Trump
blog.samaltman.com
blog.samaltman.com
It's possible that certain Republican leaders fit the description. But plenty of high-ranking Republicans have been willing to speak out against Trump, and those who endorse him mostly seem to be sincere about it. And of course everybody on the opposing side takes pretty much every opportunity to trash him (IMO rightfully so).
What's scary about Trump isn't that people are unwilling to speak out against him. What's scary is that so many people actually want him to win. Trump isn't the problem, Trump is the most visible and frightening symptom of a massive wave of ignorance and insecurity among the American electorate. He's the blood in the stool. Speaking out about how bad the blood is won't really help, you need to go in and kill the cancer that's causing it.
In any case, it's the electorate that really matters, not the leadership. I don't see any prospective voters afraid to speak their mind. Trump supporters among the general population all seem to be completely sincere. Trump opposers are unafraid to declare it.
He doesn't say he is "unfit" because he can't -- How can you not think a comment like that from McConnell is pretty damning of Trump's abilities?
I'm not hearing that this time around, except for people who are basically saying "I can't believe I have to choose between these two, I think I'll just stay home and get drunk on election day instead."
Perhaps this is just a reflection of my memory or my media consumption. But that's why I started my comment off with an explicit disclaimer that it's just about what I've seen.
The issue is not the massive wave of ignorance and insecurity, the issue is that those people will procreate more ignorant and insecure people and the issue will never end.
We have a system where the well-thought vote of an educated person has the same value than the sensationalism-based vote of an ignorant and insecure person, the problem is that the educated people is getting outnumbered, so whoever manages to move the feelings of the ignorant and insecure people has the election already won...
Highly procreative undereducated underclasses have long been a staple of American life. Give people enough resources and opportunities, and they will often better themselves. What you are seeing is what happens when you economically squeeze people.
The paradox is that giving people resources and opportunities is the wisdom behind left-wing politics, the opposite of what Trump and the Republican party represent...
They would disagree. Probably disagree with each other if you look close enough and can pin them down to a position. Everyone wants to provide resources and opportunities. Everyone simply disagrees on the best way to do this. (I certainly think of the market as only an imperfect but useful mechanism.)
This sounds more like the military industrial complex than the Social Security Administration. The SSA pays out something like $870 billion per year (2015) with fewer than 70 thousand employees. It's spending less than a percent of that amount on wages. That's way better than most private charities.
In terms of draining resources out of our society versus benefiting it, the right wing darling of the military industrial complex is far worse than the darling of FDR's New Deal.
You sound like these employees produce those $870 billion. In fact they take them from one set of people and send them to another set of people. Getting handsome pay, union benefits, pensions and what not on the way.
> That's way better than most private charities.
Charities do not have IRS, FBI and the police to jail anybody who does not pay them and take their property. So they have to do it the old-fashioned way - by convincing people to give them money voluntarily. So if you want to compare, add the costs of enforcement to it.
> the right wing darling of the military industrial complex is far worse
I just heard couple of days ago Hillary Clinton boasting about almost everything in iPhone being fruits of government-sponsored research. I don't think it's true, but to the measure it is, most of this research is done by the military industrial complex. In fact, the left often mentions the internet is rooted in government research - to the measure that it is, it's the same military again. You can't have it both ways - either it's bad, and the research they do and money government funnels to them is evil, or they actually do cool things and money funneled to them are great investment. You can't have both.
And btw the whole military budget is 16% of all federal budget. And that doesn't take into account what state and local governments spend.
Demagogic hate-mongering has become the default mode of the political theater that now passes as "public discourse" in our media on both ends of the political spectrum. The new internet media gives strong incentives to that which gains attention, and nothing gains attention like outrage.
What's scary about Trump isn't that people are unwilling to speak out against him. What's scary is that so many people actually want him to win. Trump isn't the problem, Trump is the most visible and frightening symptom of a massive wave of ignorance and insecurity among the American electorate. He's the blood in the stool. Speaking out about how bad the blood is won't really help, you need to go in and kill the cancer that's causing it.
Blood in the stool is quite apt. The cancer is the incentive structure of our media. Let's face it, the current incentive structure of our media today is one in which things like Gawker thrive and anything which is actually substantive suffers a prolonged trickling death. Again, it's the incentives. Outrage politics and the current social media are just the high fructose corn syrup of the mind.
For "substantive" content, this is by far "the best of times" -- such content is very much on the Internet if look for it.
E.g., nearly every interview, debate, or speech of Trump is on YouTube. Good coverage of Trump's positions are on his Web site. So, we have solid primary sources and easy to find good references. I just counted -- I have 187 unique YouTube URLs on Trump.
If you want to know what Trump has said and/or written, primary sources are readily available. In particular, you don't have to take the word of others about what Trump said.
Maybe you will or will not like what Trump has said, but at least now you can know what the heck he actually did say. Sure, this is the first time for such in all of history. So, "best of times".
For more substantive comment, for anyone with such a comment, many blogs and fora are readily available. Finding such things may not always be easy (my startup is intended to help with people finding content on the Internet), but at one time Technorati said that they were tracking 100 million blogs. E.g., as we know here, Sam Altman had some comments, and all of us found them.
For more substantive comment, for anyone with such a comment, many blogs and fora are readily available. Finding such things may not always be easy (my startup is intended to help with people finding content on the Internet)
If there is value in finding such things, there is clearly a degradation of value in their obscuration. Until the general populace can navigate and find their way to the new sources of substantive content, the internet is effectively degraded in this regard.
For your last paragraph, my view is that for ballpark 2/3rds of the content of value on the Internet, searches people would like to do, and results they would like to find there is no good search engine or search means. Part, much of, the challenge is your substantive, that is, how to find (suitably) substantive content. I haven't said my work is for substantive content; the word I have used is content with the meaning the user has in mind, but your substantive is a special case of my meaning. So are entertaining, artistic taste, level of detail, etc.
Sounds like you stand to be an eager user of my startup! Maybe another 3 billion people will also!
Just how to build such a tool is a challenge. I worked out how, but the crucial core internals are some original applied math I derived based on some advanced prerequisites. Some of the prerequisites are astounding -- wouldn't believe that any such things could be true, but they are, and they are astoundingly powerful.
But the user interface is dirt simple -- even a boy of 10 in Thailand who knows no English should be able to learn to use the English language version of the site in five minutes from someone who knows and in 15 minutes on their own. The user experience stands to be fun, something of an addictive adventure.
The code, intended for production, is running and in alpha test.
Ah, YC turned it down!
I am not sure, exactly, how that is scary. Let's take a look at the reality of our current political situation, fear mongering and demagogic arguments aside. We in the US live in a country with two parties that have, for all intents and purposes, chosen their two favorites for leaders. When we go to the polls in November we will either vote for Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Trump. You have essentially three choices at this very moment:
1) Pick Mrs. Clinton because you believe in her principles and values more than Mr. Trumps. 2) Pick Mr. Trump because you believe in his principles and values more than Mrs. Clintons. 3) Don't vote for either Mrs. Clinton nor Mr. Trump and get whatever the rest of the population picks.
So when people say it is "scary that so many people actually want him to win", remember it is not all that scary. They just believe in his principles and values more than they believe in Mrs. Clintons. They have reason. You might think their reasons are ridiculous, stupid, or absurd. But there are only two candidates and you can only side with one. Let's not make this any bigger than it actually is.
If God descended from heaven and snapped his fingers and declared, "This November, you shall decide between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton," then I wouldn't find it particularly surprising or worrying that ~50% of the electorate would support Trump.
But the fact that people chose him out of a wide field during the primaries is a totally different story. Yes, none of the other choices were particularly compelling, but neither were they the inconceivable choice represented by Clinton.
It's not that they believe in him more than Clinton, it's that they believe in him more than Rubio and Cruz and Christie and Jeb Bush.
A big chunk of voters basically just said "fuck it" to the whole process and gave up on even the pretense of sane politicians. Who are they going to choose for Congress? Who are they going to nominate for president the next time around? Maybe they'll realize this was a mistake and get back to some form of sanity, but I'm not optimistic.
Sure, the Republican primary electorate found Trump compelling, and that's why they won. And that's what scares me. I don't think they necessarily should have found any of the others compelling (what an awful field of candidates, I mean, seriously, what happened there?) but that's beside the point.
In 2000, Bush mainly kept his mouth shut. But Gore's campaign manager made a series of public statements along the lines of "Gore has clearly won, and if this goes to Bush it's a travesty of the election." That didn't help heal or unite the country after the election; arguably, the division has remained ever since.
Trump could do the same thing, but do it much more loudly, bombastically, and in a more attention-grabbing way. The only prevention would be for him to lose so strongly that nobody listens, and everyone writes it off as the whining of a bitter self-deluded loser.
Trump didn't attract enthusiastic supporters across party lines because they were apathetic jokesters. He may sound insane to you, but to a very large "silent majority" he is the first voice of sanity in a long time.
[citation needed]
Edit: and since you are not the person that posted the sanders quote.. im not sure how you know what they think their premise is.
> Poor white people have advantages that poor black people don't have because of racism... I don't see why you consider it racist to point that out.
I don't but that's not what Sanders said. If he said that, that indeed would be true, but he didn't.
I disagree. I don't believe his intent was to degrade. I think he was trying to acknowledge a truth about our culture, ironically an inequality born out of racism. Here is the full quote so anyone reading this doesn't just see the "taken out of context reddit meme" version.
"So to answer your question, I would say, and I think it’s similar to what the secretary said, when you’re white, you don’t know what it’s like to be living in a ghetto. You don’t know what it’s like to be poor. You don’t know what it’s like to be hassled when you walk down the street or you get dragged out of a car.
And I believe that as a nation in the year 2016, we must be firm in making it clear. We will end institutional racism and reform a broken criminal justice system."
Why, then, should it be shocking or appalling to hear the claim made with the parties' races reversed? Are we to assume that people who aren't white are incapable of bias? Are we to assume that a judge has no power over the people whose cases are heard in his courtroom? Is the total equality of all races a principle worth upholding, or one merely worth claiming when it's convenient, and trivial to ignore when it's not? Are we, in short, to assume that only white people can be bigots?
(And, I mean, you can argue that the question is ill-founded and wrongheaded all you like, and I realize that's the temptingly easy option. You might, though, if you're really as worried about a Trump win in November as blog posts like Mr. Altman's make out, think instead about how you might actually convince somebody who asks a question like that, instead of just trying to shout him down.)
If it was presented as "I'm black, and I'm for more equal rights in America, and he's white, so I don't think he's treating me fairly because of his heritage", which I think is more akin to how it was originally presented, they yes, people would be upset if it was proclaimed loudly and publicly in a national forum.
If it was "He's German, and I'm Jewish, therefore I don't think he's treating me fairly because of his heritage" then yes, people would be upset.
I don't know why you think it wouldn't be a big deal. There would be plenty of people denouncing statements like that. There would also be overly apologetic liberals and overly radicalized minorities defending the statements (wrongly, IMO). Those have their equivalents in the current situation as well.
Don't cast aspersions on people's character (is he violating his oath of office?) based purely on their race. We have a word for that. It's called racism, and it applies both ways.
I'm sure you're right that defendants in trials say stupid shit about judges, and I'm sure some of those comments are overtly racist. If the races in this situation were reversed, I still wouldn't vote for the hot-headed loudmouth.
He never said Mexicans are not smart, should go to different schools, or that they can't drink from the same water.
All he said that this judge in particular has a background as an activist lawyer that belongs to an organization that promotes separation of the latino race, and has participated in granting scholarships to undocumented mexicans. And he suggests that background creates a bias in the case.
American society would not accept a judge with ties to the segregationist movement presiding over the case of a black man accused a crime against a white man.
Or how about a judge that was part of BLM presiding the case of a white cop accused of killing a black youth?
Would that be racist too?
Are defense attorneys racist when they dismiss jurors?
Judges are people too, everyone has biases.
Not really. We have to be more careful with the words than that.
Here's the difference: Trump said that the judge's rulings show that the judge is biased. So, if we accept that the judge is biased, then we want a reason, that is, we want some motivation. Well, it turns out, this judge has Mexican ancestry, is active in some pro-Mexican political causes that conflict with Trump's campaign positions on illegal Mexican immigration. So, Trump said that it appears that this pro-Mexican background of the judge is the judge's motivation for the judge being unfair to Trump.
The huge point is, Trump never claimed that a judge with Mexican background could not be fair. Instead Trump claimed that it was solid that this judge WAS already unfair to Trump and, then, later, saw as motivation the judge's pro-Mexican background.
It has been easy for the media to distort this situation into Trump claiming that the judge must be unfair because he has a Mexican background. Nope, that's a huge distortion, playing with words. Simply put, Trump claims that the judge is unfair because of the judge's rulings.
I tried to be clear. And it really is clear: Trump claims that the judge IS unfair, and his reasons for saying that are that, as Trump claims, the judge has ruled in unfair ways. So, we get this far, the judge unfair, without mentioning Mexico. Or, the REASON Trump is saying that the judge is unfair is "because" of the judge's rulings against Trump. Then, as in
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWKmpB7SeNE
with
> All I'm trying to do is figure out why I'm being treated so unfairly by a judge. And a lot of people agree with it. All I want to do, all I want to do is find out why I'm being treated so unfairly by a judge.
Trump is looking for the judge's motivation -- common enough in legal cases, right? So, Trump concludes that the judge's motivation in being unfair is the judge's Mexican background and support of pro-Mexican causes that conflict with some of Trump's campaign positions.
So, we have two uses of "because". Really the second use would be better written, Trump says that the judge's motivation to be unfair was "because" of the judge's Mexican background, etc.
That is, Trump is addressing not just one point about the judge but two -- (1) unfair rulings and (2) motivation for the unfairness. The Mexican part has only to do with point (2).
But, sure, the media that wants headlines claiming that Trump is racist leaps to combine points (1) and (2) and say that Trump says that the judge is unfair "because" of his Mexican background, etc. No: Trump says that the judge is unfair "because" of the judge's rulings and then says that the judge is motivated to be unfair "because" the judge's Mexican background conflicts with Trump's campaign positions.
The media has leaped, nearly in unison, to have a lot of fun, get a lot of clicks, confusing the rulings and the motivations for the rulings to claim that Trump is racist. Trump has claimed that the media is dishonest and disgusting, and IMHO this is an example.
Was the judge unfair? Heck if I know -- I'm not a lawyer. But, unfair or not, maybe as a defendant, as part of a good defense, Trump gets to push back against the judge.
But no way does the record support that Trump is being racist, that is, support that Trump says that any judge with a Mexican background will automatically be unfair.
In one interview, Trump was asked why he didn't say that the judge's rulings were unfair and stop there and not mention Mexico. Sure, Trump might have done that. But Trump says he is a "counter puncher" and, e.g., ready to attack back, in this case, say that the motivation (right, my attempt at being more clear) of the judge was the Mexican stuff. In such counter punching, Trump builds his reputation as no pushover and gets more media attention. In response in this case, much of the media took the opportunity to attack back by playing with the word "because" by conflating the two issues, the rulings and the motivations.
IMHO, Trump is this and that but he's not racist at all. The media -- too often deliberately disgustingly deceptive.
As you mention, for a Muslim judge, would he have to be unfair? Nope. But if a Muslim judge WERE unfair, could his motivation for being unfair be that he was a Muslim and Trump's campaign statements about Muslims? Sure.
Again, there is not just one point to be explained but two -- (1) unfairness and (2) motivation for unfairness. Being Mexican or Muslim would have only to do with (2).
So, again, just for you, Trump claims that some of the judge's rulings were unfair. Then Trump looked for the judge's motivation for the unfair rulings and noticed the ancestry and political causes and concluded that those were were the motivation for the judge being unfair.
My point is, what Trump was doing was not racist. Maybe Trump was blowing smoke in a legal case, looking for attention, pushing back against a legal case being brought during a campaign and for maybe political reasons, etc., but I don't think Trump was being racist.
Too much of the media wanted to attack Trump and claim that what Trump said was that no judge with Mexican ancestry could be fair to him, but that is nothing like what Trump said. It's more than split hairs.
IMHO, the solid, primary sources do not support that claim.
I do intend to post to this thread a response to Altman's post where I give details, but to me the Trump-judge thing went through three steps:
Step 1. Trump asserted that the judge made some unfair decisions against Trump. Maybe Trump was just blowing smoke as part of a good defense, but maybe he was on solid ground. I'm not a lawyer. Then Trump asked -- I have a quote -- why the judge was being unfair.
Step 2. Soon it was clear enough that the judge had Mexican ancestry and was active in some pro-Mexican political activities that conflicted with Trump's campaign positions on illegal immigration from Mexico. Then, and only then, did Trump assert that this background of the judge was likely the reason the judge was unfair.
Or, Trump never claimed that a judge with Mexican ancestry would have to be unfair. Instead, Trump claimed that this judge's actions in the case showed that the judge was unfair to Trump and, then, could, easily enough, see explanatory reasons in the judge's background. Or, if want to say that someone is being unfair, then it helps to give an explanatory reason. In law, that's called motivation or some such, right, and is regarded as important, right?
Step 3. Since then, a lot more has come out on the judge. He's close to some groups that are wildly racist, e.g., want everyone in the US of Western European descent to return to Europe. Trump has concluded that the judge should recuse himself from the case. If the judge does not recuse, then the case starts to look just political.
Maybe a judge really is strongly for pro-Mexican political causes and is eager to be unfair to others. So, in that case we can't say that the judge is unfair because of his pro-Mexican causes? That would be a license for anyone with pro-Mexican causes to be unfair without being criticized.
Sure he did. Then he doubled down on it by saying a Muslim Judge might be unfair, too. I'm not sure how anybody could fail to see racism here.
DICKERSON: If it were a Muslim judge, would you also feel like they wouldn't be able to treat you fairly because of that policy of yours?
TRUMP: It's possible, yes. Yeah. That would be possible, absolutely.
But I can't find the primary sources that support this claim. To me, at this point, the claim looks like just attacks on Trump by people who want to attack him for other reasons.
Indeed, from all I can find, Trump is the opposite of racist.
I'm ready, willing, able, and eager to consider some primary sources that show I'm significantly wrong.
For such a claim, as for any serious claim in this election, I just want some solid evidence.
For immigration, Trump is for enforcing the laws. That's not evidence of being racist. Part of one way of enforcing the laws is to build a wall. That's not racist either; it's enforcing our immigration laws.
For "rapists", some of the illegal immigrants across the Mexican border have been rapists. Trump didn't say that all the illegal immigrants were rapists.
More generally, our legal immigration system was well designed and very careful about who gets admitted. The flow of illegal immigrants across the border with Mexico has everyone who is able physically to cross the border at all. That includes people from Mexico, from elsewhere in Central and South America, people from Cuba, and, now, some people from the war areas of the Mideast, likely including ISIS soldiers. Stopping that illegal immigration is important for US public health, US public safety, US drug enforcement, the US economy, and US national security and is not racist.
The Mexican border is also a source of illegal drugs -- a good wall would greatly slow that. Again, a wall to slow the flow of illegal drugs is not racist.
For Mexicans, Trump has said over and over that he has hired thousands of Mexicans and regards them as excellent workers. So, clearly Trump is not a "racist" on Mexicans.
There is good evidence, e.g., in Arizona, that a lot of people from Mexico and now US citizens will be voting for Trump because they agree with Trump that we should not have illegal immigrants from Mexico. Apparently those US citizens do not regard Trump as racist against people from Mexico.
> His proposed policies have even gained him an endorsement from the KKK.
A political candidate can't keep some dirt bags from saying they like the candidate. But when some dirt bags do so say, then the candidate can reject the support, and Trump did that right away. There was a delay of some seconds, but there are some explanations of that that do not cast a bad light on Trump.
Actually, there is a lot of quite positive evidence that Trump has been a leader against racism. IIRC, Trump was a leader in letting everyone in to his high end golf club in Florida.
I'm still looking for evidence that Trump is racist. So far I like Trump -- if there is something wrong with him, then I want to know it.
Hoover? Was totally oblivious to the The Great Depression. Didn't see the crash coming; didn't know what to do to fix it.
FDR? Was too slow getting us out of The Great Depression. We came out in 90 days flat once people started shooting at us. The damage to the US from The Great Depression was horrible with much of it still with us. He did get us mobilized to win WWII and won it.
Ike? Won WWII in Europe (before he was President). As President, won the war in Korea, pushed back against the Soviets in Berlin, kept the Cold War cold, kept up our military, e.g., nukes, B-52s, ICBMs, SSBNs, and jet airplanes, kept us out of Viet Nam. Did the right things in the Little Rock racism crisis. Ike was slow to keep the economy going. Did respond to Sputnik.
JKF? Did get the economy going again. Started the Apollo program moon shot. Didn't keep us out of Viet Nam. In the end, did the right things in the Cuban Missile Crisis, but looked to the Soviets like a wimp who could be taken advantage of and, thus, partly stimulated that crisis.
LBJ? Went wacko over Viet Nam, killed a lot of people, wasted a lot of money, inflated the US economy.
Nixon? Also wacko over Viet Nam and continued to inflate the US economy. Was a crook. Was driven out of office in disgrace.
Ford? Got out of Viet Nam only after Congress flatly cut off the money.
Carter? Poor leader. Didn't take US energy seriously. Got pushed around by the Iranians. His helicopter effort at Iran flopped.
Reagan? Was a good leader, but had a lot of just silly ideas about what the US should do. Spent a lot of money -- fiscal stimulus -- that did help get the economy going again. Did scare the Soviets over Star Wars and, thus, may have helped the Soviets to give up. Left office mentally handicapped.
Bush 41? Put General Schwarzkopf in charge in Gulf War I who -- in an 8 week air campaign and a 100 hour ground campaign -- totally blew away Saddam's 7 million man army while having fewer US casualties from enemy action than from recreational sports activities. Brilliant. Otherwise neglected the economy.
...
My view is that (1) the US now has some very serious problems, (2) Trump has a lot of determination and a lot of okay to good general approaches for solutions, (3) Trump is good enough as a leader to be able to build consensus for getting things done, (4) he is fully sincere, (5) we are very lucky he is doing what he is, and (6) he has a good shot at being the best president we've had back at least to Hoover where my knowledge of US history is too weak to comment.
Let's DO get out all the important information, but let's NOT be so tough minded that we miss a great opportunity.
I really don't think that's true.
Do you think John McCain actually supports Trump?
I think the healthy majority of GOP politicians are unhappy with Trump, but saying that is politically dangerous.
Judge Gonzalo Curiel, the judge presiding over the Trump university case, is a member of the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association. La Raza is a group that advocates for a path to citizenship for all illegal immigrants.
> we should ban Muslims from entering the country.
Trump wants to ban Muslims from majority Muslim countries that are currently involved in prolonged wars which makes a comprehensive background investigation impossible to do.
> When his supporters beat up a homeless Hispanic man and cited Trump, he called them “very passionate”.
You forgot to mention all of the Trump supporters that get chased and beat up by Mexican flag waving protesters.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/06/0...
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/2...
This by no means justifies violence on the Trump supporters side, but please do some research to find out the majority of the violence is perpetrated by the protesters that show up to Trump rallies and not the other way around.
I can go on and dismantle every other premise in this article using data and logic, but I will stop here.
> La Raza is a group that advocates for a path to citizenship for all illegal immigrants.
What does that have to do with his heritage. There are people that believe that without Mexican descent. I believe it, and I'm not Mexican, and am not an immigrant, and neither are my parents. There are people of Mexican descent that don't believe in a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants (I know one). Reducing people's behavior to something fueled by ethnicity is racism. It is not appropriate to, even with the link pointed out, to assume that Curiel's view regarding immigration does not have basis in beliefs that are distinct from his heritage. It is not appropriate to then further use this as evidence for why he's ruling some way in his job without much more than a single case (and this assertion has nothing to do with racism or heritage).
> Trump wants to ban Muslims from majority Muslim countries that are currently involved in prolonged wars which makes a comprehensive background investigation impossible to do.
Freedom of religion is a constitutionally protected right. I don't see how this right can be protected if you filter possible future citizens based on religion.
So when people say "white people are often racist", that's racism? (I actually agree, minorities are often very racist like that!)
> Freedom of religion is a constitutionally protected right.
Most rights are suspended at the border anyways.
Depending on how you interpret "often", it can be. It's functionally no different than "X people are often lazy" in how it paints a population based on some demographic which actually has nothing to do with that attribute.
If you treat "often" in it's literal sense, as in "this happens a lot", then as long as it's happened at least a few times, it's subjectively true, since often is relative to what you think a good baseline is. If you think one time is more than should be seen, then experiencing it five times could be called "often" (technically. It quickly breaks down when applied to colloquial use in this situation).
The real problem here is assuming a set of personal experiences, whether they number 10 or 1000, necessarily indicate a trait that scales across the entire population of those people. Even leaving out things like confirmation bias, where your original data may be woefully inaccurate, there is little to no evidence that any trend you think you are seeing applies to that ethnicity equally in other locations and situations. You can look at the sentiments of other people and stories in the media for corroboration, but since those aren't accurate representations either, it's still left open to rampant confirmation bias.
This aspect of human psychology was less problematic when we all lived in somewhat small groups. In those cases, the other was the other tribe. Even though they probably looked like you, they were the outsiders, and some distrust and stereotyping of them served the dual purposes of security and social cohesion. The same psychological aspects are at play, and they still cause us to group together, but unfortunately now it promotes the opposite of social cohesion. (and now you have my pop psy take on it).
> (I actually agree, minorities are often very racist like that!)
I see what you did there. :)
No, that is what much of the media wants to claim, say, for clicks.
Instead, there are two points where can use because. The first point is, Trump asserts that the judge is unfair, and Trump asserts this because of the judge's rulings. The assertion of unfairness is from the rulings with nothing to do with Mexico. Second, as in
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWKmpB7SeNE
with
> All I'm trying to do is figure out why I'm being treated so unfairly by a judge. And a lot of people agree with it. All I want to do, all I want to do is find out why I'm being treated so unfairly by a judge.
Trump was looking for the MOTIVATION of the judge to be unfair. Then it was easy enough to notice that the judge has a Mexican background and is active in some pro-Mexican political causes that conflict with some of Trump's campaign positions on Mexico. So, Trump concluded that the judge's MOTIVATION to be unfair was because of the Mexican stuff.
Trump asserted unfairness because of the RULINGS with nothing about Mexico. Then, as a second step, Trump asserted that the judge was MOTIVATED to be unfair because of the Mexico stuff.
So, we have two points and two uses of because. But much of the media, in their search for clicks, conflated those two to assert that Trump said that the judge was unfair because of the Mexican stuff. Nope: That would be poor evidence that the judge had been unfair. Instead, the claim that the judge was unfair was because of the judge's RULINGS. Then, the MOTIVATION for that unfairness was because of the Mexican stuff.
In no way did Trump assert that all judges with Mexican backgrounds would be unfair, but much of the media wanted to play with words to conclude that.
The US has, IMHO rightly, decided that racism is a bad thing. Sure, long in the US, people of Western European descent were racist against Native Americans, Africans, Irish, Italians, Asians, Jews, and Mexicans. Well, the US has gone a long way to stopping that. But neither do we want Native Americans, ..., etc. to be racist against others, e.g., persons of Western European descent. We want no racism, from anywhere.
> Freedom of religion is a constitutionally protected right. I don't see how this right can be protected if you filter possible future citizens based on religion.
There are at least three really big problems with your statement here:
First, the US gets to decide who can enter the country and for that decision can use any reasons or no reasons. Non US citizens outside the US have no "rights" in the US at all. The US gets to run its immigration system in any way it wants.
Second, Islam is a long way from being just a religion. In addition to religion, Islam runs marriages, dress codes, lots of social norms, diets, education, architecture, media, the legal system, foreign policy, government, and, yes, also religion. Each part of Islam regards everyone else as an infidel to be either converted to killed. In this way, the Sunni and Shiite parts of Islam have been at war for 1000+ years, and recent examples include the Iran-Iraq war, the Baghdad-ISIS war, the Syrian civil war, and the high tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran, e.g., in Yemen. Islamic religious leaders issue Fatwahs, commands, calling for Jihad, holy war. ISIS has declared war on Europe and the US. Iran says "Death to America", and that cry is also common in parts of Pakistan. Net, when considering immigrants to the US, Islam must be regarded as not nearly just a religion.
Third, the Islamic immigration under most consideration now is heavily from areas of the Mideast awash in Islamic wars and violent Medieval Islamic culture, indeed, from areas that have declared war on the US. And that immigration is not via the usual legal channels but for "refugees". From the list of violent attacks from radical Islamic terrorists in the US, Europe, etc., the "refugees" are an obvious threat to the US. So, no way should the US admit such people. And, even if the wars end, it is in the strong interests of the US to reject people who likely will not assimilate. E.g., the US does not want whole communities that reject much of US culture and, instead, are devoted politically to religious leaders and follow Sharia law -- not in the interests of the US.
But, a Muslim US citizen has full US citizenship rights as you suggest.
The problem here is that Trump, given behavior from a judge he doesn't like, latched on to the most likely reason, or at least the reason he felt comfortable discussing on national television, being because of the judge's heritage.
> First, the US gets to decide who can enter the country and for that decision can use any reasons or no reasons. Non US citizens outside the US have no "rights" in the US at all. The US gets to run its immigration system in any way it wants.
I didn't say non-US citizens had rights, or the right to freedom of religion. I said I'm not sure how you can claim freedom of religion if you are restricting it prior to entry, not because the rights of those people are being infringed, but because you've singled out a religion to exclusion prior to entry,and the effect that has on the population may be to restrict that religion in some aspect. Constitutional rights are not something I take lightly, to be played with and followed in letter but not spirit. I don't see how we can possibly protect something as a right of a citizen but use it as exclusion for the act of becoming a citizen while following the spirit of the law (and spirit of the law is important. Almost all the cased the SCOTUS rules on are seen by them because there are conflicting laws, or laws aren't being followed in spirit, and it needs a panel of judges to clarify).
> Second, Islam is a long way from being just a religion. In addition to religion, Islam runs...
Islam is not one homogeneous group with the same views and actions. This is obvious by the Sunni and Shiite war you reference. Islam is made up of many different groups of people. Some of those groups are dangerous, others are not. Should we target Islam, or the actual dangerous groups within it?
A lot of US citizens have committed a felony. Should we restrict the whole population to prevent repeat crimes?
> And that immigration is not via the usual legal channels but for "refugees".
Do you think refugees go through no review process or something? Average time it takes for a refugee to get into the US is over a year[1]. You think this is the first time the US has had to balance humanitarian efforts with national security?
As we noted in a previous fact-check, once a case is referred from the UNHCR to the United States, a refugee undergoes a security clearance check that could take several rounds, an in-person interview, approval by the Department of Homeland Security, medical screening, a match with a sponsor agency, "cultural orientation" classes, and one final security clearance. This all happens before a refugee ever gets onto American soil.
> From the list of violent attacks from radical Islamic terrorists in the US, Europe, etc., the "refugees" are an obvious threat to the US.
You're going to have to link that for me if you expect me to accept it. How many attacks have been carried out by refugees? How many by non-refugees? How many by US citizens (such as the Orlando shooting)?
> And, even if the wars end, it is in the strong interests of the US to reject people who likely will not assimilate. E.g., the US does not want whole communities that reject much of US culture and, instead, are devoted politically to religious leaders and follow Sharia law -- not in the interests of the US.
If they don't follow US law in the United States, they will be arrested for it. If they state their intention to follow some other judicial system before ours, then they should fail their immigration/refugee interview. As to what their culture is like apart from that, I don't think your opinion matters. The United States is an amalgamation of the cultures of many countries, mixing and responding to each other and evolving over centuries, with new infusions of countries and cultures all the time. At some point in the past, there was likely some group that viewed the immigration of some of your ancestors as bringing cultural aspects that didn't mesh well with that thay considered American culture. What makes you any more right then the centuries of people that expressed that opinion before you (and about a markedly different culture from today at the time, as well)?
1: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/nov/...
Yup, likely there are many millions of peaceful Muslims. I hope so. Of course, the claims that some polls show that ballpark 50% of Muslims in the US favor Sharia law would concern me, but I'll put that aside for now.
Your view of freedom of religion is deep and delicate. Freedom of religion is fine with me, but I don't want to call radical Islamic terrorism devoted to an international enemy of the US, e.g., ISIS just a religion.
Your description of how refugees get vetted on their way into the US conflicts with my (casual) understanding of the process. Indeed, supposedly we have already admitted refugees from Syria or nearby after less delay than you mention. Besides, there are reports of the refugees bringing TB and, what was it, measles into the US. Good vetting would stop at least TB and likely measles.
On your spirit of the US Constitution and immigration, I hope you don't believe that that spirit means we necessarily should admit people. My understanding is that the usual legal immigration process is very long, slow, and careful, ballpark 10 years, and that's fine with me.
> What makes you any more right then the centuries of people that expressed that opinion before you (and about a markedly different culture from today at the time, as well)?
I don't accept the idea that the US should continually foster a long term melting pot. Instead the US should admit people when has a really good reason to do so. Now the usual reason seems to be that the candidate is extremely well qualified, and that has been the case with immigrants I've known. One I know is from France, is a darned good mathematician, a student of Choquet, a member of Bourbaki. Glad to have him!
> The problem here is that Trump, given behavior from a judge he doesn't like, latched on to the most likely reason, or at least the reason he felt comfortable discussing on national television, being because of the judge's heritage.
Well, at least the heritage, but maybe also some of the judge's political stuff. But, again, we have to be careful: Trump was not saying that all judges with Mexican background would be unfair to him. Instead he said that, from the judge's ruling, this judge was clearly being unfair and then looked for the judge's motivation and noticed the judge's background, interests in pro-Mexican political causes that conflict with some of Trump's campaign positions, etc.
Maybe Trump is correct. Maybe Trump is trying to defend himself against a campaign season political attack (e.g., consider the plaintiff law firm). Maybe Trump is just trying to do his best as a defendant. Maybe Trump is looking for media attention. Even if Trump is just blowing smoke, I suspect that he is within his rights. But I don't think that Trump is racist.
> As to what their culture is like apart from that, I don't think your opinion matters.
No, sadly my opinion likely does matter: We don't want new ghettos where police are afraid to go. Supposedly there are such in Europe now.
Even if in the past we had Native American, African, Irish, Italian, or Chinese ghettos, we are not obligated to have more ghettos now, Muslim or otherwise.
> Should we target Islam, or the actual dangerous groups within it?
Of course, we don't want to target all of Islam. But apparently we very much need to target some groups within Islam.
Of course there is the issue of the open border with Mexico: Anyone who can get to Mexico can just walk across the border -- no vetting of any kind.
You seem to be for immigration unless there is some really strong reason to say no. Basically I'm for saying no unless there is some really strong reason to say yes. For Muslims, I'm especially eager to say no if only because their culture is so darned different that they typically are darned slow to assimilate. If some Saudi prince wants to go to Harvard, maybe okay. But some Saudis who want to learn to fly the big jets, fly, yes, land, no, no thanks.
There are a lot of people in most of the more industrialized countries I can admire and would welcome to the US, maybe as citizens, certainly as visitors. In many other countries, generally, no, and nearly all the Islamic countries are in that category not really just because they are Islamic (although that concerns me) but because they are backward, too close to or actually just Medieval. Admit people from backward countries?
That's just botheration we in the US don't need.
It isn't just a religion, it's a paramilitary group. Exclude them because their part of a paramilitary group, or part of a sect of Islam that carries out illegal actions where a majority participate or support those actions. And if the group is large enough that it's hard to get a good idea on the numbers that support, that's a good clue we aren't identifying the factions well enough.
> Your description of how refugees get vetted on their way into the US conflicts with my (casual) understanding of the process.
My description also provided a reference, a politifact article, which directly linked to the state department's own guidelines.
> Indeed, supposedly we have already admitted refugees from Syria or nearby after less delay than you mention. Besides, there are reports of the refugees bringing TB and, what was it, measles into the US. Good vetting would stop at least TB and likely measles.
References? I can't address a "supposedly" without something more substantive to go on. All to often, headlines about things like those are alarmist on purpose, either by media agencies to drum up attention (and thus money), or from people with a specific agenda who don't look too closely at the details (or worse, purposefully omit relevant information). It happens to both sides, and it's why it's important to really look at the situation, not go off headlines. For example, the results I'm seeing about Syrian refugees and measles are the problem they are creating in the Middle East and Africa, not the US. Perhaps you would be interested to know that 10-15 million people in America are already infected with Latent Tuberculosis[1], which is what the reports of Syrian refugees is referring to.
> I hope you don't believe that that spirit means we necessarily should admit people.
No, but not doing so isn't economically in our best interest. I'm merely stating that if people are allowed in, filtering by religion seems to have real constitutional problems to me.
> pro-Mexican political causes that conflict with some of Trump's campaign positions
If you're talkign about the La Raza group he was a member of, perhaps you'll find this[2] of interest (I'm not a regular reader of Politifact, but it keeps coming up as what looks like a less biased source in my searching). Here's a snippet:
Our search of the Nexis newspaper database found an episode in 2004 when the association wrote a letter calling for the cancellation of a popular Los Angeles reality television show in which illegal immigrants competed for the free services of an immigration lawyer to apply for a green card. The show "functions as a magnet to encourage people to enter this country without documentation," the letter said.
How do you classify a statement that jumps to race as the reason behind actions when the evidence to support it is shaky at best?
> We don't want new ghettos where police are afraid to go. Supposedly there are such in Europe now.
Europe often has a very different view of and attitude towards immigration and refugees. Wall them off, keep them from affecting the country and culture. The US has historically had a very different approach, which is to integrate them as much as possible. There will be some cultural cross contamination, but it's ended up being a very successful, useful, peaceful and economically profitable approach so far. Ghettos happen when a population is repressed and constrained (and that's how it happened here with black ghettos too).
> Of course, we don't want to target all of Islam.
If you aren't planning to target all of Islam, then don't throw around the terms Islam and Muslim without futher qualification as to what type of this larger group you are referring to. Please reread your prior comment's paragraph that begins with "Second, Islam is a long way from being just a religion." How, when you've explained all the problems with Islam as a whole, as you see them, am I supposed to assume you're only referring to things we should do to stop certain groups? This is the problem with the rhetoric. People would be justifiably upset if in a conversation about white supremacists, all of a sudden the discussion shifted to the problems with white people.
> Of course there is the issue of the open border with Mexico: Anyone who can get to Mexico can just walk across the border -- no vetting of any kind.
Whether it's true or not, and I take issue with the characterization of the process and how easy it is, there appear to be less Mexicans immigrating, and less South Americans immigrating as well (which would likely come through the Mexican border). I'm finding it hard to square it being so easy to cross with the industry of people that charge multiple thousands of dollars per person to get them across safely. Why would people pay for something if it was as easy as you make it sound? Also, to clarify, we do not have an open border. It may be policed less in some areas than in others, but it is not open. There are plenty of numbers at the DHS's Yearbook of Immigration Statistics site[4].
> You seem to be for immigration unless there is some really strong reason to say no.
Yes, because there are many benefits. There's only debate whether illegal immigration is more of a draw or a gain, regular immigration is almost always viewed as a net positive from an economic standpoint.
> For Muslims, I'm especially eager to say no if only because their culture is so darned different that they typically are darned slow to assimilate.
Do you have a basis for that belief? It doesn't appear to be true[5]
1: http://www.aafp.org/afp/2009/0515/p879.html
2: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jun/...
3: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/20/what-we-know...
4: https://www.dhs.gov/yearbook-immigration-statistics
5: http://www.factcheck.org/2016/06/trumps-baseless-assimilatio...
Correct. I need more references. No joke.
I don't know much about Islam. Take dress codes: I don't know if the Burka is demanded in all Islamic countries, ..., and the same for the full list of what is said to be the case in, say, Saudi Arabia.
I've spent a LOT of time gathering information on politics since Trump announced a year ago. I've got a lot of info nicely organized on my computer, but I could have more.
I will have to leave the gaps in my references, details, etc. at least for now.
For Trump, I like him, a lot. He's convinced me. But, I have some concerns -- all IMHO:
(1) He exaggerates. Sometimes its harmless, but maybe not always.
(2) I'd like details, especially on the economy.
But here's the position I take: Trump's a big picture guy. Apparently he's done well with this in business. So, as the big picture guy, he delegates to others and, then, expects them to make the big picture real. Maybe that's really what the President must do. But his big pictures are super tough to evaluate for being good plans. All my best guesses and IMHO.
So, in the end, I have to trust his judgment, determination, seriousness, smarts, management abilities, leadership abilities, sincerity, ability to learn, etc.
There are some small topics where I have enough in references and primary sources to push back against some of the attacks on Trump, but no way can I do that for the full range of issues in the campaign -- that would be a full time job and I already have one, my startup.
IMHO your contributions here are exceptional, in particular way above the content of all the mass media I've ever seen.
For me, on immigration, I'd like us to enforce the laws and processes we have long had, e.g., the one Trump's wife Melania described that she followed.
For immigrants or refugees from the Mideast, for now, mostly for what I want just say no and otherwise be quite careful.
For the contribution Muslims might make to the US, for now I've lost patience and just don't see the gains as worth botheration to be careful, etc.
Or, the US has been essentially at war with a lot of Muslims since 9/11/2001, and I've lost patience. I don't want to hear about their Fatwahs, Jihads, violent Imams, car bombs, exploding suicide vests, IEDs, burkas, chopping off body parts, mutilating girls and young women, executing people for something they said about Allah, etc.
As a US citizen, I owe Muslims who are outside the US and not US citizens nothing and have a perfect right to want to forget about them or, if they attack us, defend ourselves.
You are hoping for more benefit for the US from immigration than I am.
But I don't think that Trump is racist. And I don't agree with Altman's post, and he didn't give much in references either. Your writing is much more solid than Altman's!
I hope the info is sourced, well. It's not just about how much info you have, or what it says, it's about how trustworthy and accurate it is and how unbiased it is together. It's relatively simple to have completely correct statements that through simple omission of relevant info can complete change the calculus. I find locating trustworthy information is the real challenge, and even then, it's rarely without it's problems if you find a good source from the other side.
> For immigrants or refugees from the Mideast, for now, mostly for what I want just say no and otherwise be quite careful.
That's your prerogative, and obviously you aren't along in that view.
> But I don't think that Trump is racist.
Well, to clarify, I don't think he is either. I do think he's pandering to people that harbor feelings bordering on racism. I think his persona is carefully calculated and does not reflect his real thoughts and opinions. I think Trump University was a complete scam (the documents they didn't want shown are fairly damning). I also think if was not a good omen as to what his presidency might entail (and completely inappropriate) that he decided to use his pulpit to go after a judge who he disagreed with.
If you want the liberal side of this, I recommend John Oliver's show Last Week Tonight. He likes to go fairly in-depth on things (but of course it's going to be biased). He goes quite deep into the Trump University topic[1]. It's worth a watch, if for no other reason than it's amusing, and gives you the liberal points on the issue, which you can use to research whether there's something relevant that was left out so you have an answer to the questions raised (if you don't already).
To me, he comes across as a very, very successful con man. Even if I agreed with more of his stances, I just don't feel I can trust him on anything. I truly believe he will say whatever it takes to become president, with little or no intention of following through. Or, to be clear, far, far less intention on following through than your run-of-the-mill career politician. I think his speech is damaging to the nation as it creates divisions and fear-mongers. To me, he's everything I dislike and mistrust about the media dialed to 11. Needless to say, we've come away with fairly different opinions of the man. ;)
> IMHO your contributions here are exceptional, in particular way above the content of all the mass media I've ever seen.
I appreciate that, but really all I did was respond to your specific points and try to keep it civil. :) I enjoy rational discourse, and I was actually far less versed on the specifics of Trump before our back-and-forth. All the items I cited were found as I tried to look up the items you presented. My default stance is that all stories presented by the media have an agenda, so they rarely present an accurate picture of events. I try to remember this to keep me from making strong statements regarding issues where my primary source of information is the media, and if I want to use them in some statement here in a strong way I'll try to do a quick search for what looks like a good less biased source (because unbiased is a pipe dream. Even if you find it, you can't be sure).
Have a nice day! :)
Trump University -- Calling it a university is a bit much. I heard his description of what it was -- that sounded okay. There is a role for education that is closer to practice than in the usual universities -- I used to be a prof in a relatively good B-school and can have some sympathy for what Trump claimed he was doing. But such a thing has to be buyer beware -- actually, much the same for anything in education. My guess would be that Trump started his university mostly for making money, enhancing his brand, and, maybe, getting leads on some hiring. Was there some high pressure selling? Maybe. That's pretty standard for for-profit education. There were some interviews with some people that claimed to like the courses, found them useful, and made money with them. Those students looked like relatively mature business people. I can believe that to get a lot of financial benefit from the real estate parts, would have to be good in the business of real estate or at least willing to work hard to be.
IMHO, Trump has been in business; one pillar of his success has been publicity to build a brand; in this, he is good at tooting his own horn, relatively loudly; he's nearly always selling, say, ABC, always be closing. He has admitted that he exaggerates, but he did say "harmless" exaggerations. Maybe some of the exaggerations are not so harmless.
If he wins, and I certainly believe he will, especially after his Clinton Cash speech, which I believe is just his first of a continuing flow of shots at Hillary (and I suspect her legal problems will keep her off the ballot in November -- I suspect that the FBI is building a rock solid case with just the right charge to bring), I believe that what he will do will be an okay attempt at what he's promised considering that his promises were from someone selling hard, ABC, with some exaggeration.
For improving on ObamaCare, he has already outlined his ideas, and it seems that the main idea is just to let insurance companies sell across state lines and craft policies quite narrowly targeted, a few customers at a time. So, you pay for only what you need and get a relatively good price on that. And maybe he will ask the medical profession to publish price lists. A lot of people will believe that that will beat ObamaCare and, thus, have Trump keep his promise.
For jobs, broadly I believe that there really is a lot he can do. One reason he can be "the greatest jobs president" is timing -- we're about ready to come out of The Great Recession. The economy still needs some help coming out, but I believe that Trump can supply that.
For bringing jobs back, I have to suspect that he can but it will be a quite slow process, for much progress, all of his first term. Why? Because businesses will have to get started, and the labor costs can't be so high too few people will buy the results.
But there are other reasons he can be a great jobs president -- we have about 95 million people out of the labor force.
Another reason: He will say "drill, Baby, drill" and "all of the above" on energy supplies.
Another reason: Rummy said this week that in the 1950s we were spending about 10% of GDP on the military and are down to, what was it, about 4% now. Well, Trump may take us back to 10%, and that will create a lot of jobs, say, like Reagan did when he spent a lot on the US military.
Lowering taxes will help getting the economy going and create jobs.
How to balance the budget? Get the economy going, get people better jobs so that they pay more taxes, put a lot of the 95 million back to work, etc. Don't forget the tariffs. So, get a huge flood of new tax revenue. Does this arithmetic add up? I suspect that he will mostly MAKE add up but not easily. To have this arithmetic add up, he will be constrained.
If he slaps tariffs on imports, then he might create some inflation. I suspect that effect will slow his ability to do much of what he wants in the economy.
Maybe he has some good economic advisers who have outlined a plan that will likely work.
Enforcing the immigration laws? Sure, he can do that right away.
Export illegals? Make a lot of progress with just one word, e-Verify.
I wish we knew a lot more about just what and how Trump will do things, but I doubt we will learn much more before the election.
If Hillary runs, I suspect that there won't be much left of her after Trump beats up on her from now until election day.
Trump is a tough, smart cookie who is good at winning -- I believe he will win against Hillary or whomever he Dems run.
But I don't think that Trump is really running a scam.
Those are primary sources if you are trying to confirm what Trump said, but they do nothing to indicate if what Trump said was correct.
> Trump University -- Calling it a university is a bit much. I heard his description of what it was -- that sounded okay.
I'm much less interested in what Trump says about it than what the documentation says about how it was actually run. I really do advise you to look into this issue closer. Here's something to get you started[1][2] (it has a fairly obvious anti-trump stance, but there are plenty of facts to garner from it).
First, he has no idea who his "handpicked" instructors were, even though that was supposedly a big selling point. Instructors had official scripts to go off in which they talked about dinners with Trump.
The brief, filed in federal district court in San Diego, further asserts that Donald Trump admitted under oath that he retains no real estate techniques beyond what has been published in his books. In other words, students who paid as much as $60,000 to Trump University over the course of a year could have gotten the exact same information through a $10 book purchased on Amazon.
Students in the program’s introductory three-day seminar were told to use their break times to double or even quadruple their credit card limits and were asked to fill out financial statements so they’d be prepared to finance lucrative real estate transactions. Instructors then used those higher credit limits and financial information to pressure the students into enrolling in Trump University’s $34,995 Gold Program.
Trump University sold “one year apprenticeship” programs for $1,495 that were in actuality a three-day workshop and a 1-800 number to a “client advisor.”
Even though students were told they would get to have their picture taken with Trump, usually (possibly every single time, I'm not sure there's a record of him ever showing up) that ended up being with a a cardboard cutout of Trump.
> There were some interviews with some people that claimed to like the courses, found them useful, and made money with them.
The only ones I've really heard of so far were people that were interviewed before the course ended, and expected to receive additional help from the course (contacts/placements, etc) ended. They were incentivized to not speak ill of the course they still hoped would help provide some return on the money they spent. I don't have a source for that though, so if you have something contradictory, it may be more accurate.
> we're about ready to come out of The Great Recession.
We've been out of that recession for years. The unemployment rate is very low[3]. It's a mistake to assume that coming out of a recession means that everyone will get an equivalent job and make the same amount of money as before. In this case, real household income is less in many cases, which is not good. That's not a factor of unemployment though (as the numbers show), but from lower paying jobs replacing previously higher paying jobs. Any policy to "create jobs" that doesn't address this isn't going to do much good, IMO.
> I wish we knew a lot more about just what and how Trump will do things, but I doubt we will learn much more before the election.
I find it troubling that you, and many other people, accept that. I don't think anyone should accepted as a valid candidate that purposefully avoids specifics in favor of wide, general, unverifiable statements. The United States is not a business. The Presidency is not a business-like position. There is very little overlap between a businessman and a politician, and the skills needed, IMO. For one, the President doesn't have that much power. Their biggest effects are to have a public voice, veto bills (if not overturned!), and to try to spur the legislative branches into motion. Want to build a wall? You should be looking towards your Congressmen and Senators, since it's not going to happen without them.
1: https://theintercept.com/2016/03/04/donald-trumps-sworn-test...
2: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/432010/trump-university...
That's right. For plans for the future, being "correct" is asking a bit too much, but we should also have some good audits or at least good details on the plans. I believe that we are quite short on audits or details for Trump's plans for the US with him as POTUS.
I've been for Trump since last fall or so, but I know we don't have nearly enough good details. But what the heck am I to do? To me, the other candidates look much worse, on details and more.
Last fall I thought that I wanted the details, but as voting citizens we nearly never get those. Sometimes politicians deliver -- JFK said we'd put a man on the moon and return him safely to earth and did. Bush 41 said that Saddam's invasion of Kuwait "would not stand", put Schwarzkopf in charge, and, as at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKi3NwLFkX4
the results were brilliant.
Obama said he would "fundamentally transform" America, the US, or some such, but not in any way I'd want.
So, sometimes I like what politicians do, but usually I don't.
For unemployment rate, I was drawing partly from some Bureau of Labor Statistics material and discussion as at
http://themusingsofthebigredcar.com/lets-cut-the-crap-unempl...
There he has a big plot of labor force participation rate. We're talking 90+ million people who could, presumably in principle, be working but now out of the labor force. If you take his judgment seriously, then the situation, to be technical, sucks. He also mentions BLS data U-6 and U-7, and I have yet to look up those and I didn't see links to them. But I believe that the official 5% unemployment rate is lying with statistics, i.e., maybe is literally true for a particular definition that may at times be an okay definition but definitely is not now.
Net, on unemployment, I don't think that the real rate, with a reasonable definition, is 5% or anywhere near that. Maybe Trump's 20% is correct or even too low. So, one hope for the economy, deficit, standard of living, etc. is to get the "labor force participation rate" up, way up.
On Trump University (TU), good to know that in NYS he claimed to be operating a university without a NYS license. So there is a way to stop misuse of university.
For the point that there wasn't anything in the TU courses couldn't find in Trump books, okay. Quite generally there isn't much of any value in education not already in books. So, that situation about has to hold for TU also.
Your references have Trump claiming his instructors are "handpicked" by him personally. Right, that seems to be a lie. I did see a video of a few guys, 2, 3, maybe a few more, who claimed to have learned some valuable material TU about how to make money in real estate. Okay, maybe a few people did. Maybe there was some content in the courses.
To me, TU looks like an example of my guess about how Trump has done a lot of his smaller businesses: He has a broad, big picture idea, gets some people, and has them try to make the idea work. One of the keys to the idea is the Trump brand. Then the people Trump hired charge forward. If they make money, don't lose big law suits, and don't get too much bad publicity, then Trump regarded the project as successful. Call it business. For the customers, it's buyer beware. From what I've seen of the for-profit education industry out there, TU seems to fit right in. For the selling, sure, look at the famous movie scene from Glenn Garry Glenn Ross
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6Lf8GtMe4M
So, selling in business is permitted to be just like that and sometimes is. So, maybe much of the selling of TU to students was like that.
A concern: One of your video clips has Trump selling TU and to me he looks and sounds very much the same as he did in his rallies and interviews during the primaries. He's good at sounding sincere: He sounded sincere for TU but said things, e.g., "handpicked", that conflict with what was in the deposition transcript you referenced. And during the primaries he sounded similarly sincere. That's a concern -- I need to upgrade my sincerity filter.
So, instead of Trump I should have backed one of the 16 Republican candidates he beat? I liked them less than Trump -- have no reason to trust them any more than Trump. I should vote for Hillary or Bernie? They can sound sincere, too, but to me the details, such as I can find them, look a lot worse than Trump's, and I agree that Hillary is a terrible crook and should go to jail for her violations of the rules and laws about handling classified information. So, maybe I should wait for Batman, Superman, Captain America, or John Wayne? Not promising, either.
So, one reason I have on my computer as primary sources what Trump said is to have, for later, means to write critical blog posts, with the primary sources and solid references, if Trump fails to deliver on his promises. Thin soup if Trump is lying. Not a lot of recourse.
Do I know that Trump's plans for jobs, the deficit, taxes, the wall, trade negotiations, negotiations with Iran, economic growth, protecting the US from radical Islam, rebuilding the US military, etc. are solid, doable, realistic, feasible? I wish I did, but I don't. And similarly for Jeb!, Cruz, Rubio, Carly, ....
What should I do about TU, Trump Steaks, Trump Vodka, etc.? It was business. If it was bad enough, then he'd be in jail.
Sure, I'd like a solid contract with a candidate for POTUS, but we don't have those yet. Lacking a solid contract, I'd like details. There are some, at a high level that don't guarantee much, at Trump's Web site. I'd like some examples of where our trade deals are bad, what good trade deals would look like, and the chances of getting good deals -- I don't have that. I'd like some really careful numbers, quarter by quarter, on the economy, budgets, taxes, revenue, deficits, interest rates, and inflation, but, again, I have no way to get those. Maybe the Fed staff can do some useful things with such macro economic modeling, but maybe they can't, either.
So, what can I do? What can any citizen or voter do? What did voters do for Ike, FDR, ..., Lincoln, ... Washington? Try to read character. And now we have what should be some advantages. Do I like our accuracy in reading character? HELL NO. Heck, I liked Romney, but recently I've concluded that he's a total turkey. How such a total turkey could have done that well in business and in MA politics I can't understand, but he looks like a turkey now.
For Trump: He's energetic. He's paying for nearly all of his campaign with his own money. Nearly any day in nearly any state, he can get 30,000 people to show up for one of his rallies -- i.e., he can build consensus and, e.g., thus get Congress to go along. He can get tens of millions of people to watch on TV and will likely do that again in the three or whatever debates with the Dem candidate -- again, he can get people to watch; he can build consensus. It appears that he wants the convention to add publcity and brand; if so, then that could help him get Congress to go along. I agree with him that the media is deliberately deceptive, disgusting, dangerous, and I'm pleased that he pushes back on them really hard -- and he's the only US high office candidate who does that. And, thus, maybe some of the newsies will actually dig into his details, plans, etc. to give us what we need but don't have now. He seems to be one heck of an effective manager: His small team did really well in the primaries. Think for a minute about the planning, details, contracts, arrangements, publicity, security, etc. for rallies for 10,000 -- 30,000 at a pop, all across the country. How the heck to do that, with a small, green staff?
Or, to me, Trump is the least bad, by a large margin, but, still, by a much larger margin, less than I wish we had and knew before we vote.
After all that, I've got my startup to work on.
It's not lying with statistics, there is a definition for who is considered employed and who isn't. It's important to track who has decided they want to work but aren't (unemployed) compared to those who aren't employed and are not looking (retired, caring for a relative/child). These are well defined terms[1] that are used in the unemployment and labor force participation[2] numbers. From what I can tell, if a person has not looked for a job in 4 weeks, then they are considered not participating. But it's not done there, they also ask if they have looked in the last 12 months, and why they stopped, to try to identify people marginally attached.
Note, there is some thought that this could be the baby-boomers retiring[3], which account for larger demographic than others through a quirk of history.
Employment has a fairly complex definition in this respect. Do I think the participation rate matters? Yes. Do I think we are necessarily back where we were before the recession? No. Do I think we are in a recession? Definitely not, based on GDP growth[4]. That much of this growth isn't going to help those that need it is a separate problem, and not necessarily helped by focusing on the employment rate. Quality of employment matter a lot.
> Net, on unemployment, I don't think that the real rate, with a reasonable definition, is 5% or anywhere near that. Maybe Trump's 20% is correct or even too low. So, one hope for the economy, deficit, standard of living, etc. is to get the "labor force participation rate" up, way up.
The problem is none of these numbers are qualified. If you don't accept the definition of unemployment put out by the US government, that's fine, but you can't credibly quote another number, using different criteria, without defining that criteria. Does 20% include everyone that could work? Quite a few (93.3% of those not in the labor force) don't want to work[5].
> For the point that there wasn't anything in the TU courses couldn't find in Trump books, okay. Quite generally there isn't much of any value in education not already in books. So, that situation about has to hold for TU also.
True, but I think it's a bit different if you are the person who wrote the books,and you also have a course for thousands of dollars to teach you "real-estate secrets", then I don't think it's wrong to expect that you have something worth that extra money, otherwise the implication is that there's something new and actually secret that you are imparting, not the same old information you've already published.
> Maybe there was some content in the courses.
I don't doubt there was some content in the courses. There has to be something for people not to immediately report them as frauds (but not much, people don't want to believe they just spent thousands on a very bad investment). The problem is that the purpose of the courses was not to teach, but to try to pump them for more money, which is made clear by the handbooks and procedures the teachers were meant to follow.
> To me, TU looks like an example of my guess about how Trump has done a lot of his smaller businesses...
If you're making a case that he'll increase corruption in government by not correctly vetting those he chooses to work on a problem, and giving very little oversight, you're making a good case. ;)
> So, instead of Trump I should have backed one of the 16 Republican candidates he beat?
I'm not espousing you choose a particular candidate, just that you look critically at all of them, and all their claims. For me, this places Trump at the bottom. I don't like how he rides negative sentiment for popularity, and I don't like how
> I liked them less than Trump -- have no reason to trust them any more than Trump. I should vote for Hillary or Bernie? They can sound sincere, too, but to me the details, such as I can find them, look a lot worse than Trump's
I'mnot a big fan of Clinton, but I see her more as a career politician that has a hard time connecting to the populace, but as someone that does intend to do good.
Bernie is probably the most sincere politician any of us have seen in decades. Unfortunately, some of his ideas aren't really feasible. It's moot now.
> and I agree that Hillary is a terrible crook and should go to jail for her violations of the rules and laws about handling classified information.
I think as a career politician she's focused more on doing what works to get stuff done, and that probably entails ignoring what she saw as some of the smaller, unimportant rules both on purpose and through ignorance. What I think is likely, is that after this happened, a scary amount of congressmen and senators that had previously unused government email addresses all of a sudden started using them. That she used one isn't damning to me at all. That she may have covered up stuff after the fact is troubling, and could quite possibly be true. I at least expect my politicians to be competent enough not to be caught (heh), given that I think they all have things to hide, not matter how small (how many laws do you break driving to the store?). Trump doesn't get a pass on this though, the only group I have less trust in to admit wrongdoing instead of cover it up is Corporate America.
> So, one reason I have on my computer as primary sources what Trump said is to have, for later, means to write critical blog posts, with the primary sources and solid references, if Trump fails to deliver on his promises. Thin soup if Trump is lying. Not a lot of recourse.
That's a good reason! I tend to think he'll check moderate his claims later though, so he can always point to the more moderate version and say "hey, that's not what I was saying at the end". It doesn't really matter if he's vocal about it. As it is, he's known for having a multitude of (sometimes conflicting) stances on issues[6]. I tend to think that lets people choose the stance the agree most with and assume that's what he means, and ignore variations they may not agree with, regardless of when the fall on a timeline.
> So, what can I do? What can any citizen or voter do? What did voters do for Ike, FDR, ..., Lincoln, ... Washington?
Look at past public (governmental) service. Washington was a general in the revolution, and a leading figure. Lincoln was a Congressman. FDR was a Senator. Each had quite a while in public service before becoming President. I think that's a very important way to determine what type of politician one will be as President, because I don't think high level political offices like all these listed are like any other job. The pressures are different, the power is different. I would have much fewer reservations about Trump if he'd been in some public office for a while and his behavior there could be used to counteract his public persona, which doesn't instill confidence in my regarding his abilities to work with others as a politician.
> After all that, I've got my startup to work on.
Fair enough. Good luck!
1: http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm#nilf
2: http://www.bls.gov/bls/cps_fact_sheets/lfp_mock.htm
3: http://qz.com/286213/the-chart-obama-haters-love-most-and-th...
4: http://www.multpl.com/us-gdp-growth-rate/table/by-year
5: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/11/14/more-and-mor...
6: http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/full-list-dona...
Well, the biggie issues are (A) she had some super woop de do top, top, top secret info in some of those e-mails and (B) it appears that, via some sloppy password handling, etc. her e-mail server was easy to hack. And it may have been hackable otherwise. The combination of (A) and (B) could be much worse than awful: E.g., from the info in her e-mails, Russia, China, NK, Iran, etc. could ask "How the heck did the US know THAT? We have a leak, human intel, spies, electronics, something, and we need to discover what and plug it." If we had spies, then they could be killed or rendered useless. Supposedly some of the info in her e-mail traffic was really bad to let out.
One point you made is that for better vetting Trump, we should have seen him for some years in public service. With the generally low opinion of politicians, maybe we are not missing much, but you may be correct. E.g., in the eyes of the Republican party voters, Trump just totally knocked the socks off 16 politicians with histories of public service in politics. That is, the voters didn't think much of the records in public service of Jeb!, Rubio, Cruz, etc. Obama was an IL state senator and then a US senator -- hmm.
For an example of what you did suggest, I REALLY like my Congressman Dr. Chris Gibson, Colonel US Army, Retired, but he is resigning as he promised in his self-enforced term limits to teach. I want him for VP.
On sloppy management standards, you may have a point: Trump is promising to relax a lot of regulations, rules, etc. E.g., for the EPA, he says that he wants clean water and air. While I regard the EPA as infested with radical, OCD, earth-worship Greenie psycho, sicko, wackos, and maybe used by Obama for shakedowns, we've done a lot to clean up the environment beyond just water and air. If Trump is as sloppy managing government projects that might add dirt to the environment as he was managing TU, that could be bad. But, again, TU was business -- intended to be a profit making for-profit educational venture.
I don't know why the heck Hillary is in politics. Maybe as a college sophomore coed she wanted to save the world, but that was a long time ago. In some ways she's just really bright, but somehow it appears that still she's disconnected from reality, so much that she is unable to be effective and, instead, is just dangerous, from HillaryCare, ..., Benghazi, her speeches, Clinton Global Initiative, etc. Tough to believe that someone could be so bright in some respects but such a train wreck in others, and it took me a long time where I "paid full tuition" to understand that about humans, but it's fully true: It's fully believable and, sadly, not very surprising that she can be really bright but, still, in a lot of the rest of life, just a train wreck -- which to me it looks like she is.
I don't think that Trump is a racist, xenophobe, or misogynist, but you have raised some interesting respects for which Trump should be vetted. Sadly, the media won't do that.
For a recession, sure, the official definition is for the time on the way down, three quarters in a row of less GDP or some such. Then once the GDP quits falling, we say that the recession is over! Lying with statistics, or at least with a goofy definition. For the people, we are out of a recession when the GDP gets back where it was. With that definition, we are still in the recession of 2008, and that is serious because a lot of people are hurting. Also it's serious because 2008 was 8 years ago, and the Great Depression lasted only 12 years. Net, Obama hasn't known how the heck to get us out of the Great Recession.
My impression of the employment situation is that it sucks, that is, with some exceptions that apply to only a tiny fraction of the population, it's nearly impossible for a person to be hired, say, to support a family -- high school graduate, college graduate, professional school graduate, mid career middle class worker, etc. For another sign of a sick economy, the birth rate is too darned low -- literally we are going extinct. That is, family formation sucks. From all the data I've seen, the fraction of the work force that wants a job but can't find one is somewhere in 20-35%. That's a Great Depression number. The only reason we are not in a Second Great Depression is massive fiscal stimulus, massive monetary stimulus, and the social safety net.
E.g., GDP is hardly growing. But, there is more: We are now so afraid of the banking system blowing bubbles that the banking regulators have nearly put commercial banking out of business. In a sense, it appears that we are going for a cash instead of a credit economy. One thing Trump can do to get the economy going is to get banking regulations like they were before the more recent changes.
Here is some good news: Since Ike, we in the US have suffered terribly from a lot of really totally brain dead POTUS decisions: Viet Nam. Fumbling with the oil crisis. The inflation that caused the S&L crisis and the 22% interest rates. The bubble blowing of 2000 and 2008. If Trump is correct, the horrible trade deals, e.g., NAFTA, letting China into the WTO, and just playing pocket pool as our trade deficits soared, plants closed, etc. Then the Greenie nonsense. Then Gulf War II. Then ObamaCare. Sarbanes-Oxley and killing off our commercial banking system. The open borders nonsense.
We could be a LOT better off if we just quit being so just totally brain-dead stupid. All of that is well within what can be fixed with just Trump's common sense.
There is another way to get the economy going: Send everyone a check for $1000. Wait one quarter. If that wasn't enough, then do it again. Soon enough it will work.
To me, especially after Trump's speech this week on Clinton cash, Benghazi, e-mail, etc., it's Trump in the White House in January. Okay. Now maybe the thing to do is to vet the heck out of him and, starting in January, monitor the heck out of him. Too bad the mainstream media, even when they hate Trump for whatever reasons, can't write meaningful material on Trump. Your writing, since you do give some references, although not all of those references make solid cases, is much better than the MSM.
We put up with the disasters of Obama, W, and Clinton. We might do really well with Trump.
Do you have any examples please?
All I can say is I heard it in the media and suspect that some Google search of recent weeks should show some examples.
Your interest in examples is excellent -- now if we could get NYT, WaPo, CBS, ABC, NBC, etc. always to do that ....
This is completely irrelevant, because most the judge's rulings that Trump is upset about occurred before Trump flip flopped on immigration from his former support for a path to citizenship to his current opposition.
thirdly,
> La Raza is a group that advocates for a path to citizenship for all illegal immigrants.
this quote implies that the judge is incapable of being an impartial public official, incapable of performing his job.
Do you have a link to an article or policy document from the La Raza Lawyers Association that supports your claim?
http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2016/06/09/whites-go-back-eur...
Concerning the 2014 San Diego La Raza Scholarship Fund and Judge Curiel's participation on the selection committee that awarded a scholarship to Ricardo Elorza, self-described as "a boy from Oaxaca, who did not know English and is undocumented"
http://sdlrla.com/scholarship/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/La-...
is this r/cringeanarchy?
So what? The point is not the protester's behavior -- it's the fact that Trump encourages them.
> He has said that a judge of Mexican descent couldn’t treat him fairly because of his heritage and that we should ban Muslims from entering the country.
He said that a judge of Mexican descent isn't treating him fairly, and that it is probably because of his heritage. That's very different from saying that the judge can't treat him fairly because of his heritage. How could someone with Sam's command of language and attention to detail not see the difference? And where was the condemnation of the Obama admin when they tried to prohibit an Iranian-American judge from presiding over Iranian immigration cases?
> He has accused Obama of somehow being responsible for the recent shooting in Orlando.
The WP originally ran this headline and changed it because it was such a wild inference from what he actually said.
Given the reality of 21st century electoral politics in the United States, I find it unsurprising, yet deeply disappointing all the same, that anyone actually believes this.
In fact, it's hard for me to get too mad at those that think they are working for the cause of good, because even if I believe they are misguided (and would not use such tactics myself), as at least they are doing what they think is the best thing to help. Intent matters (but is, of course, not the only thing, nor even the most important thing).
I've tried to engage people regarding Trump on facebook (not confrontationally; with facts and debate). The last time I replied to a post regarding the Mexican-American judge, the OP deleted the entire post within an hour. The time before that when someone said Trump has no policies I pointed out his major policies/themes that he's had and got radio silence on the thread.
- he is being unfair, so now I say "why"
Now people invert this argument and say Trump is saying "He can't do his job because of his heritage". That's completely different from saying "he is not doing his job, and the most probable reason is his heritage".
Now you can certainly say that even the latter argument is racist or xenophobic or morally wrong, but why fabricate something that he never said or implied?
Anyway, whatever, man. Keep nitpicking if you want. It's really sad that you feel a need to do that to make even a weak attempt to defend that horrible piece of human garbage.
Why are you splitting hairs over semantics when the bottom line is that Trump is racist? Seriously... if the misquote leads to the same conclusion as the actual quote then why does it matter?
And the WP headline remains: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/06...
Tapper: But I don't care if you criticize him. That's fine. You can criticize every decision. What I'm saying is, if you invoke his race as a reason why he can't do his job ...
Trump: I think that's why he's doing it.
But instead he says that the judge treated him unfairly due to his race. Literally racist.
Honest questions:
Do you think it is possible that Trump is just mad that he lost and is just trying to discredit the judge?
Do you think Trump is the kind of person that would do something like that?
How is that no evidence? That is evidence to support the claim. Is it proof? Is it enough to condemn the judge? I don't know, but it is false to say that Trump came out of nowhere with this and has no evidence.
But that's clearly false: "“I’m building a wall. It’s an inherent conflict of interest"
And there's nothing racist about that conclusion. People do act based on their identity and heritage, and there's nothing wrong with that. If it affects their rulings as a judge, then that's problem, and all Trump has said is that he's not getting fair rulings (subjective, but that is his POV), and that there's an obvious potential conflict of interest.
If you said "She is dumb because she's a girl," you would be (rightfully) pilloried for being sexist. No reasonable person is going to interpret that statement like you are interpreting Trump's comments.
He says "BIG OUTRAGEOUS THING, with long list of qualifiers that follow" the media reports the first part and completely misses the second. Mostly it's a great way to game the system to get free media attention.
It's pretty amazing how it works.
You also conveniently ignored the fact that Trump wants to ban about 1.2 billion people from entering the US because of their religion, and treat the Muslims already in the US as a fifth column similar to what the Nazis did with the Jews. How long before the frothing-in-the-mouth, 'patriotic', armed Trump goons commit a Kristallnacht against Muslims in the US? this is exactly where we're heading with a Trump presidency.
Frankly, it's disappointing that anyone with a sliver of intelligence can be fooled by this dangerous, reckless, and divisive figure. A figure that has made racism and misogyny acceptable to the masses, and, in the ominous words of the future dictator: "racial profiling is not the worst thing to do".
I didn't ignore it, nobody even mentioned. Every argument should stand on its own, and be built on facts and logic.
Tossing in words like Nazis, frothing-in-the-mouth, dangerous, fool, racism, misogyny, and dictator are all unrelated buzzwords.
If you think this judge situation is so vile and leads to racist dictatorship, why have you not called for the resignation of Obama after his admin tried to force a judge with Iranian heritage from hearing Iranian-American immigration cases?
I hope you would stand up and speak out against such actions, because I know I would.
Re: Muslim ban/profiling. You said that no one mentioned it. Apparently, you and I read different articles by sama then.
I'm sorry, but being a Trump supporter means you accept his positions on race, immigrants, and the economy. Otherwise, why on earth are you supporting him? because he told you he'll "make America great again"? no one can argue with that, but like sama mentioned, this is but a trap to lure you in, but the honey ain't there, it's just hate, misery, and xenophobia all the way inside.
> Trump is calling bias here is because he knows that he antagonized people of Mexican origin
Doesn't matter. Even if Trump deliberately antagonized people of Mexican origin, he still deserves fair treatment in court.
> Re: Muslim ban/profiling
Muslim profiling is the de facto security policy in the United States and has been since way before Trump announced his candidacy. If Muslim profiling is equivalent to Nazi treatment of the Jews, I look forward to your spirited campaign calling for the resignation and charging of Obama. I agree on the Muslim ban: not a good idea, would have no effect on terrorism, and is contrary to the ideals of the country.
> You said that no one mentioned it. Apparently, you and I read different articles by sama then.
It's my fault, I meant no one mentioned it in the thread, and I didn't realize that you were referencing the articles reference. But again, I do think it's irrelevant to the point about the judge. Every argument should stand on logic and truth, otherwise we're just like the conspiracy theorists who put together 1 true argument, and 9 false ones, then point to the true one whenever someone points out the issues with the false ones.
> I'm sorry, but being a Trump supporter means you accept his positions on race, immigrants, and the economy.
I do agree with his position on removing illegal immigrants. They're a modern slave labor class in America that is being capitalized by the rich. They're mistreated, underpaid, and when I look at it the only two solutions I can think of to the problem are open borders or enforcement of the borders. Unfortunately Trump is the only candidate calling for the latter.
Why do you think he isn't getting it? Because he complains? You haven't followed very many court cases if that's how you judge judicial bias.
Or do you have actual concrete evidence from the court case itself to demonstrate bias?
> I do agree with his position on removing illegal immigrants. They're a modern slave labor class in America that is being capitalized by the rich.
True. Either remove them (and block more) or give those already here a way to "go legit" (and still block the border).
The judge is an _American_ of Mexican ethnicity. Trump said that the judge gave unfair rulings because of the judge's ethnicity. Trump is advocating that ethnicity "trumps" citizenship, judicial duty, or any other personal and professional virtues. As Paul Ryan correctly noted this kind of essentialism is textbook racism.
Or put another way. Were the rulings so egregious that a white judge, or a black judge, or an asian judge would rule differently? Aside from the judge's ethnicity what has he said or done in the past to imply any bias against Trump? If Trump truly believes the judge has a strong bias why hasn't he instructed his lawyers to for a motion of recusal, or a change of venue, or any other legal remedy?
> And where was the condemnation of the Obama admin when they tried to prohibit an Iranian-American judge from presiding over Iranian immigration cases?
It was wrong for the Justice Dept to do this. But the Obama admin being wrong doesn't make Trump more right. Both can be wrong. BTW, the Obama DOJ recognized its error, reversed course, and settled with the Iranian-American judge: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/11/03/454394225/...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/06/...
http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2016/06/09/whites-go-back-eur...
Note that the California La Raza Lawyer's Association explicitly links to the Nationsl Council of La Raza (scroll to the bottom):
http://larazalawyers.net/id3.html
And note this 2002 NYT article mentioning Judge Curiel when he was a federal prosecutor and how much he valued his ethnic and linguistic ties to Mexico.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/26/world/new-web-of-trust-top...
Concerning the 2014 San Diego La Raza Scholarship Fund and Judge Curiel's participation on the selection committee that awarded a scholarship to Ricardo Elorza, self-described as "a boy from Oaxaca, who did not know English and is "undocumented"
http://sdlrla.com/scholarship/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/La-...
> Surely not even you think that Trump is an actual racist, as in: he thinks mexicans are worth less as human beings purely for being mexican.
He's never said anything like that so I don't think he's a frothing at the mouth racist. Based on his public statements I'd say he's a mild racist who holds some old-school prejudicial attitudes on race and gender. His attitudes were fairly normal fifty years ago.
By the same token judge Curiel has not said anything racist or prejudicial against white people in general, or against Trump in particular. He's a judge, and judges put aside their political views and apply the law fairly. They do this all the time. So it would be a stretch to say he has an anger boner against Trump.
> No, you just want to point out how he said things the "wrong" way. Well that incidentally is political correctness which is the very thing people are fed up with.
I agree that PC reactions to perceived racism/sexism/islamophobia can go overboard and obscure the truth. Such as the Sam Harris vs Ben Affleck incident.
The problem in this case Trump is basically saying "this guy hates me because he's mexican". There's no "right" way to say this. There's no deeper truth being unearthed. The judge made rulings against Trump, and Trump unloaded against the guy. This is Trump trying to save face and settle a personal score.
The WP headline is still there: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/06...
Can you show any evidence that the judge has acted in a manner unfit of his judicial duty? Or that the case lead to outcomes that were harsher than the norm for such a decision?
So either he is fit to be a judge and is capable of being impartial or he isnt.
by the way Trumps attorney has said publicly that they will not seek to have the judge removed from the case. Actions speak louder than words.
That depends on the basis of the claim. If its based on presumptions about group identity and how that will produce actions, then yes. If it is based on systematic gathering of data on judicial decisions, factual circumstances which cover the expected non-race inputs to those decisions, and information of about defendants' and judges' races, then, no.
Trump has directly said that the judge must be biased, because of his ethnic heritage and the supposed "fact" (which isn't actually a fact, but anyway) that Trump is "building a wall" -- that is, the claim actually being made by Trump is that it is impossible for any person of Mexican heritage to not be biased against Trump because of Trump's specific policy stances.
He then decided of his own volition to bring up the judge's ethnicity at a political rally and on national TV. This, mind you, was before he made what Paul Ryan called "the textbook definition of a racist comment": "I'm building a wall; it's an inherent conflict of interest."
Even if you manage to convince yourself that Trump did not say anything overtly racist (which can be done with a tremendous amount of motivated reasoning), he still shat the bed twice by prioritizing his business interests over his political campaign and making the conversation about the judge's race.
> He's right that many Americans are getting screwed by the system. He’s right that the economy is not growing nearly fast enough. He's right that we're drowning in political correctness, and that broken campaign finance laws have bred a class of ineffective career politicians.
It's demagoguery 101.
The comparison is between Trump and what Hitler seemed to be before he revealed himself in full as what he truly was.
The analogy is completely sound. We are comparing to late 1920s Hitler, not 1940s hitler. It's an important distinction.
But it's kind of like safety engineering: You plan for the worst possible accident, not for the happiest possible outcome. If Hitler is the worst possible outcome of electing Trump, that's bad enough that even Hillary looks good. Not that I could vote for Hillary, but I sure ain't voting for Trump.
Also the Rubin Report has been right in the thick of it, also another great source of non-mainstream coverage: https://www.youtube.com/user/RubinReport
https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2016/06/04/it-ought-to-be-com...
It is time to get serious.
Indirectly you are calling Trump voters Nazi's. That is pretty damaging to debate and to democracy.
First calling Trump right, then portraying him as a mastermind capable of murdering millions of people, is juggling the very same demagogic tricks you so despise. There is no need to demonize someone, when you can factually, and calmly, attack their xenophobic economy-damaging proposals.
This is fighting fire with fire.
That would make everybody Nazis forever. Different groups have different outgroups.
http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything...
Just saying "the other political side will be terrible for our country" is not fascism, because yes, everybody does that.
P. J. O'Rourke had an interesting take on those wrong proposals: "I have a little announcement to make ... I'm voting for Hillary. I am endorsing Hillary, and all her lies and all her empty promises. It's the second-worst thing that can happen to this country, but she's way behind in second place. She's wrong about absolutely everything, but she's wrong within normal parameters."
Why? Hitler didn't implement it himself either, he had staff for that. He just told them to get cracking.
(That doesn't mean Trump will, but dismissing the possibility for grounds of incompetency seems a too easy way out.)
There are a lot more resemblances with Trump than you think.
I never said anything even remotely close to that.
Oh wait, you mean Trump? Tons of examples if you look. Criticizing a judge for being Mexican is one recent example.
Parties just endlessly change definitions of terms until it fits their narrative.
Why, pray tell, should I find ethnic bigotry less repugnant than racism?
Crippled America, Time To Get Tough, The Art of the Deal, The Art of the Comeback, The America We Deserve The Trump Card: Playing to Win in Work and Life by Ivanka Trump, The Way to the Top, How to Get Rich, Think Like a Billionaire, The Best Golf Advice I Ever Received, Why We Want You To Be Rich, The Best Real Estate Advice I Ever Received, Think Big and Kick Ass, Never Give Up, Think Like a Champion, Midas Touch
https://www.amazon.com/Crippled-America-Make-Great-Again/dp/...
I think it's just plain lazy.
In Presidential elections, we generally have terrible choices (even if this doesn't become obvious until much later). This year is particularly noteworthy.
Painting one side as evil incarnate is neither insightful nor productive, and the type of fodder easily available on hundreds of other sites.
Here in Chicago we had Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders tell us that if Rahm gets re-elected his billionare friends will take over and destroy the city. Warren and Sanders never once mentioned their friends, the Daley family, and how the Daley dynasty left Chicago with debt it cannot ever pay off. Meanwhile, Rahm is raising taxes for pension perks for public sector unions and other lefty causes. More welfare, more section 8 housing, more tax raises on business, more anti-business legislation, more police in poor areas, etc. He did literally the opposite of what they claimed. Why do we let Warren and Sanders hysterically lie to us like this? Why do we let the left dominate this angry narrative and excuse them for it when its discovered to be a falsehood? The billionaires taking over narrative works, that's why, even when its clearly bullshit.
No idea about what a Trump presidency would be like, he clearly is playing the Tea party playbook here to get motivated GOP primary voters out there, but I imagine he'd be a milquetoast president probably unable to do much unless he maintains GOP majority in congress, and even then in-fighting in the GOP would be pretty rough on him. Honestly, a gridlocked congress that is ineffective would probably be best. There's a lot of federal meddling that is questionable to me that we've accepted as the status quo. Stopping that could only help.
I also think we also over-value what the presidency is. Its not a dictator. Without the support of congress, the president is fairly powerless outside of war powers and even those are limited without congress post-Nixon/Johnson. One of the wonders of the US is how well the founders got the balance of power right from early on. These decisions still pay dividends today.
That said, Clinton with a GOP majority congress is ideal to me. This scenario has enough gridlock to keep big government away a bit, enough gridlock to get good compromises, and Clinton's left-leaning stance on social issues are better, to me at least, than strict right-wing nonsense about alienating certain ethnic or religious groups. I also think SCOTUS has a strong right-wing advantage and it would be nice for Clinton to even that out.
* Building a giant wall along the U.S.'s southern border to keep Mexicans out
* Rounding up and deporting Hispanics currently in the U.S. on a mass scale never before seen in history
I mean, yes, he's not proposing herding Hispanics into gas chambers, but he absolutely is talking about making American policy tilt harder against one particular race than it ever has in the past. Maybe that doesn't make him Hitler, but it definitely makes him something.
This is in no way saying "its not that bad of a policy" its still a horrible thing to propose, but saying "American policy tilt harder against one particular race than it ever has in the past" is ignoring a lot of history, unless you're talking about very recent events.
It's interesting that a presidential candidate can differentiate themselves from other candidates (and receive so much hatred) by stating that they will enforce the law when elected.
Making everyone obey the law is not tilting policy against one group just because that group has abused it disproportionately.
Also, your first point isn't entirely correct; there already is a wall; Trump just wants to extend it (again, to enforce the law).
As things continue to polarize, the list of items that are "beyond politics" and considered too critical to avoid continues to grow. If you want to discuss politics, just discuss politics, but don't disguise it as a situation so outrageous that it somehow eclipses politics.
Any time someone acts like they truly cannot comprehend why roughly half this country wants to vote in one way or another it just comes across as histrionic and inexperienced.
Trump is right about the problem. His solutions are a more verbose than most. I am reminded of a quote "We must not paint with pale pastels, but with bold colors" Trump is using bold colors to address change.
Mexican Judge - When has it not been heard that many white judges have shown prejudice against a black person or poorer individual. Its not a long shot to say another race can practice prejudice against a white man, when white men and white judges have been doing it for so long.
I have seen many Bernie and Hillary supports cast hatred, throw eggs, beat up their fellow citizen in the name of democracy. Yet our leaders choose to say nothing. To down play it. But those same leaders look for support of those exact same people throwing the punches and the eggs.
Why when choosing to bring up bold colors, do people float to Hitler and Germany? Its extremely hard to understand the reference when all it forces the reader to do is visualize the reference and then creating a connection between Trump and Hitler. Its horribly sad to see such a connection being made, when it seems the Writer, that being Sam, is naive on the issues of Hitler and Germany.
Sam makes references to Immigrants. When in fact TRUMP supports immigrants. Make no mistake between the two. Trump is PRO IMMIGRANT. But he is also PRO-LEGAL IMMIGRANT. Sam makes another naive comment when he believes Trump is anti immigrant. I doubt he is aware, but there are millions of immigrants WAITING in LINE for a LEGAL way to enter the United States. When what is happening is the illegals choose to do it ILLEGALLY, and we say fuck it. Just give them status. No says Trump and No says America. Obey the laws FIRST. Then you can come in. Make no mistake, Trump is PRO immigrant. Just anti Illegal.
No serious growth of economics? Cut Taxes, choose a tax plan, that CBO says will drastically cut out DEBT per taxpayer. That is $1,000,000 per family owed in debt. That is $1,000,000 owned per tax payer in debt. He has chosen his plan and its Sam's naive writing that describes it differently.
With Trump, you MUST start reading between the lines. For every single time he has said he wants LEGAL immigration, he has said 100 times he wants to build a wall.
Sam Altman is too naive within this article to read past main stream media. Its saddening that someone I respect soo much is not as intelligent politically as I would have hoped.
We're raising a generation who will grow up associating the name Hitler with an outspoken New York City real estate developer who did nothing wrong. Which is a bit of a problem if a real Hitler ever comes along. Along the lines of "crying wolf" fairy tales. So lets say we get a guy in 20 years who really does want to put Jews in ovens. And the people are like "yeah yeah yeah, I've heard it all before, and Central Park is kinda cool and I like casinos and big skyscrapers so I'm not seeing a problem here"
I'm not sure they understand trademark dilution as a concept. All tissues are Kleenex and they're all OK, all photocopiers are Xerox and they're all OK, all politicians to the right of Lenin are Hitlers and they're all OK, oh whoops a real Hitler slipped thru and now the ovens are getting stoked up, maybe that was a bad strategy after all.
You have to realize I'm not old enough to be greatest-generation, but for decades of my life all I've heard is everyone's Hitler and its simply not been a problem. And nobody seems to agree with me that its a problem to propagandize that being Hitler is OK and normal and nothing bad happens because of him.
There are over 20 million illegal immigrants here now. That is NOT a net zero event.
If the entire USA has a population of 320 million, then that is a net event of 16% population increase.
Trump claims the Mexicans came here illegally. Therefore they should be deported. That has nothing to do with an unfair advantage. Stop following the light so blindly. Its disgusting.
Undocumented immigrant is Not the proper definition. They came here illegally under their own free will. They broke the law and are NOT law abiding. Therefore, the proper term is illegal. Don't be stupid.
You said it yourself: white men haven't been systematically discriminated against in the US for centuries, but People of Color have been. It's not about practicing prejudice. It's about leveling the playing field so that every American has equal opportunity, regardless of their genetic makeup.
There's a difference between helping blacks because they're poor (as long as you also help poor whites and others), and helping blacks because they're black. The latter is by definition racism (because you're not helping whites because they're white). For example, Obama needs no help.
As for Obama, he is ivy-league educated and probably tests higher on a standard IQ test than you or I. Despite that, people regularly insult his intelligence because he is a person of color.
I agree wholeheartedly that poor people (white or black) have a really tough time getting ahead in society and need help. However, denying the existence of systemic racism and prejudice against people of color does nothing to help anyone.
So you think there is equivalent evidence supporting the systemic racism of the judicial system against african americans over the entire course of our countries history, and this one judge supposedly showing prejudice against a single white business owner.
Thats a strong argument you've got there, i'd stick with it.
Based on the plethora of bad news I keep reading about the US (CIA, FBI, ISPs, Hillary Clinton etc) which portray a very dark picture about Americans, one of them being taken advantage of by their own system. And yet no one doesn't seem to be doing anything and it makes them look egoistic so I really admire Sam for writing this. He has a lot to lose by voicing his concern and yet he's doing it.
More precisely, our nation was built by pioneers. When they arrived in the US they had nearly no welfare programs to draw from. You can have a country with open immigration, and you can have a country with generous welfare, but you can't have both.
1. "Trump's casual racism, misogyny, and conspiracy theories are without precedent among major presidential nominees."
-- I think this is probably a stretch. I would guess that many previous candidates were just as bad if not worse. It just so happens now that everything candidates say or tweet is recorded, played back, and ultimately scrutinized far more than in the past.
2. "We are a nation of immigrants, and we know that immigrants built this country (and Trump, of course, is the grandson of immigrants and married to an immigrant)."
-- immigrants and slaves built this country
Really? You're worried that the notoriously pro-Trump Silicon Valley is going to turn against YC over this?
Edmund Burke - "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
Albert Einstein - "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
And really, I find that to be fairly stupid. If you consider it to be insane to do the same thing repeatedly expecting different results, then you'll never accomplish anything that requires long-term action. Try chopping down a tree or graduating from college with that attitude.
Also, people just like to complain. The most fervent supporters on both sides of the political spectrum are passionately complaining about something.
Having someone say "This is broken, I will do my best to fix it" is leaps and bounds better than 99% of politicians who pretend there is no problem. I will take someone who attempts and fails to fix a problem over the person saying there is no problem.
In this assumption, people who support Trump do not see him the way his non-supporters see him. His non supporters see hateful things around Trump. They see xenophobia, they see his plain speaking as intellectually insufficient, they see his aggressive attitude as a risky behavior based on similarities with dictators.
People who like him see him as someone who can speak politically incorrect like them and who has some wealth, success and power and hope that he might be the one that can represent them and do good.
This is battle of people who want good to win at the end. This is where things turned bad and this would be a costly mistake. The people who hate him, took moral responsibility to stop him because they truly believe they are stopping next hitler. It was disturbing to see google getting in the mix and fix the auto suggestions and google news against trump. I believe that they believe that they are doing for the good of everyone.
This in-general a very very bad and dangerous path to fix the election with media and tech firms leading the way to stop trump. Like someone said this is an American Spring. Many Americans feel left behind. Their anger and desire to thrive will turn to extreme conditions if they are suppressed longer. This is not particle physics where the projectile will stop abruptly because of the election, this is a wave and its physics is much different.
Tech companies already lost their good will by mixing with NSA and now if they continue this path and use their privilege to stop suppressed people, it might take decades to regain that trust. We are the good guys, tech has to liberate people, we might be the next wall street if we directly involve in picking and choosing the rulers.
http://www.slate.com/articles/briefing/explainer/2011/10/han...
## We are already in the midst of a global trade war that will have billions of dollars of impact on the US and impact the livlihoods of tens of thousands (or hundreds) of thousands of people:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Websites_blocked_in_mainland_C... http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/20/technology/google-android-la... http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/07/technology/eu-fines-micros...
^^above or easy low hanging examples, there are dozens of cases across many industries
## Most people of Muslim nations are already not freely allowed to enter the US (ever try sponsoring an H1B?)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_Waiver_Program
^^making an expedient point here rather than typing up all the ways it is challenging for anyone outside of western Europe to travel to the US
3. governments have consistently posed the biggest threats to a free society. this one has broken major dangerous precedents
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/irs-admits-t...
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/05/26/more-than-40-secr...
http://mashable.com/2014/06/05/edward-snowden-revelations/#d...
For my tax dollars, I'm fine with the IRS targeting anti-tax groups, it makes sense and the evidence supported their judicious use of time and resources.Let's not forget these were/are shady 501(c)(4) meant to hide political donations.
If you could see upvotes on comments here, I think you'd see a more accurate picture of support strength.
No, Trump did not blame Obama in Orlando shooting. No, Trump is not future Hitler. No, Trump is most probably not a racist either (despite his extremely despicable and idiotic comments about Judge Curiel - but those probably are not driven by racism but rather by a primitive strategy of pre-spinning the future embarrassing loss of a class-action lawsuit). And probably not a misogynist either, despite his despicable and idiotic comments about Megyn Kelly and others, at least his record suggests otherwise.
Yes, he's rude, he's boorish, he's a pompous and shameless liar, and he is as close to a conman as one can be without being actually convicted in any criminal case. He has a lot of real flaws. Too many for my taste (see above). Inventing imaginary ones is both unnecessary and does not makes anything better. One does not beat Trump by going down to his level. He is a champion at his level, it's not where you have a chance to beat him.
P.S. And no, there's no risk in criticizing Trump, at least not higher than expressing any common political opinion. In fact, right now there's a measurable risk of supporting Trump - I've seen people beaten up for visiting Trump rally in the very city I live in - but if you do it over the internet, the risk is small. Though there has been personal destruction campaigns waged over the internet, I have yet to see one waged against someone for criticizing Trump. In fact, most of the press will be doing it with extreme vigor for next 5 months at least, and if Trump wins - for next 4 years with vigor not seen since the Bush times.
Which for me may be one of the few positive things in Trump winning - at least we will not have anymore journalists drooling over the president and describing how they get something warm running down their leg each time they see him (or her, as it may happen in the alternative case). That's not what the press is supposed to be doing in a working democracy. The press should bite, not lick the hands of power.
I don't believe Rubio ever talked about any such details of Trump's anatomy, and it would be really bizarre circumstance for him to have or claim any knowledge of the subject. It is Trump alone who brought attention to this subject, and the only reason I can see for it is because Trump thinks it contributes to his macho image.
> When he says, Obama has something else going on,
He means Obama is too soft on Islamic terrorism. It may be true or false but this is way separated from saying Obama is involved in actually organizing specific terror attack, which is batshit insane. The difference is like between saying intelligence mishaps and incompetence during Bush's administration that allowed 9/11 to happen are Bush's fault and saying Bush personally orchestrated events of 9/11.
> Trump doesn't, he doubles down.
That's his media strategy. There's no bad press. And the press falls for it hook, line and sinker, and on the way exaggerates and inflates everything Trump said by order of magnitude. This leads to two thinks: a) Trump's media coverage is overwhelming, and it costs literally nothing to him and b) it's no longer possible to distinguish which outrageous story about Trump is true and which is not, which numbs people to anything outrageous Trump may actually say. Plus, every time somebody calls Trump out on a real outrage, he can cite a fake outrage as a proof the press is out to get him, and thus blunt the effect of a real thing.
Trump has responsibility for it, but the press falling for it and helping him to perform this strategy - while thinking they are heroically fighting Trump - has equal, if not greater, responsibility - Trump is expected to behave selfishly, they are expected to be the counterbalance for such behavior, not the amplifier of it.
If he does beat Shillary in the finals, it will at least be nice having most of my peers back to an anti-government slant like during the Bush years.
A vote for a third party is clearly a vote not for either major party candidate.
The parties didn't "mess up" choosing their candidates - the problem is the basis of their entire platform. To the extent that the Repubocrats feel entitled to the Libertarian votes and Demlican the Green, it only affects how much lip service they'll pay to get those votes. Either branch of The Party is not going to run a candidate who will eg dismantle the NSA or the federal reserve. Why would their owners suddenly want to buy pro-freedom positions and diminish their own power?
I also think it's more self honest to be in the group of non-voters, and helps rebuke this extremely condescending attitude that non-voters are "apathetic". In actuality, they're all individuals who've made a rational decision that playing a rigged game is a waste of their time, regardless of how strongly they'll justify it. Silent fucking majority.
Just because the parties agree on some issues doesn't mean the system is rigged.
It seems that sama needs to listen to the Nixon tapes.
Now all I hear is "people who vote for Trump don't know what is good for them", "I can't believe people are stupid enough to believe what Trump says", "Trump is Hitler", etc - not to mention an air that if you don't agree with me, then you are part of the problem, because it is so obvious.
These people aren't stupid, nor is Trump. There is a huge problem in America, you have islamists who are openly attacking western values and western people, but the left side of the political spectrum won't even acknowledge the problem, so like republicans on climate issues, they don't put solutions out for discussions, so, by default, you are left with whatever the other party suggests, in this case Trumps ban on immigration. There is a huge amount of people who feel cheated of the good jobs their parents and grandparents had and believe these have been sent overseas by the big corporations. Yes stopping immigration is a stupid idea, yes a 35% import tax is a bad thing for the economy, but what is Clintons alternative? Se won't even talk about these problems, so I guess more of the same? Sorry, not acceptable. Trumps solutions are bad, but they sound good and there are no alternatives, so of course he is going to win on that one.
If you don't want Trump elected, you have to engage in the debate, you have to acknowledge the problems as his base sees them, at least long enough to convince them that his solutions aren't good.
lmgtfy: https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/
Except for being racist and anti-islamist, she talks a lot about all those problems and outlines proposals for all of them.
You may disagree with many of her proposals (and I do), but to say she's not talking about them just goes to show how the debate has been hijacked by demagoguery.
Is a pro-Trump or anti-Trump post? </socratic>
Just a few examples.
Mostly, I think the term "political correctness" is asinine. I've literally never met a single person who claimed to be trying to be "politically correct," I've only ever heard it used as a pejorative used to brush aside other people's opinions and concerns. Historically it mean holding the party line above reason and compassion, and was repurposed in the 1970's to mean to have "correct" political thinking. See a quote from the time "a man cannot be politically correct and a chauvinist, too." Hardly objectionable, really.
The phrase was turned around in the 90's to mean loosely "liberal bias" or "liberal concerns" Not to be confused with Neoliberalism, but rather center-left American politics.
The term has really become more of a dog whistle than anything useful or meaningful. It's mostly used in political commentary to mean that the user of the term disagrees with another party's assertion that a particularly phrase, policy, etc is the product of bigotry. For example: John makes a statement about Asian-Americans, and Mary calls the statement racist. Mark replies saying that John isn't a racist, Mary is just being politically correct. However, this is a logical fallacy, as Mark has not address the merit or content of Mary's critique.
I guess my point is that "political correctness" isn't a problem, in my view the use of the term is a lazy rhetorical device. It is used when one has no interest in engaging criticism, or doesn't like being called out on being a demagogue.
> He’s right that the economy is not growing nearly fast enough
Can you share the data and rationale you used to come to this conclusion? I get there's a hugely growing and unjust divide between classes, but the macro economy seems pretty healthy. GDP growth has slowed [1], but it's positive and we're a much bigger economy (so harder to grow as fast).
As Hitler was Austrian, technically speaking, he was an immigrant too.
Only after WW2 did the countries and societies start to drift apart (to no small part due to Hitler's semi-forced Anschluss of Austria).
Well, the Anschluß took care of that.
For someone so influential to lend him any sort of legitimacy is entirely reckless.
[1] http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/18/trump-remark...
But from the company perspective, it's another story.
Why is this a bad thing? Isn't the goal of globalization to start thinking of our planet as a whole?
Globalization progresses mankind forward, it will ultimately make us better versions of ourselves. The root of Trump's evil is trying to reverse this progress by locking down borders and rejecting religions that are not the norm in America.
http://qz.com/712518/im-going-to-say-something-very-unpopula...
Sam Altman posted
TRIUMPH OF EVIL
about D. Trump.
Here in the interest of better government for the US, I respond to Altman's post.
Who am I? I've posted long and often at HN, especially on relatively technical topics in applied mathematics.
I am doing an Internet information technology startup where the core of the work is some of my original applied math for higher quality information for the users.
I am a US citizen with no connection with any political campaign.
I live in the state of NY and there am registered as a Democrat.
I've used the Internet to try to keep up on the race for President of the US (POTUS). Currently I intend to vote for Trump.
> But Trump is wrong about the more important part: how to fix these problems.
Well, from all I've seen, so far Trump's statements about the economy are generalities.
Are those generalities bad? Apparently not: As of now, at
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/repub...
apparently on the first ballot in the Republican Convention in Cleveland in July, Trump will receive at least 1542 votes and, thus, comfortably over the 1237 he needs for the nomination. So, so far his economic plans, although just generalities, were part of a successful campaign.
Maybe in the rest of the campaign Trump will provide more details. I hope he will.
For Alman's claim that Trump is "wrong", Altman didn't mention anything, not specifics, not even generalities. So, there is no way for me to tell just why Altman believes that Trump is "wrong".
> He is irresponsible in the way dictators are.
Altman didn't give any specific case where Trump was "irresponsible". Being "in the way dictators are" doesn't mean much since I am sure that Altman, Trump, and all dictators are the same in that they eat, sleep, breathe, talk, and more. To have something critical about Trump, we need something more specific.
> Trump’s casual racism, misogyny, and conspiracy theories are without precedent among major presidential nominees.
I've read a lot about Trump and frequently read that Trump is racist and misogynist. Since I would be very concerned if Trump were those things, I've looked for solid evidence but so far have found none. The sources I read gave no solid evidence, and neither did Altman. The evidence I have found indicates that Trump is just the opposite from racist and misogynist.
> He has said that a judge of Mexican descent isn’t treating him fairly because of his heritage and that we should ban Muslims from entering the country.
I dispute the claim about Trump and the judge: From all I have seen, Trump believes the judge has treated him unfairly in the case. One Trump claim is that the case should have been dismissed on summary judgment. Another claim is that the case should have been dismissed when the lead plaintiff withdrew from the case.
Then, with that unfair treatment, Trump asked why, why did the judge treat Trump unfairly? So, as at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWKmpB7SeNE
Trump said:
> All I'm trying to do is figure out why I'm being treated so unfairly by a judge. And a lot of people agree with it. All I want to do, all I want to do is find out why I'm being treated so unfairly by a judge.
In looking for an answer to this question, Trump noticed the judge's Mexican ancestry and political activities that conflict with some of Trump's positions on illegal immigration from Mexico. Trump concluded that those facts about that judge explain why the judge treated Trump unfairly.
Trump never claimed that the a judge with Mexican ancestry would have to treat him unfairly. Instead Trump noticed that the judge DID treat Trump unfairly, asked why, and noticed the judge's ancestry and political activities.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-keeps-up-attacks-on...
“I’m building a wall. It’s an inherent conflict of interest,” Mr. Trump said.
At
http://www.donaldjtrump.com/media/4-reasons-why-judge-curiel...
there is much more detail on the case and why the judge should recuse himself from the case.
If there is any racism here, it is from the judge. Indeed, if investigate a little, the judge is too close to some groups who want CA to be returned to Mexico and all persons in the US of Western European descent to return to Europe -- wildly racist.
> To anyone familiar with the history of Germany in the 1930s, it’s chilling to watch Trump in action. Though I know intellectually it’s easy in hard economic times to rile people up with a hatred of outsiders, it’s still surprising to watch this happen right in front of us.
Clearly from his many statements, Trump wants the US to enforce the long existing US laws on immigration, e.g., the laws that his wife Melania DID follow correctly. I've listened to nearly all of Trump's debate performances, speeches, and rallies, and what I have heard is that always or nearly so each time Trump says that we should stop illegal immigration he also says right away that he is for LEGAL immigration.
"A hatred of outsiders" has nothing to do with the desire and need to enforce our immigration laws.
That's enough, Sam. Sam, you blew it.
Trump's casual racism, misogyny, and conspiracy theories are without precedent...
That's some impressive cognitive dissonance, sama. Those are two aspects of the same thought happening in Trump's mind.
EDIT: Stewart Lee's smart (and amusing!) bit on the idea of "political correctness": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmsV1TuESrc
>dang 47 days ago
>It isn't that it's pro-Trump, it's that it's pure politics. Such posts always get heavily flagged, and it's hard to disagree with that, since they're typically not posted to gratify intellectual curiosity.
>Basic Income stories are political, but they aren't purely political. There's an intellectual interest in thinking about and debating such a major social change. Political horse race stories are the opposite.
That says they get flagged, not that they aren't allowed. I have no doubt this post is getting many flags as we type.
I didn't flag it as it's their site, but I'm happier that it's gone.
And when he's talking about the need for people to no longer be silent he's referring to the circles he runs with (VCs, Bilderbergers, etc). So in that sense his statement his very relevant.
I agree there is no plan.
Personally I believe we need to go back to first principals on the subject of governance. What does a government of the future look like? I appreciate that's a bit of an ask but my view is that the specter of civil conflict looms large over Europe, less so the United States. Since we're going to get change, we might as well have some productive alternatives in mind.
Let us not forget that we're members of the same tribe.
If you really want to stop Trump, unfortunately at this point the only thing you can do is hold your nose support Clinton. The time where we had any other options unfortunately has passed.
At this point, nothing will convince me to not vote for Trump. I'm too concerned about national security and my fellow (legal) Americans losing their jobs.
"synonyms:rabble-rouser, agitator, political agitator, soapbox orator, firebrand, fomenter, provocateur"
A Demagog is someone who uses hate to bring attention to themselves. Would you call Mahatma Gandhi a demagog? Nope.
hatemonger: a person who kindles hatred, enmity, or prejudice in others
"When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."
"In the Middle East, we have people chopping the heads off Christians, we have people chopping the heads off many other people. We have things that we have never seen before -- as a group, we have never seen before, what's happening right now. The medieval times -- I mean, we studied medieval times -- not since medieval times have people seen what's going on. I would bring back waterboarding and I'd bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding."
"I think Islam hates us. There's a tremendous hatred. We have to get to the bottom of it. There is an unbelievable hatred of us."
I would say demagogic hatemonger is a perfectly accurate description of Donald Trump.
With regard to the intent, I think it's too weak, if anything. "Sociopathic demagogic hate-monger", maybe.