Summit with Putin

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Jason

Re: Summit with Putin

Post by Jason »

(@) ID

I think the issue for the Trump opponents is that they are firmly in the "Words matter" camp, holding to traditional notions that Presidential rhetoric is, if not the equivalent of political action, foreplay to political action, as well as providing a moral directive for the country. Trump is impossible to read on the first (as he informed us he would be) and crystal clear on the second (as he informed us he would be).

It's like America has been a car on a hot summer day for the past two years on this issue. Trump grabbed the keys, squeezed his fat ass in the front door, closed all the windows and proceeded to cut the deepest and most sonorous fart since William Howard Taft woke up the morning after White House bean night. Trump detractors are still crying its ground for impeachment, Trump advocates are still crying its about fucking time, Trump is still crying Obama cut it eight years earlier, Melania is still trying to pretend it doesn't stink, Republicans are still holding their noses, Democrats are still saying that yes, Hillary has been known to fart, but it doesn't smell nearly this bad when she does and depending on your opinion, Putin either is smelling success or just something very similar to when he asks his girlfriends to pull his finger. Either in two or four years Trump is forced to get out at which point either a Republican who says he doesn't fart without God's permission or a Democrat saying he's in possession of the best air fresheners gets to take the wheel and on goes the fucking joy ride.

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jennypenny
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Re: Summit with Putin

Post by jennypenny »

Bret Weinstein's (short) perspective on left vs. right ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7V5VongCNE4

TimeTravel
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Re: Summit with Putin

Post by TimeTravel »

@ffj

In my opinion,Trump is no dummy. An abuser and cold-hearted, yes. He knows exactly what he is doing. He knows when to play the "I'm a tough guy", then the "I'm the victim here" card.

I'm not for escalation which I've seen. Two wrongs don't make a right. Better to be like MLK, Colin Kaepernick, peaceful protest.

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Re: Summit with Putin

Post by jacob »

@brute - On an individual basis, it's the same. People are very tolerant and welcoming of whoever they know. (Similar to the US where people are shocked whenever a husband, neighbor, colleague, ... gets deported because they thought Trump was only going to deport "the bad Mexican rapists".) However, as soon as it becomes possible to differentiate between Us and Them, there is a problem.

Danish social and cultural policies unfortunately makes this easy.

First, unless you work for a transnational, even if everybody speaks English, the working language is Danish and people will expect you to learn it ASAP. (Denmark is similar to Germany that way.) Learning to read Danish is fairly easy if you know English. Takes about 6 months and you can prob. read the newspaper or simple instructions. OTOH, it's a lot harder if you don't know the latin alphabet, etc. And of of course you'll never ever sound like a native, but Danes, like the French (who are also language nazis) very much appreciate you putting in the effort.

Second, Denmark, having practically no natural resources (other than fish and gravel, seriously!) and thus also no heavy industry relies on a highly educated and highly regulated workforce. If you're an Iraqi engineer, you might have chance. If you're an Iraqi doctor, there's no chance because (unlike the US where they look at your skills) they'll look at your [Danish] certifications, which you obviously don't have.

The government takes care of everyone even if it's not in their best interest. This means building low-cost/subsidized housing projects as well as very generous welfare benefits.

This combination means that people who have a hard time learning the language and don't have enough education or "the right education" end up moving into those areas. (Not much different than when rich expats all congregate in the 'colonies'. For example, many expats moving to Malta live in Sliema. Many American digital nomads in Thailand live in Chiang Mai. It's just easier living in a foreign country that way. I get it.)

So you end up with heavy concentrations of immigrants and refugees in certain areas. This has two consequences. First, fewer and fewer natives will actually know any immigrants. Second, it gets harder to leave those areas. So now we have gangs, formed by second-generation immigrants who have pretty much given up on Danish society. Those areas become de facto ghettos.

There are two problems with that. First, the resulting gang-activity (hence the "ghetto"-law---which is pretty much a legal embarrassment... you get different criminal sentences according to your zipcode :shock: ). Criminal gangs in Denmark used to comprise just two different bi^H^Hmotorcycle gangs. However, now immigrant gangs have been added to the mix. Second, most Danes don't approve when people aren't paying into the much beloved welfare system. This is why it's easy to recruit low-education or elderly Danes who never left the area they grow up in to vote for DPP. That demographic hits pretty much all the notes of either being direct competitors to money going to immigrants whether it's via jobs or social transfers ... as well as never having moved out of the valley they grew up in and thus having no personal relationships with The-Other.

There's no problem with terrorism (cf. falling furniture) or safety, see http://www.nationmaster.com/country-inf ... lent-crime . Murder is still 5x more common in the US and rape is 4x more common in the US than in Denmark.

As for religion: No, the lack of religiosity doesn't make people nicer or more rational (other than scoring 1 point for not believing in effective supernatural beings beyond pie in the sky---if you actually do 'go there', Danes may question your sanity. They'll still be friends with you though.). Instead of worshipping religion, faith is in the welfare state and the culture.

That faith is probably stronger than the faith many Americans have in God. IOW, we are again looking at different dimensions here.

Similar to how some Americans put the 10 commandments on public buildings or want the pledge of allegiance to be mandatory, some Danes insist on pork(*) being served in schools, etc. Neither of those exemplifies being nice, considerate, or rational. More like being a jerk about it---taking something that doesn't really mean anything to you but which you know means a lot to the-Them---and using it as pressure points. Thus resulting in the same political dynamics as in the US.

(*) Danes are as big on pork as brute is on steak. Pork is pretty much the national ingredient in any kinda of meat-based cuisine/recipe. But insisting that everybody should eat it is about as childish as insisting that every US school student must say grace before eating their school lunch.

@jp - I think it would work fine or at least better than now. There are a few places where the US election system is borked and now demonstrates unintended consequences.

First, as far as I understand it, the electoral college is supposed to elect politicians based on the votes from the people. This system is supposedly in place because the college is informed and the people is maybe not so informed. IOW, the college is supposed to be the experts on politicians and choose those based on understanding what kind of policies the people want even if the people might not understand the politicians.

However, the electoral college has replaced themselves with a simple algorithm in which they assign 100% of their electorial votes to the simple voter majority.

As a result, this turns the voting process into something that resembles the game Risk. The tyranny of the majority for each state. Gerrymandering works on the same principles. But because of the algo-approach, the US is effectively gerrymandered at the state level.

Second, the problem or surprise now .. or why the D/R parties are breaking up is because the traditional socioeconomic dimension is losing importance to the sociocultural one. This is because the world is stagnating economically but changing extremely fast socioculturally. If you want to capture both of those, you need 4 parties for a stable political system.

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Re: Summit with Putin

Post by jacob »

@ffj - Yes! We saw the same dynamic when Obama was president. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head. (Sarah Palin was criticized for her crosshairs map but she refused the association.) People armed with long-guns were counter-protesting Democrat meetings. A doctor performing abortions was murdered. Clinics were set on fire or vandalized and people were harassed. And then there was Charlottesville in which someone rammed a vehicle into a crowd.

It's just that the "greatest atrocity hits" get different airplay on different channels.

According to the iron-law of accusations and explanations, it holds that anything bad happening to Our-Side is the full responsibility of Their-Side and therefore it's only right to receive a apology from each and every politician representing Their-Side. Whereas anything being done to Their-Side is due to the psychopathic actions of single individuals and so not really something Our-side needs to overtly apologize for. In short, when they do it to us, it's a reflection of everything that's evil about them; and when we do it to them, it's a just a lone deranged renegade individual, so live and let die.

I don't want to pull the "both sides" card here. I think the "both sides"/"but you did it too" argument is a terrible distraction (I realize that I just sort-a-did-it-too) because it implies that the answer is in the middle and we can just split the difference and continue the war. We've seen what kind of stupid "fair and balanced" leads to when it comes to thing like climate change, evolution, and the heliocentric world-view. If I were world-dictator and not just the forum-dictator, I think the guidelines for politicians should follow the/my forum rules: In particular the "no lynch-mob" and the "don't instigate" rules. Parties/leaders need to realize(*) that there are dumb people out there who might turn "slogans" (eat the rich? kill the infidels) into violent action. Therefore, politicians need to be careful in what they say. They need to realize that they're responsible^H^H^H^Hinfluential, not just on their own side, but also on the other side, as well as interaction between the sides. Civilians should in turn realize that party leaders are not 100% responsible for every kind of crazy shit being done in their name.

(*) If I was really cynical, I'd say some politicians really do realize that (see False Flag operations). If so, that's really unfortunate.

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Re: Summit with Putin

Post by jennypenny »

@jacob -- How are you defining sociocultural? I agree that people used to vote based on financial considerations ('it's the economy, stupid') but that's changing with fewer people participating in the job market. That trend will most likely continue, meaning we'll be realigning based on whatever new thing we feel is fundamental to our well-being. Will it be identity politics? (which seems faddish to me) Globalist vs. localist? Or will it be more luddite vs. technocrat?

If borders fade in the US and/or abroad (a possible reaction to the current nationalist/populist trend ... the pendulum always swings the other way eventually), it would fundamentally change everything. In that case, I think the most likely scenario is a realignment to corporatists vs. statists, with corporatists benefitting from the effect of disappearing borders and dwindling government influence.

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Re: Summit with Putin

Post by jacob »

@jp - The current nationalism/populism is a back-reaction toward a pendulum that swung very far and very quickly [within 1/2 generation] towards global/cosmopolitanism/elitism once the Cold War ended. Currently (or until 5 years ago anyway), if you can produce more than $100k/year of value and jump through a few simple hoops, you can get into any country in the world via a corporate sponsored visa. And if you're worth more than somewhere between 500k and 5M, you can live either somewhere or anywhere by virtue of a business-visa, and independent wealth-, or a pensioners visa. In that sense, there's been no borders for some 20 years as long as you were either rich or highly educated.

I think identity politics was one of those ides that were great in the beginning when it was trying to help minorities ... but then turned nasty when it started having system-wide side-effects to the degree where identity politics could be identified as hurting other identities (poor white people). That pretty much created a balkanized framework resulting in the current shitshow.

I don't think luddite vs technocrat is a thing yet ... but maybe it will be. In any case you mention a bunch of sociocultural dimensions that are all quite correlated. Nationalism is currently the favored one because that's what people identify with, because history. Not sure it'll stick. It's only 400 years since national identify wasn't a thing whereas religion was. Huge wars were fought (30 year war) and that essentially resulted in the Westphalian/nation state system. => Freedom of religion between nation states. That was the 1600s. Fun fact: I never learned this in school.

On a personal note, when it comes to relations, I find that I have way more in common with other people based on an affinity towards ERE than any other variable. Vocation prob. comes second (I have more in common with an Indian physicist than an American farmer.) Then education. Nationality is pretty far down the line ... and it took me multiple moves to see what parts of me are uniquely Danish cf. what I picked up. (Kegan makes a strong point for this.) Of course, other people will have their self-identify arranged according to different life experiences. Riggerjack made a REALLY good point along those lines.

So in short, I can't define/predict exactly what the sociocultural dimension is other than as the residual of the socioeconomic dimension. Whatever doesn't make sense in the traditional understanding is the new understanding.

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Seppia
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Re: Summit with Putin

Post by Seppia »

IlliniDave wrote:
Sat Jul 28, 2018 5:37 am
Seppia, what in your opinion were the key issues that fueled the "populist" swing in Italy?
Sorry for being late but here's an answer regarding Italian politics

What happened in Italian politics is, in my opinion, fairly simple, but we have to go back a bit in time to identify the causes.
Since the late seventies, we had a purely "proportional" electoral style.
This means that if party X gets 15% of the votes, it will get 15% of the seats, party Y gets 20% of the votes? Gets 20% of the seats and so on.
The biggest parties at the time were, in this order:
1- DC / Democrazia Cristiana (loosely translated "Christian Democrats", a centrist party with Christian roots.
2- PSI / Socialists. This party was a result of the first split in the communist party and were basically center left, in spite of their name

These two dominated the political scene, then other semi relevant parties were the communists, a right wing party, plus a plethora of small ones (<5%).

Any government needed at least one of the two big guys, plus some of the small ones in order to get to 51%
The communists and the right wing party were always out of any formed government.

So in brief the only politicians that consistently mattered were those from Democrazia Cristiana and the socialists. Some of the small party politicians mattered cyclically, whenever their votes mattered to swing the 51%

This went on till the early nineties, when a prosecutor named Di Pietro started a massive string of corruption trials called "mani pulite" (clean hands), unmasking widespread demands of under the table money from the politicians to business owners to get anything done.

Need a building permit? Give me some money
Want to be the supplier for all public canteens? Give me some money
Fun fact: Berlusconi was a nobody who bribed his way into a real estate empire in Milan, thanks to his friendship with some top PSI members and lots of entrepreneurial skills.

This was going on at all levels, from local to state.

Mani pulite fomented a wave of indignation from all Italians, and in 1993 the result was that if you had any history of being affiliated with DC or PSI, you had zero chance of being elected again. You were a pariah.

The two top parties were wiped out in less than 12 months.

Italy needed new politicians, but all the good and competent ones were obviously among the ranks of either DC or PSI.

So the side effect of Mani pulite was a massive void in political leadership and competence.

Berlusconi saw the opening and basically dominated our politics in some way for a little less than 20 years. He was terrible but at least we had some form of stability and a clearly identified (even if subpar) leader.

But the reality of things is that we did not have competent politicians: a few of the less terrible ones were either professors or entrepreneurs who spent some time doing politics.
So once Berlusconi became an old pervert and lost his mind (it happens when you're 80), there was nobody to pick up the leadership role.

There is also another important factor.
In the aftermath of fascism, we introduced in the consistution a ton of checks and balances, to avoid the risk of anybody gathering too much power. We made it extremely hard to change things.
The drawback: it is very hard to change things.
Add this to the incompetence, and you see why Italy has gone nowhere from 1998 to today.
Our GDP per capita is literally the same today (in real terms) as it was in 1998.

So people are just fed up and voted for whoever they thought represented a chance for change.

I personally didn't vote in the last elections because:
1- the northern league is at its deep an opposition party. They are very good at being "anti" something but there's precious little they are "for".
2- most of the five star movement politicians are... I don't know how to say this in a PC way... idiots, and I would personally take an intelligent crook over an honest idiot any day and twice on Sunday.
3- the rest of the politicians had multiple chances to do something and always proved they were unable to rule.

But I understand why so many people voted for Northern League or five star.
Italy has the exact same problems since two decades. We all know what they are (mostly: inefficient and outdated public sector, absurdly high payroll taxes, lack of productivity, lack of flexibility in the workforce), but nobody seems to be able to do something about it.

So people just tried something different.
Last edited by Seppia on Mon Jul 30, 2018 4:35 pm, edited 4 times in total.

EdithKeeler
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Re: Summit with Putin

Post by EdithKeeler »

The scale isn't even close compared to Obama. Trump hatred and threats and wishes of death are much more mainstream. I never saw an Obama supporter with a "Hope and Change " t-shirt run down and beat up for example, or ever before this election. I never saw large crowds of people led by celebrities chant "Fuck Obama" call for his death or perform mock executions in the streets. Maybe I missed something? I can't imagine the mainstream media letting stuff like that get unreported.
Oh, I guess it depends on a person’s memory and where they get their news.

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate ... rack-obama

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rk8kN3NJO-A

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5wPA-qf3ukQ


https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldn ... rvice.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/th ... 0d4b4bf329

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/t ... gy-outrage

https://m.imgur.com/gallery/Y7Zpt

https://www.google.com/amp/amp.essence. ... dent-obama

http://www.law.du.edu/documents/denver- ... caputi.pdf



There are nut jobs on both sides. I do think when the guy at the top will Tweet every thought he has at the moment, it doesn’t help keep discourse civil.

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Re: Summit with Putin

Post by EdithKeeler »

Unfortunately, in order to prove my stance I would have to go a direction Jacob does not want more than likely. So if you want more info just PM me. Ill be happy to try to prove my case.
Thanks, no. I actually try to avoid these types of discussions here because I know my personal opinions are in the minority. My only point is that I think we have to be cognizant of confirmation bias in these discussions. “It’s worse with Trump than it was with Obama” or whatever.... it depends what you’re looking for, I think. I personally think the rancor has been there all along.... but when the guy at the helm thinks name-calling and worse is okay, it makes everyone’s behavior worse. I’m actually a middle of the road person for the most part, and I don’t think anyone’s agenda is furthered by behaving badly.

“I hate people when they’re not polite.”

steelerfan
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Re: Summit with Putin

Post by steelerfan »

Another day of listening to trump sputter through another press conference while congratulating himself for EVERYTHING. Everyday we get weaker as he debases our country.

I always shake my head when I hear people on the right talking about the hate and lack of civility of the left. Usually there are statements about the "crooked mainstream media" or lamestream media as Palin coined it. Of course we real americans know it is a lie! fake news! My boss is always weary about it. He would like to talk about soccer or anything by trump. Unless he brings up his talking points from Rush or Hannity that is. Why are they like this? they say. It doesn't matter that conservatives have not been willing to work across the aisle since the 90s. Twenty five years. From Rush to Glenn Beck to Breitbart to Alex Jones to 4chan. trump is not the cause of this - he is the end product. Give me a fucking break. Don't even go there about the supposed civil discourse. This has been a long time coming. When I think back to Joe Wilson screaming "you lie" to Obama at his SOTU and contrast that to trump twwet-calling dems treasonous for not clapping for him at his SOTU. Where was the outrage from the right then? Where is the outrage for shit he does every single day. It is obvious we have crossed the rubicon. When I see him penning up the press and calling them enemy of the state, he richly deserves my hatred. When I see this traitorous wannabe dictator insulting our friends and allies and vomiting out lie after lie and see people ok with it, I doubt we will ever be one nation again. When Richard Spencer, David Duke, and the Klan are on your side you know who you are. It is hopeless. I was a registered Republican once upon a time. That ship has sailed. trump is tearing apart this country and people that somehow look the other way or raise some false equivalence are as complicit as his spineless protectors in congress. Nixon was taken down by members of his own party. They were patriots who put country over party unlike today's sad sack enablers. Today's congress functions like the firemen in Fahrenheit 451. Distorting reality and destroying history and establishing new alternate truths.

If you think what is happening today is somehow normal, you are delusional. I am waiting for the tanks to roll down Pennsylvania Avenue for uncle Vlad's next visit and private meeting. He is our enemy despite what our dear leader thinks. I genuinely like some of the people on the other side of this issue both on this site and in my own group of friends and family in real life. It is a shame it has come to this. As much as I have enjoyed it here, it is time to forget this site. Jacob - please delete my account and ban my IP. So long....

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Re: Summit with Putin

Post by BRUTE »

jacob wrote:
Mon Jul 30, 2018 12:33 pm
As for religion: No, the lack of religiosity doesn't make people nicer or more rational
interesting. as a life long atheist, this makes brute a little bit sad. but to be honest, he's kind of started suspecting it these last few years.

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Re: Summit with Putin

Post by IlliniDave »

Thanks, Seppia. I think there are some similarities with what you describe as people being fed up and looking for change in what happened in the US in 2016, both on the right (Trump) and left (Sanders). Many people voted for Trump because of what he wasn't. In the end though, there were a handful of core issues that caused enough people to coalesce around Trump, mainly it seems economy/taxes and border integrity. Being Against-ers is common here in the US too, now you see it with the blue legislative team but the red legislative team cut their teeth on it the 8 years prior to Trump, which in my mind has a lot to do with how ineffective they've been. They are Against-ers at heart and don't have the instincts to know how to do anything, even when the party nominally controls the executive and both houses of the legislature.

I haven't followed closely but I noticed Conte was meeting with Trump yesterday. There is apparently at least one European who is willing to tolerate Trump :)

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Seppia
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Re: Summit with Putin

Post by Seppia »

IlliniDave wrote:
Tue Jul 31, 2018 3:25 am
Many people voted for Trump because of what he wasn't.
I have always believed that almost any candidate would have beaten Trump.
The Dems really did everything they could in order to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
IlliniDave wrote:
Tue Jul 31, 2018 3:25 am
I haven't followed closely but I noticed Conte was meeting with Trump yesterday. There is apparently at least one European who is willing to tolerate Trump :)
I'm often critical of my country, but for sure one quality we do have is the ability to get along with others

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Re: Summit with Putin

Post by IlliniDave »

Seppia wrote:
Tue Jul 31, 2018 3:39 am

I have always believed that almost any candidate would have beaten Trump.
The Dems really did everything they could in order to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
I believed that too, Seppia, until I woke up one November morning in 2016. Since then there has been a very surreal drama unfolding "out there", by which I mean while my life, the world I interact with, my little snow globe you might say, really haven't changed much--but out there just beyond, where the interwebs, TV, etc., take the place of my biological senses as funnels for information into my brain all seems to be coming unglued.

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Re: Summit with Putin

Post by Clarice »


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Re: Summit with Putin

Post by Riggerjack »

@ BRUTE and Id,

About hierarchies, and their detractors...

The more rigid the hierarchy, the more stable, and the more separation between top and bottom. Think Chinese agricultural empires. The more flexible, the less stable, and the less absolute distance from bottom to top. Fewer layers. Think Amazon business structure. People object to both extremes. But different people complain about each, and love the other.

Rigid hierarchies built our nations and mega corporations. But small organizations have always been just fine, by over coming a large organization's efficiency of scale, with the better logistics only available on the smaller scale.

But also, many of those same factors that allow for economic efficiency at the large scale, allow that efficiency by using people less and less aligned to the interests of the organization.

For example, see happiness of workers, putting in insane hours in a startup, vs a call center representative. Which is aligned well, and which isn't? Who is happier? Who is dedicated? Hierarchies allow people who are dedicated to something, to extend their will through the use of people who are less and less dedicated to the same goal.

Hierarchies allow economic use of poorly aligned people, but that doesn't increase the happiness of those people. See every journal here.

Niether did the tyranny and starvation that preceded the development of hierarchies, but just because some areas are better, doesn't mean we have the right balance of better. Maybe the people complaining about hierarchies have a point, even if they don't understand the reasons for their objections.

Or I could be wrong.

TimeTravel
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Re: Summit with Putin

Post by TimeTravel »

steelerfan wrote:
Mon Jul 30, 2018 9:50 pm
Another day of listening to trump sputter through another press conference while congratulating himself for EVERYTHING. Everyday we get weaker as he debases our country.

I always shake my head when I hear people on the right talking about the hate and lack of civility of the left. Usually there are statements about the "crooked mainstream media" or lamestream media as Palin coined it. Of course we real americans know it is a lie! fake news! ....
Steelerfan - I'm in agreement with you. I think probably one of the best descriptions of Trump by another candidate was given by Ted Cruz. Remember when Trump said that Cruz's father was involved with the JFK assassination? It's about 5 minutes long and I'm sure if folks haven't seen already, they can search on Youtube. Trump spins things around and accuses everyone of what he does. Whether fake news! Or Lying Ted or Crooked Hillary and now recent tweet implying there is collusion between Mueller and Comey. Almost makes me think, maybe someone show check Trump's birth certificate to make sure he's born in the America.

I'm not here to change anybody's opinion. I realized, that is like asking Boston Red Sox fan switching to a Yankees fan, or vice versa. Just expressing my own opinion.

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Re: Summit with Putin

Post by prognastat »

@Brute

In regards to religion and kindness/rationality. I used to think more so to, but over time I have learned that there are for the most part 2 large groups among Atheists. Those that decided for rational reasons to become or remain Atheists and those that did it for other reasons. Some might have had bad experiences with other believers or might have encountered incompatibilities between religious doctrine and their personal situation. Unfortunately, I'm starting to believe the latter has become the larger camp as being religious has diminished in our culture and that that group didn't become more rational when becoming Atheists they simply shifted their unreasoned beliefs.

As for kindness, this seems to be mostly an in-group out-group dilemma where people are kind to their in-group and less so or the complete opposite to those they hold in the out-group and becoming an Atheist simply shifts who is in your in-group and who isn't.

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Re: Summit with Putin

Post by TimeTravel »

I have a relative who is a fanatical atheist. I can't get in deep conversations with him as he's too "religious" in his atheism for me :lol: .

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