You're in the minority of US citizens. Doesn't necessarily prove the earlier point, but your rebuttal, qualifying yourself as "well-travelled", explicitly makes your perspective that of a minority's view.
How is it "libel" to label a majority of a population something? If our regulations are a reflection of the population's positions (arguably, they are), then we're definitely afraid of people from other countries.
Oh come off it -- I said within and outside of the US as a suggestion that I've met many people and that my view isn't representative of a 10km radius.
Americans even have other cultures built into their language and core identities (self-identifying as Irish-American, Italian-American, Native American, African-American). If you have a serious suggestion for how to improve something, make that suggestion and don't try to legitimize it by spewing insults as a smoke screen for a half=baked thesis.
> How is it "libel" to label a majority of a population something?
Because you're peddling an offensive fiction.
> If our regulations are a reflection of the population's positions (arguably, they are), then we're definitely afraid of people from other countries.
You can start by proving this. How are "we definitely afraid"?
But somehow there were a lot of accusations of racism, sexism, ..., etc. without references, details, rational support, evidence, examples, etc. It was as if the speaker was just trying to please, get the support (in the civil war) of people who would agree, for whatever reason. Then the speaker was willing to offend people who wanted evidence or disagreed. So, the campaign went.
Now people are still passing out various, broad and/or narrow, accusations of racism, etc. without evidence, references, examples, etc.
Okay, I'll chip in an example: Not too difficult to find is
http://spectator.org/64643_when-trump-fought-racists/
which claims to be from November 13, 2015, 9:00 am on how some years ago Trump worked hard in the wealthy area Palm Beach, FL to eliminate racism in the private clubs. So, apparently the situation had long been for rich WASPs or some such and others need not apply. In the fight Trump opened his club, and before he was done he filed a lawsuit. According to the article, basically he won; at least on the surface, and, at least in public policy statements or some such, now all the clubs in Palm Beach admit while ignoring race.
So, that's some evidence that Trump fought racism.
My point: In the campaign such evidence was mostly ignored. So, there were lots of accusations of racism, etc., but without any serious evidence.
The US knows very well what good evidence is. We use only good information, evidence, etc. in mechanical engineering of airplanes, ships, buildings, bridges, etc., in electrical and electronic engineering, in computer science, e.g., a proof that heap sort runs in O( n ln(n) ), in law, medicine, science, military technology, etc. But in the civil war of politics, somehow the accusations go without evidence.
So, with the low level of evidence, the accusations grow wilder. I shut out such accusations and occasionally posted blog and feedback entries and wrote e-mail letters of protest at the lack of evidence. I tried to push back; I saw no evidence of success.
But I remain surprised at the number of people who apparently believe the commonly given accusations, give no evidence, and apparently have seen no evidence.
The good news is that accusations with no evidence should fly about like a wet paper airplane. The bad news is that apparently too many people are quite prepared to spout and/or believe really bad accusations with no significant evidence at all.
Riling people up to "build a wall". Language about immigrants coming in to rape our children, steal our jobs, etc. I don't know what part of the US you're well-travelled in, but much of the Trump rhetoric of last summer struck a nerve with many folks in my area. Now, they're not chanting in the streets and burning effigies, but they mostly are "afraid" of different folks ('afraid' or 'disdainful' of).
I can't "prove" this anymore than you can "prove" it doesn't exist, but these attitudes are not a statistical aberration in my circles.
> I said within and outside of the US as a suggestion that I've met many people and that my view isn't representative of a 10km radius.
But... if you're someone who's travelled around a lot - say, outside the US (which you seem to imply), you are definitely in a minority. There are only around 100m US citizens who have passports at all. If you've travelled internationally, you're in a minority.
If you were trying to make some other point, maybe be more specific. But your initial rebuttal that you "disagree", presumably because you're "well travelled"... base your disagreement on something which connects you with a majority of the public (and there very well may be ways to do that, but "I'm well travelled" already disconnects your experiences from a majority of your countrymen, assuming you're a US citizen).
Also, I don't think you can "libel" a population. You can say libelous things about a person ("a published false statement that is damaging to a person's reputation; a written defamation") but not a large group. My only experience of the word over the past several decades is in cases involving an individual (or individual entity in some cases). You might write libelous things about Bill Gate, or possibly even Microsoft, but not "the computer industry" or "business".
Thank you for saying this. I've been quite frustrated before and since the election about this. It seems that the left has (and has been doing it for a while) created a "these are the good people" vs the bad people mentality. I want rational people who make decisions based on evidence. Not something that "jim posted a meme on fb.. that's evidence that the meme is real"
Look at it this way: 'mjolk' could be well travelled within the United States and have a very good idea of Americans sentiments. Therefore (s)he could be confidently expressing a true statement. Also, being a minority voice is not an indicator of how truthful or accurate someone is. When people believed the Earth was flat, were the minority of thinkers who decided it was round any less credible?
You are right about the word libel though, it's the wrong word in this instance. I can't think of a better substitute better than 'generalizing' though.
For what it's worth, I wasn't in love with the word choice, but I've not had a recent exchange in which one side is shouting "racist" and something productive come about -- and I should be working :)
fair point - hadn't considered that angle.
And yes, being in the minority doesn't necessarily make you right or wrong. Being "well-travelled" still strikes me as being tied in with a degree of wealth/power/autonomy that the average person doesn't have, and it may be harder to truly understand the 'average' citizen when you're in a position to travel (internally and internationally?), which most people aren't. Much like I think it's pretty hard for most multi-millionaires (especially 2nd and 3rd generational ones) to represent my interests or understand my real concerns in elected offices.