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Post by markesq on Feb 28, 2019 12:04:48 GMT -5
I didn't want to continue the derail, but did want to address celawson's list of Trump's achievements. My take on them, if you will.
- backing out of Paris Climate -- terrible move, consistent with republican pretense climate change isn't a threat. Sheer idiocy. - same with Iran Deal -- this was merely a nullification (another one) of an Obama deal, and has resulted in what improvements/changes, exactly? Clue: none. - increased Russia sanctions -- Yes, I'll concede this point. Counterpoint though: Trump's rhetoric and cozying up to Putin, having secret meetings with him. You think that's good for America? - US embassy in Jerusalem -- he did this, yes. Positive move? Debatable. - clamping down on Obama era over-regulation -- such as...? Clean air? Clean water? - tax cuts -- seriously? I don't think anyone's still arguing this was a success for the country. For rich people yes, but for average people?? You can't seriously mean this one. And the deficit? - addressing China in the global market -- not sure what this means. Harmful sanctions and millions going to farmers in subsidies? You approve of such socialism? - dealing with North Korea -- "dealing with"? You mean having dinner with. Not very impressive, and he was pretty much a laughing stock after the last charade. And this one, not only has he failed to get any kind of deal, but he's siding with KJU over the family of an American he had tortured to death. How proud you must be. - judicial appointments -- yep, can't argue with that one, he managed to put a lying drunk on the court who will rewind Roe v Wade. - good rhetoric against the awful expansion of abortion laws -- "good rhetoric" isn't much of an achievement. - adding more guts to our presence in the U.N. -- I don't know what that means. Every other nation thinks he's a buffoon, a fat baby, so do you mean those guts? - being bold enough to tell NATO how it is -- see previous comment. He's not bold, he's a buffoon with zero respect from other world leaders. This "achievement" should be phrased: "Lost all respect from, and alienated, important and historic allies." - genuine attempt to protect our southern border -- flat wrong. His fixation on a border wall isn't a genuine attempt at anything. It's an unkept promise to his base, and was founded on a blatant lie that Mexico would pay for it. Not to mention the separation of kids from their parents, which amounts to child abuse (put mildly). That's an achievement you're proud of? - emphasis on VA reform -- I may have missed this too, but other than rhetoric has there been action?
If there's too much here, focus on the tax cuts, North Korea and the border to see why his achievements re, in fact, failures.
And, even if you're right (which you ain't), you manage to clap him on the back and forget the racism, the pussy grabbing, the Twitter taunting of ill and disabled people, and how do you just blow past so many, many lies and think it's OK?
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Post by celawson on Mar 1, 2019 13:34:28 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Mar 1, 2019 13:52:57 GMT -5
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Post by celawson on Mar 1, 2019 14:13:22 GMT -5
Yes, those types of things are EXACTLY why Trump was right to fund the VA to overhaul its inadequacies! Thanks for proving my point! Good for him!
I did med school rotations at the VA Med Center, I did my entire internship in internal medicine there, I then did my residency there for 3 more years, and after that I was an attending physician at the VA Med Center for some years. I loved the vets. I saw firsthand the struggles of the system and its failures. And I hated how our most vulnerable vets (financially and social support-wise) were the ones on the receiving end of those failures.
Would I rather have a (insert any derogatory term you usually use for President Trump here) for POTUS who actually does stuff like the above, than a nice guy who doesn't? No question YES!!!!!
MAGA!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 1, 2019 14:18:29 GMT -5
Veterans going months without benefits WELL INTO TRUMP'S WATCH, BECAUSE OF PEOPLE HE APPOINTED AND POLICIES HE ENDORSED! MAGA! IT'S OBAMA'S FAULT! never mind that it was 2018 and after Trump"s alleged fab initiatives!
By the way, you mentioned that Trump preferred to spend money helping the homeless rather than assisting and processing migrants. I don't know anything about Trump's initiatives to help the homeless. Why don't you educate me?
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Post by Vince524 on Mar 1, 2019 14:45:53 GMT -5
How about this for one of Trump's accomplishments.
He's effectively eliminated the idea that the president of the United States needs to be a moral leader. He's a contemptible human being and people still like him.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 1, 2019 14:52:30 GMT -5
How about this for one of Trump's accomplishments. He's effectively eliminated the idea that the president of the United States needs to be a moral leader. He's a contemptible human being and people still like him. I hate that accomplishment, but I can't dispute it.
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Post by markesq on Mar 1, 2019 16:26:41 GMT -5
How about this for one of Trump's accomplishments. He's effectively eliminated the idea that the president of the United States needs to be a moral leader. He's a contemptible human being and people still like him. I hate that accomplishment, but I can't dispute it. Agreed.
I'm hoping it's a temporary low (non-existent?!) bar and that being a decent human being and a moral leader will come back.
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Post by markesq on Mar 6, 2019 11:44:42 GMT -5
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Post by markesq on Mar 6, 2019 14:26:37 GMT -5
Couple more for you: Protecting our border, eh? Increase in migrant detentions at US border reveals Trump's policy failure. Thisone goes toward those awful regulations you're happy to see the back of. (And Trump and the Rs' view that making money is all that matters in this world): Endangered species face 'disaster' under Trump administration.
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Post by celawson on Mar 6, 2019 15:22:09 GMT -5
Mark, I'm seriously re-evaluating how much I will engage here about Trump.
As much as I've enjoyed interacting here over the past couple of years (I have looked forward to logging on most mornings with my coffee), and as much as I've learned from everyone here, and as much as I hoped and wished we could talk about everything here but still be respectful and civil and discuss the issues rather than the motives or morals or defects of the person posting, it's just not panned out that way very well (and even much worse recently). Which is unfortunate, because the purpose of Rob creating this site was to be able to engage with all sorts of opinions YET free of the tone and rancor and contempt and personal attacks which we tried to escape from other places. And I'm not happy at myself either, that I've let myself get defensive and post things out of anger. That's super sad to me, because I have always liked you and so many here. Your British gentlemanly way combined with your criminal justice system knowledge and experience is a great combination. Heck, Cassandra and I were friends in the past, and I LOVED talking to her outside of any forum. I SO enjoyed her sense of humor and wicked cleverness and talent. It hurt me that a developing friendship could turn so quickly just from a political discussion, and I'm very much thinking right now that it's just not worth what these sorts of discussions do to people. (Yet at the same time, I fiercely believe people CAN be successful at what we tried to do.)
Fortunately, NT and I have been able to be friends regardless, and I hope we always will be, but for some reason he can dish it out to me without snark and contempt for ME, regardless of the contempt he feels for Trump. And yes, he definitely dishes out the goods in his arguments. And yes he scores points. But he does it on the issues. I don't think he and I can ever resolve our very different world-views, but that's ok because he knows my views are a product of many things but not that I'm a bad person or an evil person with bad motives, or a contemptible human that deserves being ridiculed or accused of being bad things. And as he's said before, hell I would LOVE to sit and have a drink with him and talk about anything and everything. I hope we can someday.
But that's what I thought we could do here. And I kept coming back because I like smart and funny and engaging and interesting people who are good writers and who are very different from me, or who do very different things from what I do. I love interacting with people like that. That's what all of you here are. And I LOVE interacting with people about things other than sickness and tragedy, which I'm immersed in all day long at work. It's stressful a lot of the time, and I just can't come to a place on my free time and feel even more stressed and sad when I leave here than when I came. Or spend time and effort to respond to challenges here with real information and facts (from sources that are not right-wing) that support my perspective (like Trump and VA reform), and receive only ridicule in response.
So...long story short...I'm mulling some important things over right now.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 6, 2019 15:58:10 GMT -5
Okay.
First, STOP TELLING US ALL THE PURPOSE OF ROB CREATING THE SITE. Because for one thing, I don't think you've got it quite right (despite the fact I've previously explained it to you). This particularly irks me because I helped draft the fucking rules for this place.
The purpose of our rules and the reason this site was created, from my understanding (which Rob is free to correct, but lord knows we discussed it often enough in the mod room in the early days of this site) was NOT to create a polite place free from rancor. Yes, we outlawed personal attacks, but you seem to define personal attacks as anyone being mean to you or tearing apart your viewpoint, which is not, in fact, a personal attack under the rules I helped write.
The reason we started this site, as I understand it, was not because people on Another Website were being Mean and Rancorous. It was because (1) there was a rule change that made free discussion of issues pretty limited; (2) the Powers that Be (not other members) were increasingly cracking down, always on those from one side of the political divide, and outright BANNING them or their points of view, or privately threatening them with such unless they shut up. (3) to add to (2), people on one side of the political divide were sometimes allowed to get away with pending the rules, while those on the other side were cracked down on even when they hadn't disobeyed a rule. I haz problemz with that. Big problemz. And it all went to kill a free debate and make it, frankly, boring.
That is NOT happening here. However sad you might feel at all the rudeness, no one has ever stopped you from expressing an opinion. You've never received a modding. You've never received a private message telling you to lay off an argument or else. Not once.
(By the way, a couple of members once requested that I do my modding in private rather than in threads. I declined. For the record, that was not because I enjoyed being mean and humiliating folks in public. It's because, having been on the receiving end of a LOT of private "modding" that I felt was very unjust, I wanted all of MY modding decisions to be out in the open for you all to judge and discuss -- and discussed it was. I never wanted everyone to be assuming "gee, that didn't look so bad. He must have been a troll behind the scenes." No, you all knew, every time, exactly why I made every call I ever made. If you disagreed, you could argue and judge me for it. For better or worse, I feel that's a better way to go than Sooper Seecret Modding.)
In other words, c.e., this forum was not created to protect Niceness. It was created to protect freedom of expression and vigorous argument. That's why we really narrowly defined personal attack and wrote the rules to ALLOW rancor, to ALLOW heat.
So. Defend the indefensible, or defend something people just plain disagree with, and expect your opinion to be attacked. Engage in arguments people find hypocritical and/or contradictory and/or ill-supported, expect it to be attacked. If you can't handle the heat, well, go for a walk in the park. That's what I do when the heat gets to me (and I'm pretty fucking honest about that, too.)
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Post by markesq on Mar 6, 2019 16:16:54 GMT -5
What Cass said.
Also, I reread my posts and while they are brief and pointed, I honestly can't see them as any kind of personal attack, or overly rude in any way. I see a discrete list of accomplishments that you posted, and a dissent to several with supporting information. Now, I can see why it's exhausting defending Trump all the time, and all by yourself, but it's your list (as requested by me, sure) and I think it's fair to pick them off one-by-one if there's evidence they aren't, in fact, accomplishments, but failures. I don't know if you just don't want to admit you're wrong about some of them, a fear of us gloating, or if you want to stick by him no matter what. But if you don't want to respond, well, it's your right of course, but don't make out like it's because I was rude or making personal attacks (I save those for Trump himself).
I actually look forward to your posts more than most people's. I think I want to overwhelm you with logic and truth and watch you cave in and run screaming from the man in charge... but if I can't do that, I want to try and understand why you continue to back him.
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Post by Don on Mar 7, 2019 11:06:16 GMT -5
I think it's cool how he managed to hide a $12 billion tax hike from his constituency and turn it into a "positive," while passing that $12 billion on to "farmers," many of which are major corporations. That takes some real salesmanship. Trump’s Tariffs Cost Americans $19 Billion in 2018So if you wash the farmer subsidies out, we have a net loss to consumers of $7 billion, with no increase in available tax revenue, so zero positive impact on our $22 trillion debt. Just $12 billion transferred from consumer pockets to largely corporate "farmers." OTOH, when he waved his magic wand, another $7 billion in wealth moved from people to corporations. And those same people who lost the $7 billion are praising him for his leadership. That's how this shit works.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 7, 2019 11:13:17 GMT -5
I think it's cool how he managed to hide a $12 billion tax hike from his constituency and turn it into a "positive." That takes some real salesmanship. Trump’s Tariffs Cost Americans $19 Billion in 2018So if you wash the farmer subsidies out, we have a net loss to consumers of $7 billion, with no increase in available tax revenue, so zero positive impact on our $22 trillion debt. OTOH, when he waved his magic wand, $7 billion in wealth moved from people to corporations. And those same people who lost the $7 billion are praising him for his leadership. That's how this shit works. Literally everything about the Trump administration's tariffs infuriates me. Whether I look at them from a libertarian, liberal, or "real" conservative (as opposed to Trumpian populist "conservative") perspective (and I have some leanings in each direction, depending on the subject matter), I think they're awful, plus I believe they were handled incompetently and thoughtlessly, which infuriates me from an intelligent human being perspective. They pissed off our allies, which infuriates me from an "I think we should work with our allies to achieve mutual benefit whenever possible" perspective. Hate 'em. I just hate 'em.
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