[hrothgar]

 jogs, on 2016-December-26, 12:34, said:

China and Japan don't accept Muslim refugees. Obama declined the invitation to join this march. Winstonm wasn't aware of this.

1. What does China and Japan accepting muslim refugees have to do with anything. Stop trying to change the subject
2. A very small set of world leaders joined the march in France.
3. The French and indeed the Europeans don't care that Obama didn't show. Indeed, given the security levels levels required to protect the President, they preferred that he not attend.

They only ones who care about this issue are a small number of right wing idiots in the US who care more about bitching about the President than they do about making logical arguments.

In short, the fact that Winston didn't recognize what you were referring to simply means that he doesn't dwell in the fever swamps.
It does not mean that your asinine claim is, in any way, correct

[mikeh]

 jogs, on 2016-December-26, 11:06, said:

Please don't confuse Hillary with Bill. Bill Clinton was a lovable scoundrel. Bill understood the art of compromise. He didn't insult the opposition. Ross Perot voters were true deplorables.
In 2008 Hillary asked who would be there to answer the call at 3AM in the morning? During the Benghazi attack neither Hillary or Barack were awake to answer the call. The Donald would have been awake.
Trump saved jobs at Carrier. Trump made Boeing agree to watch those cost overruns. Obama and HRC said that's the way of the world. Those jobs can't be saved. Those costs can't be negotiated.
Mitch McConnell wants tax cuts to be revenue neutral. Trump is a businessman. He plans to do more with fewer tax dollars. Trump will run the country like an efficient multi-trillion dollar corporation.

Hmmm...let's examine some of these/

Benghazi. Despite the attention this got, it was a relatively minor matter in geopolitical terms. While republicans like to pretend that democrats bear personal responsibility for every bad thing that happens, reality-based people recognize that ***** happens and that there are chains of command and levels of responsibility. Btw, the same morns who want to blame Clinton for Benghazi were all too ready to believe that Reagan had nothing to do with Iran contra, or that Bush wasn't negligent in 9/11 etc.

As for trump being awake....maybe he will be, but while this may be news to you, a twitter response would not likely have been effective and, so far, the evidence suggests that twitter is exactly how trump would respond. Furthermore, since the Donald disdains security briefings, and since Exxon-Mobil has no refinery in Benghazim afaik, and Vladimir won't have asked for any favours there, the odds are that neither trump nor his designee for secretary of state would be aware that there even was a problem.

Trump saved jobs at Carrier?

Hmmm. I wonder how he did that? Carrier's parent company does multiple billions of dollars business with the Federal Government, and would any of us be surprized to learn that Trump bullied his way to this deal, about which he promptly lied? Btw, the average cost per job saved in Indiana, under Pence, was about 400K per job, almost all of which went to the owners of the businesses, and in many cases the jobs left within a couple of years of being saved. Btw, I thought republicans believed in the market?

As for running the country like a business....really? That's the best you've got?

Do you know one f*cking thing about the duties of Directors and Officers of companies? It is to maximize shareholder value....it is to make money for the owners. Who do you think owns the US? The top 20% own 85% of the net worth. 5 white guys own more land in the US than all black people combined. The duty of those who run the US as a company would be to maximize profits for the wealthy. Where is the value in spending money on educating the poor? In preventing discrimination? In having a fair justice system? Etc. Do you have one f*cking clue about how countries operate economically?

As for trump: there is good reason to believe that he is at best a mediocre businessman. Had he invested his inheritance (140MM) in an exchange traded fund, he'd be wealthier that he is today. Plus, I really don't think that declaring bankruptcy and sticking his shareholders, business partners, and creditors with the losses, while putting millions in his own bank account is what we hope for from his presidency. Or would that seem to you to be a good idea?

[andrei]

 mikeh, on 2016-December-25, 23:53, said:

Well, depending on how one defines terrorism.

The march in question took place a few days after Charlie Hebdo attack.
It seems to me they were marching against Islamic terrorism, the kind of terrorism that killed 17 people then, a lot more at Bataclan, at Nice, at Berlin and a few in US.

China/Japan have their fair-share of domestic terrorism, but that's a different discussion.

 hrothgar, on 2016-December-26, 12:42, said:

2. A very small set of world leaders joined the march in France.

There were over 40 presidents/PM present, very small indeed.

 hrothgar, on 2016-December-26, 12:42, said:

3. The French and indeed the Europeans don't care that Obama didn't show. Indeed, given the security levels levels required to protect the President, they preferred that he not attend.

Is this for real?

[y66]

From The Psychological Research That Helps Explain The Election by Maria Kinnikova:

Quote

At the end of most years, I’m typically asked to write about the best psychology papers of the past twelve months. This year, though, is not your typical year. And so, instead of the usual “best of,” I’ve decided to create a list of classic psychology papers and findings that can explain not just the rise of Donald Trump in the U.S. but also the rising polarization and extremism that seem to have permeated the world. To do this, I solicited the opinion of many leading psychologists, asking them to nominate a paper or two, with a brief explanation for their choice. (Then I nominated some stories myself.) And so, as 2016 draws to a close, here’s a partial collection of the insights that psychology can bring to bear on what the year has brought about, arranged in chronological order.

Charles Lord, Lee Ross, and Mark Lepper’s “Biased Assimilation and Attitude Polarization”

In 1979, a team from Stanford University—Charles Lord, Lee Ross, and Mark Lepper—published a paper that made sense of a common, and seemingly irrational, phenomenon: that the beliefs we hold already affect how we process and assimilate new information. In other words, we don’t learn rationally, taking in information and then making a studied judgment. Instead, the very way we learn is influenced from the onset by what we know and who we are. In the original study, Lord and his colleagues asked people to read a series of studies that seemed to either support or reject the idea that capital punishment deters crime. The participants, it turned out, rated studies confirming their original beliefs as more methodologically rigorous—and those that went against them as shoddy.

This process, which is a form of what’s called confirmation bias, can help explain why Trump supporters remain supportive no matter what evidence one puts to them—and why Trump’s opponents are unlikely to be convinced of his worth even if he ends up doing something actually positive. The two groups simply process information differently. “The confirmation bias is not specific to Donald Trump. It’s something we are all susceptible to,” the Columbia University psychologist Daniel Ames, one of several scholars to nominate this paper, said. “But Trump appears to be an especially public and risky illustration of it in many domains.” (Ames and his colleague Alice Lee recently showed a similar effect with beliefs about torture.)

A closely related paper by Ross, Lepper, and Robert Vallone, from 1985, found that the polarization effect was particularly powerful among strong partisans. When looking at perceptions of the 1982 Beirut massacre, they found that more extreme partisans saw the facts as more biased, and recalled the media coverage of the massacre differently. They saw more negative references to their side, and they predicted that nonpartisans would be swayed more negatively against them as a result—thus increasing their perception of being assaulted and solidifying their opinions. The more knowledge of the issue they had, the greater their perception of bias. American politics has grown only more partisan since the eighties, and this finding can help explain some of the backlash among Trump supporters to press outlets that reported critically on him.

Dan Kahan’s “Cultural Cognition”

Over the last decade, Dan Kahan, a psychologist at Yale University, has been studying a phenomenon he calls “cultural cognition,” or how values shape perception of risk and policy beliefs. One of his insights is that people often engage in something called “identity-protective cognition.” They process information in a way that protects their idea of themselves. Incongruous information is discarded, and supporting information is eagerly retained. Our memory actually ends up skewed: we are better able to process and recall the facts that we are motivated to process and recall, while conveniently forgetting those that we would prefer weren’t true. The Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, one of several to nominate Kahan for this list, said that his theory is best called “political and intellectual tribalism.” Like seeks like, and like affirms like—and people gravitate to the intellectually similar others, even when all of their actions should rightly set off alarm bells.

Trump, Pinker said, won over pretty much the entire Republican Party, and all those who felt alienated from the left, by declaring himself to be opposed to the “establishment” and political correctness. And this all happened, Pinker wrote to me, “despite his obvious temperamental unsuitability for the responsibilities of the Presidency, his opposition to free trade and open borders (which should have, but did not, poison him with the libertarian right), his libertine and irreligious lifestyle (which should have, but did not, poison him with evangelicals), his sympathies with Putin’s Russia (which should have, but did not, poison him with patriots), and his hostility to American military and political alliances with democracies (which should have, but did not, poison him with neoconservatives).”

Karen Stenner’s “The Authoritarian Dynamic”

Research published a decade ago by Karen Stenner provides insight into a psychological trait known as authoritarianism: the desire for strong order and control. Most people aren’t authoritarian as such, Stenner finds. Instead, most of us are usually capable of fairly high tolerance. It’s only when we feel we are under threat—especially what Stenner calls “normative threat,” or a threat to the perceived integrity of the moral order—that we suddenly shut down our openness and begin to ask for greater force and authoritarian power. People want to protect their way of life, and when they think it’s in danger they start grasping for more extreme-seeming alternatives. In 2005, Stenner offered a prediction that seems clairvoyant now. In response to the increasing tolerance in Western societies, she wrote, an authoritarian backlash was all but inevitable:

The increasing license allowed by those evolving cultures generates the very conditions guaranteed to goad latent authoritarians to sudden and intense, perhaps violent, and almost certainly unexpected, expressions of intolerance. . . . The kind of intolerance that springs from aberrant individual psychology, rather than the disinterested absorption of pervasive cultural norms, is bound to be more passionate and irrational, less predictable, less amenable to persuasion, and more aggravated than educated by the cultural promotion of tolerance.

These ideas have been discussed many times over the years in the water cooler. And, except for a few savvy posters, many of us on the left of center and perhaps even a few to the right were still surprised. It's enough to make a visitor to the WC think no one here is listening.

[hrothgar]

 andrei, on 2016-December-26, 13:59, said:

There were over 40 presidents/PM present, very small indeed.

Here's the list of the more prominent individuals who participated in the march

Note: Nearly all of them all from Europe, the Middle East, or former French colonies in Africa
There is (essentially) no participation from North America or Asia

For example, for all the discussion about President Obama not attending, Stephen Harper also wasn't in attendance, nor was Enrique Nieto or any number of other heads of state in South or Asia or Australia, or most anywhere outside of EUROPE...

Its almost as if the fact that the President of the United States didn't show up had less to do with the fact that Obama is president than issues related to geography and logistics.

I know that your little pea brain doesn't actually process facts or other such inconvenient details, but here's hoping that the rest of the forums understand just what an idiot we're dealing with


EUROPE:
French President Francois Hollande
German Chancellor Angela Merkel
British Prime Minister David Cameron
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy
Romanian President Klaus Iohannis
European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker
European Parliament president Martin Schulz
European Union president Donald Tusk
Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg
Polish Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz
Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt
Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras
Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny
Portuguese Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho
Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka
Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico
Latvian Prime Minister Laimdota Straujuma
Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borissov
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban
Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic
Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel
Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat
Slovenian Prime Minister Miro Cerar
Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven
Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko
Swiss President Simonetta Sommaruga
Kosovo President Atifete Jahjaga
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu
Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg
Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibachvili
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov
Austrian foreign minister Sebastian Kurz
NORTH AMERICA:
US attorney general Eric Holder
Canadian public safety minister Steven Blaney
MIDDLE EAST:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman
Jordanian King Abdullah II and Queen Rania
Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas
United Arab Emirates foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan
Qatari Sheikh Mohamed Ben Hamad Ben Khalifa Al Thani
Bahrain foreign minister Sheikh Khaled ben Ahmed Al Khalifa and Prince Abdullah Ben Hamad al-Khalifa
AFRICA:
Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita
Gabonese President Ali Bongo
Niger President Mahamadou Issoufou
Benin President Thomas Boni Yayi
Tunisian Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa
Algerian foreign minister Ramtane Lamamra

[Winstonm]

 jogs, on 2016-December-26, 12:34, said:

China and Japan don't accept Muslim refugees. Obama declined the invitation to join this march. Winstonm wasn't aware of this.

I'm certain that this is not the only right wing talking point with which I hold no familiarity. I don't consider lack of knowledge of right wing "spin" as failure.

[kenberg]

 y66, on 2016-December-26, 14:20, said:

From The Psychological Research That Helps Explain The Election by Maria Kinnikova:


These ideas have been discussed many times over the years in the water cooler. And, except for a few savvy posters, many of us on the left of center and perhaps even a few to the right were still surprised. It's enough to make a visitor to the WC think no one here is listening.

I'll take the last section:

Quote

Karen Stenner's "The Authoritarian Dynamic"

Research published a decade ago by Karen Stenner provides insight into a psychological trait known as authoritarianism: the desire for strong order and control. Most people aren't authoritarian as such, Stenner finds. Instead, most of us are usually capable of fairly high tolerance. It's only when we feel we are under threat—especially what Stenner calls "normative threat," or a threat to the perceived integrity of the moral order—that we suddenly shut down our openness and begin to ask for greater force and authoritarian power. People want to protect their way of life, and when they think it's in danger they start grasping for more extreme-seeming alternatives. In 2005, Stenner offered a prediction that seems clairvoyant now. In response to the increasing tolerance in Western societies, she wrote, an authoritarian backlash was all but inevitable:

The increasing license allowed by those evolving cultures generates the very conditions guaranteed to goad latent authoritarians to sudden and intense, perhaps violent, and almost certainly unexpected, expressions of intolerance. . . . The kind of intolerance that springs from aberrant individual psychology, rather than the disinterested absorption of pervasive cultural norms, is bound to be more passionate and irrational, less predictable, less amenable to persuasion, and more aggravated than educated by the cultural promotion of tolerance.

Are we being told here that people who feel under threat are apt to be more combative than people who do not feel under threat? I am trying to think of a way to interpret "It's only when we feel we are under threat—especially what Stenner calls "normative threat," or a threat to the perceived integrity of the moral order—that we suddenly shut down our openness and begin to ask for greater force and authoritarian power." so that the response is not "Well, yeah, duh".

And earlier in the article we find the assertion

Quote

A closely related paper by Ross, Lepper, and Robert Vallone, from 1985, found that the polarization effect was particularly powerful among strong partisans.

Do people make big bucks doing this research?

A woman in Becky's hiking group sent a message "I wish all of my Christian friends a Merry Christmas" The problem, as I see it, is not Merry Christmas or Happy Holiday Season but rather that people do not seem to be able to wish others well without making a political statement out of it.

As Tom Lehrer put it long ago: "There are people out there who do not love their fellow man, and I hate people like that".

Stay cool, all.

[y66]

 kenberg, on 2016-December-26, 15:24, said:

Are we being told here that people who feel under threat are apt to be more combative than people who do not feel under threat? I am trying to think of a way to interpret "It's only when we feel we are under threat—especially what Stenner calls "normative threat," or a threat to the perceived integrity of the moral order—that we suddenly shut down our openness and begin to ask for greater force and authoritarian power." so that the response is not "Well, yeah, duh".

I do not have any personal experience finding authoritarianism reassuring so this one is counter intuitive for me. If anyone was clairvoyant it was Thomas Frank when he wrote What's The Matter With Kansas in 2004 in which he predicted the "great backlash" of white, working class voters.

[Trinidad]

 kenberg, on 2016-December-26, 15:24, said:

A woman in Becky's hiking group sent a message "I wish all of my Christian friends a Merry Christmas" The problem, as I see it, is not Merry Christmas or Happy Holiday Season but rather that people do not seem to be able to wish others well without making a political statement out of it.

I really fail to see why wishing everybody "Happy holidays" means anything other than that you wish them to enjoy those days off around the end of the year, without any idea of "only if you're christian" or "except if you are christian, since then I mean Merry Christmas".

We have sent holiday greetings to friends and relatives that are (in alphabetical order):
Agnost
Atheist
Bridge fanatic
Buddhist
Calvinist
Hindu
Lutheran
Muslim
Nothing
Roman Catholic

Most likely I have forgotten something.

And, of course, this goes both ways:

Each year we - of the category "Nothing" - receive holiday greetings from Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus, as well as from Christians and non-religious people. I have never seen that as anything odd. Should I?

Why would wishing somebody well be a political statement?

 kenberg, on 2016-December-26, 15:24, said:

Stay cool, all.

'Peace' to you too, dude.

Rik

[helene_t]

 y66, on 2016-December-26, 16:34, said:

I do not have any personal experience finding authoritarianism reassuring so this one is counter intuitive for me.

Yes I would think so also. When I was young, there was a prominent theory that all evil comes from lack of self confidence. But it turned out that violent criminals tend to have higher self esteem than normal people.

[jogs]

 ldrews, on 2016-December-25, 21:23, said:

You seem to dismiss another poster in a quite condescending tone, in my opinion. Could you enlighten me regarding how you form your opinions and what factual bases you use in the current political climate?

This is straight out the the elitist progressive left playbook. If they can't refute the argument, attack the arguer. For 12 years the left used political correctness to keep republicans on the defensive. Each republican allowed the democrats to define them. Luckily Trump isn't actually a republican. Trump will define himself, thank you. Trump knows forcing PC speech on others is just censorship. It is a violation of the opposition's 1st amendment rights.

[jogs]

 Winstonm, on 2016-December-26, 14:45, said:

I'm certain that this is not the only right wing talking point with which I hold no familiarity. I don't consider lack of knowledge of right wing "spin" as failure.

A truly open minded person is familiar both side's argument. And knows why the other side's argument is flawed.

I'm really only a fiscal conservative. Don't really care one way or the other on most social issues.

[mikeh]

 jogs, on 2016-December-26, 17:31, said:

A truly open minded person is familiar both side's argument. And knows why the other side's argument is flawed.

I'm really only a fiscal conservative. Don't really care one way or the other on most social issues.

Your problem is that you lack the ability to argue logically. As for example, the post where on the one hand you criticized Obama for acting as if he had the right to order other countries to do what the US wanted, then went on a few lines later to assert that, since the US is the most powerful country in the world, it should tell other countries how to act.

Anyone who writes like that isn't going to get much respect from those of us who can think somewhat logically.

A truly open minded person evaluates the arguments and, if one argument appears to be plausible and reality-based while the other lacks either characteristic, concludes and states that the latter is wrong. Too much of US (and, to be fair other) media these days thinks that the mere fact that there are two 'arguments' means that there is an equivalency between the two. Nonsense. Only an idiot confuses open-mindedness with neutrality of outcome.

Oh... and you must be a very unusual fiscal conservative, since you praise trump for using tax dollars to bribe Carrier into (temporarily) preserving some 700 jobs (while claiming credit for over 1000). Weird sort of conservative, that! Maybe you can explain why, being a fiscal conservative, you support the use of tax dollars to distort the job market in this fashion?

Before you go whining about ad hominin: please note that I am specifically citing arguments you made. I am attacking those arguments, while pointing out the stupidity of them. You judge for yourself how best to describe a person who repeatedly and consistently makes stupid arguments. Or, maybe try to justify the arguments with facts or reasoning. Start by explaining your post about Obama being wrong to order other countries around, while then claiming that the US should do exactly that.

No? LOL. I don't think you'll even try, since I suspect that you have belatedly realized how foolish you appeared in that post.

[Kaitlyn S]

 jogs, on 2016-December-26, 17:23, said:

This is straight out the the elitist progressive left playbook. If they can't refute the argument, attack the arguer.

Let's test that hypothesis. The most attacked people in the Water Cooler are Al_U_Card, jonottowa, Kaitlyn S, jogs, (did I miss anyone?)

Wow, it's just awe-striking how much truth there is to that statement!

 jogs, on 2016-December-26, 17:31, said:

I'm really only a fiscal conservative. Don't really care one way or the other on most social issues.

Same here. I'm pro-choice, pro environment, and pro-gay rights. Still considered an alt-right wingnut in most places though.

[Winstonm]

 Kaitlyn S, on 2016-December-26, 20:00, said:

Let's test that hypothesis. The most attacked people in the Water Cooler are Al_U_Card, jonottowa, Kaitlyn S, jogs, (did I miss anyone?)

Wow, it's just awe-striking how much truth there is to that statement!

You could have simply requested everyone to ignore you rather than forcing us to do so.

[kenberg]

 Trinidad, on 2016-December-26, 16:47, said:

I really fail to see why wishing everybody "Happy holidays" means anything other than that you wish them to enjoy those days off around the end of the year, without any idea of "only if you're christian" or "except if you are christian, since then I mean Merry Christmas".

We have sent holiday greetings to friends and relatives that are (in alphabetical order):
Agnost
Atheist
Bridge fanatic
Buddhist
Calvinist
Hindu
Lutheran
Muslim
Nothing
Roman Catholic

Most likely I have forgotten something.

And, of course, this goes both ways:

Each year we - of the category "Nothing" - receive holiday greetings from Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus, as well as from Christians and non-religious people. I have never seen that as anything odd. Should I?

Why would wishing somebody well be a political statement?

'Peace' to you too, dude.

Rik

Very Hegelian. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis.

Peace to all.

A brief hijack, but while I am on this Christmas stuff:

I just finished watching Mavis.

It's an HBO documentary on the life of Mavis Staples.

By coincidence, I am reading I'll take you there, a biography of the Staples Singers. Early life: Young Mavis, at age 8 or so, was beaten by her grandmother with a stick, severely enough to create numerous welts. This was for singing blues instead of gospel. She is about six months younger than I am, so she is now well into her 70s, healthy, a solid person, and a terrific voice.

I recommend this documentary.

Music sample:

https://www.google.c...+staple+singers

Sorry about the hijack, after watching, I was seized by an uncontrollable impulse. And an interlude might be useful.

[mikeh]

 Kaitlyn S, on 2016-December-26, 20:00, said:

Let's test that hypothesis. The most attacked people in the Water Cooler are Al_U_Card, jonottowa, Kaitlyn S, jogs, (did I miss anyone?)

Wow, it's just awe-striking how much truth there is to that statement!


Same here. I'm pro-choice, pro environment, and pro-gay rights. Still considered an alt-right wingnut in most places though.

You might want to examine that list and see whether you can detect some common factors, lol.

al is a conspiracy nut who thinks 911 was in inside job and that global warming is a myth. Given that the earth has recorded the warmest year in history for each of the past several, that greenhouse gas levels are known to have risen in rough accord with industrialization and agriculture, and that reindeer are dying in their natural habitat due to climate change (they eat vegetation accessible by clearing (dry, cold) snow but now, with warmer temperatures, the snow melts at the bottom and freezes to form ice, which they struggle to remove), and 97% of those qualified to have an opinion (which most explicitly does not include al, me, you or anyone here) say it is real, So al is a kook.

jon is a racial bigot...check out his website.

jogs can't string together two consecutive thoughts without his lack of intellectual ability coming through. Note how he never responds to attacks on his arguments...he simply and falsely claims that a criticism of his argument is an ad hominem attack.

Now....you know the issues I have with you. You have some moderate views, but you have a fixation on fake news, and appear incapable of telling the difference between reality and what you and your friends 'believe'. Those beliefs include racist thinking, and your response to that being pointed out is to loudly claim that it is impossible for your thinking to be racist, since you are not a racist. In short, you are ill-informed and, as is often the case, think that you are well-informed.

[kenberg]

 Kaitlyn S, on 2016-December-26, 20:00, said:

Let's test that hypothesis. The most attacked people in the Water Cooler are Al_U_Card, jonottowa, Kaitlyn S, jogs, (did I miss anyone?)

Wow, it's just awe-striking how much truth there is to that statement!


Same here. I'm pro-choice, pro environment, and pro-gay rights. Still considered an alt-right wingnut in most places though.

You lead with your chin and then complain when you get socked. let me try a less metaphorical approach. From an earlier post of yours.

Quote

Barack Obama couldn't kill the America as we know it because the best he could do is get a 4-4 Supreme Court. He did the best he could; he appointed two justices that do not rule on the basis of what the Constitution says, but instead rules on the basis of what they would like it to say from their progressive standpoint. Many of us who love America as given to us by the Founding Fathers think that this would be the end to America as we know it, with justices that could effectively rule that the Constitution is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has already made a mockery of the ninth and tenth amendments (State's rights? The states got no stinkin' rights) and most of us believe that Hillary would have put on justices to nullify the Second Amendment and shortly after, the First Amendment. (Newspapers want to say something against the progressive movement? Not in Hillary's America!) For those that think this is total nonsense, I have two words for you: Lois Lerner.

I will look in more detail at "most of us believe that Hillary would have put on justices to nullify the Second Amendment".

Now i suggest a condition for gun purchases. The buyer should be required to show that he understands basic legal obligations.. He needs to understand his responsibility to keep a loaded pistol away from a five year old. He needs to understand under what conditions he can fire a pistol at another individual. Saying "in self defense" is too general. He cannot shoot another person if he thinks the other person looks as if he might be a threat, for example. He cannot shoot another person for making a pass at his wife. Things like that. We expect people to have basic knowledge of driving regulations before we issue him a license, we regulate the purchase of poisons, and so on. So I think this is reasonable.

Now I think many people, including many people who regard themselves as favoring gun rights, agree with this view. Some don't. They might say that such a law nullifies the Second Amendment.

But you give no indication at all of what you mean. So you look as if you are just throwing something out there. Never mind what it means, just throw it out there.

I could claim that Donald trump is the Antichrist. Nobody has proved that he isn't. So maybe he is. Many of my friends believe he is the Antichrist (ok, I am making this part up, but you get the idea).

The point is that if you just throw a fish out into the crowd, nobody knows whether they are to cook it or what. Ok, I am lapsing into metaphor again. I respect conservative views. But saying "Hillary will nullify the Second Amendment" isn't a view any more than "Trump is the Antichrist" is a view, no mater how many friends of yours think that it is.

[Winstonm]

 kenberg, on 2016-December-26, 21:35, said:

You lead with your chin and then complain when you get socked. let me try a less metaphorical approach. From an earlier post of yours.




I will look in more detail at "most of us believe that Hillary would have put on justices to nullify the Second Amendment".

Now i suggest a condition for gun purchases. The buyer should be required to show that he understands basic legal obligations.. He needs to understand his responsibility to keep a loaded pistol away from a five year old. He needs to understand under what conditions he can fire a pistol at another individual. Saying "in self defense" is too general. He cannot shoot another person if he thinks the other person looks as if he might be a threat, for example. He cannot shoot another person for making a pass at his wife. Things like that. We expect people to have basic knowledge of driving regulations before we issue him a license, we regulate the purchase of poisons, and so on. So I think this is reasonable.

Now I think many people, including many people who regard themselves as favoring gun rights, agree with this view. Some don't. They might say that such a law nullifies the Second Amendment.

But you give no indication at all of what you mean. So you look as if you are just throwing something out there. Never mind what it means, just throw it out there.

I could claim that Donald trump is the Antichrist. Nobody has proved that he isn't. So maybe he is. Many of my friends believe he is the Antichrist (ok, I am making this part up, but you get the idea).

The point is that if you just throw a fish out into the crowd, nobody knows whether they are to cook it or what. Ok, I am lapsing into metaphor again. I respect conservative views. But saying "Hillary will nullify the Second Amendment" isn't a view any more than "Trump is the Antichrist" is a view, no mater how many friends of yours think that it is.

Ken,

I think you are too generous. I also suggest reading about how Trump supporters are attacking the jet blue passenger who had the audacity to criticize Ivanka Trump. I fear things in this country will only get uglier.

[mikeh]

 Winstonm, on 2016-December-26, 22:23, said:

Ken,

I think you are too generous. I also suggest reading about how Trump supporters are attacking the jet blue passenger who had the audacity to criticize Ivanka Trump. I fear things in this country will only get uglier.

Hey, Winston. I make no excuse for the slimes who have crept out from under their rocks to threaten the guy, but the guy was way out of line, from the various reports I read, some of which quote the comments posted by this guy and his husband. Ivanka is a nasty piece of over-privileged garbage (if the quotes I have read from her book are true*) but she and her kids were slumming on a regular plane, en route to one of daddy's mansions, and were entitled to be allowed to travel in peace, no matter how horrible they may be as human beings. I am no fan of anything trump, but this is not one for the good guys.



* including feeling sorry for herself because her lemonade stand was not on a public street, so no passersby would buy her lemonade....but it turned out ok because she made all the servants buy her lemonade...their money going to her! And it was sooo tough being made a Director of a major company at age 25....all those grownups thinking that she got the gig only because daddy owned the company....guess what...they were right. Making fake arrowheads 0n one of daddy's estates and selling them to her friends....hey...a chip of the old block...what's a little fraud between friends? And so on.