No, obviously not. How is this thread four pages long....

Yes.

Are you trying to parody your typical postmodernist journal article's abstract?

No, we shouldn't. He golfs all the time, especially on *gasp* holidays. But thanks for finding the time today, in between your busy charitable work, for posting that comment.

she became an outspoken opponent to homosexuality and gay rights — T Clark

You speak as though this is a bad thing.

In my estimation, there have been plenty of presidents who have, on paper, been considered good for the job and check all the right experience/knowledge boxes, and turned out to be terrible presidents.

It's a representative democracy, so it's futile to complain. I voted for Obama but gradually came to view him as a terrible president, and I got over it.

I don't agree.

Those are additional subjective preferences in addition to the real qualifications.

Yeah, but that's just speculation. And I disagree that the comment expresses any such attitude.

One must be 35 years of age, a resident within the United States for 14 years, and a natural born citizen.

I never said it was racist. — SonJnana

Good, then we're on the same page, my friend.

How about we both show respect rather than tell people to just get over it? — SonJnana

Hey now, I never called you such childish names!

But the tone has a hint of prejudice. — SonJnana

And I agreed with this.

First of all you have to be really dumb to think that by calling the countries shitholes, it is not offensive. — SonJnana

Ah, notice the change in vocabulary! I agree that he used offensive language. However, what he said wasn't racist.

You are actually just really stupid — SonJnana

Lol! Okay, pal. Talk about pot calling the kettle black!

My mistake. We all should have elected tim wood for president. He's got the inside scoop on everything.

Is it okay to say that because they actually are overweight? — SonJnana

Maybe not with that tone, but I have no problem with the general idea. Sport is a meritocracy.

The point is that it's belligerently disrespectful to generalize a bunch of countries and call them shitholes. — SonJnana

I agree. His wording was uncouth and uncalled for.

You belligerently insulted the identities of millions of people. — SonJnana

You are assuming that was his intent or the intent of anyone who, with less coarseness of language, points out the fact in question. Sometimes the truth stings. Get over it, I say.

how dysfunctional, dangerous, and destructive Trump — tim wood

I see no dysfunction, danger, or destructiveness from his administration so far. I see a lot of tactless comments and tweets by the president, but that's it. For me, his presidency has been a pleasant surprise, given all the absolutely insane predictions made by his opponents and which I see you have thoughtlessly repeated.

and he's doing it by race — tim wood

No he's not.

Those quotes are disputed, as we've already discussed. And I don't think they're necessarily evidence of racism on Trump's part. On this point, I agree with Baden earlier. Trump is not the malevolent person the media tries so hard to paint him as.

I think people need to stop shooting from the hip with charges of racism and do a little bit more introspection. It was sheer comic absurdity seeing those reporters ask Trump, "Are you a wacist?! This is a serious question!" If it was, I notice that no one in the room seemed to care, the majority of whom were black.

It sounds like you're saying we should accept them just 'cause. Or else, we should accept them because they do benefit us economically at least to some degree. Well, again, I would rather they benefit their home countries economically than ours.

Might is right. — apokrisis

A non-sequitur.

Sorry, I just don’t have time for this racist bullshit. — apokrisis

Good, because I don't have time for absurd, unfounded declarations of racism.

I spoke of new immigrants. Moreover, if Norwegians, say, would be a greater economic boon to the U.S. than Haitians, then if economics is the relevant determining factor in deciding who gets to immigrate, the former will be allowed in and the latter not.

I might also add that the U.S. has sent quite a lot of money and resources to places like Haiti over the decades, so that would need to be taken into account when weighing the costs/benefits. As a last point, it would be bad for Haiti if we took their best and brightest and most economically productive people from them. Brain drain is a serious problem and vitiates against accepting large numbers of immigrants from poor countries. If one cares at all about these countries becoming less poor, low rates of immigration from them ought to be the ideal.

These are racist views to the extent to which they deny colonial history. — apokrisis

A ridiculous accusation. I don't deny colonialism. I think colonialism positively and negatively benefited the countries that were colonized, but tend to think it was a net benefit in most cases, notwithstanding certain instances of horrific abuse. Note too that many countries have become shitholes without having been colonized or became shitholes when the colonizers left, all on their own. There is no right to immigrate, not even from a shithole country to a nice, safe country that previously colonized it. If a country wants to refuse you entry, it can, and it's tough luck for you.

Calling a country a shit-hole is implying its own people have shat in it. — apokrisis

Indeed. It's usually the dictators, government bureaucrats, and military police who "run it" who shit all over it, which is to say, run it into the ground.

That you don't think any countries have them, or that bringing in immigrants can't change them, or if they can, never for the worse? Yeah, maybe.

The Dutch don't appear to want the Dutch if you look at their birth rates.

Why would I want a particular number of people coming into (or not coming into) the UK? — Michael

A slight edit for this post. The more I read it, but more I am dumbfounded as to how you could think this question unimportant.

My gripe was public at the time as well. And it's relevant to the thread, but that horse has been beaten already.

So you have no interest in replying to what I said. Okay.

Trump speaks in a stream of consciousness sort of style and probably says a lot of absurd things over the course of a meeting. I can imagine people not recalling what he said and Dick Durbin trying to score political points.

So I assume we agree that "why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?" is a racist thing to ask, but just disagree on whether or not Trump asked it. That's fine by me. — Michael

I don't know if it would be racist, no. A sovereign nation can pick and choose who immigrates to it for a variety of reasons. The operative reason for denying Haitians, say, might be that they wouldn't contribute economically.

Trump is a racist. — Benkei

I don't think so.

The reality is the US is either a) a pretty Fucking racist country or b) entirely partisan. Either way a shithole country. — Benkei

This is a pretty crazy thing to say.

Not the ones I read. Plus, Trump himself has denied your version: "Never said anything derogatory about Haitians other than Haiti is, obviously, a very poor and troubled country. Never said ‘take them out.’ Made up by Dems. I have a wonderful relationship with Haitians. Probably should record future meetings — unfortunately, no trust!"

If true, this confirms what I said the comment was about. Should we trust the president? Maybe not, but then, I'm not going to trust Dick Durbin either.

He must hold a grudge against me or something. If he apologized and said, "it's water under the bridge, let's move on," which I'm willing to do, I would accept it and recommence discussing things with him. The fact that he still refuses is interesting and telling.

My view is that, no, a person should still apologize for what they have done even if they did it accidentally or did not mean to do the wrong thing, because apologizing is a way of communicating your recognition that what you did was, in fact, wrong to do. — darthbarracuda

In other words, the unbolded and bolded halves of this sentence contradict each other. Pick one.

Most reports agree he called certain countries shitholes. Beyond that, things become more sketchy.

I've already told you that I don't recognize what I did to have been inappropriate. Thus I do not feel compelled to apologize. — darthbarracuda

Doesn't matter, for you said that "a person should still apologize for what they have done even if they did it accidentally or did not mean to do the wrong thing." So if you refuse to apologize, then you don't actually agree with this statement and are in fact a liar and a hypocrite.

Yet you picked a terrible place to bring this up. — darthbarracuda

It's a highly relevant place to bring it up.

Then what exactly was it supposed to do, then? — darthbarracuda

I've already answered that. Look, if you don't want to reconcile, that's fine. Just say so and stop stringing me along here. I've said my piece and so the ball's in your court.

It's my understanding that we don't know the exact remarks, only that he referred to certain countries as shitholes.

Precisely.

Agreed. I'm only suggesting hypocrisy. Trump's original comment wasn't wrong, though. It was merely tactless for someone in his position.

I also wonder if any of these politicians, media pundits, or UN bureaucrats who are presently hyperventilating over Trump's comment have ever called a state, region, town, or city predominantly composed of Republicans, Evangelicals, or the white working class a "shithole" or something similar....

I stand by my post, as it directly bore on the topic of this thread. It wasn't an attempt to derail it or troll. Here's more irony for you: if you interpreted my post and our conversation thereafter to be trolling on my part, I apologize for inadvertently misleading you. Why do I say this? Because I agree with the person who made the following statement:

a person should still apologize for what they have done even if they did it accidentally or did not mean to do the wrong thing

In case you're still confused and didn't understand my original post, the irony has to do with the fact that I felt slighted and trolled by you, said as much, apologized to you for whatever I may have inadvertently done to cause the rift, and then received no apology from you. In fact, I received no reply at all. Imagine, then, my surprise at seeing this very same person both start a thread about when to apologize and make the statement quoted above. Yes, in the off chance that you are actually bothered by your own hypocrisy and interested in reconciling, I felt I had to respond. But again, I genuinely don't care either way, as it's not up to me, and I've long since seen the futility of being irritated about things one can't change.

That Trump is qualified to be president.

No, I'm not. It seems you have no interest in reconciling. So be it. I'm happy to ignore you once more.