But the scary thing is that when it comes to Trump supporters and Trump himself, the facts don't matter. — Wayfarer

That's the lesson. Facts don't matter, power does.

Nobody cares if it means he wins. It's only pansy leftists that backtrack on a joke containing an important truth (while Trump can name his son Barron he can't make him a baron). Why should she backtrack and apologise for it when it's the last thing Trump would do? It's not as if she's going to alienate anyone who already agrees with her and the Republicans aren't sitting there to be convinced as their positions have already been established. Trump will be impeached and acquitted, farcical show trial wasting everybody's time while society and the environment continue to go down the shitter.

Except when they don't. operation condor

It's a case-by-case thing. In this case I think the US administration and legislation have the moral high ground. In my opinion they usually don't so that makes it remarkable.

Something on those lines appears to be the EU way:

The EU has consistently called for a de-escalation of violence and a return to dialogue, and on Monday it responded to the siege at Hong Kong Polytechnic University by saying police use of force should be “strictly proportionate” and urging all sides to exercise restraint. — ssu

:vomit:

So at least Trump just signed two laws that are more or less supportive of the demonstrators in Hong Kong. EU, I'm looking at you...

It also underscores that he never sought dirt on his political opponent. He mentioned a few things regarding Ukrainian meddling, the DNC server and Burisma. Big deal. He asked a favor. Big Deal. He wanted Zelensky to speak to the Attorney General. Big deal. — NOS4A2

It does exactly the opposite for anyone with a rudimentary grasp of the English language. The DNC server story is bullshit as Trump has been briefed repeatedly by his intelligence agencies. You simply don't seem to grasp the significance when you make military support dependent on a favour. That's quid pro quo, which, again, he already admitted too. Even without the Biden thing it's already a crime.

If you’re arguing he held back aid to make sure we aren’t giving tax-payer dollars to a corrupt country, yes that’s his stated intention from the beginning. — NOS4A2

Which was illegal and underscores what he said in the call with Zelensky. So we know what he meant with :

I would like you to do us a favor though... — Trump

He asks him to look into an alt-right conspiracy that had been debunked by every Western intelligence agency and ignore Russian meddling in the US election of 2016. It's insane. Right after he underscored how much Ukraine is dependent on military aid from the US. Leverage

Then be asks him to look into the next unsubstantiated tin foil hat conspiracy with regard to Hunter Biden. Yeah, nothing going on folks.

It's a good thing you're not in the maffia because being as obtuse as this would get you killed.

And again, you ignore Trump's own admission of quid pro quo that I quoted two posts before this.

You seem to live under the false assumptions I'm inundated in American news but I'm Dutch. And you assume that all these career officers are anti trump without a shred of evidence, while there's plenty of evidence of wrong doing by trump both in action and by his words. But I saw you chose to ignore his own comment on the matter. Cognitive dissonance? Why pass it up?

Does it really matter though in light of China's clear disdain for democracy? I'd be surprised to see a change in policy because of the outcome of these elections. But here's hoping I'm totally wrong about that. :cheer:

lol. They should make one for the alt-right too. Everyone I don't agree with is a neo-Marxist social justice warrior.

They each testified to their presumptions, sure, but not to any such fact. Surely they were convinced that he had such motivations just as you guys are, but it was more likely they were convinced of it from some aspect of reporting or dem propaganda than Trump himself. In fact, Trump explicitly said the opposite: no quid pro quo. — NOS4A2

First of all, multiple people reached the same conclusion independent of each other. That's corroborating evidence. You can call it presumptions, I call it a shared understanding of the intent of the president.

Second, when a murderer goes out of his way to deny he didn't murder someone we should all believe him. Where are you getting this sort of reasoning from? Trump's denial isn't worth anything.

Also Trump:

I mean, I asked it very point-blank, because we're looking for corruption. There's tremendous corruption. Why should we be giving hundreds of millions of dollars to countries when there's this kind of corruption? — Trump

Oops.

It does make his intent explicit. The favor is in reference to finding out what happened in 2016, specifically Ukraine’s meddling. He also stated his intention that he wanted Zelensky to speak to the Attorney General regarding these efforts. No where does Trump state he will withhold aid if they do not comply. Two expressions of intent, none of which have anything to do with finding political dirt or the 2020 elections. — NOS4A2

I bolded the word that clearly shows one was dependent on the other. He goes into the rest of the favour later in the call when referencing Hunter Biden. I'm on my phone though and it's annoying to look it up.

Trump was explicit regarding his intentions, and exactly zero of his explicit intentions involved finding political dirt or the 2020 elections. This aspect in particular was invented whole cloth. — NOS4A2

And yet several witnesses, who were heard behind closed doors so they could not influence each other, each testified as to what they believed his intent to be and each of them stated the same: quid pro quo. The call itself makes his intent quite explicit:

I would also like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense. We. are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps. Specifically, we are almost. ready to buy more Javelins from the United· States for defense purposes. — Zelensky

I would like you to do us a favor though... — Trump

I spoke to someone who was born in Hong Kong but lived in the Netherlands since she was 9. She thinks where Hong Kong was still important to China in 1997 nowadays it simply isn't anymore. Her guess is the whole financial industry is going to move in the near future to Shenzhen.

Unless you can find one time Trump expressed the desire to “damage a political rival and help his re-election campaign”, you are dealing with presumptions and fabrications. Actually Trump has repeatedly expressed he needs no help, and has expressed his motives as to why he held back the aid. But none of these show up in your accusations. Why is that? — NOS4A2

Intent almost never can be proved by people saying it out loud, it is inferred from actual behaviour. This is quite common. If you shoot someone but never said "I'm going to kill you" to the victim, people are not going to require you having said that in order to establish your intent and convict you for murder.

In other words, your requirement that he should've been explicit is not supported by how law is practised.

Unless it reflects a change of opinion related to age. One way to tell is whether there are older graphs like this and if younger support for conservatives was higher there or not.

But it's neither here nor there. We're more than capable enough on these boards to put out correct information and argue against alternative narratives.

Speculating about people's motives and backgrounds may lead to the inference you don't have a counter argument. After all, even Russian apparatchick could be right.

And what? Those methods, even if true, aren't available to you? And he has my favour up to the point I'm prepared to discuss things with him. I'm just politely asking (and actually advising you as well) you to stop the whining about his assumed bad faith. It makes you look weak and unsure of your own position which I actually tend to agree with more often than his.

If he lies. Show the lies instead of stating he lies and calling him a propagandist. It shouldn't be too hard to argue against someone who you claim is factually wrong. For the rest, stop soliciting his ban. NOS4A2 and I hardly see eye to eye and I seriously thought he was a troll in the beginning, but he isn't. Just someone who believes in such outlandish things (e.g. far removed from what I believe how things work) that it surprised me. Get over it.

OK. So I'm going to outline what I think he means with these types of justice and you'll see that there's a philosophically viable idea of social justice which shouldn't be confused with activism.

His distributive justice is about people getting their fair share; e.g. unequal shares for equal people and equal shares for unequal people are unjust. In other words, it's justice as equality.

But it extends into the political as well. From his Politics: justice to Aristotole is proportional and communally relative to the political status/merit of individuals along the lines of the predominant culture and its institutions. Injustice violates this proportionality. Aristotle likens this form of justice to the manner of redistribution of the common funds found in an economic partnership.

The second form of justice, rectificatory/corrective justice concerns itself with equality as well, including redistribution resulting from injustice.

The third form of justice, reciprocal justice is about the natural fairness within economic exchange. This is where it gets interesting as in his view both grace and friendship ought to be the ethical norms that ought to institutionalise economic exchange. Exchange is not to be based on market prices, profit, supply and demand, desires or utility. No, economics is simply a means to maintain the all-important solidarity for its common objective in its pursuit of happiness/flourishing.

So each type of justice has something to say about the distribution of wealth.

Totally irrelevant as it has no bearing whatsoever on the current case for Donald Trump. Even if the impeachment were entirely partisan motivated if it's true he needs to go.

EDIT: also this

Thank you. Great. So do you remember his three types of justice: distributive, rectificatory and reciprocal justice?

Still didn't answer the question. Yes or no?

Edit: also superfluous I might add, I didn't appeal to authority. I referenced a philosopher who discussed (using different words) social justice. We haven't gotten into why "social justice is injustice" is wrong yet and that requires me to first understand what you know and don't know, philosophically speaking.

You said he was the first advocate of social justice, as if that meant something. I merely replied that he also defended slavery. — NOS4A2

Have you read aristotle? He is the first advocate of social justice. — Benkei

Uhuh. Learn to read buddy.

Wittgenstein was a Nazi!

1. You didn't answer.
2. I suppose you were trying to poison the well so that what he said about social justice is prima facie wrong. That's a fallacy.

I take it then that you haven't read his Nichomechean Ethics?

The “social” aspect is the problem, as social inequalities are not always unjust. Used as it is as an excuse for discrimination and redistribution, social justice is often unjust in practice. — NOS4A2

Have you read aristotle? He is the first advocate of social justice.

The color of your skin doesn't matter in matters of health. — ssu

It does. White people are more susceptible to skin cancer. Black people suffer more severe cases of skin cancer when they do get it.

There's an association between skin colour and blood pressure, probably via a common biochemical intermediate (melanocyte-stimulating hormones). The gene AGTI is related to skin pigmentation as well as predispositions for obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

The genetic mechanism for melanin biosynthesis is not clearly understood so there's probably a slew of predispositions for diseases that can be related to light or dark skin in relation to location.

And, of course, surprise-surprise, racists are a reality so sometimes people die or get sick because they don't get adequate treatment based on their skin colour.

The rest of my questions please, before we get bogged down into something we shouldn't even be talking about.

Also, while you're at it; are you familiar with the difference between a necessary and sufficient condition?

It’s an encyclopedia. I never cherry-picked any definition and in fact included all of it. The rest necessarily precede from the first. The definitions you guys propose completely exclude the first two “qualifiers”, cherry picking the last. — NOS4A2

None of the first two qualifiers make up racism; it requires all three. Have your read the entire entry? What do you make of this in that entry:

Racism elicits hatred and distrust and precludes any attempt to understand its victims. — Brittanica

How do victims come about if only the first two already make up racism?

But never mind that. Why don't you look up how Brittanica uses semicolons? I just did. :smile:

Finally, why are you persisting in trying to redefine racism in a way that nobody uses the word? Do you simply enjoy disagreeing with everyone?

That’s another problem: the causes are so innumerable that disparities cannot be chalked up to just discrimination, privilege or systemic whatever. These causes are not limited or confined to this or that group. — NOS4A2

Welcome to intersectionality. :rofl:

I'm no economist, but in a trade deficit situation, money is flowing out of the country and goods coming in. The money doesn't depreciate - infact it can be invested by the exporter to grow, but the goods do, so isn't the country importing gradually getting poorer relative to the one exporting?

And as I said, if the US deficit with China is no problem, why is Trump pursuing a trade war to correct it? I thought Trump's rationale was that by undercutting US prices the Chinese are taking away US jobs and industries, as they flood US markets with cheap goods. — Tim3003

It's indeed not that simple and we can rest assured Trump doesn't know what he's talking about. If the Chinese subsidise their industry, so what? That money for subsidies has to come from somewhere so even if the price is lower in the market the costs are the same and probably even higher because the resource allocation is presumably less effective than in a market mechanism.

So you raise tariffs? Who pays for the increased prices? US citizens and companies. You subsidise your own industry? Who pays? US citizens again. The only winning strategy is to block items that are subsidised from entering your market entirely but I suspect the dependency on Chinese goods would cause chaos.

So, in fact, because the Chinese subsidise their industry we are all better off because we are buying goods more cheaply thanks to Chinese taxpayers who subsidise the lower price. The problem is only there if you think you should compete in the same market as the Chinese. When you don't there is only a net benefit.

Second, to buy Chinese goods you have to buy renmibi with dollars or pounds, so all of a sudden a lot of Chinese have dollars and pounds because they are the holders of renmibi. What are they going to do with their dollars and pounds? Sit on it? If they want to invest, they need to go back to the US or UK where they can spend dollars and pounds. Or they can buy UK or US goods. That's why you see both countries have large amounts of foreign direct investment that allows them to maintain prolonged periods with trade deficits. According to some theories that can be maintained indefinitely provided it continues to be offset by FDI.

By 'balance out' I meant that the nett of gains/losses will be the same for each side - not that neither side will gain overall. — Tim3003

Accept that is still not correct. If country A has a maximum gain of 100 USD and country B a maximum gain of 500 USD, should country A not enter into the trade agreement out of spite?

The problem is when there is a trade imbalance to start with, and the side in deficit (ie the USA) wants to redress that and gain more than it loses. — Tim3003

It's not established among economists whether a trade deficit is a benefit or not. The trade accounts for services and goods are a fraction of capital flows nowadays. The effects a trade deficit used to have aren't there anymore, allowing countries like the UK and US to run trade deficits for years without that causing issues for their economies.

On the far end of that spectrum is Milton Friedman who says trade deficits will never be a problem because ultimately the money will flow back; after all, dollars can only be spent in the US (more or less).

Good agreements are win-win propositions for the parties. So no, it doesn't balance out.

True that. I think it was for a phone that I couldn't use in Europe after all. :rofl:

I don't know what SNP is but assuming Trump is responsible for employment levels how does that release him from his dismal budget policy. Plus, income levels have dropped and income inequality has increased, which is to say employment levels give a rather incomplete picture.

Until then, however, my industrial meat products diet will remain unjustified because veganism, etc I find undernourishing and makes me miserable. — 180 Proof

Which is weird considering all the negative health effects of eating meat, which reduces recuperation time from injury and training, reduces erectile function, increases the likelihood of coronary disease etc. Etc.

I stopped eating meat recently due to the insane footprint it requires. I still allow myself meat when going out for dinner, which is about once a month.

It’s a tacit defense in my mind. The idea that he is perhaps not evil because he had a family is absurd, especially in the context of him having murdered them all. — NOS4A2

I simply don't believe people are inherently evil and as such it's a mistake to say "he is evil". He did evil and we all share that capacity to do evil. By saying someone is evil we like to pretend we're never capable of the type of acts he committed. But we are. That's not a defense of his actions at all. That's about keeping our eyes open to our own actions so that we may avoid doing evil instead of assuming that since we're the good guys we can't do evil. The man is a cautionary tale. But so is every shooting in the US. Done of course by "bad" guys with guns. Instead of regular people like you and me.

Read again. I'm not defending him.

I'm just going to share an essay a gay philosophy professor shared with me about love and sexuality. He didn't come out until his 60s and had 4 children in a marriage. He was depressed a lot and at his funeral his children recounted how he wasn't truly happy until he could be and act gay. It might have some meaning for you even if it's only tangentially relevant to your question.

The truly blessed life involves the proper cultivation of both activity and passivity, working in harmony and mutuality. A horror of passivity lies in the condemnation and hatred towards openness. This will lead to a life impoverished in value and knowledge.

As a consequence we must attempt to seek what I would like to call the spirituality of everyday life. An experiential basis for qualitatively ranking the pleasures seems to be necessary to not let go to waste such openness for the transcendental. For that reason those pleasures like gluttony, which “fat [us] like hogs” (Richard Hooker or Antiphone?), are qualitatively inferior to those which accrue from aesthetic delight or contemplative ecstasy.

An immovable hierarchy is not what is suggested here though. Pleasure and beauty are complex: moments with relations to other moments, previous and future experiences. Just as the untrained ear has difficulty enjoying certain classical music, so is it with others experiences of pleasure. As a consequence it is a personal hierarchy, which has as its imperative prerequisite: openness. Openness to new experiences and to learn and place those experiences in their rightful place.

I am also not talking here about extremely esoteric matters; one simply needs to recall Abraham Maslow’s expression “peak experience” to grasp what I suggest. A peak experience may be the result of seeing a sunrise on the desert, or being “hit” by a line from T.S. Eliot, or of hearing Beethoven’s second movement of the Moonshine Sonata. And also, the pleasure derived from intimate sexual union with the ascent of the soul to spiritual ecstasy and mania.

This vision of a transcendental form of love is of course not in any way new. The famous simile of the ladder of Eros, proceeding from its first rung – the physical love of a beautiful young body – to the highest rung, the love of the divine ground, is but an example. However, perhaps it is time that we assess our spiritual freedom to turn from the Nietzschean nihilism of the “culture of desire” and recapture a new balance. We have the freedom to find our way through the chaos of competing sexual lifestyles and to take our bearings from a more paradigmatic expression of our humanity (whether gay, lesbian or straight).

The paradigm I think should be sought in a joining of sensibility and sexuality, the passionate sexual union is a metaphor for the soul’s ecstatic spiritual union with the divine. The aesthetic dimension of Eros is paramount, for the lover sees in his beloved a reflection of divine beauty. The entire experience is suffused with tenderness. Eros embraces and nourishes the whole soul; it is far from being a merely physical act.

It is clear that today we often confuse sexuality with genital sexual union. Of course we must include genital sexual union in the love relationship, but the love relationship should be above all and primarily a sensibility or state of consciousness. Humour of a particular kind is very much part of that sensibility. Such humour should not repress but affirm and extol sexuality. It is fun and funny to be in love.

We should therefore defend the richness of lovers’ play, reminding us that this receptivity expresses itself in jokes, puns and laughter as well as in the shared pursuit of wisdom. The openness in such relations should be an openness to transcendence or to how the being together of lovers encourages them to seek in their consciousness for the immutable ground of human mutable love and for the reality of Beauty in which every beautiful thing in the Between of human life participates, to the extent that it is really real. Surely ordinary experience suggests that the reason two people would be joined over time in such an intimate complete relationship is that their union suggests more than it contains and opens to them the Being in which they live and move.

This lover’s play also encompasses tension between opposites and character. This tension creates excitement, where the other is just out of reach and where she or he also remains, because as close as two people get they never become one. And yet this opposition creates understanding and in a sense knowledge of the other is revealed through disclosure of limited aspects.

Another message in this regard that I find important is the one carried by the existential reality of death. Dying to the world’s priorities, including the pursuit of power and money, is the prelude to loving the things that matter. Due to, for instance, Plato’s intense love of the beautiful body (in this case male) he was able to conceive of divine reality in erotic analogy. And what could be more divine in temporal existence than the body of one’s beloved?

Sex without love is empty, anonymous sex violates the very principle of encountering the other as partner in a spiritual quest and sex motivated by violence is a violation of true Eros. A long-term, meaningful, relationship is consistent with this view and above all, tenderness must be the norm and beauty the animating spirit.

In the final analysis sexual union is at the same time the union of two different substances, two different irreconcilable entities. A divine union that is at the same time an unholy loss of self and of everything that makes us human. Sex is such a spiritual thing, because it is in every respect a union of opposites, whores in the temple and nuns with orgasmic experiences seeing a figurine of the saviour. The saint and the voluptuous are one.

Of course, not everyone can be a spiritual mystic and attain to the vision of the Good (in Plato’s words) but we can all partake in some measure in the journey from the sensual love that joins true lovers together to Dante’s “love that moves the sun and the other stars.” Nevertheless, fortunate is he, who finds his life partner and shares with her (or him) a fusion of sexuality and spirituality.

Evil and innocence are in the eye of the beholder.

I have a problem with the celebration of violence and death, regardless of how it comes. His last act was evil; I'd still not say he was evil as otherwise, I'm sure, he wouldn't have had any wives or children to begin with. Plus, I think the civility that we pretend puts us above such barbaric acts is very thin veneer that will come off as soon as life becomes slightly harder. Abu Ghraib, Guantanomo, rendition, torture, etc. etc.