Oh man that would be horrible. If only we had some equivalent thing to threaten China with, only even bigger since we have a $365 billion trade deficit with them, meaning their loss will be much larger than our loss.
But China gives you things for very cheap, and it's hard to help the economy as a whole by stopping people from giving you really cheap things.
Short term vs long term thinking.
You would probably agree that things like "dumping" -- flooding the market with below-market-price items in order to harm domestic industry -- are not good, even though technically dumping just gives people really cheap things. The loss to domestic industry is immediate enough that people can put it together. It gets harder for some reason when you have to think 10-20 years down the road, human nature I guess, or at least Western nature.
No, not really. Why did you pick out one industry? We have an overall trade deficit with China, last year it was $365 billion. They are selling $365 billion of more stuff here than we sell there. How much should we give up to retain a tiny fraction of that in auto sales to China? Nothing. They are getting the advantage, they need to give up something to us to retain that advantage.
The trade deficit with China last year was $365 billion. With an all out 100% trade war, China loses $365 billion more than we do. How is that winning?
We have the upper hand since currently we are the ones giving them net money.
It's a stretch to say the least. You need some pretty compelling evidence that's he's homophobic if he's also openly gay.
This sounds like hateful identity politics to me. A gay guy doesn't agree with you and suddenly he's a homophobic bigot, I'm sure somehow he's also racist and misogynistic as well. The accusations seem to cluster like that among the "progressive" and "tolerant" left.
Most of the things Hillary has been accused of? Umm not possible since most of the things Hillary is accused of are related to her time in office. When was Trump in office?
Trump hasn't mishandled classified material. He hasn't accepted donations from foreign governments to influence government policy. He hasn't deleted evidence during Congressional hearings. He's never chosen staffers who have their own scandals. He doesn't give highly paid speeches on Wall Street that contradict many things he says in public. Can you elaborate on what things you're talking about?
Trump promised (or technically implied so, maybe there is a literal swamp he'll be draining somewhere) to clean things up.
Why does that imply to you that Peter Thiel shouldn't be on the team? How is Peter Thiel part of the "swamp" in DC?
Now as for the people like Giuliani being on the team, I never interpreted Trump as saying he wouldn't work with any politicians or establishment types. I mean when searching for a VP pick he explicitly said he wanted people with DC experience because he'd have to work with Congress and all the bureaucracy. So what's the contradiction? It's just about deciding whether a given person is a problem solver or a problem creator. And even people who were ineffective in the past could be more effective with different leadership.
One common denial tactic you'll see is a redirection where someone points out that Trump or his people do something bad, is to point out a time that the other team, Secretary Clinton in particular, did something similar.
I'm not sure that's really true. Many of the things Trump will be accused of simply don't apply to Clinton... she's not a billionaire, she's not big in real estate, she hasn't had bankruptcies and all that. At the same time, many of the accusations against Clinton simply don't have an analog with Trump since he's never held office. There's no way to say "Oh yeah well Trump also mishandled classified material" or whatever.
Statistics are unfair. And they're more unfair, the more specific and accurate they are.
But you just said "I totally understand that she'd be a lot more afraid that I'd drag her into the bushes and rape her than I am of she doing the same to me."
How can you say that and say that's unfair?
I guess I'm like most people, I like to use statistics when they're in my favor and not ignore the facts.
The thing with rape and general violent crime stats is even though you're a guy, they are still in your favor in some sense. Surely you have people in your life you care about, who may not be men. I have a wife, a mother, a sister, and if one day I have a daughter I want them ALL to practice common sense when it comes to their safety, which damn well includes being more suspicious of strange men in isolated settings. That's not unfair, it doesn't hurt my feelings, and I doubt it actually hurts your feelings either.
I'm not a Muslim or a Mexican so I can't say directly, but I think at least some of them feel the same way. Considering Trump got more of the Hispanic vote than Romney or Bush while simultaneously having a far more serious anti-illegal-immigration stance, I think they must. Not sure about Muslims.. I mean I personally know a Muslim guy who hates Trump, but at the same time, he hates overly religious Muslims, like really really hates them, and tells them to leave the country if they want to have a "pube beard" or if they encourage their wives to wear hijabs. The reason he hates Trump is he just finds him embarrassing, and all his Muslim friends hate Trump.
Why was the Curiel thing racist? I think it's pretty self-evident that a Mexican-heritage judge who is a member of fucking "La Raza" may not be fair dealing with a presidential candidate whose policy positions are fairly harmful to Mexico. It's equivalent to a hypothetical where while Obama was running for office, he was involved in a lawsuit presided over by a white judge who was in a "lawyers for the KKK" association.
He definitely knows... the bottom of the page says "One should assume that all of the information provided during this process is ultimately subject to public disclosure, if requested under the Freedom of Information Act."
First, America has no business micromanaging the Mexican economy.
That's hardly micromanaging, come on.
Trump is going to get little support from Congress in his effort to "fix" NAFTA.
Considering that the only Republican senators who lost their seats were ones who distanced themselves from Trump, I wouldn't necessarily agree with that. They know something has changed in politics, at least for the time being.
Not only that, but the Republicans reeeeeeally want to get rid of Obamacare, and now they have the chance to do that. Will they resist much if Trump says "I'll sign that repeal bill right after you sign this NAFTA bill?"
The Democrats will never let a big Democratic state secede. It would mean they won't win an election in the rest of the US for another 50 years because they've lost so many dependable electoral votes, never to return.
And there's the basic fallacy of liberal economics. It's corporations vs. people. I have news for you: the corporations are the people.
Agreed, but at the same time, it's only true in a certain sense. As you said, the corporations could theoretically leave the country while the people are still here. So the corporation isn't really the people.
If the corporations leave the country, the jobs go with them, leaving behind unemployed citizens.
The thing is, that is only true if you accept unrestricted free trade. It is totally possible to force corporations to behave otherwise. China does it. India does it. If you have a big market, corporations HAVE to do what you want, otherwise they go out of business. What do I mean? Well when General Electric wants to get a contract to produce locomotives for India, guess what? Part of that contract is to start building them IN INDIA with Indian workers. When a foreign company wants to do business in China, they are generally forced to partner with a Chinese company... which in the meantime is learning exactly what you do, and in 10 years they'll kick you out and do it themselves.
So the real question is, why isn't America doing that? Why are we like "Oh we're so awesome and free, please abuse us we love it." We are the biggest market in the world but it's not going to last forever. We are squandering our advantages because of the idiotic idea that we have to lead the way by example. Well nobody gives a fuck about our example. They take advantage of the rules, and it is simply not going to be the case that when China is the dominant economy in the world they'll change and be like "Oh America was so nice to us, let's just completely open our markets to them to help out." Won't happen. We're being idiots.
To overgeneralize greatly, the problem with lower-class white males right now is that they're losing power as demographics change, they're economically screwed, and they're blaming the wrong people.
That they're blaming the wrong people is somewhat debatable. It makes sense to blame illegal immigration for declining wages in low skill jobs, for instance. It makes sense to be angry at the media and the political establishment that has abandoned and actually become hostile towards white people. Look at the articles gleefully announcing the end of white influence in politics because the black and Hispanic vote is so solid that whites are irrelevant. Look at the Democratic primaries where Bernie and Hillary were competing to see who could pander to blacks and Hispanics the most. Bernie was at the point where he said he'd give free college tuition even at PRIVATE black universities! Really, who do you think is being blamed incorrectly?
but it's clear based on her public policy that she understands that that's not what the electorate wants - you can only call her deceptive if she gets into power and pursues her private viewpoint, rather than her public viewpoint.
If we were both aliens and this was the first election on Earth that we've seen, that would be reasonable... but you know that this is routine work for politicians. Now you're the one being an idealist.
If Clinton had a completely private, in-her-head position that "I want open borders but I'll do what the electorate wants" that would be fine, and we wouldn't even know about it. But when she's giving speeches and accepting large speaking fees for saying the exact opposite, I think it's very naive to give her the benefit of the doubt. The fact that we're talking about it shows that she doesn't have the discipline to keep her private stance private... what makes you think she will magically have the will power to keep her private stance from influencing policy if elected?
Having a personal opinion, but recognising that public opinion overrides it is exactly the sort of quality you should want in a politican in a democracy, not decry and claim is hypocritical, or corrupt, or somehow bad.
The danger with a person who governs by following polls is that polls are so easily manipulated, not to mention a number of decisions made in the upper echelons of government depend on information not available to the public, or even if the information is available the public may be ill equipped to process it and make a competent decision. You do have to, at some level, trust the instincts and personal views of the people you elect. And on a more practical level, that is just the way the process is set up now. You may not like it, but we don't evaluate candidates on how flexible they are to public opinion, rather they present their policy and we pick from the available options. Public opinion obviously goes into that, but no candidate is successful who says "all of my positions are subject to change, I don't have any firmly held beliefs, I'm just telling you what you want to hear, trust me." Calling someone a "flip flopper" is a real thing in political debates, for instance.. and it's not a compliment.
That may be true, but considering people like Bush Jr and Sr have openly said they're voting for Clinton? I don't know. I think there are a decent number of Republicans who just hate Trump. I'm not saying they'll be 100% obstructionists, but the climate in Congress is going to be that pushing back against Trump is just fine even for Republicans, unlike a normal establishment situation where the opposition comes 100% from the other party.
Anyway the REASONS Rod gives why his dad can't be elected in today's republican party is because the party itself has lost the plot:
The reasons you list actually sound a lot more like Trump than the last few Republicans. Remember one of the attacks during the primaries against Trump was that he's really a New York liberal, which is true in some ways compared to the other Republicans.
Oh and there has always been politically incorrect candidates and they often did well. What you think Goldwater was being politically correct shouting from the podium about how good white people shouldn't have to share a neighbourhood with n***rs ?
Maybe I wasn't clear, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Politicians of yesteryear were less politically correct, and they would NOT do well today. Do you think Trump could openly say that on stage and still be doing this well? He wouldn't have won the primary, that's for sure.
It's just odd to me that people can like Bill Clinton and Kennedy so much, realizing they are a product of their times, realizing that in certain echelons of wealth and/or power that kind of stuff really does happen, forgiving them their sins, etc... but when it comes to Trump it's like "omg he's the next Hitler and did you hear what he said about women zomg!?!?!"
Oh I know you don't care. That's why you still believe this nonsense.
The possibility that someone grew up with poor parents and was too proud to change their name to make you feel better about them has probably never crossed your mind.
Actually it has. In some of these comments, I've thought "What if I were named Billy Bob. Would I be willing to legally change my name to get away from the connotations of that name?" The answer is yes. I don't know what that tells you.
Her name tells you nothing about her as an individual. Only the circumstances of her birth.
First of all, the circumstances of her birth are indeed something about her as an individual. Second, as you said yourself, it tells us that she's probably too proud to change her name.
Anyway, the point of this wasn't that racism doesn't exist, it's that the famous "oh no, outcomes change if we use black names" is not evidence of racism. Your inability to see that is what's so perplexing. You just can't bring yourself to say "racism might still be prevalent, but this is not a good test of it."
You're highlighting limitations on your own level of thinking
No need to be a dick. I don't know why you started with this insult when the rest of your post is well reasoned and thoughtful. Very incongruous.
It's possible therefore to say you support women's rights, but also support the existing Saudi regime without being hypocritical
Of course it's possible, if you couch your support of Saudi Arabia as you did. If you don't criticize Saudi Arabia at all, then no, it is hypocritical.
It's perfectly possible to dream of owning a Ferrari but not be a hypocrite by buying a Ford Focus because you realise your budget wont stretch that far.
We don't have the full text of the speech so it's hard to say, but to take your car example, you cannot make a speech about your dream of owning a Ferrari while having your website extol the virtues of frugality. Like the Saudi Arabia issue, it's about caveats. It's not hypocritical to say "Buy what you can afford, right now that's a Ford Focus but one day I hope to be able to buy a Ferrari with my pocket change." It is hypocritical to say, as an example, "Frugality is important. Buy what you need. That's why I have a Ford Focus." and then to someone else say "Boy I really want a Ferrari, but the bank didn't approve me for such a huge loan right now." It shows a completely different persona than what is implied by the first statement, and it is a lie. It means that did not buy a Ford Focus because you value frugality, it's because you weren't approved for a loan. That is a lie.
I suspect that if you believe dreams and actions must always be the same thing, then you're an idealist, and are incapable of weighing up your ideals against pragmatism of reality.
I'm not an idealist on every issue, but I suppose I am when it comes to transparency and honesty. I have no problem at all with someone who supports Saudi Arabia for practical reasons, as long as they are honest about it. What I would not like, however, is someone who says one thing and does something that completely violates that. That's not an issue of practicality or realism, that's just deception. There are honest people who are realists and honest people who are idealists, it's not mutually exclusive.
Most politicians of yesteryear couldn't be elected today. Like Trump they wouldn't be politically correct enough to placate the media and the part of the population that cares about that. Also don't forget the media used to be a force for decorum even if it was false. I wasn't around, but I've heard the media either covered up or didn't investigate things like Kennedy's affairs... compare that to the treatment of Bill Clinton, or now Donald Trump as a candidate.
What do you mean? If Hillary wins, and there's any down-ticket success as well, then how on earth is she going to be a lame duck who accomplishes nothing?
On the other hand, if Trump wins, the establishment doesn't like him -- Democrat or Republican.
Sure it is. What's the crime rate of whites with no criminal record? Near zero. What's the crime rate of Blacks with no criminal record? Even lower than that.
Well maybe this is just a semantic difference or I misunderstood you.. you're not correcting for recidivism, you're excluding it. Anyway it would be interesting to see your numbers and how they hold up under different types of crime. Based on an article I just glanced over, recidivism rates are much lower for violent crimes than nonviolent crimes. So then it becomes a question of what type of crime you're interested in... rape and murder are much more serious and pertinent to a discussion of crime rates than spray painting... I mean rape and murder are the crimes people are most concerned about.
You've changed the subject. The American justice system is broken. You can't use that as proof that race isn't a factor, when that was one of the reasons race was a factor
If you recall, you brought up the memes of differing rape sentences, I was simply responding to that. If you're now assuming that the justice system is broken, then your whole argument falls apart. You can't adjust for nor exclude recidivism, because recidivism is meaningless under a broken system. The "true" recidivism rates are unknown because we are not cognizant of all criminal behavior. We can't measure relapses if we didn't catch the original act for instance. The documented recidivism rates can be assumed to be representative of the true rates if you believe the justice system works basically equally and effectively. If you believe it's broken, then the documented recidivism rate has no bearing to the true recidivism rate.
What other side? Hasn't Romney endorsed Clinton? The most amazing thing about this election is the validation of the conspiracy theorists who have been saying we have one party rule. It's true, as unbelievable as that is. Bush? Clinton? Hey they're on the same side. Romney? Yep he's there too.
Trump is the only major outsider candidate we've seen since at least Bush (senior) and Clinton, so around 30 years.
The funny thing is how much we criticize places like China for the same kind of crap we have apparently been doing. The media largely functions as propaganda for the establishment. The political parties are basically on the same side. When you read the wikileaks stuff you see the so-called private sector working hand in hand with the government (like google's eric schmidt requesting to be head "outside adviser" to clinton's campaign).. it's like a big joke at this point.
Voting for Clinton at this point is basically a vote to continue our slide into banana republic status.
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Oh man that would be horrible. If only we had some equivalent thing to threaten China with, only even bigger since we have a $365 billion trade deficit with them, meaning their loss will be much larger than our loss.
But China gives you things for very cheap, and it's hard to help the economy as a whole by stopping people from giving you really cheap things.
Short term vs long term thinking.
You would probably agree that things like "dumping" -- flooding the market with below-market-price items in order to harm domestic industry -- are not good, even though technically dumping just gives people really cheap things. The loss to domestic industry is immediate enough that people can put it together. It gets harder for some reason when you have to think 10-20 years down the road, human nature I guess, or at least Western nature.
No, not really. Why did you pick out one industry? We have an overall trade deficit with China, last year it was $365 billion. They are selling $365 billion of more stuff here than we sell there. How much should we give up to retain a tiny fraction of that in auto sales to China? Nothing. They are getting the advantage, they need to give up something to us to retain that advantage.
The trade deficit with China last year was $365 billion. With an all out 100% trade war, China loses $365 billion more than we do. How is that winning?
We have the upper hand since currently we are the ones giving them net money.
It's a stretch to say the least. You need some pretty compelling evidence that's he's homophobic if he's also openly gay.
This sounds like hateful identity politics to me. A gay guy doesn't agree with you and suddenly he's a homophobic bigot, I'm sure somehow he's also racist and misogynistic as well. The accusations seem to cluster like that among the "progressive" and "tolerant" left.
Most of the things Hillary has been accused of? Umm not possible since most of the things Hillary is accused of are related to her time in office. When was Trump in office?
Trump hasn't mishandled classified material. He hasn't accepted donations from foreign governments to influence government policy. He hasn't deleted evidence during Congressional hearings. He's never chosen staffers who have their own scandals. He doesn't give highly paid speeches on Wall Street that contradict many things he says in public. Can you elaborate on what things you're talking about?
Trump promised (or technically implied so, maybe there is a literal swamp he'll be draining somewhere) to clean things up.
Why does that imply to you that Peter Thiel shouldn't be on the team? How is Peter Thiel part of the "swamp" in DC?
Now as for the people like Giuliani being on the team, I never interpreted Trump as saying he wouldn't work with any politicians or establishment types. I mean when searching for a VP pick he explicitly said he wanted people with DC experience because he'd have to work with Congress and all the bureaucracy. So what's the contradiction? It's just about deciding whether a given person is a problem solver or a problem creator. And even people who were ineffective in the past could be more effective with different leadership.
One common denial tactic you'll see is a redirection where someone points out that Trump or his people do something bad, is to point out a time that the other team, Secretary Clinton in particular, did something similar.
I'm not sure that's really true. Many of the things Trump will be accused of simply don't apply to Clinton... she's not a billionaire, she's not big in real estate, she hasn't had bankruptcies and all that. At the same time, many of the accusations against Clinton simply don't have an analog with Trump since he's never held office. There's no way to say "Oh yeah well Trump also mishandled classified material" or whatever.
Statistics are unfair. And they're more unfair, the more specific and accurate they are.
But you just said "I totally understand that she'd be a lot more afraid that I'd drag her into the bushes and rape her than I am of she doing the same to me."
How can you say that and say that's unfair?
I guess I'm like most people, I like to use statistics when they're in my favor and not ignore the facts.
The thing with rape and general violent crime stats is even though you're a guy, they are still in your favor in some sense. Surely you have people in your life you care about, who may not be men. I have a wife, a mother, a sister, and if one day I have a daughter I want them ALL to practice common sense when it comes to their safety, which damn well includes being more suspicious of strange men in isolated settings. That's not unfair, it doesn't hurt my feelings, and I doubt it actually hurts your feelings either.
I'm not a Muslim or a Mexican so I can't say directly, but I think at least some of them feel the same way. Considering Trump got more of the Hispanic vote than Romney or Bush while simultaneously having a far more serious anti-illegal-immigration stance, I think they must. Not sure about Muslims.. I mean I personally know a Muslim guy who hates Trump, but at the same time, he hates overly religious Muslims, like really really hates them, and tells them to leave the country if they want to have a "pube beard" or if they encourage their wives to wear hijabs. The reason he hates Trump is he just finds him embarrassing, and all his Muslim friends hate Trump.
Why was the Curiel thing racist? I think it's pretty self-evident that a Mexican-heritage judge who is a member of fucking "La Raza" may not be fair dealing with a presidential candidate whose policy positions are fairly harmful to Mexico. It's equivalent to a hypothetical where while Obama was running for office, he was involved in a lawsuit presided over by a white judge who was in a "lawyers for the KKK" association.
He definitely knows... the bottom of the page says "One should assume that all of the information provided during this process is ultimately subject to public disclosure, if requested under the Freedom of Information Act."
First, America has no business micromanaging the Mexican economy.
That's hardly micromanaging, come on.
Trump is going to get little support from Congress in his effort to "fix" NAFTA.
Considering that the only Republican senators who lost their seats were ones who distanced themselves from Trump, I wouldn't necessarily agree with that. They know something has changed in politics, at least for the time being.
Not only that, but the Republicans reeeeeeally want to get rid of Obamacare, and now they have the chance to do that. Will they resist much if Trump says "I'll sign that repeal bill right after you sign this NAFTA bill?"
The Democrats will never let a big Democratic state secede. It would mean they won't win an election in the rest of the US for another 50 years because they've lost so many dependable electoral votes, never to return.
And there's the basic fallacy of liberal economics. It's corporations vs. people. I have news for you: the corporations are the people.
Agreed, but at the same time, it's only true in a certain sense. As you said, the corporations could theoretically leave the country while the people are still here. So the corporation isn't really the people.
If the corporations leave the country, the jobs go with them, leaving behind unemployed citizens.
The thing is, that is only true if you accept unrestricted free trade. It is totally possible to force corporations to behave otherwise. China does it. India does it. If you have a big market, corporations HAVE to do what you want, otherwise they go out of business. What do I mean? Well when General Electric wants to get a contract to produce locomotives for India, guess what? Part of that contract is to start building them IN INDIA with Indian workers. When a foreign company wants to do business in China, they are generally forced to partner with a Chinese company... which in the meantime is learning exactly what you do, and in 10 years they'll kick you out and do it themselves.
So the real question is, why isn't America doing that? Why are we like "Oh we're so awesome and free, please abuse us we love it." We are the biggest market in the world but it's not going to last forever. We are squandering our advantages because of the idiotic idea that we have to lead the way by example. Well nobody gives a fuck about our example. They take advantage of the rules, and it is simply not going to be the case that when China is the dominant economy in the world they'll change and be like "Oh America was so nice to us, let's just completely open our markets to them to help out." Won't happen. We're being idiots.
To overgeneralize greatly, the problem with lower-class white males right now is that they're losing power as demographics change, they're economically screwed, and they're blaming the wrong people.
That they're blaming the wrong people is somewhat debatable. It makes sense to blame illegal immigration for declining wages in low skill jobs, for instance. It makes sense to be angry at the media and the political establishment that has abandoned and actually become hostile towards white people. Look at the articles gleefully announcing the end of white influence in politics because the black and Hispanic vote is so solid that whites are irrelevant. Look at the Democratic primaries where Bernie and Hillary were competing to see who could pander to blacks and Hispanics the most. Bernie was at the point where he said he'd give free college tuition even at PRIVATE black universities! Really, who do you think is being blamed incorrectly?
but it's clear based on her public policy that she understands that that's not what the electorate wants - you can only call her deceptive if she gets into power and pursues her private viewpoint, rather than her public viewpoint.
If we were both aliens and this was the first election on Earth that we've seen, that would be reasonable... but you know that this is routine work for politicians. Now you're the one being an idealist.
If Clinton had a completely private, in-her-head position that "I want open borders but I'll do what the electorate wants" that would be fine, and we wouldn't even know about it. But when she's giving speeches and accepting large speaking fees for saying the exact opposite, I think it's very naive to give her the benefit of the doubt. The fact that we're talking about it shows that she doesn't have the discipline to keep her private stance private... what makes you think she will magically have the will power to keep her private stance from influencing policy if elected?
Having a personal opinion, but recognising that public opinion overrides it is exactly the sort of quality you should want in a politican in a democracy, not decry and claim is hypocritical, or corrupt, or somehow bad.
The danger with a person who governs by following polls is that polls are so easily manipulated, not to mention a number of decisions made in the upper echelons of government depend on information not available to the public, or even if the information is available the public may be ill equipped to process it and make a competent decision. You do have to, at some level, trust the instincts and personal views of the people you elect. And on a more practical level, that is just the way the process is set up now. You may not like it, but we don't evaluate candidates on how flexible they are to public opinion, rather they present their policy and we pick from the available options. Public opinion obviously goes into that, but no candidate is successful who says "all of my positions are subject to change, I don't have any firmly held beliefs, I'm just telling you what you want to hear, trust me." Calling someone a "flip flopper" is a real thing in political debates, for instance.. and it's not a compliment.
That may be true, but considering people like Bush Jr and Sr have openly said they're voting for Clinton? I don't know. I think there are a decent number of Republicans who just hate Trump. I'm not saying they'll be 100% obstructionists, but the climate in Congress is going to be that pushing back against Trump is just fine even for Republicans, unlike a normal establishment situation where the opposition comes 100% from the other party.
Anyway the REASONS Rod gives why his dad can't be elected in today's republican party is because the party itself has lost the plot:
The reasons you list actually sound a lot more like Trump than the last few Republicans. Remember one of the attacks during the primaries against Trump was that he's really a New York liberal, which is true in some ways compared to the other Republicans.
Oh and there has always been politically incorrect candidates and they often did well. What you think Goldwater was being politically correct shouting from the podium about how good white people shouldn't have to share a neighbourhood with n***rs ?
Maybe I wasn't clear, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Politicians of yesteryear were less politically correct, and they would NOT do well today. Do you think Trump could openly say that on stage and still be doing this well? He wouldn't have won the primary, that's for sure.
It's just odd to me that people can like Bill Clinton and Kennedy so much, realizing they are a product of their times, realizing that in certain echelons of wealth and/or power that kind of stuff really does happen, forgiving them their sins, etc... but when it comes to Trump it's like "omg he's the next Hitler and did you hear what he said about women zomg!?!?!"
Oh I know you don't care. That's why you still believe this nonsense.
The possibility that someone grew up with poor parents and was too proud to change their name to make you feel better about them has probably never crossed your mind.
Actually it has. In some of these comments, I've thought "What if I were named Billy Bob. Would I be willing to legally change my name to get away from the connotations of that name?" The answer is yes. I don't know what that tells you.
Her name tells you nothing about her as an individual. Only the circumstances of her birth.
First of all, the circumstances of her birth are indeed something about her as an individual. Second, as you said yourself, it tells us that she's probably too proud to change her name.
Anyway, the point of this wasn't that racism doesn't exist, it's that the famous "oh no, outcomes change if we use black names" is not evidence of racism. Your inability to see that is what's so perplexing. You just can't bring yourself to say "racism might still be prevalent, but this is not a good test of it."
You're highlighting limitations on your own level of thinking
No need to be a dick. I don't know why you started with this insult when the rest of your post is well reasoned and thoughtful. Very incongruous.
It's possible therefore to say you support women's rights, but also support the existing Saudi regime without being hypocritical
Of course it's possible, if you couch your support of Saudi Arabia as you did. If you don't criticize Saudi Arabia at all, then no, it is hypocritical.
It's perfectly possible to dream of owning a Ferrari but not be a hypocrite by buying a Ford Focus because you realise your budget wont stretch that far.
We don't have the full text of the speech so it's hard to say, but to take your car example, you cannot make a speech about your dream of owning a Ferrari while having your website extol the virtues of frugality. Like the Saudi Arabia issue, it's about caveats. It's not hypocritical to say "Buy what you can afford, right now that's a Ford Focus but one day I hope to be able to buy a Ferrari with my pocket change." It is hypocritical to say, as an example, "Frugality is important. Buy what you need. That's why I have a Ford Focus." and then to someone else say "Boy I really want a Ferrari, but the bank didn't approve me for such a huge loan right now." It shows a completely different persona than what is implied by the first statement, and it is a lie. It means that did not buy a Ford Focus because you value frugality, it's because you weren't approved for a loan. That is a lie.
I suspect that if you believe dreams and actions must always be the same thing, then you're an idealist, and are incapable of weighing up your ideals against pragmatism of reality.
I'm not an idealist on every issue, but I suppose I am when it comes to transparency and honesty. I have no problem at all with someone who supports Saudi Arabia for practical reasons, as long as they are honest about it. What I would not like, however, is someone who says one thing and does something that completely violates that. That's not an issue of practicality or realism, that's just deception. There are honest people who are realists and honest people who are idealists, it's not mutually exclusive.
No, I don't think I expressed it very well.. I meant that since Bush Sr we haven't had any, including Bush Sr.
Most politicians of yesteryear couldn't be elected today. Like Trump they wouldn't be politically correct enough to placate the media and the part of the population that cares about that. Also don't forget the media used to be a force for decorum even if it was false. I wasn't around, but I've heard the media either covered up or didn't investigate things like Kennedy's affairs... compare that to the treatment of Bill Clinton, or now Donald Trump as a candidate.
What do you mean? If Hillary wins, and there's any down-ticket success as well, then how on earth is she going to be a lame duck who accomplishes nothing?
On the other hand, if Trump wins, the establishment doesn't like him -- Democrat or Republican.
It's actually a more likely scenario for Trump.
Sure it is. What's the crime rate of whites with no criminal record? Near zero. What's the crime rate of Blacks with no criminal record? Even lower than that.
Well maybe this is just a semantic difference or I misunderstood you.. you're not correcting for recidivism, you're excluding it. Anyway it would be interesting to see your numbers and how they hold up under different types of crime. Based on an article I just glanced over, recidivism rates are much lower for violent crimes than nonviolent crimes. So then it becomes a question of what type of crime you're interested in... rape and murder are much more serious and pertinent to a discussion of crime rates than spray painting... I mean rape and murder are the crimes people are most concerned about.
You've changed the subject. The American justice system is broken. You can't use that as proof that race isn't a factor, when that was one of the reasons race was a factor
If you recall, you brought up the memes of differing rape sentences, I was simply responding to that. If you're now assuming that the justice system is broken, then your whole argument falls apart. You can't adjust for nor exclude recidivism, because recidivism is meaningless under a broken system. The "true" recidivism rates are unknown because we are not cognizant of all criminal behavior. We can't measure relapses if we didn't catch the original act for instance. The documented recidivism rates can be assumed to be representative of the true rates if you believe the justice system works basically equally and effectively. If you believe it's broken, then the documented recidivism rate has no bearing to the true recidivism rate.
What other side? Hasn't Romney endorsed Clinton? The most amazing thing about this election is the validation of the conspiracy theorists who have been saying we have one party rule. It's true, as unbelievable as that is. Bush? Clinton? Hey they're on the same side. Romney? Yep he's there too.
Trump is the only major outsider candidate we've seen since at least Bush (senior) and Clinton, so around 30 years.
The funny thing is how much we criticize places like China for the same kind of crap we have apparently been doing. The media largely functions as propaganda for the establishment. The political parties are basically on the same side. When you read the wikileaks stuff you see the so-called private sector working hand in hand with the government (like google's eric schmidt requesting to be head "outside adviser" to clinton's campaign).. it's like a big joke at this point.
Voting for Clinton at this point is basically a vote to continue our slide into banana republic status.