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U.S. Politics: It’s beginning to look a lot like Rescission


lokisnow

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1 hour ago, Guy Kilmore said:

“All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

"They're not the same at all!"

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"

MY POINT EXACTLY.” 
 Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

See. I think the exact opposite. You shouldn’t lie to yourself so that you are more able to see the world as it is, thus giving you a better chance of making real changes. It’s why, for example, that I’ve argued here, with Scot, that there are no such things as rights. They do not exist, and it’s wise to be aware of this reality.

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I think that Norad phone call just says a ton about Trump.

Honestly I think it’s the actor more than the act. Take the wall for instance. It’s one thing if someone said they were issued a report that said illegal immigration was spiking and therefore we need some additional barriers on the Southern border. It’s another when Trump calls Mexicans rapists and murders and therefore we need a wall. One is a policy proposal while the other is overt racism.

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The Christmas rally is happening on the markets today. Kind of surprising since the last day for tax-loss selling is the 27th. I half expect a drop later in the day because people have used an up market to sell stocks into strength, but, it may simply be the Santa Claus rally is late this year.

I kind of think we might be almost done with the  sell-off. If you recall back in February the indications were the Dow would fall below 23,000 (or did I say 23,500?) and if they went there they could go lower. January is often a rally month - earlier this year we saw records set in January and Trump’s stupid, pompous tweet about record markets. Now, of course, he wants to fire someone, mainly Powell but he can’t fire him easily.

However, if no deal is made with China on trade we could have another rough February, and a drop below 20,000 on the Dow.

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10 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

See. I think the exact opposite. You shouldn’t lie to yourself so that you are more able to see the world as it is, thus giving you a better chance of making real changes. It’s why, for example, that I’ve argued here, with Scot, that there are no such things as rights. They do not exist, and it’s wise to be aware of this reality.

Honestly I think it’s the actor more than the act. Take the wall for instance. It’s one thing if someone said they were issued a report that said illegal immigration was spiking and therefore we need some additional barriers on the Southern border. It’s another when Trump calls Mexicans rapists and murders and therefore we need a wall. One is a policy proposal while the other is overt racism.

Tywin,

I’m sure you are aware that most of human society is based upon our collective ability to imagine things like “society”, “civilization”, and “rights”, correct?

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15 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

See. I think the exact opposite. You shouldn’t lie to yourself so that you are more able to see the world as it is, thus giving you a better chance of making real changes. It’s why, for example, that I’ve argued here, with Scot, that there are no such things as rights. They do not exist, and it’s wise to be aware of this reality.

Honestly I think it’s the actor more than the act. Take the wall for instance. It’s one thing if someone said they were issued a report that said illegal immigration was spiking and therefore we need some additional barriers on the Southern border. It’s another when Trump calls Mexicans rapists and murders and therefore we need a wall. One is a policy proposal while the other is overt racism.

Who cares about the actor?  Both have the same results if we are going the pragmatism root of steely eyed clarity, then it should be acts that matter and not the actor.  Those are the only things that we can can be objective about.  Our descriptions of people are simply subjective projections based upon the acts that they take. 

Besides, racism is just another construct that we "believe" in.

If we follow through with this belief then your example, the overt racism isn't about the wall, it is about trump calling all Mexicans rapists and murders.

5 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Tywin,

I’m sure you are aware that most of human society is based upon our collective ability to imagine things like “society”, “civilization”, and “rights”, correct?

In a nutshell.  Scot, which lends to another quote of Terry Pratchett that I like.

“Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.” 
 Terry Pratchett

Which, I think is one, well, of many of Trump's cardinal sins.  It is why we get all this bellicose pettiness and inability to emphasize.  

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2 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Dont dispute any of that. But the way the headlines were being written implied that a perfectly healthy child died due to neglect.

I don't think "sick child dies from neglect while in custody" is much better! And we don't know what he actually died of, do we? Is there any actual evidence that it was contracted or undergone more than a week before the symptoms became serious? "Hospitalized twice" does rather suggest that the quality of care during the first hospitalisation was less than stellar - they discharged a kid with a condition that was just hours away from killing him.

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3 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Tywin,

I’m sure you are aware that most of human society is based upon our collective ability to imagine things like “society”, “civilization”, and “rights”, correct?

That's kind of apples and oranges though. The ability to imagine and the ability to think critically can be one in the same and can be completely different.

3 hours ago, Guy Kilmore said:

Who cares about the actor?  Both have the same results if we are going the pragmatism root of steely eyed clarity, then it should be acts that matter and not the actor.  Those are the only things that we can can be objective about.  Our descriptions of people are simply subjective projections based upon the acts that they take. 

I guess it varies from situation to situation, but there are certainly acts that in a vacuum could be relatively neutral with regards to race, but appear racist once you know the motivation of the one who commits the act. Or in this situation, questioning whether or not a seven year old should know that Santa is fake is not necessarily a bad thing, but knowing that Trump likes to insult people lends to the appearance that it was done out of malice. 

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Besides, racism is just another construct that we "believe" in.

And also prove, quite easily.

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If we follow through with this belief then your example, the overt racism isn't about the wall, it is about trump calling all Mexicans rapists and murders.

Why not both?

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6 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Dude spoiler.

Anyway, it was not for Donnie Doofus to kill the belief of that child! And tbh I have no idea, when I gave upon believing in Santa. Age 7, that's what second grade?

I guess the parents among the boarders can help me out, when their kids gave upon believing in Santa.

Yeah as a non-parent I have no idea.  I have no recollection exactly when I stopped believing in Santa, although I suspect it was earlier in 7 as I was a cynical child that grew into a cynical adult.  Still, I don't see any reason whatsoever that a 7 year-old "should" stop believing in Santa.  That's as preposterous as the idea of Santa.

4 hours ago, Maithanet said:

I'm not looking to re-litigate 2016 here, we've done that enough already.  I'm just thinking that as Democrats start looking for their 2020 champion, they ought to keep in mind this significant voter pool, many of which might actually be convinceable, unlike the largely mythical "undecided voter". 

Well, the Obama-Trump voters certainly aren't "mythical."  Here's an estimate from Sabato's site:

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We then examined each candidate’s base of support by respondents’ reported 2012 vote. The ANES data show that just over 13% of Trump’s voters backed Obama in 2012, while about 4% of Clinton’s support came from voters who voted for Romney in 2012. Going across the rows in Table 1, we get the breakdown by 2012 vote for those who backed each 2016 vote choice.

Anyway, I agree that the change in 3rd party vote is just as important.  That's why I try as much as possible to emphasize all three facets that led to Trump's victory - Obama-Trump voters, 3rd party voters, and muted minority turnout.  A marginal increase in any (while hold Hillary's votes constant) would very easily change the result.

Relatedly, just saw this interesting article about how Trump may be fatally weak in suburbia:

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The Washington Post’s Balz broke up the suburbs broadly into subcategories, based on their proximity to their urban center, and figured out how well Republicans did in each category. The denser the suburbs, the worse things got for Republicans.

In 11 competitive rural districts, Republicans lost just one seat

In 19 suburban-rural districts, Republicans lost “only” four seats

In 30 sparse suburban districts, Republicans lost 16 seats

In 15 dense suburban districts, Republicans lost 12 seats

In 9 urban-suburban districts, Republicans lost six seats

Across the country, highly educated voters went for Democrats. Suburban women flipped heavily for Democrats too. Democratic pollster Celinda Lake showed me polling that had married men voting 51 percent Republican and 48 percent Democrat, but their wives voted 54 percent Democrat and just 44 Republican, a notable marital break from prior elections.

 

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41 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

That's kind of apples and oranges though. The ability to imagine and the ability to think critically can be one in the same and can be completely different.

I guess it varies from situation to situation, but there are certainly acts that in a vacuum could be relatively neutral with regards to race, but appear racist once you know the motivation of the one who commits the act. Or in this situation, questioning whether or not a seven year old should know that Santa is fake is not necessarily a bad thing, but knowing that Trump likes to insult people lends to the appearance that it was done out of malice. 

And also prove, quite easily.

Why not both?

The fact that most of human society makes s based upon imagined constructs makes me loth to condemn a child for also using their imagination to believe in a person whose entire existence is based upon bringing others joy.  How is that in any way harmful?

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9 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Again, don't want to defend the policy but that doesn't refute that they died due to the rigours of the journey. There is nothing to suggest they died due to their treatment while in detention. 

ah yes, they simply allowed him to die in custody, they didn’t actually torture him to death like the others, very good, carry on

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https://www.thedailybeast.com/speed-read-the-sharpest-revelations-in-the-nyts-trump-bone-spur-bombshell?ref=home

Speed Read: The Sharpest Bits in the NYT’s Trump Bone Spurs Bombshell
A new exposé claims Donald Trump’s suspicious medical diagnosis was granted as a ‘favor’ to his dad—so it would keep the man later dubbed Cadet Bone Spurs out of the Vietnam War.

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The podiatrist who issued the document did so “as a favor” to Fred Trump
Trump received his diagnosis from New York City podiatrist Larry Braunstein in the fall of 1968, effectively allowing him to evade military service in Vietnam after he’d already exhausted four education deferments. Braunstein, whose office space was rented from Trump’s real-estate developer father Fred Trump, died in 2007. His two daughters told the Times that the document proclaiming Trump’s diagnosis was “a favor” to the family.

In exchange, Braunstein told his family he received preferential treatment—and few rent increases
Daughter Elysa Braunstein said that, in exchange for the diagnosis, her father said he received attentive service from the landlord and preferential treatment.

“If there was anything wrong in the building, my dad would call and Trump would take care of it immediately,” she said.

Another podiatrist who worked with Braunstein said his colleague had even said the Trumps pushed back rent increases.

 

 

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13 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/speed-read-the-sharpest-revelations-in-the-nyts-trump-bone-spur-bombshell?ref=home

Speed Read: The Sharpest Bits in the NYT’s Trump Bone Spurs Bombshell
A new exposé claims Donald Trump’s suspicious medical diagnosis was granted as a ‘favor’ to his dad—so it would keep the man later dubbed Cadet Bone Spurs out of the Vietnam War.

 

oh shit, he’s done now

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3 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Sadly, his supporters will keep offering apologia for him and call this “fake news”.

:(

There are only so many times unverifiable allegations regarding events that are several decades old can be used for political gain. Recent events indicate that the Democrats have already exceeded this limit.

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19 minutes ago, Altherion said:

There are only so many times unverifiable allegations regarding events that are several decades old can be used for political gain. Recent events indicate that the Democrats have already exceeded this limit.

Trump lies so often that I think he really believes the BS he spouts.  

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5 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

That's kind of apples and oranges though. The ability to imagine and the ability to think critically can be one in the same and can be completely different.

I guess it varies from situation to situation, but there are certainly acts that in a vacuum could be relatively neutral with regards to race, but appear racist once you know the motivation of the one who commits the act. Or in this situation, questioning whether or not a seven year old should know that Santa is fake is not necessarily a bad thing, but knowing that Trump likes to insult people lends to the appearance that it was done out of malice. 

And also prove, quite easily.

Why not both?

If we are being pragmatic the reason someone does something is pretty immaterial, it is the outcome that matters.

In "proving" racism your are subscribing in a belief system as it is a social construct.  If you are not, what are the physical properties of racism then?  

imagination is necessary for critical thinking.  A quick search on my phone, but if you are into critical thinking, it is a fascinating topic especially given the growth of in neuroscience.  I loved my psych of creativity class back in college, it really enhanced how I think and critically assess situations

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3 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/speed-read-the-sharpest-revelations-in-the-nyts-trump-bone-spur-bombshell?ref=home

Speed Read: The Sharpest Bits in the NYT’s Trump Bone Spurs Bombshell
A new exposé claims Donald Trump’s suspicious medical diagnosis was granted as a ‘favor’ to his dad—so it would keep the man later dubbed Cadet Bone Spurs out of the Vietnam War.

 

 

2 hours ago, a good and nice guy said:

oh shit, he’s done now

Right? Like is this news? I guess. But expose seems like a strong word. A French word. This type of story needs an American word like 'irrelevant' or 'clickbait'

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