From repeatedly declaring that Obama’s birth certificate is a fraud, to declaring that any negative polls or other unflattering media coverage of him is “fake news” and “witch hunts” by “enemies of the people”, to calling women who criticize him “ugly” and “fat” (and pretty much anybody who criticizes him “crazy” or “failing” or “loser” or “weak” or “nasty” or “dumb” or some combination of the above), to accusing his political opponents of being “crooks” and “criminals”, to declaring (on the basis of no evidence) that a given election is “rigged”, to slandering black ex-convicts (the “Central Park Five”) as guilty well after DNA evidence had exonerated them and the real perpetrator had confessed, to calling developing nations “shitholes”, to advocating for a ban on all US immigration by Muslims, to endorsing bigots like Ray Moore, to publicly repeating spiteful childish nicknames for political opponents such as “Cryin’ Chuck” or “Lyin’ Ted” or “Sleepy Eyes”, to hinting that his political opponents should be taken care of by “the Second Amendment people”, to cheering on supporters who physically assault people, Trump has been indefatigably encouraging unjustified resentment, outrage and prejudice against the people who don’t support him.
Criticizing that kind of behavior as promoting a hate ideology, in a way that’s extremely abnormal and inappropriate for the holder of the highest elected office in the land, is not “projection”. I don’t behave the way Trump does, nor do I want to behave like that.
If you support that kind of behavior on Trump’s part and ignore or dismiss criticism of it, you are endorsing his hate ideology. And you can’t dodge your responsibility for that by whining that the criticism is just “projection”.
Related to this request, I’d like an expansion on the term “triviality” as well, preferably across six or seven posts of steadily increasing acrimony. Thanks.
It really doesn’t take a lot of bravery, at least for a non-conservative, to declare that I disagree with a particular statement that happens to go against my principles, even if the person who made it happens to be someone I do agree with on a lot of other things.
But principled disagreement is getting so rare among conservatives these days that I can see why you’d be unduly impressed by it.
People have seen the videos, and they can see who is trying to justify the lame stream media’s attacks on a teenager because he stood on a very wide step while he was being bullied by an old man who was trying to intimidate him.
I went to lunch, had a few work meetings, and then I come back and there are lots of things to comment on. I’m going to close this temporarily while I catch up.
There’s a lot of generalizing left/right etc. It’s not something I want to police but if it becomes a thing to wield as a bludgeon I’m going to say it’s deleterious to actual discussion. Examples:
Actually, it’s mostly The Plutonium Kid. I’m giving instruction to you specifically - knock off the overbroad generalizations in this thread. It doesn’t further discussion at all.
Then there is the personalization of argument:
Try to address the merits, not the posters themselves. If there are tangents that aren’t relevant then it’d be better to ignore them for the sake of keeping discussion more focused. That’s a choice at your discretion, not specific direction from me.
Yes, the lazy lame stream media got this one wrong. First, they chose to believe a lot of horseshit that was being posted on various twitter feeds. 2nd, they chose not to verify the information they chose to release under their own name. 3rd, they chose to be first rather than correct when they chose to repeat these unverified rantings. 4th, they chose to pile on the attacks directed at the teenager, his family, his friends, and his school.
What is amazing is the numbers of people who are justifying the piss poor reporting, and bullying, that has taken place over the last few days. Unfortunately, haters gotta be haters. It worse when the haters hide behind the label of news reporting.
Yes, but that still doesn’t explain how they came to be so close, right? I mean, me filling in the blanks in this story has the Native American walking up to the group of kids, banging the drum. Then the MAGA hat wearing kid with the smirk walks up to him as close a possible and stands there and stares. I thought this was the narrative? I’m asking if this is true. I haven’t seen a video of that part of the situation.
For Ravenman’s beenfit, what follows is an example of a sidebar. I’ll see if I can arrange to have it stretch over six or seven acrimonious posts for Bryan Eker’s sake:
I’m trying to heed Bone’s guidance about avoiding broad-brush attacks on conservatives or liberals in what follows:
On the last page, you were full of righteous anger. You complained about “constant social-media smears” “inflammatory accusations” and the “taint of hateful bigotry”. Then someone whom you often agree with came along and said ‘The whole “screaming racist insults” thing doesn’t bother me’ and the response you managed to muster was “I do not endorse it”. That seemed tepid, to the point of being comical when contrasted with your earlier fiery posts denouncing the “taint of hateful bigotry”.
But, to your credit, a tepid non-endorsement is better than silent acquiescence, so some small amount of kudos are probably in order.
No, that’s not true, at least AFAICT. The MAGA hat-wearing kid did not “walk up to him”. There’s a link to a very long video showing the whole incident in the OP. Nathan Phillips approaches the group of students at around 1:12 in that video.
Freedom of speech does not mean you cannot be criticized. The only reason freedom of speech works is that you can be criticized. Then, ideally the best argument wins.
These kids can support the President. They can also be criticized for supporting said president. That is freedom of speech.
These kids can show what support for this particular president means, by being full on bigots on display. And we can criticize them for being bigots. That is also freedom of speech.
You even have the freedom of speech to tell us that we are wrong. However, if you use “freedom of speech” as the reason why we are wrong, then you will be criticized. You haven’t made an argument. You’ve just misused “freedom of speech” to mean “freedom from rebuttal.”
And, before you try it, no, I don’t support death threats. At no point did I say death threats were okay. But someone mistreating you doesn’t make you right. It doesn’t turn you into the good guy if you weren’t good in the first place. Sympathy is about that one aspect, not about the whole thing.
I mean, I try my best to have sympathy for everyone, even people I hate. It’s just sympathy that their life led them to believe such horrible things. There is no reason for sympathy to be a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Yes, especially as coming from the President of the United States.
Well, I think it’s a bit pearl-clutchy for conservatives to complain because some racist insults screamed by a few members of a universally despised loony-fringe hate group with zero political power or standing aren’t being taken as seriously, or denounced as stridently, as the constant slanderous shit-stirring and bigotry routinely dispensed by the President of the United States and embraced by his millions of supporters.
Sure, racist insults in whatever context are definitely bad, and I disagree with begbert2’s view that it’s ever acceptable not to be “bothered” by them at all. But I also acknowledge that as destructive social phenomena go, some racist insults from asshole “Black Israelites” at a protest are much more minor than Trump’s MAGA-schtick hate ideology. If that makes me seem like a hypocrite in your view, oh well.
My point is rather mundane and pedestrian, a symbol can change a hat, or a t-shirt, into a statement. By offering a “much better example” you apparently concur. If my example is absurd, your improvement is…well, what, perzackly?
wow I can’t believe the ladder of assumption that people climb when they see a MAGA hat. On observation from Australia it seems that if identify as right then you are a neo nazi.
From a distance I see the MAGA hat as a natural and to be expected back lash against the far left that seems to dominate the university campuses (yes in Australia too) that is at it’s heart anti-capitalism, Marxist, man hating etc.
