Better yet, read or re-read (don’t want to make any assumptions, here) what led to the rise of Hitler and WWII. It doesn’t remotely resemble what is happening in this country. While Agent Orange is clearly a bigot (among other things), he doesn’t have the same agenda as our old mustachioed dictator fiend.
I know history! I watched Saving Private Ryan and Schindlers List!
Trump is clueless, but most of his appointees are more evil than clueless. His new chief strategist is more aptly described as a white supremacist with Machiavellian cunning, and his new Attorney General (and highest ranking law enforcement authority) is a good ol’ boy Confederate who backs up his full-bore racism with political experience.
See above. Also, though Germans initially elected Hitler because he tapped into their patriotism and nativism, no one wanted or expected to be led to ruin by a gang of corrupt tyrants, but that’s what they got. Trump’s narcissism only needs the adulation of the racist thugs that are his core base. And it’s hardly consoling when the best that can be said about the president of the US is that he’s totally incompetent, especially when surrounded by evil henchmen.
Not surprising for a narcissistic demagogue, but probably one of the most disturbing things I’ve heard yet, other than his senior appointments so far. Maybe the Trump movement needs some kind of distinct logo to symbolize it that can be printed on flags and armbands, and the rallies can be festooned with thousands of flags while Trump rants at the podium about the evils of immigrants and the dangers of Muslims.
Study history. The Germans did not initially elect Hitler. In the election in question, the NSDAP garnered something on the order of a third of the vote. Paul Hindenburg agreed to make him Chancellor, which I think is something like Secretary of State. Then Paul took a turn for the wurst and was set up on a bier. The Reichstag fire happened and Hitler was able to parlay that into [del]an excuse to invade Mesopotamia[/del] martial law. After that, they held and election where the NSDAP “received” 90% support from the voters (from ballot boxes they personally handled: no one, ever gets a legitimate 90%).
But is it incredibly complicated and fraught?
Consider all sorts of other situations involving lawbreakers: do you wring your hands and agonize over how incredibly complicated and fraught the question is?
If someone asks me about how pickpockets should be treated, I answer them readily. If I’m asked about folks who commit statutory rape, or first-degree murder, I answer differently but just as readily. Name a felony or a misdemeanor; tell me someone forged a check, or committed a traffic violation; I’ll supply answers.
I suspect – and hope! – that you and I have common ground on this; that it wouldn’t in fact be a hard question for you, if you’re asked how we should treat armed robbers or folks who practice medicine without a license or whatever: that you can and do come up with such answers without resorting to talk of how it’s “incredibly difficult”, and that “important deliberations” are called for – or that it’s irresponsible and even “lazy” to deal briefly with such questions.
I’m asking whether, if asked about other lawbreakers, you of course manage to give appropriate answers on the spot: if you’re asked how should we treat kidnappers? Or: how should we treat jewel thieves? Or: how should we treat perjurers?
Can you swiftly and easily answer those sorts of questions without being accused of skipping “hard thinking” to lazily reduce the issues to “entertainment and drama”?
Is it only these lawbreakers who make you gasp, gosh, who can say?
The Democrats aren’t my “party of choice,” son. In a two-party system, there’s not a lot of choice.
Trump is very different from the Bushes. But the bozos who let the likes of Hastert and Bush run wild will let Trump, Bannon, Arpaio, and Sessions run wild. Congressmen are craven, authoritarian, and dumb when it’s their own party. “Why mess with victory?” they think.
…yes…? Of course.
It is in fact that complicated and fraught. I’d say this particular situation adds further complications and fraughtitudes. But I’m not really interested in discussing it further with you–I have not had a lot of interesting (not even to mention successful) conversations lately with people who are invested in simplifying things.
I’ve said what I said and I even got a cookie from one poster so I’ve got mine and screw yours. 
People often derive comfort from imagining things to be worse than they are/will be. This is why people believe 9/11 was staged, the Moon landing was faked, etc.
My aunt is a conspiracy theorist sigh…
We already arrest criminals! We already deport criminals who are aliens! In fact, we already deport many aliens who aren’t criminals!
So either Trump is going to find that he ran on solving a problem that is already being solved, or, more likely, he’s going to intern 2 million non-criminals because of racism.
Oh, and he can’t deport 2 million persons in two weeks. He may not be able to do so in two years. But he can kill 'em. That’s doable. Do you understand how Germany got to the “Final Solution” from “Send the Jews to Palestine”? There were years of deliberate removal & concentration of unwanted persons beforehand.
Heh. In fairness, though, I’m maybe not especially interested in you discussing that one further; I went on to ask whether you find things complicated and fraught when asked about other lawbreakers across the spectrum.
Whether you find things ‘complicated and fraught’ when asked about pickpockets, or rapists, or murderers; or armed robbers; or kidnappers; or perjurers. Whether you manage to answer those questions readily.
If you don’t feel like discussing any of that – well, that’s fine, too, I guess. But, again, I suspect and hope I know the answer.
Yeah, but Trump is going to take all the credit for it :mad:
But seriously, I will admit that there is validity to the legal position of deporting undocumented immigrants. My problem with it is the motive. The people who voted for Trump have a very large overlap with people who simply Cannot STFU About Jesus. Okay, but at the same time the Christian approach to “sojourners” (just google it, ok?) has basically nothing in common with the Trumpian approach of demonizing Latinos and giving them the boot out of, what appears to me to be, racial animus. This lack of awareness of self-contradiction on the part of ostensibly religious people grates on my nerves as a prelude to really digging in and grating on my nerves. Immigrants come here for jobs, and wealthy “job creators” are all too happy to give them as long as it remains profitable. Go after the employers of immigrants and you solve the illegal immigration problem, without the hate. But no, hate is the road to tax cuts for these guys so apparently that is what were are going to do. Shit. Also, what Frylock said.
Apparently I am more qualified to be a priest than the vast majority of self-declared religious people. I am apparently more qualified to be a priest than Trump is to be President. This tells me we live in a rather dumb world, and bad things can’t help but follow. Then again, I think we live in an overpopulated world in which there is not enough to go around, and one way or another there is going to be a mechanism that decides who wins and who loses. I’d rather that mechanism have some relation to “merit”, but it looks like America has cast its lot for demographics instead. I will do my best to resist that. It sucks, but it was gonna suck for many, many people regardless of who was elected POTUS. It is gonna suck for me to face a future without Social Security and Medicare, but at least I have 20+ years to strap myself in for that…
Anyway, I don’t buy into the Trump = Hitler stuff. I am actually in the Give Him A Chance crowd. With Hillary, I expected a lot of corporatism coated with sensitivity to vulnerable demographics, a fairly grinding administration with a glimmer of hope of being pleasantly surprised. I hold onto the same hope of being pleasantly surprised by Trump- liberals don’t claim him, conservatives don’t claim him, and I don’t identify as either of those myself, so maybe, Maybe there is hope that Trump’s experience running his own personal empire will translate into job creation for all the hopeless disaffected jobless opioid addicted alcoholic angry Rust Belt and rural folks who God damn it, Need Help from the government right now. I really don’t need government help right now myself, and I’m on the losing side of an election decided by, IMHO, those who do (plus, haters), so I am willing to stay out of the way until I have a genuine concrete reason not to.
OTOH, Sessions for AG?!? Jesus…
I am out for my Saturday ramble here, but let me close with a paste of a particularly good comment from the NYT…
Your bitch lost to Hitler. That was a lot bigger than me.
And she had already lost the general election before the first primary. Her fool husband, back in the 1990’s, abandoned the economic populism that the Democratic Party relied on to be a national party. And Dubya made this country sick enough of would-be royal families that she couldn’t have gotten in without something like the massive anti-GOP wave of 2008.
I don’t think Bernie would have won. I was even willing to lose with Bernie. I just want a party on the common man’s side. The Clintons weren’t, and Trump obviously isn’t.
But yes, “We.” People like me who gave up on the Democrats and didn’t campaign for her, we did this. People who nominated her did this too. Bubba and Hillary did this to themselves with their economic policies and personal corruption. People who voted for Trump. There’s some blame to go around.
Also, Elvis Presley is still dead.
Study history. Only the part about the Chancellorship is accurate; the rest of it is not. After the Chancellorship and the Reichstag fire, Hitler (as head of the NSDAP) was elected by a plurality but not a majority in March, 1933, which necessitated another coalition but one in which he finagled effective control. Hitler then conspired to ban all other parties and arrest their leaders. There was never an election in which the NSDAP received 90% of the vote – the final piece to which your “90%” probably refers was not an election at all, but a referendum held in 1934 that merged the offices of President and Chancellor and, combined with the prior elimination of all competition, established Hitler as dictator.
It’s true that much of Hitler’s ascent was due to plots and machinations, but he nevertheless could not have done it without massive popular support, much of it whipped up by exploiting nationalist frenzy at huge rallies in which his populism, demagoguery, and scapegoating was on full display.
You misunderstood me–I was saying the question is “complicated and fraught” in every case you were talking about.
Ever drive over the speed limit? Does that mean you should be locked in a cage and raped until you die? No? Don’t you want to treat lawbreakers like lawbreakers?
The way we treat lawbreakers is often shameful.
And not all infractions carry the same penalty. Punishments should fit crimes.
Immigrating without papers is not something that needs to be treated like a felony. Unfortunately, some state governments have decided that it is a felony now. We are not a nation of laws; we are a nation of men who make up laws. And the same authority and mechanism that let them declare an illegal alien to be a felon lets them declare me a felon for other petty stuff. Or you.
Ever whistle on a Sunday? It could be the gas chamber for you.
The Bushes are at least nice people.
I kind of liked Florence King.
I’m not sure how good counts as “good.”
Uh, no?
After all, I of course went on to elaborate that I wouldn’t treat a pickpocket the same way that I’d treat a rapist, and that I wouldn’t treat either of them the same way I’d treat a murderer – but I would treat each of them like a lawbreaker; and, if I’m speeding, I figure I should likewise be punished each time I’m caught.
…I know. I posted to that effect, right there on Page One. Hard to miss, really.
Does it at least need to be treated like lawbreaking, in your opinion?
I mean, I figure reasonable people can disagree over the appropriate punishment; but whether you figure there should be punishment at all, is my question.
By that logic, how could I ever advocate for punishing any crime?
And yet, I somehow find the courage to risk that every time I nod in agreement with the idea that forgers and pickpockets and rapists and murderers – and, yes, folks who commit traffic violations – should all be punished. Yea, even though I’m apparently risking the gas chamber by doing so, I somehow manage to agree that, yes, we should punish kidnappers and jewel thieves and – in a word – lawbreakers.
Why wouldn’t I? Wouldn’t you?
Are you really saying that we’re going to have Auschwitzes, Chelmnos and Treblinkas here in the US? :smack:
On the positive side, all those FEMA death camps Obama set up won’t go to waste. :rolleyes:
Oh, so not all laws are the same in your eyes! Excuse me! It took you several posts to indicate that you could tell the difference.