Another day another shooting - 11 dead in Pittsburgh

[The Thriller]

Have any of your read, “The Death of Expertise” by Tom Nichols?

It’s a great read.

But it also explains Dutch, Babe, and Joe. The Internet Age has given morons a soapbox to be heard from that they didn’t have 20 years ago. Just today some moron on twitter (might have been Dutch) lectured an American General about Iraq using a Wikipedia page. He later deleted his tweet once the general responded and it became obvious that he merely copied and pasted some crap from wiki.

On one hand the internet has made a place for us to all communicate. But not all communications are well informed, accurate, or credible.

The Death of Expertise is a great read about our times, how we gain knowledge, and why our society seems to respect experts and knowledge less and less.

 

[Joe Bagadonuts]

No, you have to listen to Trump rallies, to see the entire context in which "globalist" is but one word he uses for the purpose of working up the anger of his listeners. It's not a title. Take the time to listen to Trump. Just a suggestion, it ain't easy, lol. But nobody has to filter this guy through their echo chamber of choice. One only has to listen to the man himself.

I am talking from the perspective of listening to the guy, and reading his tweets. I have seen you speak repeatedly of over the top hatred of Trump, or Trump derangement. Well, obviously you like him more then some. You can deny it, but if you can just go by his words, no echo chamber, and find this not unacceptable entirely, then I don't understand you, either.

It's not hatred. It's resistance to the intolerable. You don't get it. That's how I see it. You don't get it where Trump is concerned. And I don't care how you voted, or how many times you say that you too don't like Trump .

I listen to him to judge him. I think he's misguided. Yes, he angers me. But you think of people like me when you speak of Trump derangement at times. And it's not hatred, it's resistance to the intolerable. And I feel safe in making that judgement. And maybe history will judge far worse. With climate change, yeah, history likely will.

I think you missed the point entirely. I watch those rallies and the crowds that attend them. I see a dangerous movement. I am reminded of similar movements in other times and places. I believe in learning from the lessons of history. What the hell is the point otherwise?

IMO you (and many like you) take what he says and does (which is sometimes embarrassingly bad) and then add the worst possible interpretations you can come up with to it. I've said many times that I believe the anti-Trump movement would be far more successful if they stuck to the facts, but they just can't seem to do that. They always go bonkers.

And regarding missing the point entirely, maybe you're right that he is speaking some sort of code language to his base. I believe that it's much simpler than that. In most cases he's making simple and clear points to people who are sick and tired of politicians who they believe they can't trust.

Regarding immigration I think it's clear that the pro-Trump crowd and the anti-Trump crowd see things in completely different ways, and as a result his words sound entirely different to each of them. To the anti-Trump crowd it's unfair that America is a better place to live than Honduras, for instance, so they understand and sympathize with someone who wants to cross the border. To them it's nothing but an arbitrary line. To the pro-Trump crowd America is private property. They are sick and tired of politicians who not only don't care if people cross, but even encourage them to. People who see the problem this differently are never going to agree on policy. They literally see the other side's solution as the primary problem.

 

[Joe Bagadonuts]

I agree there can be criticizing of certain globalist policies. However, you did not disagree that we need to have globalism of some sort. So, why would anyone criticize what globalism actually is?

What people would do is use criticize globalism as code for criticizing other things.



Criticize the actual policies you oppose? Is that too rational?

Criticize them as globalist policies. Is that too direct? Obama was a globalist, heading out on an apology tour and signing agreements that harmed our country to the benefit of other countries. It does not surprise me that many Americans were not fans of that sort of policy. I think the attempt to tie anti-Semitism to such a criticism is ridiculous.

 

[fishonjazz]

IMO you (and many like you) take what he says and does (which is sometimes embarrassingly bad) and then add the worst possible interpretations you can come up with to it. I've said many times that I believe the anti-Trump movement would be far more successful if they stuck to the facts, but they just can't seem to do that. They always go bonkers.

And regarding missing the point entirely, maybe you're right that he is speaking some sort of code language to his base. I believe that it's much simpler than that. In most cases he's making simple and clear points to people who are sick and tired of politicians who they believe they can't trust.

Regarding immigration I think it's clear that the pro-Trump crowd and the anti-Trump crowd see things in completely different ways, and as a result his words sound entirely different to each of them. To the anti-Trump crowd it's unfair that America is a better place to live than Honduras, for instance, so they understand and sympathize with someone who wants to cross the border. To them it's nothing but an arbitrary line. To the pro-Trump crowd America is private property. They are sick and tired of politicians who not only don't care if people cross, but even encourage them to. People who see the problem this differently are never going to agree on policy. They literally see the other side's solution as the primary problem.

Im anti trump yet i see immigration more the way the pro trump crowd does. Imagine that

 

[One Brow]

Criticize them as globalist policies. Is that too direct? Obama was a globalist,

Trump is a globalist. He has specific, globally aligned economic and foreign policies, such as 'win every trade arrangement' and 'get North Korea to stop making nukes'. Every US President since Hoover has been a globalist.

heading out on an apology tour and signing agreements that harmed our country to the benefit of other countries. It does not surprise me that many Americans were not fans of that sort of policy.

All agreements have good sides and bad sides, as do all policies.

I think the attempt to tie anti-Semitism to such a criticism is ridiculous.

The anti-Semitism is to assign certain types of global policies as "globalist", when they are all globalist, including Trump's policies.

 

[Joe Bagadonuts]

Im anti trump yet i see immigration more the way the pro trump crowd does. Imagine that

You're a unique fish, but obviously there are all sorts of gradients. Do you agree that a large portion of the anti-Trump crowd sees it as I described? This massive difference in opinion regarding the problem is making it essentially unsolvable. The pro-Trump crowd thinks, this is private property, members only. Anyone without proper documentation is illegal. Please just close the gates. The anti-Trump crowd says, closing the gates is something only a racist would do because obviously (to them) the real problem the other side is having is that the immigrant's skin is brown, so let's make up for their hatred by having sanctuary cities where we'll protect all non-citizens (this group would never consider referring to them as illegal) including the criminals.

 

[Joe Bagadonuts]

Trump is a globalist. He has specific, globally aligned economic and foreign policies, such as 'win every trade arrangement' and 'get North Korea to stop making nukes'. Every US President since Hoover has been a globalist.



All agreements have good sides and bad sides, as do all policies.



The anti-Semitism is to assign certain types of global policies as "globalist", when they are all globalist, including Trump's policies.

Not sure what point you think you're making. The conversation was about the claim that the term "globalist" is anti-Semetic, or even more subtly, that it becomes anti-Semetic when Trump uses it (which seems to be a very convenient language tool for those who hate him IMO).

 

[fishonjazz]

You're a unique fish, but obviously there are all sorts of gradients. Do you agree that a large portion of the anti-Trump crowd sees it as I described? This massive difference in opinion regarding the problem is making it essentially unsolvable. The pro-Trump crowd thinks, this is private property, members only. Anyone without proper documentation is illegal. Please just close the gates. The anti-Trump crowd says, closing the gates is something only a racist would do because obviously (to them) the real problem the other side is having is that the immigrant's skin is brown, so let's make up for their hatred by having sanctuary cities where we'll protect all non-citizens (this group would never consider referring to them as illegal) including the criminals.

Ya, i agree with your overall post that i had quoted. Wish it weren't true but most people just support whatever it is that their party supports. Makes me sad tbh. I watch it happen with my own father all the time. He is a great man. Best of the best. Kind, supportive, helpful, always interested in what is going on with everyones lives and always remembers (listens) everything that people tell him about their lives. Hard worker. Honest. Seriously great man and everyone knows it.
Yet he allows his political leaning to poison him in many ways. Displays so much hate for all things obama or "left" or democratic. Doesn't matter what its about or how good of a thing it is, if it comes from anyone that his political party doesn't like or anyone who seems to be leaning left then he has nothing but hatred for it. He sends me the most horrible emails (sends them to many people that are in his contacts as one big group) about democrats filled with so much hate and violence. Which is the opposite of the kind of man he is and the things he normally stands for. It makes me so sad. I want to tell him to take me off his email list and tell him to recognize how toxic politics can be and how they make him come across but at the same time he is quite old and I love him to death and dont want to drive any kind of a wedge between us so I just keep my feelings to myself on the matter.

**** the two party system and the division that it causes in our country. It just gets worse and worse and I think that Trump loves all the division and wants it to get worse and worse unfortunately. Thats one of the biggest reasons im anti trump. I think all the hate and anger and division in our country is what he wants and what he revels in. Pure scum

 

[One Brow]

Not sure what point you think you're making. The conversation was about the claim that the term "globalist" is anti-Semetic, or even more subtly, that it becomes anti-Semetic when Trump uses it (which seems to be a very convenient language tool for those who hate him IMO).

The term "globalist" has a specific meaning, and it is a meaning that almost all people recognize as something important to have (the existence set of policies on global interactions). Trump is using the term "globalist" counter to this meaning, and using it in a context and manner that has traditionally been used by white supremacists (threatening national sovereignty by submitting to outside forces, particularly Jewish conspiracies). You may choose to recognize this difference or choose not to.

 

[Joe Bagadonuts]

Ya, i agree with your overall post that i had quoted. Wish it weren't true but most people just support whatever it is that their party supports. Makes me sad tbh. I watch it happen with my own father all the time. He is a great man. Best of the best. Kind, supportive, helpful, always interested in what is going on with everyones lives and always remembers (listens) everything that people tell him about their lives. Hard worker. Honest. Seriously great man and everyone knows it.
Yet he allows his political leaning to poison him in many ways. Displays so much hate for all things obama or "left" or democratic. Doesn't matter what its about or how good of a thing it is, if it comes from anyone that his political party doesn't like or anyone who seems to be leaning left then he has nothing but hatred for it. He sends me the most horrible emails (sends them to many people that are in his contacts as one big group) about democrats filled with so much hate and violence. Which is the opposite of the kind of man he is and the things he normally stands for. It makes me so sad. I want to tell him to take me off his email list and tell him to recognize how toxic politics can be and how they make him come across but at the same time he is quite old and I love him to death and dont want to drive any kind of a wedge between us so I just keep my feelings to myself on the matter.

**** the two party system and the division that it causes in our country. It just gets worse and worse and I think that Trump loves all the division and wants it to get worse and worse unfortunately. Thats one of the biggest reasons im anti trump. I think all the hate and anger and division in our country is what he wants and what he revels in. Pure scum

Damn good post! I don't see an alternative to a two party system but I'd love to hear one if you believe it exists. The reason I think we'll always have a two party system is that little fragmented parties will always be dominated by big ones. Who really cares what the Green Party or Constitutional Party think? They don't move the needle because they are so small. So, no matter how the system is set up, small groups will band together until they are big enough to have a voice, and the people opposed to their agenda (or for something different) will do the same. Pretty soon most people and issues will be aligned with one of two big parties, just like always.

 

[Joe Bagadonuts]

Have any of your read, “The Death of Expertise” by Tom Nichols?

It’s a great read.

But it also explains Dutch, Babe, and Joe. The Internet Age has given morons a soapbox to be heard from that they didn’t have 20 years ago. Just today some moron on twitter (might have been Dutch) lectured an American General about Iraq using a Wikipedia page. He later deleted his tweet once the general responded and it became obvious that he merely copied and pasted some crap from wiki.

On one hand the internet has made a place for us to all communicate. But not all communications are well informed, accurate, or credible.

The Death of Expertise is a great read about our times, how we gain knowledge, and why our society seems to respect experts and knowledge less and less.

Classic. The guy who claims that Trump has given the go ahead to machine gun down the caravan members if they so much as throw a rock over the border is giving a lecture on the need to be well informed, accurate and credible. Nice irony, thriller. Never let the facts get in the way of the point you'd like to make.

 

[The Thriller]

Classic. The guy who claims that Trump has given the go ahead to machine gun down the caravan members if they so much as throw a rock over the border is giving a lecture on the need to be well informed, accurate and credible. Nice irony, thriller. Never let the facts get in the way of the point you'd like to make.

Maybe you don’t hear very well, Trump instructed the military to treat caravan thrown rocks as “firearms.” What could he be insinuating here? It’s funny how everyone else gets it but the 3 morons on this forum who will rationalize away everything and anything Trump. Sorry to trigger you:

 

[DutchJazzer]

also, dont forget trump deported and actual NAZI! which various jewish organizations asked obama to deport. but OBAMA did not wanna deport the ACTUAL nazi!
hahahahaha


yet RACIST FAKE NEWS CNN blames trump for anti semetism hahahahahahahahahahaha

 

[DutchJazzer]

Maybe you don’t hear very well, Trump instructed the military to treat caravan thrown rocks as “firearms.” What could he be insinuating here? It’s funny how everyone else gets it but the 3 morons on this forum who will rationalize away everything and anything Trump. Sorry to trigger you:

so what if a large group of people come towards your border waving their flag and try to kill you! yes a stone thrown to someones head is DEADLY!
you can start shooting!
SELF DEFENSE!

 

[DutchJazzer]

Have any of your read, “The Death of Expertise” by Tom Nichols?

It’s a great read.

But it also explains Dutch, Babe, and Joe. The Internet Age has given morons a soapbox to be heard from that they didn’t have 20 years ago. Just today some moron on twitter (might have been Dutch) lectured an American General about Iraq using a Wikipedia page. He later deleted his tweet once the general responded and it became obvious that he merely copied and pasted some crap from wiki.

On one hand the internet has made a place for us to all communicate. But not all communications are well informed, accurate, or credible.

The Death of Expertise is a great read about our times, how we gain knowledge, and why our society seems to respect experts and knowledge less and less.

actually you got it backwards. i tell people to read mein kampf and giovani gentili's work and compare it to bernies speeches en marx books. it was one brow who sent me some wikipedia link on the 1933-1945 national socialist economy! while ignoring the actual readings and motivations of giovani gentili en hitler.

 

[Red]

IMO you (and many like you) take what he says and does (which is sometimes embarrassingly bad) and then add the worst possible interpretations you can come up with to it.

This probably results from having immersed myself in studying history for so long. I'm retired now, and I never really anticipated my education would be put to its best use in what amounts to the inevitable twilight of my life. My concentration was actually Europe since 1789, and within that realm, Western intellectual history, and within that realm, the influences that fed into Nazism and Fascism. And, as I've mentioned before, one thing that a study of history renders is an understanding that, while it does not repeat itself, you can say it rhymes.

Now, I know you disagree with me on this, but, just as I am sure there are many ways in which you could educate me in areas and subject matter that you understand far better then me, I'm speaking from a perspective and education that makes it crystal clear what is going on in early 21st century America. And I see that this perspective could only have been arrived at because of years immersed in Western history. I suspect you don't have that same perspective and education, so what I see you are unable to see. My interpretations arise naturally for me. And I trust my instincts here. Of course I can be mistaken, but I recognize a dangerous movement when I see one.

I really don't mean to come across as arrogant as all this sounds. But I am not simply deciding that I must find the worst possible interpretation of Trump. It's all very clear to me to start with, and the struggle is to take what's clear and to find words that will help make it clear to others. There I fail repeatedly, because it's just very difficult. And I'm no genius, and I am probably not up to the task. So I lean on guys like historian Timothy Snyder, who is very much up to the task of placing Trump in historical context. And who understands a dangerous movement when he sees one.

But I'm willing to learn from people who don't think like me at all. I do recognize bias has to be there, and I spend a great deal of time trying to understand that as well.

 

[Red]

Have any of your read, “The Death of Expertise” by Tom Nichols?

It’s a great read.

The Death of Expertise is a great read about our times, how we gain knowledge, and why our society seems to respect experts and knowledge less and less.

Thanks for this recommendation. It does sound like it's right up my alley. Its an expansion of a 2014 article that appeared in The Federalist, and that short essay can be read here:

http://thefederalist.com/2014/01/17/the-death-of-expertise/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Expertise

Living in an age of conspiracy theories, it does seem obvious to me that we are living at a time when irrational thought is overwhelming reason. And Trump is an example of the Dunning-Kruger effect, which would probably be a harmless fact were he not president...

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect

 

[DutchJazzer]

THIS IS OBAMA who dog-whistled by not deporting a Nazi

 

[Red]

IMO you (and many like you) take what he says and does (which is sometimes embarrassingly bad) and then add the worst possible interpretations you can come up with to it

Yeah, my last reply is almost guaranteed to sound arrogant and elitist. So, I can put this in much simpler terms, although the reference, if it's not clear, will just have to be dug into a bit, but that's up to you. When I consider Donald Trump, I feel like I woke up and found myself in a live, real world version, of a Philip K. Dick novella. And it's an alternate universe I can very well do without.

 

[Stars Fan]

Wow, just read this thread. A lot of anger and rage on display here. One thing i think has been missed in the convo is the stated reason on why Bowers decided he would go and kill a bunch of Americans praying in their place of worship. On the right wing friendly chat forum Gab he posted this:

“HIAS likes to bring invaders to kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in.”

HIAS is a Jewish non-profit organization that protects refugees.

We can debate whether or not the President of the US is anti-Semitic, but it is not a question that he has flamed the fears of people by elevating the Caravan far beyond the actual threat. By last report they are still over 900 miles south of our border, on foot. When was the last time anyone of us walked 20 miles let alone 900. Along the way they are being offered refuge in Mexico,and or return to their home country as they tire of the arduous journey it is more than probable that they will take the offers of the Mexican Government. The President wants to send the same level of force to our southern border as are currently in Afghanistan to address this threat? A waste of epic proportions, and hints at the real motive for highlighting the existential threat posed by these people in the Caravan...namely the midterms. The President did not call for Bowers to "go kill the Jews," but when you create the gollum of hate, you can't control where is will strike. The fears he hopes will use to motivate his base to vote, by calling people hoping for asylum invaders, bad bad people, possible Muslim terrorists, etc. , in this instance motivated one of his followers to take matters into his own hands and go in and stop his people from being slaughtered. The President condemned the killings, and offered his condolences, after laying a little guilt on them for not having armed guards, but he has yet to turn down the rhetoric. He is still willing to take the risk that some other nut case out there will act on his words and not sit idly by. I can only conclude that power is more important to him than the people. President Trump may not be anti-Semitic, but he is tone deaf to criticism. There is a clear line from the Trump rhetoric to the deaths of these 11 Americans, and rather than ratchet the rhetoric down he decided to up the volume.

He is the President. My President. His words matter more than anyone else in Government, and they carry weight beyond those of on the fringe. For those who point to Obama, and say he inspired the police shootings as an equivalent to what Trump is doing now, read these two articles and point out the over the top rhetoric he used...He didn't he was very measured and respectful.

https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/07/politics/philando-castile-alton-sterling-josh-earnest/index.html

http://fortune.com/2016/07/08/transcript-obama-dallas-police-shootings/

President Trump could learn from past Presidents on how to unite the country, if he were truly interested in doing so. He could start by toning it down. Our little Jazzfanz community is just a reflection of the divide in our country now. Using wedge issues, and blowing them out of proportion for political gain is not leadership I can support.