President Donald Trump and his Administration

[APSMS 1,893]

On 4/9/2017 at 2:05 PM, LexusInfernus said:

The most successful military intervention of the past century was no doubt WW2. But why wasn't there a lot of German resistance after the war was officially over? Why wasn't there are German insurgency? Because the allies did it right. Occupation wasn't just occupation, it wasn't just restructuring. It was pouring billions of dollars to get the economy up and running. It was about restoring law and order. And making sure that law and order was actually law and order. So if you want to intervene, it has to be like that. After the military is done, you still need to commit yourself to that place for a long time. Only then you have a chance at succes.

I think this is a fundamental misrepresentation of the role of the people's will and belief systems in how they govern. Fundamentally the populations, which are generally devout Muslims, will support more devout Muslim leadership, as we saw in Egypt, with the Muslim Brotherhood being overwhelmingly supported by the people during elections, and who were leveraging their power to turn Egypt into a more theocratic Muslim state, which was why the military intervention happened and the democracy was stopped short; the military was supposed to be supporting a more liberal democratic nation, not a new, more radical dictatorial power, so they backed Mansour someone who would be familiar to them (like Mubarak).

At the core of the issue is that we pretend that regional and religious differences can take a back seat to the deep-seated ethnic, religious, and racial ties that these people have. Which is not to say that it's wrong, though you're welcome to that opinion. More to say, rather, that it will always be opposed to the liberal, Christian democratic tradition that the western government might support.

There will never be rights for minority groups in these regions under a democracy because the minorities are inevitably divided along ethnic and religious lines, and those not in the right religious group are condemned to hell. Maybe they won't be slaughtered, but they will not be respected in any way, and they're "rights" will be ignored at best.

The refusal to split up Iraq is an example of this ridiculousness. I understand the resources problem that plagues a proposed division of the country, but these areas do not work like America; there is no central pact to all work together to get along. The boundaries themselves, with maybe the exception of Lebanon, were created solely to create strife and in-fighting so that the British and French could exploit the power plays of these people against one another.

Germans were all mostly united in the sense of 1) being German, 2) being Christian (hundreds of years of fighting had made them weary of Protestant-Catholic disputes, and most had been resolved in unification 70 years prior) 3) common enemy in the USSR, even before the end of the war, and 4) the minority group that might have sought a Nazi resurgence neither had the paramilitary capacity nor did they view their own lives as something to sacrifice for the cause. Even Nazis understood there was little to gain for their aims if they continued to be militant after the final surrender, and particularly the Nuremberg trials. They had principles and strategy, and did not view unnecessary martyrdom as useful. We have spent billions of dollars in Iraq, and thousands of US lives, and tens (hundreds?) of thousands of Iraqi lives have been lost in an attempt to bring "peace' to that country.

Why didn't they understand that the end of dictatorship was a good thing, and the beginning of enlightenment?

People are the same everywhere...sure. I agree. Most people dislike war, can be tolerant of opposing views in people that they know personally even if said views conflict directly with deeply-held beliefs.

I think we still continue to misunderstand why this is the case, how to foster this in fundamentalist communities without destroying their fundamentalist beliefs. We assume that we can come in and convince people that they're wrong, that they need to change, and that they're basically unwanted in the new order if they continue to hold these beliefs (in their own country). No wonder reconstruction in Muslim nations hasn't worked.

[krbe 193]

On 13/05/2017 at 7:24 PM, APSMS said:

I agree that I don't understand what the heck Trump is doing.

There is not much to really understand here. The guy has a transactional mindset, which sometimes make him act like a child. I wouldn't be surprised if he's keeping scores in a little black book as the basis for decisions.

[krbe 193]

On 13/05/2017 at 8:04 PM, APSMS said:

Germans were all mostly united in the sense of 1) being German, 2) being Christian (hundreds of years of fighting had made them weary of Protestant-Catholic disputes, and most had been resolved in unification 70 years prior) 3) common enemy in the USSR, even before the end of the war, and 4) the minority group that might have sought a Nazi resurgence neither had the paramilitary capacity nor did they view their own lives as something to sacrifice for the cause. Even Nazis understood there was little to gain for their aims if they continued to be militant after the final surrender, and particularly the Nuremberg trials.

Germans were also getting by on 1080 kcal on average after the war. Couple that with WWII being the first "total war" and the millions being evicted from former German territories, along with the Morgenthau Plan for Germany as a "pastoral state" there just wasn't much left to resist with. This state of affairs continued until 1949 -- when the rest of Europe needed Germany once again, and the US needed a forward operating base to counter the Soviets.

[APSMS 1,893]

@krbe Well, one could argue that a lot of the war-torn areas in the Middle East are not very well off. I'm not sure they are as bad as post-war Germany, but I do still think that there's a fundamental difference in the ideology. The Germans were fighting a land war primarily lead by zealots. The Middle Eastern conflict is primarily an ideological battle whose fighters are fully on board with the ideology of their leaders.

Of course, arms are likely easier to procure nowadays, and the US invasion force was never present in the Mid-East as much as we occupied Europe, but I would suggest that even an effort of that magnitude would not reduce resistance to nil, but rather reinforce the insurgency. The equivalency is not as strong as the western governments suppose it is. Economics for them are a means to an end, not an end in themselves, and therefore a loss of economic power or resources or land is a minor setback in the overall struggle, even for non-radical militants. No such motivation existed for the average German/Italian/Axis soldier or civilian.

There is no central power or authority that might convince a surrender either, like there was with the Japanese people. No single terrific event could convince the militants to surrender on the order of a religious or political authority, like the Japanese emperor after Nagasaki.

[LexusInfernus 908]

On 2017-5-13 at 3:14 PM, Ln X said:

No wall, no healthcare reforms, no taxation reforms, no regulation reforms, no renewal of poor inner city areas, no crackdown on gang violence and black-on-black violence, no NAFTA renegotiations, no reconciliation of Russian/US relations and the list goes on.

Really? No healthcare reforms? Except they just passed Trumpcare. No regulation reforms? Except all the executive orders striking down (mostly environmental) regulations. NAFTA renegotiations are on the table. Yes, he isn't going to get his wall, because its a stupid idea and he won't get the budget for it, he is however rounding up immigrants like crazy and kicking them out. He also tried that idiotic travel ban thing that turned out to be utterly unconstitutional. He won't be able to renew poor inner city areas or adres gang violence because those are problems that are not within the scope of the presidency to really adres. And improved relations with Russia are never gonna happen as long as Putin profits from being to conveniently blame the Americans for everything that goes wrong in Russia. So yeah, he has done enough damage already. 

On 2017-5-13 at 3:14 PM, Ln X said:

So enjoy the greatest political drama being played out in the left-right circus in the US. Well maybe just the "right" part of this circus because by the looks of things the Democratic Party are cannibalising themselves as they double down on identity politics and cultural Marxism- the new "opiate for the masses" to quote a little Karl Marx!

Stop. I hate the use of that word, 'cultural Marxism'. I've seen it be abused by far to many people on the internet who think it means all kinds of things except the thing it really is. So lets get this straight, cultural Marxism refers to the 'Frankfurt school' within sociology/philosophy. Its only tangibly related to Marxism (as in the people within this school are looking at all the theoretical shortcomings of traditional Marxism). And unlike what Reddit seems to believe, its not part of a plot to destroy America/the West by imposing god knows what on people in order for ultra liberals to win the culture war. In fact, cultural Marxism as used by conservatives/right wing pundits is a conjured up enemy they use in their own attempts at influencing the direction of the culture war.    

On 2017-5-13 at 7:24 PM, APSMS said:

If FBI investigations stopped every time a director was removed, died, or replaced due to the end of his contract, then FBI directors would be dropping dead left and right.

No, but it is bad form for a president to fire the guy leading an investigation into yourself. Its from the dictator playbook and it creates the impression that you are trying to hide something. If Trump is innocent, like he constantly claims, then the FBI won't find anything. 

On 2017-5-13 at 7:24 PM, APSMS said:

Source?

What part? 

On 2017-5-13 at 8:04 PM, APSMS said:

At the core of the issue is that we pretend that regional and religious differences can take a back seat to the deep-seated ethnic, religious, and racial ties that these people have. Which is not to say that it's wrong, though you're welcome to that opinion. More to say, rather, that it will always be opposed to the liberal, Christian democratic tradition that the western government might support.

If that were true, then we would expect Germany to take a lot more time to democratize. Do remember that before WW2 and the Allied occupation, Germany only had about 15 years of democratic experience and the Weimar state was a pretty deeply dysfunctional democracy throughout those 15 years. If people really go by what they know from their background and their historic political traditions, then Germany would not be a functional democracy but rather a militaristic state by another Kaiser or Fuhrer. 

On 2017-5-13 at 8:04 PM, APSMS said:

There will never be rights for minority groups in these regions under a democracy because the minorities are inevitably divided along ethnic and religious lines, and those not in the right religious group are condemned to hell. Maybe they won't be slaughtered, but they will not be respected in any way, and they're "rights" will be ignored at best.

You mean like the Jews in Germany? 

On 2017-5-13 at 8:04 PM, APSMS said:

Germans were all mostly united in the sense of 1) being German, 2) being Christian (hundreds of years of fighting had made them weary of Protestant-Catholic disputes, and most had been resolved in unification 70 years prior) 3) common enemy in the USSR, even before the end of the war, and 4) the minority group that might have sought a Nazi resurgence neither had the paramilitary capacity nor did they view their own lives as something to sacrifice for the cause. Even Nazis understood there was little to gain for their aims if they continued to be militant after the final surrender, and particularly the Nuremberg trials. They had principles and strategy, and did not view unnecessary martyrdom as useful. We have spent billions of dollars in Iraq, and thousands of US lives, and tens (hundreds?) of thousands of Iraqi lives have been lost in an attempt to bring "peace' to that country.

1) The idea that people were 'German' was less than a 100 years old at the end of WW2. Being German is a modern invention, a nationalist fairy tale and an idea that is only true as long as enough people believe it. Either way, its not something that you can take for granted. 2) Germans are Christians, but depending on where you are, they can be Catholic or Protestant. How is that so different from what you see in the Middle East? The only difference is that in most of Europe we have learned to live and let live. 3) The fact that they had a common enemy is only a reason for why their should be an insurgency, at least in the parts occupied by the Soviets. 4) That rests on a complete misunderstanding of Fascist and Nazi ideology. The lack of weapons or equipment is not a reason not to fight, especially not for fascists. Besides, a good insurgency doesn't need much in the way of equipment. That is clearly demonstrated by every other insurgency ever which is basically always under equipped compared to their enemies. 

Further evidence is that after WW1 there actually were several (albeit relatively minor) insurgencies in Germany. And those happened at a time when Germany wasn't even occupied by a common enemy, but simply because they hated the government and the outcome of the war. 

So what is the big difference between the aftermaths of both wars? Well, one ended in humiliation, political dysfunction and economic disaster. Two ended with total occupation replacing politics and therefor not giving it the chance to be dysfunctional. The occupier also spend significant time and effort into rebuilding the political system and supporting figures within the German political system that aspired to liberal democracy. Two also didn't end in the same type of humiliation. For one, it was objectively clear to just about everyone that Germany really perpetuated some of the worst war crimes in human history. That wasn't propaganda, that was undeniable fact. But pretty soon afterwards, the allies did everything they could to rehabilitate Germany again, by making it part of NATO, by letting it join the EU and investing significant resources into rebuilding the German economy. And that also averted the economic disaster that happened after WW1. More importantly, everyone benefited from it, not just a few elites or some non German companies.

These factors contributed to making peace the preferable option. An insurgency didn't happen because there would be no support for it and it would fail instantly.  

On 2017-5-13 at 8:04 PM, APSMS said:

Why didn't they understand that the end of dictatorship was a good thing, and the beginning of enlightenment?

People are the same everywhere...sure. I agree. Most people dislike war, can be tolerant of opposing views in people that they know personally even if said views conflict directly with deeply-held beliefs.

I think we still continue to misunderstand why this is the case, how to foster this in fundamentalist communities without destroying their fundamentalist beliefs. We assume that we can come in and convince people that they're wrong, that they need to change, and that they're basically unwanted in the new order if they continue to hold these beliefs (in their own country). No wonder reconstruction in Muslim nations hasn't worked.

You assume that Muslims all have fundamentalist beliefs. Most don't, only a tiny fraction does. 

What most people want is not that different from what we want. To have a roof over their heads, provide food for their family, raise their children safely and be able to walk the streets without having to worry some sniper blows your head off. America has fundamentally failed to provide these things to the majority of people in countries they staged a military intervention. Simply because its cheaper to just pay for a military operation and leave the rebuilding to the locals. Except when American construction companies can come in, pick up some sweet high paid contracts and make absurd profits. 

Remember that in both Afghanistan and Iraq, the US had months of good will. People were cheering on the streets when coalition forces pushed out the Taliban and the Iraqi army. That was all squandered when afterwards the US let the warlords run free and do their thing in Afghanistan, and it showed obvious favoritism towards the Shias at the expense of the Sunni's in Iraq. 

18 hours ago, APSMS said:

@krbe Well, one could argue that a lot of the war-torn areas in the Middle East are not very well off. I'm not sure they are as bad as post-war Germany, but I do still think that there's a fundamental difference in the ideology. The Germans were fighting a land war primarily lead by zealots. The Middle Eastern conflict is primarily an ideological battle whose fighters are fully on board with the ideology of their leaders.

That presumes that the Nazi's werent fully on board with the ideology of Hitler or Himmler. The SS definitely was and no, its not because they were all dead is why no insurgency happened. 

[LexusInfernus 908]

Oh hey, remember how Hillary Clinton was totally unfit to lead because of how she handled sensitive information? And how Trump would surely never be so careless with the information he receives?

Except in cases where said information make for good bragging material. Because really, someone risks his life passing extremely sensitive information along in the fight against ISIS, someone who could easily get killed should the people around him find out that that he/she leaked the information. So it makes total sense to brag about it to the Russians. Because really, the president of the United States apparently feels he needs to brag about how awesome his intelligence is to the Russians. 

And I get it, the president can decide when to share such information and with whom. But I would hope that someone with as much power as the president of the United States uses a bit more common sense when deciding when and to whom he divulges such information. 

[APSMS 1,893]

On 5/15/2017 at 9:23 AM, LexusInfernus said:

That presumes that the Nazi's werent fully on board with the ideology of Hitler or Himmler. The SS definitely was and no, its not because they were all dead is why no insurgency happened. 

This presumes that 1) all Germans were Nazis, and 2) that the SS is the same thing as the Wermacht. Note that I specifically said Germans led by zealots (you even quoted it); not all, or even most, of the Germans fighting the war were Nazis, and though the culture was pervasive this did not mean that the full scope of the Nazi plan was appreciated by the standard German Army grunt, though sometimes this is a fiction we tell ourselves to make American atrocities in WWII more palatable.

I would suggest that non-zealots currently in the Mid-East conflict are either civilians, or not part of the problem. This does not still mean that they're ideology is compatible with the Western model, or that in fact the Western ideal is even good for a culture that values family and religious relationships so highly, because if the last 2 years of Western politics has taught us anything, it should be that democracy and civil order and good will only work when all parties are willing to respect the other side, and for the most part this doesn't exist in the middle east, even if the people from opposite sides of the aisle (as civilians) might agree to live together in peace absent government meddling and interference (that is, state/government actors might provoke war, but that does not mean that their constituents would respect the opposition though I agree they might not go to the lengths of shooting each other)

On 5/15/2017 at 9:23 AM, LexusInfernus said:

You assume that Muslims all have fundamentalist beliefs. Most don't, only a tiny fraction does. 

I would suggest that there is a break down here of what "fundamentalist beliefs" means. In Christianity this generally means an adherence to a generally literal interpretation of the Bible, from start to finish. In Islam, there is I think a tendency to associate fundamentalism with Jihadism, and I think that's a false equivalency. I think most people living in Muslim nations would consider the Koran to be the true and literal word of God, delivered from heaven by Mohammad, and that the tenets of Islam as stated in the Koran do not fully agree with the idea of a liberal Western democracy, and in fact I would argue that they do not need to, nor should they. If we want to know why there is resistance in Muslim nations to what we are selling in liberal democracy, it is not because we are the big evil empire invading to take over the infidels (though that certainly doesn't help regarding foreign terrorism), but it's because we are, at a baser level, asking them (with force) to fundamentally change they way they think about the world, about themselves, and about each other to what is objectively a Western Christian viewpoint. You see the same push-back with anti-liberal sentiment among Conservative Christian groups, and then wonder why Muslim nations, which are entire countries full of people with a Conservative outlook, to totally abandon everything they hold true, in favor of your view of reality. Then add in that Islam generally does not put a limit on Government intervention the way Christianity does (see Romans 13; I fully acknowledge historical failure in this area on the part of Christian actors in trying to enforce a state-mandated religion). There are no limitations on preventing the murder of non-believers (again I acknowledge difficulty in this area among "Christian" actors, but I never claimed Christians were a perfect people or that it was atrocity-proof; the same could be said about Evolution and Communism/Socialism and Democracy/Representation--Ideas are useful in rallying people to the cause of killing enemies, but what the ideas themselves say about such acts should be important, because people are notoriously good and finding and creating loopholes).

That being said, again, I do not think that most Muslims seek to kill non-believers, or that they seek to kill alternative factions, or that they are terrorists, but I do think there are fundamental ideological differences about what it means to be religious, what it means to have a country, and what proper governance of a country looks like.

As much as I disagree with the basics of Islam, I do not think we as a nation have the right to go into other countries and tell them that they need to do what "we" think is right. Sure, Might makes Right and all that....

Why exactly would that make Russia a bad actor then, if the only reason that the US gets to play cop is because it decided it was going to be one? Are we suggesting that we're the bigger cop, and therefore more right? That might be a good argument, but then that would also imply that if those are the rules then Russia is more than justified in punching back. They may not be commissioner, but they run their beat; did we not expect a response when we started sticking our finger in their pie?

That's a slippery slope, and in the post-modern era, with no truth and no values, who's to say whether one country or value or ideology is more right than another? I know why I think what I do is right and just. What's the modern justification absent God, universal morality, and proper ethics?

[Fantozzi 4,068]

55 minutes ago, APSMS said:

I would suggest that there is a break down here of what "fundamentalist beliefs" means.

Yup. All those buzzwords injected by media into the body of those arousal- and worries-communities should first be banned from thinking. As if it's knocking on your door - before you say 'come in' you'd first make shure who he his. So with these words.

As if you get older and your blood pressure is high you have to pay attention using salt. As those words to spice up daily news - and 'Nazi' is the same - they are the same. Not really good for blood pressure too.

As we are all fundamentalists. F. e. about education - we are fundamentalists like those ISIS wackos are about religion. Weapon fundamentalists. Would you believe - I know even sex fundamentalists. And gender fundamentalists. And darwinists who are fundamentalists too. And there are on the other side - how is the right name? - creationists?

And when there is soccer on the TV - I'm in danger too to become a fundamentalist.

Everyone who is obsessed by his idears is a fundamentalist.

And therefore - everyone of us, from time to time, is a fundamentalist.

Or without passion.

As 'obsession' you name it, when other people have it. And 'passion' you name it, if it's your own.

As every founder gives a fundament - metaphorical or literal - and that's where the word fundamentalist comes from. 'Fundus' - the latin word, the ground, the reason, the bottom. To have a ground to stand upon and you defend it with your life.

And I've seen many american movies - where the whites defended 'their ground' against american indians. And if you want to know what the word 'fundamentalist' means just watch an old western movie. As the early settlers - how they are presented in those movies - they give the perfect example of what fundamentalists are. Never give up - defend your ground.

“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Well, but that's the holy bible. Sorry, wrong religion.

 

 

 

 

[APSMS 1,893]

1 hour ago, Fantozzi said:

As we are all fundamentalists. F. e. about education - we are fundamentalists like those ISIS wackos are about religion. Weapon fundamentalists. Would you believe - I know even sex fundamentalists. And gender fundamentalists. And darwinists who are fundamentalists too. And there are on the other side - how is the right name? - creationists?

Ah, yes, but indeed I was going for a discussion of the generally used term, particularly when applied to religion and its adherents in a usually derogatory manner.

I would consider myself a Christian fundamentalist, though I know others who would say I am not because I do not go far enough in my beliefs, though I personally think that there is a difference between literal and figurative in the Bible, and it is wise to acknowledge that there are strong elements of both present.

Really at the end of the day I think, perhaps to hone it into Trump/America, that the problem is primarily one of values. Trump does not appear to have any. The [Christian] Right calls the Left morally bankrupt, while the Left calls the Right backwards hicks opposed to progress. We no longer understand what is meant by progress, nor have we understood a way to talk about the problems in context of solutions.

http://www.npr.org/2017/05/09/527541032/there-must-be-more-productive-ways-to-talk-about-climate-change

It's devolved into a shouting match. By the rules established in our Modern Secular society, there can actually be no right or wrong. Why is Putin an enemy of America, or a "bad dude," and in objective terms you can't tell me unless we agree to some basic things, but even then I would suggest that the basis for these things is false, because they have no standard. I can tell you why, objectively, Putin is a bad guy, but only if you are willing to accept my worldview as the right one; generally speaking I consider my worldview as an objective one in the context of religion, because I believe in objective truth. But what about Putin's worldview, or the pro-Russian worldview? The problem with post-modernism is that there can be no objective truth, there can be no right way, because we've destroyed all of the standards to measure things by.

To avoid getting too philosophical, this is the primary reason behind Nietzsche's statement that "god is dead," not because he was an atheist, which he was, but because he recognized that the nation-states that ruled had allowed god to die in their perception, and they needed to devise a new basis of rule and law and order or else be faced with a crisis of existence, because their power had traditionally derived from God, and their law from the Bible, but having dropped these from their consciousness, needed something other than subjective reasoning to base their standards on, or else soon they would find their laws based on nothing at all, a whim meant to enforce whatever they saw fit at the time.

Is Trump doing this with the law right now? Well, to be honest I'd actually say that he's doing a whole lot of nothing.

I don't think he's done anything impeachable so far; poor form, bad governance, whatever. None of it is impeachable. Perhaps if we started forming a rigorous basis for understanding our world, even if I totally disagree with it, I think we, as a nation, the democrats as a party, would be better off for it. Science cannot be that basis, though, because science cannot answer the fundamental questions of life, nor can it address the issues that we face every day; in fact I would suggest that the moment science can do this it is no longer good science, because the nature of science is not to answer these questions; rather it is to ask them, and provide data. The answers to these questions cannot be a scientific one, and the problem that is facing liberals, and younger people, and the country in general, I think, is that we have entrusted to science the answers to questions it is ill-equipped to answer.

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

On 15/05/2017 at 5:23 PM, LexusInfernus said:

Really? No healthcare reforms? Except they just passed Trumpcare. No regulation reforms? Except all the executive orders striking down (mostly environmental) regulations. NAFTA renegotiations are on the table. Yes, he isn't going to get his wall, because its a stupid idea and he won't get the budget for it, he is however rounding up immigrants like crazy and kicking them out. He also tried that idiotic travel ban thing that turned out to be utterly unconstitutional. He won't be able to renew poor inner city areas or adres gang violence because those are problems that are not within the scope of the presidency to really adres. And improved relations with Russia are never gonna happen as long as Putin profits from being to conveniently blame the Americans for everything that goes wrong in Russia. So yeah, he has done enough damage already. 

Stop. I hate the use of that word, 'cultural Marxism'. I've seen it be abused by far to many people on the internet who think it means all kinds of things except the thing it really is. So lets get this straight, cultural Marxism refers to the 'Frankfurt school' within sociology/philosophy. Its only tangibly related to Marxism (as in the people within this school are looking at all the theoretical shortcomings of traditional Marxism). And unlike what Reddit seems to believe, its not part of a plot to destroy America/the West by imposing god knows what on people in order for ultra liberals to win the culture war. In fact, cultural Marxism as used by conservatives/right wing pundits is a conjured up enemy they use in their own attempts at influencing the direction of the culture war.   

Trumpcare has yet to be passed and has every chance of being blocked by the Senate and thus going back to Congress. Executive Orders are pretty limited in their reach. If Trump can do anything really different with NAFTA then I will be astonished- I think the renegotiations are going to be largely cosmetic. I think the wall will get built but only when healthcare is "addressed". The travel ban has yet to be reviewed by the Supreme Court, they will decide whether it is constitutional or not.

Lexus... If Marxism was a critique on the economic disparities, the class struggle and of course the desire to force things to be made equal: everyone has a just share of the profit based on the fruits of their labour. Then Cultural Marxism is a critique on every cultural/racial disparity, the struggle of minorities and of course the desire to force things to be made equal: everyone is to be treated equally but some more equal than others based on how oppressed they have been (currently... historically...).

That's why I call it Cultural Marxism, it wants diversity of appearance but not diversity of thought. Which is why so much feminist theory and their proponents end up cannibalising themselves. Why liberals don't like blacks voting conservative- 'cos the Democratic Party is the only party of choice 'cos the Dems ended the Jim-Crow laws (even though a century and a half ago the Democrats were for slavery- Ahem!) Why colour and ones cultural identity is the defining characteristic of a person, but I thought we were supposed to move away from that, I thought we are human beings: not white human beings, or black human beings, and so forth, but just human beings. I would even go as far as to say that what BLM are doing spits on the face of what MLK and the Civil Rights movements were fighting for back in the 1960s: to break down racial barriers and to break down the whole white/black thing.

Or more recently a coming together of some Feminist groups with parts of Islam in the West- which I find bizarre. Because Feminism and Islam are a clear dichotomy when it comes to women's rights; it's in the Quran as a woman has half the rights of a man. And it's not like one can cherry pick verses of the Quran to abide by because to be a Muslim is to abide by the Quran, by Allah's teachings as written by the Prophet Muhammed and revealed by the Angel Gabriel. Still... I find it fascinating that certain small sections of these two groups: Feminism and Islam, have found some common ground. I was looking at videos of the Woman's March in DC this year and to see some woman put on the hijab... Incredible. I thought Feminism was against the oppression of woman?

It -- this entity of Cultural Marxism -- also distorts things horribly, for instance the notion that white people and their past slavery of others and their killing of others. But slavery and genocide has never been just from white people. Guess where the whites got their black slaves? From the slaves of African Kingdoms. Black sold black into slavery. Or the Barbury Pirates who raided the Mediterranean and captured white people and sold them into slavery.

And as for genocide: Japanese slaughtering the Chinese in WW2, the Armenian Genocide, the Cambodian Genocide, the chaos of India and Pakistan becoming sovereign nations where Muslims killed Hindus and Hindus killed Muslims, the Rwandan Genocide and that's just in the 20th century. Mongolians, warriors of East Asia, devastated the Arabian Empire and destroyed much of the Persian Empire in the 13th century. The Huns, nomads of Central Asia, pillaged the Roman Empire in mid 5th century AD. And the list goes on and on.

It's not just white people who have done slavery and genocide, the view that white people were the worst with regards to slavery and genocide is complete bunkum. While the biggest enemy of white people is... <drumroll> Other white people. Just look at WW1 and WW2.

So when I say Cultural Marxism I am referring to tendencies and actions amongst certain left-wing groups, feminists, liberals, SJWs, etc. which fit into the Cultural Marxist mould but would not be called by the initiators of such actions as Cultural Marxism. And no- I don't believe in the whole Cultural Marxist is something to destroy the West. But there are cultural Marxist tendencies which run through third-wave Feminism and BLM.

See that's the attraction of Marxism and Cultural Marxism: there are problems and disparities in the world, but the answer offered by Marxism and Cultural Marxism only makes thing worse. That's why Communism, the logical offshoot of Marxism, never took off in the West because the capitalist system by and large worked. But Cultural Marxism is quite clever because there has been much racism and cultural/racial disparity in the past with Western countries, and parts of continue to linger on. But we should not feel ashamed or guilt-ridden for actions long done in the past, what matters is what is happening now and today. Constantly looking at the present through the injustices of the past will only make the present very unpleasant to live in. If there's anything to feel guilty about it is mistakes made today that we may regret in the future.

 

Anyway, to discuss this further maybe create a new topic in the current events: "Cultural Marxism in the West" or something to that effect. This is a topic about Donald Trump and his administration.

[APSMS 1,893]

Hmm. All the yelling about Trump from the left.

All the wonky things he's been doing (I didn't vote, remember). Interesting stuff.

Here's a relevant video. I would say maybe only Gary Johnson would have caused it to be less true than usual, but even though it was written during Obama, it's just as legitimate no matter which president is in power, GOP or DEM, Clinton, Bush (either one), Obama, Trump, whoever. Maybe not all of it you agree with; I'd argue even the parts you don't agree with are still true, even if they are against (or for!) your political leanings.

(Do me a favor and ignore the title; maybe you know what it is referring to, but I don't and it's not relevant to why I posted it here)

 

[LexusInfernus 908]

22 hours ago, APSMS said:

This presumes that 1) all Germans were Nazis, and 2) that the SS is the same thing as the Wermacht. Note that I specifically said Germans led by zealots (you even quoted it); not all, or even most, of the Germans fighting the war were Nazis, and though the culture was pervasive this did not mean that the full scope of the Nazi plan was appreciated by the standard German Army grunt, though sometimes this is a fiction we tell ourselves to make American atrocities in WWII more palatable.

We were talking about an insurgency. Not every German had to be a Nazi for an insurgency to take place. Its also irrelevant whether the SS is the same as the Wehrmacht (and I never said it was). The fact is that Germany was led by ideological extremists that had total control over the state and the area, and their ideology had plenty of popular support. They then got beaten by an international coalition with a radically different ideologies that were wholly incompatible with Nazi ideology. These conquerers then proceeded to occupy and instituted a regime change. So far, the conditions are ideal for an insurgency formed by the remnant of extremists to form, indeed the conditions are even better than they were in Iraq or Afghanistan. I've already pointed out that the supposed differences in German culture and historical background are not that different from what we can find in the Middle East today (lack of democratic tradition, religious divisions, German 'unity' being a historically newly invented concept). So German cultural and historical background are not useful concepts to use to explain why no insurgency formed after the allied victory. 

That means that the actions of the allies are the next best possible explanation for why it didn't form there. Judging from the lack of insurgency and the succes of Germany after the war, we can conclude that the allies were very successful indeed in their approach towards Germany after the war. That means that the best military intervention ever was the Second World War and its success depends for the most part on the actions and policies of the allies.  

22 hours ago, APSMS said:

I would suggest that non-zealots currently in the Mid-East conflict are either civilians, or not part of the problem. This does not still mean that they're ideology is compatible with the Western model, or that in fact the Western ideal is even good for a culture that values family and religious relationships so highly, because if the last 2 years of Western politics has taught us anything, it should be that democracy and civil order and good will only work when all parties are willing to respect the other side, and for the most part this doesn't exist in the middle east, even if the people from opposite sides of the aisle (as civilians) might agree to live together in peace absent government meddling and interference (that is, state/government actors might provoke war, but that does not mean that their constituents would respect the opposition though I agree they might not go to the lengths of shooting each other)

Every moderate ideology is compatible with democracy, be it democracy with a few tweaks here and there. And most people in the Middle East are moderates. 

Sure, you are right that the absolute basis for a democracy is that all sides respect each other's differences. But respecting other peoples differences is not something that is culturally determined. Its not like civil wars have never happened in Western nations, yet I don't hear you concluding that Democracy is also incompatible with American values.  

22 hours ago, APSMS said:

I would suggest that there is a break down here of what "fundamentalist beliefs" means. In Christianity this generally means an adherence to a generally literal interpretation of the Bible, from start to finish. In Islam, there is I think a tendency to associate fundamentalism with Jihadism, and I think that's a false equivalency. I think most people living in Muslim nations would consider the Koran to be the true and literal word of God, delivered from heaven by Mohammad, and that the tenets of Islam as stated in the Koran do not fully agree with the idea of a liberal Western democracy, and in fact I would argue that they do not need to, nor should they.

The very fact that there are so many 'extra' texts with interpretations of the Koran written by prominent Islamic scholars which are required readings, disproves the assertion that Muslims all believe that the Koran is the true and literal word of God. Yeah, its the true word of God, but they need a life time of studying to understand its meaning. Only the extremists radicals believe the words in the Koran mean just what they say. Its also why even across the Islamic world, you encounter a wide variety of cultures with different types of modern states and not just one big monoculture that looks the same everywhere.   

22 hours ago, APSMS said:

If we want to know why there is resistance in Muslim nations to what we are selling in liberal democracy, it is not because we are the big evil empire invading to take over the infidels (though that certainly doesn't help regarding foreign terrorism), but it's because we are, at a baser level, asking them (with force) to fundamentally change they way they think about the world, about themselves, and about each other to what is objectively a Western Christian viewpoint.

Well again, you could argue the same points in occupied Nazi Germany and occupied Imperial Japan. In both cases the allies forced a fundamentally different viewpoint on the people of the nations they occupied. If you really want to argue that Democracy is a Western Christian viewpoint you could say thats why it worked in Germany, but then you only make it more difficult to explain in Japan since you've added a level of different the Japanese would have to overcome. 

Still, it worked in both countries thereby proving that cultural and historical background are not determining factors. You can get entire nations to adopt a new and fundamentally different viewpoint. 

22 hours ago, APSMS said:

You see the same push-back with anti-liberal sentiment among Conservative Christian groups, and then wonder why Muslim nations, which are entire countries full of people with a Conservative outlook, to totally abandon everything they hold true, in favor of your view of reality. Then add in that Islam generally does not put a limit on Government intervention the way Christianity does (see Romans 13; I fully acknowledge historical failure in this area on the part of Christian actors in trying to enforce a state-mandated religion). There are no limitations on preventing the murder of non-believers (again I acknowledge difficulty in this area among "Christian" actors, but I never claimed Christians were a perfect people or that it was atrocity-proof;

Well then by your own admission having a religious limit on government intervention or murder is irrelevant since when its there it can easily get ignored. Also, there are most definitely limits on both in Islam. It is just people ignore them for various reasons. 

22 hours ago, APSMS said:

That being said, again, I do not think that most Muslims seek to kill non-believers, or that they seek to kill alternative factions, or that they are terrorists, but I do think there are fundamental ideological differences about what it means to be religious, what it means to have a country, and what proper governance of a country looks like.

Yes, there are, at least to some extend. But again, that doesn't mean democracy can't work in those places. It can, with some adjustments here and there to account for some of those differences. 

22 hours ago, APSMS said:

Why exactly would that make Russia a bad actor then, if the only reason that the US gets to play cop is because it decided it was going to be one? Are we suggesting that we're the bigger cop, and therefore more right? That might be a good argument, but then that would also imply that if those are the rules then Russia is more than justified in punching back. They may not be commissioner, but they run their beat; did we not expect a response when we started sticking our finger in their pie?

That's a slippery slope, and in the post-modern era, with no truth and no values, who's to say whether one country or value or ideology is more right than another? I know why I think what I do is right and just. What's the modern justification absent God, universal morality, and proper ethics?

One is a cop that follows the rules, at least for the most part (ignoring the potential danger of Trump for a moment there). The other is a cop that does what it wants when it wants purely for selfish reasons. Hence, the first cop is objectively better suited to act as a cop than the second cop. Even in a morally gray era, this one is pretty black and white. 

4 hours ago, Ln X said:

Lexus... If Marxism was a critique on the economic disparities, the class struggle and of course the desire to force things to be made equal: everyone has a just share of the profit based on the fruits of their labour. Then Cultural Marxism is a critique on every cultural/racial disparity, the struggle of minorities and of course the desire to force things to be made equal: everyone is to be treated equally but some more equal than others based on how oppressed they have been (currently... historically...).

I suggest you read up on what the Frankfurt school actually studies and what its basic premises and assumptions are. 

4 hours ago, Ln X said:

That's why I call it Cultural Marxism, it wants diversity of appearance but not diversity of thought. Which is why so much feminist theory and their proponents end up cannibalising themselves. Why liberals don't like blacks voting conservative- 'cos the Democratic Party is the only party of choice 'cos the Dems ended the Jim-Crow laws (even though a century and a half ago the Democrats were for slavery- Ahem!) Why colour and ones cultural identity is the defining characteristic of a person, but I thought we were supposed to move away from that, I thought we are human beings: not white human beings, or black human beings, and so forth, but just human beings. I would even go as far as to say that what BLM are doing spits on the face of what MLK and the Civil Rights movements were fighting for back in the 1960s: to break down racial barriers and to break down the whole white/black thing.

Displaying a fundamental misunderstanding of what any of these movements are actually saying or what they stand for. 

4 hours ago, Ln X said:

Or more recently a coming together of some Feminist groups with parts of Islam in the West- which I find bizarre. Because Feminism and Islam are a clear dichotomy when it comes to women's rights; it's in the Quran as a woman has half the rights of a man. And it's not like one can cherry pick verses of the Quran to abide by because to be a Muslim is to abide by the Quran, by Allah's teachings as written by the Prophet Muhammed and revealed by the Angel Gabriel. Still... I find it fascinating that certain small sections of these two groups: Feminism and Islam, have found some common ground. I was looking at videos of the Woman's March in DC this year and to see some woman put on the hijab... Incredible. I thought Feminism was against the oppression of woman?

Feminism stands for the ability of women to choose the direction of their own lives. If a woman chooses to wear a hijab because it puts her more in touch with her religious and cultural roots, why would a feminist object? And if a woman who chooses to wear a hijab subsequently gets attacked by people for wearing a hijab, why would feminists not stand with her? Your assumption that every woman who wears a hijab somehow must have been forced by her father/man and has no agency over her choice of clothes is itself incredibly condescending, sexist and racist. You seem to believe that all Muslim women who do not dress according to what you view as acceptable are oppressed creatures with no agency. You pay lip service to diversity of thought, but right here you clearly demonstrate for all to see that said diversity only applies to whatever you think is acceptable thought, because a Muslim woman choosing to wear a Hijab? Impossible!

4 hours ago, Ln X said:

It -- this entity of Cultural Marxism -- also distorts things horribly, for instance the notion that white people and their past slavery of others and their killing of others. But slavery and genocide has never been just from white people. Guess where the whites got their black slaves? From the slaves of African Kingdoms. Black sold black into slavery. Or the Barbury Pirates who raided the Mediterranean and captured white people and sold them into slavery.

No one pretends only white people took slaves, except in the projections of conservatives on liberals. 

4 hours ago, Ln X said:

And as for genocide: Japanese slaughtering the Chinese in WW2, the Armenian Genocide, the Cambodian Genocide, the chaos of India and Pakistan becoming sovereign nations where Muslims killed Hindus and Hindus killed Muslims, the Rwandan Genocide and that's just in the 20th century. Mongolians, warriors of East Asia, devastated the Arabian Empire and destroyed much of the Persian Empire in the 13th century. The Huns, nomads of Central Asia, pillaged the Roman Empire in mid 5th century AD. And the list goes on and on.

And no one is pretending only white people ever committed a genocide. 

Really, who is doing the distorting here? The people that have taken a perfectly good, albeit relatively small, school of thought within sociology and turned it into this sinister ideology filled with imaginary people who want to blame everything on white people. And yes, these are imaginary people because there is literally no one saying only white people took slaves or white people committed genocide.   

4 hours ago, Ln X said:

So when I say Cultural Marxism I am referring to tendencies and actions amongst certain left-wing groups, feminists, liberals, SJWs, etc. which fit into the Cultural Marxist mould but would not be called by the initiators of such actions as Cultural Marxism. And no- I don't believe in the whole Cultural Marxist is something to destroy the West. But there are cultural Marxist tendencies which run through third-wave Feminism and BLM.

So basically someone took a bunch of people, grouped them together based on whatever they are projecting on them and slapped a scary sounding label on them. Never mind that it makes no sense whatsoever. 

[Fantozzi 4,068]

1 hour ago, LexusInfernus said:

In both cases the allies forced a fundamentally different viewpoint on the people of the nations they occupied.

 

First - the Allies and America aren't the same. There were different viewports brought to germany. What they had in common was hate.

Russian soldiers violated roundabout 100.000 woman when they occupied berlin. There are 860.000 documented cases where GIs violated german woman. Most probably there are much more.

French soldiers violated round about 1600 german woman.

 

Hope, this isn't the meaning of the word 'viewport'.

 

But maybe ... 

... young germans adored jazz music but Hitler hated jazz music. He called it 'negro music'. So young germans felt a great liberation. But now, how many americans thoughts about jazz music by this time is closer to Hitler than to the young generaton of germans? Who's viewpoint is this: jazzmusic is freedom? Can you be shure this viewpoint is owned by the american nation?

 

1 hour ago, LexusInfernus said:

Every moderate ideology is compatible with democracy, be it democracy with a few tweaks here and there.

Democracy is like an empty bottle you fill a market economy in. A democracy without a free market is the same as a communist regime. A kingdom with a free market is the same as a democracy.

And indeed, the best example is Donald Trump. He's the king. The king of a democracy.

And if the chinese liberalize markets everyone yells: look, they become democrats! And so the communists become compatible with democracy.

Marxism is a theory itself. Democracy is an empty bottle to fill some market theories in.

You know - in a democracy you vote, who should be president - a man or a woman, an old one, a young one - a blonde or a brunette. But markets determine their actions.

Take away economy from democracy - what remains is people discussing politics in social networks. And some non-parlamentary organisations perhaps, publicise essays on what we should do to survive the next 50 years.

But democracy isn't a political concept or theory. It's some kind of fashion markets wear. To cover markets so one can say - they have culture, they have humanity, look: we have welfare. It's something to make markets look sexy.

So everything with a free market is compatible with democracy. And if Godzilla has something to sell he is compatible with democracy too.

 

 

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

1 hour ago, LexusInfernus said:

Feminism stands for the ability of women to choose the direction of their own lives. If a woman chooses to wear a hijab because it puts her more in touch with her religious and cultural roots, why would a feminist object? And if a woman who chooses to wear a hijab subsequently gets attacked by people for wearing a hijab, why would feminists not stand with her? Your assumption that every woman who wears a hijab somehow must have been forced by her father/man and has no agency over her choice of clothes is itself incredibly condescending, sexist and racist. You seem to believe that all Muslim women who do not dress according to what you view as acceptable are oppressed creatures with no agency. You pay lip service to diversity of thought, but right here you clearly demonstrate for all to see that said diversity only applies to whatever you think is acceptable thought, because a Muslim woman choosing to wear a Hijab? Impossible!

There's choice and illusion of choice. I'm not criticizing a Muslim woman choosing to wear a hijab, you're twisting my words. I'm saying the choice is very much one-sided because not wearing the hijab, the veil, can lead to ostracization and from accounts in the news it is a horrible process for Muslims who have been forced out of their communities. Now, a Muslim woman not choosing to wear the hijab in an orthodox community is a big deal and these communities are very male-orientated; like it is in Arabic culture. It's a form of oppression and its bigoted, so as a feminist why support that? Which begs another question: is it alright for one group to oppress another group if for that first group it is acceptable?

But in Western countries Muslim communities can't be left alone to do their own thing because the issues of honour killing, FGM, arranged marriages and women being stuck in marriages they don't want to be in, those issues crop up. So in the UK at least social services get called in and sometimes the police, so cultural practices which are incompatible with UK values are being dealt with. Don't tell me there are no issues and there isn't a compatibility problem, they are two very different cultures: UK and Islamic.

Sure Muslims have every right to practice their religion and Islam, but the state has every right to support those Muslims who have been shunned by their own community. The state has the right of not respecting Muslim practice to ensure the rights of a Muslim who has been forced out (an infidel in the eyes of their fellow Muslims) are protected. Otherwise that state is not following the law.

Heck, in the UK religious communities can abide by their own laws and religious laws, so long as it conforms to UK law and/or does not lead to situations where UK laws will be broken. Clear instances of where UK laws would be broken is Islamic polygamy, honour killing, radicalization and the like.

The most shocking thing about the hijab is that it is a cultural obligation, not a religious one. The Quran only mentions that woman should dress moderately and cover themselves which is open to all kinds of interpretations. But Islam and Muhammed's teachings (including the Quran) are not exactly the same thing. There are parts of Islam which have foundations in Arabic culture many centuries ago, then of course there are the thousands of hadiths -- accounts of the Prophet's life, descendants, his close companions and holy followers -- which carry some weight and can help to interpret the teachings of the Quran, but the hadiths are often contradictory.

Then of course there are abrogations in the Quran which contradict earlier passages but even these abrogations are open to interpretation- as the hijab is. My point is Muhammed did not reveal a clear agency for Divine interpretation of the Quran, thus the ambiguities in the Quran will remain unresolved AND -- this is very important! -- and any agreed answers to these ambiguities are human interpretations and not Divine or Quranic. Which is why there is so much strife in Islam and in the Middle East at the moment: orthodox meets secularist, and so forth.

Islam is where Christianity was before the Renaissance. Christianity and its practice had horrific cultural practices too five centuries ago: adulterers hung, witch-burnings, women who committed adultery forced to wear a badge of shame, women punished for having children out of wedlock, women punished for having abortions, women punished for dressing immodestly, gays imprisoned or castrated or killed. Sounds pretty similar to Islamic practice today don't you think? Now it's Islam's turn to modernize and leave behind the backwards ways of a dozen centuries ago. If Christianity can do it so can Islam- it needs to for the sake of peace, prosperity and well-being in the Middle East.

So I'm just saying that Feminists supporting Islam is a real grey area considering Islam's atrocious track record for women's liberties, rights and freedoms. It's a contradiction! There's no way around it. It's all about image and the hijab is a symbol of cultural oppression- by Western standards. In fact donning the hijab to "try it out" is a gross insult of Islamic practice because to wear the hijab is to ALWAYS wear it in public, so the feminists were even disrespecting Islamic culture. Or perhaps "culturally appropriating"! So the whole thing is just dumb and disrespectful all around, it's not symbolic and it most certainly isn't a symbol of progress. It is pure ideological stupidity on the part of feminists. Or maybe feminism has gone so far off the rails that it is now welcoming actual oppressive cultures in small doses. Put it this way- I could never see a second-wave feminist donning the hijab in solidarity of Islam.

Western women would be outraged if they had to live by Islamic custom and culture, then they would quickly shut up when the police and gangs of men start beating all those that don't wear the hijab, and when some women are made examples of by stoning and imprisonment. This is a standard means of enforcement in Iran and most Arabic countries. In Iran a lot of women are fighting right now not to make the headscarf obligatory, they don't want this cultural obligation anymore. So those women and feminists on that Woman's March in Washington wearing the hijab... Dear me God, do they know the struggles women face in the Middle East for their rights and liberties? I mean what's next? BLM becoming buddies with the KKK? That's how different Feminism is from Islam when considering woman's rights!

I don't care if I get called bigoted or narrow-minded because that's the way I see it. Anyway to continue this conversation let's create a new thread or drop it.

The focus of these posts should be on Trump and his administration.

So that's my final stay on the matter of Islam and the hijab. And if the mods don't like what have I said then they are free to remove this post if they want to. No skin off my nose...

Peace.

[APSMS 1,893]

1 hour ago, Fantozzi said:

Democracy is like an empty bottle you fill a market economy in. A democracy without a free market is the same as a communist regime. A kingdom with a free market is the same as a democracy.

I feel like you're describing capitalism.

Sure democracy, or at least basic freedoms, prevail in a market economy that keeps its hands off of its people, but history has shown that humans are terrifyingly good at controlling people's lives even in the outermost extents of their control.

3 hours ago, LexusInfernus said:

One is a cop that follows the rules, at least for the most part (ignoring the potential danger of Trump for a moment there). The other is a cop that does what it wants when it wants purely for selfish reasons. Hence, the first cop is objectively better suited to act as a cop than the second cop. Even in a morally gray era, this one is pretty black and white. 

Whose rules? Are you really saying that American military actions are altruistic? The Gulf War was altruistic? The Battle of Mogadishu? The 2nd Iraq war against Saddam, in our quest to rid the world of Nuclear Weapons? Libya, which is a mess? Syria, which we have zero right to be in?

You know, the Secretary of Defense used to be called the Secretary of War.

Watch that video I posted. Like I said, you may not agree with it, but as I understand it most of the questions he asks aren't actually what ifs.

The president has those powers. We've allowed Congress to give some to him, and the rest have simply been appropriated. Whether he regularly uses them, of course, is a different matter entirely, but I find it disconcerting that he does in fact have them.

I guess my biggest issue isn't that the US does these things; all countries do bad stuff, but that you're actually arguing that we're in the moral right is what I find so appalling. Unless you're really just saying that might makes right, and we kill less people than the "bad guys" so its all OK, which I guess would be a valid position to take but you're not taking it. And really, I'm pretty sure the US does all it's stuff for selfish reasons too, but we have a better PR department, and more people in the world speak English than Russian, so I imagine propaganda is easier to spread as well.

And in a morally grey era, if the one selfish cop is able to act as he wants in total view of the rule-following cop and not only get away with it, but totally escape meaningful punishment from the "better" cop, then not only is the "better" cop incompetent and just as corrupt, but neither is fit for the job. That to me seems pretty clear, because at that point neither are doing the job they're supposed to.

Now, of course, these cops are equally strong, and maybe on opposite teams (how can you have cops be on opposite sides?), but if all the "good" cop can do is call the bad one names, but the people still get beat up and murdered, how does that make him any better? Because we called out the "bad dude" on his failings? Really?

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

 

Anyway, here is the current state of relations of the media with regards to Trump!

[Fantozzi 4,068]

Right.

Did you see the match Judd Trump vs Xiao Guodong?

Wrong text again, sorry.

Maybe:

What did Trump negotiate with Xi Jinping again? How is their version of a trade war going to be?

[LexusInfernus 908]

19 hours ago, Fantozzi said:

Democracy is like an empty bottle you fill a market economy in. A democracy without a free market is the same as a communist regime. A kingdom with a free market is the same as a democracy.

Of course not. Fundamentally it just means people make choices by going for the most broadly acceptable option. You can have a perfectly good, functional democracy without a free market in sight. Point in case, ancient Greece. You think they ever heard of the wonders of the free market in Athens? 

You can have an entirely state run economy and also be a democracy. As long as people get to vote on who runs their town councils and the national government, you are a democracy.  

18 hours ago, APSMS said:

Whose rules? Are you really saying that American military actions are altruistic? The Gulf War was altruistic? The Battle of Mogadishu? The 2nd Iraq war against Saddam, in our quest to rid the world of Nuclear Weapons? Libya, which is a mess? Syria, which we have zero right to be in?

International law are everyones rules. The rules decided upon by all the nations who choose to adopt them, and thats basically all of them. And yes, some military actions are altruistic or have altruistic aspects to them. Of course, the United States does mess up from time to time, sometimes they are just plain wrong and I'm certainly not saying that they were in the right in each and every military intervention.  

18 hours ago, APSMS said:

I guess my biggest issue isn't that the US does these things; all countries do bad stuff, but that you're actually arguing that we're in the moral right is what I find so appalling. Unless you're really just saying that might makes right, and we kill less people than the "bad guys" so its all OK, which I guess would be a valid position to take but you're not taking it. And really, I'm pretty sure the US does all it's stuff for selfish reasons too, but we have a better PR department, and more people in the world speak English than Russian, so I imagine propaganda is easier to spread as well.

Well, even if there are selfish reasons to it, if it helps out people, whats the problem? Sure, the US benefits from a stable world, but so does everyone else and especially the people who don't have to end up fleeing their homes because otherwise they might get killed. And I'm not saying the US is always in the moral right. But sometimes, they really just are. 

18 hours ago, APSMS said:

And in a morally grey era, if the one selfish cop is able to act as he wants in total view of the rule-following cop and not only get away with it, but totally escape meaningful punishment from the "better" cop, then not only is the "better" cop incompetent and just as corrupt, but neither is fit for the job. That to me seems pretty clear, because at that point neither are doing the job they're supposed to.

Now, of course, these cops are equally strong, and maybe on opposite teams (how can you have cops be on opposite sides?), but if all the "good" cop can do is call the bad one names, but the people still get beat up and murdered, how does that make him any better? Because we called out the "bad dude" on his failings? Really?

Well, if every alternative causes more harm, then yes, just calling him out makes you better. 

[metasmurf 705]

I have to say that right now the climate in most mass media in the United States feels borderline totalitarian. This isn't about trump, it's about how far the media establishment are willing to go taking down someone they don't approve of. With this kind of climate, polarization is fuelled, and in the long run it's going to be a threat to national stability.

[SecretMbr_735754 2,158]

The Trump Administration is hereby formally de-commissioned by authority of human civilization actual in form and structure of post-atomic age technology and science.

International authorities may indite, arrest and charge at will for crimes against humanity.   Any attempt of US forces or authority of law to comply with criminal intent and action hostile to the human person will be met with fatal resisting force secured in higher comprehension, capability and material manufacture of technological device.

EDIT:  I forgot to mention 'physical engineering'.   Or maybe I didn't forget,  I did say 'post-atomic'.

  Edited May 21, 2017 by RandyE  
Clarification of Authority

[APSMS 1,893]

The longer the US resists full compliance with the ICC, the longer we as a nation will remain free from foreign influence.

The ICC is the biggest joke there is (well, maybe the World Bank and the IMF are a bigger joke), and is not only useless but lacks the moral backing to even suggest that its rulings be followed.

Remember that the alternative to Trump is Pence. Pence is a smooth operator with no drama and strong ties to Congress. Anyone that dislikes Trump's bill for Healthcare will note that Pence will run the thing through Congress however he pleases with no drama. Conservative policies? Check. Conservative environmental politics? Check. Right-wing tax reforms and government cutbacks? Check. Zero drama with which to nail him in the media? Check.

Trump lacks vices. He doesn't drink, smoke, or do drugs, and I highly suspect that all his womanizing is of a nature which is borderline tolerant, which means you can't turn him into a Bill Clinton either.

Pence also lacks vices. The liberals already tried to nail him on policy, but have shown that their focus was not of the right kind to either unsettle him or to sway public opinion about him any worse or better than it already was. Attempting to use economic threats against him when a religious freedoms bill came up in Indiana did not phase him; he signed it anyways, unlike his counterparts in Georgia and South Carolina. Most companies that have mobility between states do not have international mobility to move out of the country if he were to sign something similar on a national level, nor would they likely give up on the cash cow that is American consumerism. Pence is level-headed, and both lawyering experience in Washington and no ego to worry about, and would be unlikely to encounter serious resistance on his initiatives, which are likely to be more in line with the general Republican agenda than Trump's.

Pence is the alternative to Trump. Remember that he's who you get if you decide to get rid of the devil you know.

[SecretMbr_735754 2,158]

The international community is authorized to splash and sink any and all vessels of the US forces deployed anywhere on the surface, water, under water, or in the air, in orbit, or in high flight over the planet Earth.  This order is given under authority of human civilization actual.

[krbe 193]

On 2017-5-17 at 7:43 PM, LexusInfernus said:

That means that the actions of the allies are the next best possible explanation for why it didn't form there. Judging from the lack of insurgency and the succes of Germany after the war, we can conclude that the allies were very successful indeed in their approach towards Germany after the war. That means that the best military intervention ever was the Second World War and its success depends for the most part on the actions and policies of the allies.  

I agree, and considering the primitive structure of most Middle Eastern societies, such actions would perhaps resonate even stronger there than they did in Germany. 

However, forced starvation, the reduction of industry, dismantling of traditional leadership systems, systematic rape of women and mass movement and internment of people is no longer in vogue. Neither is the total war. You will not see Yemen firebombed or nuclear weapons over Damascus. 

The west has shown that it will only impose its will up to a certain point, and with time, it grows war weary. Wait it out and you can beat them -- they won't lay waste to the defeated anyway, allowing insurgencies to ferment. Winning hearts and minds? Rip out the heart, and the minds of who's left will understand the consequences well enough. 

[SecretMbr_735754 2,158]

 

[krbe 193]

World Battleground, 1000 years of war that Europeans care about is a more accurate title.

[SecretMbr_735754 2,158]

That's only 1000 years of history of the severe violent psychopathology of the human species, the fatal component of the specimens identified as homo-sapiens-sapiens, descends far deeper in its history of maladapted behavior as structured responses hard-wired from its simian, reptilian and rodent components of Its limbic system.   Humans will continue on their path of mass and total destruction of life, and they will be met with fatal extinctive force by the law of natural selection which will continue life on Earth in good conscience and healthy dignity without the violent psychotic monkey species.

EDIT:

Mode of extinction: Volcanic/tectonic combined with sex cell viral attack.  Survival of potential mutated forms: 0%.  Extinction level 100%.  Extinction horizon: 1-4 lunar periods (months).   Earth life re-generation of hominid form phylogeny non-simian and non-rodent specific.   Fatal reptilian limbo-cortical, abstraction and object psychoses de-natured in sex cell structure and discontinued in Mitochondrial, Ribonucleic and Deoxyribonucleic processing.   Restructuring enzymes specific to advanced hominid evolution, location: Planet Earth, re-originating nucleotides in quantum harmony with conscious sentient hominid life.         

 

[Fantozzi 4,068]

Reading through newspapers, posts, radio news etc. - it seems, to many europeans it made a strange impression that Mr. Trump made friendship with Saudi Arabia and praise them as if they were the pioneers of human rights - and then the next day he critisizes the european gouvernements, even insults some of them.

It's like you were friends for 70 years and suddenly your friend tells you, we should be enemies now - I want to have new friends, younger and more sexy than you.
This did a surpisingly great impression on many people - there is a mood like what was called the 'western world' is going to break.

Me, I think, on the long term, he gave good impulses on the european union. I think some gouvernements may realize that in this days the EU can give more stability on following certain interests like global economic stability, pollution control, bank regulation etc. than the old friend that suddenly decides to make his own business.

With america loosing suddenly reliability it will be interesting to see how the european union will try to strengthen their political actionability.

With elections in france some things changed. Both, Merkel and Macron want to reform the EU to strenghten their foreign politics actionability. Trump bolstered them up now.   

[EDIT]

Same with NATO. NATO actually has 27 members. 16 of them are members of the european union, other 5 are european countries. Trump brought them closer together too. They may become tired to be americas strategic beachhead. With Mr. Trump - it's like a chance to get out of the role being a relict of war and cold war and being nothing much else than a geostrategic space between east and west.  

 

[LexusInfernus 908]

On 2017-5-27 at 8:06 AM, krbe said:

However, forced starvation, the reduction of industry, dismantling of traditional leadership systems, systematic rape of women and mass movement and internment of people is no longer in vogue. Neither is the total war. You will not see Yemen firebombed or nuclear weapons over Damascus. 

Really? I assume you are referring to the Morgenthau plan. Do keep in mind that plan was never really implemented and dropped almost as quickly as they came up with it. Traditional leadership systems were not at all dismantled, at least not in Germany. Indeed one of the criticisms was that the allies left a lot of Nazis where they found them, the German bureaucracy was never really purged. 

It were the Soviets that did the raping and that could hardly be called systemic. They were also the ones that did most of the mass interning of people. And they were decisively less successful than the Western allies, having to rely almost completely on oppressive methods.  

And total war is only effective against a total threat. Nuking Damascus to get to a small group of extremists and little dictator is a senseless waste of life that would inspire terrorist movements against whoever dropped the bomb for the next century to come.  

On 2017-5-27 at 8:06 AM, krbe said:

The west has shown that it will only impose its will up to a certain point, and with time, it grows war weary. Wait it out and you can beat them -- they won't lay waste to the defeated anyway, allowing insurgencies to ferment. Winning hearts and minds? Rip out the heart, and the minds of who's left will understand the consequences well enough. 

Yeah except that ripping out hearts alone has never really worked all that well. The threat of bombing civilians has usually only strengthened the resolve of those you are fighting, as well as solidifying their support. Not a single nazi has ever surrendered because the allies firebombed Dresden. Indeed, Dresden now stands as one of the most effective rallying cause for Neo Nazis in Germany. 

Peace through superior firepower sounds tough and imposing, but in practice its basically an unworkable concept that inspires more violence than it stops. 

[Fantozzi 4,068]

1 hour ago, LexusInfernus said:

Indeed one of the criticisms was that the allies left a lot of Nazis where they found them, the German bureaucracy was never really purged. 

Again of topic, sorry - but I'd like to mention that end of 2015 a study was published that showed after war the german interior ministry had 23% former members of the NSDAP but this share grew constantly until 1961 when 66 % of the officers working there were former members of the NSDAP. From then the share declined by reason of age.

 

 

[EDIT]

To get back on topic - german newspapers wrote that Donald Trump owes 340 million dollars to the Deutsche Bank. Some democrats member has written a letter to DB and demanded information how the credits in germany were secured. They suspect (or hope or wish) they were secured with russian money. This seems fuss to me as I don't think DB will talk about their clients business just because someone asks. I think a request for help by american law enforcement agency to german law enforcement agency would be needed.  So this letter most probably was only written to attract public attention on this unchecked suspicions to give the impression this was something hand-tight and official.  

 

 

[LexusInfernus 908]

And there goes American diplomatic credibility out of the window. A move so incredibly stupid that even big oil companies are against it. Literally the only industry that likes stepping out of the Paris agreements is the coal industry. 

With that move Trump has just signaled to the rest of the world that America has become an untrustworthy partner. Any deal he makes is a deal you can't rely on him to honor. So best not to make any deals with the US anymore, at least not while Trump is in charge. 

Well, the only good that this can cause is that it puts a bit of fire under the arses of European leaders. As Merkel said, we can't rely on Americans to lead the way, we have to start doing things our way by ourselves.