So, this may be one of those topics that is too hot to talk about. I hope not though. I would love to hear your opinions on our modern day politically correct culture. Do you feel like it is  good, bad? Are you indifferent?

For myself I see some good in it. But I also see it can easily be used as a form of opinion/thought control.

Do you think we will eventually have sort of a backlash against it and become overly blunt? What say you?

You know that this is why the Alt Right and the AntiFa are trying to kill each other?

Free speech is getting trampled by both sides.

If you label someone as a "Liberal" or "Nazi", then it's politically correct to silence them.  Once they have the label, you can take their rights.

What Bill said.

yep Bill pretty much nailed it.

Everyone is swinging further and further towards their side which are made out more and more to be polar opposites. Brexit, Trump... "Either you're with us or against us!"

The only silver lining I can see is that it seems like the more fear of going against the politically correct "official party line" the more of a grass roots ground swell we are starting to see in opposition to it. I am against it as well, but maybe some good will come out of it if it causes people to think.

You aren't holding your breath while waiting for people to start thinking are you?

I'm getting cynical in my old age.  And scared. 

I have read a lot of the histories about the lead up to the English Civil War, the American Revolution, the US Civil War, the lead up to the 1st and 2nd World Wars and a bunch of others. 

It seems like the first step is to always polarize the sides and the next step is to stop any dialog between them.  And it's not just the US with the NeverTrumps and the AntiFa and the AltRights, it seems to be spreading all over the freaking planet.  France, Britain, Germany, China, Russia, India, Nigeria, they all seem to be redeveloping extreme nationalism again.  And if you are breathing a sigh of relief that your country isn't going nuts, look at your neighbors.

And when this kind of stuff happens, it seems like people just shut down thinking and start to follow blindly anyone who promises safety.

Our events are not quite the same as those but they seem to be moving in that direction.  And unlike the last global war, it won't take as many players this time around to kill way more people.

I will freely admit that I am worried and I don't have a clue what to do. 

I've always been an odd balance of cynical and hopeful. My hope is in the long, long term. And in God. My cynicism goes even beyond what I think is almost an inevitable global conflict. My cynicism and my gut tells me that if there is another global war it is not just a series of random accidents.  I won't even bother going into that. People have such a hard time with certain topics. It goes back to what you were saying. The need of so many to emotionally invest in a topic to the point of picking a side and not just closing ones ears to the other side but viewing them as less than human. The need to feel right even more than to be right. I enjoy discussing these topics but so many don't bother with a rational rebuttal they go straight to name calling. I don't think you should live in anxiety for the future though. None of us are getting out of this life alive lol.

Hmm, think we have different ideas of what political correctness is.

over here it's often tied in with health and safety stopping kids doing stuff I did as a kid. That said, some of the stuff i did as a kid - probably should be stopped. Just because I never got caught - doesn't mean it wasn't me  :whistle:

Political correctness isn't usually associated with actual politics.

That said it is associated with a lack of common sense - and so is most politics.

There's no global war looming. Worst case scenario china and the us nuke north korea. War ended.

Best case scenario, china nukes north korea. Okay it's not great for north or south koreans. But it saves the rest of us, and china and the us don't get into a pissing competition about who nuked what first.

There is no getting round the fact that The united states currently has the maddest dictator in the world. Kim jong un could simply be jealous of trumps prowess at lying and his ability to just get away with stuff by blaming someone else for doing something totally unrelated.

'Why do you want to see my tax returns when hilary deleted email.' HUH ?
No actual connection.

To be honest america worries me a helluva lot more than north korea at the moment.
North koreans had no choice in their leader. America PICKED theirs and nobody had guns to their heads.

That said I definitely passed into the twilight zone sometime last june.
I live in hope that I will return to my real dimension/quantum universe any day now. Please let it  happen soon.... 

But he's really not that bad. I mean, compared to other politicians. Under the previous presidency we had an attorney general who said he could execute americans without a trial and that was still "due process", a tax agency that targeted rival political organizations and a major piece of legislation that affected the lives of every American passed by one political party against the majority of american opinion. Compared to that Trump's actions seem tame and bipartisan.

But the issue is not fact but perception and the left here agrees with C_A, that he's a dangerous dictator. And they are practicing violence. It was not a full fledged riot, but it's the first time in my lifetime we've had unrest and mass arrests at inauguration.

Then last weekend we saw group v group fighting. It wasn't a "battle" but it wasn't just rowdiness either. They were legitimately trying to win a group v group confrontation and that's damn dangerous. I'm not worried about WWIII, I am worried about a civil war a-la-kosovo. It starts with the extremes and then bit by bit the rest get dragged in and forced to take sides. I hope and I pray that it doesn't get worse but my gut tells me bleeding kansas v2.0 is just around the bend...

Quote:

Then last weekend we saw group v group fighting. It wasn't a "battle" but it wasn't just rowdiness either. They were legitimately trying to win a group v group confrontation and that's damn dangerous. I'm not worried about WWIII, I am worried about a civil war a-la-kosovo. It starts with the extremes and then bit by bit the rest get dragged in and forced to take sides. I hope and I pray that it doesn't get worse but my gut tells me bleeding kansas v2.0 is just around the bend...

yeah that's a definite possibility.
I've never known any other political situaton where the winners are - if anything - more bitter and partisan than the losers.

Here's what i call a twilight zone moment:
Quote:

But he's really not that bad.

He's broken so many laws/rules I've lost count. There are laws stopping presidents appointing their relatives to important posts in the government.
Apparently they don't apply to trump. He's done it and nobody has stopped him :noidea:

This is where the dictator line comes in. He constantly does things that the american constitution and laws forbid. And there are never any consequences and he's not stopped. Those are the actions of a dictator.

Now given what's just happened in turkey - another twilight zone moment - where turkey just voted in their president as 'el presidente for life'.
Does anyone else see this happening in the states ?
The 2x 4 year term thing is part of the constitution, so no reason trump can't simply ignore it and declare himself president for life. Given what he's done already - who'd stop him ?

You might think it's unlikely - but this is the twilight zone and impossible things are happening all the time.

You can even excuses kim jong un in a way. From birth he was raised like an ancient egyptian pharoe. To believe he was a living god and people worshipped him.  And when he got to the age where he understood what was going on around him - what do you know:, it was all true.
So his actions and behaviour were programmed into him from a very early age.
It's a nature versus nurture situation.
Trump is like he is by Nature.
And that's always more worrying.

Not being contrary or baiting you here, but can you give me a fairly neutral source for illegal actions by Trump?

I stopped following very closely because the sources were always so eager to land on Trump that they always made categorical errors. Like claiming that controlling immigration more tightly was constitutionally forbidden, when it's well established in law that non-citizens don't have constitutional rights by definition.

Here's the more scary part from your POV: Trump is going to get re-elected. He's going to do so with a majority of the popular vote this time. Because he's a moderate populist. And again, the previous administration did things that were really beyond the pale and nothing happened. The danger with Trump is the crazy is hardening.

Quote:

but can you give me a fairly neutral source for illegal actions by Trump?

bbc, reuters
And pretty much any and every news source that was considered reputable until trump saw somethig he didn't like and declared it fake news. 

Not that there are any neutral sources for trump. If something he doesn't like is reported - then it's a fake news source.

These are all sign of a dictator in making.
What i say is true, and if anyone says otherwise - then they are lying and I shall smite them.

The 1500 lawsuits against him (45 still active) would suggest - at the very least - a touching acquaintance with the wrong side of the law.

But go look up members of his family given political posts. It's probably the simplest one and the easiest to verify.

News release by kellyanne conway: 'Best News of the Day. Trump Son-in-Law Jared Kushner to Be Named Senior White House Adviser.
As I understand it - that's illegal.
It's blatant nepotism.  

I follow BBC regularly (though its standards have slipped markedly the last decade) and it like most of the media has made factual errors while trying to nail Trump. BBC had front page news for the better part of a week about hate crimes up after the election, but it turns out that was the media...stretching. There was not data to support it when it was reported, and the violence was actually (and is) still stemming mainly from the left.

I'm not really interested in chasing the son in law thing down, though if you give me a specific good article on it, I'll happily read it.

But that's part of what concerns me. We've gone from "too many to keep track of" to "well here's the one thing you can research", that's part of why the crazies on the right are hardening. People who lean left (and most of the international community) foam at the mouth about how bad he is, but when it comes to good reporting and discussion of specifics they flounder a bit. Partially because none of us have perfect memories and partly because it feels so true and so many people agree that we skip the harder work of reasoning. And that leads to the bigger problem, we're getting more and more into groups who already agree and not taking the time to carefully reason outside that group.

Here's what I consider to be a neutral look at Trump's nepotism, with an explanation of why it's likely not illegal. https://www.bustle.com/p/is-nepotism-illegal-ivanka-trumps-white-house-job-still-has-people-concerned-47919

I've said for a while, we're in a post-truth world. It started when the media began to be seen as taking sides, returning to the subjectivity and sensationalism (click bait) of the yellow journalism from the turn of the 20th century. The story changed based on who was telling it. Then we weaponized fact checkers, eroding confidence in them as watchdogs. Did you notice that both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump had fact checkers on their campaign websites during the debates last year? They both had objective proof that they were right and the other was a liar. Beyond that, though, sites like politifact give markedly different ratings to basically the same statements depending on the political affiliation of the person speaking. And that same trend towards subjective interpretation of "fact" was shown by the IRS in their targeting of organizations for having the wrong political affiliations. Implicit biases led us to fake news and alternative facts, fueled by the hyperpartisan sound bites that political campaigns have been floating on social media to energize the voting base. Trump didn't start fake news, the news hasn't been news for a long time. I think Trump (and Clinton) are just calling them out on their manipulations.

I refuse to trust any politician based on words anymore. I don't care how much of what they say falls in line with my beliefs. Results or GTFO. Sorry, thats where I'm at right now. I feel like America is under sort of a collective Stockholm syndrome.  We are constantly lied to, then the hot new thing comes on the scene and we forget all the lies and trust again. Then we blame it on the opposing party and the cycle continues. Strangely enough the big problems never seem to change. Foreign wars, more debt, higher taxes, open borders (open borders + welfare state + PC culture that promotes lack of cultural assimilation and victim mentality = disaster) etc. 

I think one of the biggest problems with political correctness is the fear that you will offend someone shuts down any chance at dialog.

Plus, both sides of a dialog will use PC to be offended by something the other side said that will allow them to label the other side. 

And, as I pointed out earlier, once you label someone, you can now ignore his or her views because they are a "Labeled". 

And EVERYBODY knows that "labeled" people are biased and not open minded and there's no use trying to reason with them.  So, it's OK to use violence against them.  Because they are biased and you can't reason with them.

And free speech gets stomped into the dust.

And the reason pretty near all politicians are "mealy mouthed" is because they don't want to say something that can and will be used against them.  That's a career killer.  And stops the free money from rolling in.  So, having ideals that you are willing to defend and that defense that will offend somebody is not going to happen.

So, it's not that politicians are working towards a war, it's more that they just shut up and let the crazies who don't worry about offending anyone end up in charge.

Sunday's election in France is going to be interesting, everybody in France is going to go vote against the candidate they disagree with the most. 

If you have francs squirreled away, there is a pretty good chance they are going to come back and yours will be valuable again. 

Point of fact, not having a dialog is doing weird things. Donald Trump is the most popular president in history (among his base), 94% approval in among his voters for the first 100 days and 84% in the GOP as a whole, as compared to 82% approval in the GOP for Ronald Reagan at the same point. But he's also one of the least popular with 42% approval overall, just about tying with Dwight Eisenhower. That's possible because only 8% of Democrats and 33% of independents approve of his job as president. President Obama enjoyed the lowest approval from the opposite party at the 100 day mark prior to this, with only 36% approval among Republicans in early 2009. That's actually been a trend in the data, each successive president since polling started has enjoyed lower and lower approval from the opposing party during the 100 day "honeymoon" period. So Donald Trump is also the least popular president in history, among his political opponents. I can't quite wrap my head around how that happens.

I don't know what all this means but I'm certainly offended by it. Sorry, a thread on political correctness would be incomplete without someone getting offended over nothing.

Speaking of global issues how often does the entire Senate go to a White House briefing?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/entire-u-senate-white-house-north-korea-briefing-150459069.html?bcmt=1

Serious question, as I have no idea. I would love to be a fly on the wall in that room.

It's happened before, but is very rare. Usually the White House sends representatives to the Hill to mean with a senate committee. More unusual is that the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Director of National Intelligence, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs were all summoned to the same meeting.

I will not take part in an US political discussion ;)


Bill Skinner wrote on Apr 22^nd, 2017 at 6:39pm:

Sunday's election in France is going to be interesting, everybody in France is going to go vote against the candidate they disagree with the most.

For the 1st vote, you can vote for the one you agree with the most (like I did), but in 2 weeks, I will be voting against someone, yes...



Quote:

If you have francs squirreled away, there is a pretty good chance they are going to come back and yours will be valuable again.

Well, maybe as valuable as a quarter kopek...

To get a little bit more back on topic I've heard it said that the culture war does not decide the civil war, but it does decide the sides for the civil war. It scared me when I first read that it scares me now. There's a profanity laced rant about Trump's win from a self identified socialist where he blamed the left's victory in the culture war for Trump's win. Because anyone who disagreed was shamed and screamed into silence, but this did not answer their objections. So they expressed that in the ballot box. I think that's a part of it. Trump's swell had a lot to do with people who were made to feel like lone freaks for disagreeing with the Politically Correct beliefs, and them finding each other and saying "hey, we're not alone, you can't just dismiss us!". 

At this point there's generally a "Trump lost the popular vote" point raised but this misses the point that almost 63 million Americans voted for him and that's comparable to the number that voted for Hillary. Neither side can afford to dismiss 20% of the total population or pretend that the voting population is anything other than fairly evenly split.

From looking at the culture (entertainment, news, arguments on the mainstream areas of the internet) you don't see an even split, you see the left winning. The pundits and the general impression in society at large was that the left was in the ascendancy. It was a reasonable thing to believe, but it turns out the cultural domination doesn't translate to political domination.

I'm honestly scared that the brawl at Berkley is kind of the same "hey we don't have to take it" interpretation, though this time from the fringe right. It hasn't been well covered in the news so most people this is not a real debate or thought. But the people on the fringe right are saying "well the police weren't doing their job, nobody was protecting us from cherry bombs in glass jars, so we had to defend ourselves and they RAN. Oh I wish I had been there to help".  While the left is licking its wounds and resolving "next time...we'll show them. They got lucky! This time I'll be there and help turn the tide!"

Which is textbook for escalation. File under "this will not turn out well"

Ive posted a lot in this thread because I really enjoy these topics. Hopefully everyone will feel open to sharing. Not trying to dominate the discussion or anything.

But I do have a lot of the same fears. When it first happened I saw a video of a lady talking about the Berkley incident of which she was a participant as if it was a thrilling win for their side. The so called alt right. I had this sort of rare almost out of body experience for a split second thinking, "this is how it starts isn't it?". The way she talked about it honestly gave me chills because it was so oblivious to history. The problem as I see it is the police are not stopping it when they can. While it's still small. And perhaps they aren't because it's campus police and they know who has the power, or because they fear the media reprisal as in Ferguson. And again, I do blame the media and Hollywood because they have this  power to define the narrative.

But more than that I blame the average person because we give them that power by not fighting against it. You mention Trump being elected as an indication of the power of the people politically diverging away from the cultural narrative. Fox News is another example of that. It quickly rose to popularity and has stayed as the most popular news network, at least as far as I am aware of.  Not to say I am  fan of Fox or Trump. I am actually very much skeptical of both but there is a powerful silent majority out there looking for a way to fight back against this obvious bias. We just have to be careful not to repeat history by letting emotional rhetoric overcome logic.

Caldou, when I was posting about France's election, it was more in reference that a lot of countries seem to be trying to pick the least worst candidate that is running.  Almost all the candidates seem to be no where close to the middle and are out on the fringes rather than in the middle where the majority of the population is.

As far as Trump or Clinton, I didn't vote for either, I felt that both represented the fringes more than the middle.

Morphy, which Berkley incident?  It doesn't really matter, the fact that either side thinks it is perfectly OK to shout down the other or use violence to stop the other side is a very scary turn of events.

It seems to be a lack of tolerance across the political spectrum.  If you don't agree with me, not only are you wrong, you must be silenced, by force if necessary.  And PC is used on all the social medias to beat down anyone who questions the narrative.

And that scares me.  Because the simplest way to unit a population is to format a "them versus us" mentality.  And the simplest way to do that is start a war.   

And then our bloody pm goes and calls an election.

Given that I am still very much in the twilight zone - I'm not even going to try and call this one.

I'm not a big fan of Teresa may. She tends towards the indecisive, which is something you don't need in a leader.

She didn't need to do this till 2020. But she believes that she can virtually wipe the labour party out and gain a large majrity in parliament. Me I'm not so sure.

That said, Corbyn is an old school communist. he even calls people 'Comrades' during national speeches.

But given the complete and total balls up the government has been making of leaving the eu (I refuse to use the 'B'word) I don't honestly know how people will vote.

Could the uk do a complete about face and end up in the grip of a soviet era communist government ?
You know what, it just might.
I'm beyond the point where I will rule anything out.

Can anyone imagine anything more bizarre - politically speaking - than jeremy corbyn sitting down at conference with Donald Trump ('trump' by the way, is another word for Fart in england and not just since he was elected :-)

As far as france goes - in a way I'm almost rooting for marine le pen.
Not for anything as puerile as her right wing beliefs, but because she wants to take france out of the EU. And that would most likely be the end of one of the most corrupt and undemocratic institutions the world has yet seen.
I mean the europaen parliament not the United nations - alas that looks like fueling the international gravy train for a long time yet.

Throw in the fact that trump wants to start a war with North Korea and things are going to hell rather swiftly.

Political correctness is an odd phrase.
Politics is a kind of organised religion, and while i don't rule out the existence of Gods - I view organised religion is a terrible thing.
And at the end of the day politics is just another religion.
Is there anything correct about it ?
Doubtful.

But alas most humans like to be led and a few like to lead.
Humanity is composed in the whole of: sheep, shepherds and wolves.

Which is why i choose to be an aardvark :-) 

    Though I generally agree with Bill's above statement,
"If you label someone as a "Liberal" or "Nazi", then it's politically correct to silence them.  Once they have the label, you can take their rights."
   There is also right and wrong. I am radically opposed to tRump as I would have been Hitler in 1933 Germany.  Is it OK for everyone to have their own opinion when their opinion supports racism, sexism, lying, bullying, mocking of handicapped people, stealing, propaganda, and treason?  tRump is a buffoon, and embarrassment to America, and a genuine threat to world peace. If you can spin it any other way than that then I give you credit for being very creative.  Heil tRump. 

Edit:  I am a moderator and it's my job to keep the peace here.  Above is my honest opinion. We have discussed almost everything here but sometimes things get out of control. If c_a and the other moderators determine that my statement is too inflammatory for this forum then I'll take it down. I do realize that there are Conservatives here and this is a very hot topic.

Alright I'm going to drop in.

I think in terms of the original point of the post, everyone here agrees political correctness, if not wrong, has probably marched a little too far. Labels such as nazi or racist or sexist are applied to obviously non-nazis and non racists.

This combined with the straightforwards, but probably not too well thought out philosophy that punching nazis is just fine in modern society under the rule of law- is a recipe for violence. I mean, don't get me wrong, I hardly shed tears if a nazi is punched in the face but I don't think it's a good sign that it's coming to that especially when the definition of nazi appears so fluid.

I'm not american and I don't have any real insight into the Trump phenomenon, and honestly I can't understand why anyone would vote for the man, (I doubt his character foremost and competence not far behind) however, from my perspective it seems much wider than this PC thing.

People seem to be flooding to the 'out there' and extreme options, and away from the safer center.

One thing Trump, Bernie, Jeremy Corbyn, Nigel Farage, podemos etc etc have in common is that they do not represent the status quo and that draws people who are sick of the current system and want change.

I feel this new populism has highlighted a deep ideological divide in western society. It doesn't help that the perpetual echo chambers of social media and partisan print media almost completely isolates groups of similar opinions preventing any useful cross contamination of ideas. I would hazard a guess that this basically disconnects ideology from reality which allows people to become more and more extreme in their views and less and less able to identify at all with anyone outside their bubble. It's actually easy to see if you follow a wide variety of youtube channels, people just live in totally different perceived realities. There is often some content of value from both sides which is usually lost.

Whew, went slightly off topic there, whoops.

Good post :-)

And ratman - considering the stuff about trump you post on facebook - the above statement is positively cuddly :-)

Heard a very interesting guy on the radio the other night. At 1am (gmt) on the bbc world service there's a program called: business matters.

Has guests from all round the world on it and a very wide variety of discussed topics - currently one of my favourite radio programmes. 

Had a guy on last week talking about trumps speeches and neuro linguistic programming.
Turns out he's not quite the moron I believe he is.
His speech patterns, while complete gibberish if seen written down, are actually appealing to the way many people have conversations.

I firmly believe that some kind of brain washing, subliminal messaging etc had to be ongoing for anyone with more than one working braincell to ever vote for the man. Turns out that is actually true.

And it's one reason that trump supporters, rather than coming to their senses are actually getting more and more partisan.

Whoever is behind trumps speeches - and I credit him with enough intelligence to buy the right people to help him get his own way - is a devious, but bloody clever bastard.

I appreciate your view point RM.  I dont think you went too far.

If you looked at the rise of Hitler, and the nationalism that swept the country as a result of the people being completely sick of the system they were stuck in, sure I see it as well. There was a vacuum created by the circumstances and Hitler was the natural result.  And you can see many of the same parallels in our day. It is scary.

The other side is the rise of communism. As bad as Nazism was, in terms of total deaths it cant hold a candle to Communism.  I see that as well. Pretty interesting times we live in.

The only thing I would disagree with is associating Trump with conservatism.  He is not conservative.

https://twitter.com/TheOnion/status/859437833945194500

I feel this video by the onion sums up some of what I've been saying  ;D

BBC is late to the party, along with the rest of the media actually  ;D

Scott Adams (yep, the guy who writes Dilbert) called Trump's win very early and has been analyzing the persuasion techniques he's used on his blog. And also the ones that the Clinton team started using. He's of the opinion that it's Trump, rather than a handler, who is behind the persuasion.

Speeches are a funny thing. I detested Obama's style of speaking. To me it managed to be both plodding and pedantic. I took to reading the state of the union addresses because I couldn't stand his rhetorical style. And whenever you got him away from a teleprompter he was really bad. Many people agreed that Obama seemed profound when you listened to him, but if you read him it was vapid. He sounded better than he thought. Trump is sort of the opposite, he sounds dumber than he is. Part of this is whether we think the soundbites reveal the truth or the thrust of the entire speech reveals the truth. Generally we use one measure of the other political team and the other for 'our' team.

At the same time I'd like to point out that what we object to about Trump is not that he lies, it's HOW he lies. We know that our politicians lie, what they say in the primaries vs what they say in the general election never lines up. We call it "appealing to the middle" but it's lying no matter how you slice it. In that respect, Hillary was at least as much of a liar. Ultimately I think we're all reading between the lines of the politicians and we see different things based on our biases. And that allows the eternal war to continue.

I never heard an obama speech that didn't read like it had been pieced together using the 'Big Bumper Book Of political Speech Cliches'.
Never trusted the man as I never managed to pin down where his campaign funding came from.
As far as I could ever work out he was crowd funded - sort of. Anonymous internet donations - which is about as dodgy as it gets.

Trump is at leats honest about his dishonesty. His criminality is a matter of public record. His business model is to have enough involvement with a business to leech it's profits, but also enough distance to not get caught when it goes bankrupt because he's taken all the money.

The 1500+ law suits against him - I suspect more than any actual gangster - are also a pretty fair indication of his character.

That and the fact that he openly lies on record and denies it the next day - expecting people to only ever believe the last thing he said.

The other weird thing about the last election - is that ONLY in america was hilary seen as a vile, destructive, lying dishonest scumbag.

The rest of the world saw her as a qualified, intelligent politician, who would make a great president.

So what psycho-influential processes were americans subject to that every one else in the world wasn't ?

The whole campaign, viewed from outside the states, made absolutely no logical sense at all.

I saw on probably 5 different occasions someone on a news report mention something bad about Hillary and suddenly their connection "was lost". This was on CNN and NPR. I don't watch Fox but I doubt they were as obvious as the others, which near the end of the cycle were barely bothering to hide it anymore. It was like living 1984. The Clintons are as dirty as they come. This is not even coming from a Trump supporter. I totally agree that Trump flips more than any politician I've ever seen. But dear Lord in heaven Hillary is so dirty its scary.

Trump just fired the FBI Director because he was bad to Hillary.

Great post, Judo.  I meant your last one (Onion) though both are excellent.

In response to Morphy's comment about my original statement, I agree that tRump is not a Conservative.  What I would classify him as isn't appropriate to post in this forum. But Conservatives to support him.... at least Conservative extremists do. tRump is in the process of ruining the Republican Party for decades to come.  I'm surprised that more moderate Republicans aren't strongly opposing him.  Mark my words, there will be a HUGE backlash.  America isn't happy.

America isn't particularly happy with either political party.

Neither one seems to support the center.

Bill Skinner wrote on Jun 8^th, 2017 at 12:28pm:

America isn't particularly happy with either political party. Neither one seems to support the center.

That's the truth.

I also agree that the potential is there for Trump to ruin whats left of the Republican party. But in way it was already ruined. He is just making it more apparent. The repubs have the house and the senate and the exec. branch and they still cant get much done. They are showing their true colors. Most conservatives just want smaller government, thats the backbone of the movement. Its clear beyond any doubt now that most republicans dont, no matter what they claim.

Well, UK GE is in-

Hung parliament, May gambled the con majority and lost. Now forced to make a deal with the DUP of Ireland- Climate change denialists, 'pro-lifers', anti gay marriage and linked to terrorist groups.

Amongst very high voter turnout, (especially the young) JC outdid most expectations. It now looks fairly realistic for a party to win from the left. It will be interesting to see if labour now gather round JC to put a more coordinated and complete bid for power.

UKIP have collapsed and their votes have scattered roughly equally between labour and con. The nature of incoming brexit is unclear, as the nature of the incoming government is likely weak and unstable. The mandate to dictate the terms of brexit hangs by a thread.

Theresa May throwing her lot in with the DUP is not going to end well. Probably for everyone but certainly not for her. I won't be surprised if she doesn't U-turn (again) and say she's resigning.

It certainly seems fairly untenable.

May has been humiliated and forced to run to unionist nuts to hang onto majority. The overused soundbites 'coalition of chaos' and 'terrorist links' are going to be directed right back at her in press and the commons and there will likely be resentment from her own party too.

Its going to be a ridiculously unpopular government especially trying to implement Brexit of some form which is guaranteed to p off a large section of the population (not to mention the likely massive economic fallout resulting from brexit).

I'm not sure if it's going to last five years but the longer it goes the more chance cons will get completely bulldozed in the next election, whether by Corbyn or a more blairite candidate.

Doesn't look likely to go five years, but the Conservatives were complacent and got burnt. Used cut-price web marketing people 'cos they didn't think they needed to get serious.

Next time they'll go for the experts https://ca-political.com/casestudies

Notice how open they are about what they did? I guess depending on your view, what they do is great, or it's a pretty troubling attack on democracy.

As I think is confirmed now, EU Referendum was a dry run for Trump.

I think it is because way too many people feel that TPTB do not represent their point of view or actually even give a damn about their concerns.

I don't know about GB, but here in the US, both major parties are losing votes.  Other than both coasts, that is, both are firmly Democrat.  And that's where the major population centers are.  The center of the country, where the industry used to be, are getting to the point that they hate both parties.

And almost everyone, even the people on the coasts, agree that pretty near all our politicians are bought and paid for.

We are starting to hear a louder rumble about term limits.

Funnily enough Bill, this election in the UK has seen a return of votes to the major parties, with both labour and cons polling 40%+.

However, labour is hardly what you'd call a 'mainstream' party right now, coming from way on the left of the usual British political spectrum and standing on an anti-establishment platform.

Morphy, with all due respect I couldn't disagree with you more about Hillary. Her only actual fault  is getting in the way of a very expensive smear campaign that started more than a decade before the election and a lot of preposterous conspiracy theories generated by an army of KGB propaganda experts. It used to be in America one was innocent until proven guilty. Clinton was found innocent of any criminal activity in a court of law with a Republican prosecutor. She has a long, distinguished career servng America, and is immensely qualified to be president, unlike the buffoon currently residing in The White House. After a tremendous amount of time, effort,  and wasted tax payer money there is still not one charge against her. It must be because she has her opponents murdered, right? That's much easier to believe thqn she is just plain innocent of any crimes.

Actually RM, Comey (currently in favor with the left) said she was guilty of crimes with regards to the mishandling of classified information. He just declined to prosecute.  That it was immensely political doesn't change that she was guilty.

18USC§1621  Perjury (Including Documents Signed Under Penalties Of Perjury)
18USC§1519  Destruction (Alteration Or Falsification) Of Records In Federal Investigation
18USC§1924  Unauthorized Removal And Retention Of Classified Documents Or Material


The list goes on.  There is no question by anyone that she did things that have put others in jail for the same acts. The only question is why Comey, who was the director of the FBI took it upon himself to do the Department of Justices job and say there was no need to pursue this because no one would actually prosecute it.. That is not the FBIs job. Their job is to gather facts and let the DOJ decide whether its worthy of prosecuting. That is my understanding. The fact that people have gone to jail for doing less than Comey said she did is a good case for corruption at the highest levels.

On top of that the DNC was caught rigging the primaries to get rid of Bernie. Members of the democratic party were caught recieving questions to a debate before the debate. And, as you mentioned, some very questionable and ill timed deaths of whistleblowers shortly after major leaks. You may not want to hear that but I am sure if it was Trump and not Hillary that had emails leaked and the suspected leaker died shortly thereafter in a execution style "robbery" where nothing was taken, you might be more open to the idea. Which, let me say, I would as well. We should not view politics as a team sport. There is one team and that is this country. When something fishy happens we are obliged to investigate with an open mind for the welfare of everyone that calls themself an America. No matter what side it occurs on. I dont claim it was an execution, but the timing sure wasnt great either.

Lastly, let me say, Im put in a difficult position here. Im having what I said challenged to some degree. So I am put in the position of seemingly defending Trump or worse the Republican party. Who I largely despise at this point. My intention is not to defend them. Its to lay out my reasoning against Hillary irregardless of my (almost) equally negative feelings towards the current Republican party in general.

Absoltuely wrong, ps.
https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/statement-by-fbi-director-james-b-comey-on-the-investigation-of-secretary-hillary-clinton2019s-use-of-a-personal-e-mail-system
With the powerful forces aligned against her and with the amount of time and taxpayer money spent digging for dirt I can't help but draw the logical conclusion that if there was any substance at all to the allegations against Clinton there would certainly be criminal charges. We must all be cautious.  There is much "fake news" out there these days.
    This is my opinion. I am really not interested in expending energy defending or arguing about Clinton. She is yesterday's news.  As you noted, Morphy, we have a much bigger problem... tRump. 

RM, he said in your own link that t "we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information"

In the course of the questioning we saw that she did send classified info in her emails (contrary to her statements to the contrary).

It is not the big deal that it was made to be. But it was illegal to send those emails. She did do it. Comey said that it would be illegal for another individual to act as she did.  And the gov declined to prosecute, which is not at all saying she was innocent.  Yes it was a bit of a witch hunt but she was let off because it was a witch hunt.

Here is the question though. You're right that Clinton is old news and Trump is the real question. So the question is, What has he done that is so extreme? It's been six months and nothing extreme has happened. With the exception of violent demonstrations from the left, and now an individual hopped up on all the hate attacking GOP congressmen with a rifle. Where I sit, I see the anti-trumpers as being far more unreasonable and dangerous.

Morphy, free speech is a PITA sometimes, isn't it? 

You end up having to defend guys like Trump, not because you agree with them, but because if you censor the scumbags or allow them to be misrepresented, it's actually worse in the long run.

Freedom isn't supposed to make you feel all warm and fuzzy and safe.  You are required to watch people in positions of power like a hawk to make sure they don't overstep their boundries. 

And it hasn't helped that our "free press" has moved firmly into the camps of the political parties, now they give their side a "bye" while they expose exactly the thing when the other side does it.  They have basically become the propaganda arm of the party. 

It's far worse than that Im afraid. Now the major multinationals are actively erasing and punishing those who spread "fake news".  Guess who decides what is fake and what isnt? This is quite literally the Ministry of Truth from 1984.

One thing I find interesting in this thread is this pesky gauntlet that Perpetual Student keeps throwing down which never gets picked up.  The question has been posed several times what exactly has Trump done that has made him this monster from peoples nightmares? Name calling is fair, but specifics are more interesting.

No answer yet. I wish people would answer it. And Im serious about that, I really enjoy seeing other peoples sides to arguments and often find myself needing to tweak my own views once a good case has been made.

I dont view Trump as a monster. I "suspect" hes probably a pretty dodgy guy but unlike with Hillary the evidence is not there just yet. He may very well be the Hyde but so far all I've seen is a misbehaving Jekyll.

Most of my views on him are pretty basic. He lies alot. So far Ive not seen evidence of any really damaging lies. The whole Russia thing has already been admitted to be based on no evidence. It all might be true, but why is it when pinned down the opposition always admits there is no evidence? As of what I know right now, there is no evidence of Russia hacking our election in collusion with Donald Trump.

He tends to say things that are provactive for effect and then turn around later and pretend like he meant something else or never said it at all. Politicians lie all the time so this is nothing new. Hes a loose cannon. And biggest of all because of his outsider status he can pretend to be on the conservative side while implementing things that are anything but. Trillion dollar infrastructure program? Ill pass. Trump Care? No thanks, when it inevitably crashes all he will have accomplished is removing blame from Obama and putting it on himself.  More foreign military entanglments? No. For Petes sake stop bombing people.  A Buffoon? Unlikely. The guy swims in deep waters. No self made billionaire is a buffoon. Period. Trustworthy? Inspiring? My first or 10th choice? None of the above. Those are my thoughts anyways. I dont particularly like the guy but we had two choices. One was Hillary, nuff said.

On Trump, well I'll do my best to pick up the gauntlet and give my perspective from across the pond.

That the Russians conspired to put him in the Whitehouse is practically established. What the investigations are about are whether Trump actually colluded with said Russians or whether the Russians acted alone. If he had no part in it then fair enough, as you can't help if you were helped.

The lying is a curious case- I can sort of see where the "He hasn't lied about important stuff" comes in, but really I find what he does much more disturbing than other politicians. To be honest- it's difficult to put my finger on exactly why, but I'll try.

Trump lies in a very different way to other politicians.
Other politicians will lie tactically and conservatively and try to preserve their reputations (they actually honor truth as something to aim for at least). Trump in contrast appears to pathologically lie by default, cultivating a culture where the truth is meaningless or can't be known due to 'fake news' and any media can be dismissed as such.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/23/opinion/trumps-lies.html

He pollutes the mainstream with so much rubbish it's like a bizarre propaganda tactic. I mean- lying about all the 'small' stuff is bad enough, but normalizing the lying is especially damaging. How can you scrutinize his political positions if they change all the time? How can you scrutinize anything about him if he doesn't acknowledge facts? How do you convince voters if they are convinced all (or a lot of) criticism is fake news?

Trump may not have tangibly wrecked anything (yet) but people are going crazy over the brazen smokescreen rather than all the subpar governing and all the supposedly 'minor' stuff gone awry. Truth is, I'd pick basically any previous president to govern more competently day to day, week to week.

I can't help but to think if all this bluster was not part and parcel of Trump he wouldn't be able to sustain his popularity.

The other part of why I dislike him is that he's clearly just a dishonorable person. Some of his business practices in the past have been clearly exploitative. The whole 'locker room talk' sexual assault episode. *Constant* dishonesty. Incredible narcissism. Other things. He basically acts like the most obnoxious 8 year old on the planet.

     ps, I hardly know where to start.  tRump showed his true colors by defunding Meals on Wheels. (a service to provide hot meals to disabled or impoverished seniors) The price of just one of his many golf trips to Florida could have kept it afloat.  His attempting do defund public educational television while spending a fortune in taxpayer money so Malaria didn't have to live in The White House is rather disgusting.  Cutting funds for the EPA....  Do you remember when American rivers were so polluted that they caught on fire? I do.  Why would he do such a thing... connect the dots.  So him and his billionaire buddies can make bigger profits at the expense of our air and water. Attempting to deprive twenty four million Americans of healthcare is as despicable as one can get.  Many of these people will die as a direct result.  Mothers, fathers, babies will die. His constant lying is as unpresidential as one can get. tRump handing out cabinet positions to totally unqualified and inexperienced campaign contributors and cronies is rather disturbing.          tRump didn't just arrive on the scene.  He has a long history.  He has always been a lying crook.  Anyone who can read can verify that. 
    The first thing that any fascist dictator does is attack the free press.  "Fake news!" Keep in mind that initially Hitler was legally elected.  I could fill volumes as to why I despise tRump. He is by far the worst president in my lifetime and quite probably ever.
Let me leave you with these gems:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/23/opinion/trumps-lies.html
http://mashable.com/2016/03/12/trump-rally-incite-violence/#.3KbP_Kpdiqi
Yeah, he's a real peach, isn't he? Other than the fact that he's a racist, a traitor, a draft dodging coward, a liar, a crook, a braggart, a fruitcake, and a bully WHO PUBLICLY MOCKS HANDICAPPED PEOPLE he's a fine president. As I said, I could fill volumes.  I have only scratched the surface here.  Google up what tRump did to the contractors who worked on his casino in Atlantic City.  Yeah, he's all  for the American worker.  That's why tRump Industries outsources its labor to foreign countries. I'll stop here.

---

I should point out that like Morphy I'm not a fan of Trump. I find nothing good in the election. That said I don't buy the "Trump is the worst thing ever" argument. And I doubt that you and I will reach an accord here RM, but I'm willing to try.

Most of the things that you have listed are overstatements of things that reasonable people can disagree over: The healthcare debate and the federal budget. Whether (or to what degree) we want government subsidization of healthcare is a legitimate point of disagreement. Those who disagree with Obamacare are not out to kill people and it's unfair to characterize it that way. Particularly since TANSTAFL still applies, at what cost? Which is the heart of the second issue, how much ought the government spend and where does the money come from? It's reasonable to disagree over these issues.

The way you've presented the issues keeps that reasonable discussion from happening. The Meals on Wheels for instance is an unsubstantiated worst case scenario.  Even NPR (far from a Trump fan club) acknowledges that any potential hit to the meals on wheels budget is at least 2 decisions downstream from Trump's budget. http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/03/20/520848721/could-meals-on-wheels-really-lose-funding-yes-but-its-hard-to-say-how-much ; Similarly decreasing the EPA's budget is not giving free reign to dump toxins in the water.

These examples have a common and dangerous thread of logic. Put charitably it boils down to "Any decrease in budget must be opposed or helpless people suffer". Which turns the political game into a one way ratchet and that's dangerous.

The rest of the attacks on trump boil down to personal attacks and that's fine. You're allowed to hate him (so long as you extended the same courtesy for our previous president and his opponents). But that's not evidence of dangerous extremism and doesn't sway me at all. Questionable cabinet appointments are nothing compared to a horrifying Attorney General under Obama.

The press issue I want to have a more complete response to and my daughters won't let me type that right now.  ;D

The press issue is very important and central (I think) to Trump's win. And they're on track to help put him back in office next term.

As Bill pointed out the media has taken sides in America. To the point where only a third (32%)of people think they're unbiased or fair in reporting. If you break it down it by political preference you get Dems (50%), GOP (17%), and Independents (30%). So the left trusts them more but that's the direction we think the media is biased, and even half of them don't think the media is fair. The 2 sides balance each other out and the independents are right at the average. So I think it's safe to say most of us (68%) think the media is biased. Pew had similar numbers but these are from gallup (http://www.gallup.com/poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-media-sinks-new-low.aspx ).

Worse than taking sides, they've let the standards of reporting slip and they don't realize it. An honest media could not have been controlled and trolled by Trump. Lucky for him we haven't had an honest media for a while. We're back to Yellow Journalism. So when Trump calls CNN fake news, that has more than a nugget of truth to it for the 68% of us who don't trust the media. When their response is to act aggrieved and all the rest of the media rally to their defense and squawk  "4th estate! 4th estate!" like trained parrots. That doesn't help them because we know they're not paragons of journalistic integrity. (as a sidenote I'd love to see a poll of journalists as to what the other 3 estates are. It would be depressingly hilarious I have no doubt).

And then the evidence keeps mounting that Trump has more than a nugget of truth. CNN just fired 3 reporters (one of whom had a pulitzer) for reporting anti-trump news without adequate sources (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40414886) and in Comey's 2nd appearance before congress he confirmed that a Washington Post story about classified stuff was almost completely incorrect.

That's the key for Trump. He lies all the time BUT he almost always has a nugget of truth inside the lie. So we trust the liar more than the other liars because he's saying truths that others deny and most of the time he's overstating a true point. Honestly it's a difference of degree and style. The lying tactics are changing but lying has been an accepted strategy. The new player has found a loophole in the game that's letting him beat his opponents and nobody else has figured out how to counter the new strategy.

We're not going from honest politicians and statesmen to trump, we're going from crooked politicians to different crooked politicians. And so the public isn't buying it as the end of the world and the "resist!" activists seem more and more dangerous. And to be fair have been more dangerous.

The new project veritas video with the CNN producer saying the Russia story was fake news could hardly have been more apropos to the current bent of this thread. I had to laugh a little watching it.

I dont think Trump could have been popular 50 years ago. Possibly not even 25. I think with the advent of social media and youtube people are having this collective wakening. You see it in phrases like "stay woke". Before the internet it was a lot of individuals each feeling that something was wrong but unable to stand against the tidal wave of constant imposed opinions of the media.  Then you have social media and alternative news sources and suddenly one guy is on stage at debates saying words no one would have dared 40 years ago. The system is rigged. The news is fake. All these people are corrupt.

Trump was nothing more than a mouthpiece for a huge ground swell that had been building for years. The internet was feeding it and social media accelerated it greatly. The lack of any meaningful economic recovery was the final straw. The fact that someone had the audacity to speak what many felt was truth snapped a lot of people out of a collective hypnotism. Trump was the child calling out the naked emperor. It was bound to happen.

Many hate the way he words things but its not the specifics that got Trump elected. It was audacity to give the middle finger to the system live on tv.

24 million Americans stand to loose their healthcare. The poor and elderly will see a substantial raise in their premiums while the super rich get even bigger tax breaks. Did I misrepresent anything here?  This isn't about opinions. This is about right and wrong. Yes, people will die as a direct result of tRumpcare. Plain and simple. Pulling out on the Paris Climate Accord and defunding the EPA won't make the world a better place for our children. And tRump lies literally on a daily basis. Sugar coating this mess is counterproductive and helps no one.

Morphy wrote on Jun 28^th, 2017 at 10:25am:

Trump was the child calling out the naked emperor.

Trump IS the naked emperor and you are trying to tell me he has the prettiest clothes, while the Dems are trying to convince Republicans that he is naked.

Onager Lovac wrote on Jun 28^th, 2017 at 7:49pm:

Morphy wrote on Jun 28th, 2017 at 10:25am: Trump was the child calling out the naked emperor. Trump IS the naked emperor and you are trying to tell me he has the prettiest clothes, while the Dems are trying to convince Republicans that he is naked.

Ive called trump a liar, a loose cannon and a dodgy guy. I have stated my disgust for the party he represents. All in all I think Ive been pretty even handed. Truth is, I can hardly decide how I feel about him. I would never presume to tell others how they feel about him.

Rat Man wrote on Jun 28^th, 2017 at 7:01pm:

This isn't about opinions. This is about right and wrong.

And with that we see that we cannot reach an accord. For you any thing that Trump does is wrong. Period. If your analysis is that simple that's fine - but it sways me (again not a Trump fan) not a whit. Further discussion will get us nowhere.

When you remove a mandate, it stands to reason that any decrease in coverage will include those that voluntarily choose not to buy. To be fair, about 20 million of those who will lose access are going to be losing Medicaid. Well, that's not exactly a bad thing.

Medicaid patients have worse outcomes than the privately insured.

In fact,

Medicaid doesn't seem to be helping at all.

There's proof.

We can't say that anyone will die as a direct result of wanting and not having medical insurance. We can say that in comparison with private insurance, Medicaid is a woefully mismanaged bureaucracy.

Much like Veterans affairs continues to be three years later.

Let's not keep throwing money at and boosting participation in a failing system? That seems like the better way to prevent needless deaths.

Speaking of failing systems...

http://i1133.photobucket.com/albums/m595/masiaka/Trump/EE4F77B4-D23D-4465-937E-553548C5BD81_zpslzmje3mr.jpg
Without the EPA, who would turn our rivers yellow?

   The spill was an accident and not a matter of policy. I can clearly remember what life was like before the EPA... the days when the smog rolled in from Philadelphia on a regular basis.  The massive fish kills in the Delaware River. The Cuyahoga River actually being so polluted that it caught fire. For you to imply that the EPA is somethimg bad is preposterous. The smog hasn't rolled in since the '70s and now Shad can make it all the way up to their spawinging grounds instead of all dropping dead as they try to pass Philly. Thanks, EPA.
     I can buy that Medicade isn't as well managed as most private insurance companies but with all due respect, to suggest that people on Medicade would be better off with no insurance is also huge  a reach to the point of being riduclous. Before we do away with any system a better one needs to be in place. So far there is nothing like that on the horizon. Only cuts that leave our most vulnerable citizens screwed.

I've got the perfect solution. I will run for president in 2020. I have run in the past but with little backing getting enough votes is almost impossible. If I can get slinging.org's support I can't loose. I'll give you an overview of my platform as 2020 approaches. I'm sure you will all agree with most of my ideas and that my policies can appease both the Left and Right and unite the country.
RAT MAN FOR PRESIDENT!!

Rat Man wrote on Jun 30^th, 2017 at 6:57pm:

I've got the perfect solution. I will run for president in 2020. I have run in the past but with little backing getting enough votes is almost impossible. If I can get slinging.org's support I can't loose. I'll give you qn overview of my platform as 2020 approaches. I'm sure you will all agree with most of my ideas and that my policies can appease both the Left and Right and unite the country. RAT MAN FOR PRESIDENT!!

Id absolutely vote for ya dude.

Thanks. I've actually got an excellent platform. It's definitely radical... it's based on common sense.