Donald Trump

[Wolf DeVoon]

3 minutes ago, KorbenDallas said:

When Trump said this ... "Second Amendment people, maybe there is. I don't know."

I said this ... "Trump is wrong here."

I guess. I don't know if he's wrong or not, considering Bob Beckel's remarks about killing Assange. A lot of folks think killing solves problems, hundreds every year in Chicago, thousands in Mexico, tens of thousands in Syria. millions occasionally in Africa and so on. I think the USG is involved in killing several hundred at a whack with drones and bomber sorties, right? Jihadis killed about 2,500 civilians so far this year. It's all very well to say you oppose killing (if you do) but it seems to be ordinary behavior historically and will likely continue in the future. The ultimate checkmate in the Persian Gulf is an Israeli thermonuclear bomb.

I think Trump's remark and your comments skate around the right of revolution, causes of taking up arms like the Founders did.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

9 hours ago, 9thdoctor said:

It called to mind the opening of this lecture:

Dennis,

Ah me... Memories, memories...

I actually met Leonard Bernstein back in college. I was playing a concert at Harvard (L'Histoire du soldat--The Soldier's Tale by Stravinsky) in a small room and he sat in the front row, about 10 feet away from me. Man, did he make a lot of noise during the concert--he was air conducting as the music unfolded and using breath and grunts and foot stamps for emphasis. Afterwards we chatted some. I was trying to pick his brain on music, especially since my major was music composition (and trombone), but then a young lady resembling the college liberal girl meme came up and asked him in a dorky voice about the Black Panthers. I thought, Black Panthers? What the hell does that have to do with anything? But Bernstein puffed up, assumed that self-important pose he has in the lecture and started pontificating in his quasi-English accent to the girl on sociology. I shrugged my shoulders, turned around and went back into my student life. I probably got stoned that night, I don't remember...  

Those Harvard lectures are quite good, though. Recently, I decided to bone up on my songwriting chops (don't ask me when I have time for all this shit  ) and am going through some works by Pat Pattison on lyric writing. He teaches at Berklee School of Music right there in Boston. Oddly enough, one of his biggest inspirations in life was those Bernstein lectures and he recommends all his students to see them. So I put them on my plate. I have only seen a couple over the years and bits and pieces of others. They are all on YouTube now.

Anywho, I digress...

Back to topic:

Trump 2016

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

7 hours ago, wolfdevoon said:

I can't discern any personal right to bear arms in Amend 2, except as part of a state militia like part-time National Guard volunteers under the command of a state governor -- but that's just me.

Wolf,

The first part of the sentence in the Second Amendment does say that a well regulated militia is necessary to a free state, but the following phrase is pretty clear, at least to me: "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

I note that it doesn't say "the right of some people," just "the people." Also, I am not aware of any collective defined as "the people" in the constitution that excludes individuals. The way I understand it, when something applies to a collective, unless a provision is made to the contrary, it applies to all the components of that collective.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Does anyone remember how I went on and on about the difference between words people as opposed to deeds people?

Here is an interview on MSNBC between Kate Snow, a total words person, and Trump campaign spokesperson Katrina Pierson. 

Snow made no bones about how metaphysical she considered words. She seems to have gotcha in her soul, but I was surprised about how explicit she was in using the term "words" over and over and emphasizing how important they were.

Since Katrina understands what a deed is and thinks that is metaphysically more important than a word, and that people should be responsible for the words bouncing around in their heads, Snow eventually said she was speechless and couldn't follow Katrina's logic.

It's an amazing confession of holding an epistemology divorced from action if you are looking for the difference.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here's a throw-away comment I got from Rush Limbaugh (see here).

He recalled, back in 1992/1993 asking Ted Koppel how many people he knew who had been murdered or died under suspicious circumstances. And that's a good question to ask today. The answer is most people don't know anyone. 

However, when one asks how many people the Clintons knew who had been murdered or died under suspicious circumstances, the body count is pretty damn high.

Rush asked about the term "Clinton body count." Why don't people talk about a Bush body count? Or an Obama body count? (Obviously, he's not talking about war.) The reason is there is none to talk about.

But when the Clintons appear, the bodies start piling up again. There are five so far this election cycle.

Michael

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

12 hours ago, KorbenDallas said:

I know a lot of gun owners, they are a diverse group morally, and there are a lot that know the weapon isn't to kill anyone but wouldn't mind having the thought of what Trump said. 

Korben,

The other side of the media distortions and demonization of Trump (from the New York Post):

Liberal attacks on Trump are so unhinged, it might get him killed

If one grants these liberal attacks moral legitimacy by claiming Trump is responsible for what is in their heads (or the heads of wingnuts)--so he should not say anything they could misconstrue--that does not satisfy them.

It emboldens them.

They attack more.

I guarantee you many of them would celebrate if Trump were assassinated. Here's one from yesterday (from Breitbart): ‘Spiderman’ Actor Donald Glover: ‘Thank God, One Day Trump is Gonna Die’.

It's one after another.

Here's a funny thought. We need the 2nd Amendment to protect ourselves from liberal mobs if they get too emboldened. That's a quip, but I'm not so sure...

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Hannity on the attack naming names against crybaby sore loser Republicans.

He does a great job of laying out the issues, too.

Michael

[KorbenDallas]

5 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Does anyone remember how I went on and on about the difference between words people as opposed to deeds people?

Here is an interview on MSNBC between Kate Snow, a total words person, and Trump campaign spokesperson Katrina Pierson. 

Snow made no bones about how metaphysical she considered words. She seems to have gotcha in her soul, but I was surprised about how explicit she was in using the term "words" over and over and emphasizing how important they were.

Since Katrina understands what a deed is and thinks that is metaphysically more important than a word, and that people should be responsible for the words bouncing around in their heads, Snow eventually said she was speechless and couldn't follow Katrina's logic.

It's an amazing confession of holding an epistemology divorced from action if you are looking for the difference.

Michael

The media saying his statements were to incite violence is a spin, and I think what Katrina is saying here is spin.  I've seen a few videos of her talking about it, Trump speaks about the 2nd amendment, Hillary, and the open Supreme Court seat---sure those are the elements to the context but Trump used different conditional statements with those elements and made a nasty statement, one that I don't think was accident or ignorance.  I think Trump was encouraging violent thoughts, but not existential action.  As I've said before, I've heard that exact line many times over the years and that is only what it means.  Trump needs to stop feeding the trolling media, instead of talking about his economic plan we're talking about a negative statement for the rest of the week.  Anyway, MSK I know we disagree on this and I think that's okay.

[BaalChatzaf]

49 minutes ago, KorbenDallas said:

The media saying his statements were to incite violence is a spin, and I think what Katrina is saying here is spin.  I've seen a few videos of her talking about it, Trump speaks about the 2nd amendment, Hillary, and the open Supreme Court seat---sure those are the elements to the context but Trump used different conditional statements with those elements and made a nasty statement, one that I don't think was accident or ignorance.  I think Trump was encouraging violent thoughts, but not existential action.  As I've said before, I've heard that exact line many times over the years and that is only what it means.  Trump needs to stop feeding the trolling media, instead of talking about his economic plan we're talking about a negative statement for the rest of the week.  Anyway, MSK I know we disagree on this and I think that's okay.

Trump has a case of foot in mouth disease.  I suspect he really does not give a shit how his words are taken.  He is a true lout.  I am voting for him on the chance that he might win  and become a millstone around the neck of our oh so corrupt government.  I regard the man (this is a personal evaluation now) is far beyond the pale of  civilized behavior and Good Manners.   He is a loutish boor.  

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

54 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

I suspect he really does not give a shit how his words are taken.

Bob,

That is closer to the truth.

54 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

He is a true lout.

That isn't.

Michael

[KorbenDallas]

1 hour ago, KorbenDallas said:

instead of talking about his economic plan we're talking about a negative statement for the rest of the week

Hillary bailed his ass out and it's (at least for now) back on the economy.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

25 minutes ago, KorbenDallas said:

Hillary bailed his ass out and it's (at least for now) back on the economy.

Korben,

She also embraced the cop-killing Occupy Wall Street Black Lives Matter.

The fringe of these folks don't talk about dog-whistles. They just go out and bait cops to their face with vile rhetoric while others go out and start shooting. At least that's what they've been doing recently.

Michael

[KorbenDallas]

I missed this one:

Alton Sterling Matters.
Philando Castile Matters.
Black Lives Matter. pic.twitter.com/GmUFN9sDH6

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) July 7, 2016

 

If people would start acting like there is equality, it would go a long way to actually having it.

[Wolf DeVoon]

11 minutes ago, KorbenDallas said:

I missed this one If people would start acting like there is equality, it would go a long way to actually having it.

Was that said on a video? - no matter - who equal to who? Strangest idea of all, that individuals are somehow equal.

[KorbenDallas]

1 minute ago, wolfdevoon said:

Was that said on a video? - no matter - who equal to who? Strangest idea of all, that individuals are somehow equal.

I didn't say individuals are somehow equal.

[KorbenDallas]

20 minutes ago, wolfdevoon said:

Was that said on a video? - no matter

Na it matters. What video?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

1 hour ago, KorbenDallas said:

If people would start acting like there is equality, it would go a long way to actually having it.

Korben,

Clinton doesn't know anything about racism. I grew up around actual racists.

I also fell in love with and lived with a black woman for about a year.

What's happening today has nothing to do with what I experienced--there is no real racism I see nowadays. Instead I see rhetorical games, tribe-making, power-lusting and propaganda.

Anyway, the defining problem in oppressive situations is not the "lack of preciousness" and "color of their skin" as in the Clinton quote. It's violence, threat of violence and things like that.

When people see a bad situation nowadays, the first thing in their minds goes something like this: which group is the oppressor and which group is the oppressed? Black? White? Gay? Female? Hispanic? Old white men? Cops? One percent? And so on. They may not use words like oppressor and oppressed, but they use those concepts. And when concepts like that are used as metaphysical and emotional priorities, that is pure collectivist thinking, collectivism to the core.

An individual way of looking at this would be basing right and wrong (for these situations) on violence and which violent or threatening person was justified or not. It doesn't matter what he looks like. The one using violence as aggression was wrong. It matters what he does--qua individual. Not qua category.

Clinton is surfing on Marx.

And the people who feel sorry for themselves and want to blame somebody for their pitifulness are eating it up.

Rush Limbaugh said something really important recently. I swear, barring an overly political frame, sometimes he thinks like an Objectivist. See this from today: The Key to Winning This Election.

From the transcript (my bold).

Quote

... we are living under false promises of the Democrat Party.

. . .

To me, there's a whole lot of people who know -- they sense, they feel -- that things aren't right. 

All this immigration? They can see the virtual takeover of Europe.  They look around and they see massive racial unrest in Chicago. They see cops being shot.  This is just not the stuff of a country that's well-oiled and functioning with a happy and upbeat population that's optimistic about the future.

. . .

... 

... I think that's where this election is going to be won or lost, and I think the Democrats know this, which is why they are so focused on only one thing: Scaring everybody that Donald Trump is unfit, is unsuited, is mentally deranged, is maybe insane, is maybe out of control. 

The only thing they've got is to scare people even more than they are already scared.  It is of special noteworthy interest to me that the Democrat Party never uses optimism, never tries to rally people on the basis of optimism. They talk about hope, but what's the hope?  To be delivered from misery? Because to listen to the Democrats describe life in America, it's one misery after another. It's one discrimination after another. It's one forced pregnancy after another. It's one dismal life lived after another. 

The picture they paint of this country is one of constant suffering that you have to endure.  And if you vote Democrat, we'll make it easier for you to get through this misery.  But they never promise optimism.  They never tell people how good they can be.  They never tell people that they're capable of much more than they even know, because they don't want people realizing that.  Because the more people exceed their own expectations, the less need there is for a command-and-control central government-run by Democrats.

Rush is talking about individual achievement, not compliance with collectivist rules and victimization. 

So, to paraphrase the Clinton quote you posted: "Something is profoundly wrong when so many Americans believe that they need our country to be a stand-in for their souls and consider them as precious rather than loving themselves as individuals enough to dream big, when they blame all their personal failures on the color of their skin [or fill in the blank with other collectivist marker]."

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

btw - Rush had another take on Clinton's impact on blacks. I don't have time to look it up, but it goes something like this.

Hillary's hubby made a law with some of the stiffest penalties on record for minor drug offenses. He made it so a huge number of black males were incarcerated for long sentences, thus depriving a huge number of small kids of their father. That's one of the reasons for so many single-mother families these days.

Bill Clinton guaranteed that poor blacks never left the ghetto. 

Michael

[KorbenDallas]

3 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Korben,

Clinton doesn't know anything about racism. I grew up around actual racists.

I also fell in love with and lived with a black woman for about a year.

What's happening today has nothing to do with what I experienced--there is no real racism I see nowadays. Instead I see rhetorical games, tribe-making, power-lusting and propaganda.

Anyway, the defining problem in oppressive situations is not the "lack of preciousness" and "color of their skin" as in the Clinton quote. It's violence, threat of violence and things like that.

I live in the south and see racism often in the form of treating others with disrespect, from both white and black people.  Another form I have seen is in the workplace several years ago with people intervening with others' opportunity.  It involved manipulating a person's alternatives environmentally so when they go to act--to choose--they cannot have value.  And other methods of deceit to undermine.  This was done by both black and white people.

When I was in kindergarten I thought black skin was like hair color: a different hair color, who cares?  But I quickly found out it wasn't like that.  Later in high school I saw violence.  There were a couple of times white people were warned not to wear certain colors on certain days or risk being attacked, some were.  But I've seen less and less racism over the years, and I think the more we continue to treat each other as man qua man the better off we will be.
 

3 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

When people see a bad situation nowadays, the first thing in their minds goes something like this: which group is the oppressor and which group is the oppressed? Black? White? Gay? Female? Hispanic? Old white men? Cops? One percent? And so on. They may not use words like oppressor and oppressed, but they use those concepts. And when concepts like that are used as metaphysical and emotional priorities, that is pure collectivist thinking, collectivism to the core.

An individual way of looking at this would be basing right and wrong (for these situations) on violence and which violent or threatening person was justified or not. It doesn't matter what he looks like. The one using violence as aggression was wrong. It matters what he does--qua individual. Not qua category.

Clinton is surfing on Marx.

And the people who feel sorry for themselves and want to blame somebody for their pitifulness are eating it up.

Rush Limbaugh said something really important recently. I swear, barring an overly political frame, sometimes he thinks like an Objectivist. See this from today: The Key to Winning This Election.

From the transcript (my bold).

Quote

... we are living under false promises of the Democrat Party.

. . .

To me, there's a whole lot of people who know -- they sense, they feel -- that things aren't right. 

All this immigration? They can see the virtual takeover of Europe.  They look around and they see massive racial unrest in Chicago. They see cops being shot.  This is just not the stuff of a country that's well-oiled and functioning with a happy and upbeat population that's optimistic about the future.

. . .

... 

... I think that's where this election is going to be won or lost, and I think the Democrats know this, which is why they are so focused on only one thing: Scaring everybody that Donald Trump is unfit, is unsuited, is mentally deranged, is maybe insane, is maybe out of control. 

The only thing they've got is to scare people even more than they are already scared.  It is of special noteworthy interest to me that the Democrat Party never uses optimism, never tries to rally people on the basis of optimism. They talk about hope, but what's the hope?  To be delivered from misery? Because to listen to the Democrats describe life in America, it's one misery after another. It's one discrimination after another. It's one forced pregnancy after another. It's one dismal life lived after another. 

The picture they paint of this country is one of constant suffering that you have to endure.  And if you vote Democrat, we'll make it easier for you to get through this misery.  But they never promise optimism.  They never tell people how good they can be.  They never tell people that they're capable of much more than they even know, because they don't want people realizing that.  Because the more people exceed their own expectations, the less need there is for a command-and-control central government-run by Democrats.

Rush is talking about individual achievement, not compliance with collectivist rules and victimization. 

So, to paraphrase the Clinton quote you posted: "Something is profoundly wrong when so many Americans believe that they need our country to be a stand-in for their souls and consider them as precious rather than loving themselves as individuals enough to dream big, when they blame all their personal failures on the color of their skin [or fill in the blank with other collectivist marker]."

I read the whole article, and liked your comments, good stuff

[KorbenDallas]

From Fox, "What to expect from the presidential debates," where Rudy Giuliani discusses negotiations surrounding them, and Candy Crowley:

 

[merjet]

Profoundly stupid. "Enabler" could pass, but "founder" is profoundly stupid.  Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was founder.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

53 minutes ago, merjet said:

Profoundly stupid. "Enabler" could pass, but "founder" is profoundly stupid.  Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was founder.

Merlin,

Stupid? Nah..

Trump's running a campaign, not a history lesson. If he did it your way, nobody would be talking about it (and branding Obama and Clinton with ISIS).

Doing it his way, everybody's talking about it (and branding Obama and Clinton with ISIS), including you.

Trump even has a conceptual category for this that he wrote about in The Art of the Deal. He calls it a "hyperbolic truth" or something like that. This is basically an important truth packaged in enough exaggeration to get everyone's attention. You use it when the simple truth by itself does not penetrate.

When you look at it, Rand used this technique a lot in her scorched earth rhetoric.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

No sooner did I write that than I came across these tweets below.

Trump called his exaggeration sarcasm, but whatever the word one prefers, he used an exaggeration as I mentioned above to get attention and brand Obama and Clinton with ISIS.

Also, from the flurry of totally irrelevant news stories about this, now he gets to call the nitpicking pundits morons for playing the gotcha fiddle while Rome is burning.

Ratings challenged @CNN reports so seriously that I call President Obama (and Clinton) "the founder" of ISIS, & MVP. THEY DON'T GET SARCASM?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 12, 2016

I love watching these poor, pathetic people (pundits) on television working so hard and so seriously to try and figure me out. They can't!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 12, 2016

 

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I just saw this one.

Trump getting into charts, but doing it his way.

He's talking about home ownership and when President Obama took office. He said you don't need to have very good eyesight to see what's going on.

He points to the peak on the chart and circles it with his finger. He says, "Here's Obama."

Then he slides his finger down the slope and stops on the lowest point. "And here's... the end."

 

Michael

[Peter]

Wow. Gone for a day and the Trump mailbox is full. Like someone with Tourette’s I just gotta get my two cents in though it has been discussed to death.

KorbenDallas referenced, From Fox, "MEDIA BIAS: Media has gone bat crap crazy over Trump" end quote

In the video there is the line last month from Elizabeth Warren, “I wish Donald Trump would just disappear.” Oh, my god, what is that ditzy bitch insinuating?

Jon Letendre wrote: Trump's 2nd amendment comments were perfectly fine, he did nothing wrong. Hillary on the other hand spoke openly in 2008 about staying in the nomination race because "anything can happen" to Obama, who was leading. She cited Bobby Kennedy. end quote

Objectivists and libertarians openly and respectfully discuss the 2^nd Amendment. Americans are guaranteed the right to bear arms in the Constitution and to overthrow a tyranny, though I understand Wolf's uncertainty.

Back in the day, Thomas Jefferson wrote: Each generation is as independent of the one preceding, as that was of all which had gone before. It has then, like them, a right to choose for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of its own happiness . . . . end quote

However, I do not think Thomas Jefferson was advocating starting over with a different constitution since the amendment process was already established.

George H. Smith once wrote: . . . . the Founding Fathers rejected the notion that one generation can bind future generations. This does not mean that they framed constitutions only for their own generation. They had another explanation for how the political obligations generated by constitutions can apply to future generations. For now, I will leave it to you to figure out what that explanation was. end quote

Peter