Trump

[Pam Seeback]

Another interesting discussion by Chris Hedges, recorded three days ago, where he gives his latest thoughts on the Trump administration and the state of the world more generally. Still as perceptive and direct as ever. Highly recommended.

Chris Hedges & Abby Martin: No Way Out Through Elections

Are you passionate about left politics because of your experience with the Australian welfare program in relation to your passionate journey to find wisdom? If I recall a comment made by you many years ago, it was to the effect that you felt that you couldn't work and pursue wisdom at the same time and that by receiving the dole, you were able to give your all to your passion. I am not applying judgment here, just trying to understand.

I’m not passionate about left politics. Normally, I have zero interest in politics. But the danger posed by the right at the moment is impossible to ignore. What the right are doing should terrify anyone who values sanity and the future well-being of our species. This goes far beyond the issue of welfare programs.

Zero interest in politics except to use them to point out how they reflect the ignorance of attachment seems to me to be the right response for a self-proclaimed sage of the infinite. This is what puzzles me about your use of intensely emotional concepts such as 'terrify' and 'danger' and 'flakes' and 'jackasses'.

I see this same contradiction in Dan's and Kevin's words, Kevin's less so as he does not use reactionary language. As for using politics to promote rationality for the sake of wisdom, how do the three of you hope to attain this lofty goal when none of you represent what would seem to be the most rational viewpoint, that of Centrism ?

According to the Wiki entry, in Australia the centre is currently represented by the Centre Alliance who support same-sex marriage, reform of the Australian Intelligence Community, action on climate change, military veterans, affordable tax cuts, Australian-made manufacturing, including defence-industry spending and legalising euthanasia, platforms that sound, to me, to be a rational compromise between left and right extremes.

At the heart of it all, I am curious as to why passion for non-attachment is not enough to keep the fires of sagacity burning?

[David Quinn]

jupiviv wrote to Kevin:

All you've offered so far are unsubstantiated claims that the people who disagree with you are wrong, and unsubstantiated claims that the things you say are correct.

Agreed. It has become clear that he has nothing of substance to offer.

For example:

"The Hundreds Of Ways Trump Has Trampled Science"

Both sides trample science, about equally. You are not looking at both sides of the picture.

No reasoning or evidence is given. Not even a link to a supporting article. Just a blanket assertion that seems solely designed to highlight his own disconnection from reality.

Nearly all of his comments are like this.

But the gamergate affair clearly had a huge impact and seems to have completely eviscerated him.

You're not making a rational argument. All you're doing is making personal smears and personal attacks.

I’m a Zen guy who is attacking the large ego fortress that you currently hide behind.

If you still had any connection at all to the spiritual path, you would know that bodhisattvas don’t deal in personal smears and personal attacks. They neither give them, nor receive them. It’s not how they operate. Their minds are always focused on something much higher.

Thus, your words are revealing. Your attempt to deflect attention from the reality of your spiritual decline only ends up doing the opposite. It actually highlights just how long and steep your decline has become.

And you’re not even conscious of it.

That’s the thing that really strikes me nowadays, just how unconscious you are. Unconscious of the nature of the spiritual path. Unconscious of how you used to be as a person and as a thinker. Unconscious of how vacuous your words and thoughts have become. Unconscious of the corrupt nature of Trump and his criminal cronies. Unconscious of the nature and scope of your own emotional hatred of liberals.

You've turned into a complete joke.

It has to be deliberate. No one can shed that many layers of consciousness and persistently will himself to be firmly confined within a small bubble of liberal-hating existence without desiring it to be so. Turning into a complete joke is the very point of the exercise.

It’s not unlike joining a wacky cult religion. The purpose is to escape reality, so the wackier the religion, the better. And the more intensely one can submit to the religion, the better. A full-on plunge into utter wackiness is what’s all about. It allows one to go through a door into another realm, where, untethered by reality, one is free to believe whatever one likes. Unconscious, but free.

Unconscious, thus free.

So what happens when you strip away all of the spiritual layers from your consciousness, leaving only a vengeful ego behind? You effectively become a version of Trump. The raging egotistical lunatic inside you looks outwards to the raging egotistical lunatic running the White House and instantly identifies with it. They are soul-buddies. Twins.

Hence the constant campaign by Kevin on this forum to justify and excuse Trump’s corrupt, unethical behaviour. For in reality, he is using Trump to excuse his own corrupt behaviour. He is excusing and justifying his own descent from the lofty heights of the spiritual realm to an animalistic, tribal, vengeful mode of existence.

[David Quinn]

Another interesting discussion by Chris Hedges, recorded three days ago, where he gives his latest thoughts on the Trump administration and the state of the world more generally. Still as perceptive and direct as ever. Highly recommended.

Chris Hedges & Abby Martin: No Way Out Through Elections

Are you passionate about left politics because of your experience with the Australian welfare program in relation to your passionate journey to find wisdom? If I recall a comment made by you many years ago, it was to the effect that you felt that you couldn't work and pursue wisdom at the same time and that by receiving the dole, you were able to give your all to your passion. I am not applying judgment here, just trying to understand.

I’m not passionate about left politics. Normally, I have zero interest in politics. But the danger posed by the right at the moment is impossible to ignore. What the right are doing should terrify anyone who values sanity and the future well-being of our species. This goes far beyond the issue of welfare programs.

Zero interest in politics except to use them to point out how they reflect the ignorance of attachment seems to me to be the right response for a self-proclaimed sage of the infinite. This is what puzzles me about your use of intensely emotional concepts such as 'terrify' and 'danger' and 'flakes' and 'jackasses'.

I see this same contradiction in Dan's and Kevin's words, Kevin's less so as he does not use reactionary language. As for using politics to promote rationality for the sake of wisdom, how do the three of you hope to attain this lofty goal when none of you represent what would seem to be the most rational viewpoint, that of Centrism ?

According to the Wiki entry, in Australia the centre is currently represented by the Centre Alliance who support same-sex marriage, reform of the Australian Intelligence Community, action on climate change, military veterans, affordable tax cuts, Australian-made manufacturing, including defence-industry spending and legalising euthanasia, platforms that sound, to me, to be a rational compromise between left and right extremes.

At the heart of it all, I am curious as to why passion for non-attachment is not enough to keep the fires of sagacity burning?

You're clearly still attached to the idea that enlightened non-attachment equates to indifference. And also to the idea that enlightened people would only use neutral language. You really need to challenge these delusions and free yourself from them. They are holding you back.

When a Buddha has wet clothes in his hands, he hangs them up. When his house catches fire, he seeks to put it out. When a dangerous political movement arises that promotes far right nationalism, authoritarian rule, Soviet-style propaganda techniques such as trolling and gaslighting, anti-intellectualism, and climate change denialism - all of which threatens the continued existence and well-being of the human species - he does what he can to oppose it.

Chuang Tzu said:

He who knows the part which the Heavenly in him plays, and knows also
that which the Human in him ought to play, has reached the perfection of
knowledge.

He also said:

I hate what seems right, but what in reality is wrong. I hate the darnel lest it
be confused with the corn. I hate the glib talker lest he be confused with the
righteous. I hate the good careful villagers, lest they be confused with the
virtuous.

[David Quinn]

As for using politics to promote rationality for the sake of wisdom, how do the three of you hope to attain this lofty goal when none of you represent what would seem to be the most rational viewpoint, that of Centrism ?

Most people like to think of themselves as centrists. I think of myself as a centrist. Even Kevin claims he is a centrist. It's one of those words - like "moderation" and "balance" - whose meaning is so flexible and fluid that it doesn't really stand for anything.

It's like the capitalism vs socialism debate. Hardly anyone is in favour of 100% capitalism, just as hardly anyone favours 100% socialism. Nearly everyone recognizes that the most effective system involves a mixture of both. The debate, therefore, is not whether either socialism or capitalism should be dismissed out of hand, but where the line should be drawn. How much socialism (redistribution of income) should there be? How much should capitalism be reigned in and regulated?

Another example is free speech. Everybody believes in free speech as a principle, just as everyone believes that certain restrictions need to be placed on free speech in certain circumstances (e.g. the teaching of pedophelia to school children). It's just a matter of where we want to draw the line. As such, the raging, hate-filled debate between the free speech warriors and the "radical left" has been falsely framed from the outset and thus is essentially nothing more than a meaningless brawl.

According to the Wiki entry, in Australia the centre is currently represented by the Centre Alliance who support same-sex marriage, reform of the Australian Intelligence Community, action on climate change, military veterans, affordable tax cuts, Australian-made manufacturing, including defence-industry spending and legalising euthanasia, platforms that sound, to me, to be a rational compromise between left and right extremes.

On paper, they sound like reasonable policy positions. And normally, I would support them. But the reality of the environmental crisis bearing down upon us throws a huge spanner into the works. It is not reasonable, nor "centrist", to stick one's head in the sand and pretend that nothing serious is happening.

The warnings by scientists are becoming louder and more urgent:

Climate emergency: world 'may have crossed tipping points’

In bleak report, U.N. says drastic action is only way to avoid worst effects of climate change

Moving forward, oppressive totalitarian regimes with major restrictions on individual rights and free speech are probably going to become the norm, unfortunately. It's becoming clear that neither democracy, nor our culture of free speech, are up to the task of addressing the massive global problem that our deteriorating environment represents.

The only way to address it with the urgency and coherency it requires is to install the best minds into power and give them the power to rule authoritatively over us all. It would mean trusting in their ability to devise the most intelligent and effective policies and obeying their edicts without question, no matter how distasteful we personally find these edicts to be.

If we don't do something like this, then civilization is destined to collapse under the weight of the growing environmental crisis. And if and when that happens, it will be dark, cruel totalitarian regimes run by criminal-types that will spring up in the resulting vacuum.

In other words, we have a choice as a species between voluntarily installing benevolent dictatorships run by wise, intelligent people in order to deal with the issue consciously and rationally, or continue to stumble blindly down the path towards civilizational collapse and the cruel arms of malevolent regimes. Either way, democracy is finished.

I wonder which way we are going to go?

[Dan Rowden]

He is the greatest bullshit artist we've ever seen in American politics at this level.

I don't think he lies as much as the media does. So relative to them, he looks pretty good.

That statement is just embarrassingly fatuous, Kevin. As I stated in the older thread on this topic, one does not even need the media to make a sound and reliable judgement of Trump's various intellectual and moral failings and general malaise, particularly since his reign as POTUS. Nor does one need the media to see the inherent corruption, kleptocracy, extraordinary nepotism, utter incompetence and general chaos of this 'administration'. All you need is a single, tiny little smidgen of objectivity. You clearly lack that right now.

One ought treat media narratives presented by outlets like MSNBC with caution, of course, but in the broader sense of the coverage of Trump and his regime, the facts are about as bare as facts can fucking-well be.

[Rhett]

Just going to dip in over here again, I'd be interested to hear about what Dan, David and Rhett have to say about the Senate and Congress supporting the HK bill (with Trump wavering about it).

I really dont know why, if Trump is seen as wavering.

From a purely speculative position, there is a heap of heat on him with China, it could be a deliberate technique to not add to that. I have been in heated political positions somewhat like that and looked for ways to manage that heat, so i can relate. In private, he might be fully in favour, he could have even been a driver, i dont know. Americans want Trump to put America first, and some want him to somehow resolve the trade war with China. Some dont yet see that its likely unresolvable.

I generally dont think speculation is worth discussing.

[jupiviv]

"The Hundreds Of Ways Trump Has Trampled Science"

Both sides trample science, about equally. You are not looking at both sides of the picture.

No reasoning or evidence is given. Not even a link to a supporting article. Just a blanket assertion that seems solely designed to highlight his own disconnection from reality.

It's a real shame, then, that you do the exact same shit when I challenge your puerile ramblings about things you clearly don't even understand.

The only way to address it with the urgency and coherency it requires is to install the best minds into power and give them the power to rule authoritatively over us all. It would mean trusting in their ability to devise the most intelligent and effective policies and obeying their edicts without question, no matter how distasteful we personally find these edicts to be.

Clearly, awesome claymite grange reserch gives people the ability to rule over all of humanity. And apparently you genuinely believe this constitutes "applying wisdom to practical issues".

How about making the fucking effort to actually *think* instead of merely typing down whatever sounds wise or anti-Kevin/Trump in your head? If you'd done that since this topic was first brought up, instead of calling everyone brainwashed, maybe we would've moved on by now. Maybe racist lowlifes wouldn't be filling in the huge gaps in actual arguments/discussion.

[David Quinn]

No reasoning or evidence is given. Not even a link to a supporting article. Just a blanket assertion that seems solely designed to highlight his own disconnection from reality.

It's a real shame, then, that you do the exact same shit when I challenge your puerile ramblings about things you clearly don't even understand.

I disagree. You may well believe in your own head that you have made some challenges, but so far I haven't found them very convincing.

The only way to address it with the urgency and coherency it requires is to install the best minds into power and give them the power to rule authoritatively over us all. It would mean trusting in their ability to devise the most intelligent and effective policies and obeying their edicts without question, no matter how distasteful we personally find these edicts to be.

Clearly, awesome claymite grange reserch gives people the ability to rule over all of humanity. And apparently you genuinely believe this constitutes "applying wisdom to practical issues".

How about making the fucking effort to actually *think* instead of merely typing down whatever sounds wise or anti-Kevin/Trump in your head? If you'd done that since this topic was first brought up, instead of calling everyone brainwashed, maybe we would've moved on by now. Maybe racist lowlifes wouldn't be filling in the huge gaps in actual arguments/discussion.

Had a bad day?

I wasn't making a statement about my beliefs. I was simply fleshing out the logic of the situation that we find ourselves in. The first step to applying wisdom is fully recognizing the reality at hand.

[Rhett]

I see it the other way. The extinction of the species is final; there is no coming back from that. Totalitarian regimes, on the other hand, are fragile and temporary; there is always the possibility that they can be overthrown and liberty can be restored.
It’s a no-brainer, really.

Rhett: So, you have strong, solid evidence, that Trump will cause a global nuclear holocaust?

David: No, of course I have no solid evidence that he will cause a global nuclear holocaust......

In any case, the discussion with Kevin on this particular subject has been more to do with the (very real) environmental crisis, rather than an imagined nuclear holocaust.

So, do you retract your assertion that the extinction of the species is at stake in relation to Trump being president?

You write a lot, but with basic flaws in your arguments they dont amount to much.

Rhett: Is this the beginning of a smear campaign? I started posting again here and almost immediately you have made nasty personal attacks. Are you angry? Where did the nice guy i used to know go?

David: I'm still that nice guy, but I like to troll sometimes. Get used to it.

'I shoot arrows through apples placed on people's heads. I deliberately miss sometimes, but i am still a nice guy. Let me place an apple on your head. I am your friend, get used to it.'

When people dont have a viable argument they try to smear people. People that try to smear people are telling everyone else they dont have a viable argument.

Since you dont value enlightenment, having spurned it yourself, it follows that you dont value the reputations of enlightened people.

Rhett: Why are you so hung up about worldly issues? Why are you hinging relationships on political views?

David: From my perspective, there is no such thing as politics, at bottom. Everything boils down to character and quality of thought. It is those things that I hinge my relationships on.

If a reasonable person looks up the definition of politics, and looks at the world around them, they will conclude that politics exists.

My personal instinct has typically been to regard politics as circumstances where truth and reason are deliberately absent, and where lies are specifically present. Wherever people come together to try to discern and communicate what is true and reasonable, it looks very different from politics.

However, i have come to have a more complex view of it. It clearly involves power play and narratives. But the very existence of power, of resources, of people living side by side, for example, will always create a realm of interplay and management that will practically always involve conflicting visions and values, etc, that need to get sorted out.

[Dan Rowden]

As for using politics to promote rationality for the sake of wisdom, how do the three of you hope to attain this lofty goal when none of you represent what would seem to be the most rational viewpoint, that of Centrism ?

I've actually said virtually nothing about my personal politics. There is very little one can reliably infer about that as a consequences of my arguments against Trump and his regime, or with Kevin and his current stance on that (and the latter is really only nominally about politics anyway - i.e politics is just the landscape upon which the true battle is being played out).

I could literally be a republican and be saying most of what I've said.

I'm not especially interested in identifying myself with some arbitrary political category but I would be more of the centre-left than anything, even though currently I find myself in struggles of sanity and reason with so-called 'progressives' here in Australia, whose mentality is all too often driven by a perverse self-righteousness and quietly scary totalitarian bent. There's a kind of 'if you don't agree with my specificities you don't agree with my generalities' rigidity that has crept into progressive politics in Australia (and also infests the Democrats in the US).

You wouldn't believe the 'trouble' I've gotten myself into by defending Angus Taylor against Naomi Wolf. Jesus. Actually I've not been defending Taylor so much as calling for sanity to rule. Taylor is a corrupt conservative politician and Wolf is, well, dumb as a meat hook. But how the politics of such dynamics plays out is both fascinating and disturbing; disturbing in the sense of how easily it causes people to lose their collective shit. This is not surprising given what we know of herd behaviours etc, but when you're in the middle of it you certainly get to see the naked insanity close up. It's not my sort of porn.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

I don’t know anything about Abby Martin and have no interest in her. Her role in this video was simply to facilitate the airing of Hedges’ views. Aside from this, she is irrelevant. So that’s half your post dealt with right there. Admittedly, she does have nice legs.

Sometimes, context is everything. You might not be interested in who she was but I found it illustrative enough to analyze her presence.

- I’m not sure that Chris Hedges is actually a hard-core socialist. He might be, but I don’t really know. He agrees with Marx that capitalism is an unsustainable system that invariably cannibalizes itself - an obvious truth that is currently being played out in America - but that doesn’t necessarily mean that he is an advocate of communism. I have the impression that he is far too intelligent and non-conformist to fall for that sort of thing.

People who believe in the theory that capitalism invariably cannibalizes itself are called Marxists or socialists. And I didn't mention communism.

Essentially, Hedges is a revolutionary who feels compelled to fight against tyranny in all of its forms.

That can become a part of a personality, looking to tyrannies to fight and oppose. And there will always be more of that (and the poor).

- Your bit about, “Presbyterian minister Chris, promoting what only can be called the new modern world religion with the usual props: victims, sins, saviors and prosecution”, is just the sort of meaningless guff that Alex regularly came up with. Standard postmodernist rubbish.

Alex always hated my actual postmodern references. He prefers more conservative, catholic, Southern reactionary stuff. In any case this is simply a more "complex view" like your statement recently about "power play and narratives".

Religions are widely seen as systems to deal with the question of the origin of evil, salvation and liberation while ending often up as persecuting something or someone, if not themselves. Or more commonly: let someone else take the role of saving or persecuting. Or invoke the devil....

[Diebert van Rhijn]

I’m a Zen guy (....) bodhisattvas don’t deal in personal smears and personal attacks. They neither give them, nor receive them. It’s not how they operate. Their minds are always focused on something much higher.

That's just asserting how you'd like it to be! But the human being "David" might still have to be challenged when it appears that he does smear but then maybe quickly hides it again! In any case, just stating that you are not doing it and then asking "believe me" seems unreasonable.

I wasn't making a statement about my beliefs. I was simply fleshing out the logic of the situation that we find ourselves in. The first step to applying wisdom is fully recognizing the reality at hand.

You have to realize that it doesn't mean anything to declare that it's simply logic, soundness of mind or reality. You seem to do it quite often lately. Perhaps some doubts need to creep in first? To know more in depth that you don't know?

[jupiviv]

The only way to address it with the urgency and coherency it requires is to install the best minds into power and give them the power to rule authoritatively over us all. It would mean trusting in their ability to devise the most intelligent and effective policies and obeying their edicts without question, no matter how distasteful we personally find these edicts to be.
...
I wasn't making a statement about my beliefs. I was simply fleshing out the logic of the situation that we find ourselves in. The first step to applying wisdom is fully recognizing the reality at hand.

The reality you have actually recognised is this - solve a problem by giving the people who know how to solve it the authority and the means to solve it. This is a simple logical deduction using terms that have simple meanings and relate to one another perfectly logically. However, you are conflating your correct application of logic to the reality of that simple deduction, with your incorrect application of the exact same logic to a different, more complex reality. You are also falsely attributing my disagreement with your logic in the latter context to my disagreement with the straightforward and faultless logic of the former. Hope that clears things up for you.

[jupiviv]

The link perfectly explains why the law didn't cause mass incarceration. Even your tiny fragment mentions "many factors" which means certainly not "instrumental in doubling the prison population". The trend was already there meaning it's highly speculative at best and the article keeps the option open that the law might have "encouraged". The claim of it being instrumental is simply not true: not proven and certainly no fact.

Over the decades, no credible analyst has cast the 1994 crime bill as the trigger for mass incarceration. The evidence does show that the 1994 bill was part of a trend that was already underway. To vet Biden’s statement, we have to ask if the bill’s role was as small as he suggests.

The only claim it debunks is that the bill itself inaugurated mass incarceration, which is not the same as having no role.

acceptance of any prohibitions on speech at all = recognition of need to mitigate risk of abuse. So you have already abandoned your own claim: "nothing would prevent the abuse" is exactly the type of risk that free-speech advocates are, well, advocating.

You wrote actually "nothing would prevent the abuse of this right towards dishonest and self-serving ends at the expense of its use in promoting honest and virtuous ones like upholding a universally enforceable right to free speech."

Nothing in there links that abuse to harming people in any direct manner.

I was responding to your earlier point about free speech overriding prevention of death, misery or instability.

It just leaves open some potential risk. And yes, that includes the known risk that certain free speech advocates against free speech in general. That is exactly what is being accepted!

Like in democracy a large majority might vote for making the system less democratic. Call it an axiom of the system: that it required affirming its own basic freedom, it simply assumes it but certainly will never suggest preventing this with force, laws or bans. Doing that would certainly end the very system it claims to promote!

The codification of free speech doesn't by itself lead to conditions where all speech is equally tolerated and judged on its merits. In fact, nothing leads to that. Likewise for democracy. Throughout history, founders and/or primary benefactors of governments containing elements of democracy advocated or enacted measures against whatever they considered to be abuses of the form/s of democracy relevant to them.

You're arguing for *hypothetical* systems that lack any safeguards against potential abuse on principle; principles supposedly crucial to wisdom also. Well you have to make that case instead of pretending they already exist.

According to free speech principles anyone is free to make the effort but there's no "right" to be given an audience.

What "principles"? What "effort"? Who defines those things in that way & why? The value and potency of speech depends upon things other than its content, and people of all kinds have demanded those things if they felt they were lacking through force or revolt or threat of such for quite a while now.

I wasn't making a statement about my beliefs. I was simply fleshing out the logic of the situation that we find ourselves in. The first step to applying wisdom is fully recognizing the reality at hand.

You have to realize that it doesn't mean anything to declare that it's simply logic, soundness of mind or reality. You seem to do it quite often lately. Perhaps some doubts need to creep in first? To know more in depth that you don't know?

My criticism applies to you as well, in fact probably even more so.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

The only claim it debunks is that the bill itself inaugurated mass incarceration, which is not the same as having no role.

You've just changed the meaning of "being instrumental" into having a possible role or influence. That's how you win arguments these days?

Throughout history, founders and/or primary benefactors of governments containing elements of democracy advocated or enacted measures against whatever they considered to be abuses of the form/s of democracy relevant to them.

In fact, that has been quite rare. The situation rarely comes up, not counting simple overthrowing. Non-democratic forces or just radical reformers don't rise up easily throughout the system. However some interesting cases do exist and discussion is ongoing to for example codify into a constitution the impossibility to change the system in any fundamental way. But doing that would, in my view, be a deeply undemocratic move in itself because it decides not only for now but also for all people in the future how it's going to be.

You're arguing for *hypothetical* systems that lack any safeguards against potential abuse on principle; principles supposedly crucial to wisdom also. Well you have to make that case instead of pretending they already exist.

No, real systems. In my own country, a well known democracy of note, this is the very debate that has happened in recent years without resolution as of yet. Perhaps you should not talk about things you don't know that much about?

My criticism applies to you as well, in fact probably even more so.

But I was, in particular, addressing the problem that Quinn called the idea to "install the best minds into power and give them the power to rule authoritatively over us all" to be simply fleshing out logic and applying wisdom, not some belief or opinion. Therefore raising it as more absolute or solid, undeniable stuff. You won't catch me doing this anywhere at all, ever. Apart from that, Quinn has little understanding of what power does to even the "best minds" historically. It's no secret. And even enlightened minds can still cause train wrecks, as we all can witness here.

[SkipRusssell]

Sorry about my some of my previous bizarre or hopefully not too weird statements about wizards. A moderator has taken the liberty of disapproving many of my recent posts because of this. I thought I was fitting into the minority borderline/sociopathic/schizophrenic crowd here on GF? Sorry.

About Trump:
1) He's the first known Gay leader and I believe leads people well in that regard because he is strong and proud about it
2) I think he is a necessary followup to Obama who unintentionally has influenced women (and men) to think that it is more OK to become involved in sexual relationships with ethnic Africans despite the still remaining danger of violence. His dominance, charisma and wealth levels the playing field.
3) I think he's also a necessary followup to Obama in order to retain and promote emotional and monetary self-responsibility and not defer them to institutions

He is too sensational, belligerent and not quite rationally meditative enough for me to like him, but I am a fan of otherwise high self esteem yang, frame dominant behavior because, aside from the entertaining egotism of it, his relatively healthy emotional foundation is refreshing. That being said I agree with almost nothing he's done aside from what may be his crowning achievement in the end - the moves to some sort of nuclear proliferation treaty with NK.

I am a capitalist and think he should balance the budget and put his social skills toward ending the currency war. I want everyone to live at an upper middle class level as soon as possible for moral, aesthetic and physical comfort reasons and think that a strong currency is the best path to achieving it.

Ironically, regarding my 2nd point, and I hope not too very off topic, Obama is actually biologically greater-European. There are four modes of being for homosapiens that best define the races that I outlined in the Racism thread. An Asian and a Black make an ethinic European, like Tiger Woods. A white and black also make an ethnic European, like Obama. I 50/50 mix like Obama and another black make another black, like the former Mr and Ms President's daughter.

As for the unstated and underlying drama in this thread between Kevin and David (and others), I am not any kind of renowned psychotherapist and so do not know how to put this in a way to make a positive impact. Perhaps for that reason there is no love in what I write and simply want to indulge a part of my particular egotism which is to call out what I see.

Kevin has, in some degree, 'owned the frame' on David for many years. David is seeking as a man, but a man who is more sensitive, both to get out from underneath him and also to but put underneath him. I personally would suggest that he get out from underneath him, but not to get the better of him at the same time, and certainly not by doing so with a philosophy that I believe is incorrect.

Some day it could be possible to target the egotism part of the brain with a pain stimulant in order to train homo sapiens to engage much, much less in that kind of behavior. But that cannot be done with thinking. Everything we do is egotistical. GF style reasoning keeps it in check to some degree but then becomes us being very 'knowy' soon after. There is always something in the background of even the most objective of our states saying "I am so wonderfully smart and objective in how objectively I'm thinking here".

It is technically possible to cut out the egotistical function of our brain, but we would not be able to survive very long it is wired so deep in our CNS. The best we can do someday is to make it so that we barely feel its presence at all.

[Kevin Solway]

In the broader sense of the coverage of Trump and his regime, the facts are about as bare as facts can fucking-well be.

I don't agree with your assessment, and no matter how much you swear it doesn't make your "argument" any more persuasive.

[Kevin Solway]

I’m a Zen guy who is attacking the large ego fortress that you currently hide behind.

Trump could say exactly the same thing. In reality you are using personal attacks and smears because you don't have a rational argument.

Just how unconscious you are.

Calling people unconscious, stupid, morons, idiots, etc, and swearing at them, like Dan does, isn't going to get you anywhere.

Unconscious of the corrupt nature of Trump and his criminal cronies.

That's just your personal opinion - which is meaningless.

I could just as well say that you are unconscious of your own corruption. It doesn't advance any kind of conversation. Perhaps that's what you want? No conversation, just insults and violence and force? The same as Antifa.

If you follow this path you're just going to end up in an echo chamber of people doing the same thing as yourself, until it collapses under its own folly.

[Dan Rowden]

In the broader sense of the coverage of Trump and his regime, the facts are about as bare as facts can fucking-well be.

I don't agree with your assessment, and no matter how much you swear it doesn't make your "argument" any more persuasive.

I'm glad you put 'argument' in quotes because I'm not making any sort of argument. There is no FUCKING argument. You sound like a Climate Change denier, or a Creationist or a Flat Earther pretending that some sort of actual 'debate' exists. It does not. I'm making an objectively true observation that any rational person would agree with. End of story.

You like to ignore, as do your Fox and Friends, that while every news outlet and 'personality' like Rachel Maddow likes to put an identifiable spin on any situation, the bare facts are ultimately agreed upon. The bare FUCKING facts, Kevin. Remember what those are?

You're not merely interpreting such facts to suit yourself, which could be said of all of us, ultimately, you're denying those bare facts. That is not ok.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

I'm making an objectively true observation that any rational person would agree with. ....the bare facts are ultimately agreed upon.

Dan, maybe a stupid moronic question (to use your baby language) but could you summarize these bare facts? Not all of them but lets say the top 3 on, I guess, the "corrupt nature of Trump and his criminal cronies". It's unclear which facts you think there's disagreement with in this topic.

To be clear, the facts about:

- crimes done by which cronies related to US government?
- corruption by Trump done as president, and by which measure (law, rule etc).

Just you one or two strongest examples. And see if we can go from there. My main problem is that I kind of lost the point of disagreement you are having with Kevin. Sometimes it seems about everything but Trump!

[Dan Rowden]

Before I respond to that, Diebert, assuming I can be bothered, can you show me the context in which I said 'corrupt nature of Trump and his criminal cronies'. I'm not recalling my use of that phrase.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Okay, fair enough. This is exactly what I'm trying to find out. Kevin responded to David saying that exact phrase, which I used as a starting point. But you mentioned "facts" around the coverage of Trump & "regime". To simply ask "which facts" seemed a bit too much as I know a lot has been posted including links to reporting and government inquiries. But I wanted to zoom in on exactly which exactly which undisputed facts had the strongest disagreements. And to limit the scope a bit, to see if we could select the main ones. One reason I'm asking is that right now many discussions I've seen end in "look at the whole picture" or "add hundred small things together to make one big". Now that method can work but I'd like to see if it can be put simpler with leading facts about particular things people did and not merely said or meant.

[Kevin Solway]

Both sides trample science, about equally. You are not looking at both sides of the picture.

No reasoning or evidence is given.

That which is asserted without evidence can be refuted without evidence. If you claim that the right is more anti-science than the left, without evidence, then I can simply refute it, without evidence.

[Kevin Solway]

I'm not making any sort of argument.

I'm glad you agree that you're not making any kind of rational argument.

It's like a Christian saying, "It is fucking well obvious that God fucking well fucking exists, and any fucking idiot who can't fucking well see this is fucking well sub-human, and the more I swear the more it fucking well means that I fucking believe this fucking fact, which means that my fucking belief is fucking well more true than yours."

I'm making an objectively true observation that any rational person would agree with.

You are expressing a mere opinion. And I think your opinion is mistaken.

The bare facts are ultimately agreed upon.

Which facts exactly? There might be some facts we can agree on. And agreed upon by who? You are using an appeal to authority, which is a logical fallacy. It's like a Christian saying "All rational people agree that God exists", which is nonsense.

[Kevin Solway]

. . . many discussions I've seen end in "look at the whole picture" or "add hundred small things together to make one big".

That's precisely what has me worried. The argument the left is currently presenting seems to be "We don't have any strong actual evidence of wrongdoing, but we have a lot of things that could be interpreted to be wrong, and if you add them all together it creates very strong circumstantial evidence."

Every time I've seen this "philosophy" applied, it has resulted in huge injustice.