I certainly don’t think so. Wanna know why? Because I can tell when folks are speaking figuratively or literally. Can you?
Yes, I can.
So where does that leave us?
Having gone past the headlines and shouting, and by bothering to actually listen to what message they were trying to put forth, I think that a lot of them thought that he wasn’t legally the President for precisely the reason(s) they put forth. You can find out a lot of things if you make an effort to listen to people, instead of looking for out-of-context phrases to nail them with.
If you can tell, then you can tell that people are speaking figuratively when they say, “Not my president” based on a belief that he’s an appalling person, and speaking literally when they say, “Not eligible to be president” based on a belief that he violates a specific clause in the Constitution. Which means this whole stupid hijack is pointless, and we await your apology for instigating it.
OK, then I don’t understand your question. What difference does it make whether the protest was before or after the Electoral College met?
The orderly transfer of power is not a suicide pact. He will get only those chances that he earns by demonstrating policies that will promote prosperity and security for the greatest number of people at home and abroad.
I didn’t instigate this discussion. Snoe did.
Point being, though, is that you expect me to accept your claim instead of my own. Your claim involves mind reading. Mine involves reading.
Yes, I’ve got this amazing spell that allows mindreading. People move their fingers in specific ways while touching the magical device, and their thoughts convert into various forms of energy until manifesting in my head.
You can do it too, just by reading the words that others type.
Yours involves reading things perfectly literally. That’s a pretty lousy way to read. If you’re unable to tell when people are communicating figuratively, it’s really going to make communication with you hard.
So, you really have no way of telling if someone is being literal or figurative from context?
That’s literally insane!
My last post in this little hijack: He didn’t have a lock on the job until the EC voted his way.
I wish the OP would explain how much of a chance he wanted us to give Trump, and why nothing he has said and/or done so far should be considered.
No, that’s not it. There are two claims being made. No evidence is offered, other than the claims. Occam’s razor says the simpler explanation is probably correct.
Now, if you were able to introduce some additional evidence (for example, people snickering as they said it, or personal testimony that “we’re not being literal”, or even if there was evidence that more often than not, protesters don’t mean what they say to be taken literally), then that would be different. But as it is, we have two claims and nothing else, and need to decide which one is more likely to be correct.
Remember, we are talking about people we don’t know, can’t interact with, and have no information about their history.
Well, I would agree with the simplest explanation is the most likely, I think we just disagree which is simpler.
I claim that a phrase that was previously used to mock an actor for a popular movie is reused to mock a president elect in the same way.
You claim that all of these people do not understand how the US govt works in the slightest, and that they think they can pick their own president.
John Mace - if all those tens of thousands of protesters literally thought that Trump was not going to be the President, why were they protesting? If they actually believed that Trump wasn’t going to be POTUS, they would have stayed at home.
I think someone is using Occam’s Chainsaw.
One explanation requires me to believe that tens of thousands of people are smart enough to understand the election outcome but too stupid to understand that they can’t reverse it by fiat.
The other explanation requires me to believe that you’re having trouble distinguishing between literal and figurative speech.
The simpler explanation is clear.
I think we can defuse this hijack by observing that it doesn’t matter if “not my president” is meant literally or figuratively, because in either case: yes, he is your president. Accept that fact and deal with it accordingly.
I mean, what choice do I have? Yes, I’ll give him a chance. I don’t really expect any good to come of it, but I believe he may surprise me and enact one or two things that I like. Who the fuck knows. Then again, I’m an eternal optimist. I really haven’t seen much of anything to encourage me, but I still think he’s better than some of the people on that side I was truly afraid of, like Ted Cruz.
What makes you think this isn’t the point of overthrowing a government? It doesn’t have to be a civil war, with parties reorganizing into armies with fire teams and submarines. It could be an impeachment push, an assassination plot, a media barrage of rumors about his long ties to the KGB, a series of lawsuits, or even just the level of disrespect and implied insurrection the state legislature of Wyoming showed to Obama.
Let’s see. I can respect the rule of law & the orderly transfer of power even as the head of the EPA tries to destroy the EPA, and the head of the FDA tries to destroy the FDA. Or I can rebel, break the law, even lie, cheat, steal, and kill to stop them. Well, I’m a situationist and a consequentialist, so the latter option* is an option.*
More law-abidingly, and abandoning the forced dichotomy between coup d’etat and nothing; I’m probably going to be calling up my Congresscritters and yelling at them to block his more nonsensical appointments, and to impeach him over his conflicts of interest–and as those are problems that are problems right now, I am not waiting until summer.