US Politics: Opening Pandora's Box

[Happy Ent]

11 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Is that right?

No, and you deliberately misquoted me.

To see the extent or your moral corruption, Anti-Targ, let’s recall what I said:

Islam is a terrible, terrible set of ideas. In particular, it is at variance with Judeo–Christian values as enshrined, for instance, in the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

You then quote me for

Islam is a terrible, terrible set of ideas. In particular, it is at variance with Judeo–Christian values

In the middle of sentence! Removing a restricting clause—there wasn’t even a comma! I have no words for that kind of behaviour, Anti-Targ. This is a deliberate misrepresentation of a carefully worded statement (which goes on to be even more careful). Please do not do this again. Discourse only works if we aren’t lying about what others think.

Mormont and least quotes me correctly, but thinks I’m wrong. Fair enough. As I said in my original post, don’t trust me on Islam. Or Trump, Bannon, or Breitbart. Instead, trust Muslims.

The UN Declaration of Human Rights enshrines the secular Judeo–Christian values of the West. This is not me, or the West saying it. (We, after all, think that these rights are universal. We are wrong about that.) Instead, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC, think of it as the predominantly Muslim countries, including the non-crazy ones such as Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan, Indonesia). These countries explicitly resist the UDHR exactly for the reason I describe.

If things like actual quotes sway you folks (and the ease with which people like the Anti-Targ lie through their teeth makes me doubt the value of honestly attributing positions to others in the first place), here’s one:

Quote

Various Muslim countries had criticized the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights for its failure to take into account the cultural and religious context of non-Western countries. In 1981, Said Rajaie-Khorassani—the post-revolutionary Iranian representative to the UN—articulated the position of his country regarding the UDHR, by saying that it was a relativistic "secular understanding of the Judeo-Christiantradition", which could not be implemented by Muslims without trespassing Islamic law.

This then, after many years, led to the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam from 1990, which is a very good source for reading up on exactly where secular, Judeo–Christian ethics differ from Islam. In the most Islam-friendly framing you can imagine, namely authored by the OIC. These are not my words, or Bannon’s, or Trumps. These are the best source for the Human Rights under Islam, as formulated by current, Muslim countries (including the non-crazy ones), and understood as a contrast to Judeo–Christian values. I am not making this up. They are. 

You can get a full picture at the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo_Declaration_on_Human_Rights_in_Islam, which I encourage you all to read. (To the extent that facts sway you at all.) Many denizens of this thread seem to be utterly ignorant of exactly the clash of ideas that seems to inform much of what’s going on under Bannon.

To reiterate: Bannon, I, and the entire Muslim world can easily be wrong about this. I’m not trying to convince anybody that “we” are right, even though there are hundreds of millions of us. In fact, I dearly hope we are wrong. But one cannot be ignorant of the existence of this position, nor its very real effect on the world right now.

As an aside, the lack of civility, and the level of tribalism and intellectual dishonesty in this thread is galling. Please stop misrepresenting the positions of others, including mine. Moral and intellectual progress can only happen in an atmosphere of benevolent, honest criticism. It never happens by misrepresentation.

Good: say what you mean. Defend it.

Bad: say what others mean. Attack that.

[Martell Spy]

Quote

Rick Tyler, a longtime Republican communications operative, said of Conway, “There is a good case to be made that she is now incoherent and incomprehensible, and I’m not even sure that it’s her fault.”
As for the president of the United States personally orchestrating Conway’s television bookings, Tyler said: “Wow. That is crazy. That tells you that there are too many power centers in this White House.”
Tyler also expressed sympathy for Spicer, who in previous incarnations enjoyed a positive relationship with reporters as a Capitol Hill press secretary and communications director and chief strategist at the Republican National Committee.
“Sean’s problem is that his version of a good press secretary and the president’s version of a good press secretary are incompatible,” Tyler said. “The president thinks [fanatical policy adviser] Stephen Miller, who says things that Darth Vader would blush at, is a good press secretary.”
Tyler added that the president’s and the White House’s relentless “fake news” attacks are likely to end in tears.
“When the White House doesn’t respect the news media, and the news isn’t going your way, you make it twice as hard on yourself when you don’t have a good relationship with the news media,” Tyler said. “If you have that relationship, you often get the benefit of the doubt. A reporter won’t take your side, but at least they will try to be fair to you.”

The Journalism Empire Strikes Back
Blockbuster reports from the Washington Post and New York Times are rocking the Trump White House. But will this administration ever come to acknowledge the power of the press?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/02/15/the-journalism-empire-strikes-back.html

[Relic]

6 hours ago, Mexal said:

This gives me faith...

 

Faith in what? 

[butterbumps!]

7 hours ago, Altherion said:

People wanted "hope and change" and now we finally have a chance at it. If it doesn't work out, someone else will probably come along.

I get that you phrase it this way to make it sound more benign.  But "hope and change" had a whole lot to do with a bunch of white people who wanted to go back to regressive social formats that kept them artificially on top.  Racial anxiety keeps coming up in study after study as the best predictor of a Trump vote.

I get that you like to focus on the segment of Trump voters who are economically impacted by globalization (a much smaller number than you've argued, but let's leave that for now), who are just so desperate and hopeless that they were willing to buy the mind numbingly stupid miracle cures sold by a charlatan.

But the majority of Trump voters are not of that particular segment of people.  The majority of Trump voters are economically not-destitute (mostly) white people who were either actively inspired by some sort of bigotry, or found the bigotry an acceptable part of the overall snakeoil package.   

I don't know how much forbearance Trump voters deserve on the principle that we should respect each other's choices.  Their "choice" was not only stupid, but actively harmful to vast portions of their fellow citizens.    However,  I feel differently toward a Trump voter who is willing to take ownership of the fact that they voted for bigotry and dangerous incompetence (if not their particular motivation), and does something to mitigate the clearly egregious excesses that are obvious parts of the package they voted for, but claim not to support.

[DunderMifflin]

Are we still going with the narrative that Muslim and Mexican are races?

Next step I guess is to redefine what a race is in order to keep that lie up.

[James Arryn]

2 minutes ago, DunderMifflin said:

Are we still going with the narrative that Muslim and Mexican are races?

What are your top 5 favourite forms of bigotry? In order of preference, from greatest to least great, and if you have them in tiers (like wonderful, good, regrettable, bad, etc.) feel free to include those.

[Martell Spy]

Quote

 

The Turkish Deep State is something different, Taspinar contends—a clandestine network of retired intelligence officials, mafiosi, and others who engage in prosecutable criminal activity. He offered a hypothetical scenario that would echo the sorts of tactics the Turkish Deep State deployed in the war against Kurdish separatists: Imagine if white nationalists with ties to the administration conducted false-flag attacks intended to gin up concerns about Islamist terror and enable Trump’s tough immigration controls.

“It was not the judiciary, the civil society, the media, or the bureaucrats trying to engage in checks and balances against a legitimately elected government,” he said. “What we’re witnessing in the U.S., it’s basically the institutional channels.”

Even leaking, which sometimes does flirt with violating the law, doesn’t deserve to be tarred as the work of a nefarious deep state, Taspinar said.

“Anything that would try to portray what the leakers, or what the government officials try to do as a ‘Deep State’ is an attempt to delegitimize whistleblowers or people who believe that what the government is doing right [now] is against the Constitution,” he said. “Any kind of bureaucratic resistance is too innocuous to be labeled as the activities of the Deep State.”

 

Are Deep-State Leakers Defending Democracy or Corroding It?
Is the gusher of leaks about the White House the work of bureaucrats who want to undermine the president? And if so, is that a good or bad thing?

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/american-deep-state-trump/516780/

[butterbumps!]

8 minutes ago, DunderMifflin said:

Are we still going with the narrative that Muslim and Mexican are races?

Next step I guess is to redefine what a race is in order to keep that lie up.

what post is this in reference to?

[Martell Spy]

Priebus scrambles to bring order out of disorder
After a rocky start, the White House chief of staff is rushing to fix Trump's early missteps

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/reince-priebus-trump-white-house-235076

[Commodore]

hrmmmmm.....this article from January now has new meaning

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/us/politics/nsa-gets-more-latitude-to-share-intercepted-communications.html?platform=hootsuite

Quote

 

WASHINGTON — In its final days, the Obama administration has expanded the power of the National Security Agency to share globally intercepted personal communications with the government’s 16 other intelligence agencies before applying privacy protections.

The new rules significantly relax longstanding limits on what the N.S.A. may do with the information gathered by its most powerful surveillance operations, which are largely unregulated by American wiretapping laws. These include collecting satellite transmissions, phone calls and emails that cross network switches abroad, and messages between people abroad that cross domestic network switches.

The change means that far more officials will be searching through raw data. Essentially, the government is reducing the risk that the N.S.A. will fail to recognize that a piece of information would be valuable to another agency, but increasing the risk that officials will see private information about innocent people.

Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch signed the new rules, permitting the N.S.A. to disseminate “raw signals intelligence information,” on Jan. 3, after the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., signed them on Dec. 15, according to a 23-page, largely declassified copy of the procedures.

 

 

[Mexal]

2 hours ago, Relic said:

Faith in what? 

I was being facetious. It's a terrible idea to bring a friend in to assess an intelligence apparatus when they have no relevant experience at all. Especially when the IC already doesn't trust Trump. It won't end well.

[Spockydog]

3 minutes ago, Mexal said:

I was being facetious. It's a terrible idea to bring a friend in to assess an intelligence apparatus when they have no relevant experience at all. Especially when the IC already doesn't trust Trump. It won't end well.

Probably on a grassy knoll.

[Jo498]

Is there a reason Bannon usually looks like a bum who has picked up a suit from a charity shop? Certainly in need of a shave, haircut and overall overhaul... Does he want people to underestimate him? Or appear more closer to the ordinary guy?

[OldGimletEye]

2 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/how-puzder-fell-235078

How Puzder fell
The labor nominee was hurt by a lack of support from some of the president's top advisers.

Well see that Bannon and Miller had a problem with Puzder over immigration.

Other than the immigration issue, I wonder if they had a problem with Puzder because he is generally a nasty piece of work.

Quote

The fast-food company that Puzder chaired, CKE Restaurants, was comparatively light on wage-theft violations compared to most of its competitors in the industry, according to an analysis of enforcement data published by Bloomberg BNA in September.

And where was Paul Ryan's "maker and taker" rhetoric on this issue?

[Rippounet]

9 hours ago, Mudguard said:

My post only made two points.  First, there isn't yet a consensus about austerity like there is about climate change, which your first paragraph seems to acknowledge.  If there was a consensus, why hasn't Europe given up on austerity already?

I can try to answer that.
- For the people in power, austerity is the perfect way to privatize entire sectors of the economy. We're talking about hundreds of billions worth of "new" markets. The links between the politicians and the private sector are well known. French president Sarkozy's brother was working in private pensions plans (while reducing public pensions), while his prime minister Fillon turned out to be paid by a private health insurer (while wanting to privatize our -pretty good- healthcare system).
- For the electors, austerity has a natural appeal. They've heard so much about the debt that they have come to accept that saving money (i.e. less government spending) is the logical solution. They genuinely believe that our Western states live "above their means" and that this has to stop. Worse even, many electors tend to believe right-wing parties are better at managing public finances than the left, even though the reverse is often true.
I had a frustrating conversation with my father-in-law over this yesterday. And I realized at some point that facts just don't matter. Economic analyses don't matter. Numbers don't matter. What matters is this ingrained perception that the situation is bad, that everyone has to suffer because of it (because debt is immoral), and that the right-wing folks are perfect for the job, because they look smart and they know how to pray.
My father-in-law is old, so I won't put too much blame on him, but I do believe he exemplifies the conservative mindset on economic matters: he doesn't understand it, he doesn't know anything about it, but he has impressions and feelings about it. And nothing you say can get over those impressions and feelings.

[Gertrude]

34 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

My father-in-law is old, so I won't put too much blame on him, but I do believe he exemplifies the conservative mindset on economic matters: he doesn't understand it, he doesn't know anything about it, but he has impressions and feelings about it. And nothing you say can get over those impressions and feelings.

This mirrors the mindset of my own father. He talks a lot about fairness and what feels right/wrong, but it's from his perspective and life-experiences. One discussion specifically stands out to me that explained a lot for me. Economically, the 80s were very strong for him. This era was the ideal and therefore those policies will produce the best results. It was an easy sell as he's been a life-long republican, but we just don't see eye to eye on this at all and any facts and arguments I bring to the table do not sway him. He thinks I'm misguided.

[Jo498]

One reason why austerity is so easy to sell to many lower middle class people is that they are not told how it will affect them, that it will destroy the infrastructure and services they need and use often more than the poorest and the richest people. The poor are on welfare anyway and the rich have enough private assets but good health insurance and pensions are a considerably part of the wealth of the lower middle class.

And that it fits with thrifty housekeeping in one's private finances. Consumer debt can be bad, one should be disciplined about it, so people are led to believe that it should be the same with the debt of a whole country. Of course the analogue to consumer debt is already horribly wrong with a smallish business that has to borrow money to invest in means of production to be productive in the first place and it is even less plausible at a national scale. (If nobody borrowed money, noone could get any interest from one's savings account, so the Swabian housewife could not reap any benefit from being thrifty and putting the money in the bank) Than there is the perennial complaint that governments only "waste" money (e.g. on streets, bridges, policemen and teachers) whereas the private sector is far more efficient and somehow "makes" the money that is than squandered on public services like trains and hospitals.

[Ormond]

4 hours ago, DunderMifflin said:

Are we still going with the narrative that Muslim and Mexican are races?

Next step I guess is to redefine what a race is in order to keep that lie up.

There is a long tradition among racists in this country of considering "Mexican" to be a race. In the 1930 United States census, "Mexican" was used as a racial category:

https://www.census.gov/history/www/through_the_decades/index_of_questions/1930_1.html

Just because you and I agree that it is wrong to use "Mexican" as a racial term doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of racists out there who disagree with us.

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Jo498 said:

And that it fits with thrifty housekeeping in one's private finances. Consumer debt can be bad, one should be disciplined about it, so people are led to believe that it should be the same with the debt of a whole country. 

It has a name. It's called the fallacy of composition ie stories about thrifty swabian housewives.

Now, I'd suspect the people that sell this stuff, know better. But, they'd like to sell a particular story. It goes like: Your Galtian overlords are angry. And they must be appeased. You must praise them and offer them tax cuts. And you must put up sacrifices too. Only then will your Galtian overlords be happy and prosperity shall return.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/832038898779947008

 

/Interesting take regarding the reason Trump may have backed off his rejection of the "One China" policy.