Trump is the most smart American.

[koti]

Balance might not be the best expression, middle ground is better but it doesn’t do justice to what I mean. On a bad day I’m incapable of this line of thought so bare with me...I think that getting rid of the extremes is what we all should be after politically. The conservstive south and the extreme left with SJW’s in the US combined were a big factor which caused Trump I think. Trump ofcourse is a derivative of many other things, the eclectoral college being one of many but the extreme political stances on both sides caused Trump the most in my opinion. I wonder how much of this hate and division was orchestrated or at least helped by the russians in the social media. TenOZ said correctly something along the lines of many people voting for Trump just to see the liberals scream in agony and the other way around, there are many liberals right now who would vote for anybody, even someone with an amoeba brain just to see Trump loose the elections.

[Phi for All]

47 minutes ago, koti said:

Balance might not be the best expression, middle ground is better but it doesn’t do justice to what I mean. On a bad day I’m incapable of this line of thought so bare with me...

You may feel incapable of that line of thought because it's fallacious. It begs the question that the middle ground is always the best solution, or that placating everyone will be the best resolution. Sometimes you just need to abolish slavery, even though it's not the middle ground.

47 minutes ago, koti said:

I think that getting rid of the extremes is what we all should be after politically.

I tend to agree, and then I think about what is needed to drag us away from the extremes we find ourselves in. Will a gentle tack to port be enough to correct years of poor navigation? Or does the US need an extreme move towards liberal agendas like education, welfare, and healthcare?

47 minutes ago, koti said:

TenOZ said correctly something along the lines of many people voting for Trump just to see the liberals scream in agony and the other way around, there are many liberals right now who would vote for anybody, even someone with an amoeba brain just to see Trump loose the elections.

The liberals I know try not to operate so emotionally. They leave that to the right.

[CharonY]

So what I do not understand is, who these ominous SJWs are. The closest I can think of are usually young students who want to engage in the issue of social justice, but have only incomplete understanding of the complexity. Those that actually work in the field tend to have a very nuanced view on these matters. 

Rather, due to the partisanship in the US political system the voting outcome is much less fluid than in many European countries (or Canada), I presume. So regardless of the actual candidate a sizable portion will vote according to party affiliation. According to study by the Cato institute the largest group are these staunch conservative voters which have a strong nativist view. They tend to be older male with moderate levels of education, but are often found in the upper middle class. A second group, which they call American Preservationists, are conomically progressive, but have an even stricter view of America as an ethnostate (i.e. white Christian country). While less loyal to the party, they strongly see economy as a zero-sum game, in which any proportion directed to minorities are being taken away from them. They may actually be upset by the ominous view of SJWs who want to take away their share. These group of voters are traditionally from the lowest income group and have the lowest educational attainment.

The big issue here in my mind is really the level of education and the ability to come to common grounds, not necessarily in politics, but in reality. E.g. are immigrants really threatening the economic safety of white folks? Do policies really benefit non-white disproportionately?  Of course data does not suggest either, but certain folks strongly feel that way and are therefore the ideal target for the type identity politics as conducted by the Bannon and his ilk.

The bigger point, though is that even among Trump voters there are significant disparities in worldviews and motivation. In that regard the "clever" bit was his ability to rally those folks to vote for him.

Edited April 6, 2018 by CharonY

[Ten oz]

47 minutes ago, koti said:

getting rid of the extremes is what we all should be after politically

Extremes are where all the passion is. The average person doesn't care about politics. They have a general sense of melancholy towards politics finding it boring and unpleasant. It takes people that have energy for policies to speak up and demand to be noticed. Those people are always on an extreme. Martin Luther King was at an extreme. Cesar Chavez was at an extreme. Joseph Smith was at an extreme, lol. 

[koti]

42 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

You may feel incapable of that line of thought because it's fallacious. It begs the question that the middle ground is always the best solution, or that placating everyone will be the best resolution. Sometimes you just need to abolish slavery, even though it's not the middle ground.

I tend to agree, and then I think about what is needed to drag us away from the extremes we find ourselves in. Will a gentle tack to port be enough to correct years of poor navigation? Or does the US need an extreme move towards liberal agendas like education, welfare, and healthcare?

The liberals I know try not to operate so emotionally. They leave that to the right.

You may be right that its a falacious thought but keep in mind that you’re biased (politically) and I’m not. Looking at the US political debate from my far away orbit I think I could have some useful input. Trump is an unfortunate anomaly and the liberals did have their share in creating it - at least it looks like it from here.

32 minutes ago, CharonY said:

So what I do not understand is, who these ominous SJWs are. The closest I can think of are usually young students who want to engage in the issue of social justice, but have only incomplete understanding of the complexity. Those that actually work in the field tend to have a very nuanced view on these matters. 

Rather, due to the partisanship in the US political system the voting outcome is much less fluid than in many European countries (or Canada), I presume. So regardless of the actual candidate a sizable portion will vote according to party affiliation. According to study by the Cato institute the largest group are these staunch conservative voters which have a strong nativist view. They tend to be older male with moderate levels of education, but are often found in the upper middle class. A second group, which they call American Preservationists, are conomically progressive, but have an even stricter view of America as an ethnostate (i.e. white Christian country). While less loyal to the party, they strongly see economy as a zero-sum game, in which any proportion directed to minorities are being taken away from them. They may actually be upset by the ominous view of SJWs who want to take away their share. These group of voters are traditionally from the lowest income group and have the lowest educational attainment.

The big issue here in my mind is really the level of education and the ability to come to common grounds, not necessarily in politics, but in reality. E.g. are immigrants really threatening the economic safety of white folks? Do policies really benefit non-white disproportionately?  Of course data does not suggest either, but certain folks strongly feel that way and are therefore the ideal target for the type identity politics as conducted by the Bannon and his ilk.

The bigger point, though is that even among Trump voters there are significant disparities in worldviews and motivation. In that regard the "clever" bit was his ability to rally those folks to vote for him.

I think that the US and Canada SJW ominousness you mention is viewed by many foreigners as something harmfull (at least by me) It cannot be directly placed against the scary and vicious agendas represented by the far US conservatives but its a thing which is not to be taken litely imo. I admit that I have little inside insight and I draw most of my opinions from social media. I was about to link a youtube video by „Diana Davison” but I decided it will be unnecessary deviation from the OP.  I enjoyed the rest of your post. As usual. 

 

[CharonY]

19 minutes ago, koti said:

I think that the US and Canada SJW ominousness you mention is viewed by many foreigners as something harmfull (at least by me)

Perhaps a new thread to explore this aspect? I am genuinely curious as I came across the term only during IRC days in which it was used as a satirical term for folks who would fall into certain stereotypes (there was a cartoon that was kinda funny). I have hard time reconciling it with any identifiable political movement (in contrast to, say, the anti-immigrant policies as well as actual nationalist movements) and have dismissed it almost entirely as an online-generation bogeyman.

However, if you have got actual sources that put that into some context (online searches obviously result in quite a mess) I would be quite interested in looking into it. At this point my suspicion is that it is really an amplification of the stupidity of individuals, which can now be easily distributed via social media (in my days they would post stupid IRC logs but they rarely got out of a given community, luckily). And that certain actors may try to use it to construct a pseudeo-political movement that does not really exist in that form. But again, I am ready to be corrected (I'd prefer articles or books over youtube videos, if possible though. The latter rarely are informative or go beyond mere opinions).

Edited April 6, 2018 by CharonY

[beecee]

The apparent problem with Trump, is that he appeals to the lowest common denominator.

[CharonY]

The interesting bit from that study is that there is apparently not a very strong common ground between his voters, apart from an universal dislike of Hilary Clinton (though at least in two groups it was in stark contrast to 2012).

[koti]

24 minutes ago, CharonY said:

Perhaps a new thread to explore this aspect? I am genuinely curious as I came across the term only during IRC days in which it was used as a satirical term for folks who would fall into certain stereotypes (there was a cartoon that was kinda funny). I have hard time reconciling it with any identifiable political movement (in contrast to, say, the anti-immigrant policies as well as actual nationalist movements) and have dismissed it almost entirely as an online-generation bogeyman.

However, if you have got actual sources that put that into some context (online searches obviously result in quite a mess) I would be quite interested in looking into it. At this point my suspicion is that it is really an amplification of the stupidity of individuals, which can now be easily distributed via social media (in my days they would post stupid IRC logs but they rarely got out of a given community, luckily). And that certain actors may try to use it to construct a pseudeo-political movement that does not really exist in that form. But again, I am ready to be corrected (I'd prefer articles or books over youtube videos, if possible though. The latter rarely are informative or go beyond mere opinions).

I would love to discuss this with you and a couple of other members here but I’m not prepared to have an open thread on this forum to defend my views for the next month or 2 years on these subjects. I’m sure you noticed I tend to put the cat among the pigeons in most of my non science based posts on this forum but it would be unnecessarily futile for me to do this here on SFN. Do me the courtesy and watch this documentary, I assure you won’t be bored:

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt3686998/

 

 

 

[CharonY]

16 minutes ago, koti said:

Do me the courtesy and watch this documentary, I assure you won’t be bored:

Actually I have and from the get go I can tell you that I dislike these personal discovery types of docs, unless they are extremely well researched and therefore educational. This one does fall flat in that regard. If you are willing to discuss that film I'd start a new topic and start critiquing some misconceptions that the filmmaker start out with, and/or at least discussing the hard science things that she got wrong (as those are probably least controversial). However, if you are hesitant to join in, I'll probably leave it at that (as I am not terribly interested in just reading my own writings, as bad as they are).

Edited April 6, 2018 by CharonY

[koti]

5 minutes ago, CharonY said:

Actually I have and from the get go I can tell you that I dislike these personal discovery types of docs, unless they are extremely well researched and therefore educational. This one does fall flat in that regard. If you are willing to discuss that film I'd start a new topic and start critiquing some misconceptions that the filmmaker start out with, and/or at least discussing the hard science things that she got wrong (as those are probably least controversial). However, if you are hesitant to join in, I'll probably leave it at that (as I am not terribly interested in just reading my own writings, as bad as they are).

I'm not.

[CharonY]

Well, there we go then. I will just say that I pretty much stopped watching up toward the end when they tried to bring up cancer funding, because that was just incredibly ignorant of the funding issues regarding gender gap and and health burden and health funding. I will also say as the final point that if the views shown in the doc are the somehow reflective of SJWs it seems to me that folks are barking up the wrong bush (and I fail to see how that is a danger to society, as these views have been woven into current structures). Interestingly those promoting men's right in the movie are also (unknowingly) promoting the end of the system that puts burden (but also power) into men's hand (and disadvantaging them in others). The filmmaker does address it a bit, but then veers of completely. I am just gonna leave it at that. 

[John Cuthber]

6 hours ago, koti said:

That the best aproach in politics would be to find a ballance between the best from both liberal and conservative world

OK, that's not unreasonable.

We can even be scientific about it- we have the historical data.
Just find some sort of measure of the  progress of society- for example the improved  equitable sharing of wealth and resources- and look for which political views were in force when that happened..
Look at what party was in charge when there was sustained long term growth in  the economy  which wasn't subsequently shown to be a "bubble".
You might want to look at what  political decisions moved humanity forward (regardless of the party that made those decisions) and look to see if those were ideologically "Right" or "Left" wing ideas.

And then you can work out where the correct balance between Right and Left might be.

[Ten oz]

11 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

And then you can work out where the correct balance between Right and Left might be.

The problem of course being there isn't a correct Ballance. Currently the Right regularly calls truth "fake". It simply isn't productive for society in the long run to meet such people halfway. Demanding a Ballance of ideology between right and left in our current political environment is like demanding medation rather than formal legal proceedings between a rapist and their victims. Laws are being broken, science is being denied, and no one can honestly say they understand where things are headed. Will Kelly, Sessions, and Puritt even have jobs next month? Does anyone know the long term strategy for Syria and North Korea? Who besides Trump himself wants a trade war? Do deficits matter? We cannot find middle/common ground with a constant state of flux. Trump supporters are loyal but clearly hold no solid views. 

[John Cuthber]

1 hour ago, Ten oz said:

The problem of course being there isn't a correct Ballance. Currently the Right regularly calls truth "fake". It simply isn't productive for society in the long run to meet such people halfway. Demanding a Ballance of ideology between right and left in our current political environment is like demanding medation rather than formal legal proceedings between a rapist and their victims. Laws are being broken, science is being denied, and no one can honestly say they understand where things are headed. Will Kelly, Sessions, and Puritt even have jobs next month? Does anyone know the long term strategy for Syria and North Korea? Who besides Trump himself wants a trade war? Do deficits matter? We cannot find middle/common ground with a constant state of flux. Trump supporters are loyal but clearly hold no solid views. 

In which case, perhaps the correct balance is 100% Left:0% Right.

If that's what the evidence says , then that's the correct answer.

(It may not be popular).

[Ten oz]

54 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

In which case, perhaps the correct balance is 100% Left:0% Right.

If that's what the evidence says , then that's the correct answer.

(It may not be popular).

I agree but don't think it's what the over whelming majority have in mind when they call for a balance. I think the expectation is a healthy amount of give and take where both sides win and lose some of what they want. In our current environment that type of balance isn't possible. The current power structure on the right doesn't have goals or long term policy ideas which are known. The right is unified however. They support Trump and are willing to play everything fast and loose as necessary 

The left seems to have divided into 3 groups: Progressives, Democrats, fearful moderates. Progressives are conspiratorial and distrust the structure of govt at large freeing all politicians regardless of party are owned by the banks.  Democrats slug along with their traditional grass roots works among labor & civil rights movements but struggle to connect with new audiences. Fearful moderates think it is time to just pander to rural whites and abandon things like gun control, abortion rights, and immigrant protection. 

For about a decade from Nixon - Carter it seems the nation truly did struggle with a crisis of confidence. By contrast Nixon, Ford, and Carter were all moderates compared to what the nation ended up settling for. We ran through 3 Presidents in 6yrs. To a certain extent  attempts to find balanced were too nuanced for the Colosseum crowd that craved finality. While I am too young to have experienced the 1970's from what I have read I feel the atmosphere in politics is similar today. I think no politician is on stable ground at the moment. Both a blue wave in November and or a Trump loss in 2020 will create just as many challenges as they address.    

Carter's Crisis of Confidence speech: https://www.cartercenter.org/news/editorials_speeches/crisis_of_confidence.html

 

 

 

Edited April 7, 2018 by Ten oz
Added link

[Airbrush]

On ‎4‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 5:26 PM, Raider5678 said:

I must be a gangster.

I use nicknames with pretty much everyone I know if I've known them longer then a year.

 

Sure, but do you talk like a "wise-guy" from The Godfather, Good Fellas, or Casino?

[Raider5678]

12 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

In which case, perhaps the correct balance is 100% Left:0% Right.

 

 

11 hours ago, Ten oz said:

I agree but don't think it's what the over whelming majority have in mind when they call for a balance.

1

You mean 100% left and 0% right isn't what the overwhelming majority have in mind when they call for a balance?

 

 

Also, the evidence does not say 100% left is better.

I like many of the things that the Left wants to offer, however, there is no possible way we can do it. Seriously.

Ultimately, that is what has caused the downfall of every single democracy since recorded history: They ran out of money.

Free food for the poor, lavish entertainment, education for all, etc. The term Bread and Circus was derived from when the Roman politicians started offering free food and entertainment for everyone. Why? Because then they voted for them.

 

Also, the Right is just as bad. Except instead of free stuff, they offer lower taxes. Same concept.

 

This is probably one of the smartest things I've heard, and I seriously agree with Koti on this one:

On 4/6/2018 at 4:15 PM, koti said:

I think that getting rid of the extremes is what we all should be after politically.

 

 

And that includes your "correct" 100% left and 0% right.

Edited April 8, 2018 by Raider5678

[Raider5678]

10 hours ago, Airbrush said:

Sure, but do you talk like a "wise-guy" from The Godfather, Good Fellas, or Casino?

Nope.

I'm hardly wise.

[John Cuthber]

5 hours ago, Raider5678 said:

And that includes your "correct" 100% left and 0% right.

Why the quote marks?
I didn't say 100% left and 0% right was correct.

However, what we have at the moment is a weird world where in the interest of "balance" people who talk obvious nonsense are allowed as much air time as those whose view is actually backed by evidence.

The problem with extremists is not their views per se, it's that those views get accepted in spite of being  invalid because they are put forward without criticism.

[Raider5678]

4 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

I didn't say 100% left and 0% right was correct.

22 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

In which case, perhaps the correct balance is 100% Left:0% Right.

If that's what the evidence says , then that's the correct answer.

(It may not be popular).

It seems like you did say it.

However, I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, perhaps I'm confusing what you meant then. Could you elaborate?

 

[dimreepr]

10 hours ago, Raider5678 said:

I like many of the things that the Left wants to offer, however, there is no possible way we can do it. Seriously.

Ultimately, that is what has caused the downfall of every single democracy since recorded history: They ran out of money.

Free food for the poor, lavish entertainment, education for all, etc. The term Bread and Circus was derived from when the Roman politicians started offering free food and entertainment for everyone. Why? Because then they voted for them.

 

The problem is, there is no left in America (ATM) just right and far right, there used to be (as I'm sure Phi will attest).

Free food for the poor puts me in mind of "The grapes of wrath" - John Steinback, especially the part where the capitalists threw away food and guarded it, from the starving. 

10 hours ago, Raider5678 said:

This is probably one of the smartest things I've heard, and I seriously agree with Koti on this one:

On 4/6/2018 at 9:15 PM, koti said:

I think that getting rid of the extremes is what we all should be after politically.

Then it's fear and need (and greed) you have to eliminate because they always precede/create political extremes.

Edited April 8, 2018 by dimreepr

[John Cuthber]

26 minutes ago, Raider5678 said:

It seems like you did say it.

However, I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, perhaps I'm confusing what you meant then. Could you elaborate?

 

I'm not sure there's anything to elaborate really.
Here's what I said.
 

23 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

In which case, perhaps the correct balance is 100% Left:0% Right.

If that's what the evidence says , then that's the correct answer.

Where I said  "In which case, perhaps"

I implied that, in a different case that wouldn't be the outcome and similarly  where I said "If that's what the evidence says" then the clear implication should be that, if the evidence doesn't say it then...

My point was that there's a balance somewhere.and we should look at the evidence to find out where it is

[Ten oz]

4 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

However, what we have at the moment is a weird world where in the interest of "balance" people who talk obvious nonsense are allowed as much air time as those whose view is actually backed by evidence.

Worse still we the current state of affairs where air time is often purely driven by ratings. Evidence is treated as irrelevant and replaced with a matrix where popularity is self evidently more important. Popular arguments demand more attention than accurate ones. Does climate science even have a role in climate discussion anymore or is the more popular discussions about economic viability of different forms of energy production preferred. It is bad enough people fudge the facts on climate but by the time numbers are being fudged on wind & solar the conversation is so far of field that climate isn't even part of the discussion anymore. A vacuum discussion about the cost per kilowatt of wind energy vs coal energy isn't a climate discussion yet that is where we often end up. Likewise many evolution discussions turn into big bang debates despite one being biology and the other by theoretical physics. 

[iNow]

1 hour ago, Raider5678 said:

perhaps I'm confusing what you meant then.

John already addressed this, but to simplify: you basically missed the if/then clause. 

44 minutes ago, Ten oz said:

A vacuum discussion about the cost per kilowatt of wind energy vs coal energy isn't a climate discussion yet that is where we often end up. Likewise many evolution discussions turn into big bang debates despite one being biology and the other by theoretical physics. 

Such is life when engaging people who prioritize opinion over fact and that inform their worldview primarily with faith and mythology.