There was never any strong evidence for WMDs regardless of what rumors may have been out there
You're actively pretending that Saddam didn't USE his chemical weapons to kill thousands of people. And you're completely mischaracterizing the UN inspection team's early observations of large caches of VX that could NOT be later accounted for (remember the huge, completely phony "documentation" dump provided by Saddam's people to the UN, followed by active blocking of UN inspectors whenever they asked for unplanned inspections of the very places they thought they might find such things?). Yes, I remember Hans Blix, but you're choosing not to remember how things actually played out on the ground as his inspectors were turned away time and time again.
Seriously, the CIA is responsible for the creation of Al Qaeda as a threat to America, you're welcome for 9/11.
So let's see... as everyone has had to do through all of history, we worked with regional interests to help push back against the greater bad guy (the Soviets, continuing to try to expand their territory). The regional guys turn out to have their own post-Soviet-fight agenda. You, however, as typical nonsensical racist, think that people from that region aren't able to make their own decisions or set out to fulfill their own wishes. No, to you those Foreign Brown People are like zombies that would sit and do nothing without the controlling wizardry of Teh Eeevil Amerikkka blah blah blah.
the drone killing campaign which spawns ten terrorists for every one it kills
I see. So you're a bigger fan of going in on the ground with huge column of armor and troops and the supporting logistics so that we can, instead of using deliberate air strikes, get into a non-stop series of random street fights while trying to kill the same terrorists, but instead rack up huge collateral damage while also telegraphing every move on the ground and chasing the targets out of range for months on end. That is an EXCELLENT alternative. And of course that strategy wouldn't do anything to inspire new jihaddi recruits, no not at all.
stupid illegal invasion of Iraq
Oh, here we go. I didn't realize you were just trolling. Sorry. Since you're revising history and just making stuff up, I guess we'll call it a day.
Imagine if RC cars were a relatively new thing.. and people started attaching cameras to them and driving them on the freeway around emergency responders.
There are already laws in place to punish anyone doing such a thing. Just like there already are for flying model airplanes in the way of real aircraft.
Because vehicle registration like that is a state-level activity, not a federal activity. And congress, in the 2012 FRMA law, explicitly fended the FAA off from doing some of this stuff. But the Obama administration is trying yet another counter-constitutional end-run by acting at the DoT level instead of the FAA level, and the task force is recommending that EVERY RC FLYING ANYTHING, including a kid's 9-ounce fixed wing toy plane, make that kid subject to federal registration and fines if he doesn't. Yeah, 9 ounces. 250 grams. Are you paying attention?
A wall built for one purpose will work just as fine for the other. Just like surveillance systems built to catch terrorists will work perfectly fine to keep tabs on you, too.
Really? Have you been hearing a lot about how the areas of the US/Mexican border that are actually fenced off and have been for years are being used to prevent dissident US citizens from fleeing their oppressive country into Mexico? Please, do go on. Can't wait for the links you can't provide because you're being completely disingenuous and you know it.
a list of the worst things that have happened in the recorded history of the world, the USA's enslavement of black people would be right up near the top of the list
But not the European enslavement of black people? Or the enslavement of black people by OTHER black people that predated any European enslavement of black people? Or the still ongoing enslavement of black people by other black people (and Arabs, etc) that's happening right now? Your focus on the "USA's" enslavement (as if that institution wasn't in place for a couple of European-controlled centuries in North America and in Europe before there even was a USA) is pure drivel, and you know it. And then your fake ignorance of the intellectual and eventually physical civil war that erupted over and led to the practice of ending slavery - a cause to which untold thousands of white Americans gave their lives - that's a pretty tall order of disingenuous cherry picking on your part.
I would put helping poor people first
That would be nice. The first thing to do would be to stop voting for the people who have been conducting their "war on poverty" for decades, and who have done nothing but create a multi-generational ocean of people dependent on the vast bureaucracy and spending that that effort has ginned up. You want to see fewer people in poverty? Stop rewarding multiple births in single-parent households where absent fathers and disinterested mothers create rudderless, illiterate, unskilled, and often drug-addicted, violent kids even in areas where their cities spend enough per child on education to put three other kids through top quality private schools in any other place. The problem you're talking about, shy of true mental illness, isn't about resources. It's about local culture. Period. If you really think that you need to fix that, you have to take kids out of that environment and raise them away from it. Are you ready to make that case? Ready to take kids from their toxic neighborhoods and homes so they don't repeat the cycle of ignorance and a criminal world view? No? Then what sort of "help" did you have in mind, specifically? Give them more stuff? Spend more than $10,000 per student per year on school?
Wait. I know. We should rid their neighborhoods of the crime that plagues those places, so they can pursue a more constructive life. How should we do that? Perhaps make sure that the local criminal gangs aren't staffed up with members that cycle repeatedly through the legal system and return to commit the same crimes over and over again? Nope, can't do that, because that involved police, and we all know that police are now officially evil, and locking up violent gang members is officially racist. Looking forward to your specific suggestions, and explanations as to why they've never been tried before or have never worked before, but will now, because of how you're suggesting them.
Yes, and the entire conversation was with a gaggle of reporters who had been talking about the current events (Syrian refugee) situation in particular, and you're barely hearing the FIRST reporter's simultaneous questions. He (Trump) presumed everyone was still talking about the topic du jour, the refugee issue and the need to track them better than Europe has been doing. The ONLY person to suggest a "Muslim database" was a reporter throwing things into the multi-reporter scrum. If you really think that the way that was answered indicates some policy urge on his part to do what the reporter dreamed up, then you're just trolling.
Again, I am NOT a Trump supporter. I don't want him in office. But I know disingenuous faux outrage when I hear it. If the lefty media and blogosphere types really think that was something to be uptight about, then their disinterest in holding Obama, Clinton, Biden, Kerry, Reid, Pelosi and other notable Democrat figures responsible for some truly, truly stellar BS, non-sequitors, irrationalities, and outright deliberate repeated lies is... well, a pretty predictable display of typical lefty hypocrisy. Or, would you link to your same armchair psychology analysis of some of those deliberate deceptions from people in office on the left? Please? Thank you for being intellectually honest and doing so.
What makes you think you know anything about my party affiliation or lack of it? Your own rah-rah is showing.
And no, both parties are NOT equally bad in this regard. The vast majority of conservatives (who have plenty of cultural problems in the bus along with them, in the form of die-hard religious types, to be sure) are uniformly opposed to expanding government power over your personal daily life. They're not the ones trying to tell you what size drink cup you can buy, which medical services you must pay for (but only from these government-partnered sources!), which of the new 8,000 (!) new regulations issued every year may or may not make you a criminal this year while doing the same things you did last year, etc. The general disposition of the two parties is significantly different when it comes to the role of government in every day life.
When someone does something stupid, the republican's first instinct is to say, "What kind of upbringing did that person have, that they thought that was acceptable behavior?" while the democrat's immediate take on it is, "What kind of additional tax should we charge in order to fund a government program and new government employees and bureaucracy in order to attempt to control that behavior, or at least treat it as a new source of revenue?"
Talked to a Ukrainian once. The stated reason for the wall was to keep out Western spies.
Yeah, that's why they machine-gunned families trying to climb over it in desperate attempts to escape from East Germany's little slice of Soviet hell on earth.
No, it wasn't about western spies. It was about "brain drain" - the loss of the educated, industrious, Germans who didn't want to live under socialist compulsion and control.
All of the assailants they've identified so far are European nationals. There's plenty of evidence that they're trying to make it _look_ like the attacks were carried out by agents they sneaked in with the refugees, but the evidence so far on the actual attackers is that they didn't come in with the refugees.
So, just to be clear, what you're talking about is the Greek and French governments both lying about fingerprints taken just weeks ago during a border crossing in Greece and then found on the bodies of the attackers in Paris?
"There should be a lot of systems, beyond databases" and "signing up at different places" when asked about signing people up at mosques.
Which is him talking about tracking refugees newly admitted to the country. Just like we're ALREADY DOING, just not very well, because we lose track of people and can't figure out what they're doing. Like, you know, the half a dozen Bosnian Muslim refugees who were let in, and then ended up working directly to finance foreign militants. Those are people who went through what the administration is describing as a completely thorough vetting process. Which it's not. Not even close. More tracking and scrutiny IS appropriate, since we're dealing with groups like IS who are boasting of their long term plans to make use of refugee movement, and just used it to send to mass killers into Paris (were you paying attention?).
Nobody is putting words in his mouth.
Except, you, through deliberate mis-characterization.
talks in thought-terminating cliches but he clearly understood those questions and replied to them in his poorly thought through manner
I'm not a fan of his communication style, his thought process, or his habit of rambling. But I'm much less of a fan of people who deliberate ignore the context in which something is said to score lazy rhetorical points with low-information audiences. You are deliberately ignoring the fact that he was in a loud room talking to two reporters at the same time. He didn't bring up the topic in question, and certainly didn't "endorse" a muslim-tracking database. He was talking about tracking new immigrants, especially those from places that have just a week ago served up phony refugees that just slaughtered 130 people (not to trouble you with the actual context or anything).
Who said they had to "answer for it?" He was promptly dealt with by the legal system, not sheltered and funded by fellow medieval-minded theocratic thugs and their financiers. Are you really so unable to see the distinction?
as a resident of the country that has deliberately targeted two hospitals for bombings in as many months
Oh, NOW I get it. You didn't say that the conversation was supposed to be without any sort of context, and was supposed to not take into account things like local police calling in for air strikes because they're being shot at by people who have taken up positions in the hospital. I didn't realize that the conversation was supposed to be about an alternate universe where militant Islamists don't deliberately set up shop in dense neighborhoods, in the parking lot of hospitals, in mosques, schools, former churches, and the like. Since you're talking about non-real situations, what else can we talk about? Is Jar-Jar Binks a good guy, or a bad guy in your pretend world?
So he's going to skip the whole pinning stars on peoples' chests and go straight to building the Berlin wall, and this somehow makes what he is saying OK?
Really? Please point to a single quote where is he advocating the building of a wall to keep people from fleeing the country. You're confused. That's a leftist thing. The socialists are the ones that, given enough power, do things like wall up Berlin to prevent people from leaving their collectivist paradise, or jail people from attempting to leave the socialist paradise that is Cuba. If you can't muster the energy necessary to understand the difference between keeping people from illegally walking INTO your country, vs. using force to prevent them from fleeing from collectivist tyranny, then please don't do anything reckless like voting.
And then you say: "Donald Trump has endorsed setting up a database of Muslims"... which is you denying the truth, because he said no such thing. A reporter said that in the middle of a conversation with a second reporter. Listen to the segment, as if you were a person who has any sort of intellectual honesty, and see who really said what.
there are multiple instances of Trump supporters violently attacking Hispanic Americans
Specific links, please, to show that you aren't also just BSing about that, as well. While you're at it, shall we look for links to coverage of "hispanics" (who are you talking about, exactly?) being violent? No? Would that take the fun out of your rant?
Don't you see where this is all headed?
Yes, it's probably headed to even MORE shrill lefty lying and distortions. It might even result in no immediate reduction in the rampant crime and murder that's ongoing in a some cities that have been run for decades by liberal legislatures and administrations.
Fascism is already here
You're still foggy on the meaning of that word, aren't you?
I have not seen any Democrats proposing anything that even comes close to the things coming out of the Republican party.
Haven't been on a college campus in the last few years? No?
From the Republicans we see religious tests, attempts to deny rights to specific religions, and now a national registry of Muslims of the exact same sort that Hitler used against the Jews.
You mean the "religious test" that current administration routinely applies when considering refugee status, but which the leader of the House explicitly said would be part of no legislation to come from that body? And that "national registry of Muslims" that a reporter conjured up out of thin air, that one? Please cite the language used by "the republicans" as they propose such a thing. Be specific.
it's only one side of the American political spectrum that's pushing for all-out fascism
You don't actually know what word means, do you? The only party that's all about heavy-handed centralized government power and crony corruption is the Democrat party. They love that stuff.
The worst thing that can happen is that the overwhelming majority of Muslims, who are as horrified at the actions of IS as the rest of us, are marginalized and dissuaded from helping in rooting out this menace.
Then maybe they should go back in time to the point where enclaves full of extremist Islamists hadn't yet reached the point where the non-crazies were scared of them. Just like gangs in Baltimore and Chicago, and every other situation just like this throughout history. If the "overwhelming majority" of Muslims really didn't want to put up with the growing armies of their more purist, violent, militant, caliphate-minded brothers, then they'd already have done something about it. But they're generally not. It's tacit approval, not horror.
I can't believe someone is honestly suggesting that we do this again.
You mean, the reporter who suggested it? Yeah, pretty awful. Watch the entire sequence, and listen to the questions the OTHER reporter is asking at the same time, which he's answering at the same time. I don't like Trump. But this characterization is BS, and you either know it or should. He's said he wants to keep track of recent immigrants so we don't have what the French just put up with, and he said "I'd definitely do that" to the second reporter (in a loud room) who asked him about the border wall/fence, not some mythical "muslim database" that was present only in the mouth of the reporter who dreamt it up. You don't have to like Trump to dislike out of context spin.
I get it. You went into this saying that it's childish to call something what it is. And despite calling other people what you think they are, you're retaining the right to pretend that other people's assessments, and even the actual words they type, are subject to your spin, interpretation, and meaning - but ONLY to yours. That sort of craven arrogance, decorated with the hypocritical patronizing condescension peculiar to the personality type you so fully represent, would actually be sort of breathtaking if it weren't fairly common these days. Hey, didn't you say "toodles?" Or does that word also not mean what it means? Uh huh.
So, just to be clear, you think that words you put in my mouth, which I did not say, is me talking? You said you were going to show me where I said I was "totally OK" dealing with killers. Which you can't, because I never said those words or words that convey that sentiment. You're just making shit up, and thinking that maintaining your phony condescending tone will somehow make it sound more credible. If it makes you more comfortable with your own lies to use a certain sound when you say them, you should take a little time to re-evaluate why you see things that way. What underlying mixed premises or contradictions are you clinging to that make paralyze you so? What is it about your own inability to grapple with reality that makes you so angry that you're comfortable not only lying, but thinking that it's somehow constructive, or that doing so illuminates something other than your own nonsense? It's a bit of a mystery, but you're the one who has to live inside your own head, so best of luck with that. But please, do avoid things that impact other people, like voting.
Ah, the drive-by, slink-away cowardly lie as your parting shot. Classic!
The actual bullshit is your imposition of a "totally OK with" value judgement that I did not express. You manufactured that fiction in order to maintain your own BS posturing. Nothing new here, you're will to BS about not only your own position but about what you'd like to pretend other people have said. As seen in several of your posts, reading comprehension looks like a problem (but it's not, really - you see and understand, and then make stuff up since it's a bad fit with your narrative). So at least you're consistent, and not the least bit surprising. Especially that bit where you lie and run away - that's the best part.
You just said you are perfectly okay dealing with one set of killers to combat another.
Do yourself a favor and show where I "just said that." Then correct the rest of your screwed up take on things.
It is good to see, though, that you're faithfully playing the rest of the cards you've been issued. It's all business! The Eeeeevil Corporate Man is trying to keep us down by making us like killers! Anyone who disagrees with my propaganda is a propagandist!
I also like how you try to use every big-boy condescending phrase you can muster ("huffing and puffing" - my goodness, are you sure you're old enough to trot that one out just yet?") in an attempt to make it sound like someone else is playing high and mighty. You're as impervious to irony as you are to recognizing your the limitations you're putting on your point by having reduced yourself to ad hominem right out of the gate and ever since. And I especially like your faux discomfort at the making of moral judgments even as you make them yourself, thinking nobody will notice because you've got them wrapped up in phony juvenile patronization. You should be aware that it's very noticeable, and that you're not fooling anybody.
Is it fun lying? Do you like it? Do you think you score some sort of rhetorical points with low-information friends when you do that? Are you really interested in cultivating social capital with people so intellectually challenged that they can't click "parent" to see that you're deliberately making up words to put in people's mouths? I'm genuinely curious about how your brain works in that regard. Please, do tell.
But let's pretend that it's not you being cravenly disingenuous, and that maybe your reading comprehension actually IS so bad, or your short term memory and critical thinking skills really are so hobbled that you need to have things spoon fed to you. OK.
Here in the real world, there are very bad people (I know, try not to cry little snowflake tears as you near someone make a value judgement about other people). There are also slightly less bad people. Sometimes you have to interact with the less bad people while looking to have the worse people do a bit less of things like showing up at your Precious Snowflake Concert Venue, and shoot you in the head because you are a Precious Snowflake. Dealing with reality doesn't mean that leveraging the opportunity to use the not-as-bad-but-still-bad people to that end makes those people less bad (oh noes! TWO value judgements in the same post! do you need a nap to recover? do you need to go to your safe space so that you won't be triggered by any more confrontations with icky feelings like knowing that reality doesn't provide you with international relations resembling Sesame Street?).
Still making things up? OK. Which part of what I said indicates moral relativism on my part? Since you didn't cite it or explain what you mean, I'll just take it as more of your lazy ad hominem, and further indication that you are so paralyzed by political correctness and rubber values that the ONLY type person you'll make a judgement about is the one you think is committing the ultimate sin: calling things what they actually are. The horror!
Gee, you're awfully selective with that word. I mean you got your Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Pakistan, Kuwait, Al Qaeda (They are "allies" now). Eh, no biggie, as long as you support the lesser evil, right? I mean it's only evil when they don't obey us. Sure is funny whenever you people bring up that 'relativism' thing.
If you really think your point is best made by pretending I've said something I haven't, that's fine. So long as it's clear that you're just making stuff up. Personally, I don't think my points are made more persuasively by lying. But whatever scores you some points with your chosen audience, right?
Now that you bring it up, by the way, yes. Sometimes you DO have to hold your nose and work with the jerks who aren't slaughtering people, even if they are jerks, when you're dealing with the people who are slaughtering people. That's why the French were able to fly out of the UAE and Jordan.
Slashdot Mirror
There was never any strong evidence for WMDs regardless of what rumors may have been out there
You're actively pretending that Saddam didn't USE his chemical weapons to kill thousands of people. And you're completely mischaracterizing the UN inspection team's early observations of large caches of VX that could NOT be later accounted for (remember the huge, completely phony "documentation" dump provided by Saddam's people to the UN, followed by active blocking of UN inspectors whenever they asked for unplanned inspections of the very places they thought they might find such things?). Yes, I remember Hans Blix, but you're choosing not to remember how things actually played out on the ground as his inspectors were turned away time and time again.
Seriously, the CIA is responsible for the creation of Al Qaeda as a threat to America, you're welcome for 9/11.
So let's see ... as everyone has had to do through all of history, we worked with regional interests to help push back against the greater bad guy (the Soviets, continuing to try to expand their territory). The regional guys turn out to have their own post-Soviet-fight agenda. You, however, as typical nonsensical racist, think that people from that region aren't able to make their own decisions or set out to fulfill their own wishes. No, to you those Foreign Brown People are like zombies that would sit and do nothing without the controlling wizardry of Teh Eeevil Amerikkka blah blah blah.
the drone killing campaign which spawns ten terrorists for every one it kills
I see. So you're a bigger fan of going in on the ground with huge column of armor and troops and the supporting logistics so that we can, instead of using deliberate air strikes, get into a non-stop series of random street fights while trying to kill the same terrorists, but instead rack up huge collateral damage while also telegraphing every move on the ground and chasing the targets out of range for months on end. That is an EXCELLENT alternative. And of course that strategy wouldn't do anything to inspire new jihaddi recruits, no not at all.
stupid illegal invasion of Iraq
Oh, here we go. I didn't realize you were just trolling. Sorry. Since you're revising history and just making stuff up, I guess we'll call it a day.
So that's your justification for them including 9-ounce balsa wood model airplanes in this process? really?
Imagine if RC cars were a relatively new thing.. and people started attaching cameras to them and driving them on the freeway around emergency responders.
There are already laws in place to punish anyone doing such a thing. Just like there already are for flying model airplanes in the way of real aircraft.
Because vehicle registration like that is a state-level activity, not a federal activity. And congress, in the 2012 FRMA law, explicitly fended the FAA off from doing some of this stuff. But the Obama administration is trying yet another counter-constitutional end-run by acting at the DoT level instead of the FAA level, and the task force is recommending that EVERY RC FLYING ANYTHING, including a kid's 9-ounce fixed wing toy plane, make that kid subject to federal registration and fines if he doesn't. Yeah, 9 ounces. 250 grams. Are you paying attention?
A wall built for one purpose will work just as fine for the other. Just like surveillance systems built to catch terrorists will work perfectly fine to keep tabs on you, too.
Really? Have you been hearing a lot about how the areas of the US/Mexican border that are actually fenced off and have been for years are being used to prevent dissident US citizens from fleeing their oppressive country into Mexico? Please, do go on. Can't wait for the links you can't provide because you're being completely disingenuous and you know it.
a list of the worst things that have happened in the recorded history of the world, the USA's enslavement of black people would be right up near the top of the list
But not the European enslavement of black people? Or the enslavement of black people by OTHER black people that predated any European enslavement of black people? Or the still ongoing enslavement of black people by other black people (and Arabs, etc) that's happening right now? Your focus on the "USA's" enslavement (as if that institution wasn't in place for a couple of European-controlled centuries in North America and in Europe before there even was a USA) is pure drivel, and you know it. And then your fake ignorance of the intellectual and eventually physical civil war that erupted over and led to the practice of ending slavery - a cause to which untold thousands of white Americans gave their lives - that's a pretty tall order of disingenuous cherry picking on your part.
I would put helping poor people first
That would be nice. The first thing to do would be to stop voting for the people who have been conducting their "war on poverty" for decades, and who have done nothing but create a multi-generational ocean of people dependent on the vast bureaucracy and spending that that effort has ginned up. You want to see fewer people in poverty? Stop rewarding multiple births in single-parent households where absent fathers and disinterested mothers create rudderless, illiterate, unskilled, and often drug-addicted, violent kids even in areas where their cities spend enough per child on education to put three other kids through top quality private schools in any other place. The problem you're talking about, shy of true mental illness, isn't about resources. It's about local culture. Period. If you really think that you need to fix that, you have to take kids out of that environment and raise them away from it. Are you ready to make that case? Ready to take kids from their toxic neighborhoods and homes so they don't repeat the cycle of ignorance and a criminal world view? No? Then what sort of "help" did you have in mind, specifically? Give them more stuff? Spend more than $10,000 per student per year on school?
Wait. I know. We should rid their neighborhoods of the crime that plagues those places, so they can pursue a more constructive life. How should we do that? Perhaps make sure that the local criminal gangs aren't staffed up with members that cycle repeatedly through the legal system and return to commit the same crimes over and over again? Nope, can't do that, because that involved police, and we all know that police are now officially evil, and locking up violent gang members is officially racist. Looking forward to your specific suggestions, and explanations as to why they've never been tried before or have never worked before, but will now, because of how you're suggesting them.
Yes, and the entire conversation was with a gaggle of reporters who had been talking about the current events (Syrian refugee) situation in particular, and you're barely hearing the FIRST reporter's simultaneous questions. He (Trump) presumed everyone was still talking about the topic du jour, the refugee issue and the need to track them better than Europe has been doing. The ONLY person to suggest a "Muslim database" was a reporter throwing things into the multi-reporter scrum. If you really think that the way that was answered indicates some policy urge on his part to do what the reporter dreamed up, then you're just trolling.
... well, a pretty predictable display of typical lefty hypocrisy. Or, would you link to your same armchair psychology analysis of some of those deliberate deceptions from people in office on the left? Please? Thank you for being intellectually honest and doing so.
Again, I am NOT a Trump supporter. I don't want him in office. But I know disingenuous faux outrage when I hear it. If the lefty media and blogosphere types really think that was something to be uptight about, then their disinterest in holding Obama, Clinton, Biden, Kerry, Reid, Pelosi and other notable Democrat figures responsible for some truly, truly stellar BS, non-sequitors, irrationalities, and outright deliberate repeated lies is
What makes you think you know anything about my party affiliation or lack of it? Your own rah-rah is showing.
And no, both parties are NOT equally bad in this regard. The vast majority of conservatives (who have plenty of cultural problems in the bus along with them, in the form of die-hard religious types, to be sure) are uniformly opposed to expanding government power over your personal daily life. They're not the ones trying to tell you what size drink cup you can buy, which medical services you must pay for (but only from these government-partnered sources!), which of the new 8,000 (!) new regulations issued every year may or may not make you a criminal this year while doing the same things you did last year, etc. The general disposition of the two parties is significantly different when it comes to the role of government in every day life.
When someone does something stupid, the republican's first instinct is to say, "What kind of upbringing did that person have, that they thought that was acceptable behavior?" while the democrat's immediate take on it is, "What kind of additional tax should we charge in order to fund a government program and new government employees and bureaucracy in order to attempt to control that behavior, or at least treat it as a new source of revenue?"
Talked to a Ukrainian once. The stated reason for the wall was to keep out Western spies.
Yeah, that's why they machine-gunned families trying to climb over it in desperate attempts to escape from East Germany's little slice of Soviet hell on earth.
No, it wasn't about western spies. It was about "brain drain" - the loss of the educated, industrious, Germans who didn't want to live under socialist compulsion and control.
All of the assailants they've identified so far are European nationals. There's plenty of evidence that they're trying to make it _look_ like the attacks were carried out by agents they sneaked in with the refugees, but the evidence so far on the actual attackers is that they didn't come in with the refugees.
So, just to be clear, what you're talking about is the Greek and French governments both lying about fingerprints taken just weeks ago during a border crossing in Greece and then found on the bodies of the attackers in Paris?
"There should be a lot of systems, beyond databases" and "signing up at different places" when asked about signing people up at mosques.
Which is him talking about tracking refugees newly admitted to the country. Just like we're ALREADY DOING, just not very well, because we lose track of people and can't figure out what they're doing. Like, you know, the half a dozen Bosnian Muslim refugees who were let in, and then ended up working directly to finance foreign militants. Those are people who went through what the administration is describing as a completely thorough vetting process. Which it's not. Not even close. More tracking and scrutiny IS appropriate, since we're dealing with groups like IS who are boasting of their long term plans to make use of refugee movement, and just used it to send to mass killers into Paris (were you paying attention?).
Nobody is putting words in his mouth.
Except, you, through deliberate mis-characterization.
talks in thought-terminating cliches but he clearly understood those questions and replied to them in his poorly thought through manner
I'm not a fan of his communication style, his thought process, or his habit of rambling. But I'm much less of a fan of people who deliberate ignore the context in which something is said to score lazy rhetorical points with low-information audiences. You are deliberately ignoring the fact that he was in a loud room talking to two reporters at the same time. He didn't bring up the topic in question, and certainly didn't "endorse" a muslim-tracking database. He was talking about tracking new immigrants, especially those from places that have just a week ago served up phony refugees that just slaughtered 130 people (not to trouble you with the actual context or anything).
How did the rest of Christians answer for this?
Who said they had to "answer for it?" He was promptly dealt with by the legal system, not sheltered and funded by fellow medieval-minded theocratic thugs and their financiers. Are you really so unable to see the distinction?
as a resident of the country that has deliberately targeted two hospitals for bombings in as many months
Oh, NOW I get it. You didn't say that the conversation was supposed to be without any sort of context, and was supposed to not take into account things like local police calling in for air strikes because they're being shot at by people who have taken up positions in the hospital. I didn't realize that the conversation was supposed to be about an alternate universe where militant Islamists don't deliberately set up shop in dense neighborhoods, in the parking lot of hospitals, in mosques, schools, former churches, and the like. Since you're talking about non-real situations, what else can we talk about? Is Jar-Jar Binks a good guy, or a bad guy in your pretend world?
So he's going to skip the whole pinning stars on peoples' chests and go straight to building the Berlin wall, and this somehow makes what he is saying OK?
Really? Please point to a single quote where is he advocating the building of a wall to keep people from fleeing the country. You're confused. That's a leftist thing. The socialists are the ones that, given enough power, do things like wall up Berlin to prevent people from leaving their collectivist paradise, or jail people from attempting to leave the socialist paradise that is Cuba. If you can't muster the energy necessary to understand the difference between keeping people from illegally walking INTO your country, vs. using force to prevent them from fleeing from collectivist tyranny, then please don't do anything reckless like voting.
You are living in denial.
And then you say: "Donald Trump has endorsed setting up a database of Muslims" ... which is you denying the truth, because he said no such thing. A reporter said that in the middle of a conversation with a second reporter. Listen to the segment, as if you were a person who has any sort of intellectual honesty, and see who really said what.
there are multiple instances of Trump supporters violently attacking Hispanic Americans
Specific links, please, to show that you aren't also just BSing about that, as well. While you're at it, shall we look for links to coverage of "hispanics" (who are you talking about, exactly?) being violent? No? Would that take the fun out of your rant?
Don't you see where this is all headed?
Yes, it's probably headed to even MORE shrill lefty lying and distortions. It might even result in no immediate reduction in the rampant crime and murder that's ongoing in a some cities that have been run for decades by liberal legislatures and administrations.
Fascism is already here
You're still foggy on the meaning of that word, aren't you?
I have not seen any Democrats proposing anything that even comes close to the things coming out of the Republican party.
Haven't been on a college campus in the last few years? No?
From the Republicans we see religious tests, attempts to deny rights to specific religions, and now a national registry of Muslims of the exact same sort that Hitler used against the Jews.
You mean the "religious test" that current administration routinely applies when considering refugee status, but which the leader of the House explicitly said would be part of no legislation to come from that body? And that "national registry of Muslims" that a reporter conjured up out of thin air, that one? Please cite the language used by "the republicans" as they propose such a thing. Be specific.
it's only one side of the American political spectrum that's pushing for all-out fascism
You don't actually know what word means, do you? The only party that's all about heavy-handed centralized government power and crony corruption is the Democrat party. They love that stuff.
The worst thing that can happen is that the overwhelming majority of Muslims, who are as horrified at the actions of IS as the rest of us, are marginalized and dissuaded from helping in rooting out this menace.
Then maybe they should go back in time to the point where enclaves full of extremist Islamists hadn't yet reached the point where the non-crazies were scared of them. Just like gangs in Baltimore and Chicago, and every other situation just like this throughout history. If the "overwhelming majority" of Muslims really didn't want to put up with the growing armies of their more purist, violent, militant, caliphate-minded brothers, then they'd already have done something about it. But they're generally not. It's tacit approval, not horror.
I can't believe someone is honestly suggesting that we do this again.
You mean, the reporter who suggested it? Yeah, pretty awful. Watch the entire sequence, and listen to the questions the OTHER reporter is asking at the same time, which he's answering at the same time. I don't like Trump. But this characterization is BS, and you either know it or should. He's said he wants to keep track of recent immigrants so we don't have what the French just put up with, and he said "I'd definitely do that" to the second reporter (in a loud room) who asked him about the border wall/fence, not some mythical "muslim database" that was present only in the mouth of the reporter who dreamt it up. You don't have to like Trump to dislike out of context spin.
Wow, won't even cop to your own writing, huh?
I get it. You went into this saying that it's childish to call something what it is. And despite calling other people what you think they are, you're retaining the right to pretend that other people's assessments, and even the actual words they type, are subject to your spin, interpretation, and meaning - but ONLY to yours. That sort of craven arrogance, decorated with the hypocritical patronizing condescension peculiar to the personality type you so fully represent, would actually be sort of breathtaking if it weren't fairly common these days. Hey, didn't you say "toodles?" Or does that word also not mean what it means? Uh huh.
So, just to be clear, you think that words you put in my mouth, which I did not say, is me talking? You said you were going to show me where I said I was "totally OK" dealing with killers. Which you can't, because I never said those words or words that convey that sentiment. You're just making shit up, and thinking that maintaining your phony condescending tone will somehow make it sound more credible. If it makes you more comfortable with your own lies to use a certain sound when you say them, you should take a little time to re-evaluate why you see things that way. What underlying mixed premises or contradictions are you clinging to that make paralyze you so? What is it about your own inability to grapple with reality that makes you so angry that you're comfortable not only lying, but thinking that it's somehow constructive, or that doing so illuminates something other than your own nonsense? It's a bit of a mystery, but you're the one who has to live inside your own head, so best of luck with that. But please, do avoid things that impact other people, like voting.
Ah, the drive-by, slink-away cowardly lie as your parting shot. Classic!
The actual bullshit is your imposition of a "totally OK with" value judgement that I did not express. You manufactured that fiction in order to maintain your own BS posturing. Nothing new here, you're will to BS about not only your own position but about what you'd like to pretend other people have said. As seen in several of your posts, reading comprehension looks like a problem (but it's not, really - you see and understand, and then make stuff up since it's a bad fit with your narrative). So at least you're consistent, and not the least bit surprising. Especially that bit where you lie and run away - that's the best part.
You just said you are perfectly okay dealing with one set of killers to combat another.
Do yourself a favor and show where I "just said that." Then correct the rest of your screwed up take on things.
It is good to see, though, that you're faithfully playing the rest of the cards you've been issued. It's all business! The Eeeeevil Corporate Man is trying to keep us down by making us like killers! Anyone who disagrees with my propaganda is a propagandist!
I also like how you try to use every big-boy condescending phrase you can muster ("huffing and puffing" - my goodness, are you sure you're old enough to trot that one out just yet?") in an attempt to make it sound like someone else is playing high and mighty. You're as impervious to irony as you are to recognizing your the limitations you're putting on your point by having reduced yourself to ad hominem right out of the gate and ever since. And I especially like your faux discomfort at the making of moral judgments even as you make them yourself, thinking nobody will notice because you've got them wrapped up in phony juvenile patronization. You should be aware that it's very noticeable, and that you're not fooling anybody.
Is it fun lying? Do you like it? Do you think you score some sort of rhetorical points with low-information friends when you do that? Are you really interested in cultivating social capital with people so intellectually challenged that they can't click "parent" to see that you're deliberately making up words to put in people's mouths? I'm genuinely curious about how your brain works in that regard. Please, do tell.
But let's pretend that it's not you being cravenly disingenuous, and that maybe your reading comprehension actually IS so bad, or your short term memory and critical thinking skills really are so hobbled that you need to have things spoon fed to you. OK.
Here in the real world, there are very bad people (I know, try not to cry little snowflake tears as you near someone make a value judgement about other people). There are also slightly less bad people. Sometimes you have to interact with the less bad people while looking to have the worse people do a bit less of things like showing up at your Precious Snowflake Concert Venue, and shoot you in the head because you are a Precious Snowflake. Dealing with reality doesn't mean that leveraging the opportunity to use the not-as-bad-but-still-bad people to that end makes those people less bad (oh noes! TWO value judgements in the same post! do you need a nap to recover? do you need to go to your safe space so that you won't be triggered by any more confrontations with icky feelings like knowing that reality doesn't provide you with international relations resembling Sesame Street?).
Still making things up? OK. Which part of what I said indicates moral relativism on my part? Since you didn't cite it or explain what you mean, I'll just take it as more of your lazy ad hominem, and further indication that you are so paralyzed by political correctness and rubber values that the ONLY type person you'll make a judgement about is the one you think is committing the ultimate sin: calling things what they actually are. The horror!
Gee, you're awfully selective with that word. I mean you got your Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Pakistan, Kuwait, Al Qaeda (They are "allies" now). Eh, no biggie, as long as you support the lesser evil, right? I mean it's only evil when they don't obey us. Sure is funny whenever you people bring up that 'relativism' thing.
If you really think your point is best made by pretending I've said something I haven't, that's fine. So long as it's clear that you're just making stuff up. Personally, I don't think my points are made more persuasively by lying. But whatever scores you some points with your chosen audience, right?
Now that you bring it up, by the way, yes. Sometimes you DO have to hold your nose and work with the jerks who aren't slaughtering people, even if they are jerks, when you're dealing with the people who are slaughtering people. That's why the French were able to fly out of the UAE and Jordan.