The Analytic Impossibility of Globalism Until Value Ontology Is Implemented as All-Law

Capable wrote:: Quick restatement of purpose here for me:

While I reject the false dichotomy of the choice between Trump and Clinton, because this dichotomy is logically based on a fallacy of excluded middle that is all but deliberately created by the US political system, I of course do understand that practically speaking this dichotomy is forced upon us because realistically either Trump or Clinton will win the election. I understand the desire to vote for the lesser of two evils in this situation, I don't condemn anyone for doing that. Clarify our values and try to reason out consequences and ends for each candidate being elected, and then vote for the lesser of two evils. That's perfectly fine, but it's not what I'm going to do. Neither candidate is close enough to my own values therefore I will vote for neither one.

But I think I'll withdraw from this thread, mostly because it isn't psychologically healthy for me to continue here; this unhealth is based on the fact that each of our respective positions and values have now been adequately clarified and I can't see that our positions or values will change as a result of my continuing to post in this thread. The exception is that I will gladly offer rationale and factual evidence backing up any of my claims made in this thread, if requested; I will do so happily, and if I cannot find fact and evidence for any claim, or a least a valid and solid rational defense, but really there must also be hard fact and evidence to support these positions too-- if I cannot find any to back up a claim that I've made here then I will absolutely and happily abandon that claim.

I reject ideology and psychological motives here, I want to uncover truths to "build thought to disclose the future". My positions so far are based on what is most justified based on the evidence, facts and rationale that I have to far: I would gladly yield any position that I've made here if new facts or evidence is brought to counter them. I could be converted into a Trump supporter if the facts, evidence and sound philosophical reasoning requires it. I'm happy to go that route if anyone would like. Otherwise we have mostly stated our positions and our values, and that will have to be enough for now.

So I'll leave this thread but with the caveat that a call for facts, evidence or philosophical reasoning in defense of anything I've said here will be met by me with a sincere attempt to provide as such. Otherwise, thanks to everyone here for engaging so openly in these ideas. I hope no feelings were injured in the course of those engagements.

In the Hegel discussion points, let's move that over to the Hegel thread I made, if possible.

We disagree absolutely on all of what has been said in this thread; on what is disgusting, on what is philosophy, on what is an argument, etcetera - but as long as no one has been hurt, Im okay with that. I will remain active in this thread at least until the elections; a paradigm that I consider to be supremely powerful philosophy has been revealed here - at its center the Doric order.

Capable wrote:: Oh yeah and Trump and these Right conservatives don't believe in global warming. This is sort of like their desire to teach creationism in schools, or their aversion to sex ed. There is a precise reason for this way of thinking, and it is based in ideology. I don't want to get deep into those reasons just yet, but I want to let this sink in: Trump rejects climate science, he seriously thinks he knows more than actual scientists and experts here. It isn't like he has studied the data and come to this conclusion, oh no, not at all, this is pure ideology. He literally and at the level of his self-valuing cannot accept even the basic concept of human-influenced global warming.

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/full.html

http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

https://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-global-warming.htm

http://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/global-warming/science-and-impacts/global-warming-science#.V_UCuIY8LYU

I really do understand and sympathize with the psychological need at the root of the impulse to deny global warming's existence or importance, I used to be in that same camp. But it was just based on ignorance, and once we educate ourselves a little bit there is no longer any excuse for that ignorance, nor is there any excuse to refuse to educate ourselves on this issue. This is a problem we can actually solve, addressing global warming before hitting the runaway peak threshold, but public leaders like Trump who arrogantly and petulantly deny the very problem, due to their ideologically driven need to remain ignorant, are the serious problem here.

The pertinent point here is Parodites' one, that to give global authorities power to basically reorganize the earths entire economy so as to basically restructure the atmosphere, can not be done without creating a very dangerous inequality of power.

Trump uses rhetoric to keep a modicum of power out of the hands of the globalists. All means are justified here - as Globalism is precisely what Parodites says it is, and what every one can deduce it is; a concentration of power away from the people.

The belief in the need for global control is just an absence of faith in humanity's capacities to be at least as functional as a rodent. And it is precisely that lack of faith, stemming from weak people that are convinced that everyone must be weak - that has put genocidal sects that proclaim 'decency' in power....

When he is president, obviously Trump is going to be more effective in combating climate change as he is actually intelligent enough to deal with China, which is responsible for a massive part of the worlds greenhouse gasses.

The larger problem is obviously the cutting down of the Amazon. But Hillary and her sick snob electorate is just too fucking fond of soy to look in that direction. It's all so seethingly decadent, the left... fear of Trump only represents the apprehension before the surgeon.

Your definition of globalism as "concentration of power away from the people" is not a necessary definition at all, it totally rejects my definition of cooperative globalism among democratically participating nations in structures such as the UN; but worse, your definition other than being quite simplistic and black and white is basically just the definition of government as such. By definition to have a government at all is to concentrate some power a distance from "the people", and as I've already pointed out and which I believe has so far gone unanswered is that the political power of "the people" is largely the negative power to throw out bad leaders and is also the smaller positive power to abstractly ground political leadership in the populace at large, through voting and consent of the governed.

"The people" did not write the US Constitution. A very small group of highly educated and dedicated people did. This whole hypostasizing of the category of "the people" into some kind of political God is troubling to me, to say the least.

As for the other post you made, here is some response below (guess I got sucked back into the fray). And by the way, which points of yours or Parodites have I not responded to? Quote them and I will respond.

Definition: demagogue, " 1. a political leader who seeks support by appealing to popular desires and prejudices rather than by using rational argument.
1. synonyms:
2. rabble-rouser, agitator, political agitator, soapbox orator, firebrand, fomenter, provocateur"he was drawn into a circle of campus demagogues" 
3.  
* (in ancient Greece and Rome) a leader or orator who espoused the cause of the common people."

In depth here, http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/12/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-demagogues/419514/

What makes Trump a demagogue? He is the very definition of using rhetorical tactics (such as mind-numbing repetition, or using child-level vocabulary), lies, red herring, hyperbole, "racism" (bigotedly grouping people into fixed blocs based on nationality or religion (no use splitting hairs about "Islam is not a race" or "Mexican is not a race", I already know that, the idea still stands)), grandstanding, doomsday prophesizing, and generally feeding on populist sentiment and anger while offering very little real substance.

Quote :: Donald Trump appeals to voters’ fears by depicting a nation in crisis, while positioning himself as the nation’s hero – the only one who can conquer our foes, secure our borders and “Make America Great Again.”
His lack of specificity about how he would accomplish these goals is less relevant than his self-assured, convincing rhetoric. He urges his audiences to “trust him,” promises he is “really smart” and flexes his prophetic muscles (like when he claims to have predicted the 9/11 attacks).
Trump’s self-congratulating rhetoric makes him appear to be the epitome of hubris, which, according to research, is often the least attractive quality of a potential leader. However, Trump is so consistent in his hubris that it appears authentic: his greatness is America’s greatness.
So we can safely call Trump a demagogue. But one fear of having demagogues actually attain real power is that they’ll disregard the law or the Constitution. Hitler, of course, is a worst-case example.

http://theconversation.com/the-rhetorical-brilliance-of-trump-the-demagogue-51984

You could look up "demagogue" in the dictionary and find a picture of Trump. He is the textbook example of what the term means. I can't even see how that is possibly up for debate whatsoever.

As for that GIF image, so the person who used actual video of Trump himself is in poor taste, but Trump's own behavior on that video is not? How does that work? You seriously want to claim that a grown adult standing up in front of the world, wanting to be president, and physically emulating retarded motions with a douche bag look on his face is "high taste"? Um.

The shift to coddling disabilities today is an over-reaction to the much longer tradition of dismissing and discriminating against disabilities. Pendulums swing one way and then the other, not going to hit it perfectly on the mark until it has swung many times in both directions. But that doesn't at all justify Trump's absolutely childish, immature and quite frankly utterly embarrassing behavior. He is seemingly at the emotional level of a 12 year old boy bullying other kids on the playground because he thinks it makes him seem "cool".

Fixed Cross wrote:

Capable wrote:: Oh yeah and Trump and these Right conservatives don't believe in global warming. This is sort of like their desire to teach creationism in schools, or their aversion to sex ed. There is a precise reason for this way of thinking, and it is based in ideology. I don't want to get deep into those reasons just yet, but I want to let this sink in: Trump rejects climate science, he seriously thinks he knows more than actual scientists and experts here. It isn't like he has studied the data and come to this conclusion, oh no, not at all, this is pure ideology. He literally and at the level of his self-valuing cannot accept even the basic concept of human-influenced global warming.

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/full.html

http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

https://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-global-warming.htm

http://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/global-warming/science-and-impacts/global-warming-science#.V_UCuIY8LYU

I really do understand and sympathize with the psychological need at the root of the impulse to deny global warming's existence or importance, I used to be in that same camp. But it was just based on ignorance, and once we educate ourselves a little bit there is no longer any excuse for that ignorance, nor is there any excuse to refuse to educate ourselves on this issue. This is a problem we can actually solve, addressing global warming before hitting the runaway peak threshold, but public leaders like Trump who arrogantly and petulantly deny the very problem, due to their ideologically driven need to remain ignorant, are the serious problem here.

The pertinent point here is Parodites' one, that to give global authorities power to basically reorganize the earths entire economy so as to basically restructure the atmosphere, can not be done without creating a very dangerous inequality of power.

Trump uses rhetoric to keep a modicum of power out of the hands of the globalists. All means are justified here - as Globalism is precisely what Parodites says it is, and what every one can deduce it is; a concentration of power away from the people.

The belief in the need for global control is just an absence of faith in humanity's capacities to be at least as functional as a rodent. And it is precisely that lack of faith, stemming from weak people that are convinced that everyone must be weak - that has put genocidal sects that proclaim 'decency' in power....

When he is president, obviously Trump is going to be more effective in combating climate change as he is actually intelligent enough to deal with China, which is responsible for a massive part of the worlds greenhouse gasses.

The larger problem is obviously the cutting down of the Amazon. But Hillary and her sick snob electorate is just too fucking fond of soy to look in that direction. It's all so seethingly decadent, the left... fear of Trump only represents the apprehension before the surgeon.

Before I read Capable's response, I want to say: I do not believe it is up to the gringos to defend the Amazon.

If the peoples and inmediate territorial allies of the Amazon cannot work shit out, we sort of deserve having it ripped from our hands.

The fight is not to avoid Clinton ripping the Amazon from the Amazonians, it is to become worthy as Amazonians of the Amazon.

Let me put it this way.

As a prophet of the Amazon, I am not here to defend her. I am here to try to save the world from her wrath. But I'd rather lose myself than the Amazon lose anything, so beware all ye who seek her destruction.

Bottom line, I like the Amazon better than I like Climate Agreements made by genocidal billionaire clans.

Points I have made that I know or believe have not been addressed yet (please correct me if they have been):

1. The false conflation that Trump made between protecting Iraqi oil from terrorists and stealing it for our own use.
2. Trump ripping off contractors and American steel workers by secretly purchasing Chinese steel for his buildings and for refusing to pay contractors for work done.
3. Trump using third world sweat shops for his clothing line, and owning stock in the very companies he supposedly objects to (Ford, GM, Nabisco, etc.)
4. The fact that "tyranny of the majority" is a very real concern and that direct democracy on policy issues doesn't work very well and isn't ideal (as I said, in no other field or line of work or policy do we take a "vote of "the people"" for policy or decide what to do).
5. A democratized group of nations is a real possible form of globalism (globalism is not inherently "totalitarian" any more than government itself is).
6. The government should not be run like a business (for profits).
7. Global level problems actually do require global level solutions.
8. The idea of workers rights, unions and some trade protectionism is a basically politically Left position (the opposite position of "free trade" global capitalism is the neoliberal-neoconservative idea).
9. The political Right (Republican party of which Trump is a member) in the US generally supports corporations as people, money as speech and the decimation of institutions like the EPA whose task is to hold corporations to a basic standard of social beneficence toward public spaces and public health; again the notion that corporations are not people, money is not speech and companies should generally serve the public interest or at least not seriously damage it, these are all politically Left views.
10. Global warming does actually exist and it is actually very critically important that we address it somehow. Trump's denial of these facts is based on his ideological need to remain ignorant here.

I found one point Parodites made and you just reiterated which I have yet to respond to, namely that global government would amount to giving power to be tyrannical, that in order to fight global warming we would necessarily be handing over tyrannical power to a global level government. I disagree because while yes global government could be used for tyrannical ends, this is the case with any government; it requires that we carefully craft the structure of government such as the Founders did in the US, and not just abandon the entire project. Again this falls back on the fact that I've already outlined my idea of how global government could work, a kind of UN like setup but with more force of law and some kind of basic shared military apparatus. Decisions would be voted on by representatives, not made by one tyrant.

Another point I found where I didn't properly respond yet: Parodites claim that the US constitution exists as a means for the will of the people to realize itself, "The US constitution and founding documents were designed in order to provide the masses the instrument by which to express- as perfectly as possible, that will. It has been corrupted as I said by the centralized federal government. The founders also hoped we would even make further improvements to it, as opposed to fuck it up like we've done." My response is that the US constitution set up a government of division of powers and representative elected leadership precisely to also prevent the "the people" from "expressing their will". We have an entire judicial branch that is equal to the other branches; the judicial branch doesn't work by submitting issues to popular vote. Neither are laws written like that. In fact the US constitution makes it quite difficult for direct popular vote of the people to enact any laws (amending the constitution requires 3/4 vote of all states (yes states, not even direct democracy here either). It's diluted surrogate governance of layers of representation with checks and balances where experts positioned at key points in the system (such as judges) make critical determinations. I absolutely disagree that the will of the people is somehow the central or sole goal here. If it were, direct popular vote would have been the basic template on which decisions of law and policy are made, and that is not the case. The vast majority of the time we vote for REPRESENTATIVES, people, not on law or policy directly. This allows for compromises and for expert level thought on issues to coexist with the larger and more blind, inexpert will of the people. It's basically a system of compromise. And that is why it works.

Edit: Disclaimer: no feelings were harmed in the making of this post.

Capable wrote:: Points I have made that I know or believe have not been addressed yet (please correct me if they have been):

Let me address all of them a bit. I will not make any excuses for what I think politics fundamentally is... which is opportunistic.

Quote :: 1. The false conflation that Trump made between protecting Iraqi oil from terrorists and stealing it for our own use.

It's already stolen; the US and Saudi Arabia form a robber clan that controls the world through oil. Iraqs oil has been stolen when Saddam was put in power by the US... very many US wars have been about stealing resources. Trump is sort playing with what is de facto happening under Obama; stealing the oil.

Quote :: 2. Trump ripping off contractors and American steel workers by secretly purchasing Chinese steel for his buildings and for refusing to pay contractors for work done.

Yes, everyone working in real estate contracting is in touch with crime, crime rules that world for the full hundred percent. I know Trump is very good in dealing with criminals - he is a New York businessman contractor. I consider his capacity for simple, effective schemes an asset, right now, in a world that is made entirely of scheming.

Obviously the president of the USA needs to be a highly amoral man - or woman - you need to kill arbitrarily a lot - I see Trump as the least amoral so far. Clinton was the worst - he destroyed Europe by bombing Belgrado and making war with the Russians when the cold war had just ended. Bush and Obama were just continuations of Clintons nationrobbing.

But I digress.

Quote :: 3. Trump using third world sweat shops for his clothing line, and owning stock in the very companies he supposedly objects to (Ford, GM, Nabisco, etc.)

Ive seen him admit to this. He said "Im a businessman now, not yet a politician." Very honest of him, actually. It also shows that he understands what both are, business ad politics, how they differ at bottom; politics is representation, business is not.

US deregulation has made it very hard to profit from legitimate domestic businesses. They were all forced abroad by Clinton, or into bankrupcy, it seems...

Quote :: 4. The fact that "tyranny of the majority" is a very real concern and that direct democracy on policy issues doesn't work very well and isn't ideal (as I said, in no other field or line of work or policy do we take a "vote of "the people"" for policy or decide what to do).

I agree, but only in that it has produced, so far, a lot of butchers. Imagine that Truman was once voted in... then Trump isnt all that bad, at all.
I think, as Ive said before, that Trump represents the more lofty ad sane part of the electorate.

Quote :: 5. A democratized group of nations is a real possible form of globalism (globalism is not inherently "totalitarian" any more than government itself is).

Id call that a global balance of power, but if that is what you envision, we envision things that are alike.

Quote :: 6. The government should not be run like a business (for profits).

Certainly, but it should also not spend tax dollars on things that a large part of the populace is vehemently against, especially if they are in direct contradiction with the founding Logos of the country, which is to have individualism over collectivism.

Quote :: 7. Global level problems actually do require global level solutions.

Unfortunately we are all humans, and humans have never been able to reach that sort of agreement. As I see it, all attempts to regulate globally have directly caused genocidal wastelands. What I think is that al nations should take care of ther own shit, and by economy, pressure each others in doing that too.

Trump plans to do this sort of thing, he says - to put actual pressure on the Chinese, rather than get stuck in a fruitless intellectual debate, over what is real or isnt - all that can be done is to pressure the culprits with real, not rhetoric, pressure.

ALl these committees on climate change, they cost billions, and they only make sure no one is spontaneously doing anything.
Clinton appears a slave to the Chinese, as she is one to Wall Street, and Wall Street is seemingly enslaved to Chinese economical decisions. This is why she wont put direct pressure on them to reduce their exhaust gasses, I assume.

Quote :: 8. The idea of workers rights, unions and some trade protectionism is a basically politically Left position (the opposite position of "free trade" global capitalism is the neoliberal-neoconservative idea).

I disagree. The left/right distinction came from Marx, who took a perfectly pan-political English workers movement for an extra day off (weekend), and minimum wage, and made it itno some bizarre metaphysical 'necessity'. Traditionally, working classes vote conservative, namely to keep their jobs - only when a right wing regime needs to be replaced to they sometimes go for left - but this regime now is ultra-left, ultra statist, and has all but destroyed the working class.

Consider how utterly noble it is for people to fight to the right to work, to build something.

I dont believe in left and right at all, never have, by the way. Trump talks like someone who understands peoples desire to make themselves useful, rather than being urged to feel guilty for wanting to work. I dont care who is in the left, or in the right textballoon - I just know that he's right about this, regardless of what he can ultimatey accomplish.
It is a very crucial thing to just have your values expressed for a person, especially when the last 20 years, your presidents have scolded you for having values, and for complaining when they give all your values away to fascist and simply incompetent regimes overseas.

Trump motly represents normal people being fed up with being lectured by the very people that ruin their lives, towns, states, country, and planet. In this sense, at least, he represents me. He is the most dignified and honest representative politician I ever saw. Hillary is of course not elected really, so she isnt a representative politician, just a banal criminal. But she's not the issue here.

Quote :: 9. The political Right (Republican party of which Trump is a member) in the US generally supports corporations as people, money as speech and the decimation of institutions like the EPA whose task is to hold corporations to a basic standard of social beneficence toward public spaces and public health; again the notion that corporations are not people, money is not speech and companies should generally serve the public interest or at least not seriously damage it, these are all politically Left views.

As Ive said I dont see life in categories like that, what Ive seen happen with my own eyes is the Democrats under Clinton have sold out the country and planet to a few corporations, and they were enthusiastically helped by the Bush clan, for the whole thing to be extended by Obama. They are lal clearly of the same party,despite the shows they put up to pretend to be adversaries. It would be hilarious if it was acted a bit better. Now its just watching a bunch of sanctimonious Hitler wannabes seeing who can make the most pointless kills with a smile... I truly dont get what their joy is but they seem to enjoy it. Anyway - this is what I keep coming back to. The lat 4 presidents were just basically American Hitlers, in terms of the disregard for human life.

Quote :: 10. Global warming does actually exist and it is actually very critically important that we address it somehow. Trump's denial of these facts is based on his ideological need to remain ignorant here.

I think that the point Parodites has been making is the right one; nothing is worth handing over our power to a global elite. Nothing furthermore exists that count count as a reason to trust that such elites would even be remotely capable of addressing any issue with success. These are the same elites that have caused global warming - who have shaped the world of uncontrolled industry that we're in.

Now we should give them more power in the belief they will act wisely and on our behalf? Hmmm... no.

Quote :: I found one point Parodites made and you just reiterated which I have yet to respond to, namely that global government would amount to giving power to be tyrannical, that in order to fight global warming we would necessarily be handing over tyrannical power to a global level government. I disagree because while yes global government could be used for tyrannical ends, this is the case with any government; it requires that we carefully craft the structure of government such as the Founders did in the US, and not just abandon the entire project. Again this falls back on the fact that I've already outlined my idea of how global government could work, a kind of UN like setup but with more force of law and some kind of basic shared military apparatus. Decisions would be voted on by representatives, not made by one tyrant.

That it happens with any government is precisely why it will certainly happen with something as colossal and unwieldy as a global government. Al the UN does these decennia is stand by while the chosen dictators or militias slaughter their populations. Then they extend the dictator a document.

Quote :: Another point I found where I didn't properly respond yet: Parodites claim that the US constitution exists as a means for the will of the people to realize itself, "The US constitution and founding documents were designed in order to provide the masses the instrument by which to express- as perfectly as possible, that will. It has been corrupted as I said by the centralized federal government. The founders also hoped we would even make further improvements to it, as opposed to fuck it up like we've done." My response is that the US constitution set up a government of division of powers and representative elected leadership precisely to also prevent the "the people" from "expressing their will". We have an entire judicial branch that is equal to the other branches; the judicial branch doesn't work by submitting issues to popular vote. Neither are laws written like that. In fact the US constitution makes it quite difficult for direct popular vote of the people to enact any laws (amending the constitution requires 3/4 vote of all states (yes states, not even direct democracy here either). It's diluted surrogate governance of layers of representation with checks and balances where experts positioned at key points in the system (such as judges) make critical determinations. I absolutely disagree that the will of the people is somehow the central or sole goal here. If it were, direct popular vote would have been the basic template on which decisions of law and policy are made, and that is not the case. The vast majority of the time we vote for REPRESENTATIVES, people, not on law or policy directly. This allows for compromises and for expert level thought on issues to coexist with the larger and more blind, inexpert will of the people. It's basically a system of compromise. And that is why it works.

Edit: Disclaimer: no feelings were harmed in the making of this post.

Im between you and Parodites in this - I do believe the logos was the correct one, but as I said in this thread earlier, the logos was superimposed on a highly unequal landscape.

The whole suing and countersueing culture evidently makes it impossible for a nation to be truly stable. It is absolutely prepostrous. Maybe this would be a fertile subject to investigate for us - how to construct a proper legislative system without becoming socialist or anti-capitalist or anti-wealth.

All of it comes down to how valuing is understood, how it is ranked in the episteme, from which the law is born

That was a bit emotional again - the fate of the world may be decided in a month, I am a bit on edge.... it makes no sense to say they were Hitlers - it is just a reaction that I get, when I see a routine killer of civilians like Obama or Clinton compare their political adversary, who has not yet killed (nor condemned a race, or a gender), to Hitler I just instantly think: but wait, now that they mention the name, they do appear very Hitlerish...

Tower Posts : 791 ᚠ : 856 Join date : 2011-12-11

I just looked at the gif you sent, and the thing is: he does that hand thing to mock everyone, he had done it many times in the past. He didn't know the reporter had a disfigured arm. He made the same absurd gesture he had a million times before.

Is this your standard of taste? Just pull up a random hate article on Trump and run with it?

Tower Posts : 791 ᚠ : 856 Join date : 2011-12-11

And even if he did know the guy had a fucked up hand and mocked him- as I said, he didn't- so what? The reporter was a douche. I'll mock his fucking t-rex hand. I've done worse shit than that to people.

Tower Posts : 791 ᚠ : 856 Join date : 2011-12-11

No hard feelings in this, just have to respond.

" To hate one is to love the other. I recall Nietzsche talking about this logic as the basis of slave morality: you are bad (evil) therefore I am good. Clinton is bad/evil therefore Trump is good. Or, as Ive been falsely accused of already many times, just because I think Trump is bad (not "evil") must mean that I apparently think Clinton is good. "

Bullshit, nobody has intimated that you support Clinton. I recognize you do not, I have also recognized you're not supporting the current globalist regime. Is putting words in our mouth part of your elite debating skills that you learned?

1. The false conflation that Trump made between protecting Iraqi oil from terrorists and stealing it for our own use.

2. Trump ripping off contractors and American steel workers by secretly purchasing Chinese steel for his buildings and for refusing to pay contractors for work done.
[His practice as a businessman is typical and nothing illegal was done.]
3. Trump using third world sweat shops for his clothing line, and owning stock in the very companies he supposedly objects to (Ford, GM, Nabisco, etc.)
[His practice as a businessman is typical and nothing illegal was done.]
4. The fact that "tyranny of the majority" is a very real concern and that direct democracy on policy issues doesn't work very well and isn't ideal (as I said, in no other field or line of work or policy do we take a "vote of "the people"" for policy or decide what to do).
[What does that have to do with Trump, specifically? And our process is much more complicated, it takes into account to some extent the non-homogeneous nature of ideology, it's a representative government, etc. Are you... suggesting that Trump should be denied the presidency even if we wins the popular vote? What is the point? Is Trump a tyranny of the majority? ]
5. A democratized group of nations is a real possible form of globalism (globalism is not inherently "totalitarian" any more than government itself is).
[Government- centralized federal top down government: is itself totalitarian and fascistic.]
6. The government should not be run like a business (for profits).
[Says who? The US government should exist to maximize American interests over those of other nations and populations. Does that mean "for profit"? Do you disagree?]
7. Global level problems actually do require global level solutions.
[An assertion.]
8. The idea of workers rights, unions and some trade protectionism is a basically politically Left position (the opposite position of "free trade" global capitalism is the neoliberal-neoconservative idea).

9. The political Right (Republican party of which Trump is a member) in the US generally supports corporations as people, money as speech and the decimation of institutions like the EPA whose task is to hold corporations to a basic standard of social beneficence toward public spaces and public health; again the notion that corporations are not people, money is not speech and companies should generally serve the public interest or at least not seriously damage it, these are all politically Left views.
[This is the most absurd comment you've made. The whole POINT is that Trump is transforming the Republican platform because people have demanded it change. Trump was once a democrat, once a reform party member. And if that's what the EPA does it fucking sucks at it- as all federal institutions do. I'd get rid of them all, including the EPA. The constitution didn't invest any power to the fucking EPA as far as I know, maybe I need to re-read it.]
10. Global warming does actually exist and it is actually very critically important that we address it somehow. Trump's denial of these facts is based on his ideological need to remain ignorant here.
[It's not that important. Russia's nuclear arsenal I'd say is a little more important.]

" Your idea here is that the articulation of the genetics as Hegel is after, is entirely formal and empty; this is not correct, because as soon as this 'empty' system is set up, and through being set up in the first place at all, it immediately starts appropriating contents to itself, like a low pressure system into which a high pressure naturally moves."

My whole point is that the dialectic does not logically function. If it actually worked, then sure. For the reason I mentioned in the other thread: in order for two things to enter into a dialectical relationship, you have to have a negative function: one has to negate the other. There exist many things that simply cannot be brought into a relation of this kind. Force, in Nietzsche, relates only in a positive function, namely to other Force, expressing the purity of Being's affirmation in terms of the Will-To-Power. I've already given my alternative to Hegelian dialectic, Nietzsche had his.

I cannot ascribe to Being any negativity. I simply can't accept the premise.

"Can you imagine an electrician, or a mechanic, or a philosopher, or a doctor, or an engineer, or a pilot, demeaning their own field and bragging that they're an "outsider" with little to no experience in that field, woud you hire an electrician who hates the field and has little to no experience in it? "

You're conflating. It's not good that he's not a politician, it's good that he's not one of [i]these politicians. I'm a bit astounded. Do you find something tasteful in these people? I hate all the supreme court justices, I've hated the last couple presidents; I hate most of congress.

" Why is politics supposed to be different? Trump and his kind of "little guy, good old regular person" crowd seriously believe that government is the problem and seriously believe that not having experience in government is a requirement for being in government..."

The government has made decisions that have cost us. Philosophically, the federal government points a gun in my face and tells me what to do. That's why I dislike it. I mean: these politicians and government officials have experience navigating through reams of useless laws like our present tax code that only benefit them and the corporate elites- yes, they have experience in that.

"Your definition of globalism as "concentration of power away from the people" is not a necessary definition at all, it totally rejects my definition of cooperative globalism among democratically participating nations in structures such as the UN"

Yeah, and the point is: what if America doesn't want to fucking cooperate anymore? What if it is costing us too much?

" But that doesn't at all justify Trump's absolutely childish, immature and quite frankly utterly embarrassing behavior. He is seemingly at the emotional level of a 12 year old boy bullying other kids on the playground because he thinks it makes him seem "cool". "

Jesus Christ, more about t-rex arm guy. You need to lighten up. I mentioned how Jefferson and the like did even more "outrageous" things than Trump has. Who cares?

"My response is that the US constitution set up a government of division of powers and representative elected leadership precisely to also prevent the "the people" from "expressing their will". We have an entire judicial branch that is equal to the other branches; the judicial branch doesn't work by submitting issues to popular vote. Neither are laws written like that. In fact the US constitution makes it quite difficult for direct popular vote of the people to enact any laws (amending the constitution requires 3/4 vote of all states (yes states, not even direct democracy here either). It's diluted surrogate governance of layers of representation with checks and balances where experts positioned at key points in the system (such as judges) make critical determinations. I absolutely disagree that the will of the people is somehow the central or sole goal here."

Nobody was talking about popular votes. The point is our federal government has vastly overstepped the boundary of power afforded to it by the constitution. Unless the constitution explicitly defines a power for the federal government, then that power doesn't exist.[/i]

Fixed Cross wrote:

Capable wrote:: Points I have made that I know or believe have not been addressed yet (please correct me if they have been):

Let me address all of them a bit. I will not make any excuses for what I think politics fundamentally is... which is opportunistic.

Quote :: 1. The false conflation that Trump made between protecting Iraqi oil from terrorists and stealing it for our own use.

It's already stolen; the US and Saudi Arabia form a robber clan that controls the world through oil. Iraqs oil has been stolen when Saddam was put in power by the US... very many US wars have been about stealing resources. Trump is sort playing with what is de facto happening under Obama; stealing the oil.

Thanks sincerely for taking the time to address each of these points I made. I hope to reply in kind.

But when we went into Iraq and secured the oil fields, we ultimately left them, returned them to the Iraqis. The entire problem Trump was talking about was that the US forces left the oil fields and ISIS moves in to take them over. Yes I realize that the US has stolen national resources such as oil, again I am not naive, if you read Confessions of an Economic Hitman this is really the best source material I know of here. I have no illusions. But Trump is nakedly bragging that we should just embrace this deplorable state of affairs.

You yourself seem to clearly oppose the state of affairs where the US "steals the oil", so why on earth are you defending Trump when he "goes along with Obama?" More specifically, in Iraq, the US did return the oil fields to the Iraqi people, which was absolutely the right thing to do.

Quote :

Quote :: 2. Trump ripping off contractors and American steel workers by secretly purchasing Chinese steel for his buildings and for refusing to pay contractors for work done.

Yes, everyone working in real estate contracting is in touch with crime, crime rules that world for the full hundred percent.

I don't know this. How could you know that this is true, what is your reasoning or experience or evidence here? This seems like a quite extreme claim. And again, even if it is true, which I do not know that it is, you seem to just be apologizing for it while at the same time you acknowledge on some level that you know it is problematic. Or maybe you don't find organized crime problematic or morally reprehensible at all?

Quote :: I know Trump is very good in dealing with criminals - he is a New York businessman contractor. I consider his capacity for simple, effective schemes an asset, right now, in a world that is made entirely of scheming.

Again this is a very, very cynical view. Yes there are schemes, but no I do not think "everything is a scheme". That sort of thinking seems to be a cop out, the kind of easy hyperbole that Trump uses to make thinking easy on himself -- dividing the world into blacks and whites, "this is that" sort of absolute statements. I think, instead, that things are quire a bit more complex than this. Most things are somewhere in the gray area. But again, what evidence or reason do you have to claim that Trump is "very good at dealing with criminals"? I don't know that this is true. And what specifically do you even mean by that statement?

Quote :: Obviously the president of the USA needs to be a highly amoral man - or woman - you need to kill arbitrarily a lot

I disagree. And again, you seem to be, on the one hand, deploring Clinton-type sociopathic US imperialism while on the other hand saying this is somehow necessary... I don't understand this weird combination of these two opposed attitudes.

But more to the point, the US does not need a highly immoral leader. Killing is not always immoral. Killing should not be arbitrary, it should be driven by philosophical principles when it is necessary (self-defense, national defense, in defense of human rights, etc.). I do not accept that immoral arbitrary killing simply for our own narrow gain (of oil, or whatever else) can at all be justified. I think you probably agree, because if you don't, then you would have no problem with Clinton at all. She would be your champion.

Quote :: - I see Trump as the least amoral so far. Clinton was the worst - he destroyed Europe by bombing Belgrado and making war with the Russians when the cold war had just ended. Bush and Obama were just continuations of Clintons nationrobbing.

But I digress.

Yes the whole Afghanistan/Iraq thing was really bad. Clinton in Europe, yes also very bad.

Your argument seems to be trying to thread the needle as follows: "We need some immorality, but not too much immorality... Trump is at little immoral but not as bad as Clinton, Bush etc." Is this really your position, are you trying to toe the line here on precisely how much "immorality" is "necessary" or not? How would you know, what are your standards of measure and value in making such a determination?

Quote :

Quote :: 3. Trump using third world sweat shops for his clothing line, and owning stock in the very companies he supposedly objects to (Ford, GM, Nabisco, etc.)

Ive seen him admit to this. He said "Im a businessman now, not yet a politician." Very honest of him, actually. It also shows that he understands what both are, business ad politics, how they differ at bottom; politics is representation, business is not.

US deregulation has made it very hard to profit from legitimate domestic businesses. They were all forced abroad by Clinton, or into bankrupcy, it seems...

I have not seen Trump admit this. If that is true then he is basically saying "hey I am doing bad things because it is really hard to be good!" Well, that isn't really a defense, just a pale justification and excuse. In any sense it is not a philosophical reason. If Trump really, sincerely cared about these issues of sweatshops and outsourcing and the like, he wouldn't be doing these very same things himself. And not only in the past, and that he now had a change of heart... he is still doing these things right now.

Quote :

Quote :: 4. The fact that "tyranny of the majority" is a very real concern and that direct democracy on policy issues doesn't work very well and isn't ideal (as I said, in no other field or line of work or policy do we take a "vote of "the people"" for policy or decide what to do).

I agree, but only in that it has produced, so far, a lot of butchers. Imagine that Truman was once voted in... then Trump isnt all that bad, at all.
I think, as Ive said before, that Trump represents the more lofty and sane part of the electorate.

I absolutely do not agree on this point. That little GIF clip of him demonstrates quite clearly the kind of "sanity" he has, especially when you consider that he did those antics on live TV broadcasting to the entire world.

Quote :

Quote :: 5. A democratized group of nations is a real possible form of globalism (globalism is not inherently "totalitarian" any more than government itself is).

Id call that a global balance of power, but if that is what you envision, we envision things that are alike.

Great, this is good to know. We have a clear thing in common now. We can build from this.

Quote :

Quote :: 6. The government should not be run like a business (for profits).

Certainly, but it should also not spend tax dollars on things that a large part of the populace is vehemently against, especially if they are in direct contradiction with the founding Logos of the country, which is to have individualism over collectivism.

Like what? What sort of things and spending are you referring to here? Please state it and explain how it is in direct contradiction with the founding Logos.

Quote :

Quote :: 7. Global level problems actually do require global level solutions.

Unfortunately we are all humans, and humans have never been able to reach that sort of agreement. As I see it, all attempts to regulate globally have directly caused genocidal wastelands. What I think is that all nations should take care of ther own shit, and by economy, pressure each others in doing that too.

Trump plans to do this sort of thing, he says - to put actual pressure on the Chinese, rather than get stuck in a fruitless intellectual debate, over what is real or isnt - all that can be done is to pressure the culprits with real, not rhetoric, pressure.

ALl these committees on climate change, they cost billions, and they only make sure no one is spontaneously doing anything.

How does scientists and policy makers getting together to discuss climate change and share data with each other, and think up things like the Paris Agreement, "make sure no one is spontaneously doing anything"?

International agreements are indeed quite possible, and have happened many times. "Globalism" is just another word for "international agreements". You can add the "by some degree of force" at the end if you like, but that is both unnecessary in the extreme apocalyptic sense of "force" here as well as always already the case in terms of mild force as incentives and pressure applied economically, as you were saying.

Quote :: Clinton appears a slave to the Chinese, as she is one to Wall Street, and Wall Street is seemingly enslaved to Chinese economical decisions. This is why she wont put direct pressure on them to reduce their exhaust gasses, I assume.

I did not know that Hillary Clinton will not put direct pressure on the Chinese to reduce their exhaust gasses. Where is this written or why do you think this?

As Zizek pointed out, the US sucks in a billion dollars a day from the rest of the world; this is debt spending that sustains not only the US economy through consumption but also sustains the other economies of the world, namely we buy the things they produce, we directly fund their economics through this trade deficit. Yes this is definitely a problem. But how is Trump going to solve that? Trump's own tax plan will add trillions of dollars to the US debt. Plus the situation is so complex now that if you just shut off the flow of billions into the US from the rest of the world, economies will collapse everywhere. There needs to be a measured, gradual winding-down of this situation into something more reasonable. I don't think Trump's proposes for trade wars would at all solve that. And other than trade wars and "making people pay what they owe (us)", I don't even know what is coherent macroeconomic policies are... maybe you do? Can you explain them to me if so and how they would slowly unwind the present irrational situation without blowing it all up to hell?

Quote :

Quote :: 8. The idea of workers rights, unions and some trade protectionism is a basically politically Left position (the opposite position of "free trade" global capitalism is the neoliberal-neoconservative idea).

I disagree. The left/right distinction came from Marx, who took a perfectly pan-political English workers movement for an extra day off (weekend), and minimum wage, and made it itno some bizarre metaphysical 'necessity'. Traditionally, working classes vote conservative, namely to keep their jobs - only when a right wing regime needs to be replaced to they sometimes go for left - but this regime now is ultra-left, ultra statist, and has all but destroyed the working class.

I am only speaking of US politics here. I understand the left/right political divide doesnt perfectly translate from the US to European countries.

Marx's point was that the class war being fought at the economic level of labor against capital owners is indeed a kind of metaphysical necessity as you called it. That is absolutely truly the case. Marx was right about that. If you disagree, tell me why. The entire nature of labor is that we (you and I, most people) are required to sell our labor power as a commodity to a capital owner; the capital owner literally buys us as indentured servants and we sell our intellectual or physical or emotional labor, the capitalist sits around and by virtue of owning the capital is able to directly appropriate our labor to himself, and "pays" us wages that are commensurate only with the cost of this labor (again, us, you and me and most people) replacing itself over time as a flesh mass workforce.

Yes, that is a fucked up, highly "metaphysical" situation that human being is present locked in. Marx was right to call bullshit on it.

Quote :: Consider how utterly noble it is for people to fight to the right to work, to build something.

Indeed work is, all other things being equal, a noble and necessary thing. That does not at all refute the above point I just made.

Quote :: I dont believe in left and right at all, never have, by the way. Trump talks like someone who understands peoples desire to make themselves useful, rather than being urged to feel guilty for wanting to work. I dont care who is in the left, or in the right textballoon - I just know that he's right about this, regardless of what he can ultimatey accomplish.

You're homogenizing all "work" into the same category, a supposedly noble thing where we desire to "be useful" in some grand beautiful sense. Most work today does not conform to that standard. Most people feel like slaves, and are slaves.

Quote :: It is a very crucial thing to just have your values expressed for a person, especially when the last 20 years, your presidents have scolded you for having values, and for complaining when they give all your values away to fascist and simply incompetent regimes overseas.

Trump mostly represents normal people being fed up with being lectured by the very people that ruin their lives, towns, states, country, and planet. In this sense, at least, he represents me. He is the most dignified and honest representative politician I ever saw. Hillary is of course not elected really, so she isnt a representative politician, just a banal criminal. But she's not the issue here.

Again, we will disagree. Which people have ruined the lives of which other people, and how? NAFTA puts manufacturing out of business but creates a ton of other jobs elsewhere, such as in service industries and traded goods, imports, small proprietors and entrepreneurs and salesmen. NAFTA also lowers prices on goods and services over time (I am not defending NAFTA, but I am pointing out that these same Trump supporters have also benefitted from it too). The only ones who really get net zero or negative benefit from NAFTA are A) if you literally really did lose your job at the steel mill and are basically unemployable now, or 2) if you are working in a third world sweat shop or jumping off the roof of Foxconn. Those people have legitimate complaints against NAFTA... these petulant Trump supporters are not seriously in a position to complain at all, they are just "disaffected" and mostly whining. Trust me, I have been to Tea Party rallies, I have seen what it is like there.

Imagine a bunch of well to do upper middle class white guys in business suits holding up anti-Obama signs about how Amerca is Tyranny now. Yeah, these fucking people have no idea what tyranny really is -- do you think they give one shit about the workers in the third world, or the lower class laborers who REALLY lose their jobs due to free trade policies? Nope. They just care about their own narrow ideological, partisan feelings and getting to spout off against "them liberals".

This is precisely my point, that most of these supposedly angry Trump supporters aren't seriously upset by the REAL problems that we have. And neither for that matter is Trump. Mostly it is a lot of fake outrage (it is real outrage for faked reasons).

Quote :

Quote :: 9. The political Right (Republican party of which Trump is a member) in the US generally supports corporations as people, money as speech and the decimation of institutions like the EPA whose task is to hold corporations to a basic standard of social beneficence toward public spaces and public health; again the notion that corporations are not people, money is not speech and companies should generally serve the public interest or at least not seriously damage it, these are all politically Left views.

As Ive said I dont see life in categories like that, what Ive seen happen with my own eyes is the Democrats under Clinton have sold out the country and planet to a few corporations, and they were enthusiastically helped by the Bush clan, for the whole thing to be extended by Obama. They are lal clearly of the same party,despite the shows they put up to pretend to be adversaries. It would be hilarious if it was acted a bit better. Now its just watching a bunch of sanctimonious Hitler wannabes seeing who can make the most pointless kills with a smile... I truly dont get what their joy is but they seem to enjoy it. Anyway - this is what I keep coming back to. The last 4 presidents were just basically American Hitlers, in terms of the disregard for human life.

There are clear differences between the left and right parties here in the US. This radically cynical view, which I also think is deliberately defeatist, that they are all the same, there is no difference, it is all shit, everyone of them is Hitler, is just nonsense to me. But then again I live here and see first hand the real, down to earth differences in beliefs and attitudes of these people based on their political persuasion. And more to the point, the ideas themselves which you seem to appreciate, namely the ones mentioned just above in the quote, are at the philosophical and theoretical level progressive ideas, namely they stem from a deeply rooted belief and value in human rights, equality, fair treatment, the rights of the individual, and social justice when it comes to caring for public spaces and not allowing private industry to run over all of it, destroying and polluting or even just privatizing it all. These are good ideas, we need more ideas like this; they are fundamentally philosophical, progressive thoughts and values. It is good that you have them implicitly, but you don't seem to want to acknowledge from where they come or why they are really valuable at all.

Quote :

Quote :: 10. Global warming does actually exist and it is actually very critically important that we address it somehow. Trump's denial of these facts is based on his ideological need to remain ignorant here.

I think that the point Parodites has been making is the right one; nothing is worth handing over our power to a global elite. Nothing furthermore exists that count count as a reason to trust that such elites would even be remotely capable of addressing any issue with success. These are the same elites that have caused global warming - who have shaped the world of uncontrolled industry that we're in.

Industry itself isn't bad. Technology and science are the only ways we can fix global warming. We do not need to shut everything down, we need to keep innovating new ideas like carbon capture tech. And no, "the elites" didn't "create global warming", that is a weird and false way of looking at it. Global warming is a natural consequence of the industrialization of the modern world, probably every self-aware, sentient species in the universe confronts this challenge at a certain stage in its development as a species.

I of course agree that we should not just hand over our power to anyone. Obviously I agree on that. But I am saying we do not need to do that. Things like the Paris Agreement can happen if idiots like Trump get out of the way, denying the very problem itself. And why do you think big business apologists like these Republicans deny global warming? It is because of their own narrow self-interest at the level of business and profit. They do not want to have to scale back or pay for more advanced technology or pay a cost for the carbon they emit. There is heavy lobbying here in the US by the energy industry. The Republicans are basically, to a certain degree, beholden to these people and special interests. I don't know if Trump is beholden to them or not, but the GOP in general is.

Quote :: Now we should give them more power in the belief they will act wisely and on our behalf? Hmmm... no.

Again, this is not something I ever advocated, nor is that what would be necessary. When it comes to politics and serious problems I believe in honest and difficult pragmatism, not easy hyperbole.

Quote :

Quote :: I found one point Parodites made and you just reiterated which I have yet to respond to, namely that global government would amount to giving power to be tyrannical, that in order to fight global warming we would necessarily be handing over tyrannical power to a global level government. I disagree because while yes global government could be used for tyrannical ends, this is the case with any government; it requires that we carefully craft the structure of government such as the Founders did in the US, and not just abandon the entire project. Again this falls back on the fact that I've already outlined my idea of how global government could work, a kind of UN like setup but with more force of law and some kind of basic shared military apparatus. Decisions would be voted on by representatives, not made by one tyrant.

That it happens with any government is precisely why it will certainly happen with something as colossal and unwieldy as a global government. Al the UN does these decennia is stand by while the chosen dictators or militias slaughter their populations. Then they extend the dictator a document.

You are arguing against a specific iteration of the UN, and not even the UN in general, much less the idea as such of a "United Nations" sort of structure. The UN indeed does condone violence and genocide, approve sanctions, sent in peacekeepers and relief supplies and aid workers, and try to organize for peace. Yes they aren't always great at it, there needs to be a lot more work being done here. That is precisely my point, which you seem to indirectly be agreeing to: the UN is not yet good enough, we need more of this very same thing. Your very complaint against the UN, that it is not effective at its ostensible goals, is also precisely my point too.

Quote :

Quote :: Another point I found where I didn't properly respond yet: Parodites claim that the US constitution exists as a means for the will of the people to realize itself, "The US constitution and founding documents were designed in order to provide the masses the instrument by which to express- as perfectly as possible, that will. It has been corrupted as I said by the centralized federal government. The founders also hoped we would even make further improvements to it, as opposed to fuck it up like we've done." My response is that the US constitution set up a government of division of powers and representative elected leadership precisely to also prevent the "the people" from "expressing their will". We have an entire judicial branch that is equal to the other branches; the judicial branch doesn't work by submitting issues to popular vote. Neither are laws written like that. In fact the US constitution makes it quite difficult for direct popular vote of the people to enact any laws (amending the constitution requires 3/4 vote of all states (yes states, not even direct democracy here either). It's diluted surrogate governance of layers of representation with checks and balances where experts positioned at key points in the system (such as judges) make critical determinations. I absolutely disagree that the will of the people is somehow the central or sole goal here. If it were, direct popular vote would have been the basic template on which decisions of law and policy are made, and that is not the case. The vast majority of the time we vote for REPRESENTATIVES, people, not on law or policy directly. This allows for compromises and for expert level thought on issues to coexist with the larger and more blind, inexpert will of the people. It's basically a system of compromise. And that is why it works.

Edit: Disclaimer: no feelings were harmed in the making of this post.

Im between you and Parodites in this - I do believe the logos was the correct one, but as I said in this thread earlier, the logos was superimposed on a highly unequal landscape.

The whole suing and countersueing culture evidently makes it impossible for a nation to be truly stable. It is absolutely prepostrous. Maybe this would be a fertile subject to investigate for us - how to construct a proper legislative system without becoming socialist or anti-capitalist or anti-wealth.

All of it comes down to how valuing is understood, how it is ranked in the episteme, from which the law is born

Yes, basically: reality is imperfect. Politics and economics especially.

Tower Posts : 791 ᚠ : 856 Join date : 2011-12-11

" You yourself seem to clearly oppose the state of affairs where the US "steals the oil", so why on earth are you defending Trump when he "goes along with Obama?" More specifically, in Iraq, the US did return the oil fields to the Iraqi people, which was absolutely the right thing to do. "

Obviously it wasn't. We shouldn't have left oil to a destabilized state where we know terrorist ideology was propagated.

"I have not seen Trump admit this. If that is true then he is basically saying "hey I am doing bad things because it is really hard to be good!" Well, that isn't really a defense, just a pale justification and excuse. In any sense it is not a philosophical reason"

You claim we can't rag on politicians because we haven't read their 1,000 page tax code, but your rag on Trump's business practice. People in his position have something called fiduciary responsibility. They must avoid paying costs that could be legally avoided, in order to maximize profits for their workers. If that means working the tax code, moving a factory out of the US, etc. then that's what he does. His point is that he shouldn't have to move his shit to another country, there shouldn't be a tax code full of loop holes. The tax code reform he is going to pass simplifies hundreds of pages to a single page, making it more of an even playing field for small and larger businesses. This reform will cost Trump himself a significant monetary loss.

Tower Posts : 791 ᚠ : 856 Join date : 2011-12-11

"There are clear differences between the left and right parties here in the US. This radically cynical view, which I also think is deliberately defeatist, that they are all the same, there is no difference, it is all shit, everyone of them is Hitler, is just nonsense to me. But then again I live here and see first hand the real, down to earth differences in beliefs and attitudes of these people based on their political persuasion. "

Nah, they're both (were) globalist corporatocratic parties. The only difference is in meaningless social issues: one likes fags, the other doesn't. On everything that matters they are the same. Bush and Obama's foreign policy was the same. Their views on the surveillance state were the same.

Tower Posts : 791 ᚠ : 856 Join date : 2011-12-11

"I found one point Parodites made and you just reiterated which I have yet to respond to, namely that global government would amount to giving power to be tyrannical, that in order to fight global warming we would necessarily be handing over tyrannical power to a global level government. I disagree because while yes global government could be used for tyrannical ends, this is the case with any government; it requires that we carefully craft the structure of government such as the Founders did in the US, and not just abandon the entire project. Again this falls back on the fact that I've already outlined my idea of how global government could work, a kind of UN like setup but with more force of law and some kind of basic shared military apparatus. Decisions would be voted on by representatives, not made by one tyrant."

The cultures and national identities in this world cannot possibly ever come together in the way you describe. It is not conceivable. You would have to first get rid of the idea of the nation state and open the borders, then simmer the population in a melting pot for a few generations.

Parodites wrote:: No hard feelings in this, just have to respond.

" To hate one is to love the other. I recall Nietzsche talking about this logic as the basis of slave morality: you are bad (evil) therefore I am good. Clinton is bad/evil therefore Trump is good. Or, as Ive been falsely accused of already many times, just because I think Trump is bad (not "evil") must mean that I apparently think Clinton is good. "

Bullshit, nobody has intimated that you support Clinton. I recognize you do not, I have also recognized you're not supporting the current globalist regime. Is putting words in our mouth part of your elite debating skills that you learned?

Thanks for the attitude and making it personal. Glad we can really elevate the conversation here.

Yes many times when I make arguments against Trump it has been replied that Clinton is much worse, or why don't I also attack Clinton also? This is the false dichotomy I am taking about; "Clinton is bad, therefore Trump is good, or must be good". It doesn't need to be a direct "You believe X" statement to conform to that fallacy, nor for the implication to be quite clear that apparently in order for me to attack or criticize Trump I am supposed to also either attack or defend Clinton; after all, why would Clinton come up so much when I am talking about Trump specifically, if perhaps not as the false dichotomy of the fallacy of excluded middle then maybe just as a kind of redirection?

Quote :: 1. The false conflation that Trump made between protecting Iraqi oil from terrorists and stealing it for our own use.

2. Trump ripping off contractors and American steel workers by secretly purchasing Chinese steel for his buildings and for refusing to pay contractors for work done.
[His practice as a businessman is typical and nothing illegal was done.]

That wasn't my point. My point was that Trump is being a clear hypocrite and apparently lying about truly caring about issues like cheap Chinese imported steel.

Quote :

3. Trump using third world sweat shops for his clothing line, and owning stock in the very companies he supposedly objects to (Ford, GM, Nabisco, etc.)
[His practice as a businessman is typical and nothing illegal was done.]

Ok, it is clear that tou are [i]deliberately missing my point.

I will be honest, this is a new low for BTL.

Quote :: 4. The fact that "tyranny of the majority" is a very real concern and that direct democracy on policy issues doesn't work very well and isn't ideal (as I said, in no other field or line of work or policy do we take a "vote of "the people"" for policy or decide what to do).
[What does that have to do with Trump, specifically? And our process is much more complicated, it takes into account to some extent the non-homogeneous nature of ideology, it's a representative government, etc. Are you... suggesting that Trump should be denied the presidency even if we wins the popular vote? What is the point? Is Trump a tyranny of the majority? ]

No, I am not saying that Trump should be denied the presidency if he wins the popular vote (although he could still lose anyway, thanks to the electoral college system). And the kind of fake populism and cheap religious pulpit-like demagoguery that Trump represents and cultivates in his followers is indeed flowing from the same place where the danger of tyranny of the majority resides. As de Tocqueville was referenced as saying in that news piece which you summarily dismissed without serious discussion.

Quote :: 5. A democratized group of nations is a real possible form of globalism (globalism is not inherently "totalitarian" any more than government itself is).
[Government- centralized federal top down government: is itself totalitarian and fascistic.]

No it is not, not necessarily. You can define it that way if you want, but that doesn't make it true. You could of course provide some evidence or reasoning in favor of the logical argument that federal top down government is necessarily totalitarian and fascistic.. that should be interesting to see.

Quote :: 6. The government should not be run like a business (for profits).
[Says who? The US government should exist to maximize American interests over those of other nations and populations. Does that mean "for profit"? Do you disagree?]

The point I made was that the nature of government is different from the nature of business. Not every thing can be capitalized upon to turn a profit, case in point with addressing polluting of common spaces (economic Tragedy of the Commons). The government in part exists to address those issues and problems which are either not capitalizable or ought not to be capitalized upon; the business world exists to generate those profits, pure and simple.

Quote :: 7. Global level problems actually do require global level solutions.
[An assertion.]

What the fucking hell? Where has the honest intention for serious discussion gone?

Yes it is an "assertion". It is also one that makes perfect sense, or perhaps you can tell me how you are going to address a problem of X scope if you aren't going to operate solutions at the same X level? Or perhaps you can be bothered to even reply to the point I made at all, rather than dismiss it out of hand like some fucking troll.

Anyway, I am fucking pissed off now. You achieved your end. I will not bother with the rest of what you wrote.

Tower Posts : 791 ᚠ : 856 Join date : 2011-12-11

"I of course agree that we should not just hand over our power to anyone. Obviously I agree on that. But I am saying we do not need to do that. Things like the Paris Agreement can happen if idiots like Trump get out of the way, denying the very problem itself. And why do you think big business apologists like these Republicans deny global warming? It is because of their own narrow self-interest at the level of business and profit"

And why do you think others push it so vehemently?

Could it be- perhaps, that the gravity of global warming falls somewhere in the middle between "it doesn't exist" and "it's our gravest existential threat," and that both parties are using it- as they use everything, to profit themselves?

Tower Posts : 791 ᚠ : 856 Join date : 2011-12-11

"Thanks for the attitude and making it personal. Glad we can really elevate the conversation here. "

No, no, no. You're the one who made it personal. At no point until this thread did I ever exhibit hostility, you are the one who has done so repeatedly.

I'm pissed that you lump several million Trump supporters into the "irredeemable asshole" category. As I support him, that is personal. You explicitly stated that one cannot like Trump "and have any heart", etc.

" No it is not, not necessarily. You can define it that way if you want, but that doesn't make it true. You could of course provide some evidence or reasoning in favor of the logical argument that federal top down government is necessarily totalitarian and fascistic.. that should be interesting to see. "

I'm not defining it, it's called a principle. The federal government draws its authority through force- it can legally dispense force; it does not draw it from our volition. Perhaps to some extent it will always be necessary, but this federal government has gone far beyond the scope of powers originally afforded to it. If you read the constitution as granting implied powers, there is no limit to the number of additional capacities you can add to the federal government. The only way to read it, is: if the constitituon does not explicitly define that power, it does not exist.

Tower Posts : 791 ᚠ : 856 Join date : 2011-12-11

You're the one in general that has allowed political discussion to become personal, when you began levying insults all over the place at Trump and anyone who likes him.

Tower Posts : 791 ᚠ : 856 Join date : 2011-12-11

" That wasn't my point. My point was that Trump is being a clear hypocrite and apparently lying about truly caring about issues like cheap Chinese imported steel. "

What I said about fiduciary responsibility applies. Or instead of that explanation for the variance in his business practice and his politics, you could just call him a liar.

Tower Posts : 791 ᚠ : 856 Join date : 2011-12-11

"Global level problems actually do require global level solutions."

The reason I didn't address it seriously, is the following: for the reasons I mentioned about national identities being too different to cooperate effectively, that global level of cooperation will never appear organically. China is never going to quit fucking up the environment in some spirit of human fraternity with us. You might get Russia to dismantle a couple bombs, if you're lucky: but they're never going away. So we must rely on less than global solutions.

Tower Posts : 791 ᚠ : 856 Join date : 2011-12-11

And I am still irritated that you claim: I am the one making it personal. My debate skill comment was a fucking joke, dude. Your comment that I'm an irredeemable amoral heartless asshole because I like Trump- that wasn't a joke.

Tower Posts : 791 ᚠ : 856 Join date : 2011-12-11

Honestly, what the fuck are you talking about?

[Just to be clear, if we're still on the topic, here is your standard of taste:

http://giphy.com/gifs/fun-trump-donald-cEb1tO6Xvn0DS]

That wasn't a personal insult?

So go be pissed off, just understand: you're the one who made it personal first.

The fact that you won't support Trump never became for me a signature of defect or malice in your person, I just took you as having got caught up in the spirit of Trumpenhate, as we may have perhaps got caught up in the opposite. But you have quite clearly allowed the fact that a person likes Trump to override your rationality. You could have even voted Clinton and I would have never read you a list of the dictators she's received money from and said to you: that's your standard of taste, you're basically soul-less and heartless for supporting this cunt, you're just a rabid racist spellbound by empty demagoguery, etc.

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