Messages

Loving these guesses! They're all wrong... but really good!

I almost gave it to Mandle (would probably be better than Crystal Skull)!

Here's another [perhaps less subtle] screenshot:

[bump]

**bump**

That movie was great. Disturbing, but great. I felt uncomfortable for a week after watching it.

I'll post another in the morning!

A History of Violence?

[LINK]

I have always loved this kind of thing...

Queen's Who Wants to Live Forever? covered by Breaking Benjamin [ LINK ]

Sinead O'Connor's Nothing Compares to You in Hawaiian [ LINK ]

Guns 'n Roses' Sweet Child o' Mine by Myles Kennedy (w/ Slash on accoustic) [ LINK ]

I could go on and on!

Congrats on the release!

I added a link to the Completed Games Thread in the first post.

There's really no "rule" for double-posting. I just play it by ear. If you're going to post an update once a month, and you happen to be the last person to post to the thread, there's really no problem in having two posts in a row. I wouldn't lock a thread for a double-post (unless it became a problem) anyway.

Now... let's get back on target

Anyway you keep speaking of how Hillary was more evil than Trump

I do?

Nice to see things finally calming down in here.
I was starting to get worried.

I find that when common-sense and reasoning are used properly, things can remain civil.

Some just can't see that though.

The question is why so many people aren't informed or simply don't care about the candidates' agendas. One thing is probably education. Democracy doesn't work if people have no clue what they are voting for or against, it depends on citiŠºens that have at least a basic knowledge about how things work in their country and in the world. And that is difficult to achieve in times that become more and more complex. Being overwhelmed, people tend to look for simple answers, but there are none.

Education is the key. I said it a bit earlier; the problem, as I see it, is that there's too much information/disinformation that's so easily accessible.

Sure some are lazy and don't bother to look.

Others look, study, and get exhausted trying to sort through the data to find what's real and what's fake and just give up.

Others look and just believe the first thing they read and don't research it (this is the biggest problem I think).

Then there are some (I would suspect in a minority here) that sort through it all and have an informed opinion.

This is another one of those "I have no idea how to fix it" problems because the Pandora's box of the information world is opened and can't (shouldn't) be closed.

Another thing is the election campaign, and this is where the candidates and political parties are directly responsible. The more emotional a political campaign gets, the less likely people are to vote rationally. And I think we agree that this campaign was full of emotions - mostly negative.

Sickeningly so!

It's also something inherent in two party systems or systems where the parties are divided into two big camps. My impression (judging from outside, so correct me if I'm wrong) was that during Obama's time in office, most Republicans were not interested in what is good for the people, they were mostly interested in "winning", opposing Obama just for the sake of opposing him. This attitude solves no problems and pushes the policies into the background, and for some Republicans who were against Trump, it might have backfired, because Trump is the next logical step on this way.

Total agreement. 

It's less about what is good for the people/country and more about not letting the other side get what they want.

Want to get a motion put forth? The other side won't allow it, no matter how good it is, unless you allow them to piggy-back something of theirs on top of it.

It's like young children throwing tantrums on the playground because they didn't get the toy they wanted.

It prevents real progress, in my opinion.

I hope he does well and that the unrest and violence in the schools and streets of the US calm down soon.

Here's hoping!

As for the rest of what you wrote that may well be the first time (is in this thread at the very least) I have heard somebody offer up an informed opinion on Trump that was positive and/or optimistic.

I'm curious to see the responses...

[61,270,312]

No, I actually agree with you. I would not call anybody "bad" for how they voted. But my main concern is that some people are too careless with their votes. I mean, come on, if someone votes for Trump he or she should at least partially agree with him. And for me it's easier to understand (rationally, not ethically) that someone votes for Trump because he or she actually agrees with him and thinks his plans are great. Like it or not, but there is a logic behind such a vote.

You have nailed most of my problems with our election system in that small paragraph!

Add to that that I'm German and that we have some experience with what can happen if too many people vote with their guts instead of their brains(*), and you know the reason why I'm arguing so passionately against a "doesn't matter" or "nothing will change anyway" attitude. Because things can change radically, and voting is not just there to annoy the people. It can make a difference, for the better or for the worse.

I made a joke the other day about how the voting booths should have a test you have to take after you cast your ballot so only those voting with their brains would have a valid vote.

Like there's 100 questions for each candidate (each question has 10 variations on how it's asked) and their policies/beliefs/agenda.

The booth's test would select 20 random questions/variants from the pool.

The voter selects their answer to each question. The system doesn't tell them if they got it right or wrong and doesn't tell them if they pass or fail.

If you pass the test, your vote counts. Don't pass the test, your vote isn't counted.

Then we could see:

Total Votes for Trump: 61,270,312
Valid Votes for Trump: 17

[supporters]

And I've never stated otherwise. My dear Sith Lord, I have a lot of respect for you, and until these last few posts this was a very interesting discussion. I don't want to be angry with anyone, but your "propaganda" post, and this last question really bother me. Are you sure you're not confusing me with someone else? I've expressed my worries, I've tried to explain why I tend to hold people responsible for their vote, and I explained why I oppose certain attitudes. But could you please quote a passage where I indicated that everybody has to share my opinion?

No worries Problem. I really wasn't trying to bother or offend you, I promise!

You never said people had to share your opinion. That wasn't what I was saying (or implying).

I feel fairly confident saying that pretty much everybody who's contributed to this topic feels Trump is a "bad" person.

Could his presidency be disastrous for the world? Yes, it could.

Could it be not so bad? I think it's possible (and I'm hoping for it).

I'm not judging you for your feelings about Trump supporters, just expressing that I don't fully agree with you.

I, personally, do not feel comfortable labeling people "bad" (who I know to be good people) just because they voted for Trump.

There's just too many factors involved in backing a candidate for me to feel justified in making assumptions about a person's character based on which candidate they chose.

Especially when they only have 2 [real] candidates to choose from.

Maybe you disagree and, to you, there was a clear-cut "better" candidate so anybody who wouldn't back her is wrong.

I can accept that.

I just disagree

for somebody calling people out for disrespecting other opinions, you sure show a lot of disrespect for other people's opinions

I respect your opinion.

Could you please quote something I said that you interpreted as disrespect for somebody else's opinion?

So you really think that any of my posts "shoved propaganda in your face"? Wow. Well, that's your way of dealing with other people's opinions. Don't worry, I will stop explai bothering you with my propaganda now.

That is just hurtful.

Will you please answer the following question with just yes or no?

Do you accept that there are people on the planet who don't share your views/opinions/beliefs?

[is]

It is more complicated that that, and that's exactly why my post is ten times as long as the line you quoted. No, he's not going to nuke the planet. Great news. If you bothered to read what I have written instead of picking one flippant line, it should be absolutely clear that nukes are not my main concern.

That one [flippant] line was the only one I felt compelled to respond to.

I wasn't really even responding to you specifically, just the over-all sentiment of that one line.

The rest of what you wrote was more of the same that's been said many times in this thread and I am tired of having the anti-trump propaganda shoved in my face when I've made it abundantly clear I did/do not support the man or his policies.

Please stop?

though, it has to be said, intolerance to viewpoints and disagreeing with them, however strongly, are two vastly different things

I agree.

I think, perhaps, I worded that poorly (maybe intolerant was the wrong word?).

It was more about the absolute refusal to accept that somebody could even have a contrary opinion and less about disagreeing with the specifics of that contrary opinion.

I'm happy to make this my final word in this thread, since politics, along with Organized Religion, really shouldn't be discussed (at length) in respectable company, for fear of diversions into circular terrain. I humbly suggest others follow suit, as that rock is starting to look very familiar...

This is very true.

We hate Trump because he's an intolerant hate machine.

So now that he's been elected we will show hatred and intolerance towards those that supported him.

Rinse.

Repeat.

Yes, of course you do. If you hold your nose and vote for someone, you have to take the bad with the (in Clinton's case) less bad. But you can't make the 'lesser of two evils' argument when the candidate you're defending is, by any historical comparison, the greater evil.

Could you give more reasoning behind feeling the "lesser of two evils" argument can't be made here?

I would agree that it's pretty obvious (to me) that Trump is the greater evil but I still find Clinton to be "evil". So it would still be the lesser of two evils argument as far as my support for either would be concerned.

Not being argumentative, I'm genuinely curious.

Here's Trump saying some stuff about nuclear weapons. I said he wanted to nuke ISIS - I apologise for that overstatement*. In fairness, he's at pains to make it clear that nuclear would be a last resort. In context he merely said he wouldn't rule it out for the middle east, or Europe:

He was subsequently pressed on these issues and stood by his insistence that "Europe is a big place. I'm not going to take cards off the table.", and boasted of his unpredictability as a businessman.

It's interesting to me how you, who I know isn't prone to hyperbole, made that overstatement.

I'm not judging, just an observation.

We are all guilty of it from time to time (and you owned it, kudos).

I'm just saying it makes me wonder how often that happens in the modern world? Particularly with something as "global" as a presidential election.

A candidate says something, somebody else interprets it and repeats it (intentionally or unintentionally overstating or, worse, intentionally altering it to fit their agenda to make somebody look better/worse as needed) and then it runs amok on social/mainstream media and it becomes "fact" in many peoples' minds.

I've seen several instances of videos that are conveniently edited to make a person seem they said one thing but if you watch the video in its entirety and put those quotes in a larger context the meaning is totally different.

It's scary to me how easily this happens.

And people just accept it without fact-checking.

I mentioned it earlier (I think) about how it's so hard to sort through fact/fiction when researching a candidate these days.

That's not as clear cut as I made out. But it's hardly a case of warmonger versus peacemaker.

I have to think that every president has to have thought about the potential need to use nukes.

Is it a reality of being the leader of a nuclear powered country? I think it must be?

I think it's probably something previous presidents has the common-sense not to talk about publicly though.

I feel pretty sure I couldn't give the order if I were president. I mean maybe to try to knock an asteroid off course or something but not to annihilate human life. Gives me chills just doing the thought experiment.

Maybe I won't run for president in 2020 after all...

*or to put that apology in Trump's voice: "I never said that. Huge lie. It's really terrible this lying media, folks. Real shame."

I could actually hear his voice.

You keep calling me intolerant, but the only thing I'm intolerant of is bigotry. I know what bigotry is, I know the effect it's having on my American friends, and I know that not a single Trump supporter has come forward to say "Hey, I'll fight for the rights of the marginalised, now let's get Trump to not try to profile and deport people".

You are intolerant to contrary viewpoints.

I mean I'm not even disagreeing with you that Trump is "bad" or that his policies are "evil and hate-filled" but yet, because I'm simply suggesting that other people might not think like you, you're lashing out at me.

I'm curious... Trump, like Clinton, supports continued use of targeted drone strikes. Are you contacting people to protest this? You suggested you would do that had Clinton won (since you support her but not that policy) so I'm curious if you're doing it now that Trump has won. Or would you only do that if the candidate you supported won the oval office?

What about Trump's stance on the TPP (which affects all of us, not just minorities)? Are you contacting people about this?

What about Trump's pro-life/pro-choice stance (which affects all of us, not just minorities)? Are you contacting people about this?

Or are you only concerned with the stuff that affects you?

Okay then, give me how someone else thinks - explain to me their thought processes, so that I know how they overlooked all of Trump's really overt and hateful rhetoric and hiring choices (Like Mike "Gay Kid Torture Legislator" Pence during his campaign) and still think that Clinton is the worse one. Like, clearly I'm incapable of thinking like a Trump voter. Please, explain it to me. I really want to know.

I've explained this several times already.

I've asked several questions and made several statements/points in this thread in the interests of understanding where you're coming from and you haven't addressed most of them.

You fixate on one part here or there that allows you to lash out (repetitively) in anger.

[even one single other person]

If I have the choice between drones and nukes, I'll grudgingly take drones.

Whenever I hear this I can't help but thinking, "should I use a 9mm pistol or my Star Wars laser blaster?"

Even if Trump was gung-ho to use nukes, the president cannot wake up in the middle of the night and press the button.

It's a little more complicated than that.

Can somebody link me to a direct quote (video would be better) where Trump says he wanted to use nukes? I googled and only found a bunch of accusations (with no evidence) and a bunch of quotes of him being very dumb about it and saying basically it would be the last thing he would do but he won't "take the cards off the table". He sounds, as usual, like he has no real idea what he's talking about but I didn't hear him say he wants/intends to use them, just that he would if he had to.

I'd like to hear/see him specifically say he intends to use them as this seems to the be the thing anti-Trump people are most concerned about.

Give me one thing Clinton campaigned for during the election that is as hateful and murderous as what Trump did every day and appointed people for. Not an economic thing, not the emails thing, but something that targeted a group of marginalised people with murderous rhetoric. Something that made people fear for their very lives and basic human rights.

Damn.

I thought we were past this.

Repeat: You really need to stop assuming that everybody thinks like you do.

You think Clinton's worst policies are better than Trump's best.

You think that. 

It's important to realize that you don't get to determine what even one single other person on this planet thinks.

It's just a fact.

Until you can accept that you're going to continue to be disappointed and angry and intolerant.

I'm saying that in this election Hillary Clinton was by far the least awful option.

You feel that way. Trump supporters do not.

Yes, it is possible to support a candidate you don't agree on 100% with

This is all I was hoping for.

It's still her policy.

[Hillary] Clinton supports the use of targeted drone strikes, and says they were one of the most effective counter-terrorism strategies during her time in the Obama administration. [source]

"We will always maintain our right to use force against groups such as al-Qaeda that have attacked us and still threaten us with imminent attack,"
- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

She even potentially admitted to war-crimes carried out by drone-strikes while she was in the Obama administration. [source]

Whether or not Trump has similar (or worse) policies dealing with the same subject you made it very clear that, no matter what your reasoning might be, if you voted for Trump you support bigotry/hatred.

Given that, I'd say it's fair to say that you support the continued use of drones to commit targeted killings if you support Clinton.

You have also said:

However. If they do not at least attempt to contact their representative to try to stop the drone strikes, then they are pretty much just letting it happen. The vote itself here isn't just what matters but the actions they take afterward as well.

So it almost sounds like you're saying it's possible to support a candidate while not simultaneously supporting all their policies?

Neither is Donald Trump

You'll get no argument from me on that!

Honestly I've spent most of my life with people saying "The world doesn't revolve around gay people" when I'm trying to ask for basic rights and protections. It's kind of a sore point if you use that kind of language. It's just the way the language was being used which was really reminiscient.

I can understand that (that language has power).

I was not saying (or even implying) that you have no basic rights and protections.

What I was saying was that you, to me, do not have more (or less) rights than a black woman, or a white man, or a straight person, or a child.

The world doesn't revolve around any of them.

The world revolves around the sun 93,000,000 miles away.

I do not like to talk online about the "things" I do in my personal life but I will say, for whatever it's worth, you and your people have an ally in me. I don't see that changing anytime soon (no matter how angry you get at me!).

If you find my posts frustratingly aggressive, rest assured that your passive-aggressive, above-it-all attitude is equally provocative to me.

I didn't say aggressive.

I am saddened that you find my attitude to be passive-aggressive or provocative. Passive I intend. Aggressive not so much. I will try to work on that.

It's hard for me to imagine why pushing for understanding and tolerance would be provocative to somebody but I admit, that's just my feelings about my own opinions.

I respect that it bothers you.

I can assure you I am not trying to irritate/annoy anybody.

I just don't want our community to devolve the way it was in the Bush era.

In going back to discussions from previous elections I came across things you said back then, and I was using that context as well. For example, while I don't think this time around you've explicitly made an argument against voting, you did use the same points to make that argument in the past, and say it doesn't matter who is elected (and one that the Electoral College just chooses a winner regardless of how people vote). So I'm at a loss on how I can have distorted your position.

People change. Opinions alter. Time moves on.

You say you don't want to repeat yourself, but the only thing I've actually asked of you is something I don't think I've ever seen in twelve years on this forum: A constructive explanation of how you would like the American political system to change, why you think the changes would make a meaningful difference, and a rationale for why, failing this, politics don't matter. For example, if you're going to argue, explicitly or implicitly, that George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama were "the same" as presidents, I'd like to hear what you think would be a good alternative, and what kind of political system might produce it.

Sure I have some ideas about how to "fix" the system but I really have no desire to go into that here.

I don't feel like my sentiment that our system is "broken" is invalidated simply because I am not putting forth my thoughts on a solution.

I consider myself a reasonably intelligent person but I'm willing to concede that while I feel I'm smart enough to know there is a problem; I don't feel qualified (smart enough) to solve it.

I own that.

I'm not a politician or an expert on constitutional law.

I might know I need to have my gallbladder removed, doesn't mean I know how to remove it. I'd leave that to a surgeon.

Okay, so if gay and trans people don't get to fear for their lives because it's legal in 49/50 states to murder them "in a panic" and we've just elected someone who chose a vice president who is By saying, the world doesn't revolve around the people I care about, which is, by the way, all minorities, since we're all in this together, not just the intersections I myself belong to, who are you saying it does revolve around? White people?

Once again you completely missed the point and, instead, try to accuse me of something I didn't even remotely hint at. Please stop doing that.

And yeah, I'd like an actual thing Clinton has proposed that's on the level of all of these, please. The life of real people is not to be debated with devil's advocate hypotheticals.

Darth - as Scavenger says, you're asking us to weigh a substantial threat to the equality of gay people against a generalised feeling that something Clinton was going to do would have been bad. You must see how the specifics matter.

Absolutely! I can totally see how there might be factors to how Scavenger would answer that I hadn't considered before.

I withdraw the questions.