The important thing is that the US, like you, is a drunken maniac who will bomb anything for any reason.

As long as everybody remembers that, we're good.

Not a bad strategy from a game theory perspective.

Wouldn't it be cool if Trump also stood and knelt with American protesters?

Bullshit. Political posturing.

Shows more solidarity with foreign citizens than Americans.

The important thing is that the US, like you, is a drunken maniac who will bomb anything for any reason.

As long as everybody remembers that, we're good.

Not a bad strategy from a game theory perspective. — BitconnectCarlos

Exactly. If everybody already knows you're in imperial overstretch and all you have left is nuclear weapons, it's best if everybody thinks you're fucking crazy.

It makes much more sense to stand with those protesting injustice and tyranny, and to let those privileged westerners protesting their feelings echo away in silence.

It makes much more sense to stand with those protesting injustice and tyranny — NOS4A2

It doesn't make sense unless you're planning to colonize the area. Just let their protests echo away in silence too (unless you're an American politician and you can get away with a condescending sound bite.

It doesn't make sense unless you're planning to colonize the area. Just let their protests echo away in silence too (unless you're an American politician and you can get away with a condescending sound bite.

There is no point in protesting an unjust government, then, if no one is watching.

This was moved from “Why do you think the US is going into war with Iran.” in regard to it being necessary for a President to come up through the ranks of politicians, that he must have political experience in Washington.

Is this part of the problem people have with Trump, that he doesn’t behave like a politician? And does that matter?

I think the problem people have with Trump is the way he behaves, period. Not behaving like a politician sounds good, superficially, seeing as people generally don't like or trust politicians. But behaving like a vulgar ignorant sexist scumbag can't be excused because it's not the behavior of a politician. Just like any piece of human garbage doesn't get a pass for not being something.

(And by the way, many of the worst characteristics of politicians, such as being dishonest, he does display while lacking their best ones, such as knowledge of how to run a country.)

I think the problem people have with Trump is the way he behaves, period — Baden

And that his supporters simply believe him to be something else as every criticism is just the rant of the democrats/Deep State/MSM/whatever. Everything can be explained by the Trump derangement syndrome.

I'm responding to the post in the other thread.

Basically still after four years many of Trump's supporters pin hopes to him which won't happen. There was a similar (if totally different) hope when Obama got into power.

This seems to be the result of the populist developments going on. In the UK the people who bought the populism and pinned their hopes on the Brexit project, or Johnson, are going to be disappointed. Not that Brexit won't happen, but that it will improve their lives, or Britain.

They are going to have to rely on their hallucination now, as the unintended consequences role out. Or it becomes apparent that they were voting for a pipe dream.

I agree. Especially the people who get excited about these issues tend to forget that political leaders aren't so omnipotent as they say they are. Political movements rely on people getting excited, that "this time it's different", and basically from a new generation participating in elections, who don't know that the things have already been tried.

Perhaps the reason is that there isn't any cost for the voter. If you vote and your candidate gets elected and then doesn't deliver, you can just say "Oh well, he tried" or "the opposition prevented him from doing it". Hence people will believe, pin their hopes on things turning rapidly around by the politician promising that "he or she will turn things rapidly around". Those politicians promising modest results (which are obtainable) will seem bland and now days, 'part of the establishment, which is the problem'.

I would say that Western democracy isn't in a crisis as it was during the 1930's, it has just has a headache from populism and political polarization partly (thanks to social media). Yet headaches have a reason.

There is no point in protesting an unjust government, then, if no one is watching. — NOS4A2

Protesting lets off steam and makes people feel like they're accomplishing something when they aren't.

It makes much more sense to stand with those protesting injustice and tyranny, and to let those privileged westerners protesting their feelings echo away in silence.

I am more charitable towards Trump in this than some. I realise that his vision for Iran is a liberated country returning to how it was before the 1979 revolution and that he would like to see the population rise up and restore the country. I think though that this can not be done by crippling sanctions and strategic strikes on their administration. I would think the education of the population to realise their plight and that they might rise up themselves in their own time. That the sanctions are going to push the country into a worse place, even into the hands of the Russians, which would not end well and be a strategic mistake.

It makes much more sense to stand with those protesting injustice and tyranny, and to let those privileged westerners protesting their feelings echo away in silence. — NOS4A2

So... ignore American protests to American problems as the president?

WTF???

This presupposes that the westerners are not protesting injustice and tyranny. Seems to be based upon an all or nothing notion of injustice and tyranny. It's not so black or white.

The point, of course, is that Trump condemns and ridicules certain American protestors, and here claims to stand with foreign ones, which really places his motivations in question.

...his vision for Iran is a liberated country returning to how it was before the 1979 revolution... — Punshhh

So... re-instate the puppet government?

WTF???

A liberated country would not have been led by a propped up leader not chosen by the people. Hence, the revolution.

I realise that his vision for Iran is a liberated country returning to how it was before the 1979 revolution and that he would like to see the population rise up and restore the country. — Punshhh

His vision? Trump has a vision on Iran, really? I think Trump surely has visions of his own grandeur and success, but I wouldn't think that he has really visions for Iran.

Comes to my mind how a previous national security advisor tried to get the Trumpster to focus and get the message about Afghanistan:

One of the ways McMaster tried to persuade Trump to recommit to the effort was by convincing him that Afghanistan was not a hopeless place. He presented Trump with a black-and-white snapshot from 1972 of Afghan women in miniskirts walking through Kabul, to show him that Western norms had existed there before and could return.

Actually a very viral (the picture photo above), which is often used as below to compare the difference between then and now (like here):


Trump is mainly interested in re-electing himself. Period.

Forgive me, I didn't mean Trump would like to see a puppet installed, but rather a progressive democracy installed by the people. I know it may be a hopeless dream. But Trump is not a hawk, he doesn't want to waste time and money in escapades overseas. I am sure he would want Iran to stop being a problem for the region and US forces trying to get out of Iraq.

The problem in Afghanistan is not that the US wants them to become a failed state, but any attempts they might have made to restore the country to something constructive always fail and would also fail in Iran. I know that the US was involved in the destruction of Afghanistan, but that was collateral damage, their purposes were to keep the commies out.

It's true that Trump's motives are all about re-election, but he does have the US legacy in the Middle East to attend to and I'm sure he would be happy to wash his hands of it and have the Middle East settle down into some kind of lasting peace. I know he's stupid and could well make things a whole lot worse over there, but this would not be his intention.

It's true that Trump's motives are all about re-election, but he does have the US legacy in the Middle East to attend to — Punshhh

And that was already a huge mess.

Older Bush still made sense. He put up together a surprising alliance and got the green light both from the Soviet Union and the UN and listened to wisdom from his Arab allies. Afterwards the neocons made everything an utter disaster. It truly was the 'crossing of the Rubicon' and a huge turnaround for US foreign policy. Without any need to think about a response from a Soviet Union, the US policy simply turned blatantly stupid: nevermind other nations, just do what looks good for the voters back home. Iraq was handled in a totally care-free way especially with the utterly disasterous Paul Bremer at the helm of the CPA. The war profiteering was truly out of portions with this war.

Dubya went on the first US true invasion outside America's back yard since the Spanish-American War. And Obama just continued with the cards given and with him the US snatched defeat from the jaws of victory with Al Qaeda, that morphed into ISIS:

In a way Trump has the opportunity to snatch defeat again.

Let's see what happens.

I fully believe in individual sovereignty insofar as one should have sovereignty over his own body. — NOS4A2

I may be too literal, but I am struggling with this too. I guess you mean legal sovereignty over their own body? Only an omni-everything god could have absolute authority over their own body. I can walk around with a sword just lopping off sections of people's bodies. I would end the day dead or in jail, but that doesn't deny the fact that those people had no bodily sovereignty in that example. I also find natural rights to be nonsense (just to give you the freedom to ignore me if you don't want to get into that :smile:)

Just so I can understand the idea, what would be an example of an individual asserting bodily sovereignty? I can think of abortion (and even that asserts one bodily sovereignty at the expense of another), but very little else.

I do not see any acknowledgement that in killing the Iranian our President revealed himself as a murderer. He is in fact a criminal, bona fide, triple-barreled. It is not at all clear to me how he has escaped prison - if there's justice in the world, that or worse will happen. Perhaps it is because he simply is incapable of caring about what most of us care about: decency, justice, fairness, honor, and so on.

But perhaps some clarity on this thread might be useful: I say he's a criminal. Does anyone say differently? (A simple question: it will be interesting to see who cannot or will not give an appropriately simple answer.)

I may be too literal, but I am struggling with this too. I guess you mean legal sovereignty over their own body? Only an omni-everything god could have absolute authority over their own body. I can walk around with a sword just lopping off sections of people's bodies. I would end the day dead or in jail, but that doesn't deny the fact that those people had no bodily sovereignty in that example. I also find natural rights to be nonsense (just to give you the freedom to ignore me if you don't want to get into that :smile:)

Just so I can understand the idea, what would be an example of an individual asserting bodily sovereignty? I can think of abortion (and even that asserts one bodily sovereignty at the expense of another), but very little else.

I mean absolute, natural sovereignty. You have no control, authority, or responsibility for my body, my actions, my choices. You cannot make people choose to stand still while being attacked anymore than they can make you choose to attack them.

You know my answer, Tim. No, he is not a murderer. No, he is not a criminal.

I say he's a criminal. Does anyone say differently? (A simple question: it will be interesting to see who cannot or will not give an appropriately simple answer.) — tim wood

Criminal: A person who has committed a crime. (source)

This definition does not say that conviction is necessary, just that the person committed a crime. So the question becomes: is it reasonable to believe Trump has committed one or more crimes?

There's pretty strong evidence that Trump is guilty of multiple counts of the crime of obstruction of justice, so it's reasonable to consider him a criminal on this basis.

There's a good bit of evidence he's guilty of sex crimes (sexual harassment and/or rape) ( source). My impression is that there's more evidence of his guilt than there was for BIll Cosby - so it's reasonable to consider him a criminal on this basis as well.

There's evidence he's guilty of violating campaign finance laws with respect to Stormy Daniels. His lawyer pleaded guilty to this and provided some evidence of Trump's guilt. There may or may not be enough evidence for a criminal conviction, but we can justifiably consider him a criminal because the preponderance of evidence supports the view that he committed a crime.

He's certainly guilty of multiple counts defamation (source: his twitter feed), although that is not a criminal offense (it's a tort). He certainly deserves to be sued, but this is not a basis to consider him a criminal.

It's murky as to whether or not he can be considered a criminal for killing Suleimani. (See this).

If there is something that ought to fall, it is the Zionist agenda and the concept of Israel as a Jewish state that makes second rate citizens of non-Jewish Israelis. It's a racist country and Zionism is what informs that racism.

Yes I wholeheartedly agree, I was going to write the same thing, but hadn't got around to it.

I suggest folk go to google earth and zoom in on Gaza, you can see what amounts to little more than a concentration camp from space.

You’d have to eschew the presumption of innocence, a precious human right, and adopt the presumption of guilt, a mark of tyranny, for any of that to be the case. There are reasonable doubts in every one of those matters.

Thanks for the insight. I agree there was a historical mistake made, but there's no changing that. Do you have any thoughts about a path forward? e.g. two-state? one-state?

That's laughable to call a presumption of innocence a "precious human right, considering your support for President who so frequently accuses people of crimes with little or no basis.

The presumption of innocence is a legal standard in a criminal trial. It's an appropriate standard for that, because of the consequences of conviction. That doesn't mean it's a good, general epistemic standard. Imagine being on the jury of an alleged child molester. You decide the evidence did not rise to the "beyond a reasonable doubt" level, and because of your decision he's acquitted. Would you consider hiring this person to babysit your children? Would you even want that person living nearby? If not, what became of your presumption of innocence?

We are within our epistemic rights to judge people on the basis of a preponderance of the evidence if we've made an effort to understand all the available facts.

I'll respond in another thread about Iran. This is a wrong thread for this interesting debate.