william.scherk

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    9,165

  • Joined

  • Days Won

    66

 Content Type 

Blog Entries posted by william.scherk

  1. william.scherk
    [--  this was originally slated for publishing on November 8th, and dates back to August. The boring laments about those departed to the lake are kind of embarrassing. But hey, it helped clarify my thinking when I wrote it, and invites correction  of its assumptions. I add the picture of Lake Wateree in South Carolina to take your eye off my errors --]
    Of the several issues on which he differed from Trump or for which he chastised Trump, Pence has fallen into line -- as reported widely today So, that policy clash is papered over. 
    The anti-Trumpers in the Republican fold, those who would ordinarily vote Republican but cannot yet support Trump, what happens to them now that they are 'out of the way'?  If you mean doomed efforts to forestall the inevitable coronation in Cleveland, I think that doom was expected no matter the VP choice. If you mean that the selection of a Republican conservative like Pence solves the problem of "NeverTrump" beyond the convention, I understand that perception. 
    I would say that Pence is a 'safe' choice in ways that Gingrich or Christie would not be. No baggage of the same weight as on those two already larger men. A strict Ryan-like conservative in the House. Socially conservative and proudly Christian before all. Able to take direction from The Boss. 
    A VP is always available, as stand-in for the Head of State duties of the USA, but otherwise has no Cabinet portfolio. It is in the interests of constitutional order that the VP 'shadows' the work of the executive, receives corollary briefings and homework to understand the tasks ahead in an administration, and also to understand the workings of the executive office, should a presidency be cut short.
    Politically, the executive can use the deputy as needed, to tour, speechify, meet the press, be 'ambassador' and ribbon-cutter and funeral-attender -- but the Decider need not have any warm or useful personal relationship with the second-in-line -- a VP may not even be consulted, merely instructed, and nothing says that he or she has to be listened to or accorded any gravity or power-space.
    I think the spare ambit of the job of leader-in-waiting requires doing the job as symbolic state function: per protocol and as the boss tells you to, within the margins the boss sets, with leash adjusted from time to time, in private. 
    I think the key to a Pence role in a Trump administration is the relationship. And I have no idea what relationship will form by January. 
    Will Pence and Trump speak daily going forward?  Will Pence be a kind of stenographer and secretary (the good kind) and translator? Coach, sounding board, 'wise counsel' during final decision-making. Will he write his own scripts for speeches?  
    These are all kind of pre-election queries.  My gumption is that Trump will treat the governor as an apprentice, let him close enough to see how the magic is accomplished, and otherwise test him with small jobs and tasks. On the stump, he has a buddy, or a relay-racer now. The message co-ordination will be easier with a professional politician and former radio host like Pence. He very ably can wield talking points.
    The only drawback for Pence in the pre-election period (and entertaining Michael's faith in Trump triumph in November) is he is going to be perceived as the one other guy holding the bag.  If Mr Trump gives unsatisfactory answers to the hoopla of the day, you know that Pence will be hunted for quotes, reactions, especially on the moralistic questions and on the entitlements questions. If Trump feeds hoopla by another 'outrageous' remark or policy, Pence will have to square the circle. He may be very good at that.  
    Ultimately the choice to exploit Pence strengths and firm up 'the base' could mean that Donald Trump  will say less about those issues where Pence is on record against Trump policies, ie, Muslim Ban, Curiel hoopla, Trade ... all of this contingent on the judgement of the Trump family that he can perform all the Bush, Quayle, Cheney, Biden, Gore chores.
     
    I am bothered a bit that Stephen will not be adding to election observations until the long ordeal is over.   As long as Objectivist Living is committed to the Trump campaign, and as long as the chief promoter for Trump is the list owner, and as long as the Principle of Charity is abandoned, discussion can be strangled at birth or otherwise stifled.
    I will urge Stephen, with a barrage of backstage laments and special pleading, that he be and feel as free and confident to post his opinions as I do.  I am a  long way from our Fearless Leader politically, and have in the Trump thread some unpleasantly personal exchanges to look back on, but I say f#ck. So f#cking what.  Giving up a voice here is  giving up a voice.   It makes me think something corrosive is flowing, where it is only disagreement finding a level. 
    I always figured Objectivist and Objective-ish people (small or big O) had a leg up on folks without any Randian influence -- and a good framework for wrassling with differing opinions and observations. O'vishes can always appeal to big-R operations of reason, to protracted intellectual effort at inquiry , to mutual benefit by reality-testing hypothesis and suppositions, to blowing out superstitions and unreliable beliefs, to help each other clean the machinery of thought to make it more valid and convincingly 'correctible' in the Randian sense. 
    Ultimately a Trump win will be explainable here by non-Trump voters, and a Trump loss will also be explainable by his fans and supporters. It would be shitty if only one 'side' group was left around here for the gnashing and wailing.

  2. william.scherk
    At this point in the American presidential election cycle, Trump supporters should be excited -- not despite the challenges, but because of the challenges.  Their candidate is an assertive, even aggressive personality, a fighter.  What does a fighter relish if not challenging, high risk/high reward situations? 
    Imagine you have been summoned to Trump Tower. Can you make 'contact' and a persuasive argument that some of these challenges are central, some peripheral, some not even challenges at all? 
    Electoral College arithmetic / Swing-state uncertainties Raising and spending money Hostile and adversarial media environment National campaign strategy and tactics "Unfavorable" opinion / Demographic change since 2012 'Lack' of conventional campaign superstructure Coordination with GOP campaign Wavering support from GOP / Unity at the Cleveland Convention "Incoherent:" policy proposals Bias, prejudice, "political correctness,: conventional wisdom I will flesh the list out in separate comments.  What have I missed, what have I  split, what else do you think are the top challenges for the Trump campaign?
    (I have re-ranked the Top Ten list, in light of feedback from members. We now have one Trump supporter in the mix!)
  3. william.scherk
    [NB -- this was originally an unpublished draft, but was viewable by the Administrator, who rightfully thought it was a normal entry in the blog. I publish it now since it contains some interesting and challenging feedback on my opinions. The draft was taken from the Rigging thread.]
    Overkill.  Gotcha. Gazillions! 
    Maybe, as you say. Maybe not.
    I hope that reports and suspicions of irregularities and vulnerabilities are taken seriously by any American concerned about the integrity of the election system.  I hope folks use their noggins to separate out the schmutz from the real beef. I hope they investigate and report.
    Fake Gotcha William. Oh, we know him well, don't we? He is so fecking thirsty for that gotcha, innit?  
    But anyway, what you refer to as overkill is due to the preceding fact, right? Overkill for me meaning spelling out the specifics I am concerned about, and the difficult work involved in separating fear, fact and fiction on the subject of this thread's topic.  Now, the overkill-maybe-fact. The fact maybe that I sense gazillions of Milkshake Ladies coming forward.
    How are you approaching discussion here, Michael? Are we not more-or-less trusted by the other, in the same rational-thinking, reasoning League?  Sometimes, when you seize a statement and subject it to the label-gun, I think of the larger content passed by.  My sunny heart tells me that you may be archly dismissive of the truncquoat, but we are otherwise shoulder to shoulder in our pursuit of Reality, and that you generally agree with the broad strokes and summary of my argument. That at any rate, is one impression I take away, or a hope, one might say. 
    You can indeed explain it otherwise. Please read my commentary again, with a touch more Charity perhaps. Try to see through that beyond the black labels of Gotcha Thirst and Overkill.   We are on the same cognitive team over-all, even if we differ in our assessments of GOP candidate vulnerabilities. I expect you be stumping one hundred percent of the time, while in that role on the hustings. But not always.  Sometimes you will disagree with Trump campaign actions and statements and focus.  Even if we don't hear about it.
    Anyhow, perhaps we can re-orient the discussion to our shared concern: the reality, the danger, the perceived-reality of serious problems in the integrity of the election November 8th.  I had my fun with anecdotal Angry Milkshake Ladies. We have set the stage for further discussion.
     
    So, setting aside that which presumably unites us in reason, and overlooking the Label-Gun, I will go back to the "Riggy" Business: what are your main fears, if any?  Where is the most damage likely to occur? How can this looming possibility of vote-rigging be averted?  What should be the focus of attempts to prevent attacks on the integrity of your elections?
    In the Hoopla of the big media and all the subsidiary media, there are some good hard-nosed discussions going on about the probabilities of 'rigging.' There is a to-and-fro, point-counterpoint to such discussions. They cannot be decided in the sense of a capitulation; there are differences of informed opinion.  
    One current of discussion gets stuck on asking what Mr Trump is doing on the practical level, and what he is doing on the rhetorical level. So far, I see nothing from the campaign itself trying to sell the Riggy Blob.  It's just vague alarm and ghost-storiy agit-prop so far. I expect this to get more pointed and less rhetorical over time.
    If you take off your Trump Red Hat for a bit, Michael, and see where you share common ground. I have no intentions of going to The Lake to join Steve, Robert, Stephen, Roger, Peter and Jerry and the other vacationers, but I do understand a tired reluctance to get into it with you that might have played a part in the departures.  If it ever were down to only one Dissenter on Trump subjects, would  label-gunning arguments be useful?
    Forgive all that. Disagreements are where diamonds are made. Here's my main question informed by the Riggyness:   will Mr Trump denounce the November results if they do not favour him?
    What makes this a vexing question is that if you accept that the election is likely to be stolen -- then there is no real point to voting. It is this kind of exhaustion of hope that I find is the biggest danger of all.  
  4. william.scherk
    A well-timed leak of the Trump remarks as prepared has sloshed its way into the hoopla machinery. One such transcript is here, at Politico.
    Over at Reason, the reasonable Matt Welch points out a few disquieting tones of authoritarianism. 
    I have been watching Trump speeches since the primaries, since I ate crow about Bush.  I will watch and re-watch this one tonight, as it is probably the most important speech by the candidate to date, and will probably garner the biggest TV audience of his run so far. 
    My opinions on the success of the Cleveland conflab are scattered and mixed.  I do think the Trump campaign fumbled Melania's speech, and fumbled Cruz's speech. Three days of fumbles and off-message incoherence bordering on chaotic mismagnagment, and the obvious dis-unity of the Republican party going forward to November.  It is funny to see the Trump-side spin and fumbles. Shouldn't they be better at this?  
    Anyhow, hope everybody will open their minds and listen to The Speech.
  5. william.scherk

    Edit test

    By william.scherk,

    It's a deal.
    Browser not supported. Visit <a data-cke-saved-href="http://www.270towin.com/" href="http://www.270towin.com/">www.270towin.com</a>
    I figure more actual exposure for the Libertarian candidate (hey Guv, do some more townhalls) and more actual interviews with challenging reporters will add to the slight bit by bit uptick in his general election polling over the past month. All things considered, I figure he is very close to the strike zone -- for a third-party podium at the three presidential candidate debates.
    Is everything he says red-nosed and shambling and comic? Not at twelve and thirteen percent in national four-candidate soundings.  Not completely for me, although I do not favour his hedgehog haircut.  The 'clown show' label that is affixed to him could probably have been affixed to Perot or Anderson. It doesn't do much work for me.
    I think all but the most partisan hooligan wants Johnson pressed and pressed hard, just as with the two top uglies. And pressing Johnson is best accomplished by getting him and his schtick before the large debate audience.
    If he doesn't make the threshold, he might perform as have other Libertarian candidates in the pre-Johnson era: amassing just shy of seven in a thousand votes. But I think this outing may be an outlier. He could 'spoil' things in some certain states, for one of the uglies or the other. 
    The only way to instantiate a Libertarian presence in Washington DC is to capture a House or Senate seat. Barring that, the pure ideological libertarian will feel satisfied with Johnson much more than a Democrat is satisfied with Clinton or a Republican with Trump.  I will not be surprised if he shows enough support (~5-7%) to make a November 'squeaker' even more meaningful: keeping each side of the coin below a majority, down to plurality in the low forties. That would be something -- it would not dent the powers of the President one bit, but would make the administration subject to hard checking.
    To the fuss ... Stephen pointed hit on a salient detail for me: in the article headlined Gary Johnson Says The Threat Of Radical Islam Is ‘Overblown’ that wee three syllable truncquoat is all we get from the sentence in which it was uttered (number 3):
    “the problem in the region is our 40,000 troops in South Korea. That is not a stabilizing force in the Koreas.”  [China] “should be dealing with North Korea.”  "overblown”   “You can argue we’re at war with ISIS, I’ll concede that,” “Do I have issue with wiping out ISIS? If it involves boots on the ground, if it involves dropping bombs, if it involves flying drones, I think that all those methods have the unintended consequence of making things worse not better.” “I think one of the big problems about running for political office when it comes to the military is that candidates draw lines in the sand and I think that’s a big mistake,” “If I draw a line in the sand and it gets crossed, count on the action that I promised.” , “You’re asking me a hypothetical question that I’m going to be drawing a line in the sand right here and I’m going to have to it stick to for the rest of the time that I’m running for office and take office,”  [Clinton]“has been the architect of our foreign policy” [U.S is] “less safe.” “I think Trump scares me to death and with Hillary nothing really changes. Hillary is just treading water.” I read the Daily Caller regularly (often via Memeorandum). This is a kind of bait  and hook headline slop you have to get used to on many commentary sites, and DC is not the sole or the worst purveyor. In the end, I want to know what the DC extracted that one word from. I am not ready to scorn Johnson on the grounds of a truncquoat. 
    Of course, it is for some folks not arguable that X[ISIS]:evil risk is overblown. An arguable issue is what one of us can reasonably read into a one-word quoat. I think the broader issues of rationally assessing terror-risk within anti-terror strategy is worth a discussion.
    Here is another sample from the 'interview' that was paraphrased at the DC story
    The Libertarian nominee said that he would not add any additional restrictions to immigration from the Middle East. Johnson would not be fine with a nuclear armed Iran, but would not definitively say what measures he would take to stop that hypothetical situation I think I will write to the guy responsible for the article and ask why they so heavily edited a remark that the only thing left was "Overblown."  Am I too needy to think that a quote in a headline be given contextual body in a sentence?  
    __________________________
    Back to the subject of slave roads and free roads and sea roads and ice-cream roads ... Jerry and I are coming at the thing from different planes. I don't see a problem with roads, as such.  Roads are built by consortia. The fun is in the levying of costs and the cost of ownership, and the ongoing efforts to pay the building debt. 
    But that is at the largest scale, say the Interstate System, which is sometimes treated as a strategic defence. At the lowest level, with a consortium of ownership and interest to build a gravel, asphalt, cement path across a park -- or from curb to garage, there is no problem. Are the roads and bridges in your county falling into shit and danger, consequent hazards and blockages to commerce and access?
    My angle is that the most important questions (not problems) -- are to do with cost, debt, planning.  I don't see a movement in the world to alter the broad strokes of the present integrated transportation system. Private-Public partnership under Planning authority is going to remain more or less the same, with interesting novelties and inventions to come. The notion of 'public carrier' will probably always have an exemplar, no matter where or how the costs are assessed and at which level they are paid for (from a pool, by individuals in increment or usage share).
     -- in a speculative-fantasy kind of mental sketch, I can see a private colonization of interstate rights of way as technology becomes mature (ie, vacuum/linear-induction subsonic 'tube' roads) ... but at the same time see 19th century tech revive: the many nouveau streetcars and light-rail projects of the last thirty years in the USA.
    (Here's a boring side-issue on the subject of public 'roads.'  One of the most efficient means of transport in the Greater Vancouver region is our so-called Skytrain system of rail transit. Ours is grade-separated and automated. There are no drivers.  This combo means that trains can arrive every sixty seconds at peak times.  This efficiency and the spread of the network since 1986 has had very visible consequence in the landscape. Almost every single station in the network 'sprouted' an intensively urban neighbourhood around it. This is of course a case of public planning and market exuberance and intelligence.  In a planning sense, the rights of way are 'private' or restricted and this gives a bigger development bang for the buck.
    South to Seattle a new extension of rail transit opened this year -- it is a tunnel between downtown Seattle and a state university campus to the north. Because the entire rail system shares 'public' roads in spots, it must have drivers, and thus the cost of each train trip is enlarged with each increase in frequency.  The other billion-dollar project in Seattle is a massive dig to replace an earthquake damaged state freeway on the waterfront. Here, a majority of eligible voters approved the design and expenditure. Who owns and manages and maintains?  The similar private-public corporations and consortia as with every other billion-dollar transportation project.)
     
    It is not necessarily a problem. Roads of all levels in the transport hierarchy get built in the present system across the entire world, with more or less efficiency of design and more or less attention to maintenance and planning.  
    Just to add a bump. Yeah. 
    Yeah. Maybe.
    Here to highlight the It Ain't Broken point of view, I reiterate the notion of disestablishment of the present legal order of roads (rail, sea-lanes, ports, air lanes, etc) and their supervision.
    Here a few items to highlight.
    Terrorism 'works' in that it inculcates fear and elevates anxiety and fellow emotions. A personal feeling of vulnerability to violence will peak in the aftermath of shocking attacks and murders, according to individual 'assessments.'  Terror is designed to awaken or deepen a sense of siege. I say this with knowledge of five years of escalating violence and terror in Syria. The 'risk' in Syria is so elephantine in relation to North America (if not the three hundred millions of Europeans) that you have to know where to compare and how.  Is the present sense of  vulnerability a function of the immediacy effect, adding to the effect of a massive media that trades on atrocities?
    Steve and Jon are tangling with these implications ..
    When is the next terror attack in Canada due, I ask myself?  What are we doing to detect, prevent and defuse plots designed to make me feel under siege?
    Jumping subject again to solving 'problem' equations ... 
    Roads are not a 'problem' except that they are not built and maintained when they need be.  The whole complicated mess of public-private building requires some kind of framework that already has solved intrinsic issues of priority and planning.
    One of my personal amazements has been the pace and scale of transport infrastructure built out in China during recent dramatic urbanization, especially their superspeed train network.  I don't think North America's geography makes sense for similar trains, despite their relative ubiquity in Europe.  On the subject of 'automated' driverless vehicles, the first ones on the market are public/private, with working examples in the Netherlands, and incubated and nearing birth in Singapore. I think 'collective' driverless shuttles will also be an important part of the mix which will include driverless single-user vehicles.
    Back to underscore Stephen's line of interest ...
    -- re the occasional fishbone or clunker in Rand non-fiction, I think of The Comprachicos. The analogy was fine for its scope, but I was left with the impression that the fictional (grown in a pot) comprachicos cited (from Hugo?) were actual and historical in Rand's mind.  
    Much discussion ensued. 
    -- again to the subject of 'clownish' performances and outstanding red-nosed policy proposals -- is there something about the Libertarian position on marijuana that strikes OL readers as clownish?  Is calling for marijuana legalization clownish itself, or only the way Johnson does it?
    I mention this because there may be an element of electoral calculation there -- that the policy may be agreeable (to an Objectivish person) but perceived as a non-starter with voters, something that general election voters will find mostly bizarre, or untimely or unpopular.
    In other words, in other words, what is the problem with calling for  legalization of marijuana?  
    As for the Libertarian position on war powers and war strategy and the defeat of ISIS, I don't think Johnson is prepared at this time to give details and flesh out a coherent plan to 'take' ISIS off the map.   On the other hand, the GOP candidate evinces the same smudgy detail about policy and process -- as heard in the Pence-Trump interview.  Quo vadis? Cui bono? In Terrorem.
  6. william.scherk
    No.
    Yes.
    Trump is working from a self-limited palette. 
    I guess you people hear lots of different things.  "Why did he do it?" is psychologizing?  It sounds like your people are incurious.   If there are others just like this killer,  laying in wait ... 
    This is weird.  Your 'holier-than-thou liberal secularists here' -- do they have names?  Is it possible to lift up their awful comments and show them relevant? No?
    Hardly relevant, IMO.  And not recently. Sentence fragment.
    Unpack this mock-English.  Discard the first clause and and put an "I" in your claims.  "It mustn't be escaped"  [It is] "evident here" .  Of course, in my estimation, the murders were committed with pure terrorist intent, with a perfect correlation to the spurious theology of the Al-Qaeda/ISIS religious leaders and their enablers and sycophants.  The killer wanted glory [sic]  attached to his name and his bloody achievement.  He wanted the approval of the savage and murderous  god of his imagination.  He wanted to die. He wanted to be famous and to credit the monsters of ISIS.
    If that is good enough, if that is all the blame that needs to be attached, Tony, you can step down.  Forestalling pointless points of view and short-selling discussion by sorting out nameless numpties into 'liberal secularists' .... is that what you meant to do? End discussion?  I mean, is disrupting the plans of the next mass-shooter something you want to have happen, to put it passively?  
    In other words, on your Must Do list for America's response, are you on board with the Trump plan? Does it seem wise to you?
    One thing that stands out in discussion of mass shooting/terror attacks -- it is hard for people to give up their certainties, once held.  We stand on our knowledge as if on a locked chest: nothing need be learned outside of what we already know.  Everyone "knows" what it all means and what must be done.  I should know, because I am an expert.
    The saddest thing I have seen -- beyond the grief and horror of the mass murder -- are the few sick voices who engender hate and exclusion and stupidity.   For example:
    Luckily, there is a candidate for President that has a  plan to make America safe again. It is time to 'turn in'  dangerous people who show signs of incipient murder.   It is time to begin screening all visitors to America using rock-solid religious tests.   It is time to know the enemy, and the enemy is (a tumour within) the Islamic faith.  It is time to raise vigilance  and perhaps deploy demagoguery, to simplify the challenge  of preventing mass shootings (by Muslims).  Nobody can deny that one candidate has answers.  Nobody can deny that they are the best answers and the only answers and the Total Package American needs.
    On an alternative soapbox, somebody might call for big I Intelligence. "Until we figure out what's going on."
    -- on another topic, I am missing the presence of bigly poster Adam Selene. Has anyone heard from him or checked in on him?  He has been silent for  a while now.
    For another example of why OL might be circling the drain -- our tedious hate-filled Moralist takes time to denigrate the dead--  as perverts being taken out by another pervert.  It takes some personal skill and fine heart to leave that impression of gross and persistent unreason.   Tony, I look forward to your critical comments.  
  7. william.scherk
    I can't imagine what this guy is feeling, but I am stirred emotionally a bit.  I can almost describe the feeling I had when I first saw the image.  I had been looking on Google Image for similar images to one which was used as illustration of the Romantic/Sublime arty-farty heyday. Google Images returns, most often, a similar colour-range (the illustration was blue) and quite often a contextual/conceptual similitude: the Google Image results for 'search for this image' gave "like" mountains, peaks, horizons.  Some kind of artificial intelligence was able to assess a sort of magnitude of the image and thus returned renderings of dimensional space. Some returns were photographs, some were Romantic paintings of European 'top of the world' genre. Several were 'modern art' that was tied to the original by a conceptual link likely to be terror/wasteland -- arctic scenes, and one arctic scene illustrating Frankenstein. 
    Google Image is a tool of cognition, and thoroughly infused with a Kantian emotional-collective-behavioural AI programme. But that is beside the point:  using Randian philosophy of the arts we can look forward to an Objectivism-heavy AI programme that stresses the rational approach to cognition. Key findings from the Randian project will probably ultimately allow humankind to infuse robotic-mind/AI/cloud-computing with emotion -- which will make robot cognitions much more useful.
    Anyhow, drift.   Here is that image returned from Google Image that gave me an initial thrill..  A bodily thrill.  Beyond 'thrill' I find it hard to identify the subsequent emotion 'melody' and 'chord.'  By imagining, I can evoke a simulacra, and compare it to the thrill-and-subsequent 'song in my heart' that this image still can help evoke. 
    In my cognitions since, I was able to conjure up a memory of my first remembered emotion-memory, the only thing that survived infantile amnesia. It was my first flight in an airplane over mountains and sea when I was two and half.

    It is tricky to give another person the 'reality' of emotion felt.  The basics are easy as pie (fear, anger, disgust, surprise, anticipation, joy, acceptance, sadness) and in most cases we can invoke an empathic understanding with a narrative.  We can also perform the emotion with face, tone, gesture, etc, so the other guy more or less can invoke a conceptual gestalt. 
    Whoa. I drift in and out of consciousness. What am I getting at?  Let me try with Yoda-ish voice, rooted in Rand, but flowering, flowering.
    Emotions are five-dimensional it seems (he said passively) if not more. In the body are they rooted. In the body they are felt. In the mind they are 'felt' as of the body. In the dimension of 'depth' or 'intensity' each of the basics can be understood conceptually as a scale, and of an obliquity measured as percentage/mix/color. And then the dimension of time, which gives the symphonic quality to emotional life:  its recursions, harmonies, discords, quietudes and storms of great complexity.
    Here I look for another image that the Kantian Google delivered up from a fresh search using the mountaineer on the rock-needle.  This is the one that my emotions tag most strongly, in several dimensions. I can only imagine what might be my cognitions were I  there in front the massif. I will never be there in that microcosm.

    But, fair enough, these images are not Art, only commodity. And everyone except psychopaths and autists and so on are perfectly able to model and interpret emotions. It is in almost everyone's toolkit if only in primitive form (as with developmentally disordered people, or those with severe cognitive deficits). 
    And this is not art, but it gives me a thrill of remembrance of a thrill that is kin to the ''thrill of it all" that we humans feel from time to time. If not a 'peak experience' ... Starting at  5:06. I know I have posted this before, but this post is twice as boring as the last time. Bonus!
    Say Yoda does:  I wish we would talk about items or types of art that individually thrill us -- with that meta "thrill of it all" ... if the tone or tenor of this thread has gotten bogged in a swamp of dudgeon, lances, contempt and furious misinterpretation and pique, surely we avatars of Reason can get our emotions under control and inspection.  
    From this point forward I will view this thread as Objectivish Humour, subsection Wildly Intemperate Arty Farts.  Here we interpret the farts of people whose rational digestive system we suspect is clogged and struggling. Here I witness the thrill of Objectivish Arguendo.  It is all about the put-down, and the moralistic mustard. Without which there would be no O'vishes, passively, aggressively. 
    Drift, everyone. Drift back to fun.  Fun wielding the Tools.
     
     
     
  8. william.scherk
    No particular topic to start this off.  I want to open a space where doubt is okay -- to have disquieting anticipation, to have issues and questions and even fierce criticism. OK to roll.  
    I will also act as a moderator. The rules that are in place are the same general OL rules, but I intend to be a tight-ass.  Please do not overdo 'personalizing' discussion. Do not attack the character of discussants or otherwise be a  conversational oaf.  There is only one level of appeal.
    So ... anybody got a nice safe space topic? I have thought about it for a while now, and all I can come up with is a vague theme ...
    UNITY
    UNIFY

     
     
  10. william.scherk
    To be a real American, you must have a real name. Or not.
     
    I have teeth that want to chew into this whole episode. But I am committed to the aural tradition, and will take these moments with me into the POD.  Perhaps REB is interested in heading down this alley a ways.  It is so depressing a subject, but I think worth the expenditure in sanitizing solution.
    Where disagreement is starkest -- there is the coal-face of Reason. Together an epistemologically-sound team of technicians can dig out the whys and the wherefores, and solve the equation that disagreement represents.
    Again, I say too much in the air topside. The excursion into names requires a high-oxygen environment.  There is not enough room to breathe in the thread that will not end ...
  12. william.scherk
    Thank you for tuning in. This is my script for responding to a notion put forward on the front porch of OL. I use the blog to form arguments and to analyze statements. Much of my work here is done to pre-load some assumptions. In this case, the prelaoded assumptions are in the quoted material
    First step, orientation and identification. Think of you and a map in hand, along with a remembered direction. You are in America, where opinions flow fast and hot.  Mark Levin is a radio-jock, a talk-guy, an author. Go look him up on Google. We can pause the tape.
    Okay, we are back. Now you know about Mark Levin. Or so we thought. There isn't a single Mark Levin. There are three.
    Okay, this is for You People. 
     
    The headline says it all.   Roger accuses Levin and two other Hate Club folks of being paid off.  If you go deeper into the article, the warrants for the accusation against Levin are slim if not mere muck-spinning. 
    Winnowed down, the Levin accusation is that money from Levin books is chunder. But here is is, excised from a Daily Caller article. In that article, bear in mind, the quotes are from Daily Beast and a blog-commenter at Conservative Treehouse. Chunder?
    “The Senate Conservatives Fund (PAC) purchasing massive quantities ($400,000) of Mark Levin’s books in exchange for favorable candidacy political opinion. Conveniently hidden by the radio host who avoids mentioning the financial conflict created,” the blog pointed out.
    On Jan. 13, Ben Jacobs in an article published by the Daily Beast headlined “Pay to Play?” noted that Politico, in an article that now appears to have been scrubbed from Politico’s website, reported on how the GOP establishment seeks to buy Levin.
    The Senate Conservatives Fund (SCF), a “conservative” fund founded by former Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina that backed Cruz in his Senate fight against Obamacare, spent $427,000 to buy copies of radio talk show host Mark Levin’s four-year-old book “Liberty or Tyranny” to distribute to donors – a purchase that should have earned Levin approximately $1 million in royalties.
    Despite his many diatribes against Drumpf broadcast to his national radio audience, Levin hid the fact the son of his fiancé is a full-time staffer for Cruz.
     
    Oh, my.  I will truncquoat a few pellets from this wreath.   The biggest boldest bold claim is this:
    But, having said that, I must do a bit of recursion:
    Are there three Mark Levins?  Are there really? Does making a list end the analytic moment?
    Here is the truncquoated poetry from the above:
     
     
  16. william.scherk
    [http://wsscherk.hostingmyself.com/trumpAbortionTalk.htm]
    QUESTION: Hello. I am (inaudible) and have a question on, what is your stance on women's rights and their rights to choose in their own reproductive health?
     
    DRUMPF: OK, well look, I mean, as you know, I'm pro-life. Right, I think you know that, and I -- with exceptions, with the three exceptions. But pretty much, that's my stance. Is that OK? You understand?
     
    MATTHEWS: What should the law be on abortion?
     
    DRUMPF: Well, I have been pro-life.
     
    MATTHEWS: I know, what should the law -- I know your principle, that's a good value. But what should be the law?
     
    DRUMPF: Well, you know, they've set the law and frankly the judges -- I mean, you're going to have a very big election coming up for that reason, because you have judges where it's a real tipping point.
     
    MATTHEWS: I know.
     
    DRUMPF: And with the loss the Scalia, who was a very strong conservative...
     
    MATTHEWS: I understand.
     
    DRUMPF: ... this presidential election is going to be very important, because when you say, "what's the law, nobody knows what's the law going to be. It depends on who gets elected, because somebody is going to appoint conservative judges and somebody is going to appoint liberal judges, depending on who wins.
     
    MATTHEWS: I know. I never understood the pro-life position.
     
    DRUMPF: Well, a lot of people do understand.
     
    MATTHEWS: I never understood it. Because I understand the principle, it's human life as people see it.
     
    DRUMPF: Which it is.
     
    MATTHEWS: But what crime is it?
     
    DRUMPF: Well, it's human life.
     
    MATTHEWS: No, should the woman be punished for having an abortion?
     
    DRUMPF: Look...
     
    MATTHEWS: This is not something you can dodge.
     
    DRUMPF: It's a -- no, no...
     
    MATTHEWS: If you say abortion is a crime or abortion is murder, you have to deal with it under law. Should abortion be punished?
     
    DRUMPF: Well, people in certain parts of the Republican Party and Conservative Republicans would say, "yes, they should be punished."
     
    MATTHEWS: How about you?
     
    DRUMPF: I would say that it's a very serious problem. And it's a problem that we have to decide on. It's very hard.
     
    MATTHEWS: But you're for banning it?
     
    DRUMPF: I'm going to say -- well, wait. Are you going to say, put them in jail? Are you -- is that the (inaudible) you're talking about?
     
    MATTHEWS: Well, no, I'm asking you because you say you want to ban it. What does that mean?
     
    DRUMPF: I would -- I am against -- I am pro-life, yes.
     
    MATTHEWS: What is ban -- how do you ban abortion? How do you actually do it?
     
    DRUMPF: Well, you know, you will go back to a position like they had where people will perhaps go to illegal places.
     
    MATTHEWS: Yes?
     
    DRUMPF: But you have to ban it.
     
    MATTHEWS: You banning, they go to somebody who flunked out of medical school.
     
    DRUMPF: Are you Catholic?
     
    MATTHEWS: Yes, I think...
     
    DRUMPF: And how do you feel about the Catholic Church's position?
     
    MATTHEWS: Well, I accept the teaching authority of my Church on moral issues.
     
    DRUMPF: I know, but do you know their position on abortion?
     
    MATTHEWS: Yes, I do.
     
    DRUMPF: And do you concur with the position?
     
    MATTHEWS: I concur with their moral position but legally, I get to the question -- here's my problem with it...
     
    (LAUGHTER)
     
    DRUMPF: No, no, but let me ask you, but what do you say about your Church?
     
    MATTHEWS: It's not funny.
     
    DRUMPF: Yes, it's really not funny.
     
    What do you say about your church? They're very, very strong.
     
    MATTHEWS: They're allowed to -- but the churches make their moral judgments, but you running for president of the United States will be chief executive of the United States. Do you believe...
     
    DRUMPF: No, but...
     
    MATTHEWS: Do you believe in punishment for abortion, yes or no as a principle?
     
    DRUMPF: The answer is that there has to be some form of punishment.
     
    MATTHEWS: For the woman?
     
    DRUMPF: Yes, there has to be some form.
     
    MATTHEWS: Ten cents? Ten years? What?
     
    DRUMPF: Let me just tell you -- I don't know. That I don't know. That I don't know.
     
    MATTHEWS: Why not?
     
    DRUMPF: I don't know.
     
    MATTHEWS: You take positions on everything else.
     
    DRUMPF: Because I don't want to -- I frankly, I do take positions on everything else. It's a very complicated position.
     
    MATTHEWS: But you say, one, that you're pro-life meaning that you want to ban it.
     
    DRUMPF: But wait a minute, wait a minute. But the Catholic Church is pro-life.
     
    MATTHEWS: I'm not talking about my religion.
     
    DRUMPF: No, no, I am talking about your religion. Your religion -- I mean, you say that you're a very good Catholic. Your religion is your life. Let me ask you this...
     
    MATTHEWS: I didn't say very good. I said I'm Catholic.
     
    (LAUGHTER)
     
    And secondly, I'm asking -- you're running for President.
     
    DRUMPF: No, no...
     
    MATTHEWS: I'm not.
     
    DRUMPF: Chris -- Chris.
     
    MATTHEWS: I'm asking you, what should a woman face if she chooses to have an abortion?
     
    DRUMPF: I'm not going to do that.
     
    MATTHEWS: Why not?
     
    DRUMPF: I'm not going to play that game.
     
    MATTHEWS: Game?
     
    DRUMPF: You have...
     
    MATTHEWS: You said you're pro-life.
     
    DRUMPF: I am pro-life.
     
    MATTHEWS: That means banning abortion.
     
    DRUMPF: And so is the Catholic Church pro-life.
     
    MATTHEWS: But they don't control the -- this isn't Spain, the Church doesn't control the government.
     
    DRUMPF: What is the punishment under the Catholic Church? What is the...
     
    MATTHEWS: Let me give something from the New Testament, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." Don't ask me about my religion.
     
    DRUMPF: No, no...
     
    MATTHEWS: I'm asking you. You want to be president of the United States.
     
    DRUMPF: You told me that...
     
    MATTHEWS: You tell me what the law should be.
     
    DRUMPF: I have -- I have not determined...
     
    MATTHEWS: Just tell me what the law should be. You say you're pro-life.
     
    DRUMPF: I am pro-life.
     
    MATTHEWS: What does that mean?
     
    DRUMPF: With exceptions. I am pro-life.
     
    I have not determined what the punishment would be.
     
    MATTHEWS: Why not?
     
    DRUMPF: Because I haven't determined it.
     
    MATTHEWS: When you decide to be pro-life, you should have thought of it. Because...
     
    DRUMPF: No, you could ask anybody who is pro-life...
     
    MATTHEWS: OK, here's the problem -- here's my problem with this, if you don't have a punishment for abortion -- I don't believe in it, of course -- people are going to find a way to have an abortion.
     
    DRUMPF: You don't believe in what?
     
    MATTHEWS: I don't believe in punishing anybody for having an abortion.
     
    DRUMPF: OK, fine. OK, (inaudible).
     
    MATTHEWS: Of course not. I think it's a woman's choice.
     
    DRUMPF: So you're against the teachings of your Church?
     
    MATTHEWS: I have a view -- a moral view -- but I believe we live in a free country, and I don't want to live in a country so fascistic that it could stop a person from making that decision.
     
    DRUMPF: But then you are...
     
    MATTHEWS: That would be so invasive.
     
    DRUMPF: I know but I've heard you speaking...
     
    MATTHEWS: So determined of a society that I wouldn't able -- one we are familiar with. And Donald Drumpf, you wouldn't be familiar with.
     
    DRUMPF: But I've heard you speaking so highly about your religion and your Church.
     
    MATTHEWS: Yes.
     
    DRUMPF: Your Church is very, very strongly as you know, pro-life.
     
    MATTHEWS: I know.
     
    DRUMPF: What do you say to your Church?
     
    MATTHEWS: I say, I accept your moral authority. In the United States, the people make the decision, the courts rule on what's in the Constitution, and we live by that. That's why I say.
     
    DRUMPF: Yes, but you don't live by it because you don't accept it. You can't accept it. You can't accept it. You can't accept it.
     
    MATTHEWS: Can we go back to matters of the law and running for president because matters of law, what I'm talking about, and this is the difficult situation you've placed yourself in.
     
    By saying you're pro-life, you mean you want to ban abortion. How do you ban abortion without some kind of sanction? Then you get in that very tricky question of a sanction, a fine on human life which you call murder?
     
    DRUMPF: It will have to be determined.
     
    MATTHEWS: A fine, imprisonment for a young woman who finds herself pregnant?
     
    DRUMPF: It will have to be determined.
     
    MATTHEWS: What about the guy that gets her pregnant? Is he responsible under the law for these abortions? Or is he not responsible for an abortion?
     
    DRUMPF: Well, it hasn't -- it hasn't -- different feelings, different people. I would say no.
     
    MATTHEWS: Well, they're usually involved. Anyway, much more from the audience here at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay. We'll be right back.
  20. william.scherk
    Fresh from today's headlines -- or rather, fresh from Today's front porch at Objectivist Living.
    Brief audio introduction to the issues [TBRecorded]
     
     
    Word People ploys, number 16 and 7 -- spins on "If I understand your points correctly." The double ploy depends on the operation of Compare and Contrast. What is being compared?  To answer that question, one needs to understand the basic ploy parameters of the fallacious reasoning -- in informal English it is known as The Old Switcheroo.
    In this case, what is being swapped out are words denoted by Turkeyfoot.  More specifically, Integrity.
    First step to analysis is to listen to the entire TF comment with an aim to understanding and restating his argument or point or points.  Here is the audio: 
     
     
    Not comes ... discussion points ... about integrity?
    Let's listen to Donald Trump's explanation:
      And here is Peter extemporizing with Ellen Stuttle:
      Verbatim:
    Now listen to the approach taken by one discussant. Note the pitfalls of truncation:
       
    I will add a tag here, and somehow jam all this material into a seven-minute podcast. I am thinking of committing the first sin of podcasting again -- over-exhuberance in choosing sound tracks. In this case I am going to give into the thrill of danger, and summon up a new Horror ambiance.
  23. william.scherk
     
    These are the kinds of commentary that I know I should give real thought to. Although Michael seems to insult me in one item [see clarification d"oh below], he follows it with a smiley emoticon, so I know it is 'banter.'
    If I weren't a simple child like Pollyanna, I'd say that insults choke discussion.  But that is for another day and another dollar. Some things just need to sink in. 
    First, as a boring background, Adam teased this out of me ...
    MIchael took a bit from this and answered it in his inimitable way.  But let's just say he didn't quote it, since you just read the words anyway, and I cannot be bothered to finick with the quoating software for the moment.
    That seems to fit your condition ...  and here I though I was one of the guys that Rock!
    Hmmm.  Deep thoughts.
    Here was a bit more of my thoughts on defining bigotry.
     
    Tony always triggers thought.
    This is what started it all off, with Michael answering the question of Categories.   And so, I can answer -- on list -- the final set of questions, bolded for your reading pleasure.