Banno, thanks for the hilarious pictures!!! :razz:

If a person is being honest and true with their words AND it turns out that they were incorrect does not make them deceitful, it just makes them wrong. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Either Trump is a poorly informed moron or he is a liar, either way he fails. Personally, I think it is both.

True to yourself means adhering to your principles whether they are selfish and deceitful principles or not. — Metaphysician Undercover

How would you determine if you were being deceitful with yourself? :confused:

True to yourself means adhering to your principles whether they are selfish and deceitful principles or not. — Metaphysician Undercover

Brings up an interesting point to me anyway. Can anyone be inherently selfish and deceitful? Or is that selfishness and deceitfulness a free choice made against some inter conflict to not be selfish and deceitful? And if there is internal conflict than are they being true to themselves, or merely justifying there act of will ?

And then this:

Sanders denies Trump said Russia no longer targeting US

"The White House on Wednesday said President Trump did not say that Russia is no longer targeting the United States, seeking to clean up Trump's earlier comments that further fueled outrage about his handling of Moscow.

During a Cabinet meeting, Trump said "no" when asked by a reporter if he believes Russia is still seeking to meddle in U.S. political affairs.

But White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she spoke with Trump who said he was "saying 'no' to answering questions" and not to the reporter's question itself.."

If you are dealing with someone who is capable of saying anything, does if even matter anymore what he says ? He is self contradictory often in the same sentence - quite a feat actually. He is willing to say absolutely anything that he believes will win the moment, irregardless of the truth, or other repercussions. He is playing checkers, one move at a time.

What I find amazing is the divide in America - for so many it seems so apparent that we have an incredible narcissist, with only a mild acquaintance with the truth, and a complete absence of character as President of the US. And to so many others he is so much the opposite. How can so many of us look at the same reality and have such radically different views of it.

It reminds me of the OJ verdict where so many white Americans were outraged that the jury could be so wrong and so many black Americans felt just the opposite.

How can so many of us look at the same reality and have such radically different views of it. — Rank Amateur

Basically people live in parallel news environments with totally different "facts". Social media just enforces that.

But note that this isn't anything new, especially in early 20th Century political newspapers could invent whatever was suitable for them. Journalistic ethics is a new thing.

Basically people live in parallel news environments with totally different facts. Social media just enforces that. — ssu

That's basically what I am saying. There is an objective reality, Trump did stand at that podium and he did say what he said. He did read that i meant " wouldn't " correction. How can there be such extreme and dichotomous views of this reality. How can Fox and MSNBC both garner so many followers exposing such polar views of the same actual events? Do we just chose sides now, like a sports team, and stay loyal to our brand no matter what ?

But White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she spoke with Trump who said he was "saying 'no' to answering questions" and not to the reporter's question itself.." — Michael

That's a lie. And by a 'lie' I mean a 'banana', obviously.

Do a Google image search of "idiot". — Michael

:rofl:

Good article on Trump by a solid intelligent conservative, George F. Will.

"What, precisely, did President Trump say about the diametrically opposed statements by U.S. intelligence agencies (and the Senate Intelligence Committee) and by Putin concerning Russia and the 2016 U.S. elections? Precision is not part of Trump’s repertoire: He speaks English as though it is a second language that he learned from someone who learned English last week. So, it is usually difficult to sift meanings from Trump’s word salads. But in Helsinki he was, for him, crystal clear about feeling no allegiance to the intelligence institutions that work at his direction and under leaders he chose.
...
The explanation is in doubt; what needs to be explained — his compliance — is not. Granted, Trump has a weak man’s banal fascination with strong men whose disdain for him is evidently unimaginable to him. And, yes, he only perfunctorily pretends to have priorities beyond personal aggrandizement. But just as astronomers inferred, from anomalies in the orbits of the planet Uranus, the existence of Neptune before actually seeing it, Mueller might infer, and then find, still-hidden sources of the behavior of this sad, embarrassing wreck of a man."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-sad-embarrassing-wreck-of-a-man/2018/07/17/d06de8ea-89e8-11e8-a345-a1bf7847b375_story.html?utm_term=.e985d7892512

(To get past the paywall and read the full article on mobile, disable javascript, and on a PC press stop loading as quickly as possible).

To get past the paywall and read the full article on mobile, disable javascript, and on a PC press stop loading as quickly as possible — Baden

Or open in an Incognito/Private window.

Oh, didn't know about that one.

By considering the opinions of others.

Oh... we're talking about Trump. That's not going to happen.

What I find amazing is the divide in America - for so many it seems so apparent that we have an incredible narcissist, with only a mild acquaintance with the truth, and a complete absence of character as President of the US. And to so many others he is so much the opposite. How can so many of us look at the same reality and have such radically different views of it. — Rank Amateur

My guess is that a lot of people hate politicians, because they all lie to the people. And Trump is a poor politician, so that maybe makes him better then the rest in their eyes?

Or put in another way, Trump is a whimsical, petty liar, to save his ass, to conquer the room, to boost his ego etc... while other more cunning politicans are in it for the long haul, they'll make sure they are not caught on little lies.

I remember a while back some press were counting all the factual lies Trump had made during a particular speech, as a kind of proof to show how evil he really was. But do these really matter all that much. Isn't the apparent stand-up politican who gets all the facts right and says all the right things, but then makes shady deals with whomever is pulling the strings behind the scenes, a lot worse?

Trump may very well be a narcissist only out for himself, but at least it is only himself. He isn't looking to preserve a whole ruling class, he's very much the odd man out.

By considering the opinions of others.

Oh... we're talking about Trump. That's not going to happen. — Banno

The words you delivered to me above are rich for so many reasons, dear friend.
My tongue with you is bloody from my biting it, when you offer the USA advice that we should follow but it is not one that you have been able to abide by any better yourself.

Do as I say, not as I do eh?

Well, more of less yes... this is an important point in regards to reasoning about ethics. Just because someone does something terrible, it doesn't mean other people should be let of the hook for terrible behaviour.

If someone is behaving poorly, pointing out the behaviour other shouldn't be used to excuse it. Someone else's wrong doesn't make another's right.

↪ArguingWAristotleTiff

Well, more of less yes... this is an important point in regards to reasoning about ethics. Just because someone does something terrible, it doesn't mean other people should be let of the hook for terrible behaviour.

If someone is behaving poorly, pointing out the behaviour other shouldn't be used to excuse it. Someone else's wrong doesn't make another's right. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Thrasymachus smiles.

My guess is that a lot of people hate politicians, because they all lie to the people. And Trump is a poor politician, so that maybe makes him better then the rest in their eyes? — ChatteringMonkey

Oh yeah, this is a classical example of the logic of Trump rhetoric. Politicians are liars. I'm not a politician. Therefore I'm not a liar. Here's another one. If you have a problem, you can always find someone else to blame your problem on. Therefore if America has any economic problems, they are caused by foreigners. But blaming your own problems on someone else only fosters hate, and such rhetoric ought to be seen for what it is, hate speech.

How would you determine if you were being deceitful with yourself? — ArguingWAristotleTiff

I won't go into that here, because that's a complicated issue (check Moliere's thread on lying to oneself), and it's not the issue here. The issue is being deceitful toward someone else, lying. And the point is that you can be true to yourself and still be lying to others. This stems from a selfish disposition.

Brings up an interesting point to me anyway. Can anyone be inherently selfish and deceitful? Or is that selfishness and deceitfulness a free choice made against some inter conflict to not be selfish and deceitful? And if there is internal conflict than are they being true to themselves, or merely justifying there act of will ? — Rank Amateur

I think some people are inherently selfish and deceitful, it is a disposition they have grown into. It doesn't in itself necessitate inner turmoil, as some people are quite comfortable in this position. The problem though is that a lie, to successfully deceive someone, sometimes requires a cover-up to hide any evidence which would expose the lie. The cover-up may need to become more and more elaborate as evidence of the cover-up also need to be covered up, so the whole thing can snowball. Internal conflict involves doubt about the capacity to make a successful cover-up.

It's come to light that two weeks before his inauguration, Trump was shown highly classified material showing that Putin had personally ordered the cyber attacks to influence the election.

now that he's reversed himself and says he does blame Putin, I presume you will reverse too, and complement him on his magnificent volte-face, which you supported all along. Quick now before he changes his mind again. — Baden

He hasn’t blamed Putin for the dnc “hack”.

He is trying, possibly failing, to get his adversaries to back off.

What is important is this supposed evidence about a dnc hack of emails by who to WikiLeaks.

Evidence proposed doesn’t stack up and the servers involved were not inspected by the FBI. In fact the FBI were denied access to the dnc “hacked” sever BY the dnc.

Who are you trolling for? Let's take an outrageous hypothetical example (I find outrageous examples are sometimes a good lens with which to view a main point): I come up alongside you and say in clear and unambiguous terms that unless you pay me a lot and often, I will do horrible things to you, up to and including - and so on. Your argument amounts to your paying the extortion so that we might both be prosperous, and being right to do so! — tim wood

I’m not seeing your point.

It is the right thing for the president to engage with another leader regarded as adversary.

It is what he tried with North Korea and it is even more important with Russia given their greater nuclear capability.

The Dutch secret service already established the DNC servers, the White House and the State department were hacked by the Russians because they already hacked the Russians in 2014 and have been looking over their shoulders until the beginning of this year. Both the Dutch and the English GCHQ have informed the USA on several occassion under existing intelligence sharing programs.

The severs have not, to this day, been analysed by government intel agencies.

This doesn’t strike you as peculiar?

Putin does not want war, but he wants to gain advantages (economic and influence) with other countries. — Relativist

What other country does NOT want to do this?

No. And you're apparently totally clueless as to how these sort of investigations work. Most of the "servers" were cloud based to start with and not owned by the DNC. The DNC stopped using them and swapped out the hardware to avoid further intrusion by the Russians. Images were made of the HDs and cloud servers which were made available to the FBI. They have all the information they need. Stop spouting stupid conspiracy theories here.

Stop spouting stupid conspiracy theories here. — Benkei

Is that an order?

I have information to the contrary.

I have information to the contrary. — raza

Whatever tin-foiled shill. I might be replying to you but it's obviously for the benefit for other intelligent readers. You don't need to reply to me, I'll just continue to correct all your inane comments as I see fit.

Whatever tin-foiled shill. I might be replying to you but it's obviously for the benefit for other intelligent readers. You don't need to reply to me, I'll just continue to correct all your inane comments as I see fit. — Benkei

Do your best, although on the scale of things is a pretty low bar.