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


TerraPrime

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2 minutes ago, Swordfish said:

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

But YMMV.

I'm not sure how many shades of gray can be found in that Mexicans-are-rapists statement. But call me an absolutest.

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3 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

That is indeed their call.  I'm pointing out that having large minorites willing to come to blows inside a given society is a recipe for very bad things to happen.  Hell, it can be argued that it's already happening look at unjustified police shootings.

If we refuse to talk to each other because we are certain we cannot change minds with talk... what is left?

At some point there is no talking because it can't happen. The bigots refuse to change, and we need to stop giving them platforms and stop acting like their opinions are valid.

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5 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

I'm not sure how many shades of gray can be found in that Mexicans-are-rapists statement. But call me an absolutest.

 

I made no mention of that statement, so you're going to have to elaborate on why it is relevant here?

Is your point that since that statement bears no shades of grey, shades of grey do not exist? Or... What, exactly...

 

4 minutes ago, Harakiri said:

At some point there is no talking because it can't happen. The bigots refuse to change, and we need to stop giving them platforms and stop acting like their opinions are valid.

Thank you for reinforcing my point for me.  Much appreciated.

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34 minutes ago, Chaircat Meow said:

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.

So do you think guns should be banned or strictly banned from being in the hands of white men since they are prone to committing mass shootings at a higher percentage than other demogrphics and since that it's a near weekly sometimes daily much more common occurrence than a Muslim committing annoying cra of terrorism here?

 

 

 

Or do you hold a double standard like the rest of the conservative bigots in the us?

 

 

 

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Just now, Swordfish said:

 

I made no mention of that statement, so you're going to have to elaborate on why it is relevant here?

Is yuor position that since that statement bears no shades of grey, shades of grey do not exist?

My position is that although shades of gray do exist, they are not often to be found in the things Donald Trump says. His bigotry and white nationalist tendencies are right out there for all to see. No gray as far as I can tell.

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36 minutes ago, Chaircat Meow said:

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.

Should we make males illegal? No demographic covers most crimes as much as that one. Most terrorists are male, too, btw. How do you think we should go about deporting all the men?

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Oh God, I can't believe I'm being drawn back in here again....

5 minutes ago, Harakiri said:

At some point there is no talking because it can't happen. The bigots refuse to change, and we need to stop giving them platforms and stop acting like their opinions are valid.

Yes, until the hateful, bigoted progressives, SJWs, and their allies in the Democratic partied are deplatformed there can be no reasonable discourse.

2 minutes ago, Harakiri said:

So do you think guns should be banned or strictly banned from being in the hands of white men since they are prone to committing mass shootings at a higher percentage than other demogrphics and since that it's a near weekly sometimes daily much more common occurrence than a Muslim committing annoying cra of terrorism here?

They're not, but nice try.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/476456/mass-shootings-in-the-us-by-shooter-s-race/

2 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

My position is that although shades of gray do exist, they are not often to be found in the things Donald Trump says. His bigotry and white nationalist tendencies are right out there for all to see. No gray as far as I can tell.

Trump never said Mexicans are rapists.  Also, the idea that he is a racist is the left doing the same exact thing to Trump that the right supposedly did with Hillary's health.

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1 minute ago, Bold Barry Whitebeard said:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/476456/mass-shootings-in-the-us-by-shooter-s-race/

Trump never said Mexicans are rapists.  Also, the idea that he is a racist is the left doing the same exact thing to Trump that the right supposedly did with Hillary's health.

Trump:

Quote

“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.”

I suppose one can hairsplit that into acceptability, which must be one of those gray areas under discussion.

 

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13 minutes ago, Harakiri said:

At some point there is no talking because it can't happen. The bigots refuse to change, and we need to stop giving them platforms and stop acting like their opinions are valid.

Harakiri,

It is very difficult to ignore the voices of 140,000,000 people (40% of 350,000,000).  Ignoring that many people will not lead to anything good.  That doesn't make bigoted opinions a good thing but it does mean that by shear mass 140,000,000 hold a lot of power.

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1 minute ago, Bold Barry Whitebeard said:

Yes, until the hateful, bigoted progressives, SJWs, and their allies in the Democratic partied are deplatformed there can be no reasonable discourse.

I think that is wrong. You must simply decide which discourse you find useful, and focus on that. You will never eradicate postmodernism or identity politics (the former is a cancer on Western thought that is extremely well ingrained in a very powerful elite, the latter harmonises too well with the vile human psychology of tribalism to ever be eradicated) , but you can help making these modes of discourse irrelevant by not engaging with them. You share no epistemological priors (and very few moral ones), so given how difficult discourse already is, it behoves you to seek honest debates with people who just slightly disagree with you. Every other debate you can just leave.

I agree with you that the DNC needs to ditch the regressive left or die, just like the comparable European parties are doing right now. This year they are lucky that they run against the unelectable Trump. Next time they won’t be as lucky.

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12 hours ago, White Walker Texas Ranger said:

Just to test an edge case:

So I'm against rape. It turns out on of my childhood friends believes there's nothing wrong with rape, and that he'd totally rape strangers if he could get away with it and strongly implies that he has. I'm in no particular danger- we're both men and he's strictly heterosexual and he also won't touch any of my female friends or family.

Would it not be sane to end ties with this guy?

Sure, that sounds reasonable to me.

9 hours ago, butterbumps! said:

The Trump supporters I'm around are, frankly, people who know better.  For example, people I went to undergrad with, who are definitely doing well in life and living in Mahattan, who fancy themselves gentlemanly republicans cut in the Reagan mold, who simply cannot bring themselves to vote non-Republican no matter what candidates are put forward.  And who, it turns out, are actually super racist, and in one case super misogynist (the only woman he likes being lectured by is Ann Coulter).   But they prefer when it's in a dog whistle form, rather than the openly cringe-worthy Trumply variety.   One is hiding behind the court appointment excuse on the "one-issue" of abortion; it's not sincere or well-reasoned in his arguments, especially considering Trumps breath-taking disregard for the Constitution at all.  There is always a magnificent amount of denial in the damage Trump is already doing to this country, and the fact that no one but his hired gun manager has been able to rein him in yet to mitigate his prodigious externalities, but "Hillary is a Dem and Clinton and a vote there is a loss of my identity!"  I've become very cynical of those supporting Trump for reasons of "court appointments." 

I can't tell from this post whether you regularly hang out with these people, though. I ask because oftentimes the best antidote to feeling this way about a demographic (and I can't tell if you were being serious or just rhetorical in saying this was a problem) is to be around them. It gets more and more difficult to believe bad things about people when they're in front of you all the time not being bad. A large portion of Americans seem not to have any contact with their political opponents or the media they consume, or the economic conditions they face.

I think it's unhealthy to get your perspective on these issues from major news sources or even websites like this. There are opinions to be had in these places, but no real perspective. Browsing this thread is probably not going to be great for anyone's empathy toward a rival political group, if that is your genuine concern. Again, maybe you were being rhetorical. 

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1 hour ago, Happy Ent said:

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.)

Compared to Clinton or Trump, Obama has actually given more detailed interviews about his faith. Also, keep in mind that he went to a 'liberation theology' church for nearly 20 years, much of it when he was not in the public eye. If he wanted to choose a cover story, surely he could have chosen a blander denomination?

No, I think he believes in a god, like an original mover, and that Jesus is one of the manifestations of that god. At the same time, he may have more secular views than almost any conventional Protestant denomination (i.e, not believing for instance that people who are not 'saved' by Jesus are condemned to hell etc...). This probably has more to do with his multicultural upbringing.

In short, a cultural Christian because of circumstances of his birth and upbringing who is light on dogma but yet believes in some sort of god and the church happened to be the best proxy. There are probably quite a few of those in the US.

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10 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

My position is that although shades of gray do exist, they are not often to be found in the things Donald Trump says. His bigotry and white nationalist tendencies are right out there for all to see. No gray as far as I can tell.

Ah..  I see the issues now.

You see, we were talking about Trump supporters, not just Trump himself.

Second, if you think there are no shades of grey even when talking about Trump, then you're guilty of the exact kind of willful lack of understanding of nuance and shades of grey we are talking about.  I don't think that makes you an absolutist, exactly.  I'm not even really sure what the right term is.

Hope that helps clarify this for you!

 

 

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BTW, for those who care about discourse (and haven’t found him yet) I get a lot of pleasure from listening to Sam Harris’s regular podcasts. In particular, let me point to the illuminating conversation he had in August with Eric Weinstein: Fait in Reason. I really liked the two-dimensional idea that Weinstein introduced (illustrated in the linked blog post) that explains well how and why the opinions of contrarians (“first principles thinkers”) like myself are constantly mapped to the troglodyte position. I found that very illuminating. 

(I also learned the pejorative term “rent-seeking elites,” which is funny but not really helpful for discourse other than social signalling.)

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1 minute ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Harakiri,

It is very difficult to ignore the voices of 140,000,000 people (40% of 350,000,000).  Ignoring that many people will not lead to anything good.  That doesn't make bigoted opinions a good thing but it does mean that by shear mass 140,000,000 hold a lot of power.

Go tell the LGBTQIA community, women and people of color we should listen to the bigoted opinions about them as if they're valid and see how that goes over. Clearly listening to them spout their hatred doesn't do any good now doesn't it?  

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7 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Harakiri,

It is very difficult to ignore the voices of 140,000,000 people (40% of 350,000,000).  Ignoring that many people will not lead to anything good.  That doesn't make bigoted opinions a good thing but it does mean that by shear mass 140,000,000 hold a lot of power.

Okay, rather than ones that have somehow reemerged as current issues, let's look at ones we all agree are in the past...things like Jim Crowe, slavery, disenfranchised women, interracial marriage bans, etc. When huge chunks of the population supported those positions, how should they gave been addressed? Did sheer volume mean it wasn't bigotry? Or just that the word ought not be used? 

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7 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

Trump:

I suppose one can hairsplit that into acceptability, which must be one of those gray areas under discussion.

 

Actually,now that i think about it,  it's an excellent example, thank you for bringing it up!

Because The people crossing the border are the rapists and criminals, the law abiding citizens, while a flawed and obviously untrue statement, is NOT the same as 'Trump thinks all mexicans are rapists'.

Why is it no sufficient to criticize the quote on it's lac of merits?  Why are you compelled to spin it into a blanket statement that Trump thinks all mexicans are rapists?

 

 

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