USA Sinks into Authoritarinism

[OftenWrong]

8 hours ago, Lerxst said:

Yep! McDonalds, WalMart and Dunkin Donuts are really thriving! IT, Healthcare and public schools, not so much though. None of those stats tell you about the PhDs stuck in retail jobs, or the 60 year olds spending their final working days as a WinDixie cashier.

That is the leftist counter-argument, "But but but, these jobs are no good!" Lies.

A broader measure of labour market slack that includes people working part-time because they cannot find a full-time post edged up to 7.5 per cent in September from 7.4 per cent the prior month. Still, that gauge is down from 8.3 per cent a year earlier.
Link

[OftenWrong]

8 hours ago, ReeferMadness said:

Right wingers understand that it's the function of every person to hold a job from the age of 4 to whenever sweet death finally sweeps you away from a world of misery and pain.

People should work for their living, yes. Right wingers and their families work hard, so that left wingers can sit under a bridge and smoke dope all day, then whine about the need for a "living wage." 

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, dialamah said:

The difference between Muslim immigrants = Sharia Law and the article and essay referenced in the OP is that there are specific similarities between the political situation in America today and the political situation in Germany prior to the rise of Hitler.

The author doesn't say that America is headed for Nazism or about to commit genocide, but that the way in which republicans have stacked the deck in their favor by gerrymandering and now, the SCOTUS, among other things, puts them in position to become the party in control, permanently - or at least until a revolution happens I guess.  Would such a party support, uphold or progress rights for women, gays, minorities or the working class?   

There's a pretty big difference between fear-of-sharia based on some hyped up news stories, and an historian, an expert in his field, noting similarities in two different time periods.  

I went back to the OP and couldn't find an article.  The third post in said this:

That's not to say Trump is like Hitler - Trump is a puppet and a moron.  But it is to say it's amazing at how truly blind and ignorant people can be in the face of clear and present decline.  It's how Hitler rose to power and it's how evil takes hold while people are oblivious to it.

So, Trump is not Hitler but what is happening now is how Hitler rose to power and we are all blind and ignorant if we can't see it?  I suppose McConnell is Hitler.

My response was that I would want to see us a lot further down that path before I would worry about a Nazi government in the USA.  My question to RM was to illustrate the bias that says that only certain authoritarian systems are wrong. 

Edited October 8, 2018 by bcsapper

[OftenWrong]

9 hours ago, ReeferMadness said:

Well.  Maybe instead of asking did you read the article, I should have asked whether you understood the article.  Did the article say, as you claim

Well, let's have a look.

No.  It says the exact opposite.

Now, you shouldn't feel too bad.  I know some of the big words are tough.  Just have someone explain them to you.

The article you linked to is ridiculous, and now that you were called out on the stupidity of Hitler comparisons, you are backpedalling on your own claims. Well that's progress I suppose. The whole thread is designed as an inflammatory, joke. What's funnier is those who took it seriously! 

[dialamah]

2 minutes ago, bcsapper said:

I went back to the OP and couldn't find an article.  The third post in said this:

That's not to say Trump is like Hitler - Trump is a puppet and a moron.  But it is to say it's amazing at how truly blind and ignorant people can be in the face of clear and present decline.  It's how Hitler rose to power and it's how evil takes hold while people are oblivious to it.

So, Trump is not Hitler but what is happening now is how Hitler rose to power and we are all blind and ignorant if we can't see it?  I suppose McConnell is Hitler.

My response was that I would want to see us a lot further down that path before I would worry about a Nazi government in the USA.  My question to RM was to illustrate the bias that says that only certain authoritarian systems are wrong. 

Sorry for my accidental misdirection; it's a few posts down from the OP.   Here is the link to the essay, without commentary on blindness or ignorance.

Anyway, que s'era s'era. If the world is going to go hard right, sink into a second dark ages, be decimated by progressives or climate change, or suddenly be overcome by humanitarianism and good sense, we'll just have to wait and see.

[WestCanMan]

1 hour ago, dialamah said:

  Because if there is anything right wingers are good at, it's arguing against what wasn't said and what hasn't happened.

Another baseless allegation from Dialamah. Surprise surprise. 

If a Hillary supporter saw an article called “Why Trump is the greatest human since Jesus” would they read it and give it serious thought?  99% wouldn’t, and reefermadness and dialamah would support that decision and they wouldn’t insult their intelligence. 

FYI comparing Trump to Hitler is in reality a non-starter for intelligent conversation. Period. We’ve all seen it done before and it’s always moronic. This article was the same and anyone with half a brain who read any of it would actually know that.

 

 

 

[WestCanMan]

17 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

By who?

 

 

 

But Trump is the bad guy ?

1 members of the conservative party

2 when did I say that?

Edited October 8, 2018 by WestCanMan
Over-edit the comment i was replying to

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, dialamah said:

Sorry for my accidental misdirection; it's a few posts down from the OP.   Here is the link to the essay, without commentary on blindness or ignorance.

Anyway, que s'era s'era. If the world is going to go hard right, sink into a second dark ages, be decimated by progressives or climate change, or suddenly be overcome by humanitarianism and good sense, we'll just have to wait and see.

Whilst I do not believe the US is in any current danger of emulating a Fourth Reich, I do believe you are closest to the bullseye with your "dark ages" prediction.  Too many people, too few resources, a growing world population and a shrinking land mass from which to feed them, along with the ruination of the fisheries, and pretty soon left and right aren't going to mean much. 

[dialamah]

32 minutes ago, WestCanMan said:

Another baseless allegation from Dialamah. Surprise surprise. 

FYI comparing Trump to Hitler is in reality a non-starter for intelligent conversation. Period. We’ve all seen it done before and it’s always moronic. This article was the same and anyone with half a brain who read any of it would actually know that.

You did not read it, made (wrong) assumptions, and argued against those assumptions.  The essay's author specifically says "Trump is not Hitler and Trumpism is not Nazism".  In fact, he nentions a different politician as being an architect of the current political situation.

I would say you just proved my allegation.

Edited October 8, 2018 by dialamah

[Michael Hardner]

19 minutes ago, bcsapper said:

Too many people, too few resources, a growing world population and a shrinking land mass from which to feed them, along with the ruination of the fisheries, and pretty soon left and right aren't going to mean much. 

As per your post, are problems are with perceptions and attitude.  Humans have never been so prosperous, nor harmonious for that matter.  A new form of media that allows broadcasting of minority ideas, beliefs, opinions, facts... has created an HDTV view of ourselves, with all the cracks and blemishes.  Like Adam and Eve, we have eaten from the tree of knowledge and now realize we were naked all along.

[WestCanMan]

Just now, dialamah said:

You did not read it, made (wrong) assumptions, and argued against those assumptions.  The article's author specifically says "".Trump is not Hitler and Trumpism is not Nazism".  In fact, he mentions a different politician as being an architect of the current political situation.

I would say you just proved my allegation.

I did read it, and your specific quote was edited to make it appear reasonable. It was not reasonable. The full quote goes on the say that the biggest difference between them is that Hitler didn’t want any more elections. 

 

Is that why we hate Hitler? Because of his dislike for elections?

 

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

As per your post, are problems are with perceptions and attitude.  Humans have never been so prosperous, nor harmonious for that matter.  A new form of media that allows broadcasting of minority ideas, beliefs, opinions, facts... has created an HDTV view of ourselves, with all the cracks and blemishes.  Like Adam and Eve, we have eaten from the tree of knowledge and now realize we were naked all along.

I'm not sure I get your point, but if it means things are going to get better rather than worse it's safe to say I disagree with it.

[dialamah]

18 minutes ago, WestCanMan said:

I did read it,

Who is the politician named as "the gravedigger of democracy"?

Quote

The full quote goes on the say that the biggest difference between them is that Hitler didn’t want any more elections. 

Here is the full quote, from the essay:

Quote

 

It is possible that Trump is engaged in excessive rhetorical posturing as a bargaining chip and will retreat to more moderate positions in both cases. But it is also possible that adversarial momentum will will build, room for concessions will disappear, and he will plunge the country into serious economic or military conflicts as a captive of his own rhetoric. Historically, such confrontations and escalations have often escaped the control of leaders far more talented than Trump.

No matter how and when the Trump presidency ends, the specter of illiberalism will continue to haunt American politics. A highly politicized judiciary will remain, in which close Supreme Court decisions will be viewed by many as of dubious legitimacy, and future judicial appointments will be fiercely contested. The racial division, cultural conflict, and political polarization Trump has encouraged and intensified will be difficult to heal. Gerrymandering, voter suppression, and uncontrolled campaign spending will continue to result in elections skewed in an unrepresentative and undemocratic direction. Growing income disparity will be extremely difficult to halt, much less reverse.

Finally, within several decades after Trump’s presidency has ended, the looming effects of ecological disaster due to human-caused climate change—which Trump not only denies but is doing so much to accelerate—will be inescapable. Desertification of continental interiors, flooding of populous coastal areas, and increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, with concomitant shortages of fresh water and food, will set in motion both population flight and conflicts over scarce resources that dwarf the current fate of Central Africa and Syria. No wall will be high enough to shelter the US from these events. Trump is not Hitler and Trumpism is not Nazism, but regardless of how the Trump presidency concludes, this is a story unlikely to have a happy ending.

 

This is the end of the essay.

 

Quote

Is that why we hate Hitler? Because of his dislike for elections?

For the Nth time, the essay isn't about Trump becoming another Hitler, but about the similar political situation in Germany (and the world) that led to his government.  Its about change for the worse, due to political machinations by people seeking power at all costs.

Edited October 8, 2018 by dialamah

[Michael Hardner]

40 minutes ago, bcsapper said:

I'm not sure I get your point, but if it means things are going to get better rather than worse it's safe to say I disagree with it.

They may get better, or they may get worse but your assessment of "too many people too few resources" being the reason for dischord doesn't ring true since we have more people than ever right now and more people doing better also.

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

They may get better, or they may get worse but your assessment of "too many people too few resources" being the reason for dischord doesn't ring true since we have more people than ever right now and more people doing better also.

It's a massive generalization, I'll grant you, but I can't think of a better way to put the problems facing the world right now.  Lots of people are doing better but they were always going to anyway.  I do just fine.  The Mediterranean is full of people who would disagree with you though,  if they still had a voice.

[WestCanMan]

5 minutes ago, dialamah said:

Who is the politician named as "the gravedigger of democracy"?

Here is the full quote, from the essay:

This is the end of the essay.

 

For the Nth time, the essay isn't about Trump becoming another Hitler, but about the similar political situation in Germany (and the world) that led to his government.  Its about change for the worse, due to political machinations by people seeking power at all costs.

I talked earlier about the importance of SCJs doing their actual job, and not ruling from the bench. No one argues about the fact that Republicans appoint judges who make rulings based on properly interpreting the constitution. Both sides have no choice but to agree with that statement. If McConnell was able to stop the appointment of another Ruth Bader Ginsberg that's actually a win for democracy. Not digging a grave. 

If you'll agree that fair elections are the key to a democracy, then you must also believe that elections should actually mean something. What's the point of holding elections if SCJs with lifetime appointments don't abide by the legal statutes in the constitution and legally changed by elected officials?

"The dubious legitimacy of the Supreme Court" is this writer's fiction. The Republicans had the power to stop Obama from getting a SCJ appointed. They used it. That's not dubious, it's the result of the will of the electorate.

"It's possible that adversarial momentum will build... serious economic or military conflicts..." blah blah blah. Anything is possible. I could say that the Sun might get 10% colder in the next 50 years. That doesn't make it a topic worth discussing. This is more fiction based on his doom and gloom whining. Trump ran circles around Putin and Assad. He came out with the concession that removing Assad was no longer a must, because the country was facing too much devastation - then Assad got bold and gassed people. Trump bombed him. Win for Trump. Assad and mighty Russia rattled their sabres something fierce, and then 6 months later they gassed people again. Trump stuffed more bombs down Assad's throat and his troops killed 200 Russians. HUGE win for Trump. Syrians praised Trump, but Democrats said "he lacked a clearly-defined foreign policy" lol. The rest of the world understands his policy of bombing shitheads. And the fact that he is actually fighting Islamic State.

Equating Trump with racial division is another fantasy. Obama was the biggest racial divider I've personally witnessed on this planet in my lifetime and that's easy for me to prove. Can you recall how many racially motivated riots and lootings occurred in the two years 2015 and 2016? Was it more than the riots that occurred in the 33 years between 1975 and 2008? Yep. What was the basis for all that? The Treyvon Martin killing, and the Michael Brown shooting. Did Obama witness the T Martin shooting? Nope. So was he in a position to say that "he looked like me, so that could have happened to me"? Nope. Did it cause racial divide when the POTUS insinuated that Martin was gunned down just because he was black? Yep. Ditto for the Micael Brown shooting. When CNN initially reported that Brown was an innocent "gentle giant" and loved by everyone who was just shot from a police car while his hands were up did they ever really back down from that initial stance as evidence started to mount against that scenario? Did Obama ever say "the initial reports were wildly inaccurate and the riots are out of place"? Nope. Did he comment on the video of M Brown's robbery, and say that the police actually did have reason to come for M Brown? Nope. To say that Obama fiddled while the USA burned is inaccurate - Obama fanned the flames. He dined with the BLM leaders. When 5 policemen were killed in Dallas did Obama come out and unequivocally state that it was a heinous act by a lowlife criminal, or did he make a martyr of the killer by linking the deaths of policemen to "centuries of discrimination, slavery and Jim Crowe laws" in his infamous "I'm a racist" speech? Of course he made a martyr of that killer, I can show you the video. There are approximately 1M police officers in the US and they do a tough, dangerous, emotionally damaging job every day. Did Obama make their lives better or worse?  Remember that Trump was supposed to unequivocally state that "white supremists" started the violence in Charlottesville, and he just said "Two sides came looking for a fight"? Was Trump's comment 100% accurate? Yes. It's sick that those people exist, and even more sick that they feel like they can show their faces in the light of day, but the actual truth is that the violence was mutual. It's also true to say that non-racists also opposed the removal of the statue. Did Trump take more heat for telling the unfortuante truth than Obama did for his "I can see why cops get killed sometimes and I'm a racist" speech? Yep.  

[dialamah]

1 minute ago, WestCanMan said:

If you'll agree that fair elections are the key to a democracy, then you must also believe that elections should actually mean something.

Yes indeed.  So if the essay writer is correct, and the Republicans have manipulated the system so that they are in position to remain in power, regardless of what the electorate actually want, wouldn't that be a problem?  Because that is the situation the historian sees developing.

[WestCanMan]

52 minutes ago, dialamah said:

 

 

For the Nth time, the essay isn't about Trump becoming another Hitler, but about the similar political situation in Germany (and the world) that led to his government.  Its about change for the worse, due to political machinations by people seeking power at all costs.

For some reason I couldn't separate paragraphs with the enter key, I had to end that reply and carry on here. 

FYI global warming due to human interference is a farce. The avg temperature of the earth has always fluctuated and our contribution is minimal. We're running out of fresh water because there are 7 billion people. https://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/04/28-000-rivers-disappeared-in-china-what-happened/275365/

 

The situation in Germany that led to nazism is hugely worth studying and I'm shocked that no one does it. People are happy to rage about it and vow to stop it but I think that studying how it could even happen should seriously be done before everyone with living memory of that time is dead. But that's not what this is.

1935 Germany was nothing like the America of today. A whole generation of German men died in the muddy rat-infested trenches of WW1 just 17 years earlier, or survived to face a vast depression which was easily attributable by Hitler to the reparation payments that they were forced to pay, regardless of how much of that was true. 

 

You think that comparing Trump with Hitler is fair game, but it actually requires more than the writer's own incorrect assumptions. 

 

[WestCanMan]

35 minutes ago, dialamah said:

Yes indeed.  So if the essay writer is correct, and the Republicans have manipulated the system so that they are in position to remain in power, regardless of what the electorate actually want, wouldn't that be a problem?  Because that is the situation the historian sees developing.

If you have a problem with the entire system of "lifetime appointed judges" that's one thing, but there was no actual manipulation of the system to get the SCJs appointed.

President appoints, Senate confirms. If the Dems didn't have a majority in the Senate when Obama was President then he was at the mercy of the Senate. He should have been a more popular President so that his Senators won their elections.

One other major consideration, Trump made a list of all the judges from which he was going to choose his appointees BEFORE he got elected. The names Gorsuch and Kavanaugh were on that list, and Americans voted for Trump with full disclosure. 

[Michael Hardner]

1 hour ago, bcsapper said:

1. Lots of people are doing better but they were always going to anyway.   

2. The Mediterranean is full of people who would disagree with you though,  if they still had a voice.

1. Well, I don't know how you can both be a pessimist and say they were going to do better anyway but ok.

2. Maybe they are the result of a bad system starting to come down though.  

[ironstone]

If Trump ever decides to weaponize any federal agencies against his opponents like Obama did,then this topic might be relevant some day.Trump won the election fair and square,in spite of everything going against him.Clinton outspent him by a wide margin,had overwhelming support and help from the mainstream media,she got financial support from the Russians as well(Bill's grossly overpaid speaches,contributions to the Clinton Foundation).Trump just outworked Hillary in a big way.

Trump is no dictator,not even remotely close.One huge difference between him and all of his predecessors is that he says what he thinks,right out in the open.How's that for transparency?He is much stronger on foreign policy and has rightly called out the slacking of his allies, notably in defence spending.

[Guest]

23 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

1. Well, I don't know how you can both be a pessimist and say they were going to do better anyway but ok.

2. Maybe they are the result of a bad system starting to come down though.  

I'm pessimistic about the world, not my neighbourhood.   Not in the short term anyway. 

[Michael Hardner]

1 minute ago, bcsapper said:

I'm pessimistic about the world, not my neighbourhood.   Not in the short term anyway. 

 Ok, well the lots of people doing better includes the Chinese middle class.  Is that your neighbourhood ?

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

 Ok, well the lots of people doing better includes the Chinese middle class.  Is that your neighbourhood ?

Not any more.  I did live in the lower mainland for 22 years.

So you think that, in general, the situation is improving, and will continue to do so?  You think things are getting better, not worse, and will continue that trend?  Nothing to worry about, just keep doing what we are doing and all will be fine? It's an interesting viewpoint, and one I hadn't considered before. It puts me in mind of Vogon poetry, for some reason...

Edited October 8, 2018 by bcsapper

[WestCanMan]

2 hours ago, WestCanMan said:

I could say that the Sun might get 10% colder in the next 50 years. That doesn't make it a topic worth discussing.

LMAO: https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2018/09/27/the-chill-of-solar-minimum/

I just read about this on FB, so I looked for other sources to verify it. There's a lot of talk on the net about a 2018 solar minimum, but I take everything I see on the internet (& CNN) with a grain of salt. I'm not saying this is true, false or anything else. It's just on the net.