U.S. Elections 2016 - Polls in mirror appear closer than they are

[The Marquis de Leech]

5 minutes ago, Happy Ent said:

. I am really, honestly happy that the Republican party has nominated somebody who is clearly an atheist. (Unless my intuition about people is now completely broken.)  

Given that 40% of Americans would not vote for an atheist even if that person was a well-qualified person from their party, it would actually be an interesting if morally repugnant* strategy to put Trump's religion in play (not from Hillary directly, or from anyone tied to her, but if there was another way of getting it on the table...).

*I'm an atheist myself.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

I'm a church going Christian who regularly participates in liturgy as a Reader or an alter server.  I'd have absolute no problem voting for an individual who was qualified for any political office, with whom I agreed politically, who happened to be an Athiest.

[mormont]

31 minutes ago, Happy Ent said:

I am really, honestly happy that the Republican party has nominated somebody who is clearly an atheist. (Unless my intuition about people is now completely broken.) 

Trump is the candidate who's been brandishing his family bible and talking about his religion. But again, you prefer your own ideas about the candidates.

Can you explain to me what the difference is between your 'intuition', your prejudices and just plain making stuff up?

[BloodRider]

2 hours ago, Happy Ent said:

Oh, I completely understand that.

But either we’re allowed to ascribe (perhaps maliciously) intent to our political opponents or not. A lot of the vitriol against Trump is based on a (obviously malignant) mind-read of his personality. “Trump’s a racist at heart, no matter what he says.” Well, that’s completely possible, and a valid argument. (An argument which I happen to reject, but understand is part of accepted political discourse.)

Somebody was (perhaps honestly) soliciting an argument for how somebody who cares about (say) the plight of homosexuals or women or Jews could vote for Trump. I explained that. I find it immensely helpful to discourse to explain how Good People can come to an opposite political conclusion, which is why I answered.

No equivalence was implied. It’s a question which kind of liar you want to side with. I’m find it useful to judge people on what they say (rather than what my limited mind-reading capabilities tell me they think and feel.) So I prefer the smooth liar who falsely panders to my own views.

Sorry, but Trump performs overtly bigoted actions as well as speaks them.  He walks the walk.  He is also actively classist, in an almost feudal way.  Again - not just with his words.  These are actions the Clinton has never taken, and they speak to a nasty need to dominate and oppress, and to do it to those who are vulnerable.  And you can "Yes Boss" it up all over the internet for Trump if it makes you feel better, but the reality is that you are fighting for a really small chance to be Trump's "House Cracker".  But hey, at least you will get to also actively oppress Muslims and Latinas to distract yourself from your own life, culture, wealth and soul getting strip mined by a con-man.

 

[Happy Ent]

11 minutes ago, mormont said:

Can you explain to me what the difference is between your 'intuition', your prejudices and just plain making stuff up?

No idea. I’d guess that the first two are some kind of gut feeling/folk psychology/mind reading, in the second case possibly informed by data, books, studies. So: my honest assessment of people given very filtered and biased data. I think I’m being very, very open about when my views are based on that kind of “moral intuition” and flag them as such in a laudable fashion.

Making stuff up would be lying, I believe. I try to avoid that. That would be immoral.

So others here honestly feel that Trump is a religious person? I didn’t know that, and just assumed my mind-reading of Trump on that point was universal. I stand corrected. Our intuitions about people differ a lot.

[Happy Ent]

3 minutes ago, BloodRider said:

And you can "Yes Boss" it up all over the internet for Trump if it makes you feel better, […]

Why would I do that? He is clearly not fit for office.

[Happy Ent]

Mormont, maybe I misunderstood you. Do you actually feel that Trump is a more religious person than Clinton? Or would I wrong in ascribing that position to you?

[BloodRider]

3 minutes ago, Happy Ent said:

Why would I do that? He is clearly not fit for office.

I say "You"  I should have typed "one" as in "One can "Yes Boss" it up all over the internet for Trump " 

[James Arryn]

1 hour ago, Happy Ent said:

Just for the record: I don’t think that Clinton is a bigot, or was. I just think she holds (in her heart) conservative views on interracial* marriage. You don’t need to be a bigot for that. 

 

Eh, this isn't really even a fight I'm interested in, but my confusion about your distinction prompted me to change one word and ask if you'd still be comfortable with the sentence. If so, I'll understand where we differ, and if not likewise, but they are distinct from one another.

*my change from HE's actual statement which was about gay marriage.

[James Arryn]

25 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I'm a church going Christian who regularly participates in liturgy as a Reader or an alter server.  I'd have absolute no problem voting for an individual who was qualified for any political office, with whom I agreed politically, who happened to be an Athiest.

You would be an exception, though, Scott. You know that, right? Probably the 2 least acceptable political attributes in the American forum are having the wrong religion, or none at all. Pretty much every recent poll shows this. 

[alguien]

12 hours ago, Altherion said:

There's no perfection in this world. The choice is between Trump and somebody who has taken millions of dollars from Wall Street directly and tens of millions from all sorts of questionable sources via a foundation

Seriously, do you even read the words you type? It's like you've been taken over by Unintentional Irony personified. 

Trump's taken just as much, if not more money from Wall Street and in speaking fees (his are 10x higher than clinton's) with his shady-as-fuck business practices and his foundation is way more corrupt, while Clinton's has been received top grades by every metric possible. 

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Just now, James Arryn said:

You would be an exception, though, Scott. You know that, right? Probably the 2 least acceptable political attributes in the American forum are having the wrong religion, or none at all. Pretty much every recent poll shows this. 

I get that.  I just posted this on Facebook to ask why others wouldn't vote for an atheist with whom they agreed politically.  

[Happy Ent]

Ah, I understand. 

(Could you change the way you quote it, though? Currently it looks like something I actually said. I didn’t.)

I have no sympathy for the position of opposing interracial marriage. (I don’t even know how to define that.) And I can’t think of a good reason other than bigotry to oppose interracial marriage.

[Chaircat Meow]

10 hours ago, Happy Ent said:

Good post, Altherion. (In a thread that is otherwise dominated by shallow tribalists attacking the Other of being, well, tribal.)

There are, indeed, no solutions to the problem of muslim immigration. (You seem to reduce the problem to security, but I think security is the least part of it. I’m sufficiently far on the Left to think that a certain amount of terrorism is just part of life. Terrorism I can live with. The problems with Islam are are totalitarianism and surveillance as a result of terrorism, censorship, muslim social conservatism, de-personalisation of women, antisemitism, tribalism, homophobia, nepotism, lack of societal trust, curated school curricula, etc.  Not the odd gay bar exploding. But that’s another debate.)

But independently of whichever bad solution you want to support (or, like me, prefer no solution), the question of stopping muslim immigration is orthogonal, and it violates no rights. This is one of the points where Trump is right on the money and Clinton is in lah-lah land. 

Well, that, and global capitalism, where I just agree with the position he expounds. But this, at least, is a position where I understand the other side: I understand and have some sympathy for people who like the Soros-version of global, economic liberalism, the Soros-version of the open society (which is manifestly not the Popperian version of the open society, in which I am a strong believer.) I just thing that global capitalism/liberalism is wrong (and immoral). But not that its supporters are dumb.

But about muslim immigration I am getting increasingly unsure. It seems clear to me that muslim immigration incurs gigantic costs on the host society, no matter where it happens, for no apparent gain. (ETA: Maybe “little” apparent gain is a more correct assessment.) And there are no solutions to those problems, only realities to confront. (And the inevitable reactions are extremely costly; just think of surveillance/security.) 

ETA: On your other point: The question of stopping illegal immigration should not even be a question. Of course you should. That’s why it’s illegal. There is no way to build a democracy if you don’t control your borders.

I strongly agree with this post, especially the bolded. I've really wanted Trump to win ever since he proposed the Muslim ban. The US certainly has less of a problem with its Muslim immigrants than Sweden, the UK, France and Germany do currently, yet this also means that the Americans have an opportunity to learn from Europe's mistakes. Even if there is no solution to the problem, you should at least do all you can to stop compounding it.

I also agree that the overall effect of a large Muslim population on the host country is a far greater problem than the terrorists the Islamic population invariably seems to throw up (although this is a serious issue too). However, the inability of Obama and Clinton to acknowledge the fact that the more Muslims you have in your country, the more serious the threat of terror, and their refusal to recognize that the current terrorism is religiously inspired, means that there is no hope of them understanding the even graver threat posed by Islamification.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

21 minutes ago, Happy Ent said:

 

So others here honestly feel that Trump is a religious person? I didn’t know that, and just assumed my mind-reading of Trump on that point was universal. I stand corrected. Our intuitions about people differ a lot.

I personally doubt that Trump is genuinely religious. But there's a big difference between thinking Trump is not genuinely religious and thinking, as you said earlier, that he's clearly an atheist, especially in the context of saying you're happy the Republican Party nominated a clear atheist. Trump has made sure to appear religious and to profess his belief in God. Whether or not that's genuine, it eliminates the characterization of him as a clear atheist. At most he's a closet atheist who understood that he could never win the Republican nomination* if he admitted it. 

 

*the same is probably true for someone seeking the Democratic nomination

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

I think he's paying lip service at best in regards to his religious beliefs. 

I'm a regular at church and would have no problem voting for an athiest. How a person prays or doesn't pray isn'ta big deal for me, I spend no time thinking about it. 

[TrackerNeil]

1 hour ago, Happy Ent said:

Just for the record: I don’t think that Clinton is a bigot, or was. I just think she holds (in her heart) conservative views on gay marriage. You don’t need to be a bigot for that. 

I also think she is far more religious than Donald Trump. I am really, honestly happy that the Republican party has nominated somebody who is clearly an atheist. (Unless my intuition about people is now completely broken.)  So this is a reason to rejoice. Clinton is probably a cultural Christian at least, probably a half-hearted Deist. If not more. (Again, I could be wrong. She could just be a skilled liar, like Obama, who is also obviously (to me) an atheist and just lies about it.)

So you know that Clinton secretly opposes gay marriage, and that Obama is a closet atheist. What other things can you tell us?

[James Arryn]

2 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I get that.  I just posted this on Facebook to ask why others wouldn't vote for an atheist with whom they agreed politically.  

Okay, cool.

Being a Canadian affords some interesting perspectives on the U.S., both in similarities and differences, and the extreme correlation of religion and politics is one of the most startling differences to us. I think our current PM is Catholic, but that's just a guess based on heritage, and generally we don't care. Studies have shown that like 3/4 of Canadians at least would support an atheist for years now...generally we just don't think it has a place in the political sphere, I guess...or more accurately, we give it very little thought. So the degree to which the U.S. does really stands out to us as puzzling. Not wrong, even...just peculiar.

I personally kind of get it, actually. I don't have a particular religious affiliation, but if I did, that would mean I believe I know why we're on this planet and what it all means, and fitting that into neat little boxes of propriety would actually be pretty illogical. So it bleeding over into everything actually makes more sense to me than between this hour and this on this day, but not at work or school, etc. If you accept the basic premise that a particular creator put us all here and we are being eternally consigned to judgment based on our behaviour, subjective man-made conventions seem slightly silly restrictions.

So it affecting, well...everything...that makes more sense to me than tidying it up according to prevailing custom. I mean, I'm glad the latter IS what people do...but I don't really think it's a logical follow-through on the monotheistic principle...which, if true, transcends law, convention, convenience, cooperation, etc. Fitting it in somewhere below any of these other things IMO reduces it to a non-sensical entity. It is either the thing or it's nothing, from a purely rational point of view. So my saying your religion being so significant to you (Americans) in other spheres is not really a criticism, even though I have none myself. If there is a criticism here, it would be with respect to how what I think you think you stand for politically as opposed to nations you see as too religious (Muslim) vs. what you actually perpetuate, but that's a separate duscussion. Wow, can I go off on tangents. Stuck inside a Bangkok apartment in storm season is my excuse.

 

[Swordfish]

13 hours ago, Kalbear said:

That's the tough thing, I think. And one of the big divides.

I know a lot of racists. They're not racist like KKK members or white power members. They're not particularly hateful people. They're not even particularly ignorant people - though often they don't know a whole lot of people of other walks of life. 

They aren't bad people. But they absolutely have racist views. From stupid ones like black people can't swim to views that Mexicans are lazy, they think these things. They are indoctrinations that they don't question, not for a second. So when they hear Trump speaking like this, it's not like they think he's being racist - they think he's being truthful. And they don't understand why all of a sudden it's somehow a horrible thing to actually say truthful things. Again, they don't think they're bad people, and they're almost certainly not bad people by most metrics. They don't break laws. They give to charity and help their community. They don't hate people based on their skin or their sex. They care about their friends and family and society, and think about things. And to them they are absolutely not racists - racists are KKK, racists are lynchers and neo-nazis, and by God their parents fought in a war to make sure people like that lost. They aren't racists like that, so when you call them a racist it's a huge insult to them. 

So how do you convince them? Probably the best way is to have them hang out with others a bit more. Diversity in community is one of the best proven ways to improve racist viewpoints. Short of that, telling them that they're racist or sexist or bigoted really only helps if they're truly getting hurt by it in some way - like you're a close family member. Otherwise it does nothing. 

 

 

Actually, it does worse than nothing.  It poisons the well, and the problem is bigger than that in the sense that it's no longer just the case where you simply get branded with a '-ist' label when you have some small cross section of ingrained beliefs, it's quite common in public discourse to receive those brands simply for disagreeing with someone.

 

8 hours ago, Jo498 said:

What's up if the next "anti-establishment" candidate is not a bumbling orange-haired buffoon but someone  charismatic like Rudi Gloder or Fred Halliot?

http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.de/2014/02/fascism-and-future-part-three-weimar.html

 

This I think is the point that the HRC water carriers and the DNC are completely missing, or deliberately downplaying.  I just don't think the DNC really understands what is at stake here, or that this is bigger than one election.  We'll find out I guess.

6 hours ago, SeanF said:

America must be in a bad way, if each half of the population regards the other half as "evil in some way."  That's pretty much the view that prevailed in Spain in the Thirties.

 

 

Yeah.  It's crazy.  There is simply no gradiation or critical thinking going on in political discourse anymore.  Very sad.

6 hours ago, Harakiri said:

How is not wanting to associate with bigots an overreaction? Trump is a bigot, if you support Trump and are going to vote for him, you support his bigotry.  Why would anyone that is against racism, anti LGBTQIA hate, sexism / misogyny and xenophobia want to associate with people that are the complete opposite?

The people I have the most trouble with are the people who are completely incapable of understanding nuance or shades of grey.

But YMMV.

[James Arryn]

31 minutes ago, Happy Ent said:

Ah, I understand. 

(Could you change the way you quote it, though? Currently it looks like something I actually said. I didn’t.)

I have no sympathy for the position of opposing interracial marriage. (I don’t even know how to define that.) And I can’t think of a good reason other than bigotry to oppose interracial marriage.

I edited it to clarify my changing your words. Ironically, I changed the colour to highlight the difference...hope it doesn't look too queer this way. I kid. Thanks for clarifying, I understand where we differ now.