U.S. Politics: Death and Tax Cuts

[Corvinus85]

27 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

If half an onion is black with rot, then is not the onion rotten

OK, Melisandre, tone it down.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

17 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

And kill people. Lots and lots of people. Over there. Mostly from above. Because that’s strong. 

That exact phrase uttered from a podium at CPAC or the Republican National Convention, they'd need a month to mop the cum off the ceiling. 

[A True Kaniggit]

2 hours ago, Bonnot OG said:

Oh no? 

They both had no issue with killing civilians.

 

1 hour ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

You're starting to sound like one of those people who compared Obama to Hitler. And no, there is no moral equivalency between a man who refuses to bake gay people a wedding cake, and one who advocates chopping their heads off.

I didn't ask about his post-war policies, which i agree were terrrible amd often actively harmful to many vulnerable people. I asked about your original comment which called him scum for serving as a soldier in an immoral war, just like your friend and cousin did.

For all your accusations about white washing, you seem to be the one uncomfortable with shades of gray.

I've been waiting to hear your answer to this question for the last hour Bonnot OG.

You've claimed McCain is guilty for the deaths of hundreds of thousands in Vietnam and damning him for it, while grieving for two people who did the same in Iraq, but not laying the same blame on them(two people you obviously cared for). Are they just as guilty for the hundreds of thousands that died in Iraq?

Am I as guilty for all the dead in Afghanistan?

[Martell Spy]

Quote

 

That young women of color nationally appear to be the most “woke” demographic in the age of Trump could predict future political trends. Millennial and post-millennial women of color are a growing group of voters and activists that have the potential to move the Democratic Party to more progressive positions, including on issues of women’s and LGBTQ rights, immigration, and economic values prioritizing human dignity.

Judging from other national surveys looking at women of color who are older, this is a group not likely to shift its views or its partisanship with age.

Notably, these are themes that resonated among primary voters in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Bronx district but are popping up in other regions as well. Such policies are emerging in platforms of other key women of color succeeding in this year’s Democratic primaries, such as Stacey Abrams, the first African-American woman to win a gubernatorial primary in Georgia, and Deb Haaland in New Mexico, who is on track to become the first Native American woman elected to Congress.

 

Will young women of color shape the Democratic Party?

https://www.vox.com/mischiefs-of-faction/2018/8/23/17765414/women-of-color-democratic-party
 

[Martell Spy]

44 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

That exact phrase uttered from a podium at CPAC or the Republican National Convention, they'd need a month to mop the cum off the ceiling. 

Especially if you called the target countries shitholes.

[Martell Spy]

Trump seems to think he is a Mob boss or a feudal monarch. It's possible Manafort is not taking a deal because he knows things and he fears Putin may kill him. This is actually a reasonable fear. Trump seems to think he has that same power, perhaps because he has been surrounded by yes-men so long.

Quote

 

Trump’s mistake was believing that the professions of loyalty were real—that besides absorbing the routine disrespect Trump doles out to his underlings, Cohen would literally, not figuratively, take a bullet for him. He thought he could delegate everything unseemly up to and including jail time to his long-suffering lawyer. Now he’s implicated in a criminal conspiracy, and the man whose silence he took for granted is more than willing to spill. If Cohen’s case has a lesson for the Trump administration, it’s this: The corollary to the idea that everyone has a price is that everyone has a limit.

 

 

 

Michael Cohen’s Loyalty Had a Limit

He wanted to be Trump’s consigliere. Now he’s the latest to betray him.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/08/michael-cohens-guilty-plea-his-loyalty-to-trump-had-a-limit.html

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

Depends on the circumstances, but in general, yeah absolutely. E

Quote

specially given that I believe the majority of racism comes from misguided fear and ignorance, rather than an informed, well-thought position.

I'm talking about a person's life, not an individual act. If a firefighter saves a child from a burning building, then goes home and hits his own children, I'd call him morally gray. He'd be a hero for risking his life to save somebody, and a scumbag for attacking another person. Neither act defines him entirely.

So lynching is grey because their racism is from fear and ignorance of black people.  That's what you just stated whether or not you admit it.  Again, it's all about the oppressed shutting up and being forgiving of people who would never do them the same kindness.  Eff that, you know?  Jesus didn't forgive the money lenders who contaminated the Temple either.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

7 minutes ago, Zorral said:

So lynching is grey because their racism is from fear and ignorance of black people.  That's what you just stated whether or not you admit it.  Again, it's all about the oppressed shutting up and being forgiving of people who would never do them the same kindness.  Eff that, you know?  Jesus didn't forgive the money lenders who contaminated the Temple either.

Actually, he did.  He just told them they can’t pursue their profession in his father’s house.  Not that they were condemned for doing so or that they had no possibility of redemption.

 

45And he went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold therein, and them that bought; 46Saying unto them, It is written, My house is the house of prayer: but ye have made it a den of thieves.  Luke 19:45-46

[Gone and Quite Forgotten]

5 hours ago, Zorral said:

So lynching is grey because their racism is from fear and ignorance of black people.  That's what you just stated whether or not you admit it.  

That is an offensively stupid comparison. For the record, I think you know that you're misconstruing what I said. But if I'm wrong, my apologies, let me explain. 

I said that racism in general is a gray area. The reason for this is because almost every human being has racist tendencies. Even educated, well-meaning,  oh-so-progressive people such as yourself "whether or not you admit it." I never said that a racist action was gray. I said that a person who performs a racist action, like locking their car door when a black person walks by, or a soldier who is indoctrinated with coded racist language (gook, raghead, etc.), is usually a decent person acting out of a combination of ignorance and fear. This person, is gray.

Now, that being said, even if racism is gray, murder is not. So no, I in no way said that lynching a person is a morally gray area.

Quote

Again, it's all about the oppressed shutting up and being forgiving of people who would never do them the same kindness.  Eff that, you know?  Jesus didn't forgive the money lenders who contaminated the Temple either.

What are you talking about? I never said oppressed people had to forgive anybody. I called out a few privileged, probably(definitely)-white people that were mistaking edge for righteousness. And the only time I mentioned Jesus was in comparison to Jimmy Carter in an entirely different discussion meant to point out the hypocrisy of the Christian right.

[A True Kaniggit]

13 minutes ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

Now, that being said, even if racism is gray, murder is not. So no, I in no way said that lynching a person is a morally gray area.

But you were talking about people's lives, not individual acts.

Your own example was a firefighter, who saves a person doing his job (which he is paid to do) but then goes home and beats the shit out of his kids is somehow grey. 

That's not grey. That's a child abusing mother fucker.

[Clueless Northman]

5 hours ago, Bonnot OG said:

A white moderate pushing some love thy enemy bullshit. Shocking!

Iirc, Scott is quite a believer, and that's exactly how a true Christian should actually behave.

The problem is that, at some point, as this discussion shows, you have the choice between acting like the Christ and dying because you didn't defend yourself - or even having your whole community wiped out because it just prayed for those who were killing it -, or not following Christ's message, fight back and actually beat up the enemy that wants to kill you.

 

4 hours ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

If the enemy acts inhumanly? Yes.

That's honestly something I don't get. If only, because it seems to be that typical "You have to dehumanize people before you're able to attack or kill them", which of course is dead wrong and is only something that people that deeply believe in human rights, Christian / humanistic values and the goodness of mankind can come up with. The reality is that you don't need to dehumanize people to want to see them dead; in most cases, most people have no trouble acknowledging and knowing the ones they want to see dead, or even the ones they're killing, are human beings. Being a fellow human has rarely been enough to save someone from being killed, actually.

 

As for McCain, he was a warmonger and a hawk. Many seem to praise him right now, because of his staunch opposition to Trump - partly because he felt Trump was too soft and isolationist and not enough of a warmonger. That amount of praise is a bit silly, because opposing Trump doesn't give you absolution, it's not enough to redeem you of all previous bad deeds. Being vocally against Trump doesn't miraculously make a good person from a jerk and doesn't erase the bad you did earlier. That doesn't specifically apply to McCain, it applies globally, and goes just as well to all the top agencies head honchos like Brennan and Comey, who are praised because they fight Trump, when they're awful people as such, and would still be considered heinous human beings by the progressive/liberal wing, were Trump not the president).

[The Anti-Targ]

3 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Because if there's one thing the religious right hates, it's the religious left.

In their eyes, he projects weakness.

Navy man, Farmer, married to the same woman since 1946, lives in a modest home, and at 90 years old he spends his time talking about human rights and building houses for poor people.  Do they give a shit? Nope.

They want someone who will enforce their hysterical views of education, sexuality and reproductive rights; and reenforce their hysterical prejudices  (welfare queens, queers, Mexicans, Muslims, anything "un-american").

That's because if there is one thing the religious right should fear the most it's the religious left. Fortunately for the right, the irreligious left makes little distinction between the religious left and the religious right. Because the simple fact of being religious makes you dangerous. So the irreligious left is helping the religious right to keep the religious vote mostly skewed right.

My grandfather, who trained as an anglican priest but gave it up to become a trade unionist, used to say Jesus was the perfect socialist. Which means socialism, in his mind, was the natural state of Christian society. What the religious right represents is a perversion and a corruption of Christian values. When you show an ugly corrupt, version of something the beauty of its original form, or the beauty of its form as originally conceived, the response is commonly hate and rejection.

[The Anti-Targ]

6 minutes ago, Clueless Northman said:

Iirc, Scott is quite a believer, and that's exactly how a true Christian should actually behave.

The problem is that, at some point, as this discussion shows, you have the choice between acting like the Christ and dying because you didn't defend yourself - or even having your whole community wiped out because it just prayed for those who were killing it -, or not following Christ's message, fight back and actually beat up the enemy that wants to kill you.

 

 

But that's not acting like Christ. At no time did Christ ever say don't stand up and fight for what's right. But he also showed that sacrifice works as part of that fight. But you should not ask or tell others to sacrifice. That's got to be a personal choice.

You'd have thought that feeding Christians to the lions for the LoLs would have done the trick to put an end to them. But after a few hundred years we all know how futile all the persecution of Christians really was. Arguably, Christians won their greatest victories before they became capable of fielding armies.  

[Gone and Quite Forgotten]

40 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

But you were talking about people's lives, not individual acts.

Your own example was a firefighter, who saves a person doing his job (which he is paid to do) but then goes home and beats the shit out of his kids is somehow grey. 

That's not grey. That's a child abusing mother fucker.

I said hit their kids, not beat the shit out of. And yeah, that's a child-abusing motherfucker (I think the word I used was scumbag). But that's not all he is. My father was an abusive drunk who hit me when I was young, and he was also an empathetic but tortured, kind person that I know would have died for me if he had to without a second thought. He knew what he did was wrong and he admitted that, and I know that his own father's violence and alcoholism shaped my father into the man that he became. My grandfather grew up in an orphanage because his own father was an abusive drunk who killed himself. And that man was probably lashing out, as many first generation Irish immigrants of his generation did, against the unfairness and the cruelty that was inflicted on him throughout the course of his life.

My grandfather really did beat the shit out of my dad when he drank, and he did that because of his own anxieties about putting food on the table. It was literally his love and his fear for his family that turned inwards and gnawed at him until that force warped into something toxic. He was an abusive man, but he wasn't evil. Part of the reason that I don't want children is that I know there is a lot of my dad in me.

I used to volunteer with CASA, and let me tell you, you have no idea how bad child abuse is in poor communities. I've seen mothers that lock their kids in cages, fathers that rape their daughters, parents who pimp out their kids, as young as two, to child pornographers, parents who put cigarettes out on their kids, one who burned her daughter with a butane torch because she drew on the floor with a sharpie. Hitting a child is wrong, but if you think that the act of doing so is so irredeemable that it defines who or what the person, then you are going to be left with a very narrow spectrum upon which to place decent people.

Even the most horrible cases that I mentioned above aren't as simple as being evil people. Most of those cases involved the "oppressed people" that Zorral was crusading for upthread. These are people that grew up in unimaginable poverty, plagued by drugs and crime and violence from the time that they were very young. When you are exposed to that much cruelty it warps you, it teaches you to respond to others the same way you were treated.

There's a great episode of Bojack Horseman called Time's Arrow that really gets into the way abusers are made and I highly recommend anybody watch it, whether they are familiar with the show or not.

I know I went off on a tangent there that wasn't really about McCain or politics...

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

24 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

That's because if there is one thing the religious right should fear the most it's the religious left. Fortunately for the right, the irreligious left makes little distinction between the religious left and the religious right. Because the simple fact of being religious makes you dangerous. So the irreligious left is helping the religious right to keep the religious vote mostly skewed right.

My grandfather, who trained as an anglican priest but gave it up to become a trade unionist, used to say Jesus was the perfect socialist. Which means socialism, in his mind, was the natural state of Christian society. What the religious right represents is a perversion and a corruption of Christian values. When you show an ugly corrupt, version of something the beauty of its original form, or the beauty of its form as originally conceived, the response is commonly hate and rejection.

Francis Bellamy was a christian socialist, and he left god out of the pledge.

 

You're not wrong about the irreligious left.

[Gone and Quite Forgotten]

2 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

You're not wrong about the irreligious left.

I always say, Christians and Muslims may have done a fair bit of head-chopping throughout the centuries, but it took a bunch of French atheists to industrialize the process.

[Martell Spy]

34 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

That's because if there is one thing the religious right should fear the most it's the religious left. Fortunately for the right, the irreligious left makes little distinction between the religious left and the religious right. Because the simple fact of being religious makes you dangerous. So the irreligious left is helping the religious right to keep the religious vote mostly skewed right.

My grandfather, who trained as an anglican priest but gave it up to become a trade unionist, used to say Jesus was the perfect socialist. Which means socialism, in his mind, was the natural state of Christian society. What the religious right represents is a perversion and a corruption of Christian values. When you show an ugly corrupt, version of something the beauty of its original form, or the beauty of its form as originally conceived, the response is commonly hate and rejection.

Uh, who is the irreligious left? Loud atheists on Youtube? They sound like morons, whoever you mean. I'm an American atheist and the main thing I care about someone with religious beliefs is any actions those beliefs might lead to that effects other people. And yes, I can tell the difference between the religious right and religious left. It's usually easy to tell the religious right in America, they are usually a bunch of men trying to dictate various edicts to women.

[A True Kaniggit]

16 minutes ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

 

I think we are using grey differently. And you're the one that brought the phrase up from the novels. And in the novels the grey characters are the ones who do morally reprehensible things because they think it's necessary for the greater good. Like Jaime throwing Bran out of a tower because he thinks it's necessary to save his family's life.

But you've used the term 'grey' in this thread like it's a secondary color. Like mixing blue and red get's purple. As if someone cures cancer but then burns a cat in a sack makes them grey. It's not the same thing at all.

[Jace, Extat]

38 minutes ago, Clueless Northman said:

 

That's honestly something I don't get. If only, because it seems to be that typical "You have to dehumanize people before you're able to attack or kill them", which of course is dead wrong and is only something that people that deeply believe in human rights, Christian / humanistic values and the goodness of mankind can come up with. The reality is that you don't need to dehumanize people to want to see them dead; in most cases, most people have no trouble acknowledging and knowing the ones they want to see dead, or even the ones they're killing, are human beings. Being a fellow human has rarely been enough to save someone from being killed, actually.

 

Nuance is key here. Specifically it is being demanded that maligned groups refuse the temptation to dehumanize those who already dehumanize them.

Sure, you don't need to make your enemy a cartoon villain. But when has that ever stopped a belligerent?

Go look at WWI or II propaganda from literally any power if you doubt the effectiveness of such strategies. If there are no racial differences, they will be manufactured should the need arise.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 minute ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Nuance is key here. Specifically it is being demanded that maligned groups refuse the temptation to dehumanize those who already dehumanize them.

Sure, you don't need to make your enemy a cartoon villain. But when has that ever stopped a belligerent?

Go look at WWI or II propaganda from literally any power if you doubt the effectiveness of such strategies. If there are no racial differences, they will be manufactured should the need arise.

So, the rounding up of Japanese-Americans as part the dehumanization of Japanese as a whole was necessary for the US victory in the Pacific?