Trump passes executive order restricting immigration, in violation of the Constitution.

[Broomstick]

Again, you are lying to justify armed revolt. This is despicable.

Its bad enough when people honestly believe that violence is necessary. They're wrong, and dangerous, but not necessarily evil in intent. But you... you're building an argument based on horse shit, which makes me suspect that you're arguing not what you believe is necessary, but an excuse to do what you want to do.

Speaking as someone with some direct memories of the 1960's, "violence" is not automatically equivalent to "armed revolt" or "civil war". Sometime violence IS inevitable - either something to be produced or something to be endured (as the civil rights movement did last century). We shouldn't fear to discuss the notion.

Which is not to say I advocate it - but at some point it may become the lesser evil. Stop insisting no one mention it. I agree it would be inappropriate to advocate it, but discussion seems appropriate to me.

[The Romulan Republic]

Except you clearly are willing to have that argument again, as evidenced by your snide, thinly-veiled jab at me, so you should have the guts to do so openly, rather than taking passive aggressive pot shots at me over a topic in another thread.

I will also be bringing this comment to the attention of the moderators.

Oh lord, fuck off. I answered Broomstick's question since I had the impression she thought I was saying something else, and if you want to get at me for not wanting to bring your attention to me (which, well, I succeeded since someone who posted later than me was the one who got your attention first) then go ahead.

As to the rest- we all know that you are making a concerted effort to convince people that violence is inevitable and the only solution, despite your increasingly unconvincing bleetings that its not what you really want. This ignores the fact that while such things are possible in the future, as of now, people are not being sent to death camps, or enslaved, or massacred, all of which could happen in the event of large scale political violence in America. And it ignores that, Trump's apparent delusions to the contrary, the democratic institutions of America are not all dead. The courts are still prepared to stand up to him, and their has been a strong surge of non-violent opposition from many Americans to this executive order.

If, God forbid, the day comes that he uses armed force to resist the courts' lawful rulings, as some have speculated, then maybe we can talk about weather violence is justified. But let's at least wait and see weather we reach that point before eagerly grasping for any justification to spill blood.

As terrible as the current situation is, yes, large scale political violence would be immeasurably worse, and offer no guarantee of actually solving anything either. Two points which you cannot refute.

I don't have the time or energy to argue with your delusional opinion of me so I'm just going to let you believe what you wish. We actually, probably, most likely agree on the majority of issues but you like to take anyone who suggests the possibility of violence occurring and beat on it like it's the most forbidden nope it will never happen idea to pass. Of all ideas that have been suggested here and in the past. And to top THAT off, you caricature them as virtually thugs itching for a bloody violent revolution. I can't even bring up the idea without you blathering about the horrors of violence when you damn know well I am aware of that, Laan is aware of that, Zaune is aware of that, we all are aware of that.

At some point it looks like you're just questing for ideological purity and that is just fucking annoying to deal with from you.

This is false, and you damn well know it.

I have acknowledged, time and time again, that their are situations where violence is justified, and far more situations where it is unjustified but still, regrettably, likely to occur.

I think we simply disagree on how close it is to being justified, or inevitable.

[The Romulan Republic]

Again, you are lying to justify armed revolt. This is despicable.

Its bad enough when people honestly believe that violence is necessary. They're wrong, and dangerous, but not necessarily evil in intent. But you... you're building an argument based on horse shit, which makes me suspect that you're arguing not what you believe is necessary, but an excuse to do what you want to do.

Speaking as someone with some direct memories of the 1960's, "violence" is not automatically equivalent to "armed revolt" or "civil war". Sometime violence IS inevitable - either something to be produced or something to be endured (as the civil rights movement did last century). We shouldn't fear to discuss the notion.

You are correct that violence and civil war are not synonymous. However, the former can escalate into the latter, and it is criminally naive to condone the one if one is not prepared to acknowledge the possibility of the other.

Which is not to say I advocate it - but at some point it may become the lesser evil. Stop insisting no one mention it. I agree it would be inappropriate to advocate it, but discussion seems appropriate to me.

I am certainly not saying that no one should mention the possibility- I have of course discussed the possibility many times myself.

But when I see people trying to argue its inevitability, or that it is the only option for reform, yes, I object to that.

I don't think the above quote is actually in disagreement with my views in any way, in and of itself, except for the fact that it misrepresents my position.

[Dragon Angel]

Speaking as someone with some direct memories of the 1960's, "violence" is not automatically equivalent to "armed revolt" or "civil war". Sometime violence IS inevitable - either something to be produced or something to be endured (as the civil rights movement did last century). We shouldn't fear to discuss the notion.

Which is not to say I advocate it - but at some point it may become the lesser evil. Stop insisting no one mention it. I agree it would be inappropriate to advocate it, but discussion seems appropriate to me.

Thank you.

This is false, and you damn well know it.

I have acknowledged, time and time again, that their are situations where violence is justified, and far more situations where it is unjustified but still, regrettably, likely to occur.

I think we simply disagree on how close it is to being justified, or inevitable.

Please read what Broomstick said.

My discussion of it as an extreme possibility is not equal to me directly advocating for it to occur right at this moment. Until you can get that nuance into your skull then it's pointless for us to discuss further.

[Lost Soal]

You mean the ruling that he NSA completely ignored, and wasn't followed by orders to arrest those doing so? The supreme court is a paper tiger, and everyone knows it. Il Duce and his followers will ignore them, just like those in the NSA already have.

To which order are you referring? The Supreme Court has not ruled on the current case, so I'm not sure to which past event you are referring, and how it relates to this situation.

To claim that the Supreme Court is without power is also highly premature. Last year it had enough power to make legal gay marriage the universal law of the land, to take one example.

Well, there's this one.
Attys at Dulles with a fed court order entitling them to see detainees told by CBP "it's not going to happen" Attys seeking contempt order

[The Romulan Republic]

You mean the ruling that he NSA completely ignored, and wasn't followed by orders to arrest those doing so? The supreme court is a paper tiger, and everyone knows it. Il Duce and his followers will ignore them, just like those in the NSA already have.

To which order are you referring? The Supreme Court has not ruled on the current case, so I'm not sure to which past event you are referring, and how it relates to this situation.

To claim that the Supreme Court is without power is also highly premature. Last year it had enough power to make legal gay marriage the universal law of the land, to take one example.

Well, there's this one.
Attys at Dulles with a fed court order entitling them to see detainees told by CBP "it's not going to happen" Attys seeking contempt order

Which is certainly disturbing, but sounds like it could just be someone lower down, as opposed to Trump himself defying the courts.

We'll have to see how it plays out. Their's a lot of misinformation going around, and a lot of confusion within the government as to the implementation of the order. Though as I posted earlier, it appears Trump is backing down, for now at least, on it applying to green card holders (and reportedly it won't apply to Canadian dual citizens).

As horrible as this order is, if it was going to happen, I think its perhaps fortuitous that it happened now. Had Trump taken months or years to further erode our democracy and consolidate his power, he likely could have done this with little opposition. But by doing something so drastic now, in his usual arrogant and half-assed, contradictory fashion, he has simply mobilized opposition against him.

Hopefully they get their contempt order, followed by arrests.

[The Romulan Republic]

Speaking as someone with some direct memories of the 1960's, "violence" is not automatically equivalent to "armed revolt" or "civil war". Sometime violence IS inevitable - either something to be produced or something to be endured (as the civil rights movement did last century). We shouldn't fear to discuss the notion.

Which is not to say I advocate it - but at some point it may become the lesser evil. Stop insisting no one mention it. I agree it would be inappropriate to advocate it, but discussion seems appropriate to me.

Thank you.

This is false, and you damn well know it.

I have acknowledged, time and time again, that their are situations where violence is justified, and far more situations where it is unjustified but still, regrettably, likely to occur.

I think we simply disagree on how close it is to being justified, or inevitable.

Please read what Broomstick said.

My discussion of it as an extreme possibility is not equal to me directly advocating for it to occur right at this moment. Until you can get that nuance into your skull then it's pointless for us to discuss further.

Of course discussing the possibility is not the same as advocating it, and as I made clear, not something I object to in and of itself. It is dishonest crap like this that makes me doubt your honesty and motivations.

But as I said, I think we have very different views on when violence is justified and when it is inevitable, and how close we are to either of those points.

[Dragon Angel]

It is dishonest crap like this that makes me doubt your honesty and motivations.

But as I said, I think we have very different views on when violence is justified and when it is inevitable, and how close we are to either of those points.

I have no clue what I'm doing now that's dishonesty. Do you just like throwing that word around? Do you deny taking a throwaway comment by Zaune first and using it to characterize him as "rar, guns"? Because this is the shit I'm talking about. Zaune could've just been sarcastic and you took that to the next level.

[The Romulan Republic]

To those who are concerned that the Democrats won't stand up to this sort of despotic behaviour, their has been a very welcome outcry from Democratic leaders. We'll have to see if actions follow words, but it seems that for now, the Democrats have decided to take a stand, and Trump's actions have effectively rallied greater opposition to him.

From the Facebook pages of Martin O'Malley, Bernie Sanders, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer:

Headed to BWI Marshall Airport tonight to stand against the bigoted #MuslimBan. Hope to see you there! #NoBanNoWall

Given Trump's dangerous and unconstitutional actions, the Democratic Party can no longer do politics "as usual." That is an ineffective and losing strategy. On virtually every major issue facing this country – economics, women's rights, immigration, the environment, education, etc. – Trump represents the oligarchy and a fairly small minority of the American people. Our job now is to bring the majority together and not only fight as hard as possible inside the beltway, but to become part of a grassroots movement which achieves economic, social, environmental and racial justice. We should be looking for guidance now not from pollsters and political consultants, but from leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. The American people want real change, a change based on compassion and justice, not hatred, intolerance and divisiveness.

This afternoon, I called Secretary Kelly to urge the administration to rescind these anti-American executive actions that will do absolutely nothing to improve our safety. In fact, they will do the opposite. We have a long and proud tradition of accepting refugees who seek safety in the United States, after a long and thorough vetting process. That tradition should continue.
These executive orders were mean-spirited and un-American in their origin, and implemented in a way that has caused chaos and confusion across the country. They will only serve to embolden and inspire those around the globe who would do us harm. They must be reversed, immediately.

[The Romulan Republic]

Hell, maybe the prospect of actual fascism is the kick in the balls the Democratic Party needed to get off its ass and start being a real Left wing Party.

That and their Centre Left Chosen One nearly losing the primary to a self-proclaimed socialist and then losing to an orange rapist.

Silver linings...

[Simon_Jester]

"Trump bars people (including green card holders) from the country on the basis of religion and nationality, Obama to blame"- Republicanism in a nutshell.

Nobody made him do this. And regardless of weather their's some older law he's basing it off of, its still bigotry, still hurting innocent people based on their religion and nationality, and still unConstitutional.

Go fuck yourself, collaborator.

TRR?

Calm the fuck down.

Shep pointed out something that is factually true. Namely, that past administrations (including the Bush and Reagan administrations) have passed all sorts of "stern" laws regarding immigration, nations that are on various terrorist lists, and so on. They then did not enforce those laws, because the laws were stupid.

By selectively enforcing stupid laws passed by his predecessor, Trump gains a great deal of power and leverage.

This is something that many people, including me, and I suspect including you, complained about during the Obama administration. Namely, that by NOT dismantling the legal means of oppressive action, and in some ways by adding to them, Obama guaranteed that our next truly bad president would have dangerous levels of power in his hands. Maybe even enough power to run the country as a dictator.

Bush did the same thing- on a scale where Bush counts as an unsatisfactory president, not a truly bad one; Trumpolini has kind of reset that scale. Honestly, I doubt that Clinton or Bush the Elder or Reagan are innocent of this either.

When Shep points out that there are pre-existing laws on the books that are ridiculously harsh towards illegal immigrants, or towards people from certain countries... That is a fact. Screaming at him for being a 'collaborator' is profoundly stupid.

[cosmicalstorm]

Scott Adams take, crazy first proposal as a negotiation technique.

The Persuasion Filter and Immigration

Posted January 29th, 2017 @ 8:02am in #Trump #immigration #Obama #Islam #Terrorism

President Trump has issued temporary immigration orders that ban citizens from several Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States. This is a good opportunity to test the Persuasion Filter against what you might call the Hitler Filter.

For new readers of this blog, my starting point is the understanding that human brains did not evolve to show us reality. We aren’t that smart. Instead, our brains create little movies in our heads, and yours can be completely different from mine. We see that situation now. Half the country thinks President Trump is well on his way to becoming a Hitler-like dictator. But many other Americans think Trump is an effective business person with good intentions. They can’t both be right.

I use the word “filter” to describe an optional way of looking at the world. A good filter is one that makes you happy and does a good job of predicting what happens next. Let’s use that standard to compare the Hitler Filter to what I call the Persuasion Filter.

The Hitler filter clearly isn’t making people happy. The people watching that movie are protesting in the streets. Meanwhile, the people who see Trump as a good negotiator looking out for the country are quite happy with the job he has done so far. The Persuasion Filter says Trump opens with a big first offer and negotiates back to something reasonable. If you don’t recognize the method, it looks crazy, random, and racist.

But what about predictions?

The Persuasion Filter predicting Trump would become president when the Hitler Filter thought he had no chance. Now we have another chance to test the predictive power of the Persuasion Filter.

If Trump is a Master Persuader, as I have been telling you for over a year, he just solved his biggest problem with immigration and you didn’t notice. The biggest problem is that his supporters on the right want more immigration control than he can (or should) deliver while his many critics on the left want far less. Normally when you negotiate there is only one party on the other side. But in this case, Trump is negotiating two extremes in two different directions. It’s the toughest possible situation. Best case scenario is that 40% of the country want you dead when it’s all over. Not good.

So what does a President Trump do when he is in an impossible situation?

According to the Hitler Filter, he does more Hitler stuff, such as being more extreme than anyone expected with his recent immigration declarations. That filter accurately predicted that he would be “worse” once elected. Sure enough, his temporary immigration ban is more extreme than most people expected. If things never get worse from this point on, we would have to question the Hitler Filter. But if things get worse still, the Hitler Filter is looking good.

Compare to the Persuasion Filter. This filter says Trump always opens with an extreme first offer so he has room to negotiate to the middle. The temporary ban fits that model perfectly. On the immigration topic alone, both the Hitler Filter and the Persuasion Filter predict that we get to exactly the point we are at today. Let’s call that a tie in terms of predictive power. The hard part is predicting what happens next.

The Persuasion Filter says Trump is negotiating with his critics on the extreme right at the same time as he is negotiating with his critics on the left. He needed one “opening offer” that would set up both sides for the next level of persuasion. And he found it. You just saw it.

The left sees Trump’s executive orders on immigration as pure Hitler behavior. That gives him plenty of room to negotiate to the middle. The initial orders are too broad, and clearly target too many of the wrong people. As he fixes those special cases he will be moving away from the Hitler model toward the middle. And people are more influenced by the DIRECTION of things than the absolute position of things. As long as he is moving away from the Hitler analogy, people will chill out, even if they think he was too close to that position before. Direction matters.

Trump’s temporary immigration ban set a mental anchor in your brain that is frankly shocking. It will make his eventual permanent immigration plan (”extreme vetting”) look tame by comparison. The Persuasion Filter says that’s his strategy. Because that’s ALWAYS his strategy. He acts the same way every time. He wrote a book about it. He talks about it publicly. Then he does it right in front of us, over and over. And no matter how many times he does it, half the country still thinks the opening offer is the real one.

I’ve mentioned in this blog a few times that persuasion works even when the subject of the persuasion recognizes all the techniques as they happen. This is a perfect case. The left has been watching Trump make big offers and dial them back for the past year. And yet they still think this time it will be different. The Persuasion Filter says that 70-year old Trump will act the same way today as he has for the past several decades: Big first offer, then negotiate.

But what about Trump’s critics on the far right who want more extreme immigration? Trump needs to negotiate with them too. And he is. He did that by showing them that his temporary offer was so extreme that people took to the streets. The system (America) is actively trying to eject Trump like some sort of cancer cell. And the worse it gets, with protests and whatnot, the more leverage Trump has to tell his far right supporters that he has gone as far as the country will let him go. He needed that. The protests are working in his favor. He couldn’t negotiate with the extreme right without them.

Are Trump’s temporary immigration plans chaotic? Yes. Do they hurt innocent people who were minding their own business? Yes, temporarily at least. Did he scare the pants off of half the country? Yes. Will there be lots of unintended damage from Trump’s immigration orders? Yes. No honest person should deny the cost component of the equation. It’s ugly. But don’t stop with a half-pinion. If you want a full opinion on immigration you have to compare those costs to the potential benefits that include fewer terrorist acts and avoiding Europe’s refugee problems. Are people making that comparison?

No.

On Twitter I am seeing lots of well-meaning liberals tweet charts showing that no one from the banned countries has ever been a terrorist in the United States. But Trump isn’t trying to solve the PAST. He’s trying to reduce risks in the future. And the future has risks that are unlike the past.

If you want your president to solve only problems that have already happened in the past, we can ignore any potential climate change issues too. Human activity has never warmed the planet too much in the past, so why worry about it in the future? The point is that we try to stop problems before they happen, not after. Terrorism and climate change are similar in that one narrow way. They are both problems of the future, not the past. You can’t look to history to figure out how to solve either one of them. Dinosaurs didn’t drive cars and ISIS didn’t always have hobby-sized drones that can drop bombs.

On a related topic, President Obama and past leaders have gone out of their way to avoid labelling Islam as the problem behind terrorism. That makes sense on a rational level because only a tiny percentage of Muslims are terrorists. Obama wanted to avoid causing a religious war that pitted Christians against Muslims. So he avoided saying “radical Islamic terror,” for example. One could make a good case that Obama’s approach was the wisest path. It allowed us to stay on good relations with our Muslim allies and it probably depressed recruitment for the terrorists, at least a little bit. Smart, right?

Now we see Trump doing exactly the opposite. His words and actions seem to be intentionally mixing the Muslim “brand” with the terrorist “brand.” How does that make sense with the Persuasion Filter? I’ll tell you how.

President Obama’s approach was to give a free pass to Islam in general and to any Muslims that were just minding their own business. But the unintended consequence is that Muslims have less incentive to police their own ranks. Trump changed that. Now if you want to stay out of the fight against terrorism it will cost you.

So Trump has created a situation – or will soon – in which the peaceful Muslims will either have to do a lot more to help law enforcement find the terrorists in their midst or else live with an increasingly tainted brand. Trump is issuing no free passes for minding your own business. His model makes you part of the solution or part of the problem. No one gets to sit this one out.

I’m not smart enough to know whether President Obama or President Trump have the best strategy in this regard. But both strategies are rational.

—

Scott Adams

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/1565322257 ... mmigration

[The Romulan Republic]

"Trump bars people (including green card holders) from the country on the basis of religion and nationality, Obama to blame"- Republicanism in a nutshell.

Nobody made him do this. And regardless of weather their's some older law he's basing it off of, its still bigotry, still hurting innocent people based on their religion and nationality, and still unConstitutional.

Go fuck yourself, collaborator.

TRR?

Calm the fuck down.

Shep pointed out something that is factually true. Namely, that past administrations (including the Bush and Reagan administrations) have passed all sorts of "stern" laws regarding immigration, nations that are on various terrorist lists, and so on. They then did not enforce those laws, because the laws were stupid.

By selectively enforcing stupid laws passed by his predecessor, Trump gains a great deal of power and leverage.

This is something that many people, including me, and I suspect including you, complained about during the Obama administration. Namely, that by NOT dismantling the legal means of oppressive action, and in some ways by adding to them, Obama guaranteed that our next truly bad president would have dangerous levels of power in his hands. Maybe even enough power to run the country as a dictator.

Bush did the same thing- on a scale where Bush counts as an unsatisfactory president, not a truly bad one; Trumpolini has kind of reset that scale. Honestly, I doubt that Clinton or Bush the Elder or Reagan are innocent of this either.

When Shep points out that there are pre-existing laws on the books that are ridiculously harsh towards illegal immigrants, or towards people from certain countries... That is a fact. Screaming at him for being a 'collaborator' is profoundly stupid.

I am angry because of all the ways one could respond to this, he chose to focus on "Why Obama is bad". And like I said, that's Republicanism in a nutshell- whatever goes wrong, blame Obama.

I'll admit "collaborator" was probably excessive, but it does come across as trying to put shift the focus from "Trump is violating the Constitution by executive fiat in the name of bigotry" to "But its all Obama's fault!" It comes across as trying to once again blame Obama to distract from what Trump is doing.

[Simon_Jester]

No, actually, Shep focused on multiple administrations, which, yes, includes Obama.

Shep posts tend to be something like a Rorschach test, in that he often writes with a flat affect, and tends to post a large volume of facts accompanied by a couple of sentences of vaguely snarky commentary. As with a Rorschach test, a person's reactions to a Shep post tend to say at least as much about them as they do about the Shep posts.

The fact that you reacted with SHINING WHITE-HOT BALLISTIC RAAAGE does not say good things about your blood pressure.

Furthermore, the law referenced in Trumpolini's executive order actually was passed under Obama. That is a statement of objective fact.

Again, reacting to an objective fact with WHITE HOT BALLISTIC RAAAGE is not a good thing.
___________________________________________________________________

TRR, I am really, sincerely trying to get you to stop and realize that there's a problem, because you've been doing something incredibly counterproductive for about a year now. You blow a gasket and accuse people of being terrible. And you are quicker and quicker, touchier and touchier, more and more sensitive, to that person over time, making wilder and wilder accusations. I'm seeing this in your interactions with several other people on this forum.

You are perhaps familiar with the saying, "The left eats its own?" You've been acting like one of the teeth. One of the people who gets so strident, so angry, so vitriolic, at neutrals and allies, that people who are incredibly close to you ideologically can't stand to side with you in an argument. Or you can't stand to stay on the same side with them, resulting in you effectively reducing yourself to "a movement of one."

I really hope you don't act like this in real life. Because if you do, I don't want you in my political movement. I'd want you in the enemy's tent, stirring up shit and bad will and causing their movement to fragment and fracture due to all the stress and trauma and internal denunciations. Instead of doing it in my own tent.

[Raj Ahten]

Scott Adams take, crazy first proposal as a negotiation technique.

I'm not sure I agree with a lot of the rest of the analysis presented in the article but the Trump seeing everything as a bullshit real estate deal is apt.

Not looking forward to this approach applied to sensitive foreign policy areas such as the South China Sea where all the confusion and real world messiness might include escalating military clashes that can't be controlled.

Also the goals that Trump are pursuing and the fact that he is willing to screw over so many people to do so are both contemptible.

[Starglider]

Trump's strategy makes complete sense so far (ignoring the question of whether his goals make sense). Spam outrageous changes and proclemations faster than the liberal opposition can keep up. Promote chaos, confusion and disinformation in the media and the 'enemy-held' portions of the government. Delaying appointments fits right into that; obfuscating who does what and who ordered what. Ideally, suck progressive groups into a few less-critical battles, make some grudging concessions and let them think they're making progress, then suddenly they realise five more fronts opened up while they weren't looking (or at least, couldn't co-ordinate). Tie up the opposition's legal resources with too many cases to fight, generate mental fatigue, emotional fatigue, and of course opportunistically promote internal dissent in the left. Hint at more horrible things happening, allow melodrama to inflate them, then sometimes do nothing (or something bizarrely sane and reasonable) just to make the predictions look stupid. Relentlessly promote the pro-Trump narrative to his own base, with a consistent propaganda (lots of repetition) that will look credible against the reeling, incoherent opposition. Triage protests into Women's March style harmless ones where protestors can get it out of their system, do their good deed for the year and then go back to earning a living and writing angry twitter posts, versus the dangerous ones that need to be infiltrated, undermined, broken up by force, and then portrayed as evil rioters in the offical statements.

The fundamentals of wielding chaos as a weapon to fight a rival group within an established power structure. I'm currently optimistic that it won't go to unrestricted chaos, bypassing the power structure; that tends to be violent.

[Simon_Jester]

Scott Adams take, crazy first proposal as a negotiation technique.

I'm not sure I agree with a lot of the rest of the analysis presented in the article but the Trump seeing everything as a bullshit real estate deal is apt.

Not looking forward to this approach applied to sensitive foreign policy areas such as the South China Sea where all the confusion and real world messiness might include escalating military clashes that can't be controlled.

Also the goals that Trump are pursuing and the fact that he is willing to screw over so many people to do so are both contemptible.

Yeah. I don't think Trump's "Art of the Deal" includes a chapter for what happens when both sides have guns and when one side seriously considers NO DEAL as preferable to his bullshit initial offer. He's had a long career that revolves around the other side not being willing to walk away easily because they stand to profit from a successful deal. Foreign governments aren't always going to see him that way.

Trump's "art of the deal" exists within a framework where the laws and institutions and customs are fixed, and you simply try to wriggle your way around them when they become inconvenient. Those things act as "guard rails" that limit what is possible stopping others from easily hurting and cheating you... but allow you, through subtlety and lots of money, to still hurt and cheat others.

The office of the presidency doesn't have the same kind of "guard rails." The flip side of the office being so powerful is that everything you do is a big deal, and people treat it as such. If you offer an illegal contract to a prospective partner in a business deal, all that happens is that they hire a lawyer to read it and laugh at you. If you issue illegal executive orders... people notice, and care, and do not easily forget.

Without the guard rails, I don't think Trump is going to prove nearly as good a wheeler-dealer as he thinks he is. Especially not if he sticks to his strategy of doing crazy things in an attempt to bargain down his own supporters.

...

Furthermore, I think Scott Adams is missing that the "Hitler Filter" and "Persuasion Filter" can both be true at the same time, because (surprise surprise) Hitler was good at persuading people of things. The fact that someone happens to be fairly good at manipulating others does not mean they are doing it for rational or desirable purposes. Quite the opposite, when you have reason to think you're dealing with a literal psychopath.

Scott Adams, of all people, should know this- because he's made his career by lampooning the kind of ignorant manipulative creeps who crawl into the ranks of middle and upper management.

It's entirely possible that Trump's fallback strategy is to take the failure of his crazy action back to his own support base and say "look, I tried, but those damn libruls wouldn't let me." It's entirely possible that he plans to spend the next four years doing that over and over and over. But the effect on the country's legal institutions of doing so would be disastrous, the effect on our ability to even have coherent policies would be disastrous. Setting out to do that isn't the act of a rational, intelligent person who just happens to be very good at persuading people. It's the act of an ignorant, destructive personality who just happens to be very good at persuading people, and doesn't really care if they break the parts of the world that they don't understand. In other words, a Hitler-flavored person.

Likewise, Adams doesn't seem to grasp that 'getting Muslims to police their own' isn't a viable strategy, especially when the countries that Trumpo singles out are far from the worst offenders when it comes to policing their own in the first place! I mean, if I had to pick a Muslim country that needs to 'police its own,' that would be Saudi Arabia, which was conspicuously not mentioned in the proscriptions even though most of the 9/11 hijackers came from there, as others have noted.

And there is no mention here of how Trump is (for example) packing his Cabinet meetings with political advisors who have no administrative or government experience, at the expense of, say, the generals commanding the armed forces. A rational successful man knows how to surround himself with people who themselves know how to do things.

...

So basically, Adams is trying to assume that because Trump is persuasive, Trump is necessarily rational. That Trump is, to use characters from Scott Adams' own work, a Dogbert.

But the reality is... Trump isn't a Dogbert. He's not a superintelligent but ruthless person who just happens to be good at manipulating people into doing what he wants.

Trump is the Pointy-Haired Boss writ large, with a bit more talent for convincing people he knows what he's doing, and a LOT of startup money. By all means, start from the "filter" of assuming Trump is very persuasive. But from that standpoint, his goals are quite obvious: wealth, power, personal aggrandizement. That's it.

He's not pursuing the sensible interests of the nation with his "art of the deal," and he's using his 'art' in such a way as to cause great damage to the nation's institutional fabric. And those are some of the most damning criticisms you can make of a politician. At best it means he's going to be a highly effective kleptocrat; at worst, well... the worst example of such a politician is in fact Hitler.

[The Romulan Republic]

No, actually, Shep focused on multiple administrations, which, yes, includes Obama.

I'm honestly not sure what the point is here.

Have other administrations done shitty things that helped bring us to where we are today? Yes. And I suppose its helpful to be aware of that context. But focussing on that now seems to me to serve little purpose, except to distract from, or excuse/normalize, what's happening now. Even if that isn't the intent.

If their's some point to it that I'm missing here, please, enlighten me.

Shep posts tend to be something like a Rorschach test, in that he often writes with a flat affect, and tends to post a large volume of facts accompanied by a couple of sentences of vaguely snarky commentary. As with a Rorschach test, a person's reactions to a Shep post tend to say at least as much about them as they do about the Shep posts.

The fact that you reacted with SHINING WHITE-HOT BALLISTIC RAAAGE does not say good things about your blood pressure.

Furthermore, the law referenced in Trumpolini's executive order actually was passed under Obama. That is a statement of objective fact.

Again, reacting to an objective fact with WHITE HOT BALLISTIC RAAAGE is not a good thing.
___________________________________________________________________

TRR, I am really, sincerely trying to get you to stop and realize that there's a problem, because you've been doing something incredibly counterproductive for about a year now. You blow a gasket and accuse people of being terrible. And you are quicker and quicker, touchier and touchier, more and more sensitive, to that person over time, making wilder and wilder accusations. I'm seeing this in your interactions with several other people on this forum.

You are perhaps familiar with the saying, "The left eats its own?" You've been acting like one of the teeth. One of the people who gets so strident, so angry, so vitriolic, at neutrals and allies, that people who are incredibly close to you ideologically can't stand to side with you in an argument. Or you can't stand to stay on the same side with them, resulting in you effectively reducing yourself to "a movement of one."

I really hope you don't act like this in real life. Because if you do, I don't want you in my political movement. I'd want you in the enemy's tent, stirring up shit and bad will and causing their movement to fragment and fracture due to all the stress and trauma and internal denunciations. Instead of doing it in my own tent.

Their is little I can say to this without getting drawn into a debate on personalities, which is certainly not what should be the focus of this thread.

All I will say is that while I can certainly be guilty of excessive alarmism and hostility, for which I apologize, I do think that you are overstating things somewhat, and that in any case, that shit is hardly going in only one direction.

Internet discussion forums, in my experience, tend to be a more combative environment. I'm not excusing it, just acknowledging it. And it creates a self-perpetuating environment, where all sides feel insulted or threatened, and thus more defensive and more likely to be easily provoked in future arguments.

Its a problem, but hardly, unfortunately, one unique to me.

And that's all I have to say on this matter.

[Simon_Jester]

No, actually, Shep focused on multiple administrations, which, yes, includes Obama.

I'm honestly not sure what the point is here.

Have other administrations done shitty things that helped bring us to where we are today? Yes. And I suppose its helpful to be aware of that context. But focussing on that now seems to me to serve little purpose, except to distract from, or excuse/normalize, what's happening now. Even if that isn't the intent.

If their's some point to it that I'm missing here, please, enlighten me.

Shep tends to post factual statements with no clear agenda, except perhaps to provoke discussion. This is one of them. So how about, instead of seeking an agenda in the other person's comment, you focus on drawing a conclusion? Think like someone who learns lessons, not somebody who screams at people for ideological impurity.

One obvious conclusion is: "Start looking for other bombs hidden in our legal system by past presidents who wanted a free hand and didn't care or realize how badly those bombs could be misused."

Another obvious conclusion is: "Assuming we get out of this mess with a democracy still in place, be much much less complacent about letting 'ordinary' presidents amass the power to do nasty things, because the worst case scenario of who might wind up abusing that power is worse than most of us believed in 2015."

Their is little I can say to this without getting drawn into a debate on personalities, which is certainly not what should be the focus of this thread.

All I will say is that while I can certainly be guilty of excessive alarmism and hostility, for which I apologize, I do think that you are overstating things somewhat, and that in any case, that shit is hardly going in only one direction.

Internet discussion forums, in my experience, tend to be a more combative environment. I'm not excusing it, just acknowledging it. And it creates a self-perpetuating environment, where all sides feel insulted or threatened, and thus more defensive and more likely to be easily provoked in future arguments.

Its a problem, but hardly, unfortunately, one unique to me.

And that's all I have to say on this matter.

It's a fairly safe bet that WHITE HOT BALLISTIC RAGE is not the correct response to your problems. And by perpetuating an atmosphere of ballistic raging, rather than making the effort to keep it damped down, you are actively harming your own cause.

"The left eats its own."

If that were not true, I suspect we wouldn't be in the position that led to this thread in the first place. There very likely wouldn't be a borderline fascist in the White House, because a more unified and less hysterical left is one of many things that could have flipped such an excruciatingly closely-balanced election as the one we just went through.

So while we're on the subject of "draw conclusions, instead of suspiciously eyeing people to find out what their real agendas are," let's draw the conclusion:

"Do not chew people out for having wrong ideas, when they are closer to your position than most. And don't make a habit of shouting and posturing and brandishing your rage, when presented with inconvenient facts."

[Zaune]

I have no clue what I'm doing now that's dishonesty. Do you just like throwing that word around? Do you deny taking a throwaway comment by Zaune first and using it to characterize him as "rar, guns"? Because this is the shit I'm talking about. Zaune could've just been sarcastic and you took that to the next level.

Actually, just for the record, TRR's assessment of my views about armed revolt are pretty much spot on. I've been saying it's probably the only way progressives in the Anglosphere are ever going to get anything accomplished for a long time. To no avail, I might add.

[Elfdart]

Worth noting that the Executive Order in question allows entry into the country from those nations if the person entering is Christian. It does not, however, allow entry into the country if the person entering is Jewish. So, the fact that he signed this order explicitly keeping Jewish refugees out on Holocaust Remembrance Day is, y'know, horrifying.

That might explain why he issued this edict on Holocaust Remembrance Day while not mentioning Jews for that either.

[Flagg]

I have no clue what I'm doing now that's dishonesty. Do you just like throwing that word around? Do you deny taking a throwaway comment by Zaune first and using it to characterize him as "rar, guns"? Because this is the shit I'm talking about. Zaune could've just been sarcastic and you took that to the next level.

Actually, just for the record, TRR's assessment of my views about armed revolt are pretty much spot on. I've been saying it's probably the only way progressives in the Anglosphere are ever going to get anything accomplished for a long time. To no avail, I might add.

I tend to lean towards "If they fire first, you fire last", myself. I don't believe that violence in response to violence, even against "authorities", automatically invalidates your position or removes you from having the moral high ground.

But TRR accusing everyone who disagrees with him as being a liar is old hat.

[LadyTevar]

First, TRR, take a break.
Second, everyone else stop dogpiling TRR for a page or two.
Third, this thread is being monitored.

[Beowulf]

Worth noting that the Executive Order in question allows entry into the country from those nations if the person entering is Christian. It does not, however, allow entry into the country if the person entering is Jewish. So, the fact that he signed this order explicitly keeping Jewish refugees out on Holocaust Remembrance Day is, y'know, horrifying.

That might explain why he issued this edict on Holocaust Remembrance Day while not mentioning Jews for that either.

I've seen no actual evidence for this claim.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Worth noting that the Executive Order in question allows entry into the country from those nations if the person entering is Christian. It does not, however, allow entry into the country if the person entering is Jewish. So, the fact that he signed this order explicitly keeping Jewish refugees out on Holocaust Remembrance Day is, y'know, horrifying.

That might explain why he issued this edict on Holocaust Remembrance Day while not mentioning Jews for that either.

I've seen no actual evidence for this claim.

Which part? There is no exception for jews in the order, and the holocaust remembrance declaration did omit jews. This is a matter of public record at this point, would you like the text, or are you smart enough to look them up?

As for the inference...well... that is an inference.