Deathly Afraid of a Trump President

I know I already posted here, but heck, this election is stuff is pretty interesting. So I'm back.

I gotta say for a while I simply thought that people who supported Trump were hateful and stupid, but I think I understand their side a little better now. They want a guy who can shake up a system they feel is fucking them over. They respect that Trump flouts the conventions of the political scene that disenfranchised them. Frankly, it's hard for me not to agree! If all that "decency" and "politeness" entails is a mask to hide your dirty actions, then I'll take a vulgarian with his flaws wide on display any day.
That being said, I'm not convinced it's safe to vote for him, simply based on his sweeping statements about illegal immigration reform. Exactly how are you going to round up all of those people? How are you going to deal with dividing families? I mean, under the current laws the kids are legal. I agree that there must be some measures taken against illegal immigration (it's not fair to LEGAL immigrants, and a country's border ought to mean something, otherwise why does it exist) but mass deportations, man, it's not so simple. These are human lives we're talking about here.
If I was a nationalist who only cared about my legal fellow countrymen, I guess I'd be fine with rounding them up and shipping them out. But that's not how I view the world. I think more should be done so the ones who are here can be legally integrated into the system. That should be the primary focus. If in the meantime we enact heightened border security (something like Trump's policy for "repeat offenders") it would curb the problem gradually.
I can only hope that Trump is using his Art of the Deal strategy here and talking a big game to his supporters, with the intention of compromising further down the road. Sigh.
Well, that's if he becomes president at all.
I don't think he will. I feel conflicted about this! On one hand, I think it's probably a good thing that Trump wouldn't be able to put these blundering words into action. A wall? Please. On the other hand, he is fighting against a mass media that loves telling people how to act and what to think, struggling against a candidate who's at the beck and call of her donors in the defense industry who will profit from any war she starts.
I just can't bring myself to vote for Clinton either. All her dirt really needs to come to light. I'm sure you've heard about that General who got like a 5 year sentence for making about 1/1000th of the mishandling of classified information that Clinton did. Even if we pretend she was simply "making a mistake" that's a crass level of negligence. For my money it far out-crasses Trump.
I can't say I'm more or less afraid of either of Trump or Clinton being president (not really afraid either way). Basically what I'm saying though is this is an election where I literally cannot vote with my conscience. So I'm sitting it out, and watching the sparks fly.

 

Ah, well, it seems like you really don't care. You see, your not addressing the issues at all or in a clear matter. You can easily see that if you read the conversation. Not only I notice this, others do as well. There have been other members pointing these things out to you, you see. Perhaps it's a good idea for you to evaluate your own arguments.

Moreover, you think I'm unwilling to use language correctly. Yet you are the one making who made up his own definition of slavery, who argues that "giving false hope" is odd since you are not "giving it". It's pretty clear that you cannot identify proper language. You've demonstrated this several times already.

I said: "I would lie and try to figure out what they want to hear and I would tell them that."

Your comparison is invalid. There is plenty of consensus on the topic of gravity. As for your question, there is no clear-cut answer. In that particular case, I'd lie. I would like to say stuff about subjectiveness, but that's probably not convenient in such a situation. Thus I'd lie.

First of all, the comparison is invalid again. I cannot believe you actually think such a comparison in valid. In this case, you state the following:
1. The paper is blue [you state this as an objective fact]

Disagreeing with this statement is indeed silly, simply because you have said that it's objectively blue. In your own example, this is not the case.

-

The second part of what you're saying is not addressing my reply (and thus not the point you were originally making). To me, you make it seem like you're proving something or making a point, but you clearly don't. Your original question was:

If you view death as freedom, then to you is death something that someone should prefer to life?

To which I answered:

As for your other question, I'll just quote myself:

Even though you probably will not read this properly, some people see death as "liberating" and could thus argue that it gives them freedom.

Now you ask me about "if you [...] then to you [...]". The point is, I don't view death as freedom. I didn't give my personal opinion about that matter. It's you who's not reading my messages properly. So to answer your question, I don't view death as liberating myself. The other questions "so then" are therefore redundant.

Therefore, I think you were trying to give another example (because you were clearly not responding to my point). It is very clear to me that you don't know enough about the philosophical views regarding freedom. Look up Sartre, for one. He'd argue that you do have a freedom to choose whatever.

So not only is the example somewhat pointless, the final statement is debatable. I hope you get the whole subjectiveness of freedom now.

 

I'll put it this way, even if I ignored his blatantly racist and misogynistic commentary and horribly inefficient methods, what about this?

Donald Trump pledges to sign anti-LGBTQ ‘First Amendment Defense Act’ / LGBTQ Nation

If I have to chose between one who shoves herself on a pedestal and a megalomaniac who digs everyone else into a ditch, I'm picking the potential standstill over the confirmed backtracking. Though option C, get the heck out of here, happens to be the most appealing objective from my personal inherent disposition.

Even if you don't care about those rights yourself, you wouldn't be the only one suffering from it. Many innocents would lie right in the crosshairs and we'll have done nothing to obstruct it.

 

Does C stand for Canada?

 

Unhypnotizing a Clinton Supporter | Scott Adams' Blog

I voted for Trump because I felt too manipulated by the demon woman's campaign. I'm sorry. I am really entertained by how much my friends and loved one's think it's going to be the end of the world. If I voted for bad reasons, then at least I voted. The reason we get horrible candidates is because no one participates in democracy anymore.

---------- Post added 6th Nov 2016 at 10:03 AM ----------

Does anyone else get tired of reading anti-Trump propaganda?

 

I am a little tired of the hyperbolic anti-Trump propaganda, yes. About how he's a huge racist, how all his supporters are racists who wish to usher in the apocalypse, etc. It's ridiculous.

At the same time, I'm also a bit sick of hearing how Clinton is a "demon" or a "devil" and that her hypnotized supporters love corruption.

So...as with much in politics, the two sides are beginning to sound more and more like they are of the same coin. And both are giving me a headache.

 

Apart from the hysterical juxtaposition of complaining about 'propaganda' and calling Hillary Clinton a 'demon woman' with all the sexism that entails, that blog post you linked is near valueless. Its sources consist of a discredited video, a video of Clinton speaking that literally condemns her as 'deranged' for her tone, as if such accusations against women were justifiable or new and it gives no evidence save the unreliable Project Veritas video of 'organised violence' that Clinton inspires compared to 'individual insanity' Trump inspires.

What that blog post does do is scrape at the bottom of the barrel to make Trump appear better.

When international relations are reduced to a dichotomy of war or nothing, that effectively means that you concede your candidate is so bad as to have to defend whether or not his boorishness would spark war, rather than discussing how he could manage foreign policy positively. China probably won't go to war over a tweet - few would reasonably claim that. It might leverage a Trump insult to position Beijing as a friend of South-East Asia, or to galvanise domestic anti-Americanism when convenient.

But being cavalier about nuclear proliferation is a real concern. Extreme lack of diplomacy is guaranteed to set US foreign policy back even before day one.

It calls Clinton's passion and frustration insanity, and her policy changes over decades 'common flip-flopping', while it never explains why Trump's policy changes over days, weeks and months are somehow any more masterly. It baselessly calls him a 'Master Persuader' (cultish capitalisation included) as if a woman who can navigate complex economic models, the specifics of foreign countries' domestic policies and the intricacies of the president's powers, all without notes, is somehow clumsy and unconvincing.

Stating that donations to the Clinton Foundation and paid speeches will fundamentally change her policies presumes an over-reliance on the donors you dislike (banks, certain governments) while it ignores that the bulk of the money comes from fairly miscellaneous sources (the American Camping Association and Microsoft, among others) - it's just not a realistic concern without specifically linking donations or speech payment to certain outcomes - and demonstrating a causal link.

Even if Trump is not going to be the cause of the apocalypse, that does not mean all the concerns that post weakly attempted to brush aside are not real. That is not hypnosis. That is a commitment to strong political values and the belief that certain attitudes and language are disqualifying from the most powerful office in the world.

And if we are not supposed to take the misogyny, racism, carelessness about policy and personal bullying seriously because Trump does not mean them, then I simply don't understand how it is Clinton we are supposed to distrust.

 

lol, Aussie, you're still at it huh. Have you ever actually lived in the U.S.? If not then you really have no clue what is happening here beyond what you're getting from the ridiculously biased media.

 

Technically one would still be free to either not do what the person with the gun is demanding and risk getting shot or try to take the gun from them or act freely in the parameters given by said person to try and get out of there alive.
One might only have one choice that involves survival but one is far from being unfree.
As it is that person could also shoot you once you're done with what they told you, so really that scenario doesn't make for a good comparison.



To the thread topic: I don't really like either candidate. What I am shocked at is how shocked people are at all these things coming out now, I mean, come on it had to be expected. Believe it or not that's how " democracy" works in a lot of places.
What I am slightly unnerved by is how the country standing for democracy is doing this election: Most people don't like the candidates who are openly insulting each other without even bothering with at least appearing to be polite and a lot of people are voting by person not by political views. Plus there's only two parties with a real chance to win, that will surely give you so much choice for democracy and decisions and stuff.

---------- Post added 6th Nov 2016 at 11:59 PM ----------

And people living in America don't get their information from the media?

 

If I'm faced with you and non-academic blogs as a source and the bulk of my education (a significant part of which is specifically devoted to US politics and economy), educated journalists, economists, political scientists, lawyers and institutions like the Council on Foreign Relations as sources, my choice is going to be clear.

But additionally, apart from subjective feelings about the United States' condition, we are effectively theoretically able to access the same level of information about the United States as a whole. If you don't have an academic background in politics, political history or economics, you might even have less information in which to frame the context of this election. Unless you're getting inside details from either campaign, we have the same access to studying Trump and Clinton.

Even if I am not able to have the subjective experience of being an American or gain the same level of on-the-ground insight into how people in your area think (importantly, how they think is only useful insofar as it demonstrates the attitudes of that locality, not as a study of the candidates themselves), I am able to understand US politics, and I am especially able to understand US politics as it relates to international relations.

But I won't just accept my opinion being written off because I'm not American. That's lazy and continues your trend of unwillingness or incapacity to sustain substantive engagement to defend your arguments.
--

This conversation has gone so far its own way it is no longer relevant to the discussion as a whole.

But if you are interested in the philosophy of free will, then I suggest starting with Peter van Inwagen's "The Power of Rational Beings: Freedom of the Will" and Peter Strawson's "Freedom and Resentment", which explore free will in the context of determining moral responsibility. It might help with the discussion, especially in understanding how even without having free will in a strictly intuitive sense, we can be morally free and value our decisions in life and life itself. In a more political sense, understanding situated agency might make it easier to navigate a world in which social and political restraints exist and interpret the extent to which we can have freedom in a measurable political science sense.

 

I'm not writing your opinion off just because of that. For example you said:

"If I'm faced with you and non-academic blogs as a source and the bulk of my education (a significant part of which is specifically devoted to US politics and economy), educated journalists, economists, political scientists, lawyers and institutions like the Council on Foreign Relations as sources, my choice is going to be clear. --"


So, given that you seem to make decisions on your opinions based on what source you find the most credible, then you must have changed your mind about a no fly zone in Syria after I posted two videos, one of which was a United States four star general saying a no fly zone means WWIII.

If you haven't changed your mind, why not? Because a four star general isn't more credible than... well, pretty much everybody else?

Yeah I'm not going to go read a book you suggest when you have demonstrated that you aren't rational. Unless you have already taken back your argument that a no-fly zone is a bad idea? If so then I'll take a look at those books.

 

Aren't you all over-reacting? The USA has been spreading "democracy and freedom" under so many presidents - either republican and democratic, sane or insane for quite a while now. It's not looking good for the world either way.

 

Even if you disagree with one point and label it as irrational, it doesn't mean that Aussie is irrational. Seems like you have not much of a clue of what you're talking about. Not only about freedom, also about rationality.

 

Well, there are a significant number of diplomats, Russian government specialists, international politicians and international relations academics who support a US-led no-fly zone in Syria as part of a comprehensive solution or as a contingency for Russia continuing to support Assad and opposing legitimate rebels - a situation that has continued.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/syria/2016-10-05/safe-zone-syria
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/syria/2016-02-22/realist-case-safe-zone-syria
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/syria/2014-11-12/better-safe-sorry

Among those include a current and multiple former US Secretaries of State, including Mrs. Clinton.

I gave a number of reasons as to why I think a no-fly zone is necessary, namely that it establishes a pro-democratic force in Syria, forces Russia's hand and protects civilians better than any other mechanism.

You have given none and linked one general whose arguments you didn't summarise, and a vlog from a Virginia State Senator, hardly a strong authority on international affairs. Even if I didn't engage with the substantive opinions, then I still have pretty legitimate sources.

Additionally, a general does not necessarily consider the politics and humanitarian policy of the situation - even if the military considerations are legitimate, his emphasis on them doesn't negate politics, humanitarianism and international law considerations which can lead you to take a different opinion.

But on top of that, what matters above all is that many were claiming that Hillary Clinton is fundamentally immoral for her opinion on a no-fly zone. But with the rationale I've given and the balancing of various outcomes, the choices are stark and she must choose one of many options that result in death either directly or by negligence. To declare her evil for that is so devoid of context that it was important to rebut.

Even if she is wrong, she has a reason for that opinion. No matter what opinion you take, Syrians die. No matter what opinion you take, tensions between the EU, US and Russia exist. And if Russian expansionism isn't checked, you cannot guarantee that less conflict now won't worsen the state of relations throughout 2017-2021/25 and beyond.

And because it's so simplistic to pretend there's an opinion which doesn't cause deaths, I'm so frustrated that Clinton is slammed for choosing one of those many options.

Because if there are nuanced differences on policy in Syria, that is obviously fine. I am not necessarily right. Nor is Hillary Clinton. But the accusation in the pretence that a deathless option exists is unrealistic and signals personal virtue rather than a belief in a solution.

I don't think anyone on this forum or viewing this discussion in passing would agree that I am not rational, or at worst for me that I am less rational than you are.

Those weren't books, they were articles. And they're not just random suggestions, they're commonly-taught texts at most universities' philosophy departments. But given you clearly have neither deep nor even passing familiarity with the philosophy and were disrupting the thread, I thought it might be helpful.