Trump...

[Frontstep]

You make a good point the divisive Trump has got political movement from the Arab World, The Chinese and Russians and created huge improvements in the US economy.
Even Israel looks a bit nearer.
Perhaps not voting for a master of PR and subtlety was a good move by the US.
He is totally disliked and even hated by most of the press not a bad thing either.
Perhaps the emetic one was needed after all.

 

[AMGeed]

He has started clearing the swamp of the Democrat-riddled Federal government bureacracy, and set the US on much more solid ground on the international stage than at any point over the previous 8 years. What do you think that missile strike in Syria was all about, and why do you think that for the first time in history both Russia AND the PRC have enacted trade sanctions on the DPRK? Coincidence?

Syria, I'd forgotten and I'll give you that.

What about the "wall"? That's going well.
What about Obamacare and his plans for a new scheme? That isn't going well either, especially within his own party.
Immigration?........Ban all muslims from entering the US? Yeah right.
Trump the great businessman saying he will bring that to the White House. Well looks to me like all the CEO's in the US are jumping ship.

Finally, Trump's statement yesterday about the riots in Charlottsville and what really happened.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-40952796/what-trump-said-versus-what-i-saw

 

[Frontstep]

The Wall heres an update on the prototypes http://edition.cnn.com/2017/07/27/politics/border-wall-delay/index.html

The economy
Confidence in Trump economy nearly doubles http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/boom-confidence-in-trump-economy-nearly-doubles/article/2631684

 

[Frontstep]

I know what you mean. At least here we'd let Swastika waving clowns just walk in peace...given they would have a permit.

Tell me when did you last go for a punch up on the streets when a bunch of crackpot racists marched ?
Or how about the hate preachers ?

 

[d215yq]

Agree with it or not the Constitution is the basis of Federal law. Get rid of that and you form a completely new country.

So, you're saying that you want to ban freedom of expression by preventing people you disagree with from saying their piece? But yet you also say that the country is overturning the mainstream media (who are demonstrably involved with the Democrat campaign to deny a peaceful transition of power), so surely that's a contradiction...? NB I'll state here that I disagree entirely with far right wing views, I'm right of centre but not by much. What I'm interested in is the rule of law in society.

Most third world countries- and I've been to more than a few- waive the rule of law as and when it suits them. So they "don't have to put up with" freedom of expression, or even a free press (or unlimited interwebz access) because they can make the laws to suit those making the laws. That, by the way, falls neatly in line with what the DNC were trying to do- taxing the rich (where "rich" was defined as "total net worth > $400k") in Republican states as one example.

Now, the USA and most other first-world countries have laws that specifically prohibit anyone from preventing freedom of expression, unless those expressing hate or inciting others to cause harm (as that is sedition and thus a threat to the state). Back in the 70s and 80s the Illinois Nazis won a court case to be allowed to demonstrate- and they did. That's why it featured in the Blues Brothers movie, it was such a landmark back then. What has happened in Charlottesville is a very clear decision by the State government to allow an approved demonstration to be interfered with, and prohibiting the police from preventing that (violent) interference.

If one wants to ban far-right demonstrations, one should also ban far-left (Antifa) and then by direct implication, ALL demonstrations. Freedom of expression goes out of the window and the First Amendment with it. And the road to civil war comes one step nearer.

I don't want to ban far right demonstrations, just militias walking the street openly armed up to the tooth and any violent behaviour (such as driving a car as fast as you can at people). You can't blame antiFA or the DNC for that. Do you seriously believe that the democrats really are to blame for everything in America? If you're not that much right of centre in UK terms then the deomcrats would be too right wing for you but not as right as anything republican so you'd probably vote for them?

Or you wouldn't and would vote no healthcare, taxes on the rich, no wealth distribution whatsoever and an absolute right to arms and turn even more of the place into the 3rd world country than it already is under the guise of "upholding federal law" because it "interests you"?

 

[Craiglxviii]

Scott Adams' Blog
How To Know You’re In a Mass Hysteria Bubble
Posted August 17th, 2017 @ 12:36pm

History is full of examples of Mass Hysterias. They happen fairly often. The cool thing about mass hysterias is that you don’t know when you are in one. But sometimes the people who are not experiencing the mass hysteria can recognize when others are experiencing one, if they know what to look for.

I’ll teach you what to look for.

A mass hysteria happens when the public gets a wrong idea about something that has strong emotional content and it triggers cognitive dissonance that is often supported by confirmation bias. In other words, people spontaneously hallucinate a whole new (and usually crazy-sounding) reality and believe they see plenty of evidence for it. The Salem Witch Trials are the best-known example of mass hysteria. The McMartin Pre-School case and the Tulip Bulb hysteria are others. The dotcom bubble probably qualifies. We might soon learn that the Russian Collusion story was mass hysteria in hindsight. The curious lack of solid evidence for Russian collusion is a red flag. But we’ll see how that plays out.

The most visible Mass Hysteria of the moment involves the idea that the United States intentionally elected a racist President. If that statement just triggered you, it might mean you are in the Mass Hysteria bubble. The cool part is that you can’t fact-check my claim you are hallucinating if you are actually hallucinating. But you can read my description of the signs of mass hysteria and see if you check off the boxes.

If you’re in the mass hysteria, recognizing you have all the symptoms of hysteria won’t help you be aware you are in it. That’s not how hallucinations work. Instead, your hallucination will automatically rewrite itself to expel any new data that conflicts with its illusions.

But if you are not experiencing mass hysteria, you might be totally confused by the actions of the people who are. They appear to be irrational, but in ways that are hard to define. You can’t tell if they are stupid, unscrupulous, ignorant, mentally ill, emotionally unstable or what. It just looks frickin’ crazy.

The reason you can’t easily identify what-the-hell is going on in the country right now is that a powerful mass hysteria is in play. If you see the signs after I point them out, you’re probably not in the hysteria bubble. If you read this and do NOT see the signs, it probably means you’re trapped inside the mass hysteria bubble.

Here are some signs of mass hysteria. This is my own take on it, but I welcome you to fact-check it with experts on mass hysteria.

1. The trigger event for cognitive dissonance

On November 8th of 2016, half the country learned that everything they believed to be both true and obvious turned out to be wrong. The people who thought Trump had no chance of winning were under the impression they were smart people who understood their country, and politics, and how things work in general. When Trump won, they learned they were wrong. They were so very wrong that they reflexively (because this is how all brains work) rewrote the scripts they were seeing in their minds until it all made sense again. The wrong-about-everything crowd decided that the only way their world made sense, with their egos intact, is that either the Russians helped Trump win or there are far more racists in the country than they imagined, and he is their king. Those were the seeds of the two mass hysterias we witness today.

Trump supporters experienced no trigger event for cognitive dissonance when Trump won. Their worldview was confirmed by observed events.

2. The Ridiculousness of it

One sign of a good mass hysteria is that it sounds bonkers to anyone who is not experiencing it. Imagine your neighbor telling you he thinks the other neighbor is a witch. Or imagine someone saying the local daycare provider is a satanic temple in disguise. Or imagine someone telling you tulip bulbs are more valuable than gold. Crazy stuff.

Compare that to the idea that our president is a Russian puppet. Or that the country accidentally elected a racist who thinks the KKK and Nazis are “fine people.” Crazy stuff.

If you think those examples don’t sound crazy – regardless of the reality – you are probably inside the mass hysteria bubble.

3. The Confirmation Bias

If you are inside the mass hysteria bubble, you probably interpreted President Trump’s initial statement on Charlottesville – which was politically imperfect to say the least – as proof-positive he is a damned racist.

If you are outside the mass hysteria bubble you might have noticed that President Trump never campaigned to be our moral leader. He presented himself as – in his own words “no angel” – with a set of skills he offered to use in the public’s interest. He was big on law and order, and equal justice under the law. But he never offered moral leadership. Voters elected him with that knowledge. Evidently, Republicans don’t depend on politicians for moral leadership. That’s probably a good call.

When the horror in Charlottesville shocked the country, citizens instinctively looked to their president for moral leadership. The president instead provided a generic law and order statement. Under pressure, he later named specific groups and disavowed the racists. He was clearly uncomfortable being our moral lighthouse. That’s probably why he never described his moral leadership as an asset when running for office. We observe that he has never been shy about any other skill he brings to the job, so it probably isn’t an accident when he avoids mentioning any ambitions for moral leadership. If he wanted us to know he would provide that service, I think he would have mentioned it by now.

If you already believed President Trump is a racist, his weak statement about Charlottesville seems like confirmation. But if you believe he never offered moral leadership, only equal treatment under the law, that’s what you saw instead. And you made up your own mind about the morality.

The tricky part here is that any interpretation of what happened could be confirmation bias. But ask yourself which one of these versions sounds less crazy:

1. A sitting president, who is a branding expert, thought it would be a good idea to go easy on murderous Nazis as a way to improve his popularity.

or…

2. The country elected a racist leader who is winking to the KKK and White Supremacists that they have a free pass to start a race war now.

or…

3. A mentally unstable racist clown with conman skills (mostly just lying) eviscerated the Republican primary field and won the presidency. He keeps doing crazy, impulsive racist stuff. But for some reason, the economy is going well, jobs are looking good, North Korea blinked, ISIS is on the ropes, and the Supreme Court got a qualified judge. It was mostly luck.

or…

4. The guy who didn’t offer to be your moral leader didn’t offer any moral leadership, just law and order, applied equally. His critics cleverly and predictably framed it as being soft on Nazis.

One of those narratives is less crazy-sounding than the other. That doesn’t mean the less-crazy one has to be true. But normal stuff happens far more often than crazy stuff. And critics will frame normal stuff as crazy whenever they get a chance.

4. The Oversized Reaction

It would be hard to overreact to a Nazi murder, or to racists marching in the streets with torches. That stuff demands a strong reaction. But if a Republican agrees with you that Nazis are the worst, and you threaten to punch that Republican for not agreeing with you exactly the right way, that might be an oversized reaction.

5. The Insult without supporting argument

When people have actual reasons for disagreeing with you, they offer those reasons without hesitation. Strangers on social media will cheerfully check your facts, your logic, and your assumptions. But when you start seeing ad hominem attacks that offer no reasons at all, that might be a sign that people in the mass hysteria bubble don’t understand what is wrong with your point of view except that it sounds more sensible than their own.

For the past two days I have been disavowing Nazis on Twitter. The most common response from the people who agree with me is that my comic strip sucks and I am ugly.

The mass hysteria signals I described here are not settled science, or anything like it. This is only my take on the topic, based on personal observation and years of experience with hypnosis and other forms of persuasion. I present this filter on the situation as the first step in dissolving the mass hysteria. It isn’t enough, but more persuasion is coming. If you are outside the mass hysteria bubble, you might see what I am doing in this blog as a valuable public service. If you are inside the mass hysteria bubble, I look like a Nazi collaborator.

How do I look to you?

 

[Naraic]

Whatever...he's a cretin.

 

[A.J.]

^^ ^^

 

[Craiglxviii]

Whatever...he's a cretin.

Well, I'm glad reasoned debate is alive and well.

For a cretin to be a multi-billionaire and POTUS he's done fairly well for himself, wouldn't you say?

 

[Naraic]

Indeed, he has, by any standards, done well.

Still a cretin.

 

[Frontstep]

Republicans, Democrats and the USA generally is stuck with the barmy gun laws, allowing the various loonies to have assault rifles.
The Muslim terror attacks have simply raised gun sales.

Obama got no where with gun control or race relations, under his watch we got "Black lives matter".
The vacuous chatterers in the media would have the gullible believe everything was hunky dory before the ghastly Trump, his comment "what have you got to lose" to potential black voters was one of the pivot points in his campaign.
Despite the chatterers best efforts Trump was not put in to office entirely by white working class racists (although it would be naive to discount the voters that were)
The PC balance has swung against the white conservative voters and until it levels out a vacuum for crackpots to fill will grow.
Just as here the Americans aren't yet able to speak honestly to each other about race without someone looking to make trouble.

 

[Craiglxviii]

FS... point to note, Black Lives Matter didn't come out under Obama's watch, it came out as a spin-off of the Democrat National Congress' campaign to prevent a peaceful handover of power. Look at the links between its founders and the DNC for starters. It has Soros' hand in it very deeply, and his money even deeper.

 

[Frontstep]

Indeed, he has, by any standards, done well.

Still a cretin.

"a person who is physically deformed and has learning difficulties because of congenital thyroid deficiency"

are you sure you want to use that language just because you don't agree with some ones politics ?

 

[Naraic]

See post#27.

 

[AMGeed]

Post #26. I'm not buying that. Mass hysteria my ar$e!
Looks more like one (right wing) mans blog to gloss over events.

 

[Craiglxviii]

That's written by Scott Adams, the author of the Dilbert cartoon sketch. He's been a political commentator for years and is pretty centrist. He maintains a political commentary blog; his predictions over the results of the US election and subsequent events have been pretty spot on so far.

 

[AMGeed]

That's written by Scott Adams, the author of the Dilbert cartoon sketch. He's been a political commentator for years and is pretty centrist. He maintains a political commentary blog; his predictions over the results of the US election and subsequent events have been pretty spot on so far.

Still not buying it Craig

 

[Craiglxviii]

His point is well made though. There are different states of crazy, and right now a large proportion of the US is caught up in most of them. We've just seen a CNN commentator musing over Barcelona being a copycat attack in response to what happened in Charlottesville... there are very deep cracps, riven right through US society at present. Scott Adams neatly illustrates that.

 

[AMGeed]

His point is well made though. There are different states of crazy, and right now a large proportion of the US is caught up in most of them. We've just seen a CNN commentator musing over Barcelona being a copycat attack in response to what happened in Charlottesville... there are very deep cracps, riven right through US society at present. Scott Adams neatly illustrates that.

That CNN reporter needs to find a new career if he thinks that!
Does he really think ISIS takes any notice of a right wing demo in the US and thinks, ah, time for an atrocity in Barcelona?

I do think that the US has become even more divided since Trumps win and he is doing nothing to unite the country.
Civil war anyone?

 

[Craiglxviii]

That's just the point. The divisiveness issue isn't being pushed by him. He entered office on a mandate of returning everything to the rule of law. That is exactly what he has done. Now ask yourself, why would anyone in the country want to not have that? So, what he is doing is uniting those that want to see a return to the "US First" policy (that the US has maintained from its inception until the 60s) and a return to the rule of law as laid down by the Constitution. He is doing that by systematically going through government bureaucracy and removing those people- very skillfully, I might add- who were planted by the DNC and/ or are ardent DNC supporters. The civil service should not be politicized to any degree and it is. Moreover, not just the civil service but various media and lobbying organisations have shown themselves to be deeply entrenched in the DNC camp, hence the heavy use of Twitter to bypass them.

Now we see DNC-backed groups like BLM, AntiFA and many others coming out. We see political rallies being attacked (by the Left). We see freedom of expression being attacked (by the Left). We see a clear statement that the DNC will try to prevent a peaceful transition of power being put into action through all of the above. Does all of that sound crazy?

On another front, the car ramming in Charlottesville. I've just watched a video of it. One can see a car being surrounded by a mob carrying pick helves. The car backs hard into one group, then accelerates into another group, then speeds away. I've also just read that the driver of the car was an ex-armoured truck driver; that fits as his behavior shows clear defensive driving. So, what happens when a car is surrounded by an angry armed mob intent on destruction and stops moving? Usually, the car gets tipped then set alight... I certainly wouldn't hang around in that situation and if someone tried to stop me, well you'd be daft arguing with a moving two ton of Sindelfingen.