1

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: Today at 05:53:31 PM »

You can't say "two wrongs don't make a right" when you refuse to accept that what Trump has said and done is even a "wrong" to begin with. To make your murder analogy work, we'd have to suppose that there's a guy named Joe who killed someone, nothing ever happened to him, and there was a large group of people who outright celebrated the fact that Joe had killed a person and admired just how tough and daring he was for doing it. Then a guy named Bob comes along and kills someone, and the same people celebrating Joe killing a person acted horrified and said, "How dare you kill a person? Murder is never, never, never justified!" and when Bob argued that Joe was celebrated for killing someone, those people stuck their fingers in their ears and shrieked, "Two wrongs don't make a right!" Because that's more or less what you're doing. When Trump behaves like a horrible person, you either look the other way or outright praise him for it. When someone who's opposed to Trump behaves poorly, you become a holier-than-thou pompous scold. Is being a bad person cool and acceptable or not? It's a simple question.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: Today at 01:44:57 PM »

I'm again struck by the blatant contradiction of Trump fans who insist they admire him for being a cool bad boy who says what he wants and does what he wants, a master troll who stomps all over the delicate feelings of the whiny bleeding-heart "feels>reals" types and sends them scurrying for cover, only for them, whenever it's convenient, to reinvent him as a deeply pious and upstanding family man who stands against the godless immorality of people like the Clintons and Hollywood liberals, as well as a fearless defender of children against the predatory LGBT community. Which is it, guys? Do you embrace Trump's amorality or not? You can't sneer "lol, fuck your feelings" at people who rightly criticize Trump for making misogynistic or racist attacks and then turn around and say, "My goodness, I am offended by Rosie O'Donnell promoting a Flash game where you kill the president. This is deeply immoral! Think of the children!" It's one or the other. You can be all in on 4chan-style amorality and deliberate offensiveness, or you can claim the high ground and insist you're standing up for Christian values and decency, but you can't do both.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: July 15, 2025, 04:25:49 PM »

Yeah but if Dems get back in power, revenge time.

Like, the next dem president could execute Trump at the inauguration for reasons of him being a domestic threat, arrest and deport every maga member, deny allowing any voting to be secret ballot, then, to top it all off, have ICE protect itself by killing any protesters.

Which is all the apparent power Trump now has.  Or he assumes he does.

No, a Democratic president would be held to account if they tried to exceed their power so blatantly. The Supreme Court would rule against them, Congress would impeach them, public support would drop to nothing, etc. I suspect that a Republican president would also face the appropriate consequences, as there's no other high-profile conservative I'm aware of with the charisma to keep Trump's cult of personality going, although it's hard to say for sure given the GOP's embrace of cynicism and abandonment of democratic ideals.

And there's no point in arguing with Action80. He keeps moving the goalposts every time someone points out to him that his argument is nonsense. His last argument was that politicians passing laws on the subject of what Clinton did was what made it a direct reflection of his political ideology. Now his argument seems to be that the affair happening in the workplace was what made it a direct reflection of Clinton's political ideology. If I provided counter-examples of the hundreds of other inappropriate or illegal things people can do at the workplace that presumably don't reflect their political ideology, he'd change his mind yet again and insist that it actually came down to something completely different. There's nothing to be gained by debating someone who's acting in bad faith.

After the 'pussy grabbing', crypto scams, insults to our war veterans, subverting our democracy, and aligning with autocrats, it's good to see that at least some Republicans will draw the line at child sex trafficking.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/14/trump-maga-epstein-bondi-bongino-00451114?cid=apn

Live by the conspiracy, die by the conspiracy.

This will blow over, just like the hundred or so other scandals that would have ended the career of any other politician have blown over. Trump's fans don't care about child sex trafficking, just like they don't care about the fact that he's a corrupt con man, an incompetent idiot, a rapist, and a deeply foul, sleazy man who exhibits just about every negative quality a single person could have. Trump's fans care about Trump, and they will never, ever abandon him. Not even Trump's eventual death will put an end to their overwhelming devotion and loyalty to him.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: July 14, 2025, 04:13:45 PM »

Claiming acts of driving and tax payments are somehow analogous to acts of banging an intern at the office

That's not what I said, but look, whatever. Nothing I'm saying is getting through to you, so if you really want to believe that Clinton is a left-wing totalitarian because of his affair with Monica Lewinsky, then fine, go ahead. The rest of the world knows you're wrong.

On the other hand, there is a compelling argument to be made that the far left should be stripped of citizenship and deported.

No, there really isn't. It's blatantly unconstitutional on the face of it and horrific on an ethical level. That being said, if he wants to do it, then he'll do it. The courts won't stop him, Congress won't stop him, and his fans won't stop supporting him. They will never stop supporting him. That's why I'm not excited about the backlash Trump is getting over Epstein. His fans will fall in line within a week or so.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: July 11, 2025, 12:42:59 PM »

Sadaam, you clearly stated Clinton was a centrist.

Yes.

Laws governing sexual conduct in the workplace are set by PLOTICIANS (spelling error purposeful).

Yes.

Therefore, the behavior has everything to do with political ideology.

No, that doesn't follow at all. You might as well say that laws governing taxes are set by politicians, and therefore filing my tax return indicates my political ideology. Or that laws governing traffic and the rules of the road are set by politicians, and therefore driving my car indicates my political ideology. Or any other number of absurd conclusions, really.

It was the act of a domineering totalitarian, certainly not a centrist.

I'm all for judging politicians based on their character and the lives they've lived, but you can't just take it for granted that their ethical flaws and misdeeds directly translate into their political ideology. Someone who constantly speeds can't therefore be assumed to be opposed to speed limits on an ideological level. Someone who cheats on their taxes can't therefore be assumed to be opposed to taxation on an ideological level. And someone who pursues an inappropriate relationship with an intern half their age who can't reasonably say no to them can't therefore be assumed to domineering or totalitarian on an ideological level. It's just not how these things work, and there are plenty of examples from history bearing this out. George W. Bush by all accounts is a loving husband and father, but his decision to launch a destructive war under false pretenses that cost countless lives so that he could advance his own political agenda and enrich his cronies in the private sector reeks of a deeply callous cruelty. Lyndon B. Johnson was an outspoken racist as a younger man, but he devoted his presidency to passing critical legislation protecting civil rights that probably wouldn't be able to be passed today. These things don't perfectly correlate into political ideology like that.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: July 10, 2025, 01:52:21 PM »

BANGING INTERNS IS CENTRIST

Nobody said that it was centrist, just that it wasn't left-wing. Clinton's affair with an intern had nothing to do with his political ideology. It wasn't left-wing, it wasn't right-wing, and it wasn't centrist. This really isn't a hard concept to grasp.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: July 09, 2025, 07:51:41 AM »

It's a matter of politics, certainly, but not of policy.

Yes, of course.

There are no government policies regarding sexual conduct in the workplace.

Look, you're just being obstinate at this point. You know what I mean. Clinton's affairs didn't make him any less of a centrist.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: July 09, 2025, 06:39:42 AM »

No, he's talking about the fact that Trump was found liable for sexual abuse rather than rape. We spent several pages discussing this back when the news first broke. According to Tom, the fact that the jury chose not to find Trump liable for rape is a clear repudiation of Carroll's entire story and proof that Trump is entirely innocent; however, the fact that the same jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation when he denied the whole thing even happened means nothing at all.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: July 08, 2025, 07:18:24 PM »

Clinton a "centrist."

Explains the blow job (it is a perfectly acceptable policy to have sex relations with your intern) and Janet Reno (of Waco fame).

Again, what in the living fuck are you smoking?

I really have no idea what point you think you're making here. I'm discussing Clinton's political positions, not his ethics, and his affairs don't change the fact that he was a centrist any more than they change the fact that he was from Arkansas. If in your usual roundabout way you're trying to get my opinion of Clinton, then I'll give it to you - his affair with an intern half his age while he was in a position of power over her was deeply predatory and has never gotten the mainstream condemnation it truly deserves (as opposed to simply hand-wringing about adultery, which was in comparison a trivial concern), there's almost certainly some fire to the smoke of the numerous allegations of sexual misconduct he's accumulated over the years, and I'm sure he'd go down in flames just like Trump if the government released all the information it had on Epstein. Maybe that's why Biden never released it.

When the affair is taking place with an intern in the workplace, that most certainly is a matter of politics.

It's a matter of politics, certainly, but not of policy. Think about it this way - is having an affair an inherently left-wing or right-wing thing to do? Is someone who has an affair logically more or less likely to cut taxes? To pursue foreign intervention? To support gay marriage? It doesn't really make sense.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: July 07, 2025, 07:02:59 PM »

Sadaam - "Clinton-era centrism..."

Getting blown by an intern while seated behind the desk in the Oval Office is a very "centrist" thing to do.

LMMFAO!

What does that have to do with his policies? Clinton ran as and governed as a centrist, and thirty years later, Democratic presidential candidates are doing the exact same thing.

I also don't believe that Elon was ever especially liked or admired by the left.

That explains all the Democrats in Chicago parading around in Teslas with bumper stickers declaring, "I bought this before Elon went crazy."

WTF you smoking, anyway!?!?

LMMFAO!!!

People once being willing to buy his cars without being judged hardly makes him some kind of hero or leader to the left. Think about it this way - if the head of, say, Ford, suddenly made the news for saying and doing a bunch of horrible things, you'd probably see a similar level of embarrassment among Ford owners and an eagerness to distance themselves from him. That wouldn't mean that the head of Ford was someone they had especially liked or admired before. As I've said, I've only ever heard that Elon used to be beloved by the left from conservatives. He's been heavily criticized by leftists for several years, long before he ever bought Twitter or publicly embraced Trump.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: July 06, 2025, 08:43:01 PM »

I partly agree with Tom - Democrats are deeply dissatisfied with their party and eager for something new. It's ludicrous to suggest they want something more moderate or centrist when the leadership of the party is firmly in the camp of Clinton-era centrism, the more progressive voices within the party are always kept at arms length despite their popularity, and all three of its last presidential candidates ran as centrists. The idea that Democrats are just way too left-wing is a cynical strategy from conservatives to try and get them to move right, at which point they too move right and continue to insist that the Democrats need to move right, thereby moving the Overton window right as well. There isn't a single person in the world who would vote Democratic if only the party were slightly less leftist. Anyone like that is already voting Republican. I also don't believe that Elon was ever especially liked or admired by the left. I've only ever heard conservatives make that claim, not leftists, and there doesn't seem to be any good evidence backing it up beyond the fact that Elon sells electric vehicles. I don't know who you're claiming is trying to rehabilitate his reputation, but even if Elon were making an effort to backtrack from his right-wing politics and reinvent himself as a progressive (and a quick glance at his Twitter will show that he very much is not), I don't see any reason why progressive voters would suddenly forgive him for helping Trump get reelected and then butchering the federal government so that he could make more money.

We might learn some lessons from the recent victory of Zohran Mamdani over Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic mayoral primary of New York. Democratic voters made their priorities clear by supporting Mamdami's strongly progressive policies over Cuomo's business-as-usual centrism, and also by rejecting Cuomo, who, unlike Elon, had previously been well-liked by Democrats until he resigned as governor in the wake of a sexual scandal. That's two strikes against Elon - Democratic voters want progressive policies, not even more centrism, and they're not interested in giving multiple chances to people disgraced by scandal. Oh, but I will agree with you that Republican voters are content with what they have. Trump has shown us repeatedly what kind of person he is, and Republicans are unanimously okay with it. They wouldn't hire him, work for him, hang out with him, lend money to him, or leave their girlfriend alone with him for five minutes - but they will vote for him. In the face of that kind of solidarity, Elon trying to win over his voters is a ridiculous idea, but as I've said before, Elon is nowhere near as smart as he and his followers think he is.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: July 04, 2025, 10:32:53 PM »

...you're the one who apparently needed to have it explained to you.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: July 03, 2025, 11:54:42 PM »

what lessons are there to learn?

That the politicians who championed and supported this bill can't be trusted to protect the interests of their constituents and therefore should be voted out would be an obvious one.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: July 03, 2025, 09:59:42 PM »

It doesn't matter. Trump's voters won't learn any lessons from this. They'll just blame Biden or Obama for all the negative consequences

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: July 01, 2025, 08:52:35 PM »

Trump has never been a good businessman. He just played one on TV. It really can't be overstated how integral The Apprentice and its false portrayal of Trump as this universally-respected titan of commerce and icon of success was to the rehabilitation of Trump's public image. In the eighties and nineties, everyone knew that Trump was a joke. And nothing changed about him - they just made a TV show saying no, Trump is actually awesome, and inexplicably, tens of millions of Americans believed them.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: June 26, 2025, 01:22:52 AM »

I don't agree with the people giving even grudging credit to Trump over this. Trump clearly said that there was a ceasefire, and Israel and Iran clearly disregarded him and continued their war. The fact that at a later time Israel and Iran really did agree on a ceasefire doesn't somehow ripple back through time and imbue Trump's impotent declaration with retroactive relevance. No, Trump was bullshitting, because he's a thoroughly stupid man and a habitual liar, and he almost certainly played a very limited role (at best) in the actual ceasefire.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: June 24, 2025, 08:49:15 PM »

https://thehill.com/homenews/5365719-trump-israel-iran-ceasefire/

What a surprise! Trump was full of shit, and the war continues.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: June 24, 2025, 05:37:52 AM »

Yes, if Trump says that everything is fine now, I for one certainly believe him. Trump wouldn't lie to us!

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: June 22, 2025, 01:14:41 AM »

The "no new wars" president has now begun a war with Iran. On the one hand, this is an enormously unpopular move among Americans, thousands of innocent people will be killed, getting involved in wars in the Middle East never ends well for us, and Netanyahu is a liar and a war criminal who's almost certainly just looking to expand his ongoing genocide to another country, so nothing he says can be trusted. On the other hand, Trump really likes and admires Netanyahu, as he does all strongmen, and he really, really wants to impress him. So who's to say if this really is a good or bad move?

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: June 20, 2025, 05:18:35 AM »

Not that it even really matters how popular Trump is - we're still stuck with him for the next three and a half years whether we like it or not - but as I noted three years ago, Rasmussen are a bunch of Trump-humpers whose job is to tell MAGA types what they want to hear. MAGA does not tolerate the bearers of bad news, and Trump always, always lashes out at and tries to punish those who tell him what he doesn't want to hear. Here he is doing just that with Fox News. Rasmussen have a very strong motive to deliver bullshit polls that soothe Trump's ego. And needless to say, their results are a pretty major outlier.