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Ansem

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@Shoblongoo yeah. If others can forgive me for getting worked up, then i'm truly sorry for slinging around insults and saying people don't care. I know people do care and think about it sometimes. Its just they don't do something (like @RandomJC said, its kinda like i'm seeking confirmation that people care by looking at their actions, but really, you don't need to validate you care to someone like me. i'm not that important anyways)

At least in my fantasies, i can imagine our leaders making a difference and the world becoming better. Maybe one day like 500 years from now.I can dream. 

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Is advocating genocide something someone should be allowed to walk away from so easily?

I for one do not admire his "desire to help", which in reality is a manifestation of his greed and egotism. The way he talks like he has some special perspective, his harping on about evil. Absolutely delusional. It is attitudes like his that cause excessive suffering in the first place.

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You're free to run your mouth (to an extent), but you're also free to eat the consequences of your words.  First and foremost, do not argue from emotion.

4 hours ago, Tediz64 said:

I took a basic level psychology course and one word horrifies me.

First misstep.  I took a basic psychology course, too.  I'm just as qualified as you!

Except I though that Pavlov's dogs were the most interesting thing, not the bystander effect.

4 hours ago, Tediz64 said:

Just because you don't hear it or see it, doesn't mean isn't happening right now.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Second misstep.

See, it's possible to put an average time to a lot of things, and make it sound scary.  Why not do it for car accidents?  Heart attacks?  People dealing with TSA?  Or people being simultaneously struck by a meteorite, lightning, and a bad idea?

IIRC, the heart attack rate is pretty high, yet there's still an obesity problem in the US.  If people can't help themselves, then why do you expect them to help others?

4 hours ago, Tediz64 said:

There are people out there who are evil and just plain wicked and inflict pain and suffering on others. Ignoring them, locking them up, or being "diplomatic" about it is going to do ABSOLUTELY nothing. Killing them not only sends a message that a new world order won't accept such heinous crimes but makes the world a better place. Your diplomacy doesn't achieve that. It has been tested against time since 460 B.C. when the Romans first enacted a prison.

I guess your basic psychology course failed to go into abnormal psychology.  Stuff like a lack of empathy or impulse control (among other factors) can cause people to do some pretty heinous things.  Part of prison is to ensure that such people can do no more harm to general society.

4 hours ago, Tediz64 said:

You say i'm being childish and seeing things as black and white, but everyone else's opinion on what to do and how to keep going about a certain situation isn't getting it solved. It isn't working. What bothers me about what you said the most is the part i underlined. You don't want to live peacefully because you don't even realize this world isn't peaceful right now. Yet you criticize me for wanting to make a change and ACTUALLY make the world a better place. You don't even want to make the world a better place through diplomacy because your still busy turning and looking the other way as someone RIGHT NOW is getting killed or robbed.  As far as i'm concerned, if you haven't already killed someone in your life time, you part of the world that is ok with evil existing. Your part of the world that will turn and look the other way as others suffer. Your part of the world that glorifies evil with games like Grand Theft Auto which make sport of crime, or movies that have rape scenes in them, or books like 50 shades of Grey that turn abuse into a bondage role-play relationship that girls swooned over and was so popular it needed a movie. You ignore it, because it hasn't happened to you, your mom, your siblings if you have any, or a friend. That is being complacent.

First, don't put words in my mouth.  I'll decide whether you're being unreasonable.

Your proposed solution doesn't make the world a better place.  Who are you to decide who is "evil"?  What makes you think you'll know the difference between "evil that deserves to be killed" and "evil that can live"?  Again, if your basic psychology course went into abnormal psychology, you'd find that a non-zero number of these so-called "evil" people have some sort of mental illness.  Do we kill sick people for being sick?

And then there's this "you" business, which attaches a bunch of qualifiers.  You are in no position to judge whoever's reading this.

4 hours ago, Tediz64 said:

My idea on going to other countries and committing genocide is what i have to bring to the table. Are you coming up with any ideas on saving the people or making the lives of 7.9 billion (i think that is our current population on earth) better/peaceful? No. You don't care about the world from where i stand at. You want those people making others flee for their life to go on about their business. Your ACTIVELY ignoring them and letting them continue to operate by saying "oh we'll use diplomacy and not go genocide them. lets focus on racism and trump" For argument sake we have an incompetent leader but don't get distracted by that. Lets focus on making the world better instead of whining about something we can't change.

Absolutely not.

If you have any sort of empathy, you'd realize that there's other people living there.  And believe it or not, the vast majority of people want to live out their lives in peace - hence why they come to America.  Despite the media war/Internet yelling, our country hasn't devolved into a place where you have to worry about being shot because you stepped out of your house.  Nor is the police force so bad that they can drag you off to prison, where you'll never be heard from again.

You're the one that mentioned those scary statistics.  And your proposed solution will only add to those murders.  You're the one the statistics were warning us about.

So. . .if you really like talking about this, go start a blog or something.  But as long as you post stuff like this in Serious Discussion, you're implicitly allowing other people to respond to your ideas. . .and quite frankly, your ideas are terrible.

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3 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

...okay so we have separating families + putting children in concentration camps, and going to other countries and committing genocide. Those are ideas on the table.

They're really, really bad ideas. But they're ideas.

So on our end, I've proposed letting more people in and relaxing the requirements of entry for people trying to escape abominable living conditions and make better lives for themselves. The way we use to do.

For improving country conditions in the places these immigrants are coming from here's an idea:  Repeal and Replace the Controlled Substances Act, and end the "War on Drugs."
_________

As was previously discussed in the "men of serenes forest" thread, we created the American mafia and the modern problem of organized crime in America when in the early 20th century we banned alcohol. The consequence was that alcohol distribution and production became a lucrative criminal enterprise; organized crime and gang warfare and all the associated violence and human suffering sprang up because the $$$ in bootlegging empowered the formation of these criminal enterprises and incentived the gangs running them to violently protect their business interests.

Presently, our drug laws have produced a comparable effect on the formation and empowerment of drug gangs.

And the populations that suffer most from this are--of course--the populations residing in the Latin American countries where the gangs stake out their turf and produce the marijuana and the cocaine, and use the enormous quantities of $$$ generated from their business to violently protect their business interests with paramilitary force and narcoterrorism.

The #1 impedement to improving country conditions in Mexico and Latin America is narcoterrorism.

The #1 thing we can do to end narcoterrorism and improve living conditions in these countries is disempower the drug cartels.  

The #1 thing we can do to disempower the drug cartels is legalize + produce and sell ourselves through lawful businesses, thereby depriving them of demand for their product and the economic basis of their power.

If we do this, it will be the death of narcoterrorism in Mexico and Central America. And living conditions in those countries will improve accordingly.

(HINT: Now that alcohol is legal and you can walk into any lawfully operated liquor store in America to buy beer and whiskey. When was the last time you heard of horrific violence being carried out by roving gangs of bootleggers???)

I'm not here for the rest of the discussion, but the war of drugs stuff isn't just in Latin America/Mexico. South Asia is a massive throve of drug running.

Also

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Politics_of_Heroin_in_Southeast_Asia#Reception

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-panama-noriega-obituary/panamas-noriega-cia-spy-turned-drug-running-dictator-idUSKBN18Q0NW

 

The US has had its own fingers in drug running, or at least in the enabling of it. What would one be able to do about this in order to improve living conditions in said countries?

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35 minutes ago, Czarpy said:

The US has had its own fingers in drug running, or at least in the enabling of it. What would one be able to do about this in order to improve living conditions in said countries?

Let those countries sort their own business out. I'm from the Philippines, and even though the current prexy sitting in Malacañang Palace is an idiot who should keep his mouth shut because he doesn't know anything, I still have enough belief in the system to effect a change, someday.

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33 minutes ago, Karimlan said:

Let those countries sort their own business out. I'm from the Philippines, and even though the current prexy sitting in Malacañang Palace is an idiot who should keep his mouth shut because he doesn't know anything, I still have enough belief in the system to effect a change, someday.

Thing is, corruption doesn't really sort itself out, especially not in the Philippines.

I could write up a shitload, since I am a Fil-Am who lived in Cebu for years on end and majored in political science at USC, but the status quo there is incredibly fucked up.

Duterte isn't the fucking cause of these problems, he's a symptom. There hasn't been a decent president in the Ph since what was his name again..... maglasang? 

 

 

Nothing is impossible, but stating that countries should work themselves out and sort things through and it'll all fix itself is flawed reasoning.  Especially in the Philippines,

 

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9 hours ago, Tediz64 said:

So i ask, how is that working out for us? I took a basic level psychology course and one word horrifies me. One word or "effect" simply blew my mind away. The By-stander effect. Where people diffuse responsibility of a situation among a crowd or for various other reasons won't jump in to save a person. I don't want to live with people who can watch someone break into a home and do nothing about it. I don't want to live with people who can watch an 8 year old at a bus stop get kidnapped and assume someone else who saw will call the cops. You have people who'd watch as someone gets raped/killed and DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT IT. Kitty Genovese (which kicked started research into by-stander effect) literally was BRUTALLY murdered and screamed for help and over 38 people didn't do shit because they thought someone else would get around to it. You want diplomacy? Well guess what, you want to be raped, killed, robbed, and beaten. That's all i hear. Just because you don't hear it or see it, doesn't mean isn't happening right now.

Diplomacy has done plenty good, it has prevented wars and resulted in a world we have today where plenty of other countries have the Freedoms that Americans love to claim they have and others don't. Seriously, what freedom do I have in the US today that I do not have in countries that aren't Russia or dictatorships that isn't being able to buy a gun and get it the exact same day?

You got a lot to learn dude, let's say for a moment that genocide IS a worthwhile option here, who do you go after? Criminals in other countries? You'll have collateral damage of innocents you're trying to make their life better. The sick and poor? Fuck you. White Supremacists? while you could argue that those fuckers deserve it, you'd probably subject the country to living in similar fear to what the illegal immigrants currently have.

It sucks but the fact is that change and improvement is going to be slow and it is subject to turn in the opposite direction like it is with Trump currently in power. The folks in this forum are just regular people so no matter how good their idea may be, it would take ages for their voices to be heard so all you can really do is vote and be an activist about issues that REALLY need the attention. Or start a revolution if you can muster enough support but good luck with that given the effectiveness of Faux News' brain damage to the people.

Now, here's an interesting read on Stephen Miller. When I read the article I kind of wondered how easy it would be to pose as your typical Trump supporter to get the attention of Fox and Friends so they'd talk about how firing Stephen Miller would work as a way to throw him under the bus and make Trump look better for getting rid of the policy (if that doesn't happen, "toning it down").

 

SPACE FORCE!

Edited by Dr. Tarrasque
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4 hours ago, Shuuda said:

Is advocating genocide something someone should be allowed to walk away from so easily?

I for one do not admire his "desire to help", which in reality is a manifestation of his greed and egotism. The way he talks like he has some special perspective, his harping on about evil. Absolutely delusional. It is attitudes like his that cause excessive suffering in the first place.

1) Define how my perception or goal is "greed" 2) now do "egotism". I looked up both words and most often enough greed is associated with power, wealth, food, lust, etc. I want none of those. At one point i thought it would have been honorable to die in combat against the Cartels and would have gladly sacrificed myself (because i don't need to mention the horrible things they do). Hmmm....Dying for the sake of others.....greedy much? I also don't see the parallel to egotism since that is one person viewing or valuing themselves excessively. I don't consider myself important at all. Quite the opposite i'm 1 in 7.9 billion people. I already know that after 3 generations i'll be completely forgotten. I'm totally ok with that. But while i'm here i'd like to make a difference and put an end to some people's suffering. Also my job gives me a DIFFERENT (not special) perspective. Again i deal with people who've had their lives turned upside down. And sometimes all i can do to make them feel better or make a change is fill out a report, put out a BOLO, and hope a tip from the anonymous service comes in. Some departments lack the funds and resources to investigate incidents kinda like mine. That provides no comfort to someone that was just raped. It doesn't refurnish a home that was torn apart. It doesn't prevent a family from having to bury a loved one. Every day i strive to make my mom, my sister, and my friends proud of me. What have you done? Do you enforce the law? Have you served your country? Have you even been in a fight? Your opinion and perception only fuels my resolve. I need to keep moving forward and fighting the battle you aren't even aware of. Innocent good people depend on me. My service isn't forgotten. Until you've gotten into a firefight with people bent on hating you just because of the country you were born in, you can't even begin to judge me. ... <-- these dots represent me really contemplating for at least 2 minutes before hitting submit if i should even open my mouth to begin with. I shouldn't post...its me getting worked up again. Ok....i'll do it. I care too much about what people think about me. I want to embody justice, honor, integrity, and valor. I hope you realize i serve my people. I'm the one who is going to take bullets for complete strangers provided that i can clock in another 30 years on this earth. I want help from the people i serve. I want them to mold me into a person who can serve them even better and more. I see your from G.B. so this last part i suppose doesn't apply to non-americans. My goal is the be the pillar that supports others and facilitates better lives. I don't want a thank you, i don't want money, i don't want fame. I kinda need a paycheck so i can pay my bills and buy the new games that come out every so often but other than that i'm not asking for much else. I'm not doctor, but i made it a point to choose a career where i save lives and help people. 

3 hours ago, eclipse said:

I guess your basic psychology course failed to go into abnormal psychology.  Stuff like a lack of empathy or impulse control (among other factors) can cause people to do some pretty heinous things.  Part of prison is to ensure that such people can do no more harm to general society.

First, don't put words in my mouth.  I'll decide whether you're being unreasonable.

Your proposed solution doesn't make the world a better place.  Who are you to decide who is "evil"?  What makes you think you'll know the difference between "evil that deserves to be killed" and "evil that can live"?  Again, if your basic psychology course went into abnormal psychology, you'd find that a non-zero number of these so-called "evil" people have some sort of mental illness.  Do we kill sick people for being sick?

I never heard of abnormal psychology. Sounds interesting. As far the the evil part goes, i threw that word around carelessly because i was worked up. I will say though that in most cultures and parts of the world (like it should be 90% +) the general consensus in and outside of religion that the "evil" i'm referring to are the general taboo behaviors. No where is murder, rape, and any form of larceny (theft) acceptable. That is what i want to diminish or reduce overall. I'm not trying play judge or w/e saying this or that is evil or people who think and do this/that deserve to live/die. I definitely am not doing that. I don't care about other crimes that are subject to the nation's laws and people's perception. But those three are already agreed upon. That is ALL i want to focus on. Nothing more, nothing less. Anything that is generally agreed upon by the entire population of earth is what i want to focus on. Primarily because if we already agree on it, let's get some ideas rolling and fix it and be done with it. I regret immediately jumping to the "let's kill them" option because i know that some certain techniques in psychology and what not have proven to help rehabilitate people and steer them onto the right path. I know services and programs exist to help people. But come'on, you have to agree there are a very very FEW who are way beyond helping. Hence why the death penalty hasn't completely disappeared and we occasionally get a person who gets that sentence. No i don't think we should kill the sick for being sick. If after we throw x amount of resources and time to help a person and they aren't showing progress and it's been reviewed by a few professionals and they all agree, then we can go ahead and put them in the chair.

Earlier i was super worked up but i'm not anymore. Talk and i shall listen. I will exert as MUCH effort as i need to reach a consensus with you and understand you. I will try my hardest not to dismiss what you say or feel/think (this is what i strive for and practice. i say it out loud so it helps me. i want to be exactly what i'm saying now but as earlier showed, sometimes i get worked up and forget). I think my coffee earlier had me filled with energy and i was diving head first into bull dozing people over to agree with me so we can start some kind of change to make a difference. (figuratively since we aren't politicians and enact change but you know what i mean) I really wanted to hear others want the same thing i want but i was way to gung-ho. 

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1 hour ago, Tediz64 said:

I never heard of abnormal psychology. Sounds interesting. As far the the evil part goes, i threw that word around carelessly because i was worked up. I will say though that in most cultures and parts of the world (like it should be 90% +) the general consensus in and outside of religion that the "evil" i'm referring to are the general taboo behaviors. No where is murder, rape, and any form of larceny (theft) acceptable. That is what i want to diminish or reduce overall. I'm not trying play judge or w/e saying this or that is evil or people who think and do this/that deserve to live/die. I definitely am not doing that. I don't care about other crimes that are subject to the nation's laws and people's perception. But those three are already agreed upon. That is ALL i want to focus on. Nothing more, nothing less. Anything that is generally agreed upon by the entire population of earth is what i want to focus on. Primarily because if we already agree on it, let's get some ideas rolling and fix it and be done with it. I regret immediately jumping to the "let's kill them" option because i know that some certain techniques in psychology and what not have proven to help rehabilitate people and steer them onto the right path. I know services and programs exist to help people. But come'on, you have to agree there are a very very FEW who are way beyond helping. Hence why the death penalty hasn't completely disappeared and we occasionally get a person who gets that sentence. No i don't think we should kill the sick for being sick. If after we throw x amount of resources and time to help a person and they aren't showing progress and it's been reviewed by a few professionals and they all agree, then we can go ahead and put them in the chair.

Earlier i was super worked up but i'm not anymore. Talk and i shall listen. I will exert as MUCH effort as i need to reach a consensus with you and understand you. I will try my hardest not to dismiss what you say or feel/think (this is what i strive for and practice. i say it out loud so it helps me. i want to be exactly what i'm saying now but as earlier showed, sometimes i get worked up and forget). I think my coffee earlier had me filled with energy and i was diving head first into bull dozing people over to agree with me so we can start some kind of change to make a difference. (figuratively since we aren't politicians and enact change but you know what i mean) I really wanted to hear others want the same thing i want but i was way to gung-ho. 

. . .okay, what?

Abnormal psychology involves deviant behavior patterns.  Some can be destructive to others, like schizophrenia.  Others are a hindrance to the person that has them, like OCD.  Some of these can cause people to behave in socially unacceptable ways, ranging from being dishonest for no apparent reason to outright killing people.

Agreed on by everyone?  That's democracy.  And last I checked, democracy is working just fine, when it comes to "should we have a death penalty in this state?".

IMO the death penalty is extremely inefficient.  In the US, it's cheaper to imprison an inmate for life as opposed to executing them.  I don't think it works very well as a deterrent, either.  There's also the issue of wrongful convictions - are you comfortable with exercising the death penalty, when there's a chance that a nonzero number of them are innocent?

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2 hours ago, eclipse said:

. . .okay, what?

Agreed on by everyone?  That's democracy.

Ok hold on because i don't think we are on the same page here. I said that the only "evil" ----->

(which i'm going to stop using that word because in retrospect what i meant to use was crime. And even the word crime is subjective because it could depend on the laws of a person's country or maybe their culture. Really what i'm getting at is acts/behaviors that are immoral and unethical no matter what angle it's looked at from or no matter who you are)

<----- i'm worried about and want to put an end to is the ones that are agreed upon by all cultures, all religions, all countries, all people from the entire world. Those three would be rape, murder, and theft. That i'm aware of, nowhere is that allowed or acceptable. Just in case you were confused by what i was saying. I hope this clear that up.

 

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Crime is bad, yeah, but hasty action almost always turns out badly. That's why leaders are older people; they have (generally) have more experience and will refrain more. When you look at something like this, you can't just think "let's go stop those bad guys" because it's obviously not that simple. Addressing the underlying causes is more important (well, I believe so). It's the stuff like poor education, abuse, etc that results in disturbed people a lot of time that create these problems.

Edited by Comet
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37 minutes ago, The Geek said:

So... you think petty theft deserves the death penalty?  

I didn't say anything about the death penalty in my response to eclipse but since she is saying she doesn't approve of it i'll assume you mean me? Uhmm so no, i'm not advocating them dying. Otherwise i'm confused on who you're talking to.

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On 6/18/2018 at 11:44 AM, Shoblongoo said:

...I think America under the current Administration now meets all 14 diagnostic criteria for a fascist state...    

This list was created by a novelist rather than a political scientist, and is therefore lacking in credibility in its description of fascism, which is a specific term with meaning rather than simply a synonym for authoritarianism, which is how it seems to be treated here; most of the points listed are hardly exclusive to fascist societies. Even if one, for some reason, accepts the list as accurate, the criteria are so broad that you can stretch them to encompass many societies if you truly want to, and it's trivial to provide isolated anecdotes and sweeping generalizations to support each criterion in order prove a political point. Even with the ones that can be argued to describe the U.S., they apply so loosely or only in certain domains to the point that, even if technically or semantically accurate, they become so broad and widely applicable as to render them meaningless. 

#6, for example, is particularly absurd: far from the media being controlled by the administration, it's almost universally and openly hostile to it, certain exceptions notwithstanding; it requires an extraordinary amount of exaggeration, mental gymnastics, and selective use of evidence to conclude that this is an accurate descriptor of the modern United States, especially in comparison to the violent legal suppression of any non-complementary media in actual fascist regimes. Likewise with #9: the existence of things such as the electoral college and gerrymandering, while harmful to democracy, are far from making elections fraudulent or a sham: by comparison, the brownshirts of Nazi Germany physically intimidated and violently suppressed the opposition, the only candidates allowed to run in parliamentary elections (for a completely powerless parliament) were members of the Nazi Party (with turnout and approval always over 99%), and Fascist Italy didn't even have elections. 

The fundamental problem with applying these points to the U.S. in the way you have (beyond the fact that the list itself is highly questionable and should probably be avoided entirely) is that, while perhaps seeming superficially plausible, it neglects all sense of scale and balance. Even if the U.S. could technically or semantically be characterized as "fascist" using this criteria, it would be so different from other actual fascist regimes and the definition of fascist so stretched and loosened that it would become completely meaningless and lose any value as a political descriptor. I think it's possible to be legitimately and strongly opposed to the current administration and its actions without feeling the need to use such unhelpful and partisan hyperbole.

P.S. Most of the points described in the list that supposedly apply to the U.S. actually predate Trump. In fact, pretty much all of them have historically been worse at some point. If I loosely applied this list in the same way, I could pretty easily make a case of the U.S. being "fascist" at several previous points in its history, including before the invention of fascism. In which case fascism starts to sound increasingly less bad, and starts to lose power and meaning. And this is where it moves from merely being silly to causing actual harm: the word fascism, like genocide and Nazi, shouldn't be thrown around so lightly. 

On 6/18/2018 at 6:59 PM, Dr. Tarrasque said:

A case for Treason having been committed by Trump is debatable. A large number of actions that Trump has taken (and not taken) benefit Russia or have been suggested by Putin including when he pulled out of the Iran Nuclear deal, not implementing sanctions on Russia, the recent move to stop military exercises with South Korea which even the Wall Street Journal reports that this idea came from Putin. You also saw on how he insisted that Russia be brought back to the G7 and how Trump's treatment of the G7 allies gave Putin room to just come in and shame the country and Russia celebrating what went on in G7

Putin knows he's got a puppet in power that will just fuck things up for the next president to have to spend all that time rebuilding and cleaning up.

Correlation isn't the same as causation: because x country happens to do something that y country likes, it doesn't follow that x country is doing it because y country likes it. Moreover, this ignores counterpoints. For example: Trump armed Ukraine in their fight against Russian-supported rebels, and also bombed Russia's key Middle Eastern ally, Syria, twice, both of which Obama refused to do. I'm hardly claiming "no collusion" (I simply don't know due to lack of evidence), but to claim that Trump has committed treason such that he should be punished by death certainly seems premature, to say the least. 

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4 hours ago, Leslie said:

Correlation isn't the same as causation: because x country happens to do something that y country likes, it doesn't follow that x country is doing it because y country likes it. Moreover, this ignores counterpoints. For example: Trump armed Ukraine in their fight against Russian-supported rebels, and also bombed Russia's key Middle Eastern ally, Syria, twice, both of which Obama refused to do. I'm hardly claiming "no collusion" (I simply don't know due to lack of evidence), but to claim that Trump has committed treason such that he should be punished by death certainly seems premature, to say the least. 

Premature perhaps, mainly because the closest thing to treason that is being investigated on Trump is the Russia collusion but I definitely wouldn't rule it out as a possibility. Putin himself claims he talks to Trump regularly and Trump does absolutely nothing to abide by security standards to make sure that his phone isn't hacked which is definitely a concern given how John Kelly's phone was hacked and that's the one guy in the white house that actually care about doing things even remotely by the books. Again, Trump pushed for Russia to be brought back to the G7 and gave no real reason as to why other than simply because "it's Obama's fault". The only 2 reasons I can see why are because he IS that petty or because Putin does regularly talk to Trump and bends him to his will.

 

8 hours ago, eclipse said:

IMO the death penalty is extremely inefficient.  In the US, it's cheaper to imprison an inmate for life as opposed to executing them.  I don't think it works very well as a deterrent, either.  There's also the issue of wrongful convictions - are you comfortable with exercising the death penalty, when there's a chance that a nonzero number of them are innocent?

Forgive me if inquiry on the Death Penalty ends up driving this a little too off-topic but...

@Bolded: Why? I've seen that argument several times and it always makes me question why execution methods are more expensive than imprisonment. If the current methods are expensive why not just simplify the matter with having volunteers execute by just blowing their fucking brains out with a gun? In US culture you'd find lots of nuts willing to do that.

@Italics: The correct answer is nobody is comfortable with exercising the death penalty on a potential innocent. While this is an argument used for people to suggest that the Death Penalty should be abolished, I think it's more of an indicator that the Death Penalty should be imposed more judiciously on people who are safer bets (those with absolutely zero chance of being innocent) 

Example of case you may not want to impose death penalty on: Man/Woman snapped and shot his/her Wife/Husband. This one can be tricky in some cases specially if there's potential that the convicted may be framed and some may be rehabilitated.

Example of case you may impose death penalty easily: Cannot find a link for the story as I saw it about 6 years ago but it was a case where a broken 40+ year old burned down his sister and boyfriend's place and claimed he took delight in it as he loves burning things. Another potential case may be the killer grandmother who set out to end her son-in-law and displayed only joy with absolutely no remorse

As for the bit about it being a deterrent, maybe not to mass shooters as they'll typically just commit suicide anyway but I think it would definitely work as such for corrupt politicians. Most corrupt Republicans and Democrats are fucking cowards afraid of being ousted from their position of power for participating in what is essentially legalized bribery and I'll bet that if the death penalty were imposed on them today, you'd have more Republicans leaving the party out of fear for their lives instead of turning the GOP into the Trump party because THEY KNOW that Trump is going to destroy the image of the GOP if it isn't already and they have no choice but to cater to the populace that still wants Trump in power. This would not only make it easier to flip the house but the few calls for impeaching Trump would actually have more power as you'd see more Republicans chip in on that to save their lives as opposed to continuing to let him slide for all his stupidity.

Edited by Dr. Tarrasque
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3 minutes ago, Dr. Tarrasque said:

@Bolded: Why? I've seen that argument several times and it always makes me question why execution methods are more expensive than imprisonment. If the current methods are expensive why not just simplify the matter with having volunteers execute by just blowing their fucking brains out with a gun? In US culture you'd find lots of nuts willing to do that.

From what I understand, the cost isn't in the actual method of execution, but the process. Because you can't go "oops, sorry, we messed up you're really innocent" after the sentence is carried out, we spend years on things like appeals and reviews. Moreso than any other kind of case that goes through the system. On top of that, housing someone on death row costs more than housing them in general population.

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Let's not talk about lame shit when we could be talking about the forced separation of parents and children in cages!

Trumplekins signed an executive order to stop the separations(he could have just called), and I was told this basically puts the whole thing on a twenty day timer, the Flores ruling says that illegal border crossing can only be kept in custody for up to 20 days.

What I'm curious about is if that timer didn't already start before the EO, and when they were taken into custody, and if the rather bad circumstances these kids live in are in violation of Flores.

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1 hour ago, Excellen Browning said:

Let's not talk about lame shit when we could be talking about the forced separation of parents and children in cages!

Trumplekins signed an executive order to stop the separations(he could have just called), and I was told this basically puts the whole thing on a twenty day timer, the Flores ruling says that illegal border crossing can only be kept in custody for up to 20 days.

What I'm curious about is if that timer didn't already start before the EO, and when they were taken into custody, and if the rather bad circumstances these kids live in are in violation of Flores.

They will most likely work to extend that time frame and suggest the clock started ticking the day the EO was done. Jim Jordan's sucking up to Trump trying to downplay what little this EO actually does and suggesting that it is enough for now. Hell they may just claim "they're not being kept in custody, they're being processed. There's a difference and the Flores ruling doesn't apply to it".

Edited by Dr. Tarrasque
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1 hour ago, Dr. Tarrasque said:

They will most likely work to extend that time frame and suggest the clock started ticking the day the EO was done. Jim Jordan's sucking up to Trump trying to downplay what little this EO actually does and suggesting that it is enough for now. Hell they may just claim "they're not being kept in custody, they're being processed. There's a difference and the Flores ruling doesn't apply to it".

This sounds like a juicy lawsuit. 

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6 hours ago, Leslie said:

This list was created by a novelist rather than a political scientist, and is therefore lacking in credibility in its description of fascism

As a political scientist and legal scholar, I'll vouch for its credibility.
 

6 hours ago, Leslie said:

which is a specific term with meaning rather than simply a synonym for authoritarianism, which is how it seems to be treated here; most of the points listed are hardly exclusive to fascist societies. Even if one, for some reason, accepts the list as accurate, the criteria are so broad that you can stretch them to encompass many societies if you truly want to, and it's trivial to provide isolated anecdotes and sweeping generalizations to support each criterion in order prove a political point. Even with the ones that can be argued to describe the U.S., they apply so loosely or only in certain domains to the point that, even if technically or semantically accurate, they become so broad and widely applicable as to render them meaningless. 

I dislike the overuse of the term "fascism" as a generic insult for authoritarian politics--it cheapens the meaning of the word, and causes us to lose sight of what fascism is and why its bad. I call people out when I feel it is being used inappropriately, and only use it myself in the rarest of instances where I feel I can defend the statement.

Donald J. Trump is a fascist and America under Trump is becoming a fascist country is one such instance where I will defend the statement, because it is fact-based and appropriate. 

Because fascism is a form of authoritarianism, fascism is in fact  going to have some characteristics common to all forms of authoritarianism. Military Supremacy, Unchecked Police Powers, Pervasive use of Propaganda, Cronyism and Lack of Accountability in Government--these are things you could find in Fascism or a Militant Theocracy or a Communist State. Any authoritarian system.

The distinguishing feature of fascism is  the intersection of these other factors with Factor (3)

3) The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, religious, or ethnic minorities

In a fascist state, that is the central PURPOSE for which the state exercises its authoritarian power. 

...you put out the propaganda to foment anger that the target persons are "animals." An "infestation." They're "breeding." They're criminals. They're invaders. You have to look at their children and think that's just a gang member that hasn't grown up yet.    

...the obsession over crime and punishment and security and national greatness is entwined with the propaganda labeling the target group as the source of crime and insecurity and  national decline. 

...the perceived threat of "those people" that basic human rights can be ignored on the basis of "need" and its unpatriotic to challenge police actions is entwined with the  demarcation of the target group as a common threat to real, patriotic countrymen. 

...and its always surrounded by a Myth Of National Rejuvenation (i.e. "#MAGA). The suggestion that national greatness has been lost to "those people" and only by patriots rising against them can it be regained; conversely, if you are not against "those people," you are not a patriot and support the continued decline of the nation. 

THAT's the unique flavor of fascism. 

That's been the central focus of Trump's rise to power.

For all the indignation and cries of hyperbole when Donald Trump is called a fascist: two (2) years into his presidency, we're at a point now where we're having a serious discussion about the merits of throwing immigrant children in concentration camps as punishment for and deterrent to misdemeanor violations of immigration law. With serious public officials on television taking the unabashed position  that if you're against this policy you're for lawlessness; you want American children to be raped and murdered by MS13 gang members.

...I'm not saying we're Auschwitz in 1942.
... But we're Berlin in 1935. 

And we're seeing right now how rapidly that shit escalates if you don't check it right-fast. 

7 hours ago, Leslie said:

#6, for example, is particularly absurd: far from the media being controlled by the administration, it's almost universally and openly hostile to it


...he has in FOX an entire national news network, subjugated as a propaganda arm of the White House.

Image result for fox news tuckers thoughts

^^^
The value of this cannot be overstated. (on a scale of 1-10, how photoshopped is that background graphic of a a fence jumper man-handling barbed wire?)
 

7 hours ago, Leslie said:

Likewise with #9: the existence of things such as the electoral college and gerrymandering, while harmful to democracy, are far from making elections fraudulent or a sham

It makes them ineffectual.

Further note that the intent and aggregate effect of these quirks in our democracy is to disenfranchise minority voters and under-represent the multicultural urban population centers. And to over-represent homogeneous white, ethno-nationalist/nativist populations. 

So again--it all goes back to the intersection of Factor #3.
 

7 hours ago, Leslie said:

Even if the U.S. could technically or semantically be characterized as "fascist" using this criteria, it would be so different from other actual fascist regimes and the definition of fascist so stretched and loosened that it would become completely meaningless and lose any value as a political descriptor.


...of course its different in from other fascist regimes. Its American. And so it has a uniquely American kick to it.

American Fascism and European Fascism are going to be as different as American Democracy and European Democracy, or American Socialism and European Socialism.

Its still fascism. 

7 hours ago, Leslie said:

P.S. Most of the points described in the list that supposedly apply to the U.S. actually predate Trump. In fact, pretty much all of them have historically been worse at some point. If I loosely applied this list in the same way, I could pretty easily make a case of the U.S. being "fascist" at several previous points in its history, including before the invention of fascism.

Most of the points described in the list that supposedly apply to the U.S. actually predate Trump, because America has long held some authoritarian tendencies (more then we care to admit).

As you note, it is unwise to conflate fascism with mere authoritarianism. (and I think you're starting to veer a bit off into that territory with this part of your post)

Again--what Trump did that took us into full-on fascism territory was take factor #3 with his rhetoric on immigration and trade and terrorism and explode it to the forefront of the national discourse and framing of public policy. And channel all our latent authoritarian tendencies into fascist  into the National Rejuvenation Myth.

Which is something that no previous president has ever done before. 
 

8 hours ago, Leslie said:

the word fascism, like genocide and Nazi, shouldn't be thrown around so lightly. 

I 100% agree. Wish is why I have taken the time out of my day to explain in this level of detail why the term is being used appropriately when I herein say:

Donald J. Trump is a fucking fascist. 

You will be the first to hear me call shenanigans when I see the term used frivolously.

In closing I will leave you with a short clip from this WWII era film produced by the United States government, as a public service announcement on how to spot a fascist. It was intended to be a warning, to prevent the rise in America of the kind of fascist politics that was sweeping through Europe.

 Its 2 minutes of your time. Please watch it.
  

 

^^^

I'll say it again: Donald J. Trump is a fucking fascist. 

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Actually, Tryhard brought up a good point earlier about Trump's political ideology:

"It's hard to believe Trump has any consistent political ideology, be it fascism, far-right ideology, or any other, to be honest. He's all over the place. Remember when he advocated for "taking the guns away without due process", lol. And really you don't even need to look that far back before he ran in 2015 to see him advocating universal healthcare and being pro-choice."

With that and the few posts above in mind, I think we can all reach a consensus in saying that Trump's political ideology is "Trump", as a euphemism for an Ideology that follows whatever traditional ideology the wheel lands on whenever it's spun. When will it spin again? WHO KNOWS? I don't think Trump himself even knows!

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