **** pulled out of the woodwork.
Let's look at the most recent example: Hillary Clinton runs her own email server(s). Investigation turns up that emails contained within were, in fact, classified, some at an extremely high level. Investigation turns up that said server's security was so primitive that determining whether any foreign actors had gained access was impossible. Investigation proves that Hillary lied under oath to Congress about the presence of classified information (perjury). Investigation turns up that emails were deleted while under a subpoena (obstruction of justice). Investigation turns up that she was grossly negligent with regard to state secrets (mishandling of public information, espionage if done deliberately to deliver it to foreign governments).
And the conclusion? She shouldn't be indicted because she's a poor old woman who didn't know it was illegal. Commence string of profanities.
Every investigation proceeds the same way, and every time, somebody pulls the plug before it can be brought before a jury. If people like you would stop plugging their ears each time it happens, maybe we wouldn't be stuck in this godawful situation.
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Yeah, but let's not act like Trump's supporters aren't doing exactly the same thing. We never hear mention of how Trump decided he should have a slice of the fund set up to help small business owners after 9/11, do we?
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Investigation proves that Hillary lied under oath to Congress about the presence of classified information (perjury). Investigation turns up that emails were deleted while under a subpoena (obstruction of justice). Investigation turns up that she was grossly negligent with regard to state secrets (mishandling of public information, espionage if done deliberately to deliver it to foreign governments).
Hey so I hate to be that guy, but precisely none of that was actually proved, otherwise she would have been charged.
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no, the people doing the prosecution would have to want to press charges. law enforcement always has the option of not enforcing the law if they don't feel like it for some particular reason.
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no, the people doing the prosecution would have to want to press charges.
The prosecution chooses to press charges based on whether they think they have a case they can win and whether it's worth the time and expense to do so, not "because they feel like it". The FBI very openly admits that they don't think they've presented a winnable case, because they have failed to prove anything to that standard. Similarly, if Trey Gowdy had the goods for any of that, he would have pushed a lot harder in his final report than he actually did, so he didn't prove anything either.
I mean, you can just make **** up if you want, I suppose, but it's not something to be taken seriously then.
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Saw this on someone's car the other day. Got a great laugh out of me:
**** yeah giant meteor!
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The prosecution IS SUPPOSED TO choose to press charges based on whether they think they have a case they can win and whether it's worth the time and expense to do so, not "because they feel like it".
fixed that for you.
and that was all I was commenting on.
The fact they didn't press charges is not proof nothing happened. How many cops do not get prosecuted for killing innocent people?
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The prosecution IS SUPPOSED TO choose to press charges based on whether they think they have a case they can win and whether it's worth the time and expense to do so, not "because they feel like it".
The fact they didn't press charges is not proof nothing happened. How many cops do not get prosecuted for killing innocent people?
Innocent until proven guilty has been a critical part of law enforcement since the roman era: You can't prove that anything happened either.
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TBH, this whole scandal seems overblown. Here's an interesting article dealing with just what kind of classified info has been found there:
http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/sep/07/hillary-clinton/clinton-says-none-her-emails-were-labeled-top-secr/
In short, it turns out that she could've very well had no idea the stuff was classified, since it wasn't marked properly (only a handful of things were, in a non-obvious manner). That doesn't make this any less of a mistake (such cases are exactly why she wasn't supposed to use the private server), but puts her claims in context. Not only that, a lot of information that's classified by government has no real need to be kept secret, which means it status can't even be discerned from the text itself.
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Just one question: why do you think Trump has any chance of winning this race? Republicans themselves are asking whether Trump is even trying to be a serious contender.
As far as I'm aware, Trump's already pretty much lost the game. Hillary is currently advertising in Arizona, which means she thinks she'll have a shot on winning the state. Arizona!
The polling margins are still surprisingly slim (538.com is your best friend), given that Trump is an amazingly bad candidate whose relationship with the truth is orders of magnitude worse than every other candidate in this election. It's only explained by the hatred of Hillary Clinton.
And the conclusion? She shouldn't be indicted because she's a poor old woman who didn't know it was illegal. Commence string of profanities.
That actually wasn't what the FBI concluded at all. Perhaps you may want to read their actual reasoning. https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/statement-by-fbi-director-james-b-comey-on-the-investigation-of-secretary-hillary-clinton2019s-use-of-a-personal-e-mail-system
The level of classification was minor, as was the volume. What the FBI actually determined was that there was no reasonable prospect of conviction, which is an actual legal term that both law enforcement and prosecutors evaluate investigations against before recommending/filing charges. Due to the backward regionalization of US law enforcement and the staggering quality differences between different departments, some departments do it with more rigor than others. The FBI, as the federal department, is usually among the best at bringing only charges that stand reasonable prospect of conviction.
In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts. All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see those things here.
To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now.
As a result, although the Department of Justice makes final decisions on matters like this, we are expressing to Justice our view that no charges are appropriate in this case.
So as I said to Goober, anyone who disagrees with this finding is welcome to lay out their precise legal reasoning why they are right and the highest levels of the most powerful and reputable domestic law enforcement agency and prosecution service combined are wrong.
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Just one question: why do you think Trump has any chance of winning this race? Republicans themselves are asking whether Trump is even trying to be a serious contender.
As far as I'm aware, Trump's already pretty much lost the game. Hillary is currently advertising in Arizona, which means she thinks she'll have a shot on winning the state. Arizona!
The polling margins are still surprisingly slim (538.com is your best friend), given that Trump is an amazingly bad candidate whose relationship with the truth is orders of magnitude worse than every other candidate in this election. It's only explained by the hatred of Hillary Clinton.
Don't know about that, because a lot of that depends on how it was polled. A fellow Finnish mobile marketing expert (don't worry, he lives in Hong Kong and is an international person) has been following the presidential race quite closely. You can find his blog Communities Dominate Brands from here (http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/). He has actually studied some years in the United States, and does know the system quite well. September 9th post about the polls per state is more revealing, including his analysis of that. Comments are also usually worth reading. He has been very accurate on predicting several outcomes, one of them being the Obamas's second term outcome.
I do find that Tomi discloses his methodology and gives his reasoning for why things are reported as they are the best among the published polls. As far as I know, he is the only one who has talked about how the Narwhal system that was used by the Democrats in the Obama's presidential race affected the play. I.e. Democrats are employing a massive data base which models the behavior of voting age persons living in the US. Obama's race displayed an advert looking to help him get elected at some point; contacting this advert via an SMS meant you'd be given a phone number of a person predicted to be unsure and who is employed in the same field as you were. You were to call him to try and convince him to vote Obama.
Yes, Tomi is against Trump, but that does not affect how he handles the numbers, and that blog really goes by the numbers. He isn't trying to affect your opinion, he is telling his vision of why things will take place as they do. The first post of the blog as of today is of Trump and the Deplorables which is off-topic humor; scroll down that to find the post about polling. There are several others regarding the polling further down.
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No. You don't get to make up history. (https://www.britannica.com/topic/fascism)
Fascism was - in Italy, in Britain, in France, in Germany, and in Spain - an explicit, targeted, intentional counter to the policies of the socialist parties and Communist parties in those countries. It had the support of far-right-wing groups including authoritarians, traditional monarchists, Nazis, racist/xenophobic paramilitary groups, and was opposed by socialists, Communists, and select conservatives in some nations (e.g. Britain, though in Britain the fascists were a direct split off of the Conservative party). Fascist parties intentionally adopted the word socialist into their party names in order to lessen opposition as - in the cases of Germany, Italy, and Spain - they literally outlawed, suppressed, and murdered members of the various socialist parties (e.g. the SPD in 1933, Germany). No actual historian, dictionary, or encyclopedia considers fascism to be a left-wing movement as the term was understood in that time period, nor is it considered a left-wing philosophy today. If you do, you are objectively incorrect.
I'm not the one who's making up history here. Fascism has its roots in Marxist socialism and its proponents were left-wing. To claim that fascism is right-wing is at best historically ignorant and at worst dishonest. Read this article (http://www.la-articles.org.uk/fascism.htm) which extensively covers the origins, rise, and development of fascism.
To be sure, fascism is distinct from socialism, but that's about as meaningful as saying that US Democrats are distinct from US progressives.
Ah, the "I'll say whatever I want but won't bother to back it up with facts" defense. Bold, and taking a leaf right out of your candidate's playbook. Unfortunately, we're not about to let you get away with it here. You were saying about Clinton's illegal actions?
You've already pre-emptively declared that you'll ignore incriminating evidence based on an appeal to authority. I see no reason to jump through your hoops.
I'm not mischaracterizing it at all. Trump's campaign said they did not discuss who would pay for a wall. Mexico's President said he explicitly said Mexico will not (and indeed, Trump has absolutely no means to convince Mexico to do so under international law). Given the breathtaking frequency and boldness of Trump's lies to date - indeed, its usually easier to list when he's told the truth as of late - I'm inclined to trust the word of an actual elected leader over a blowhard of a failed, dishonest businessman.
Ah, so you're saying you'll take Trump's word after he's actually been elected. An odd metric for trustworthiness, but it fits with your appeal to authority.
But we know for a fact that others who have done the same things that Hillary did have not escaped punishment.
Citation required.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/16/politics/navy-sailor-clinton-email-defense/
I don't think Trump's shady dealings have any legs to them. If they did, the media would be going after those
Unbelievable. The media has been publishing reports on Trump's abysmal business record and shady dealings on a monthly if not weekly basis. His base - as evidenced by your own reactions - doesn't care.
Saying that there's no substance to certain accusations is not at all the same thing as saying one doesn't care.
Wow. Do you know what this "Making America Great Again" nonsense is? Recollection bias. False memory. "Things were better in MY day" bull****. The United States of America is already a great country. It has its problems, and its weaknesses, but nothing Trump has said will actually make it better for average people, and in point of fact it will make it much worse.
Do explain exactly how Trump will make things worse for average people.
By the way, I'm still waiting to hear what provisions of NAFTA have been bad for the United States.
NAFTA, as is typical of global free trade agreements (http://www.wnd.com/2012/06/we-need-more-economic-nationalists/), has sent US jobs overseas and transformed the US economy for the worse. To cite one statistic from that article, "When it passed in 1993, we had a $1.6 billion trade surplus with Mexico. By 2010, our trade deficit with Mexico had reached $61.6 billion."
And, you know, "a response to" is another way of saying "an offshoot of".
I've got a rather massive problem with that statement, would you kindly clarify what it means ?
Because the I think "a response to" tends to equate "made to oppose", while "an offshoot of" tends to equate "a descendant/another form of".
Like, trumpism is (in part) a response to SJWs = trumpism is an offshoot of SJWs. That seems rather contradictory.
It depends on the context. Something can be a response to something and yet be ideologically similar to it. For example, in the US, progressivism is a response to the Democrats and the alt-right is a response to the Republicans, but it is incorrect to say that progressives are right-wing or the alt-right is left-wing.
Right, yes, she should have been convicted of her crimes like that fellow who did pretty much the same thing. You know, her predecessor (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/08/colin-powell-hillary-clinton-email-state-department?CMP=share_btn_tw)? Colin Powell?
Yeah, the hearings and committees and public airing of dirty laundry were quite the bloodbath back then. I mean, it was so unbelievably vicious, everyone sort of started to pretend it never happened.
No, I'm not saying that just because Powell did something, Hillary Clinton should be allowed to make the same mistakes, but where exactly was the public cry for Powells' head over this?
If Colin Powell mishandled classified information, then he should be prosecuted as well. However, I believe Powell said that he did not use personal devices to process classified information.
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Read this article (http://www.la-articles.org.uk/fascism.htm) which extensively covers the origins, rise, and development of fascism.
I quoted an internationally recognized encyclopedia. You just quoted an uncredentialed crank who's objectivity is under serious question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ramsay_Steele
You've already pre-emptively declared that you'll ignore incriminating evidence based on an appeal to authority. I see no reason to jump through your hoops.
WHAT. EVIDENCE. Again, we have the pre-eminent federal law enforcement agency of the United States and the Justice Department versus Goober, HLP denizen, and the various crackpots of the Internet. This isn't a contest.
Ah, so you're saying you'll take Trump's word after he's actually been elected. An odd metric for trustworthiness, but it fits with your appeal to authority.
I'll take Trump's word the second he shows any of his statements are credible. He has a serious problem with facts and truth, demonstrated throughout the campaign. Elected officials are at least held to some standard of the truth; at present, Trump hasn't been held to any.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/16/politics/navy-sailor-clinton-email-defense/
If you can't see the legal difference between that situation and Clinton's I can't help you. The sailor admitted intentionally violating the conditions of his security clearance and intentionally retaining classified information. Intent is a key factor in the FBI decision not to recommend charges.
Saying that there's no substance to certain accusations is not at all the same thing as saying one doesn't care.
Did you read the extremely-well-researched NewsWeek piece I posted earlier, or simply ignore it to fit your narrative?
Do explain exactly how Trump will make things worse for average people.
From a handful of Trump's statements:
1. Open up libel laws.
2. Economics reforms that would prompt recession, disproportionately affecting low and middle class workers. http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2016/06/20/u-s-economy-would-be-diminished-under-trumps-economic-plan-new-analysis-says/
3. Void NAFTA http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba619
4. Fire the current military generals and get the US involved in direct conflict with ISIS
NAFTA, as is typical of global free trade agreements (http://www.wnd.com/2012/06/we-need-more-economic-nationalists/), has sent US jobs overseas and transformed the US economy for the worse. To cite one statistic from that article, "When it passed in 1993, we had a $1.6 billion trade surplus with Mexico. By 2010, our trade deficit with Mexico had reached $61.6 billion."
1. Quoting crank partisan websites doesn't help your case. Especially when the author of the piece isn't an economist, but rather Pat Buchanan, avowedly conservative commenator with a journalism degree.
2. NAFTA has nothing to do with overseas trading at all. NAFTA is the North American Free Trade Agreement, by which Canada, the United States, and [to a lesser extent] Mexico have reduced trade barriers between the three nations.
3. Trade deficits aren't everything:
U.S. employment rose from 110.8 million in 1993 to 137.6 million in 2007, an increase of 24 percent.
The U.S. unemployment rate averaged 5.1 percent for the first 13 years after NAFTA, compared to 7.1 percent during the 13 years prior to the agreement.
4. NAFTA brought about free trade with two of the US' top three trading partners, reducing or eliminating tarriffs and allowing freer movement of goods and persons between all three countries, which has had tangible economic benefits for employment in all three countries.
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Read this article (http://www.la-articles.org.uk/fascism.htm) which extensively covers the origins, rise, and development of fascism.
I quoted an internationally recognized encyclopedia. You just quoted an uncredentialed crank who's objectivity is under serious question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ramsay_Steele
...Are you seriously going to dismiss pages and pages of history because you don't like the guy who wrote it? I understand that facts are stubborn things, but this is rather audacious.
You've already pre-emptively declared that you'll ignore incriminating evidence based on an appeal to authority. I see no reason to jump through your hoops.
WHAT. EVIDENCE. Again, we have the pre-eminent federal law enforcement agency of the United States and the Justice Department versus Goober, HLP denizen, and the various crackpots of the Internet. This isn't a contest.
There you go again with the argument from authority. The truth is the truth no matter who says it.
I'll take Trump's word the second he shows any of his statements are credible. He has a serious problem with facts and truth, demonstrated throughout the campaign. Elected officials are at least held to some standard of the truth; at present, Trump hasn't been held to any.
On the contrary, every time Trump opens his mouth, all of the pundits rush to "fact-check" whatever he says. This is the case even for statements that are clearly metaphorical, such as "Obama is the leader of ISIS."
http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/16/politics/navy-sailor-clinton-email-defense/
If you can't see the legal difference between that situation and Clinton's I can't help you. The sailor admitted intentionally violating the conditions of his security clearance and intentionally retaining classified information. Intent is a key factor in the FBI decision not to recommend charges.
Ah, but you see, intent doesn't matter. Contrary to the FBI statement, mishandling classified information is a crime regardless of whether there is an intent to supply it to an enemy or not.
Here is another example. Clinton stated under oath that she did not send or receive classified information on her private server. The FBI determined that she did. This is prima facie perjury.
Saying that there's no substance to certain accusations is not at all the same thing as saying one doesn't care.
Did you read the extremely-well-researched NewsWeek piece I posted earlier, or simply ignore it to fit your narrative?
By your own standards, I should disregard that article because the author is an uncredentialed crank whose objectivity is under serious question.
Do explain exactly how Trump will make things worse for average people.
From a handful of Trump's statements:
1. Open up libel laws.
2. Economics reforms that would prompt recession, disproportionately affecting low and middle class workers. http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2016/06/20/u-s-economy-would-be-diminished-under-trumps-economic-plan-new-analysis-says/
3. Void NAFTA http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba619
4. Fire the current military generals and get the US involved in direct conflict with ISIS
1 and 4 don't affect average people. 2 and 3 would actually help average people. I disagree with the conclusions of the linked articles.
NAFTA, as is typical of global free trade agreements (http://www.wnd.com/2012/06/we-need-more-economic-nationalists/), has sent US jobs overseas and transformed the US economy for the worse. To cite one statistic from that article, "When it passed in 1993, we had a $1.6 billion trade surplus with Mexico. By 2010, our trade deficit with Mexico had reached $61.6 billion."
1. Quoting crank partisan websites doesn't help your case. Especially when the author of the piece isn't an economist, but rather Pat Buchanan, avowedly conservative commenator with a journalism degree.
2. NAFTA has nothing to do with overseas trading at all. NAFTA is the North American Free Trade Agreement, by which Canada, the United States, and [to a lesser extent] Mexico have reduced trade barriers between the three nations.
3. Trade deficits aren't everything:
U.S. employment rose from 110.8 million in 1993 to 137.6 million in 2007, an increase of 24 percent.
The U.S. unemployment rate averaged 5.1 percent for the first 13 years after NAFTA, compared to 7.1 percent during the 13 years prior to the agreement.
4. NAFTA brought about free trade with two of the US' top three trading partners, reducing or eliminating tarriffs and allowing freer movement of goods and persons between all three countries, which has had tangible economic benefits for employment in all three countries.
1. Another argument from authority. I'm detecting a trend here.
2. "Overseas" encompasses all trade agreements, not just NAFTA. Perhaps a better term would have been "external" or "international".
3. A true apples-to-apples comparison with the article would be from 1993 to 2010. And a better metric than absolute unemployment is the employment-to-population ratio. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (http://www.bls.gov/schedule/archives/empsit_nr.htm), the employment-population ratio in December 1993 was 62.2 percent, whereas the same ratio in December 2010 was 58.3 percent.
4. Aside from actually harming employment, as in the previous bullet point, GDP per capita in the US has increased from $16,718 in 1993 to $43,644 in 2010, a factor of 1.6.
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1. Quoting crank partisan websites doesn't help your case. Especially when the author of the piece isn't an economist, but rather Pat Buchanan, avowedly conservative commenator with a journalism degree.
2. NAFTA has nothing to do with overseas trading at all. NAFTA is the North American Free Trade Agreement, by which Canada, the United States, and [to a lesser extent] Mexico have reduced trade barriers between the three nations.
3. Trade deficits aren't everything:
U.S. employment rose from 110.8 million in 1993 to 137.6 million in 2007, an increase of 24 percent.
The U.S. unemployment rate averaged 5.1 percent for the first 13 years after NAFTA, compared to 7.1 percent during the 13 years prior to the agreement.
4. NAFTA brought about free trade with two of the US' top three trading partners, reducing or eliminating tarriffs and allowing freer movement of goods and persons between all three countries, which has had tangible economic benefits for employment in all three countries.
1. Another argument from authority. I'm detecting a trend here.
2. "Overseas" encompasses all trade agreements, not just NAFTA. Perhaps a better term would have been "external" or "international".
3. A true apples-to-apples comparison with the article would be from 1993 to 2010. And a better metric than absolute unemployment is the employment-to-population ratio. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (http://www.bls.gov/schedule/archives/empsit_nr.htm), the employment-population ratio in December 1993 was 62.2 percent, whereas the same ratio in December 2010 was 58.3 percent.
4. Aside from actually harming employment, as in the previous bullet point, GDP per capita in the US has increased from $16,718 in 1993 to $43,644 in 2010, a factor of 1.6.
The dates go to 2007 because in 2008 there was this minor hiccup in the world economy that distorts the figures so horrendously that they're no longer worth considering. The fact of the matter is that nothing about 2010 is more relevant than 2007 in terms of NAFTA's influence, and the difference between 2010 and 2007 is that one supports your flawed narrative and the other does not. You know damn ****ing well the downturn from 2007 to 2010 was not caused by NAFTA, or even related to it in the ****ing slightest.
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The prevalence of people who support Trump, but otherwise seem reasonable, continues to amaze and horrify me.
I can at least wrap my head around the belief that Trump is the lesser evil (though I strongly disagree), but bona fide Trump supporters are beyond my understanding. I fear that they are impervious to reason; they dismiss all opposing evidence as "media bias", "argument from authority", or (best of all) "a lot of words".
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I'll take Trump's word the second he shows any of his statements are credible. He has a serious problem with facts and truth, demonstrated throughout the campaign. Elected officials are at least held to some standard of the truth; at present, Trump hasn't been held to any.
On the contrary, every time Trump opens his mouth, all of the pundits rush to "fact-check" whatever he says. This is the case even for statements that are clearly metaphorical, such as "Obama is the leader of ISIS."
Note how you call that statement "clearly metaphorical" when Trump himself denies that (http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/11/politics/donald-trump-hugh-hewitt-obama-founder-isis/).
But I guess using Trump's own words against him is just another appeal to authority, am I right?
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The prevalence of people who support Trump, but otherwise seem reasonable, continues to amaze and horrify me.
I can at least wrap my head around the belief that Trump is the lesser evil (though I strongly disagree), but bona fide Trump supporters are beyond my understanding. I fear that they are impervious to reason; they dismiss all opposing evidence as "media bias", "argument from authority", or (best of all) "a lot of words".
That seems to be the trend around here, certainly.
...Are you seriously going to dismiss pages and pages of history because you don't like the guy who wrote it? I understand that facts are stubborn things, but this is rather audacious.
No, I'm going to dismiss the guy's interpretation of history - which begins with his first use of the word leftist - because he lacks any peer-reviewed work, research, credentials, or really anything that would make his interpretation credible against the literal library shelves full of work that doesn't draw silly conclusions based on the writers' personal interpretations.
Fascism was founded by people who explicitly opposed the tenets of what was considered leftist political thought - and leftist political parties, including Labour, The Social Democrats, and the Communist Parties - in the era in which it developed. It renewed an interest in social conservativism and opposed equality. Adopting modern interpretations, it was supported directly by white nationalists, racist paramilitaries, and the areas of the political arena that favour social stratification. It opposed constitutional rights in all forms, and especially those that led to representative governance. By any measurement stick, fasicism was not associated with what was considered the left wing then, or now. Incidentally, you'll note that nowhere have I actually said fascism is an explicitly right-wing movement either. In point of fact - as as actual credible sources contend - fascism contained a mix of policies from all aspects of the political spectrum, but was defined more by its method of governing, its social conservativism, and its opposition to both Communism and representative democracies. It is frequently placed on the far right as a counter-equivalent to Communism on the far left, but in practice neither designation is truly appropriate. Placing fascism in the early 20th century on the political left makes about as much sense as placing anarchism in the early 20th century on the far right - both miss the point spectacularly.
Of course, reading your other bat**** nutty political authority source (http://www.wnd.com/2010/02/125603/) gives me some idea of where this crazy interpretation of history is coming from.
There you go again with the argument from authority. The truth is the truth no matter who says it.
Since you missed it last time: WHAT. EVIDENCE.
On the contrary, every time Trump opens his mouth, all of the pundits rush to "fact-check" whatever he says. This is the case even for statements that are clearly metaphorical, such as "Obama is the leader of ISIS."
And nearly every time he is fact-checked, he's wrong. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/07/22/fact-checking-donald-trumps-acceptance-speech-at-the-2016-rnc/)
Ah, but you see, intent doesn't matter. Contrary to the FBI statement, mishandling classified information is a crime regardless of whether there is an intent to supply it to an enemy or not.
Here is another example. Clinton stated under oath that she did not send or receive classified information on her private server. The FBI determined that she did. This is prima facie perjury.
Keep your day job, law enforcement or prosecution is not for you. Here's a non-legalese version. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-classified-information/2015/09/18/a164c1a4-5d72-11e5-b38e-06883aacba64_story.html You can always read the sections (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1924) yourself. Moreover, to prove perjury you must prove the person knew that the statement was false; the specifics on the few classified emails the FBI did find do not make it clear that Clinton knew that was the case.
By your own standards, I should disregard that article because the author is an uncredentialed crank whose objectivity is under serious question.
I'm only quoting this because it made me actually laugh out loud. The guy pulling crank authors and political operatives with no pretext of objectivity out of his ass as sources has a problem with a researched and cited NewsWeek piece. Are we done? I think we're done.
1 and 4 don't affect average people. 2 and 3 would actually help average people. I disagree with the conclusions of the linked articles.
Libel laws don't affect average people? Tell me, have you heard of Popehat and/or Ken White? How about FIRE? The ACLU? Libel laws absolutely affect average people.
I'm not sure how an economic recession in which jobs are invariably lost and disproportionately affects the poor and middle class actually helps people. Then again, I'm sure there's an explanation in a world in which fascism is a movement of the political left. Do we get to hear how that's the case, or is this going to be another round of dodgeball?
Your NAFTA nuttiness is a topic all its own. Scotty made a good enough rebuttal for now.
Putting the US into yet another middle eastern conflict absolutely affects average people. First off, the military draws much of its rank and file from the poor and middle classes (after all, like Trump, why would the rich both with military service even if they were drafted?). Second, any idea of the cost to your national debt that the Iraq and Afghanistan fiascos racked up? It wasn't a benefit, that's for damn sure. The Congressional Budget Office currently pegs the combined conflicts there at a total cost of 2.4 TRILLION by 2017.
Also: argument from authority is only a fallacy when you quote sources operating outside their area of expertise, or authorities who are not true experts. Have a gander in the mirror before you keep invoking it.
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Note how you call that statement "clearly metaphorical" when Trump himself denies that (http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/11/politics/donald-trump-hugh-hewitt-obama-founder-isis/).
But I guess using Trump's own words against him is just another appeal to authority, am I right?
from your article
the way he got out of Iraq was that that was the founding of ISIS, okay?
Donald, the person with a track record for an absolute mastery of the English language mis-uses the word "literally", call me shocked.
It's clear what he's trying to say, and there is merit to it. it's disingenuous honestly, and there is no need for it, he has said so many unambiguously stupid things, where it was the intent of what he was trying to say that was stupid, you don't even have to give this one any attention.
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and, hey MP, rather than bickering about sources, why don't you explain to Goober from your own understanding how communism and fascism differ? (ok I guess you did that a little in that last post)
If you want to add some more sources to back up what you are saying that would also be cool, but I'm honestly more interested in how exactly they differ. Unlike Communism which has some very specific philosophical underpinnings, Fascism has always seemed relatively vague and nebulous. When ever I have looked into fascism it has always been described as an extreme right wing ideology built around collectivism and redistributive economics, but that has always seemed like a contradiction in terms. Not that 'left' and 'right' have any really strong clear definitions.
When I look at the economic policies of Nazi Germany, I see things like people being required to labor, building infrastructure, planting trees, building war ships and being given housing and food (and some small amount of money) in return, all with the ultimate reward of making life better for all of your people. That seems remarkably communistic. It looks like they come to very similar economic policies from different philosophical foundations. It seems the main difference is Nazi Fascism only included certain racial groups as 'people' and considered other racial groups as a threat to the preferred race. That seems more like a bug of that particular implementation. Nazis were not the only Fascists. If you implemented Fascism with a civic nationalist model, would it differ in any significant way from Communism? what would those ways be?
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and, hey MP, rather than bickering about sources, why don't you explain to Goober from your own understanding how communism and fascism differ? (ok I guess you did that a little in that last post)
If you want to add some more sources to back up what you are saying that would also be cool, but I'm honestly more interested in how exactly they differ. Unlike Communism which has some very specific philosophical underpinnings, Fascism has always seemed relatively vague and nebulous. When ever I have looked into fascism it has always been described as an extreme right wing ideology built around collectivism and redistributive economics, but that has always seemed like a contradiction in terms.
Thing is, fascism isn't really about collectivism and redistributive economics, unlike communism. Fascism states that all people are inherently unequal. The people should always simply be ruled by the strongest.
"The Folkish State, conversely, must under no conditions annex Poles with the intention of wanting to make Germans out of them some day. On the contrary, it must muster the determination either to seal off these alien racial elements, so that the blood of its own Folk will not be corrupted again, or it must without further ado remove them and hand over the vacated territory to its own National Comrades."
"In the life of nations, what in the last resort decides questions is a kind of Judgment Court of God... Always before god and the world the stronger has the right to carry through what he wills."
"For us the national flag is a rag to be planted on a dunghill. There are only two fatherlands in the world: that of the exploited and that of the exploiters."
And in order to define who is the strongest, one must fight.
"The struggle between the two worlds [Fascism and Democracy] can permit no compromises. The new cycle which begins with the ninth year of the Fascist regime places the alternative in even greater relief — either we or they, either their ideas or ours, either our State or theirs!"
As such, the economic policies of fascism are geared towards one thing and one thing only: War. The reason why fascism is rather vague is because it doesn't really have a peacetime philosophy. Mussolini believed that the world would always be at war, and anything that is effective in fighting that war goes:
"I want war. To me all means will be right. My motto is not "Don't, whatever you do, annoy the enemy." My motto is "Destroy him by all and any means." I am the one who will wage the war! "
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Regarding NAFTA, I'm going to have to be a devil's advocate and point out that it doesn't seem to be all rainbows and sunshine (http://www.citizen.org/documents/NAFTA-at-20.pdf).
In the linked report, they seem to link the agreement with the rising income inequality in the US.
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When I look at the economic policies of Nazi Germany, I see things like people being required to labor, building infrastructure, planting trees, building war ships and being given housing and food (and some small amount of money) in return, all with the ultimate reward of making life better for all of your people. That seems remarkably communistic. It looks like they come to very similar economic policies from different philosophical foundations. It seems the main difference is Nazi Fascism only included certain racial groups as 'people' and considered other racial groups as a threat to the preferred race. That seems more like a bug of that particular implementation. Nazis were not the only Fascists. If you implemented Fascism with a civic nationalist model, would it differ in any significant way from Communism? what would those ways be?
The ground state of a communist society (as defined by Marx) is equality. Everyone, regardless of their personal characteristics, is an equal to everyone else, with everyone enjoying the same rights and priviledges. Hierarchies are a temporal thing, only created when necessary and torn down when they're not. The overriding maxim of communist society is "to each according to their needs, from each according to their abilities"; it doesn't matter to the society what you are as long as you use your abilities to make the lives of your fellow citizens better. As a result, communism doesn't ackknowledge the state as an entity. In a communist society, it doesn't exist.
In fascism, the state is everything. Everyone is considered a part of the Nation, and the Nation (through its agents) issues decrees and orders to perpetuate itself and keep itself independent of outside influences. A fascist state will adopt socialist or capitalist methods in the pursuit of national unity as its leaders decide; fascism itself doesn't really have an economic theory. What it has instead is the overarching goal of making the state as strong and self-sufficient as it can be, thus measures that decrease the influence of outsiders (like, for example, international trade or globalist political positions) are inherently good. Fascism accepts capitalism and inequality as long as capitalists ackknowledge the supremacy of the state in all matters and as long as inequality does not cause internal strife (however, the strongly hierarchical nature of fascist regimes will cause it to side with people in power over the powerless more often than not in these cases).
I am not quite sure whether civic nationalist fascism can work. Under civic nationalism, the state has power because it is imbued with it by the citizenry; under fascism, people have power because they were granted it by the state. There are fundamental conflicts here that I think cannot be resolved, so the question of what civic nationalist fascism would look like is moot. By the time you changed enough core concepts of either to be compatible with the other, you wouldn't be talking about fascism anymore.
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I am not quite sure whether civic nationalist fascism can work.
I think it could work as a fascist state but one where the "supremacy" is tied not to some ethnicity or race but citizenship and country itself. Something like a society from Starship Troopers movie or maybe US nationalism taken to the extreme or even Star Citizen society. It would be in contrast to ethnic/racist fascism.
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*post deleted*
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I have only one thing to add to Joshua and The E, and that is that there is a confounding issue of theory vs practice.
In theory, as proposed by Marx, Communism is a utopic means of societal organization in which everything is owned by the people, including the state (in Marx's original views, the State would eventually disappear entirely). It projects absolute equality between all peoples.
In practice, Communism in the USSR and China became all about the State and its supremacy above all else. Any pretense of social and economic equality was extinguished from nearly the moment of the revolutions, and both countries ended up run by dictatorial hierarchies within a scant few years. Economically, the USSR still made pretextual motions in the direction of a equal-distribution society, but in practice there was still extreme stratification, added to by a thriving black market in addition to a huge problem of exchange-for-political-favour. It ended up in a situation where the state took control of everything and essentially gave it to the political elite class and ordinary people were left with nothing. It was a long way from Communism as proposed by Marx. China, on the other hand, took the long view and shifted gradually to a capitalist society with a veneer of Communism as government.
Fascism, by contrast, was not proposed in theory before it was put into practice; as a political ideology, its theories and practice grew together so we never get this dichotomy. Fascism in practice and Communism in practice share some core features - centralized governance, authoritarian control by a single individual or selected unelected and unaccountable group, primary of a single charismatic leader, some socialized industry, nationalistic ideology - but their rationale is different. Communism in practice was based on a economic policy twisted and subverted by an authoritarian regime. Fascism is based entirely on the concept of an authoritarian regime, which adopted various economic policies that increased its power and popularity. Two different means of getting to essentially a similar outcome. It's why some popular thought will place fascism to the extreme right on a socioeconomic scale, Communism on the extreme left, then point out that if you go far enough to either extreme you end up with more or less the same practical system with different means of getting there and subtly different rationales. At that extreme, the economic factor is essentially ignored and you end up with more a system of governance than anything. The key difference at that point is in the social realm - Communism never abandons its pretext of equality of all peoples, while fascism is founded on the belief that people are never equal and the strongest deserve primacy above all others. Communism also remained dedicated to its core idea of a collectivist economic system, while fascist forces embraced the centrist [at the time, more on this in a moment] notion of limited capitalism.
There are some other big differences too - one core tenet of fascism is the cult of personality surrounding the fascist leader, which is why Mussolini, Hitler, and Franco get the "credit" for everything their governments did. That was never an intentional feature in Communist Russia, and the leadership turnover is indicative of the primacy of the State over the leader of it. Communist governments also justified all of their actions, economic and social, through the [often bastardized] rationale of Communist theory. Fascist states justified their actions simply through their popularity. This, incidentally, is why European fascist states adopted many of the economic policies of their Socialist parties (names differed by country); they consolidated power by taking a middle ground (which, as odd as many Americans in particular will find today, the socialist parties occupied at the time between traditionalist parties and Communist/anarchist forces). As above, the socialist parties invoked a policy of limited capitalism in most countries which brought - as a few people have said - things like the 40-hour work week. It is worth noting that they did this while being quite honest about their intentions toward government - the Germany Nazi Party in particular never really pretended they would maintain a democratic government - explicitly because democratic governments are "weak." They built their power based on a combination of popular economic policies, nationalist rhetoric, strength of the state (this was especially key in Germany following the pain inflicted by the Treaty of Versailles), rhetoric on the supremacy of certain peoples over others, and enforced by socially-conservative, nationalist paramilitary groups.
Part of the confusion is compounded by the fact that left/right politics as they are understood today do not apply to the period of 1920-1940 very well. Most European politics at the time were divided into five or six camps that varied in support by country, and aren't easily understood on a modern left-right spectrum. This is why seeing the word "leftist" appear in that author's work Goober linked early in sets off major alarm bells - he doesn't define what it means, and it appears he's trying to cram fascism crudely into the modern political left as it is understood in the United States based on a few economic policies which, at the time of their use, were decidedly centrist/nationalist in nature. Fascism is placed roughly today by most historians as sitting to the right of center because of its authoritarian nature and social policies, embrace of limited capitalism, abject rejection of equality and human rights, nationalist rhetoric, and war/might-based doctrine.
All of which goes to show that trying to understand politics over any meaningful length of time using a simple left-right scale is generally stupid.
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Okay can we just be done with it and amend the Constitution to enable MP-Ryan's election? If I thought it'd do any good I'd be quoting that entire post at every political idiot I've ever come across.
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Well, he certainly knows more about history of politics and actual meaning of certain words than either candidate, not that it's a particularly high bar to clear... :)
That post is indeed a concise explanation of what Fascism and Communism (at least if understood as an ideology, not an economic system) are. I'm of the opinion that they're orthogonal to themselves and prefer to use the word "Communism" to refer only to the economic system (I remember seeing a political compass someday where they were literally on orthogonal axes), many people, including most USSR politicians, used the political meaning more.
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Okay can we just be done with it and amend the Constitution to enable MP-Ryan's election?
(http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/2013/02/nope.gif)
I want nothing to do with the bat**** lunacy you uproariously call a government, sorry :)
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I can see that a comprehensive rebuttal is required...
3. A true apples-to-apples comparison with the article would be from 1993 to 2010. And a better metric than absolute unemployment is the employment-to-population ratio. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (http://www.bls.gov/schedule/archives/empsit_nr.htm), the employment-population ratio in December 1993 was 62.2 percent, whereas the same ratio in December 2010 was 58.3 percent.
4. Aside from actually harming employment, as in the previous bullet point, GDP per capita in the US has increased from $16,718 in 1993 to $43,644 in 2010, a factor of 1.6.
The dates go to 2007 because in 2008 there was this minor hiccup in the world economy that distorts the figures so horrendously that they're no longer worth considering. The fact of the matter is that nothing about 2010 is more relevant than 2007 in terms of NAFTA's influence, and the difference between 2010 and 2007 is that one supports your flawed narrative and the other does not. You know damn ****ing well the downturn from 2007 to 2010 was not caused by NAFTA, or even related to it in the ****ing slightest.
I cited 2010 because that was a direct comparison with the date in the WND article. But it's interesting that you latched onto the red herring rather than address the main point. The BLS statistics from December 2007 list an employment-population ratio of 62.7 percent, which is an increase of all of 0.5 percent from 1993, far from the glowing picture implied by the 24 percent figure that MP-Ryan cited.
Hilariously, in your rush to talk about the financial crisis, you missed a whale of a typo where I accidentally wrote GDP per capita rather than debt per capita. And debt per capita (http://www.data360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=273) increased from $16,718 in 1993 to $29,638 in 2007, an factor of 0.77.
I'll take Trump's word the second he shows any of his statements are credible. He has a serious problem with facts and truth, demonstrated throughout the campaign. Elected officials are at least held to some standard of the truth; at present, Trump hasn't been held to any.
On the contrary, every time Trump opens his mouth, all of the pundits rush to "fact-check" whatever he says. This is the case even for statements that are clearly metaphorical, such as "Obama is the leader of ISIS."
Note how you call that statement "clearly metaphorical" when Trump himself denies that (http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/11/politics/donald-trump-hugh-hewitt-obama-founder-isis/).
But I guess using Trump's own words against him is just another appeal to authority, am I right?
Bobboau addressed this here (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=92492.msg1829404#msg1829404). But thank you for proving my point. As this article illustrates, MP-Ryan's claim that Trump hasn't been held to any standard is quite clearly false.
No, I'm going to dismiss the guy's interpretation of history - which begins with his first use of the word leftist - because he lacks any peer-reviewed work, research, credentials, or really anything that would make his interpretation credible against the literal library shelves full of work that doesn't draw silly conclusions based on the writers' personal interpretations.
Fascism was founded by people who explicitly opposed the tenets of what was considered leftist political thought - and leftist political parties, including Labour, The Social Democrats, and the Communist Parties - in the era in which it developed. It renewed an interest in social conservativism and opposed equality. Adopting modern interpretations, it was supported directly by white nationalists, racist paramilitaries, and the areas of the political arena that favour social stratification. It opposed constitutional rights in all forms, and especially those that led to representative governance. By any measurement stick, fasicism was not associated with what was considered the left wing then, or now. Incidentally, you'll note that nowhere have I actually said fascism is an explicitly right-wing movement either. In point of fact - as as actual credible sources contend - fascism contained a mix of policies from all aspects of the political spectrum, but was defined more by its method of governing, its social conservativism, and its opposition to both Communism and representative democracies. It is frequently placed on the far right as a counter-equivalent to Communism on the far left, but in practice neither designation is truly appropriate. Placing fascism in the early 20th century on the political left makes about as much sense as placing anarchism in the early 20th century on the far right - both miss the point spectacularly.
This is utter hogwash. The author lists fact after historical fact, none of which can be subject to interpretation. It cannot be disputed that Mussolini was a member of the Socialist Party or that he was lionized by the left-wing intelligentsia before World War II. Nor can the planks of the Fascist Manifesto be described as anything other than left-wing.
I find it telling that you insist on constructing your argument based on what people say about fascism while ignoring what fascism says about itself.
Since you missed it last time: WHAT. EVIDENCE.
It was apparent from the context of the very first quote in that quote chain. To wit: the evidence methodically laid out in that FBI statement. Just because the FBI declined to pursue a case does not mean they were correct to do so.
Ah, but you see, intent doesn't matter. Contrary to the FBI statement, mishandling classified information is a crime regardless of whether there is an intent to supply it to an enemy or not.
Here is another example. Clinton stated under oath that she did not send or receive classified information on her private server. The FBI determined that she did. This is prima facie perjury.
Keep your day job, law enforcement or prosecution is not for you. Here's a non-legalese version. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-classified-information/2015/09/18/a164c1a4-5d72-11e5-b38e-06883aacba64_story.html You can always read the sections (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1924) yourself. Moreover, to prove perjury you must prove the person knew that the statement was false; the specifics on the few classified emails the FBI did find do not make it clear that Clinton knew that was the case.
The Washington Post article makes a number of statements that are true but irrelevant. Supplying classified information to an enemy is not the only way one can mishandle classified information. From that very link:
(a) Whoever, being an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States, and, by virtue of his office, employment, position, or contract, becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States, knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both.
To spell it out, the private email server qualifies as an unauthorized location.
Also, perjury is proven from both the FBI's statement that the information was "properly classified as Secret at the time it was discussed" and Clinton's absurd suggestion that the (C), (S), (TS) paragraph markings were for "alphabetizing" the paragraphs. Anyone who views classified materials must undergo classification training.
By your own standards, I should disregard that article because the author is an uncredentialed crank whose objectivity is under serious question.
I'm only quoting this because it made me actually laugh out loud. The guy pulling crank authors and political operatives with no pretext of objectivity out of his ass as sources has a problem with a researched and cited NewsWeek piece. Are we done? I think we're done.
Ah, so you agree that your credentialism is laughable. I'm glad to have that concession at least.
Libel laws don't affect average people? Tell me, have you heard of Popehat and/or Ken White? How about FIRE? The ACLU? Libel laws absolutely affect average people.
The context of Trump's comment about libel laws was for the purposes of suing news organizations. Whether you agree with that or not, news organizations are not "average people".
I'm not sure how an economic recession in which jobs are invariably lost and disproportionately affects the poor and middle class actually helps people. Then again, I'm sure there's an explanation in a world in which fascism is a movement of the political left. Do we get to hear how that's the case, or is this going to be another round of dodgeball?
You're assuming the premise of your own argument. If Trump's policies do not prompt recession, the syllogism fails.
Putting the US into yet another middle eastern conflict absolutely affects average people. First off, the military draws much of its rank and file from the poor and middle classes (after all, like Trump, why would the rich both with military service even if they were drafted?). Second, any idea of the cost to your national debt that the Iraq and Afghanistan fiascos racked up? It wasn't a benefit, that's for damn sure. The Congressional Budget Office currently pegs the combined conflicts there at a total cost of 2.4 TRILLION by 2017.
I'm no fan of the current military engagements. But that argument has no substance because a) military generals are not average people; and b) the US is already involved in direct conflict with ISIS in Iraq and elsewhere.
Also: argument from authority is only a fallacy when you quote sources operating outside their area of expertise, or authorities who are not true experts. Have a gander in the mirror before you keep invoking it.
You clearly don't understand what argument from authority actually is. It's when you endorse or dismiss an argument based solely on the person himself, or the person's qualifications. You've been repeatedly guilty of this in your dismissal of David Ramsay Steele, Pat Buchanan, and Joseph Farah, as well as your comments about "cranks" and "credible sources".
I'm honestly more interested in how exactly they differ. Unlike Communism which has some very specific philosophical underpinnings, Fascism has always seemed relatively vague and nebulous. When ever I have looked into fascism it has always been described as an extreme right wing ideology built around collectivism and redistributive economics, but that has always seemed like a contradiction in terms. Not that 'left' and 'right' have any really strong clear definitions.
In a nutshell, whereas communism entailed the abolition of private property and the equalization of individuals, fascism entailed the subsumption of the individual and his property to the interests of the State. Mussolini encapsulated it in his slogan: Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato. Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.
The E's post comparing communism and fascism is mostly correct, as is (surprisingly) MP-Ryan's follow-up post, except for the points where they continue to incorrectly associate fascism with the right wing.
Part of the confusion is compounded by the fact that left/right politics as they are understood today do not apply to the period of 1920-1940 very well. Most European politics at the time were divided into five or six camps that varied in support by country, and aren't easily understood on a modern left-right spectrum. This is why seeing the word "leftist" appear in that author's work Goober linked early in sets off major alarm bells - he doesn't define what it means, and it appears he's trying to cram fascism crudely into the modern political left as it is understood in the United States based on a few economic policies which, at the time of their use, were decidedly centrist/nationalist in nature. Fascism is placed roughly today by most historians as sitting to the right of center because of its authoritarian nature and social policies, embrace of limited capitalism, abject rejection of equality and human rights, nationalist rhetoric, and war/might-based doctrine.
All of which goes to show that trying to understand politics over any meaningful length of time using a simple left-right scale is generally stupid.
Authoritarianism, nationalism, and militarism are not intrinsically left-wing or right-wing. (Nor are human rights specific to one side.) Many people forget that all of the major US wars of the 20th century, with the exception of the first Gulf War, were started under Democrat presidents.
The left-right spectrum is very easy to understand: it goes from collectivism on the left to individualism on the right. This is why it should be obvious that fascism is a left-wing philosophy, as the individual is completely de-emphasized in favor of the State. Anyone should be able to understand that, even if you ignore the Marxist roots of fascism's founders, even if you ignore the lifelong socialism of fascist philosopher Giovanni Gentile, even if you ignore the alliances between fascist Italy, socialist Nazi Germany, and communist Soviet Union.
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I hate quote wars, and I hate beating my head against a brick wall even more, so I'm going to keep this short-ish.
1. You are objectively wrong that fascism is left-wing, for all the various reasons I've laid out. You may continue to choose to ignore them at your leisure. The fact that Mussolini once espoused the views of an Italian socialist party (and I'll remind everyone that socialist in 1920-1940 doesn't mean left wing today) does not indicate fascism is a left-wing ideology. I really can't be bothered to continue this further when you clearly want to continue down a path which your political biases lead you to despite all evidence to the contrary. Someone else can feel free to pick up where I've left off if they so desire.
2. The 24% comes from an actual bit of research in the article I cited, which you may want to actually read in full instead of focusing on the one basic stat I pulled out of it.
3. An argument from authority is as follows:
An argument from authority (Latin: argumentum ad verecundiam), also called an appeal to authority, is a common type of argument which can be fallacious, such as when an authority is cited on a topic outside their area of expertise or when the authority cited is not a true expert.
All of the "authorities" I'm quoting are credible sources supported by actual research in the areas which they discuss (yes, even NewsWeek). You have quoted an opinion piece in a crank "independent" but conservative news site written by a former right-wing politician, and an author with no credentials to speak of, particularly historical ones in the area in which he's writing. His historical facts are immediately coloured by his very ahistorical opinion. He's not credible, nor is your argument.
4. For your interpretation of the law, again, keep your day job. "Knowing" and "intent" feature throughout those sections, and your interpretation of perjury is, once again, flat wrong as to proceed on a perjury count the prosecution must be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the person knowingly lied. Not balance of probabilities, not Goober-and-the-Clinton-haters-on-the-Internets-best-guess, but beyond a reasonable doubt. The reason why Clinton was not charged was, as the FBI said, there was no proof of intent, the basic elements of the offences are not completely met, and there is therefore no reasonable prospect of conviction. As the FBI said, she could have faced administrative or other sanctions based on what they did find, but criminal charges were not appropriate in the circumstances. In my case, this IS my day job. I read and enforce law for a living. Ordinarily I'd be less emphatic on a legal interpretation, but since this is already a path tread by the FBI and Justice and my reading matches their conclusions, I don't see that sort of hedging as necessary. So:
WHAT. EVIDENCE. (Third time is the charm, maybe?)
5. In terms of Trump's economic policies, actual economists are predicting job losses and recession based on modelling of the policy impacts. I'm not assuming anything. Firing generals and committing the United States to a prolonged engagement against ISIS also affects the average citizen in the form of the economic pain it causes to the national budget and the lives lost in military engagements, which as disproportionately from low and middle class backgrounds. War absolutely has a cost. EDIT: And on libel laws, you don't think modifying the First Amendment (which is what it would take to open up libel laws) would affect anyone other than newspapers? For context of how free speech of newspapers affects regular people, see the important New York Times Vs Sullivan decision. Opening up the first amendment is the complete antithesis of a person who defends individual liberties. The first amendment is the one which makes all the others possible. It is difficult to overstate the consequences - if he could actually do it. Naturally, like most of Trump's other promises, there are considerable legal barriers in his way which he apparently doesn't even recognize.
6. Lastly:
The left-right spectrum is very easy to understand: it goes from collectivism on the left to individualism on the right.
It's like my entire post on this subject flew spectacularly over your head, launching fireworks, flags, and blaring trumpets as it went by. You may want to apply a simplistic modern US left-right spectrum to the politics of the past, but the entire point is that is a false representation of the situation at the time. And even your simplistic application is apparently doing it wrong. Regardless, I have better things to do with my time than keep repeating basic facts in new and more colourful ways, amusing as that is. Is there anything new on the horizon, or are we done?
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It goes from collectivism on the left except when it comes to bedrooms and drugs to individualism on the right except when it comes bedrooms, drugs, national defense, and rhetorical patriotism.
Also both sides have become individualists when it comes to trade.
Also also how individualist the right is willing to be on religion depends largely on whether you're nominally Muslim.
Also also also this analogy is exceptionally bad, if that wasn't clear already, and the fact it was posted with a straight face is incomprehensible.
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The left-right spectrum is very easy to understand: it goes from collectivism on the left to individualism on the right.
Let's use your own style of argumentation here: No, it doesn't. Left and Right are designations stemming from the French Revolution of 1789 to 1799; delegates seated on the left side of the Estates General were generally opposed to monarchy and supported the revolution to create a secular republic. Those on the right sided with the old regime.
In a very real sense, these sort of definitions haven't lost their meaning: The Left is generally portraited as the progressive side, willing to make changes, the Right opposes change and wishes to conserve the status quo (like some sort of conservatives).
Right now, societal progressivism tends to include collectivism and conservatism tends to include individualism, but this is not a historical constant.
This is why it should be obvious that fascism is a left-wing philosophy, as the individual is completely de-emphasized in favor of the State.
It's also a right-wing philosophy because fascists are very much obsessed with taking their country back to a time where it was supposed to be "great". Social conservatism thrives under fascist rule, because the traditions it is built on are the foundations of the national culture fascists seeks to enforce (that is, the traditions whose observance makes someone german or italian or american will be encouraged by fascist regimes, while traditions imported from elsewhere will be abolished). Yes, it is a collectivist philosophy. That alone is not enough to make it "Left Wing".
Anyone should be able to understand that, even if you ignore the Marxist roots of fascism's founders, even if you ignore the lifelong socialism of fascist philosopher Giovanni Gentile, even if you ignore the alliances between fascist Italy, socialist Nazi Germany, and communist Soviet Union.
Lenin and Stalin also had Marxist roots, and yet the respective regimes they founded are the very definition of being communist in name only.
But now we come to the big one.
"socialist Nazi Germany"
Are you serious. Did you seriously fall for the NSDAP propaganda? Do you seriously believe that, despite my explanation of why a fascist regime adopts socialist policies?
Nazi Germany, for all the collectivist stuff they did, was marked by an ultraconservative approach in social matters. The liberalization seen in 1920 and 1930 Berlin was blown away by a total focus on christianity and on traditional ways of living.
Always remember that "National Socialism" is one word in german. It is, for all intents and purposes, a purely german word for Fascism, and only takes a few elements of socialist thought. Hitler himself positioned national socialism as a third way between Left- and Right-wing politics, writing:
Today our left-wing politicians in particular are constantly insisting that their craven-hearted and obsequious foreign policy necessarily results from the disarmament of Germany, whereas the truth is that this is the policy of traitors [...] But the politicians of the Right deserve exactly the same reproach. It was through their miserable cowardice that those ruffians of Jews who came into power in 1918 were able to rob the nation of its arms.
Calling nazis left-wing purely because naziism is a collectivist philosophy is wrong. No, worse, it's not even wrong: It's such a misunderstanding of what naziism and fascism are that anyone who does it is either woefully misinformed about history, or else misrepresenting history to make a cheap point. That you can trace a lineage of socialist thought to fascism is nowhere near as relevant to their categorization on the political spectrum as what their policies looked like in practice.
And, finally, to go back to something you said in the beginning of your post: "Left" and "Right" is only one of several axis' in the political spectrum, and they're mostly mislabelled. If we want to categorize political positions, we need to add more dimensions; the most common such graph uses collectivism/individualism and socially progressive/socially conservative as its markers (an argument can be made to plot economically progressive/economically conservative on its own axis as well).
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Regarding NAFTA, I'm going to have to be a devil's advocate and point out that it doesn't seem to be all rainbows and sunshine (http://www.citizen.org/documents/NAFTA-at-20.pdf).
In the linked report, they seem to link the agreement with the rising income inequality in the US.
I was remiss in focusing my energy on correcting the apparently uncorrectable and didn't respond to this perfectly reasonable point earlier, for which I apologize. Yes, NAFTA has had side-effects that haven't always been positive, but its net benefits to the economies of its member nations, jobs, and the free movement of people have generally outweighed some of its more negative effects. The American Council on Foreign Relations, a well-established a reputable think-tank (despite the fact that it is regularly targeted by gloablist/NWO-fearing conspiracy theorists), has a good primer on the subject as well: http://www.cfr.org/trade/naftas-economic-impact/p15790
And to the original point, which is Trump's assertion that trade agreements harm US residents overall and should be backed out of: the US imports staggering quantities of raw materials and finished goods. Making those things more expensive isn't going to help Americans struggling to pay the bills as it is, nor will it boost employment. Regressive economic nationalism will not help the US economy.
This is different from the as-yet-un-ratified TPP, however. Whereas existing trade agreements are already fully integrated, there's a decent argument that TPP comes with some ugly costs and some intangible benefits and it may be better for North America as a whole to stay out of it for now. I admit I'm not very well-versed on the impact of TPP to the US; for Canada, TPP comes with some required legal changes (particularly around copyright) that are a step backward.
Calling nazis left-wing purely because naziism is a collectivist philosophy is wrong. No, worse, it's not even wrong: It's such a misunderstanding of what naziism and fascism are that anyone who does it is either woefully misinformed about history, or else misrepresenting history to make a cheap point. That you can trace a lineage of socialist thought to fascism is nowhere near as relevant to their categorization on the political spectrum as what their policies looked like in practice.
Your entire post was fantastic, but this line in particular cuts to the heart of the point. To use a contemporary analogy, saying fascism was left wing because it essentially stole centrist economic policy from the Socialist (capitalized due to names, not policies) parties is akin to saying China has a Communist economic system because it calls itself a Communist country. It just simply is not the case.
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And to the original point, which is Trump's assertion that trade agreements harm US residents overall and should be backed out of: the US imports staggering quantities of raw materials and finished goods. Making those things more expensive isn't going to help Americans struggling to pay the bills as it is, nor will it boost employment. Regressive economic nationalism will not help the US economy.
A thousand times yes! *goes back into lurk mode*
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Guys guys, Goober has one online article that says Fascism is a left wing ideology. Clearly that trumps the hundreds of peer-reviewed history books and articles that claim the opposite. You know, kinda like one or two scientists claiming climate change is a lie trumps all the others who say it's real.
Sorry you're all wrong.
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I find it telling that you insist on constructing your argument based on what people say about fascism while ignoring what fascism says about itself.
So by this logic we can assume that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is exactly what it says on the box, then?
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Guys guys, Goober has one online article that says Fascism is a left wing ideology. Clearly that trumps the hundreds of peer-reviewed history books and articles that claim the opposite. You know, kinda like one or two scientists claiming climate change is a lie trumps all the others who say it's real.
Sorry you're all wrong.
Reminder that Goober is a young-earth creationist and therefore is so inured to ignoring obvious, undeniable reality that nothing anyone says in this thread will make the slightest dent in his delusions. You would do as well trying to reason with Judge Floro.
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You would do as well trying to reason with Judge Floro.
...actually Judge Floro can be reasoned with, to a limited degree.
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I think a lot of problems in this thread come from (The E touched on this) poorly defined terms. "Left" and "Right" are chief in this regard, and I honestly think we should avoid using them at all for the sake of making sure we are not talking past each other, how about we clearly define some terms. I know I'm misusing some of these actual words that already have an established meaning outside of this conversation, and if you have better labels for the concepts I'm open to alternatives, especially if I'm misusing something horribly, but I think they need to be laid out explicitly somewhere in this conversation.
Rather than 'Right' and 'Left' I think better terms would be Conservative and Liberal. I would define them thusly:
Conservative - a position that an optimal state has been achieved, either in the present or in the past.
Progressive - a position that the world needs to be changed in some new way to obtain a better state than it currently is in.
'Progressive' is not my preferred term because it has a connotation implying that the change in question will as a matter of fact be 'better' when depending on who is doing the progressing we might all agree that is most certainly not. 'Radical' might be a better term here, but for this conversation I think 'Progressive' might be the best term as it is already used for this purpose a lot. Liberal is an alternative, but has it's own problems as a label here because it also has meaning in the realm of liberty vs subjugation and general enlightenment values, and it's much more associated with those than it is the concept I'm trying to address here and some might see a curtailing of liberties as an improvement (hate speech laws?). This label can be applied categorically, i.e. "economically Conservative, socially Liberal"
Independent of this there are concepts related to how to weight values; Individualism vs Collectivism. Is the collective of all people more important that the individuals who make it up? The US and it's sphere of influence, despite it's many many failings in this regard, is probably culturally the most pro-individual culture to have arisen. We very much value the rights of the individual over the right of the collective. This is why groups like the KKK and Westboro Baptists are not hunted down as criminals, and why a small few are allowed to amass vast fortunes while millions live in the gutter. Nazi Germany was collectivist (because the good of your race/nation trumped your personal prosperity), as were the numerous communist experiments that went on in the 20th century. Would anyone argue if I were to assert that even the golden utopia of Correctly Implemented Communism could be described as collectivist as well?
There are concepts as to how people relate to a state or if I want to get into risky territory we could say one's group(s). Is the group owned by the individuals that make it up, or are they owned by it. This is where I think the word 'Liberal' belongs, as people having liberty from their state/group. so our dichotomy would be 'Liberal' vs 'Totalitarian'. This might be too connected with the previous concept.
There is also the concept of the relative value of people (either as a group or individuals) with the two options being equality vs inequity, we can call this Equalism vs Inequalism.
There is even a further dimension to this as you can have people who believe all people are fundamentally equal but should be treated unequally (via 'earning' it for instance) or that all people are inherently unequal, but should be treated as though they are (if there is not a level playing field how will the truly superior prosper?). This fairness like concept is also about equality, but we've already used the obvious words, so equality vs disparity (if I wanted to be a real snark I could try to call this 'diversity'). To put these into isms we can say 'Egalitarianism' and... 'Disparitarianism'? is there a word better than my made up one here for this?
Also is the concept of equality of opportunity vs outcome, but these are less base positions and more consequences of your views on equality. If you are either an equalist or an egalitarian you would hold to equality of opportunity, but you would reject equality of outcome unless you were both, and if you were an inequalist disparitarianist you would obviously reject both forms of equality.
So Nazi Germany was a progressive collectivist totalitarian inequal disparian ideology.
As opposed to Communism which is a progressive collectivist totalitarian equal egalitarian ideology.
I know I'm going to get push-back on the totalitarian assertion for Communism and the progressive assertion for Nazis.
But how could Communism not be totalitarian? Personal property does not exist and you have no right to autonomy as a result. You cannot choose the utilization of the fruits of your labor as it will go to those who need. If we assume your group is the entire human race, in a Communist utopia do people have a duty to help out all of humanity? The Nazis internally thought that humans were of vastly different worth person by person and group by group, they were trying to make the world better from their ****ed up perspective by getting rid of all the untermensch. Think about the definitions I supplied and if it works here. Again, I am open to other labels for these concepts.
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I hate quote wars, and I hate beating my head against a brick wall even more, so I'm going to keep this short-ish.
[...]
1. No, fascism is left-wing, as characterized by its founders, by its origins, by its philosophy, and by its allies. Here are the planks of the Fascist Manifesto...
For the political problem: We demand:
a) Universal suffrage polled on a regional basis, with proportional representation and voting and electoral office eligibility for women.
b) A minimum age for the voting electorate of 18 years; that for the office holders at 25 years.
c) The abolition of the Senate.
d) The convocation of a National Assembly for a three-years duration, for which its primary responsibility will be to form a constitution of the State.
e) The formation of a National Council of experts for labor, for industy, for transportation, for the public health, for communications, etc. Selections to be made from the collective professionals or of tradesmen with legislative powers, and elected directly to a General Commission with ministerial powers.
For the social problems: We demand:
a) The quick enactment of a law of the State that sanctions an eight-hour workday for all workers.
b) A minimum wage.
c) The participation of workers’ representatives in the functions of industry commissions.
d) To show the same confidence in the labor unions (that prove to be technically and morally worthy) as is given to industry executives or public servants.
e) The rapid and complete systemization of the railways and of all the transport industries.
f) A necessary modification of the insurance laws to invalidate the minimum retirement age; we propose to lower it from 65 to 55 years of age.
For the military problem: We demand:
a) The institution of a national militia with a short period of service for training and exclusively defensive responsibilities.
b) The nationalization of all the arms and explosives factories.
c) A national policy intended to peacefully further the Italian national culture in the world.
For the financial problem: We demand:
a) A strong progressive tax on capital that will truly expropriate a portion of all wealth.
b) The seizure of all the possessions of the religious congregations and the abolition of all the bishoprics, which constitute an enormous liability on the Nation and on the privileges of the poor.
c) The revision of all military contracts and the seizure of 85 percent of the profits therein.
How can that be reasonably described as anything other than left-wing?
2. I did read the article, and the 24% statistic is not incorrect, just grossly misleading. The usual unemployment rate is subject to all sorts of modifications depending on how many people you actually count in the workforce and how they are employed. That's why a much better metric is the employment-to-population ratio.
The rest of that article similarly uses sleight of hand to paint a rosy picture when the true picture is considerably bleaker. Debt-to-GDP, as I cited, is a better metric than straight GDP, as the article did. The article's claim that jobs lost in one sector can be made up elsewhere is without basis because jobs are not fungible: a factory worker cannot magically become a doctor, lawyer, or hedge fund manager.
3. An argument from authority is a fallacy when the argument is accepted or rejected on the basis of that authority. It is a fallacy precisely because authorities can be, and often are, wrong -- witness the recent revelations (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-industry-shifted-blame-to-fat.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&_r=0) that scientists in the 1960s suppressed the link between sugar and heart disease. You're committing that fallacy when you urge dismissal of certain arguments because they are written by people you label as cranks.
And historical facts are not affected by an "ahistorical opinion". A historical event either did or did not occur. Reality is not subjective.
4. Now you're committing the fallacy of arguing from your own authority. You may be highly knowledgeable about the legal field but that does not make you correct -- not to mention that different lawyers often come to different conclusions about the same evidence. (In fact, they are paid to do so.)
In this case, the FBI's own statement is definitive:
"there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information."
"There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation."
"we also developed evidence that the security culture of the State Department in general, and with respect to use of unclassified e-mail systems in particular, was generally lacking in the kind of care for classified information found elsewhere in the government."
"there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information"
The FBI's recommendation not to bring charges contradicts its own statement that there is evidence to support doing so. The evidence supports gross negligence and perjury, at the very least. Actually producing a conviction is for the trial to determine, but one cannot possibly say that there are no grounds to file charges.
5. a) The problems with modern economists are enough to occupy another topic entirely; suffice it to say that the actual as opposed to theoretical effects remain to be seen. Additionally, economic impact should not be the sole metric for judging an economic policy; political and social impacts must be taken into account as well. b) Re military engagements: Yes, you said this already. c) The libel law conversation was entirely in the context of newspapers printing stories about Trump that he didn't like, and he even said in that conversation that he'd have to consult with his lawyers.
6. I am merely doing my own small part in setting the record straight on fascism. It's been mischaracterized as right-wing for so long that I am under no illusions it can be corrected in the space of one discussion thread.
Yes, I suppose we're done. I also have better things I could be doing with my time.
The left-right spectrum is very easy to understand: it goes from collectivism on the left to individualism on the right.
Let's use your own style of argumentation here: No, it doesn't. Left and Right are designations stemming from the French Revolution of 1789 to 1799; delegates seated on the left side of the Estates General were generally opposed to monarchy and supported the revolution to create a secular republic. Those on the right sided with the old regime.
In a very real sense, these sort of definitions haven't lost their meaning: The Left is generally portraited as the progressive side, willing to make changes, the Right opposes change and wishes to conserve the status quo (like some sort of conservatives).
Right now, societal progressivism tends to include collectivism and conservatism tends to include individualism, but this is not a historical constant.
This is another definition of the left-right spectrum, and as you said it's where the terms originally came from, but this is more properly referred to as the classical liberal/conservative spectrum. It's tangential to this discussion because the principal point of contention is whether fascism is a collectivist philosophy or not; i.e. whether it belongs on the same side of the spectrum as communism and socialism.
It's also a right-wing philosophy because fascists are very much obsessed with taking their country back to a time where it was supposed to be "great". Social conservatism thrives under fascist rule, because the traditions it is built on are the foundations of the national culture fascists seeks to enforce (that is, the traditions whose observance makes someone german or italian or american will be encouraged by fascist regimes, while traditions imported from elsewhere will be abolished). Yes, it is a collectivist philosophy. That alone is not enough to make it "Left Wing".
Nationalism is not intrinsically left-wing or right-wing. But I'm glad to see you acknowledge fascism as collectivist.
"socialist Nazi Germany"
Are you serious. Did you seriously fall for the NSDAP propaganda? Do you seriously believe that, despite my explanation of why a fascist regime adopts socialist policies?
Nazi Germany, for all the collectivist stuff they did, was marked by an ultraconservative approach in social matters. The liberalization seen in 1920 and 1930 Berlin was blown away by a total focus on christianity and on traditional ways of living.
Always remember that "National Socialism" is one word in german. It is, for all intents and purposes, a purely german word for Fascism, and only takes a few elements of socialist thought.
Well, let's take a look:
1. We demand the union of all Germans, on the basis of the right of the self-determination of peoples, to form a Great Germany.
2. We demand equality of rights for the German people in its dealings with other nations, and abolition of the Peace Treaties of Versailles and St. Germain.
3. We demand land and territory for the nourishment of our people and for settling our surplus population.
4. None but members of the nation may be citizens of the State. None but those of German blood, whatever their creed, may be members of the nation. No Jew, therefore, may be a member of the nation.
5. Anyone who is not a citizen of the State may live in Germany only as a guest and must be regarded as being subject to the Alien Laws.
6. The right of voting on the leadership and laws of the State is to be enjoyed by the citizens of the State alone. We demand, therefore, that all official positions, of whatever kind, whether in the Reich, the provinces, or the small communities, shall be held by citizens of the State alone. We oppose the corrupt parliamentary custom of filling posts merely with a view to party considerations, and without reference to character or ability.
7. We demand that the State shall make it its first duty to promote the industry and livelihood of the citizens of the State. If it is not possible to nourish the entire population of the State, foreign nationals must be excluded from the Reich.
8. All further non-German immigration must be prevented. We demand that all non-Germans who entered Germany subsequently to August 2, 1914, shall be required forthwith to depart from the Reich.
9. All citizens of the State shall possess equal rights and duties.
10. It must be the first duty of every citizen of the State to perform mental or physical work. The activities of the individual must not clash with the interests of the whole, but must proceed within the framework of the community and must be for the general good.
11. Abolition of incomes unearned by work. BREAKING OF THE THRALDOM OF INTEREST.
12. In view of the enormous sacrifice of life and property demanded of a nation by every war, personal enrichment through war must be regarded as a crime against the nation. We demand, therefore, the total confiscation of all war profits.
13. We demand the nationalization of all businesses which have been amalgamated.
14. We demand that there shall be profit sharing in the great industries.
15. We demand a generous development of provision for old age.
16. We demand the creation and maintenance of a healthy middle class, immediate communalization of the large department stores and their lease at a low rate to small traders, and that the most careful consideration shall be shown to all small traders in purveying to the State, the provinces, or smaller communities.
17. We demand a land reform suitable to our national requirements, the passing of a law for the confiscation without compensation of land for communal purposes, the abolition of interest on land mortgages, and prohibition of all speculation in land.
18. We demand ruthless war upon all those whose activities are injurious to the common interest. Sordid criminals against the nation, usurers, profiteers, etc., must be punished with death, whatever their creed or race.
19. We demand that the Roman law, which serves the materialistic world order, shall be replaced by a German common law.
20. With the aim of opening to every capable and industrious German the possibility of higher education and consequent advancement to leading positions, the State must consider a thorough reconstruction of our national system of education. The curriculum of all educational establishments must be brought into line with the requirements of practical life. Directly the mind begins to develop the schools must aim at teaching the pupil to understand the idea of the State. We demand the education of specially gifted children of poor parents, whatever their class or occupation, at the expense of the State.
21. The State must apply itself to raising the standard of health in the nation by protecting mothers and infants, prohibiting child labor, and increasing bodily efficiency by legally obligatory gymnastics and sports, and by extensive support of clubs engaged in the physical training of the young.
22. We demand the abolition of mercenary troops and the formation of a national army.
23. We demand legal warfare against conscious political lies and their dissemination in the press. In order to facilitate the creation of a German national press we demand that: (a) all editors, and their co-workers, of newspapers employing the German language must be members of the nation; (b) special permission from the State shall be necessary before non-German newspapers may appear (these need not necessarily be printed in the German language); ( c ) non-Germans shall be prohibited by law from participating financially in or influencing German newspapers, and the penalty for contravention of the shall be suppression of any such newspaper, and immediate deportation of the non-German involved It must be forbidden to publish newspapers which are damaging to the national welfare. We demand the legal prosecution of all tendencies in art and literature which exert a destructive influence on our national life and the closing of institutions which militate against the above-mentioned requirements.
24. We demand liberty for all religious denominations in the State, so far as they are not a danger to it and do not militate against the moral and ethical feelings of the German race. The Party, as such, stands for positive Christianity, but does not bind itself in the matter of creed to any particular confession. It combats the Jewish-materialist spirit within and without us, and is convinced that our nation can achieve permanent recovery from within only on the principle: THE COMMON INTEREST BEFORE SELF-INTEREST
25. That all the foregoing requirements may be realized we demand the creation of a strong, central national authority; unconditional authority of the central legislative body over the entire Reich and its organizations in general; and the formation of diets and vocational chambers for the purpose of executing the general laws promulgated by the Reich in the various States of the Confederation. The leaders of the Party swear to proceed regardless of consequences - if necessary at the sacrifice of their lives - toward the fulfillment of the foregoing Points.
There is a lot of fascism there, certainly. But points 2, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, and 24 are socialist in whole or in part. That's 15 out of 25, more than "only a few".
And, finally, to go back to something you said in the beginning of your post: "Left" and "Right" is only one of several axis' in the political spectrum, and they're mostly mislabelled. If we want to categorize political positions, we need to add more dimensions; the most common such graph uses collectivism/individualism and socially progressive/socially conservative as its markers (an argument can be made to plot economically progressive/economically conservative on its own axis as well).
This I certainly agree with. The left/right spectrum, or indeed any one spectrum, must necessarily be a simplification.
Yes, NAFTA has had side-effects that haven't always been positive, but its net benefits to the economies of its member nations, jobs, and the free movement of people have generally outweighed some of its more negative effects.
This relates to my "economic impact should not be the sole metric" statement above. The free movement of peoples is actually causing considerable trouble in both the US and Europe. Exhibit A is the refugee crisis.
So by this logic we can assume that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is exactly what it says on the box, then?
There's a difference between propaganda and philosophy.
Aesaar and Phantom Hoover: Leave the drive-by rhetorical sniping out of this, please.
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Leave the drive-by rhetorical sniping out of this, please.
I'd much rather you left the constant rhetorical ignorance-vomit out of HLP entirely, rather than dragging down the average quality of a discussion in a subforum which already has an abysmally low average discussion quality. I could waste my time doing a point-by-point rebuttal of your entire post, but
I also have better things I could be doing with my time
and
nothing anyone says in this thread will make the slightest dent in his delusions.
So I'll just end with letting you argue against yourself:
No, fascism is left-wing, as characterized by its founders, by its origins, by its philosophy, and by its allies.
There's a difference between propaganda and philosophy.
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Yes, let's take a look at the party program.
But let's also take a look how much of that program was ever put into practice, shall we? Because judging a political philosophy by its ideals is one thing, but the real test is what happens when said ideals meet reality.
1. We demand the union of all Germans, on the basis of the right of the self-determination of peoples, to form a Great Germany.
Ironically, this is actually a liberal progressive position in German history. In this case, given that it also fits in with the fascist principle of one people, one state, I'd rate it as neutral.
2. We demand equality of rights for the German people in its dealings with other nations, and abolition of the Peace Treaties of Versailles and St. Germain.
Also a neutral position, however it should be noted that this was an anti-left (or, more accurately, anti-establishment) position at the time.
3. We demand land and territory for the nourishment of our people and for settling our surplus population.
Fascist, in context.
4. None but members of the nation may be citizens of the State. None but those of German blood, whatever their creed, may be members of the nation. No Jew, therefore, may be a member of the nation.
Very fascist.
5. Anyone who is not a citizen of the State may live in Germany only as a guest and must be regarded as being subject to the Alien Laws.
Also fascist.
6. The right of voting on the leadership and laws of the State is to be enjoyed by the citizens of the State alone. We demand, therefore, that all official positions, of whatever kind, whether in the Reich, the provinces, or the small communities, shall be held by citizens of the State alone. We oppose the corrupt parliamentary custom of filling posts merely with a view to party considerations, and without reference to character or ability.
In context, highly fascist (Note that the Nazis had much more restrictive criteria for who is and isn't a citizen than Weimar ever did).
7. We demand that the State shall make it its first duty to promote the industry and livelihood of the citizens of the State. If it is not possible to nourish the entire population of the State, foreign nationals must be excluded from the Reich.
Again, fascist position. Everything the state does is to further the welfare of the state, with the assumption that this will better the lives of the people. This is a collectivist position, not a socialist one.
8. All further non-German immigration must be prevented. We demand that all non-Germans who entered Germany subsequently to August 2, 1914, shall be required forthwith to depart from the Reich.
Nationalist as ****.
9. All citizens of the State shall possess equal rights and duties.
Not an inherently socialist position, is it, given that it is shared across many modern political philosophies.
10. It must be the first duty of every citizen of the State to perform mental or physical work. The activities of the individual must not clash with the interests of the whole, but must proceed within the framework of the community and must be for the general good.
Collectivist, not socialist. The socialist position is "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need"; this is framed as "from everyone for the state, from the state to everyone", which is a different thing.
11. Abolition of incomes unearned by work. BREAKING OF THE THRALDOM OF INTEREST.
This is a socialist position. You will note that it is the first one that is unequivocally socialist, communist even, in this list.
12. In view of the enormous sacrifice of life and property demanded of a nation by every war, personal enrichment through war must be regarded as a crime against the nation. We demand, therefore, the total confiscation of all war profits.
Again, a collectivist position, but note the wording: It is the nation that suffers from this, not the people.
13. We demand the nationalization of all businesses which have been amalgamated.
Technically a communist position, but a) the businesses would be subordinated to the state, not the workers and b) This only happened to businesses which were ran by jews. Funny how that worked out.
14. We demand that there shall be profit sharing in the great industries.
15. We demand a generous development of provision for old age.
16. We demand the creation and maintenance of a healthy middle class, immediate communalization of the large department stores and their lease at a low rate to small traders, and that the most careful consideration shall be shown to all small traders in purveying to the State, the provinces, or smaller communities.
17. We demand a land reform suitable to our national requirements, the passing of a law for the confiscation without compensation of land for communal purposes, the abolition of interest on land mortgages, and prohibition of all speculation in land.
18. We demand ruthless war upon all those whose activities are injurious to the common interest. Sordid criminals against the nation, usurers, profiteers, etc., must be punished with death, whatever their creed or race.
I'm just going to skip through this part. Points 11 through 18 are the economic portion of the NSDAP party program, and were never put into practice. After Hitler was released from his incarceration in 1924, he started to look for funding from capitalist and industrialist circles; these points were quietly dropped from the actual party program shortly thereafter. Some of them made it into law, but enforcement only happened when it was politically acceptable (read: when there was a jew in need of killing)
19. We demand that the Roman law, which serves the materialistic world order, shall be replaced by a German common law.
Also never happened.
20. With the aim of opening to every capable and industrious German the possibility of higher education and consequent advancement to leading positions, the State must consider a thorough reconstruction of our national system of education. The curriculum of all educational establishments must be brought into line with the requirements of practical life. Directly the mind begins to develop the schools must aim at teaching the pupil to understand the idea of the State. We demand the education of specially gifted children of poor parents, whatever their class or occupation, at the expense of the State.
21. The State must apply itself to raising the standard of health in the nation by protecting mothers and infants, prohibiting child labor, and increasing bodily efficiency by legally obligatory gymnastics and sports, and by extensive support of clubs engaged in the physical training of the young.
Collectivist, not socialist (I'm seeing a pattern here...)
22. We demand the abolition of mercenary troops and the formation of a national army.
23. We demand legal warfare against conscious political lies and their dissemination in the press. In order to facilitate the creation of a German national press we demand that: (a) all editors, and their co-workers, of newspapers employing the German language must be members of the nation; (b) special permission from the State shall be necessary before non-German newspapers may appear (these need not necessarily be printed in the German language); ( c ) non-Germans shall be prohibited by law from participating financially in or influencing German newspapers, and the penalty for contravention of the shall be suppression of any such newspaper, and immediate deportation of the non-German involved It must be forbidden to publish newspapers which are damaging to the national welfare. We demand the legal prosecution of all tendencies in art and literature which exert a destructive influence on our national life and the closing of institutions which militate against the above-mentioned requirements.
Skipping through these, these were either irrelevant (mercenaries), or a pretext to deal with unwanted journalists and artists.
24. We demand liberty for all religious denominations in the State, so far as they are not a danger to it and do not militate against the moral and ethical feelings of the German race. The Party, as such, stands for positive Christianity, but does not bind itself in the matter of creed to any particular confession. It combats the Jewish-materialist spirit within and without us, and is convinced that our nation can achieve permanent recovery from within only on the principle: THE COMMON INTEREST BEFORE SELF-INTEREST
More fascist-flavoured collectivism.
25. That all the foregoing requirements may be realized we demand the creation of a strong, central national authority; unconditional authority of the central legislative body over the entire Reich and its organizations in general; and the formation of diets and vocational chambers for the purpose of executing the general laws promulgated by the Reich in the various States of the Confederation. The leaders of the Party swear to proceed regardless of consequences - if necessary at the sacrifice of their lives - toward the fulfillment of the foregoing Points.
So very fascist.
So, by my count, most of the points in this program are either outright fascist/nationalist, or collectivist. I think the issue is that you believe collectivist to be synonymous with socialist; this is a category error. It's as wrong as saying that Christianity, Islam and Judaism are the same religion.
Anyway, historically speaking, the points that come the closest to communist positions (the whole economy section) were also the ones least relevant in actual practice, with most of them heavily deemphasized in party propaganda long before 1933.
This I certainly agree with. The left/right spectrum, or indeed any one spectrum, must necessarily be a simplification.
So, if you know this, why do you keep saying that Fascism is left-wing, thereby associating modern liberals and progressives with it?
I can only repeat myself here: Making a connection between Fascism and Left-Wing politics (especially with contemporary Left-wing politics) requires so much ignorance of history and so much misunderstanding of political philosophy that anyone who does it is either woefully underqualified to have an opinion on the subject or is actively lying about it to make a point.
So by this logic we can assume that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is exactly what it says on the box, then?
There's a difference between propaganda and philosophy.
Yes, there is. It would help if you started to recognize this. The NSDAP party program was pure propaganda. The fascist manifesto you quote was also quickly left behind by Mussolini, and there never was any real attempt to put the socialist-seeming positions therein into practice.
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There is yet another reason why we need to write open letters there to get out a word against Donald Trump, saying he's not one of us. He wants to be an irreplaceable Free World leader besides Russia's President Vladimir Putin, who, as Mikhail Khodorkovsky said on CNN (http://www.khodorkovsky.com/khodorkovsky-putin-wants-to-be-irreplaceable/), acts such so Putin has said that these people behind the plans to replace him "are already irretrievably disconnected from Russia" and "from what is going on here". And, as the murdered Boris Nemtsov put it, he chose eternal power, filled with arbitrariness and corruption. I fear this may apply to replacing Trump.
Trump is totally against free exchange of ideas (as shown on this site), and new people like myself. And that could be the reason why Trump repeatedly praised Putin - he wants to keep out young people and stall technological progress forever by turning America into a fascist, geronto-kleptocractic state. He is a neo-Luddite, and will create a very powerful social movement that's anti-technology, a development which could potentially prevent humans reaching milestones like landing an astronaut on Mars.
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Aesaar and Phantom Hoover: Leave the drive-by rhetorical sniping out of this, please.
Let me just check for a minute... no, I haven't contracted terminal encephalopathy and I'm not going to take orders from a delusional idiot about what I can and can't say about his forum sophistry.
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You would do as well trying to reason with Judge Floro.
...actually Judge Floro can be reasoned with, to a limited degree.
Very true; Judge Floro actually spoke in earnest, whereas Goober just tries to throw Latin fallacy names at you.
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PH, keep this civil or you won't be able to participate any more.
Goober, you quoted the manifesto despite already being told numerous times that the socialist claims by facists were most propaganda.
But more important than what someone says, it what they did. And you're going to have a hard time proving that the Nazi Party did more left wing things than right or centrist things.
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Going to leave the fascism thing because its very evident you're impervious to reason on this subject and The E is ably handling it now anyway.
2. I did read the article, and the 24% statistic is not incorrect, just grossly misleading. The usual unemployment rate is subject to all sorts of modifications depending on how many people you actually count in the workforce and how they are employed. That's why a much better metric is the employment-to-population ratio.
The rest of that article similarly uses sleight of hand to paint a rosy picture when the true picture is considerably bleaker. Debt-to-GDP, as I cited, is a better metric than straight GDP, as the article did. The article's claim that jobs lost in one sector can be made up elsewhere is without basis because jobs are not fungible: a factory worker cannot magically become a doctor, lawyer, or hedge fund manager.
2. No, but employment types shift over time regardless. The sleight-of-hand versus true picture remark remains unproven; you've yet to present any kind of data other than a puff piece by Pat Buchanan. Want to try? Moreover, the CFR piece appears to be a better evaluation of the benefits and pitfalls of NAFTA, which nonetheless concludes a net benefit to the United States.
3. We're really going to argue about the definition of argument from authority now, after I actually quoted the damn thing? No. No we're not. Carry on however you like; your sources are not credible and I frankly no longer care about how you present a response to that unless you feel like coming up with better ones.
And historical facts are not affected by an "ahistorical opinion". A historical event either did or did not occur. Reality is not subjective.
Let me spell this out: you, and that author, are forming an opinion that fasicism is a left-wing political ideology based on a particular selection of historical facts, interpreted to fit a particular narrative and ignoring the historical context in which those facts occurred.
4. Now you're committing the fallacy of arguing from your own authority. You may be highly knowledgeable about the legal field but that does not make you correct -- not to mention that different lawyers often come to different conclusions about the same evidence. (In fact, they are paid to do so.)
In this case, the FBI's own statement is definitive:
"there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information."
"There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation."
"we also developed evidence that the security culture of the State Department in general, and with respect to use of unclassified e-mail systems in particular, was generally lacking in the kind of care for classified information found elsewhere in the government."
"there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information"
The FBI's recommendation not to bring charges contradicts its own statement that there is evidence to support doing so. The evidence supports gross negligence and perjury, at the very least. Actually producing a conviction is for the trial to determine, but one cannot possibly say that there are no grounds to file charges.
No, it doesn't. Evidence can minimally exist and yet not meet the elements for criminal prosecution; if you knew anything about the interpretation or enforcement of criminal law you would know this. It happens all the time. One of the primary considerations of any potential prosecution is whether the evidence meets all of the elements of the offence [it doesn't], whether the evidence is sufficient to prove the offence beyond a reasonable doubt [it doesn't], whether the prosecution has any reasonable chance of success [it doesn't]. There are other factors as well. You are not a lawyer. You are not a law enforcement officer. You have absolutely no apparent experience in this area. The people who do have determined that there are no reasonable grounds to support a prosecution, prosecution is NOT warranted, and would NOT be successful in the circumstances. If you want to argue with them, I suggest you find some legal grounds to do so. Right now, you are Random Dude On The Internet Who Thinks People Who Actually Know What They Are Talking About Are Wrong Because. Presenting my interpretation is not a fallatial argument from my own authority, it is an argument based on the combination of my experience and education in this area, which happens to agree with the position taken by both the FBI and the US DoJ. To recap, in the context of the HLP discussion on this matter, we have the opinion of Goober versus the combined education and experience of the FBI, the US DoJ, and the agreement of otherwise-inconsequential-to-the-matter MP-Ryan.
5. a) The problems with modern economists are enough to occupy another topic entirely; suffice it to say that the actual as opposed to theoretical effects remain to be seen. Additionally, economic impact should not be the sole metric for judging an economic policy; political and social impacts must be taken into account as well. b) Re military engagements: Yes, you said this already. c) The libel law conversation was entirely in the context of newspapers printing stories about Trump that he didn't like, and he even said in that conversation that he'd have to consult with his lawyers.
Trump is going to make America Great Again by enacting economic policies that put the United States into a recession. That's a novel argument.
I am still waiting to hear how the economic impact, potential lives lost, and disruption to the military command structure by Trump's assertions about handling ISIS will make American lives better, particularly as all but the slimmest fraction of American lives taken since the emergence of ISIS have been by homegrown terrorists, or people who had legally immigrated years beforehand.
That Trump said he'd open up libel laws because newspapers were printing stories he didn't like isn't concerning? I'd find that very concerning. I'd find it downright terrifying that a candidate for the leadership of my country's first reaction and reaction that he publicly stated to somebody saying something he didn't like was to suggest that he would tinker with the first and most important amendment to the Constitution of my country. You want to trust the nuclear launch button to a man so insecure and infantile that his first response to literally any criticism is either a personal attack or a direct abuse of your Constitution (see also: torture, Muslim ban, attack of judge due to heritage, etc), while he responds to any slight compliment, no matter who the source (e.g. Putin), with fawning admiration.
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PH, keep this civil or you won't be able to participate any more.
Goober, you quoted the manifesto despite already being told numerous times that the socialist claims by facists were most propaganda.
But more important than what someone says, it what they did. And you're going to have a hard time proving that the Nazi Party did more left wing things than right or centrist things.
Kind of like how despite the name of the ruling party of the USSR said it was Communist, the name of the country (the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) and the actions of its government plopped it squarely on being a totalitarian socialist nation, complete with living down to the fact of, to paraphrase Orwell's Animal Farm, everybody is equal to everybody else, but some are more equal than others.
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There's a difference between propaganda and philosophy.
Oh I know this one!
Philosophy = supports Goober's position
Propaganda = doesn't support Goober's position
God guys why don't you know this.
Aesaar and Phantom Hoover: Leave the drive-by rhetorical sniping out of this, please.
no
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Aesaar and Phantom Hoover: Leave the drive-by rhetorical sniping out of this, please.
no
(http://i.imgur.com/tmuqmmq.png)
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There's a difference between propaganda and philosophy.
Oh I know this one!
Philosophy = supports Goober's position
Propaganda = doesn't support Goober's position
God guys why don't you know this.
Aesaar and Phantom Hoover: Leave the drive-by rhetorical sniping out of this, please.
no
That's it. You no longer get to complain that GD is the worst when you're actively making it worse.
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oh, you don't understand, it's ok when he does it, cause when he does it he's saying something important, and more importantly he's Right, unlike the other side which is just filled with a bunch of backwards hate filled throwbacks who are all Wrong.
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It could be worse, we could be like The E stuck in endless righteous quoteslice wars with right-wing idiots because you think it's politer than just calling a spade a spade.
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calling a spade a spade.
given your political positions, lol
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Do go on.
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Speaking of making the culture here worse, same goes for you, PH.
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Do go on.
you are... familiar with the history of that expression right?
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I don't see what a late 90s Radio 4 comedy has to do with anything.
Speaking of making the culture here worse, same goes for you, PH.
And you're making it better by constantly feeding Goober's Gish gallop? Please. The only difference between what you and Goober are posting and me and Aesaar is that we're not dressing up our ****posts in rhetorical theatre.
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In America it is considered racist by some is all.
"Spade" is a racial epithet and so that phrase got associated with that.
I found it mildly funny that you would choose that particular phrase, and now we have spent far too much time on it.
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And you're making it better by constantly feeding Goober's Gish gallop? Please. The only difference between what you and Goober are posting and me and Aesaar is that we're not dressing up our ****posts in rhetorical theatre.
If I have to choose between posting something halfway informed and factual, and your kind of argumentation, I know what I prefer. Snark and blowing off steam has its place, but that place is, IMHO, not here.
All I'm hearing from you and Aesaar and others is how terrible GD is. If it is such a terrible place, why do you insist on making it worse? Why do you not do the intelligent thing and either try to make it better, or stay away entirely?
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I laid out my position pretty earnestly in this post (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=92492.msg1829581#msg1829581): don't talk to Goober, he's an ideologue who just wants to hear himself talk. That was an attempt at making the place better, you see?
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And your posts here (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=92492.msg1829637#msg1829637), here (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=92492.msg1829638#msg1829638), here (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=92492.msg1829762#msg1829762)? Were they too trying to make this place better?
I can tell you that, from my POV, they weren't. They were just pure snark, expressions of incredulity that a topic continues even after you have declared it a lost cause.
I find that sort of participation somewhere between annoying and disappointing. Annoying, because you're declaring something a lost cause that doesn't have to be and **** up the thread because it can't get any worse, right? And disappointing, because I know you are capable of doing better, or at least keep the incredulity and snark and ****post to #bp, where we can laugh about it and move on.
If the problem in GD is a lack of good posts, then why do you **** up threads like this?
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Don't really think ****posts are what makes GD bad. The biggest complaints I ever had about GD were about people like maslo. Very good at putting effort into their posts. Also very good at rephrasing the same point as though saying it slightly differently will somehow undo the fact that their point has been thoroughly discredited.
The problem in GD isn't lack of good posts. Most threads have good posts. The problem with GD is people who can't be made to realize they're making no sense and double-down when presented with actual evidence they're wrong. As though believing hard enough in something will somehow make it true.
But fine, I'll shut up unless I'm in the mood to write something more serious.
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I'd much rather you left the constant rhetorical ignorance-vomit out of HLP entirely, rather than dragging down the average quality of a discussion in a subforum which already has an abysmally low average discussion quality.
Facts are rhetoric now? History is ignorance? Disagreeing with someone is dragging down the quality of discussion?
Yes, let's take a look at the party program.
But let's also take a look how much of that program was ever put into practice, shall we? Because judging a political philosophy by its ideals is one thing, but the real test is what happens when said ideals meet reality.
Assessing what happens when ideals meet reality is valuable, but when tracing the origins and roots of a political philosophy, its ideals are the purest expression of it. The fact that "no plan survives contact with the enemy" does not negate the fact that there was a plan in the first place.
So, by my count, most of the points in this program are either outright fascist/nationalist, or collectivist. I think the issue is that you believe collectivist to be synonymous with socialist; this is a category error. It's as wrong as saying that Christianity, Islam and Judaism are the same religion.
I don't believe they're synonymous, but you're right in observing that I was holding them equivalent for the purposes of evaluating the list. To use your analogy, when comparing Christianity, Islam, and Judasim against each other, they are most certainly different, just as Fascism is different from Communism. But when comparing Christianity, Islam, and Judaism to Hinduism or ancient Greek polytheism, it is entirely appropriate to group the Abrahamic religions together on the monotheistic side of the spectrum.
And note that I agree with you that most of the points are fascist/nationalist; I said in my previous post that "there is a lot of fascism there, certainly."
I think the issue with your position is that you believe nationalism is intrinsically right-wing. It isn't. The Soviet Union was nationalistic under Stalin, and nobody argues that the Soviet Union was right-wing.
Here is what Ludwig von Mises wrote in 1944 (https://mises.org/library/socialist-calumny-against-jews):
Yet it is clear that both systems, the German and the Russian, must be considered from an economic point of view as socialist. And it is only the economic point of view that matters in debating whether or not a party or system is socialist. Socialism is and has always been considered a system of economic organization of society. It is the system under which the government has full control of production and distribution. As far as socialism existing merely within individual countries can be called genuine, both Russia and Germany are right in calling their systems socialist.
[...]
The characteristic feature of socialism is not equality of income but the all‑round control of business activities by the government, the government's exclusive power to use all means of production.
This reflects a collectivist diminution of the individual, whether for the benefit of "the People" (as in Communism) or "the State" (as in Fascism).
So, if you know this, why do you keep saying that Fascism is left-wing, thereby associating modern liberals and progressives with it?
That's a telling statement. Do you think that saying Naziism is right-wing associates modern conservatives with it?
The fascist manifesto you quote was also quickly left behind by Mussolini, and there never was any real attempt to put the socialist-seeming positions therein into practice.
What do you consider a "real attempt"? Women's suffrage was enacted only three years after Mussolini took power. The Labour Charter was passed within five years.
Trump is totally against free exchange of ideas (as shown on this site), and new people like myself. And that could be the reason why Trump repeatedly praised Putin - he wants to keep out young people and stall technological progress forever by turning America into a fascist, geronto-kleptocractic state. He is a neo-Luddite, and will create a very powerful social movement that's anti-technology, a development which could potentially prevent humans reaching milestones like landing an astronaut on Mars.
It sounds like your imagination got away from you there.
Goober, you quoted the manifesto despite already being told numerous times that the socialist claims by facists were most propaganda.
But more important than what someone says, it what they did. And you're going to have a hard time proving that the Nazi Party did more left wing things than right or centrist things.
The thing is, saying something numerous times doesn't make it any more true.
Re the Nazi Party, see the article by Mises that I linked above.
2. No, but employment types shift over time regardless. The sleight-of-hand versus true picture remark remains unproven; you've yet to present any kind of data other than a puff piece by Pat Buchanan. Want to try? Moreover, the CFR piece appears to be a better evaluation of the benefits and pitfalls of NAFTA, which nonetheless concludes a net benefit to the United States.
"Employment types shift over time regardless?" That only happens when new employees join the workforce. The existing employees are out of luck.
"You've yet to present any kind of data" is an outright lie. Go back and look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers and the debt-to-GDP ratios that I cited.
As for calling the Pat Buchanan article a "puff piece", I'm curious as to how you characterize it that way when it contains a considerable number of facts and figures. Shall I therefore call the CFR piece a puff piece?
3. We're really going to argue about the definition of argument from authority now, after I actually quoted the damn thing? No. No we're not. Carry on however you like; your sources are not credible and I frankly no longer care about how you present a response to that unless you feel like coming up with better ones.
You didn't actually quote the definition. You quoted a categorization ("a common type of argument which can be fallacious") and two examples ("such as when an authority is cited on a topic outside their area of expertise or when the authority cited is not a true expert").
The actual definition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies#Red_herring_fallacies) is "where an assertion is deemed true [or false] because of the position or authority of the person asserting it". You committed the fallacy previously - and again here - when you dismissed the articles and the authors I cited based on their "credibility" rather than the facts and figures they contain. It's a very convenient way to control an argument: "Any evidence I introduce is credible. Any evidence you introduce is not credible and therefore false."
The FBI's recommendation not to bring charges contradicts its own statement that there is evidence to support doing so. The evidence supports gross negligence and perjury, at the very least. Actually producing a conviction is for the trial to determine, but one cannot possibly say that there are no grounds to file charges.
No, it doesn't. Evidence can minimally exist and yet not meet the elements for criminal prosecution; if you knew anything about the interpretation or enforcement of criminal law you would know this. It happens all the time. One of the primary considerations of any potential prosecution is whether the evidence meets all of the elements of the offence [it doesn't], whether the evidence is sufficient to prove the offence beyond a reasonable doubt [it doesn't], whether the prosecution has any reasonable chance of success [it doesn't]. There are other factors as well. You are not a lawyer. You are not a law enforcement officer. You have absolutely no apparent experience in this area. The people who do have determined that there are no reasonable grounds to support a prosecution, prosecution is NOT warranted, and would NOT be successful in the circumstances. If you want to argue with them, I suggest you find some legal grounds to do so. Right now, you are Random Dude On The Internet Who Thinks People Who Actually Know What They Are Talking About Are Wrong Because. Presenting my interpretation is not a fallatial argument from my own authority, it is an argument based on the combination of my experience and education in this area, which happens to agree with the position taken by both the FBI and the US DoJ. To recap, in the context of the HLP discussion on this matter, we have the opinion of Goober versus the combined education and experience of the FBI, the US DoJ, and the agreement of otherwise-inconsequential-to-the-matter MP-Ryan.
Okay, this actually sounds more reasonable. Now I would say that the evidence meets all the elements of the offense based on a plain reading of the FBI's statement. But, for the other two conditions, I don't know for a fact that it meets the "reasonable doubt" or "reasonable chance of success" thresholds. I could say that it's extremely likely based on the known history and the character of the person involved, but that's not the same thing.
Here (https://beckandlee.wordpress.com/2016/06/06/why-hillary-clintons-emails-matter-a-legal-analysis/) is an article on it by an actual attorney, albeit not a criminal lawyer. (Start reading partway down the page at "According to most reports". In the author's judgement, "the text of the statute and known facts present a clear-cut case for indicting Clinton", thought prosecutorial discretion may lead to charges not being filed.
Also, I'm curious: how often is prosecutorial discretion invoked to not file criminal charges in the situation where all three conditions are met? I would think the prosecutor would always file charges in that case, unless it involved a mercy situation such as a kid who was truly repentant, there was no harm done, and a conviction would mess him up for life.
Trump is going to make America Great Again by enacting economic policies that put the United States into a recession. That's a novel argument.
I'll repeat what I said earlier: You're assuming the premise of your own argument. If Trump's policies do not prompt recession, the syllogism fails.
I am still waiting to hear how the economic impact, potential lives lost, and disruption to the military command structure by Trump's assertions about handling ISIS will make American lives better, particularly as all but the slimmest fraction of American lives taken since the emergence of ISIS have been by homegrown terrorists, or people who had legally immigrated years beforehand.
Well, we shall see. Maybe it won't. In that case, I will freely concede the point.
That Trump said he'd open up libel laws because newspapers were printing stories he didn't like isn't concerning? I'd find that very concerning. I'd find it downright terrifying that a candidate for the leadership of my country's first reaction and reaction that he publicly stated to somebody saying something he didn't like was to suggest that he would tinker with the first and most important amendment to the Constitution of my country.
I don't find it very concerning at all, because there is an almost zero chance he'd be able to do anything about the First Amendment. Any proposed change would first have to pass Congress and then have to be ratified by 3/4ths of the several states. I doubt he'd spend all of his political capital on such a trivial issue. He's smarter than that.
You want to trust the nuclear launch button to a man so insecure and infantile that his first response to literally any criticism is either a personal attack or a direct abuse of your Constitution (see also: torture, Muslim ban, attack of judge due to heritage, etc), while he responds to any slight compliment, no matter who the source (e.g. Putin), with fawning admiration.
I think your assessment of Trump's sensitivity is overblown. Watch the debates and see how he does.
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Facts are rhetoric now?
A statement that something you disagree with is "propaganda", especially without providing the slightest reason why anyone should believe this, is not a fact. It is a rhetorical device. Not even a particularly well-employed one.
History is ignorance?
The only history you have offered is deeply ignorant, c.f. MP-Ryan, The_E, even Bob for chrissakes!, supra; well constructed, well reasoned postings to which your response has been "no I'm right" and occasional arguments from what is at best irrelevant authority.
Disagreeing with someone is dragging down the quality of discussion?
It's not that you disagree with someone.
It's that you are blatantly doing so in bad faith. Your participation in this thread has been entirely negative because you have employed bad-faith argumentation strategies in every post. Consider the following:
When MP-Ryan dismisses a source you link to, he does so by pointing out why it is not a trustworthy source; what particular axes it has to grind and its lack of qualifications to discuss the issue and how it diverges from the consensus view of other sources that actually are qualified to be discussing the issue.
When you dismiss a source, you merely state that it is "propaganda" and ignore it.
This is behavior that would be contemptible coming from a regular member and they would rightly be mocked for it. That it is coming from an admin is a ridiculous state of affairs; one would hope someone of your position would at least have the good grace to shut up rather than bring their office and the site into disrepute (since you have made many arguments about how admins are special and should be respected down the years, most recently in the avatars thread) by arguing with such transparently bad-faith tactics.
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Here is what Ludwig von Mises wrote in 1944 (https://mises.org/library/socialist-calumny-against-jews):
Yet it is clear that both systems, the German and the Russian, must be considered from an economic point of view as socialist. And it is only the economic point of view that matters in debating whether or not a party or system is socialist. Socialism is and has always been considered a system of economic organization of society. It is the system under which the government has full control of production and distribution. As far as socialism existing merely within individual countries can be called genuine, both Russia and Germany are right in calling their systems socialist.
[...]
The characteristic feature of socialism is not equality of income but the all‑round control of business activities by the government, the government's exclusive power to use all means of production.
This reflects a collectivist diminution of the individual, whether for the benefit of "the People" (as in Communism) or "the State" (as in Fascism).
But that difference is absolutely crucial when it comes to determining which brand of collectivism a nation operates under.
Again: Fascism by itself has economic goals, but no preset way to achieve them, leaving the mechanisms of achieving them open to interpretation. Hitler himself described national socialism as a synthesis of what he believed the best options from among the various positions on the political spectrum were; as a result, he initially chose positions from the communist party's program to fill out things in the NSDAP's party program.
Nazi Germany must be called collectivist. But calling it socialist is simply wrong, as far as modern political science goes.
That's a telling statement. Do you think that saying Naziism is right-wing associates modern conservatives with it?
Yes. The Nazi regime was an expression of extreme social conservatism and extreme nationalism; both positions that are hallmarks of modern political conservatism. Looking at the US, the conservative movement has undergone a degree of radicalization resulting in the Tea Party and Trump movements. The Trump movement in particular has an eery resemblance to the early NSDAP; it is very big on generalizations, demonization of its opponents, demonization of outsiders, a collectivist sense of being part of a nation, vague promises of greatness to be achieved in the future, an utter disregard for facts and a mastery over the media environment.
So, just like soviet-style vanguardism is an extreme expression of modern liberal ideas, fascism (and national socialism) are extreme expressions of modern conservative ideas.
What do you consider a "real attempt"? Women's suffrage was enacted only three years after Mussolini took power. The Labour Charter was passed within five years.
And women's suffrage was rendered meaningless by the abolishment of democratic principles in 1925 and 26, and after 1926, Italy became one nation effectively under corporatist rule. Labour unions were dismantled, and labour representation became irrelevant.
By the time Mussolini started to actually do communist things, it was February 12th, 1944, after the Allies had already captured Rome and Italy became a german puppet.
The thing is, saying something numerous times doesn't make it any more true.
Re the Nazi Party, see the article by Mises that I linked above.
Just FYI, you're arguing against the majority position of historians on this subject.
Again: Most of the socialist policies in the NSDAP party program never made it into law, and if they did, they were a tool to disown non-germanic people.
That Trump said he'd open up libel laws because newspapers were printing stories he didn't like isn't concerning? I'd find that very concerning. I'd find it downright terrifying that a candidate for the leadership of my country's first reaction and reaction that he publicly stated to somebody saying something he didn't like was to suggest that he would tinker with the first and most important amendment to the Constitution of my country.
I don't find it very concerning at all, because there is an almost zero chance he'd be able to do anything about the First Amendment. Any proposed change would first have to pass Congress and then have to be ratified by 3/4ths of the several states. I doubt he'd spend all of his political capital on such a trivial issue. He's smarter than that.
Are you really, absolutely certain of that?
Also, this is weird: Trump is campaigning on a platform based around being someone not beholden to the political elites. He has positioned himself as someone who is "not a politician", as someone who is strong enough to break up the lock those same elites have on US politics. He's also making statements that are not reconcilable with a traditional interpretation of the constitution, and yet, you believe these statements won't matter because the elites he is campaigning against and that he says he will beat won't let them pass into law?
Disagreeing with someone is dragging down the quality of discussion?
It's not that you disagree with someone.
It's that you are blatantly doing so in bad faith. Your participation in this thread has been entirely negative because you have employed bad-faith argumentation strategies in every post. Consider the following:
When MP-Ryan dismisses a source you link to, he does so by pointing out why it is not a trustworthy source; what particular axes it has to grind and its lack of qualifications to discuss the issue and how it diverges from the consensus view of other sources that actually are qualified to be discussing the issue.
When you dismiss a source, you merely state that it is "propaganda" and ignore it.
This is behavior that would be contemptible coming from a regular member and they would rightly be mocked for it. That it is coming from an admin is a ridiculous state of affairs; one would hope someone of your position would at least have the good grace to shut up rather than bring their office and the site into disrepute (since you have made many arguments about how admins are special and should be respected down the years, most recently in the avatars thread) by arguing with such transparently bad-faith tactics.
And yes, this.
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"Employment types shift over time regardless?" That only happens when new employees join the workforce. The existing employees are out of luck.
"You've yet to present any kind of data" is an outright lie. Go back and look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers and the debt-to-GDP ratios that I cited.
As for calling the Pat Buchanan article a "puff piece", I'm curious as to how you characterize it that way when it contains a considerable number of facts and figures. Shall I therefore call the CFR piece a puff piece?
Employment types absolutely shift over time. The economy of the US today is not the same as the economy of the US circa 1950. Trump essentially believes he can return the US to the economy of 1950, which simply is not possible. For one, it's always going to be cheaper to manufacture many things in other countries. For two, the US is now a service and tech-based economy. For three, any enactment of tarrifs to force manufacturing to return to the US would render the cost of the raw materials - which you generally do not make yourselves - astronomically expensive and harm the economy overall; wages will not keep up with the cost of goods. Trump either doesn't realize this, in which case he's stupid, or does realize this, in which case he's a liar.
You've presented two snipped statistics with no analysis. I've pulled two analysis pieces that at least attempt an objective, multi-sided look at the issue. The "analysis" piece you pulled is from a political operative/journalist who writes an op-ed with a one-sided thesis and makes no attempt to actually contemplate or review alternative positions. That is why it is a puff piece. Op-eds are opinion pieces designed to persuade an audience; they are not a reliable source of data because they [intentionally] do not do a multi-sided analysis. Buchanan's piece begins with the assumption that his premise is correct.
when you dismissed the articles and the authors I cited based on their "credibility" rather than the facts and figures they contain. It's a very convenient way to control an argument: "Any evidence I introduce is credible. Any evidence you introduce is not credible and therefore false."
No, as above, I dismissed the two pieces you provided - by Buchanan and David Ramsay Steele - for the following reasons. These are essential elements of any source selection:
- The authors begin from a premise. They are opinion pieces; in both cases, where facts are presented they are done so only to support that opinion. In other words, the writers don't begin with data and reach a conclusion; they begin with a conclusion and select/interpret their data for it.
- The authors do not perform multi-sided analysis.
- Despite lacking multi-sided analysis, their theses directly contradict established research in the areas in which they opine.
- The authors lack credentials in the field in which they are opining.
- The work is not peer-review (this is true of both the sources I selected, however, and is not an absolute requirement, it is simply problematic due to the first three factors they cited).
There is nothing wrong with writing an op-ed. Our posts are essentially op-eds; we pick and choose sourcing to bolster our arguments. The difference is, you cannot source one op-ed based on another.
For both the economics-related sources I've pulled, I've selected sources that present available data and attempt an objective, multi-sided analysis of it (the CFR piece is the better of the two in this regard). So yes, I'm dismissing your sources, but I'm doing so not by means of argumentative fallacy, but in light of actual reasons why they are bad sources. If I'm guilty of anything, it's failure to explain the above analysis when I dismissed them.
Instead of railing about fallacies that I'm not committing, your time would be better served by trying to find credible, [at least moderately] objective sourcing from reputable persons or organizations qualified in their fields to present that information.
Okay, this actually sounds more reasonable. Now I would say that the evidence meets all the elements of the offense based on a plain reading of the FBI's statement. But, for the other two conditions, I don't know for a fact that it meets the "reasonable doubt" or "reasonable chance of success" thresholds. I could say that it's extremely likely based on the known history and the character of the person involved, but that's not the same thing.
Evidence must establish clearly-met elements. "Intent"/"knowing" clearly aren't met based on what the FBI has said. For that matter, the FBI has not disclosed what the evidence is, nor the volume of it. They've simply said some evidence exists. In law enforcement parlance, that means exactly what it says: some evidence exists. It doesn't mean it is sufficient to meet the legal element, nor that it is compelling to show the element can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
Here (https://beckandlee.wordpress.com/2016/06/06/why-hillary-clintons-emails-matter-a-legal-analysis/) is an article on it by an actual attorney, albeit not a criminal lawyer. (Start reading partway down the page at "According to most reports". In the author's judgement, "the text of the statute and known facts present a clear-cut case for indicting Clinton", thought prosecutorial discretion may lead to charges not being filed.
The problem with that analysis is that it was written before the FBI statement on findings. None of he, you, or I have seen the evidence available to the FBI, the analysis of each piece of that evidence that would be done by both the FBI and DoJ, or the whole case. What all three of us are doing is conjecture. His conjecture was based on what he knew at the time, which was never the whole picture. My conjecture is based on what all of us know now, which still isn't the whole picture. The only people with the whole picture are the FBI and DoJ. They are the ones who gathered all the evidence, analyzed it, compiled it into a prosecution brief/report, and then decided if charges were appropriate - and they weren't. Moreover, indictment is a very different thing from conviction. It would be irresponsible for prosecutors to waste money, time, and resources pursuing a case where there was no prospect of a beyond-a-reasonable-doubt guilty finding.
Also, I'm curious: how often is prosecutorial discretion invoked to not file criminal charges in the situation where all three conditions are met? I would think the prosecutor would always file charges in that case, unless it involved a mercy situation such as a kid who was truly repentant, there was no harm done, and a conviction would mess him up for life.
This is where Canada and the US may differ. In Canada, in addition to the evaluation of the evidence, here's how Crown Prosecutors review the decision to prosecute: http://www.ppsc-sppc.gc.ca/eng/pub/fpsd-sfpg/fps-sfp/tpd/p2/ch03.html In the US, this appears to be the equivalent guidance for federal prosecutions: https://www.justice.gov/usam/usam-9-27000-principles-federal-prosecution
Anecdotally, people like [former federal prosecutor] Ken White (popehat.com) have commented that federal prosecutors don't generally take cases lightly as they have limited resources and proceed with a relative few prosecutions compared to their state counterparts; as such, only cases in which the evidence is clear, the prospect of conviction is good, and the public interest is high end up prosecuted.
In this case, based on what is known to the public there isn't a case to proceed with charges.
I'll repeat what I said earlier: You're assuming the premise of your own argument. If Trump's policies do not prompt recession, the syllogism fails.
And you're then doing the opposite. In spite of the not-inconsiderable analysis by reputable economists, you're assuming that Trump's economic promises are going to do exactly what Trump says.
I don't find it very concerning at all, because there is an almost zero chance he'd be able to do anything about the First Amendment.
This is an odd statement. You're willing to elect a leader who has flatly questioned the value of the First Amendment protections on the basis that its unlikely he can actually do anything to it? By this argument, people who oppose firearms regulation obviously shouldn't care if a Presidential candidate supports it either. Which is somewhat amusing, considering a regular argument against Clinton is "she's gunna take mah guns!"
I think your assessment of Trump's sensitivity is overblown. Watch the debates and see how he does.
I fully intend to, I think it's going to be hilarious, particularly if the media grades his actual performance instead of his performance-vs-expectations-of-the-impending-disaster.
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Today in Trump:
- CNN ratings are so low. This is because they have boring anti-Trump panelists who are losers in life.
- New York Times is failing.
- Prize-winning journalist Maureen Dowd is neurotic/crazy because she wrote something about Trump that he doesn't like.
- Trump's lawyers want to sue NYT for "irresponsible intent" and Trump said no for now, except this convo either never happened or went the other way because "irresponsible intent" has no legal meaning.
Yup, this asshat is totally qualified to be President.
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Facts are rhetoric now?
A statement that something you disagree with is "propaganda", especially without providing the slightest reason why anyone should believe this, is not a fact. It is a rhetorical device. Not even a particularly well-employed one.
Now you're using rhetoric of your own, but rhetoric without a foundation of truth is deceit. Go back and search the thread. Nowhere in this thread have I claimed that anything I disagree with is propaganda; the one who claimed that is Aesaar in this post (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=92492.msg1829699#msg1829699). The only time I even mentioned the term was in this post (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=92492.msg1829610#msg1829610) when I responded to Mongoose's comment about the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
History is ignorance?
The only history you have offered is deeply ignorant, c.f. MP-Ryan, The_E, even Bob for chrissakes!, supra; well constructed, well reasoned postings to which your response has been "no I'm right" and occasional arguments from what is at best irrelevant authority.
I cited numerous articles, numerous writers, and numerous facts and figures in support of my arguments. If your summary of the thousands of words I've written in this thread is a simple "I'm right" then I appreciate your endorsement of my conclusions.
Disagreeing with someone is dragging down the quality of discussion?
It's not that you disagree with someone.
It's that you are blatantly doing so in bad faith. Your participation in this thread has been entirely negative because you have employed bad-faith argumentation strategies in every post. Consider the following:
When MP-Ryan dismisses a source you link to, he does so by pointing out why it is not a trustworthy source; what particular axes it has to grind and its lack of qualifications to discuss the issue and how it diverges from the consensus view of other sources that actually are qualified to be discussing the issue.
When you dismiss a source, you merely state that it is "propaganda" and ignore it.'
Feel free to try to point out where I dismissed a source as propaganda. You can't do it because it didn't happen.
But that difference is absolutely crucial when it comes to determining which brand of collectivism a nation operates under.
Again: Fascism by itself has economic goals, but no preset way to achieve them, leaving the mechanisms of achieving them open to interpretation. Hitler himself described national socialism as a synthesis of what he believed the best options from among the various positions on the political spectrum were; as a result, he initially chose positions from the communist party's program to fill out things in the NSDAP's party program.
Nazi Germany must be called collectivist. But calling it socialist is simply wrong, as far as modern political science goes.
I freely acknowledged that Nazi Germany was fascist in response to your previous argument. But it was also socialist -- the two are not mutually exclusive. I don't see how calling it socialist is "simply wrong" unless you have another "characteristic feature of socialism" in mind.
I mean, this argument is very straightforward:
A) "The characteristic feature of socialism is not equality of income but the all-round control of business activities by the government, the government's exclusive power to use all means of production."
B) Nazi Germany demonstrated this feature.
C) Therefore, Nazi Germany can be correctly characterized as socialist.
Yes. The Nazi regime was an expression of extreme social conservatism and extreme nationalism; both positions that are hallmarks of modern political conservatism. Looking at the US, the conservative movement has undergone a degree of radicalization resulting in the Tea Party and Trump movements. The Trump movement in particular has an eery resemblance to the early NSDAP; it is very big on generalizations, demonization of its opponents, demonization of outsiders, a collectivist sense of being part of a nation, vague promises of greatness to be achieved in the future, an utter disregard for facts and a mastery over the media environment.
So, just like soviet-style vanguardism is an extreme expression of modern liberal ideas, fascism (and national socialism) are extreme expressions of modern conservative ideas.
But the economic axis is different from the social axis. It's possible to be economically socialist while socially conservative. And it's possible to be economically laissez-faire while socially liberal.
The aspects of the Trump movement you cited are interesting comparisons, but they are tactics, not ideals or positions. The positions (https://www.donaldjtrump.com/POSITIONS) are outlined on Trump's website.
What do you consider a "real attempt"? Women's suffrage was enacted only three years after Mussolini took power. The Labour Charter was passed within five years.
And women's suffrage was rendered meaningless by the abolishment of democratic principles in 1925 and 26, and after 1926, Italy became one nation effectively under corporatist rule. Labour unions were dismantled, and labour representation became irrelevant.
By the time Mussolini started to actually do communist things, it was February 12th, 1944, after the Allies had already captured Rome and Italy became a german puppet.
Very well. So then, what is your conclusion - that because only a few of those Fascist Manifesto planks were implemented, that Mussolini didn't really intend to follow it? Or that the Fascists didn't really believe what they wrote?
Just FYI, you're arguing against the majority position of historians on this subject.
Again: Most of the socialist policies in the NSDAP party program never made it into law, and if they did, they were a tool to disown non-germanic people.
I'm not surprised the majority of historians take the opposite view, as it has been the prevailing consensus for around 70 years. But just because a majority holds a certain view doesn't necessarily make it correct. Most historians once believed that the city of Troy was mythological.
I don't find it very concerning at all, because there is an almost zero chance he'd be able to do anything about the First Amendment. Any proposed change would first have to pass Congress and then have to be ratified by 3/4ths of the several states. I doubt he'd spend all of his political capital on such a trivial issue. He's smarter than that.
Are you really, absolutely certain of that?
I'm not "absolutely certain", but I think it is highly unlikely. His first political priority will almost surely be building the wall. Other top priorities will be the economy, the national infrastructure, and ISIS. He might make noises about libel laws but I don't think he'll propose any substantial changes.
Also, this is weird: Trump is campaigning on a platform based around being someone not beholden to the political elites. He has positioned himself as someone who is "not a politician", as someone who is strong enough to break up the lock those same elites have on US politics. He's also making statements that are not reconcilable with a traditional interpretation of the constitution, and yet, you believe these statements won't matter because the elites he is campaigning against and that he says he will beat won't let them pass into law?
No, because it would require a tremendous amount of political capital for a trivial amount of gain. Trump is a dealmaker. He wouldn't take that deal.
And yes, this.
In addition to the fact that I haven't dismissed any sources as propaganda, I've been arguing in good faith (as have you and MP-Ryan). We're having a rational exchange of ideas. This is distinct from someone like Phantom Hoover who comes in just to take potshots, or someone like NGTM-1R who comes in just to heap contempt and condescension.
"Employment types shift over time regardless?" That only happens when new employees join the workforce. The existing employees are out of luck.
Employment types absolutely shift over time. The economy of the US today is not the same as the economy of the US circa 1950.
Yes, and the reason that happened is because over time, certain types of jobs became obsolete and certain types of jobs were invented. But that happens over generations, and usually because old workers retire and new workers take their place. That's a distinctly different phenomenon than a factory worker starting a new career path because his factory moved out of the US.
Trump essentially believes he can return the US to the economy of 1950, which simply is not possible. For one, it's always going to be cheaper to manufacture many things in other countries. For two, the US is now a service and tech-based economy. For three, any enactment of tarrifs to force manufacturing to return to the US would render the cost of the raw materials - which you generally do not make yourselves - astronomically expensive and harm the economy overall; wages will not keep up with the cost of goods. Trump either doesn't realize this, in which case he's stupid, or does realize this, in which case he's a liar.
I lack the time to look up a refutation right now so I'll just let this stand, with a few brief comments -- 1) with trade tariffs, this would not be the case; 2) many things are still manufactured in the US, and in any case diversifying the economy is a good thing; 3) the downside of higher costs will be offset by the upside of higher employment, and a new equilibrium will be reached. Also, there are intangible benefits to bringing manufacturing back into the US that are not included in an economic analysis.
You've presented two snipped statistics with no analysis. I've pulled two analysis pieces that at least attempt an objective, multi-sided look at the issue. The "analysis" piece you pulled is from a political operative/journalist who writes an op-ed with a one-sided thesis and makes no attempt to actually contemplate or review alternative positions. That is why it is a puff piece. Op-eds are opinion pieces designed to persuade an audience; they are not a reliable source of data because they [intentionally] do not do a multi-sided analysis. Buchanan's piece begins with the assumption that his premise is correct.
Any piece written by a human author is going to reflect the biases of that author. This is true of both one-sided and multi-sided analyses. Op-eds are more obvious about it, but even the CFR article was working toward a particular conclusion. You can't say that the CFR article is "more correct" because it presents both sides of the issue.
No, as above, I dismissed the two pieces you provided - by Buchanan and David Ramsay Steele - for the following reasons. These are essential elements of any source selection:
- The authors begin from a premise. They are opinion pieces; in both cases, where facts are presented they are done so only to support that opinion. In other words, the writers don't begin with data and reach a conclusion; they begin with a conclusion and select/interpret their data for it.
- The authors do not perform multi-sided analysis.
- Despite lacking multi-sided analysis, their theses directly contradict established research in the areas in which they opine.
- The authors lack credentials in the field in which they are opining.
- The work is not peer-review (this is true of both the sources I selected, however, and is not an absolute requirement, it is simply problematic due to the first three factors they cited).
There is nothing wrong with writing an op-ed. Our posts are essentially op-eds; we pick and choose sourcing to bolster our arguments. The difference is, you cannot source one op-ed based on another.
For both the economics-related sources I've pulled, I've selected sources that present available data and attempt an objective, multi-sided analysis of it (the CFR piece is the better of the two in this regard). So yes, I'm dismissing your sources, but I'm doing so not by means of argumentative fallacy, but in light of actual reasons why they are bad sources. If I'm guilty of anything, it's failure to explain the above analysis when I dismissed them.
Instead of railing about fallacies that I'm not committing, your time would be better served by trying to find credible, [at least moderately] objective sourcing from reputable persons or organizations qualified in their fields to present that information.
The elements you listed are useful ways to evaluate the credibility, or lack thereof, of a source. And the credibility of a source provides an indicator of how likely it is to be true or false. But it is not definitive. An article stands or falls based on the facts and figures it contains, not the person who wrote it.
Remember when said "by your standards, I should disregard the Newsweek article", and how absurd you thought that was? That was me showing you the logical fallacy from the other direction. Dismissing sources on their basis of their credibility, and not on the basis of their content, is the problem.
A related problem is that adhering to the prevailing consensus is often a requirement for establishing credibility in a particular field. This leads to a circular argument: articles and research that challenge the prevailing consensus should be dismissed because they are not credible; and they are deemed not credible because they challenge the prevailing consensus.
The reason I'm focusing on the logical fallacy rather than finding additional sources is that any sources which support my position are by definition going to contradict established research, and that's one of your criteria for judging a source credible or not. There isn't really any point in me finding another source if it's just going to be returned unread.
Did you read the David Ramsay Steele article, by the way? Far from being an op-ed, that article attempts to present an objective assessment of Fascism and its origins. I'd like to see you (or The E) attempt to address its points rather than dismissing the article outright.
This is where Canada and the US may differ. In Canada, in addition to the evaluation of the evidence, here's how Crown Prosecutors review the decision to prosecute: http://www.ppsc-sppc.gc.ca/eng/pub/fpsd-sfpg/fps-sfp/tpd/p2/ch03.html In the US, this appears to be the equivalent guidance for federal prosecutions: https://www.justice.gov/usam/usam-9-27000-principles-federal-prosecution
Anecdotally, people like [former federal prosecutor] Ken White (popehat.com) have commented that federal prosecutors don't generally take cases lightly as they have limited resources and proceed with a relative few prosecutions compared to their state counterparts; as such, only cases in which the evidence is clear, the prospect of conviction is good, and the public interest is high end up prosecuted.
Okay, this makes sense.
I'll repeat what I said earlier: You're assuming the premise of your own argument. If Trump's policies do not prompt recession, the syllogism fails.
And you're then doing the opposite. In spite of the not-inconsiderable analysis by reputable economists, you're assuming that Trump's economic promises are going to do exactly what Trump says.
No, although I probably didn't make that clear. I'm not certain that his economic policies will be as successful as he claims. But I have read strong arguments against many of the commonly cited objections to his policies, so I will reserve judgement until they are implemented and we see what the effects are. One such objection - the emphasis on free trade - has been pretty persuasively debunked. I used to be in favor of free trade; I no longer am.
This is an odd statement. You're willing to elect a leader who has flatly questioned the value of the First Amendment protections on the basis that its unlikely he can actually do anything to it? By this argument, people who oppose firearms regulation obviously shouldn't care if a Presidential candidate supports it either. Which is somewhat amusing, considering a regular argument against Clinton is "she's gunna take mah guns!"
The difference here is that there are a number of obstacles one has to surmount before exercising one's Second Amendment rights: passing a background check, possibly obtaining a license depending on the jurisdiction, and then observing the numerous rules and regulations such as not carrying into a post office or into a school zone, etc. It would be easy to further curtail one's Second Amendment rights by passing further rules and regulations, while leaving the amendment itself untouched. There are far fewer restrictions on the First Amendment.
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Yes, and the reason that happened is because over time, certain types of jobs became obsolete and certain types of jobs were invented. But that happens over generations, and usually because old workers retire and new workers take their place. That's a distinctly different phenomenon than a factory worker starting a new career path because his factory moved out of the US.
Not at all. Manufacturing has been shifting out of the US for decades; it has become considerably cheaper (for many reasons) to manufacture a wide variety of goods outside the United States. As I said, the US economy has shifted away from a manufacturing/industrial economy to one heavily based in services and technology. Trump wants to dial back the clock, which is literally impossible.
I lack the time to look up a refutation right now so I'll just let this stand, with a few brief comments -- 1) with trade tariffs, this would not be the case; 2) many things are still manufactured in the US, and in any case diversifying the economy is a good thing; 3) the downside of higher costs will be offset by the upside of higher employment, and a new equilibrium will be reached. Also, there are intangible benefits to bringing manufacturing back into the US that are not included in an economic analysis.
Imposing trade tariffs when you do have to import most of the raw materials would be economic suicide. You make literally everything more expensive, and it would take years for employment - and wages - to catch up. You'd be literally plunging huge proportions of the middle and lower class down to or below the poverty line, because retaliatory tariffs - on those services and technologies - would take your trade deficits and turn them into trade "cement shoes." Even if Trump were elected to two terms (perish the thought), the recovery wouldn't happen in his tenure.
A related problem is that adhering to the prevailing consensus is often a requirement for establishing credibility in a particular field. This leads to a circular argument: articles and research that challenge the prevailing consensus should be dismissed because they are not credible; and they are deemed not credible because they challenge the prevailing consensus.
The reason I'm focusing on the logical fallacy rather than finding additional sources is that any sources which support my position are by definition going to contradict established research, and that's one of your criteria for judging a source credible or not. There isn't really any point in me finding another source if it's just going to be returned unread.
Did you read the David Ramsay Steele article, by the way? Far from being an op-ed, that article attempts to present an objective assessment of Fascism and its origins. I'd like to see you (or The E) attempt to address its points rather than dismissing the article outright.
You're not getting it. There's nothing wrong with positions that go against the grain, when they are backed up with objective research, placed in the proper context, and approached from multiple angles that examine both the strengths of the authors' positions and the factors that weaken them. That's good science (or history, in this case). That's not what your citations do. I actually did read the Steele piece when your first posted it; by about a page in it was abundantly clear that he was cherry-picking facts out of their context to bolster a per-determined political bias, not attempting to present an objective layout of the facts and make an argument from them.
Your entire Fascism = left wing argument is premised fundamentally on the notion that Mussolini/Hitler/Franco called themselves socialists and enacted policies taken from the capital-S Socialist parties, which makes the political movements they led left wing. I - and everyone else - have already repeated multiple times why this isn't the case, despite Steele's biased review:
1. Fascist parties directly adopted the economic policies of the Socialist parties because they were overwhelmingly popular.
2. The Socialist parties, and their policies, were not what would contemporarily be considered left wing. These were popular economic policies that occupied centrist majority positions even at that time (hence why they were enacted in virtually every democratic country). Communism and anarchism were left-wing positions at the time.
3. The Nazi Party in particular adopted the term "National Socialism" as rhetorical sleight-of-hand, again due to the popularity of Socialist parties in 1920s/30s Europe.
4. Fascist parties were socially regressive, clawing back liberties in virtually all aspects of society that were previously unquestioned and took, in some cases, nearly 60 years to recover. Germany in particular had a lax attitude toward homosexuality pre-mid-1920s; the Nazi Party changed all of that.
The Nazi Party declaring itself socialist in the 1930s is pretty much the same as China calling itself Communist today: neither bore/bears any resemblance to the actual thing it is naming itself after, but its politically convenient.
No, although I probably didn't make that clear. I'm not certain that his economic policies will be as successful as he claims. But I have read strong arguments against many of the commonly cited objections to his policies, so I will reserve judgement until they are implemented and we see what the effects are. One such objection - the emphasis on free trade - has been pretty persuasively debunked. I used to be in favor of free trade; I no longer am.
So you'll trust the businessman who's gone into bankruptcy, doesn't pay his bills, regularly bald-faced lies in his speeches, and who is uniformly condemned by every current living former US President to experiment because something something.
The difference here is that there are a number of obstacles one has to surmount before exercising one's Second Amendment rights: passing a background check, possibly obtaining a license depending on the jurisdiction, and then observing the numerous rules and regulations such as not carrying into a post office or into a school zone, etc. It would be easy to further curtail one's Second Amendment rights by passing further rules and regulations, while leaving the amendment itself untouched. There are far fewer restrictions on the First Amendment.
There is a list of exceptions to the First Amendment carved out by the US Supreme Court. Trump would have a supreme court appointment. Peter Thiel, who just used untold millions to sue Gawker into oblivion has recently been saying Trump is willing to put him into the USSC. Now, whether that happens or not, I would think anyone who values constitutionally protected rights would have extreme concerns about a potential President who has publicly mused on several occasions now (including yesterday) about lawsuits to shut down free speech and tinkering with laws that affect free speech. The First Amendment protects all the rest, and now you have a Presidential candidate who has repeatedly and publicly said he either wants to abuse it or potentially change it, and actually has a mechanism to potentially make that happen.
You know what... ignore the responses above. Seriously, you're entrenched in your positions in spite of the facts, and I don't see any real need to belabour the point unless everyone is really that bored.
It comes down to this. Teflon where certain facts are concerned you may be, but you don't strike me as a stupid person, nor one ordinarily willing to be fed a line and swallow it whole, but you appear to have some massive blinders on where Trump is concerned. I will freely and readily grant that Clinton is not an ideal alternative; as a candidate she definitely has problems with transparency and has made some questionable choices. However, that is a far cry from the constant, repeated bloviating and lying from Trump who is flatly unqualified and unfit to serve as the President of the United States. For the love of all that's holy, no one can even be certain of his personal wealth claims or connections because the man won't do what every candidate has done since Nixon and release his tax returns. And how on Earth do you think he's going to build a wall on the southern border short of funnelling billions of federal dollars into it and leaving taxpayers on the hook? I am generally curious. In fact, this paragraph is what I want answered more than any of the others. I don't care if you're wrong on the minutae, I really want SOMEONE to explain to me how Trump appears to be a fit person for the Presidency to anyone with more than one firing neuron in their skull.
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you don't strike me as a stupid person, nor one ordinarily willing to be fed a line and swallow it whole
he literally thinks god made the world 6000 years ago
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For the love of all that's holy, no one can even be certain of his personal wealth claims or connections because the man won't do what every candidate has done since Nixon and release his tax returns.
There's a reason for that actually. Trump not only might be exaggerating his claims of personal wealth but once adjusted for inflation, might be worth less than his father was. And any claims that he's a great businessman go out the window if he can be proven to have actually lost money.
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I've seen multiple financial types state that they're just about certain Trump would be worth far more than he is today if he had simply prudently invested his inheritance.
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This whole argument about the alignment of the Nazi Party is silly. It was a Third Position movement, perpendicular to the traditional Conservative/Liberal spectrum and opposite the modern Third Way.
For the love of all that's holy, no one can even be certain of his personal wealth claims or connections because the man won't do what every candidate has done since Nixon and release his tax returns.
There's a reason for that actually. Trump not only might be exaggerating his claims of personal wealth but once adjusted for inflation, might be worth less than his father was. And any claims that he's a great businessman go out the window if he can be proven to have actually lost money.
Or he's just waiting until late in the race to release so that his opposition keeps wasting resources attacking him over it and not other things. If nothing else, Trump is great at playing the media.
I've seen multiple financial types state that they're just about certain Trump would be worth far more than he is today if he had simply prudently invested his inheritance.
Hindsight is 20/20. Most people would be worth far more if they had just done x.
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The thing is that Trump is supposed to be good at ~money~ but is demonstrably ****ing terrible with it.
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For the love of all that's holy, no one can even be certain of his personal wealth claims or connections because the man won't do what every candidate has done since Nixon and release his tax returns.
There's a reason for that actually. Trump not only might be exaggerating his claims of personal wealth but once adjusted for inflation, might be worth less than his father was. And any claims that he's a great businessman go out the window if he can be proven to have actually lost money.
I'm aware. It's pretty telling that the only thing he vetoed at his Comedy Central roast was not jokes about inappropriate relations between him and his daughter, but rather anything saying he's not worth as much as he claims. He also ****ing loses it whenever opponents suggest he's not worth a lot or isn't that successful. It is pretty striking how insecure the man is about his supposed fortune.
Add that to his son's statement that they are heavily financially committed in Russia and you really start to wonder.
And while I'm driving the Dump Trump Truck here, have any of you read transcripts of his speeches or interviews? The man actually says nothing. He makes a facile claim, then repeats himself over and over emphatically, cutting off each sentence so he'll talk lengthily about nothing but emphatsis-adding phrasing. It obviously works for his base, but any shred of critical eye applied to his speeches makes you wonder how anyone has any respect for that over-inflated orange.
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You're not getting it. There's nothing wrong with positions that go against the grain, when they are backed up with objective research, placed in the proper context, and approached from multiple angles that examine both the strengths of the authors' positions and the factors that weaken them. That's good science (or history, in this case). That's not what your citations do. I actually did read the Steele piece when your first posted it; by about a page in it was abundantly clear that he was cherry-picking facts out of their context to bolster a per-determined political bias, not attempting to present an objective layout of the facts and make an argument from them.
And yet, David Ramsay Steele was a member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, so he knows whereof he speaks. The correct way to dispute an article is to point out exactly which facts or contexts you disagree with, not to call the author "biased" and deem that a sufficient dismissal.
The reaction you describe is consistent with the cognitive bias of rejecting new information that challenges conclusions you've previously drawn. I seriously doubt that you read much more than the "about a page" you described, because Steele does explicate the prevailing view of Fascism before going on to compare it with its actual historical development.
Your entire Fascism = left wing argument is premised fundamentally on the notion that Mussolini/Hitler/Franco called themselves socialists and enacted policies taken from the capital-S Socialist parties, which makes the political movements they led left wing. I - and everyone else - have already repeated multiple times why this isn't the case, despite Steele's biased review:
1. Fascist parties directly adopted the economic policies of the Socialist parties because they were overwhelmingly popular.
2. The Socialist parties, and their policies, were not what would contemporarily be considered left wing. These were popular economic policies that occupied centrist majority positions even at that time (hence why they were enacted in virtually every democratic country). Communism and anarchism were left-wing positions at the time.
3. The Nazi Party in particular adopted the term "National Socialism" as rhetorical sleight-of-hand, again due to the popularity of Socialist parties in 1920s/30s Europe.
4. Fascist parties were socially regressive, clawing back liberties in virtually all aspects of society that were previously unquestioned and took, in some cases, nearly 60 years to recover. Germany in particular had a lax attitude toward homosexuality pre-mid-1920s; the Nazi Party changed all of that.
The Nazi Party declaring itself socialist in the 1930s is pretty much the same as China calling itself Communist today: neither bore/bears any resemblance to the actual thing it is naming itself after, but its politically convenient.
Actually, anarchy is extreme right-wing, because it is individualism taken to its greatest possible extent. And sure, Communism is to the left of Socialism, but it's about the only thing that is. And, further, the social political axis is different from the economic political axis.
Ah, well. You've conceded that the Fascists adopted the economic policies of the Socialists, and The E has conceded that the Fascists were collectivists, so that's sufficient for me, as I too weary of belaboring the point. I leave the categorization of Socialism on the left-right spectrum as an exercise for the reader.
So you'll trust the businessman who's gone into bankruptcy, doesn't pay his bills, regularly bald-faced lies in his speeches, and who is uniformly condemned by every current living former US President to experiment because something something.
Over the career politician who was extremely careless in handling classified information, exhibits no regrets or moral struggles with defending a pedophile on a technicality, accepts money from foreign governments, accepts money in pay-to-play arrangements, and has been associated with dozens of people who died under mysterious circumstances? Yes.
You know what... ignore the responses above. Seriously, you're entrenched in your positions in spite of the facts, and I don't see any real need to belabour the point unless everyone is really that bored.
It comes down to this. Teflon where certain facts are concerned you may be, but you don't strike me as a stupid person, nor one ordinarily willing to be fed a line and swallow it whole, but you appear to have some massive blinders on where Trump is concerned.
That may be. I appreciate any and all feedback offered in good faith, and you've certainly argued in good faith, susceptibility to certain fallacies notwithstanding.
I will freely and readily grant that Clinton is not an ideal alternative; as a candidate she definitely has problems with transparency and has made some questionable choices. However, that is a far cry from the constant, repeated bloviating and lying from Trump who is flatly unqualified and unfit to serve as the President of the United States. For the love of all that's holy, no one can even be certain of his personal wealth claims or connections because the man won't do what every candidate has done since Nixon and release his tax returns. And how on Earth do you think he's going to build a wall on the southern border short of funnelling billions of federal dollars into it and leaving taxpayers on the hook? I am generally curious. In fact, this paragraph is what I want answered more than any of the others. I don't care if you're wrong on the minutae, I really want SOMEONE to explain to me how Trump appears to be a fit person for the Presidency to anyone with more than one firing neuron in their skull.
In a nutshell, the reasons I cited a few paragraphs above.
The fact is that either Trump or Hillary is going to be elected President this year. Trump is not my ideal candidate, but the country is in pretty bad shape. Trump represents the guy who wants to fix things and Hillary represents the status quo. In addition, Trump's flaws primarily take the form of acting like a bully, saying something mean, or being cavalier with facts (e.g. overinflating his reputation). Hillary's flaws take the form of lies and alleged criminal behavior. Notably, she seems to always get off scot-free from scandals that would ruin any other politician. One of the DNC representatives said in a media interview, "There's lots of smoke, but no fire." Well, perhaps we haven't actually found the fire yet, but it sure seems like one is there. The Clintons have a history of shady behavior going all the way back to their law firm; it's like a real-life House of Cards.
he literally thinks god made the world 6000 years ago
You're a) completely off-topic, b) comparing two positions that could not possibly affect one another, and c) not even correct.
The thing is that Trump is supposed to be good at ~money~ but is demonstrably ****ing terrible with it.
He pulled out of Atlantic City right before it took a downturn. Whether that was due to good timing or simply luck, it was the right call.
Add that to his son's statement that they are heavily financially committed in Russia and you really start to wonder.
Do you have a source for this?
The man actually says nothing. He makes a facile claim, then repeats himself over and over emphatically, cutting off each sentence so he'll talk lengthily about nothing but emphatsis-adding phrasing. It obviously works for his base, but any shred of critical eye applied to his speeches makes you wonder how anyone has any respect for that over-inflated orange.
Political rallies are about gathering support, not for going over the minutae of proposals. Nobody wants to be bored, they want to be excited. As I said earlier, detailed policy positions are on his website for anyone who wants to read them.
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Trump is not my ideal candidate, but the country is in pretty bad shape.
I've seen this sentiment come up so much, and obviously Trump has it emblazoned on his ridiculous dollar-store trucker hat, but in what objective sense is it actually true? By just about any relevant measure the United States has experienced a swifter economic recovery since the Great Recession than pretty much any other developed economy. It's not exactly booming, but every metric from the unemployment rate to the housing market to consumer confidence has shown pretty sustained improvement over the past several years. Yes, there are parts of the country where the economic recovery never truly took off, primarily rural areas, but by and large we're on an upswing. To tear a page from Trump's playbook, deportation of illegal immigrants has actually increased over the past several years (individual mileage may vary on how much of an "improvement" it is.) Entire groups of people have been granted rights they've been denied since the start of our country, gas prices have stayed fairly low, yeah our roads and bridges still suck but they've sucked for decades no matter who was in charge...just where are you seeing any of Trump's dire warnings actually holding sway?
The thing is, I really can't read "make America great again" any other way than as a massive dog-whistle for "make America like it was several decades ago, when it was great for people like me but really ****ty for a lot of other people, oh and the economic reality back then doesn't even remotely mesh with the current global market." It's well past time we stopped glorifying the 50's and started to live in the 21st century.
Political rallies are about gathering support, not for going over the minutae of proposals. Nobody wants to be bored, they want to be excited. As I said earlier, detailed policy positions are on his website for anyone who wants to read them.
This seems a very dangerous line of thinking. So a candidate's public presence should be all fluff and no substance? Are our collective attention spans really that pathetically low today? And you're really putting that much stock into some website fluff most certainly created by some campaign adviser (if not an intern), one laying out positions that Trump himself has shown absolutely no ability to stay consistent on even in the medium-term?
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The quick and dirty response on Trump's Russian ties and the statements of his son: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/07/27/trumps-claim-that-i-have-nothing-to-do-with-russia/
On Trump policies, here's his "economic policy."
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/economic-vision
Except that's not a policy. That's rhetoric. Fluff. Lower taxes for everyone? By how much? How's that being paid for? Considering the proportion of people who pay federal tax, who will that benefit? Renovate NAFTA? How? When? How will it be made better? Not to mention some of it makes no grammatical sense. There are several random statements - "Economic output by $700 billion annually over next 30 years" under Energy Reform, for example - that simply have no context and are apparently random promises with no supporting information.
Trump's policies aren't policies; they're wishful thinking that he promises to bring about because he's the best, a winner, a best winner, a - you know, he's got all the best people and policies, lots of people say that and he wins, all the time, they say that too and he's definitely going to, well, he'll win for America and make America winners because he's the best winner.
See, I could totally write Trump speeches. THE BEST. WINNER! LOTS OF PEOPLE!
I'll respond to a bunch more tomorrow.
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And Hillary has no ties to Russia at all, (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html) right?
Trump is not my ideal candidate, but the country is in pretty bad shape.
I've seen this sentiment come up so much, and obviously Trump has it emblazoned on his ridiculous dollar-store trucker hat, but in what objective sense is it actually true? By just about any relevant measure the United States has experienced a swifter economic recovery since the Great Recession than pretty much any other developed economy. It's not exactly booming, but every metric from the unemployment rate to the housing market to consumer confidence has shown pretty sustained improvement over the past several years. Yes, there are parts of the country where the economic recovery never truly took off, primarily rural areas, but by and large we're on an upswing. To tear a page from Trump's playbook, deportation of illegal immigrants has actually increased over the past several years (individual mileage may vary on how much of an "improvement" it is.) Entire groups of people have been granted rights they've been denied since the start of our country, gas prices have stayed fairly low, yeah our roads and bridges still suck but they've sucked for decades no matter who was in charge...just where are you seeing any of Trump's dire warnings actually holding sway?
The thing is, I really can't read "make America great again" any other way than as a massive dog-whistle for "make America like it was several decades ago, when it was great for people like me but really ****ty for a lot of other people, oh and the economic reality back then doesn't even remotely mesh with the current global market." It's well past time we stopped glorifying the 50's and started to live in the 21st century.
Political rallies are about gathering support, not for going over the minutae of proposals. Nobody wants to be bored, they want to be excited. As I said earlier, detailed policy positions are on his website for anyone who wants to read them.
This seems a very dangerous line of thinking. So a candidate's public presence should be all fluff and no substance? Are our collective attention spans really that pathetically low today? And you're really putting that much stock into some website fluff most certainly created by some campaign adviser (if not an intern), one laying out positions that Trump himself has shown absolutely no ability to stay consistent on even in the medium-term?
Disappearance of the middle class, loss of manufacturing and skilled labor, inability to protect state and industrial secrets, corruption of both the political and legal systems, catastrophic failure of foreign policy, endangerment of free speech. There are plenty of economists predicting another economic crash in the next two years. Racial discrimination and social tension is the worst it's been since the 1960s.
When Trump actually follows a prepared script he's perfectly eloquent and the transcript is released with (https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/DJT_Acceptance_Speech.pdf) citations (https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/DJT_Radical_Islam_Speech.pdf). He's mostly unscripted at rallies, which is why he tends to talk in circles. It makes him come across as more accessible and genuine than Hillary's focus-group-approved, 200-plus-days-without-an-unscripted-event disasters.
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I freely acknowledged that Nazi Germany was fascist in response to your previous argument. But it was also socialist -- the two are not mutually exclusive. I don't see how calling it socialist is "simply wrong" unless you have another "characteristic feature of socialism" in mind.
I mean, this argument is very straightforward:
A) "The characteristic feature of socialism is not equality of income but the all-round control of business activities by the government, the government's exclusive power to use all means of production."
B) Nazi Germany demonstrated this feature.
C) Therefore, Nazi Germany can be correctly characterized as socialist.
Except that's wrong. Socialism, as it was understood at the time, was about putting the means of production into the hands of the proletariat, not the government. The nationalization of businesses is an explicitly nationalist move, not a socialist one.
But the economic axis is different from the social axis. It's possible to be economically socialist while socially conservative. And it's possible to be economically laissez-faire while socially liberal.
The aspects of the Trump movement you cited are interesting comparisons, but they are tactics, not ideals or positions. The positions (https://www.donaldjtrump.com/POSITIONS) are outlined on Trump's website.
I don't know that there's a real difference between the positions of the NSDAP and Trump's. Sure, he's not as big on importing communist positions as the NSDAP was (because you americans, and especially the sort of americans Trump hopes to attract, are absolutely allergic to those unless they come prepackaged with more palatable memes), but his emphasis on turning the US into a more autark, self-sufficient state, the constant blaming of social and economic illnesses on either bad policies executed by those above or immigrants from below, him building his image as the one strong man who can cure all these ills? Those are straight out of the fascist playbook. That he's also not really big on things like freedom of speech or freedom of religion just adds more icing to the nazi cake.
Very well. So then, what is your conclusion - that because only a few of those Fascist Manifesto planks were implemented, that Mussolini didn't really intend to follow it? Or that the Fascists didn't really believe what they wrote?
I am not as well-read on Mussolini as I am on the NSDAP (for fairly obvious reasons), and it's pretty clear that the NSDAP party program was never taken seriously. Gregor Strasser, the person responsible for the socialist policies in the NSDAP program (and who, by all accounts, took the "socialist" part of the NSDAP fairly seriously), was removed from power within the party by 1926 at the Bamberg Conference, and while Hitler declared the program to be immutable there, he changed it in 1928 to say that "despite the lies of our opponents, the NSDAP believes in the foundation of private ownership". Strasser himself was killed during the purges of 1934.
I'm not surprised the majority of historians take the opposite view, as it has been the prevailing consensus for around 70 years. But just because a majority holds a certain view doesn't necessarily make it correct. Most historians once believed that the city of Troy was mythological.
Except that, unlike Troy, we have plenty of surviving evidence and documentation about the second World War and fascists.
Also, this is weird: Trump is campaigning on a platform based around being someone not beholden to the political elites. He has positioned himself as someone who is "not a politician", as someone who is strong enough to break up the lock those same elites have on US politics. He's also making statements that are not reconcilable with a traditional interpretation of the constitution, and yet, you believe these statements won't matter because the elites he is campaigning against and that he says he will beat won't let them pass into law?
No, because it would require a tremendous amount of political capital for a trivial amount of gain. Trump is a dealmaker. He wouldn't take that deal.
Again, are you really, absolutely certain of this? Trump has a history of sticking his nose outside of his core business and getting it bloodied in return; his dealmaking skills (such as they are) do not seem to extend to realms outside of the real estate business.
Actually, anarchy is extreme right-wing, because it is individualism taken to its greatest possible extent.
It's also communism taken to its greatest possible extent. It's the end goal of Marxist communism.
Over the career politician who was extremely careless in handling classified information, exhibits no regrets or moral struggles with defending a pedophile on a technicality, accepts money from foreign governments, accepts money in pay-to-play arrangements, and has been associated with dozens of people who died under mysterious circumstances? Yes.
Hang on. You're one of the people who believe in the Clinton death toll? The list of people vaguely connected to the Clintons who have all died under mysteeeeriiooooous circumstances?
You know, this list? (http://www.snopes.com/politics/clintons/bodycount.asp)
I'm sorry, but if I am going to be hard on Bryan See for rambling on and on about immortal russians, I'm going to be hard on you for jumping off into conspiracy land too, so either prove that snopes got its facts wrong, or accept that you're talking bull****.
And for the record, any "Snopes is part of it" idiocy will not be tolerated.
The thing is that Trump is supposed to be good at ~money~ but is demonstrably ****ing terrible with it.
He pulled out of Atlantic City right before it took a downturn. Whether that was due to good timing or simply luck, it was the right call.
Paris Hilton is a better businesswoman than he is. She built a brand using less starting capital that is worth more than Trump's was at the same point in his career. Investing in a very conservatively run hedge fund would have yielded a higher return than investing money in Trump.
And above all, all you know about Trump's business acumen is what he tells you about it. He has structured his businesses in such an opaque way that it is almost impossible to gather accurate information about it; he also refuses to release any clarifying information and lies about the reasons behind it.
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Political rallies are about gathering support, not for going over the minutae of proposals. Nobody wants to be bored, they want to be excited. As I said earlier, detailed policy positions are on his website for anyone who wants to read them.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Csq2mJMWAAAyxqR.jpg:large)
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before going on to compare it with its actual historical development.
But he doesn't. He's using a modern barometer and no context. Steele's piece is not a good review no matter how much you may want it to be. And the fact that he has/had membership in a modern Socialist party means precisely nothing.
Actually, anarchy is extreme right-wing, because it is individualism taken to its greatest possible extent.
This is the problem with comparing political positions to your modern understanding of the political left-right as its defined in the US. In 1900s-40s, anarchism opposed traditionalist forces (which were at the time associated with what we would consider the political right today), and encompassed a number of what would be considered politically left today - most prominent among them the opposition to war. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand that kicked off the events leading to the First World War was carried out by people inspired by Young Bosnia, a movement heavily influence by their views of anarchism as opposing both war and the large empires. Anarchism in that period was and is considered an extreme radical left-wing ideology, and indeed, in Communist theory the ultimate evolution of the state can be considered akin to anarchism as it leads to complete abolishment of the state as a concept. Daniel Guérin, a political author who lived through this period and was a notable figure in anarchist circles, has this to say on the subject: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/daniel-guerin-anarchism-from-theory-to-practice#toc2
This is what I have been saying this entire thread - your entire concept of left-right is defined by what you know in the United States today. It does not apply outside the modern United States, and the more you try to make it so the more you make it clear that you have not studied early 20th century history, either of politics or in war. I'm not really interested in debating the finer points of the political alignment of anarchism in addition to the rather pointless discussion on fascism; the key takeaway is that you are either missing or ignoring large swaths of contextual history by applying a limited understanding of the political spectrum shaped by modern American history.
I leave the categorization of Socialism on the left-right spectrum as an exercise for the reader.
Since that's the closest you're going to come to admitting you're incorrect in the face of history (even if it appears to be a Freudian slip), I'll take it.
My final word on the subject, since you did much the same, is this:
Early-mid 20th century politics was not defined by the modern American (or even more global left-right), but by various 'isms.' Traditionalism, monarchism, constitutionalism, anarchism, Communism, Fascism, Socialism, nationalism. Each was not so much defined by economics as three fundamental premises: the role and rights of the individual, and the role and rights of the state, and the manner in which one should govern the other. Each 'ism' can be plotted relative to the others based on these three positions. Trying to fit any of this in a modern left-right interpretation - which is frankly oversimplistic and wrong concerning even the modern politics in which it has come to define - is an exercise in futility, and leads to conclusions that stand directly in opposition to the manner in which historical events unfolded and are documented. It strips history of its context, and without context history is nothing more than a series of sequential verifiable facts with no connecting meaning.
Over the career politician who was extremely careless in handling classified information, exhibits no regrets or moral struggles with defending a pedophile on a technicality, accepts money from foreign governments, accepts money in pay-to-play arrangements, and has been associated with dozens of people who died under mysterious circumstances? Yes.
Someone else also tackled the conspiracrazy in that statement so I won't; for someone who claims to align with the US political right you appear to have a strange view of the role of due process and defense in the legal system; the Clinton Foundation is separate from Hillary Clinton (not to mention at least we can see its finances, Trump's remain completely opaque); and her carelessness appears to be about the same as that of Colin Powell (which doesn't excuse it, but rather indicates this is a systemic problem).
In addition, Trump's flaws primarily take the form of acting like a bully, saying something mean, or being cavalier with facts (e.g. overinflating his reputation).
All wonderful qualities in a potential President. Have you noticed that ALL of the current living former US president oppose Trump as patently unfit to hold the office? ALL of them. This is a group of people that you can't expect to agree on much.
He pulled out of Atlantic City right before it took a downturn. Whether that was due to good timing or simply luck, it was the right call.
You really need to read that NewsWeek piece. Trump BANKRUPTED himself out of Atlantic City; he drove two successful casinos into the ground by opening a third, further destroyed his finances by entering a business he knew nothing about as a side venture to promote his casinos (airlines), and ended up about $3.2 billion dollars in debt. When he stepped away as the companies filed for bankruptcy, he left unpaid employees, contractors, and ancillary businesses in his wake. Trump is defined by one thing: looking out for and promoting Donald Trump. Trump took a solid financial position left to him by his father and destroyed it. His bounceback, if we can call it that, came by virtue of the fact that all he basically sells now is his name, and if most people bothered to learn about his atrocious business skills, that wouldn't be worth a damn thing either. The one thing he does well is self-promotion and obfuscation of critical information on him.
Political rallies are about gathering support, not for going over the minutae of proposals. Nobody wants to be bored, they want to be excited. As I said earlier, detailed policy positions are on his website for anyone who wants to read them.
I love The E's response to this and I've nothing to add. EDIT: I lied. I have this to add: http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21707201-how-donald-trump-ushered-hateful-fringe-movement-mainstream-pepe-and?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/ed/pepeandthestormtroopers
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When Trump actually follows a prepared script he's perfectly eloquent and the transcript is released with (https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/DJT_Acceptance_Speech.pdf) citations (https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/DJT_Radical_Islam_Speech.pdf). He's mostly unscripted at rallies, which is why he tends to talk in circles. It makes him come across as more accessible and genuine
The fact that he can string six words into a coherent sentence when he reads a prepared speech is not actually impressive.
Moreover, he still has a serious problem telling the truth for any length of time. The most recent example, which I have lazily appropriated from my twitter feed this morning: https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/777540670395392004
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The fact that he can string six words into a coherent sentence when he reads a prepared speech is not actually impressive.
How quickly you forget W.
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The fact that he can string six words into a coherent sentence when he reads a prepared speech is not actually impressive.
How quickly you forget W.
I'd happily see W get the term restrictions repealed and go back in office for another 8 years if it would keep Trump from attaining office. Besides, I kind of miss his terrible public speaking. At least there was some policy in his speeches.
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You know, MP-Ryan, for someone who spends so much time and energy on this topic, wouldn't it be better if you would publicly try to debate this with people like Stefan Molyneux (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vsbr8QMPLWY)? It'd be very interesting to see you debate and discuss this in an open forum like with him with a wider audience.
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Isn't it amazing the sort of things you find yourself saying these days? You ever think you would die fighting side by side with the Koch brothers?
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You know, MP-Ryan, for someone who spends so much time and energy on this topic, wouldn't it be better if you would publicly try to debate this with people like Stefan Molyneux (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vsbr8QMPLWY)? It'd be very interesting to see you debate and discuss this in an open forum like with him with a wider audience.
Oh hell no. Wait, that wasn't quite emphatic enough.
HELLS TO THE NUHUH NO WAY NOT INTERESTED
For one, I have a burning hatred of lengthy-op-ed-via-Youtube and won't watch them. For two, I don't publicly debate politics for employment/family reasons. Lastly, for three, I will have no part in giving credence to conspiracy/alt-right garbage by "debating" it.
As an aside, public debate these days is of limited value. In the age of the Internet, most people's minds are made up, particulary in the fringes, so there's little value in a debate between someone like Molyneux and a centrist with an evidence-based wonkish bent.
Isn't it amazing the sort of things you find yourself saying these days? You ever think you would die fighting side by side with the Koch brothers?
Better the evil we know, etc.
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I don't think public debate was ever of any value.
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Well, it was worth a try.
If two opposites/opponents can't honestly debate/talk it out though, is there any alternative but war between the two, the type where truth is the first casualty?
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and... and .. I, I have to put this somewhere and I don't think it deserves it's own thread, I am litterally wiping away tears of laughter, what is this mad world, I don't even, what?
https://www.rawstory.com/2016/09/jill-stein-insists-trump-is-less-dangerous-than-clinton-and-attacks-bernie-sanders-as-a-dc-insider/
I might be a little broken right now, sorrywhatthe ****?
TL;DR he's incompetent so won't be able to hurt anything too bad whereas Clinton has the skills and connections to do some actual damage.
Which is a reasonable enough position, but to come out and publicly basically side with Trump as the left of the Left Party, I don't even know what can possibly come next.
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Well, we knew that Hillary was the actual conservative candidate this election.
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And now he's getting pissed off about people being allowed their 5th amendment right to a lawyer (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37414245). It looks like there are no rights this guy gives a **** about as long as it gets him attention and votes.
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I see in that article him complaining that he'll be given medical treatment, not that he'll get a lawyer.
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There are articles elsewhere (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-bombing-suspect-medical-care_us_57e051fee4b08cb140977816) that cite his statements:
“Now we will give him amazing hospitalization. He will be taken care of by some of the best doctors in the world,” Trump told the crowd at a rally in Fort Myers, Florida.
Rahami “will be given a fully modern and updated hospital room, and he’ll probably even have room service, knowing the way our country is,” Trump said. “On top of that, he will be represented by an outstanding lawyer.”
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Who are the pagans that invented that bull****!?
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I've got to love the irony of Trump Jr. being attacked in the media (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/20/donald-trump-jnr-compares-refugees-poisoned-skittles-twitter-reacted) for a post on Twitter comparing refugees with Skittles, when the meme started with feminists comparing men with M&Ms (https://twitter.com/RowanLake99/status/471715156612091904).
But remember, #notallmen #notallrefugees, totally different guys.
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Well, it's not hypocrisy when we do it.
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Okay, sure, I can see why you're coming from. Just because you disagree with feminists talking about M&Ms doesn't mean you have to support Trump, for god's sake.
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Where have I supported Trump?
Do I have to put a disclaimer that I consider Trump the worst candidate every time I point out hypocrisy in the media's reaction regarding something Trump or his campaign said?
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Meh, the Skittles analogy is terrible regardless of hypocrisy anyway. Immigrants and refugees on the whole have far lower crime rates than the general population; introducing them into a population actually lowers the crime rate.... or in that analogy, you might have 3 poisoned skittles in your pot of 100, but you also have 900 poisoned skittles in your pot of 10 000. 903 poisoned in a pot of 10 100 is a lower rate than existed before they were introduced. (*Note: This is not set with values for actual crime stats).
Re: the medial care, lawyer, etc - Trump's full statement essentially railed against due process rights for citizens accused of terrorism offences if they weren't born in the US. http://www.npr.org/2016/09/19/494633030/trump-calls-it-sad-that-n-y-bombing-suspect-gets-medical-care-lawyer Which is... dun dun dun.... unconstitutional.
Re: Jill Stein. She's a hilarious nutbar whose Kryptonite is apparently Wifi. Or GMOs. Or vaccines. Or, apparently science generally. Does anyone take her seriously?
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Meh, the Skittles analogy is terrible regardless of hypocrisy anyway. Immigrants and refugees on the whole have far lower crime rates than the general population; introducing them into a population actually lowers the crime rate.... or in that analogy, you might have 3 poisoned skittles in your pot of 100, but you also have 900 poisoned skittles in your pot of 10 000. 903 poisoned in a pot of 10 100 is a lower rate than existed before they were introduced. (*Note: This is not set with values for actual crime stats).
The analogy is horrible because you can stereotype an entire group of people, either they be men or refugees, to justify anything you want.
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I saw a good reversal on twitter earlier that applied the argument to guns and gun owners too, which I found amusing, considering Trump's current base.
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So while we're talking about things like illegality and charitable foundations and taxes, turns out Trump appears to have illegally used large sums of money from his charitable foundation to settle lawsuits and pay bills. Oh, and make a disallowed political donation to the Florida AG who was thinking about investigating him. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-used-258000-from-his-charity-to-settle-legal-problems/2016/09/20/adc88f9c-7d11-11e6-ac8e-cf8e0dd91dc7_story.html?tid=pm_pop_b) Now, none of this makes any comment on the Clinton Foundation. But there is yet one more funny little detail: no Clinton family member presides over the Clinton Foundation. Donald J. Trump is still the President of his foundation and works on it about half an hour per week.
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Bill and Hillary are both CF board members.
How about human rights activist Bernard Sansaricq speaking about how Bill Clinton tried to bribe him when he was President of the Senate in Haiti in 1994 prior to the US-led invasion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0CQK1sKv8Y), and the continuing shady dealings of Hillary and the CF there? (http://www.wsj.com/articles/more-clinton-shenanigans-in-haiti-1474235175) How about the massive money-laundering machine funding much of Hillary's campaign? (http://www.thecitizensaudit.com/2016/09/19/money-laundering-david-brock/)
Trump's charity mishandling is troubling, but it doesn't make his opponent any better.
I saw a good reversal on twitter earlier that applied the argument to guns and gun owners too, which I found amusing, considering Trump's current base.
Gun ownership seems more like the fluoride that prevents the water supply from being contaminated by microorganisms, but that's a topic for another day.
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i-it's chlorine that does that, fluoride is for your teeth.
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I stand corrected.
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Trump's charity mishandling is troubling, but it doesn't make his opponent any better.
It's a good thing no one claimed it did, then, isn't it?
And as you say, the gun issue is a topic for another day. This thread has enough inane content as it is.
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Here's the open letter on NotWhoWeAre.us, it denounces (https://act.notwhoweare.us/petitions/space-science-and-tech-geeks-say-donald-trump-is-not-who-we-are) Trump's critical remarks on the US science and technology sectors.
It is noted that his stance against science and technology seems to be on the line with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he admires. Thus, both Trump and Putin are technophobes or cyberphobes.
For example, he called computers and the Internet we always use as a "mixed bag" thinks people should wean themselves off the internet and computers, becoming cyberphobic and anti-tech that will prevent humanity from achieving milestones. How dare he! I wish I hope that Elon Musk will finish the Mars Colonial Transporter mission sooner for us to escape from being mercy at Trump's tech-hating mobs.
And there's the alt-right, who is supporting Trump and is said to be a largely online movement with Internet memes widely used to advance or express its beliefs. Pepe is the icon of white-supremacist, and Donald Trump Jr. used white supremacist/neo-Nazi tweets.
Remember, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are no Ronald Reagan nor Mikhail Gorbachev. They are more like the evil-twisted John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, or both Adolf Hitlers on both sides of the Cold War.
And lastly, you might want to read Reagan's 1976 impromptu speech (http://www.nationalcenter.org/ReaganConvention1976.html), which warned us about Trump and other dangers.
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-snip-
This is the literal manifestation of "Not. Helping."
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I saw a good reversal on twitter earlier that applied the argument to guns and gun owners too, which I found amusing, considering Trump's current base.
Speaking of guns....
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cs9GhI8WEAE2Pxo.jpg:large)
But remember, it's very clearly Clinton who is evil because she wants to take people's guns away. Trump just wants to take guns away from bad people, so that's okay; after all, the police is known to be absolutely fair when dealing with suspects, especially non-white ones.
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That's not the evilest thing he's said, but I think it might be the stupidest.
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And there's the alt-right, who is supporting Trump and is said to be a largely online movement with Internet memes widely used to advance or express its beliefs. Pepe is the icon of white-supremacist, and Donald Trump Jr. used white supremacist/neo-Nazi tweets.
It's getting really tiring seeing this info over and over again.
Pepe is a freaking cartoon frog from Boy's Club. If Pepe is an icon of white-supremacists then the American flag is the icon of the KKK by the same token logic.
As for white supremacist/neo-Nazi tweets:
I've got to love the irony of Trump Jr. being attacked in the media (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/20/donald-trump-jnr-compares-refugees-poisoned-skittles-twitter-reacted) for a post on Twitter comparing refugees with Skittles, when the meme started with feminists comparing men with M&Ms (https://twitter.com/RowanLake99/status/471715156612091904).
But remember, #notallmen #notallrefugees, totally different guys.
At this point I have to ask, is Bryan See a bot/troll?
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And there's the alt-right, who is supporting Trump and is said to be a largely online movement with Internet memes widely used to advance or express its beliefs. Pepe is the icon of white-supremacist, and Donald Trump Jr. used white supremacist/neo-Nazi tweets.
It's getting really tiring seeing this info over and over again.
Pepe is a freaking cartoon frog from Boy's Club. If Pepe is an icon of white-supremacists then the American flag is the icon of the KKK by the same token logic.
And the swastika is just a hindu religious symbol.
See, you're right, Pepe by itself is just a character from a cartoon. But as it happens, the alt-right use him in a very coherent way; they are, at this point in time, the only organized group using him. He is no longer just a character (just as the swastika is no longer an innocuous religious symbol) and while I suspect he won't get as infamous as the swastika, it is certainly accurate to refer to Pepe as an alt-right icon at this point.
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And there's the alt-right, who is supporting Trump and is said to be a largely online movement with Internet memes widely used to advance or express its beliefs. Pepe is the icon of white-supremacist, and Donald Trump Jr. used white supremacist/neo-Nazi tweets.
It's getting really tiring seeing this info over and over again.
Pepe is a freaking cartoon frog from Boy's Club. If Pepe is an icon of white-supremacists then the American flag is the icon of the KKK by the same token logic.
And the swastika is just a hindu religious symbol.
See, you're right, Pepe by itself is just a character from a cartoon. But as it happens, the alt-right use him in a very coherent way; they are, at this point in time, the only organized group using him. He is no longer just a character (just as the swastika is no longer an innocuous religious symbol) and while I suspect he won't get as infamous as the swastika, it is certainly accurate to refer to Pepe as an alt-right icon at this point.
Pepe is used by the entire internet, the only thing that links it to the alt-right with greater relevance is the insistence of the media.
But if you really want to go that way, we can also call Animal right's legislation and certain worker's rights legislation, Nazi legislation I guess...
Hitler liked dogs, do you like dogs? You have Hitler tastes I guess...
Trump could post the freaking red cross symbol and the media would find some way of linking it to Nazis or alt-right or something.
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Trump could post the freaking red cross symbol and the media would find some way of linking it to Nazis or alt-right or something.
No, they really could not.
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Trump could post the freaking red cross symbol and the media would find some way of linking it to Nazis or alt-right or something.
No, they really could not.
They linked what is basically "a rotten apple spoils the barrel" to the Nazis (https://theintercept.com/2016/09/20/nazi-who-originated-donald-trump-jr-s-skittles-metaphor-was-hanged-at-nuremberg/) for god's sake...
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Pepe is used by the entire internet, the only thing that links it to the alt-right with greater relevance is the insistence of the media.
But if you really want to go that way, we can also call Animal right's legislation and certain worker's rights legislation, Nazi legislation I guess...
Hitler liked dogs, do you like dogs? You have Hitler tastes I guess...
Don't be an idiot. No, Pepe is not used by the entire internet, just a few messageboards. In fact, I personally hadn't seen much of him (apart from him starring in a few memes) until this whole alt-right stuff started. I imagine that the same is true for a lot of people who are not clued into the whole chan meme culture; right now, it's the alt-right that make Pepe popular, not anyone else, thus calling him an alt-right icon (and I repeat myself here) is not wrong.
I made the comparison to the swastika very deliberately. It too was a symbol that (depending on culture) had a number of different meanings (with most of them obscure), until one group appropriated it for their purpose. A similar thing is happening with Pepe and the alt-right: While there's a large corpus of memes featuring that particular frog, none of them ever leaked out of the internet image board bubble. Now that a particular group inspired and formed by that bubble (the alt-right) are making their appearance on a larger stage, they are dragging their iconography (of which Pepe is a part) with them. As a result, for a lot of people, Pepe and the alt-right are now associated with each other. Claims that they shouldn't be associated because that's not what Pepe is about are ... well, they're a brand of nerdery that is irritating at best.
Symbols do not have their meaning set in stone when they are created. They change in accordance with their use, and how that use is perceived by the wider world. Once the media started to associate Pepe with the alt-right, that association became fact for a lot of people. Whatever he was before stopped mattering, just like it doesn't matter today what the original meanings of the swastika were. So, just like the people who were using the swastika correctly had to stop doing it lest they be associated with something outside of their control, you have to give up this idea that Pepe doesn't have a political meaning. He does, now. End of story.
Oh, and about that whole animal rights and workers rights thing: Please learn how to hyperbole. You aren't doing a good job of it right now. Your example with the red cross shows this: The red cross, just like the american flag, is a well-known symbol of something very specific. If anyone wants to change the meaning of it, that person has to be very very powerful and use a long campaign to do it; Pepe, as something completely unknown, doesn't need that sort of power to redefine his meaning.
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Pepe is used by the entire internet, the only thing that links it to the alt-right with greater relevance is the insistence of the media.
But if you really want to go that way, we can also call Animal right's legislation and certain worker's rights legislation, Nazi legislation I guess...
Hitler liked dogs, do you like dogs? You have Hitler tastes I guess...
Don't be an idiot. No, Pepe is not used by the entire internet, just a few messageboards. In fact, I personally hadn't seen much of him (apart from him starring in a few memes) until this whole alt-right stuff started. I imagine that the same is true for a lot of people who are not clued into the whole chan meme culture; right now, it's the alt-right that make Pepe popular, not anyone else, thus calling him an alt-right icon (and I repeat myself here) is not wrong.
The only reason for that is the focus of the media on the alt-right.
I made the comparison to the swastika very deliberately. It too was a symbol that (depending on culture) had a number of different meanings (with most of them obscure), until one group appropriated it for their purpose. A similar thing is happening with Pepe and the alt-right: While there's a large corpus of memes featuring that particular frog, none of them ever leaked out of the internet image board bubble. Now that a particular group inspired and formed by that bubble (the alt-right) are making their appearance on a larger stage, they are dragging their iconography (of which Pepe is a part) with them. As a result, for a lot of people, Pepe and the alt-right are now associated with each other. Claims that they shouldn't be associated because that's not what Pepe is about are ... well, they're a brand of nerdery that is irritating at best.
Symbols do not have their meaning set in stone when they are created. They change in accordance with their use, and how that use is perceived by the wider world. Once the media started to associate Pepe with the alt-right, that association became fact for a lot of people. Whatever he was before stopped mattering, just like it doesn't matter today what the original meanings of the swastika were. So, just like the people who were using the swastika correctly had to stop doing it lest they be associated with something outside of their control, you have to give up this idea that Pepe doesn't have a political meaning. He does, now. End of story.
Lots of people associate Hillary with corruption, I guess we'll have to deal with... oh wait.
That aside, the issue is, the swastika continues to be used in other contexts without the Nazi implication. I don't see the media accusing Indian use of the swastika, for example of, of association with the Nazis. And I don't really like the idea that a symbol is forever tarnished just because a group of people used it.
Oh, and about that whole animal rights and workers rights thing: Please learn how to hyperbole. You aren't doing a good job of it right now. Your example with the red cross shows this: The red cross, just like the american flag, is a well-known symbol of something very specific. If anyone wants to change the meaning of it, that person has to be very very powerful and use a long campaign to do it; Pepe, as something completely unknown, doesn't need that sort of power to redefine his meaning.
Again, they linked "a rotten apple spoils the barrel" to nazis, not sure how much more well known you have to get.
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And the swastika is just a hindu religious symbol.
See, you're right, Pepe by itself is just a character from a cartoon. But as it happens, the alt-right use him in a very coherent way; they are, at this point in time, the only organized group using him. He is no longer just a character (just as the swastika is no longer an innocuous religious symbol) and while I suspect he won't get as infamous as the swastika, it is certainly accurate to refer to Pepe as an alt-right icon at this point.
You know what else the alt-right does, other than post pepes?
They breath air.
Just because a racist does something does not make the thing they do racist.
Many different groups use pepe and like all memes it gets mixed with other things by the people who post it. there are certainly racist pepes, but pepe has been a popular internet meme for nearly a decade. It's not like a proper /pol/ meme like moonman which is unambiguously racist from it's core. Going after pepe because it was used to do racist things is like going after rope.
They use the english language (and some french and german) to communicate racist ideas too, does that mean that the english language is also a white nationalist meme?
You're an idiot if you swallow this.
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Just to reiterate, a few years ago the media focused on games like Doom being played by school shooters.
Romero must be proud to have created murder making games I guess, since that's what the media said.
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Guys.
Could you do me a favour and try to understand what I'm writing?
That aside, the issue is, the swastika continues to be used in other contexts without the Nazi implication. I don't see the media accusing Indian use of the swastika, for example of, of association with the Nazis. And I don't really like the idea that a symbol is forever tarnished just because a group of people used it.
Yes, well, that is the world we live in unfortunately. Maybe the Swastika will have reverted to being innocuous in a hundred years or so, but for now, the main association anyone in the western world is going to have with it is Nazis. Same with Pepe: Maybe he'll revert to being innocuous in a year or five, but for now, he is part of the alt-right iconography.
You know what else the alt-right does, other than post pepes?
They breath air.
Just because a racist does something does not make the thing they do racist.
And yet, the Swastika is a symbol for Nazis now. Funny how that works.
Bob, please try to put a bit more effort into understanding the things I write. Just as Ghostavo, you read my posts as saying "if racists do something it is racist", which is not at all what I was getting at.
Many different groups use pepe and like all memes it gets mixed with other things by the people who post it. there are certainly racist pepes, but pepe has been a popular internet meme for nearly a decade. It's not like a proper /pol/ meme like moonman which is unambiguously racist from it's core. Going after pepe because it was used to do racist things is like going after rope.
Many different groups, all concentrated in one remarkably isolated part of the internet. If you are part of that bubble (as I have tried to explain above), Pepe has essentially no meaning for you (because he himself is the substrate used to communicate meaning). If you are not, and your first exposure to it is via alt-right bull****, then the association between him and the alt-right is quickly made and hard to shake.
They use the english language (and some french and german) to communicate racist ideas too, does that mean that the english language is also a white nationalist meme?
Again, read what I am writing, not what you think I am writing.
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or, perhaps it is YOU who are in a bubble and are ignorant of simple ****ing internet memes. I hate to tell you this, but memes exist way beyond image boards, even if that is where they start.
this is the most idiotic thing, You realize you are only making yourself look like an out of touch 65 year old fool who doesn't get these internet kids and their chinese girl cartoons when you try to push this, right?
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The E, there is a difference between you saying "people are linking X with Y" and the media saying without a hint of self-reflection "someone we dislike said X, did you know <Nazis/alt-right/boogieman of the week> said X?".
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Could someone find that one PBS idea channel video where they talk about rare pepes? I'm at work right now and can't really do it.
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or, perhaps it is YOU who are in a bubble and are ignorant of simple ****ing internet memes. I hate to tell you this, but memes exist way beyond image boards, even if that is where they start.
this is the most idiotic thing, You realize you are only making yourself look like an out of touch 65 year old fool who doesn't get these internet kids and their chinese girl cartoons when you try to push this, right?
You are in the internet bubble. You assume that just because you know something, everyone else knows it too, which is very simply not the case. Now something has breached that bubble, taken something from it and changed its meaning in the process. Get used to it.
Am I ignorant of memes? Yes, I suppose I am. Guess what. So are most other people.
The E, there is a difference between you saying "people are linking X with Y" and the media saying without a hint of self-reflection "someone we dislike said X, did you know <Nazis/alt-right/boogieman of the week> said X?".
And there's a difference between that topic and what I was talking about.
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no you are in an internet bubble.
gee this is ****ing fun.
no, you do not get to just assert a reality. no pepe the frog is not a white nationalist symbol.
(http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/915/652/b49.gif)
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no you are in an internet bubble.
gee this is ****ing fun.
no, you do not get to just assert a reality. no pepe the frog is not a white nationalist symbol.
He is now. Get used to it.
https://heatst.com/politics/hillary-clinton-is-absolutely-right-pepe-meme-is-antisemitic-an-apology/
http://www.vox.com/2016/9/21/12893656/pepe-frog-donald-trump
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A rotten apple spoils the barrel, a nazi meme (https://theintercept.com/2016/09/20/nazi-who-originated-donald-trump-jr-s-skittles-metaphor-was-hanged-at-nuremberg/) now apparently.
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If you can't see how that isn't comparable to what happened with pepe, this whole discussion makes no sense.
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Yes, the rotten apple meme is far wider known than Pepe. Exactly what your counterpoint was.
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https://heatst.com/politics/hillary-clinton-is-absolutely-right-pepe-meme-is-antisemitic-an-apology/
Heat Street? you are using ****ing HEATSTREET to justify your position? even I know not to trust that ****ing blog site?
(http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/avatars/6e/6eeaff09e634834887b0c5328d05ed506957da14_full.jpg)
get out of your ****ing sjwverse bubble, just because a vox/gawker/dayly beast/jezebel reporter who's part of some political circlejerk writes it, doesn't mean it's true. no one is believing this, we all know you know you are full of ****.
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Whether something is "a X symbol/icon" is an academic question for sociologists and no one else should even care.
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Bob, calm the hell down.
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oh, so I get a warning for insulting someone for saying they are full of **** and nothing for posting blatant white nationalist propaganda? I guess I see where HLPs priorities lay.
You and the people you like get to tell people to **** OFF with impunity. Oh yeah, you aren't just having fun exercising your small amount of power over a small cadre of people.
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Trump could post the freaking red cross symbol and the media would find some way of linking it to Nazis or alt-right or something.
No, they really could not.
They linked what is basically "a rotten apple spoils the barrel" to the Nazis (https://theintercept.com/2016/09/20/nazi-who-originated-donald-trump-jr-s-skittles-metaphor-was-hanged-at-nuremberg/) for god's sake...
"They (https://theintercept.com/2015/04/16/welcome-unofficial-sources/)" can not be taken to account for your lack of reading comprehension. The article makes damn clear what it's associating what with.
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Trump could post the freaking red cross symbol and the media would find some way of linking it to Nazis or alt-right or something.
No, they really could not.
They linked what is basically "a rotten apple spoils the barrel" to the Nazis (https://theintercept.com/2016/09/20/nazi-who-originated-donald-trump-jr-s-skittles-metaphor-was-hanged-at-nuremberg/) for god's sake...
"They (https://theintercept.com/2015/04/16/welcome-unofficial-sources/)" can not be taken to account for your lack of reading comprehension. The article makes damn clear what it's associating what with.
Thanks for the non-sequitur (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random), can I also imply with this link that you lack reading comprehension also?
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Yes, the rotten apple meme is far wider known than Pepe. Exactly what your counterpoint was.
Except that wasn't my counterpoint. The Red Cross is a widely known and recognized symbol. To change its meaning, someone would have to expend a lot of effort. Pepe, like the Swastika before it, is an obscure thing. Giving it meaning in the public eye is trivial by comparison; all it takes is a sufficiently large megaphone.
The rotten apple thing is somewhat irrelevant to this. First of all, the article you cite shows parallels between the use of that proverb in nazi propaganda and its use by one Donald Trump Jr; it doesn't say (as you claim) that that is where the analogy originated (It does make the claim, which I find spurious, that that was the first use of the analogy in a race politics context, but that's a different claim).
get out of your ****ing sjwverse bubble, just because a vox/gawker/dayly beast/jezebel reporter who's part of some political circlejerk writes it, doesn't mean it's true. no one is believing this, we all know you know you are full of ****.
You know, if you want to change my opinion, it is perhaps not a good idea to call me a liar. In this discussion, I have represented my opinions and viewpoints as accurately as I can.
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Thanks for the non-sequitur (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random), can I also imply with this link that you lack reading comprehension also?
No, but I am going to accuse you once again of a lack of reading comprehension, with as evidence you typing that response.
When you're at the point that you're linking a specialized subsection of a specialized type of media (I literally only gave you the about us page of the article you linked to!), an article that doesn't actually provide any substance to your claim, and claim that as evidence that the media, in it's entirety, affirms to your view of it is silly. It's also - hi - a non-sequitur.
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I have represented my opinions and viewpoints as accurately as I can.
Then why haven't you called me out for unironically, unacademically posting disgusting racist propaganda? If I had posted happy merchants or moon men I have a feeling you would not have just ignored them. I posted a couple of common pepes and not a peep of complaint.
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Then why haven't you called me out for unironically, unacademically posting disgusting racist propaganda? If I had posted happy merchants or moon men I have a feeling you would not have just ignored them. I posted a couple of common pepes and not a peep of complaint.
It's almost as if I can tell harmless pepes from racist ones, isn't it.
Bob, you are now at the point where you willfully misunderstand what I am talking about. Go reread the relevant posts in this thread, several times if necessary, until you are clear on what exactly I am talking about. Until then, stop the rage and the ****ty posts.
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Some peeps are harmless?
You were saying pepe was a white nationalist symbol, how can there be harmless white nationalist symbols?
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Same way there can be harmless swastikas
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Thanks for the non-sequitur (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random), can I also imply with this link that you lack reading comprehension also?
No, but I am going to accuse you once again of a lack of reading comprehension, with as evidence you typing that response.
When you're at the point that you're linking a specialized subsection of a specialized type of media (I literally only gave you the about us page of the article you linked to!), an article that doesn't actually provide any substance to your claim, and claim that as evidence that the media, in it's entirety, affirms to your view of it is silly. It's also - hi - a non-sequitur.
How many media sites do I have to show for you to acknowledge that this is true? Here, have a few more.
http://www.vox.com/2016/9/20/12987202/skittles-tweet-donald-trump-syrian-refugees
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-jr-skittles-racism-dark-history-syrian-refugees-trayvon-martin-a7318496.html
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And where, exactly, is the word "apple" mentioned, or how this ties into your red cross anology?
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Yes, the rotten apple meme is far wider known than Pepe. Exactly what your counterpoint was.
Except that wasn't my counterpoint. The Red Cross is a widely known and recognized symbol. To change its meaning, someone would have to expend a lot of effort. Pepe, like the Swastika before it, is an obscure thing. Giving it meaning in the public eye is trivial by comparison; all it takes is a sufficiently large megaphone.
The E, there is a difference between you saying "people are linking X with Y" and the media saying without a hint of self-reflection "someone we dislike said X, did you know <Nazis/alt-right/boogieman of the week> said X?".
The media is totally not a big megaphone...
The rotten apple thing is somewhat irrelevant to this. First of all, the article you cite shows parallels between the use of that proverb in nazi propaganda and its use by one Donald Trump Jr; it doesn't say (as you claim) that that is where the analogy originated (It does make the claim, which I find spurious, that that was the first use of the analogy in a race politics context, but that's a different claim).
Pepe didn't also originate from the alt-right, and that doesn't stop you from claiming it's an alt-right meme. So which is it?
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And where, exactly, is the word "Apple" mentioned :rolleyes:
If you want to be obtuse, go be somewhere else, as I said before, the skittle thing is another form of the rotten apple meme.
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And where, exactly, is the word "Apple" mentioned :rolleyes:
If you want to be obtuse, go be somewhere else, as I said before, the skittle thing is another form of the rotten apple meme.
You're so hung up on those apples. Did you read the articles you linked to see what they were about in the first place? That Trump's campaign statements line up so easily with fascists really says more about Trump then it does about 'the media'. All you're currently doing is providing The E with more material to argue with.
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And where, exactly, is the word "Apple" mentioned :rolleyes:
If you want to be obtuse, go be somewhere else, as I said before, the skittle thing is another form of the rotten apple meme.
You're so hung up on those apples. Did you read the articles you linked to see what they were about in the first place? That Trump's campaign statements line up so easily with fascists really says more about Trump then it does about 'the media'. All you're currently doing is providing The E with more material to argue with.
OK, fine, I totally agree with you.
From now on, I'm always going to refer to feminists as feminazis then. I mean isn't it amazing how feminists and facists match up so much? And it's amazing because I dislike all three groups so much!
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Can I just add that I've been on Internet boards, social media, and various communities (both gaming and not) for two decades, and my first exposure to Pepe the frog was in 2016 and popularized by the alt-right. Now if I, someone fairly well-versed in the Internet and Internet culture can miss all the other versions of that stupid-looking frog cartoon, I guarantee that the vast majority of the general public has too.
Symbols are determined by exposure. As The E pointed out, the swastika had quite a number of very specific meanings that were more or less run over by a truck after it was adopted by the Nazi Party. That's a prominent example, but not the only one. I mean, the cross wasn't originally a Christian symbol. Christ wasn't actually born in December, either, yet somehow we all celebrate Christmas on December 25th instead of Saturnalia. 80 years ago, a rainbow was just a rainbow.
No matter what a symbol was, once adopted and sufficiently popularized in a particular meaning by the public who don't know any better, it does actually start to mean something else. That doesn't mean its original uses are wrong, just that their nuance is no longer understood by the public at large.
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80 years ago, a rainbow was just a rainbow.
I thought it was a promise by god that he would never hurt us again the way he did with the great floods.
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It is a symbol of internet memes/culture, that was what it represented in the "Deplorables" picture that several activists decided to try and misinterepresent as a racist symbol.
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Watching the Clinton campaign and media try to 'explain' and combat memes is very surreal to me, like an 85+ year old hermit first discovering the internet, bewildered and triggered at every turn to the entertainment of many. I never thought I'd see the day when the old media would broadcast their fear of cartoon frogs (A Plague of Frogs, one might say) and smug animu grills to the point of depression as described in the Five Stages of Grief.
And it's not even October yet.
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I've got to love the irony of Trump Jr. being attacked in the media (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/20/donald-trump-jnr-compares-refugees-poisoned-skittles-twitter-reacted) for a post on Twitter comparing refugees with Skittles, when the meme started with feminists comparing men with M&Ms (https://twitter.com/RowanLake99/status/471715156612091904).
But remember, #notallmen #notallrefugees, totally different guys.
The difference between a skittle and a M&M is that if you don't eat a skittle, someone gets stuck in a camp and/or bombed in an airstrike and/or gassed by the Assad regime
Whereas if you don't eat a M&M, someone's boner becomes flaccid
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I'm glad the pandering to my side is about completely misunderstanding silly internet memes and not about promising to commit war crimes and pat everyone down in the streets.
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On the subject of making innocuous things racist symbols.
http://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/internet/2016/09/stinking-googles-should-be-killed-why-4chan-using-search-engine-racist
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Forced meme is forced?
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pretty much.
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Here's the link (https://act.notwhoweare.us/petitions/members-of-the-game-developers-community-say-donald-trump-is-not-who-we-are/) to my open letter calling for game developers here on HLP against Trump. The stakes are very too high.