Current Affairs Donald Trump POS: Judgement cometh and that right soon

[TheBigIguana]

So is arguably the implementation of lockdown during a pandemic, yet needs must in a crisis.

It's easy to be Captain Hindsight and very politically correct. It's a lot harder to put yourself in the shoes of others in a crisis.

It seems very hard for you to put yourself in the shoes of someone being locked up for being Asian/Italian/German.

Or I presume someone being racially abused because you're Asian during a pandemic that started in China. And it is Asian generally and not Chinese because our country is too ignorant to bother distinguishing between the various Asian countries.

 

[Tubey]

Wait.
Let me lay this out as I read it:
Your argument is:
1) Japan attacked America
2) America had to protect itself and took an understandable, if incredibly unfortunate and admittedly racist action

this is equivalent to:
1) China has wet markets
2) We should do the same thing.

But we all agree now that 2 was a really bad choice *even in the context of the time*. They had no way of knowing. Ok, but we do! We have history to use as a guide. Turns out taking racist actions to protect your nation doesn't work out in the long run and should be avoided for potential (but entirely vague) short term benefit.

And that's before we touch on human rights.

I'm arguing that the internment of the American Japanese population on the west coast at a time when it was perceived an invasion was imminent was a justifiable course of action. I am not justifying the subsequent "using it as an excuse because we're massive racists" duration of it for three to four years.

The point came about because I stated that we shouldn't let China off the hook simply because some idiots will attack Chinese people - similar to how racism came about towards Japanese because the US put in place the internment camps. The course of action was in terms of logic right; the consequences of it were not.

So we should learn from history by making it clear the Chinese government are to blame for the pandemic, but you still have to call it the "Chinese Virus" for reasons of political expediency, because sustained political pressure can only be maintained by keeping crystal clear in the message.

 

[Tubey]

It seems very hard for you to put yourself in the shoes of someone being locked up for being Asian/Italian/German.

Or I presume someone being racially abused because you're Asian during a pandemic that started in China. And it is Asian generally and not Chinese because our country is too ignorant to bother distinguishing between the various Asian countries.

Not at all. But I think of it in terms of the greater good. For me, at the outbreak of war, not interning Italians/Germans in the UK would have been absolutely ridiculous and an act of outrageous negligence by the British government. I'm not saying it wouldn't suck to be those people, but the overall logic of doing so overrides the downsides of it.

I also fully understand that calling this the "Chinese Virus" will have idiots attack Chinese people. I've never said otherwise. But it's the same situation - the greater good. You get a few isolated attacks that are punishable by law and in turn you stop the threat of the next global pandemic - that's a very fair trade in my eyes.

 

[LinekersLegs]

So is arguably the implementation of lockdown during a pandemic, yet needs must in a crisis.

It's easy to be Captain Hindsight and very politically correct. It's a lot harder to put yourself in the shoes of others in a crisis.

You certainly seem to find it hard to put yourself in the shoes of Japanese Americans in WW2 or Asian Americans now.

 

[Tubey]

You certainly seem to find it hard to put yourself in the shoes of Japanese Americans in WW2 or Asian Americans now.

See above.

I think a succinct way of putting my view across is the phrase "you need to crack a few eggs to make an omelette."

We live in a world where people are terrified of suggesting anything remotely controversial even if it makes sense, because you've got to be politically correct at all times. For example, the people saying we could have "stopped" this virus if we'd have done X, Y and Z, when the truth is we simply could not have done once it had broke free of Wuhan and got into Europe.

 

[TheBigIguana]

Not at all. But I think of it in terms of the greater good. For me, at the outbreak of war, not interning Italians/Germans in the UK would have been absolutely ridiculous and an act of outrageous negligence by the British government. I'm not saying it wouldn't suck to be those people, but the overall logic of doing so overrides the downsides of it.

I also fully understand that calling this the "Chinese Virus" will have idiots attack Chinese people. I've never said otherwise. But it's the same situation - the greater good. You get a few isolated attacks that are punishable by law and in turn you stop the threat of the next global pandemic - that's a very fair trade in my eyes.

Yeah I'm sure it does when you aren't the one locked up for nothing. But it really really doesn't for the people who are locked up, lose their property, their dignity, are stigmatized and certainly come out of it in worse mental and physical health. It's an unbelievably cruel and heinous thing to do, a black mark on American history right there with slavery and what we did to the Native Americans, and you're here to defend it.

 

[RaleighBlue]

I'm arguing that the internment of the American Japanese population on the west coast at a time when it was perceived an invasion was imminent was a justifiable course of action. I am not justifying the subsequent "using it as an excuse because we're massive racists" duration of it for three to four years.

The point came about because I stated that we shouldn't let China off the hook simply because some idiots will attack Chinese people - similar to how racism came about towards Japanese because the US put in place the internment camps. The course of action was in terms of logic right; the consequences of it were not.

So we should learn from history by making it clear the Chinese government are to blame for the pandemic, but you still have to call it the "Chinese Virus" for reasons of political expediency, because sustained political pressure can only be maintained by keeping crystal clear in the message.

Honestly, I think the issue is that you have a really bad analogy going on right now and one with a lot of emotional context.

I vehemently disagree with pretty much all of your points here.

Interning Americans was the wrong course of action. I realize that comes with hindsight, but that's the point of history. We have to look back at the holistic picture, define why things happen and decide what things were good, bad, or we could improve upon. If we're not doing this, history is a waste of time entirely.

Ergo, using the same flawed logic that produced one of the most horrific events in a history absolutely littered with horrific events makes me step back a moment. The logic led to a bad thing. That doesn't mean you should blindly follow the same logic, but you should consider what parts of the logic led to such a catastrophe. In this case, it was the fact that we blindly grouped people together based on their common ancestry. Doing that led us to make a terrible mistake - the vast majority of Japanese-American citizens were entirely loyal to this country and it utterly failed them.

I believe it is the purpose of a government and nation to serve its people - all of them. And we failed to do that because our flawed logic that people are the same due their ancestry. Following the same logic now does not seem, to me, to be wise or indeed logical.

 

[Tubey]

Yeah I'm sure it does when you aren't the one locked up for nothing. But it really really doesn't for the people who are locked up, lose their property, their dignity, are stigmatized and certainly come out of it in worse mental and physical health. It's an unbelievably cruel and heinous thing to do, a black mark on American history right there with slavery and what we did to the Native Americans, and you're here to defend it.

Right, say this pandemic ends up going away in a week and the death rate ended up being 0.1% and no worse than the flu.

Would you still say the lockdown was "for nothing"? Of course not - but the history books certainly would, because it was ineffectual and ultimately achieved nothing. Yet the logic of doing it is undeniable.

Because again, hindsight is a wonderful thing. It sucks for those people but just imagine for one second that the Japanese DID invade the US and there WAS a fifth column - how many people would then be screaming "why the hell didn't we stop that fifth column when we had the chance?"

 

[Tubey]

Honestly, I think the issue is that you have a really bad analogy going on right now and one with a lot of emotional context.

I vehemently disagree with pretty much all of your points here.

Interning Americans was the wrong course of action. I realize that comes with hindsight, but that's the point of history. We have to look back at the holistic picture, define why things happen and decide what things were good, bad, or we could improve upon. If we're not doing this, history is a waste of time entirely.

Ergo, using the same flawed logic that produced one of the most horrific events in a history absolutely littered with horrific events makes me step back a moment. The logic led to a bad thing. That doesn't mean you should blindly follow the same logic, but you should consider what parts of the logic led to such a catastrophe. In this case, it was the fact that we blindly grouped people together based on their common ancestry. Doing that led us to make a terrible mistake - the vast majority of Japanese-American citizens were entirely loyal to this country and it utterly failed them.

I believe it is the purpose of a government and nation to serve its people - all of them. And we failed to do that because our flawed logic that people are the same due their ancestry. Following the same logic now does not seem, to me, to be wise or indeed logical.

You're disagreeing with me from a point of view that stems from political correctness. Here's my question to you though - if we do what you suggest (e.g. nothing) and the next pandemic comes from a Chinese wet market and is even worse and kills 20% of the worlds population, how would you feel about that? Knowing you had the chance to do something but chose not to because a handful of peoples' feelings might have been hurt.

You deal with political correctness, I deal with the greater good - it's two ways of approaching an issue.

 

[TheBigIguana]

Right, say this pandemic ends up going away in a week and the death rate ended up being 0.1% and no worse than the flu.

Would you still say the lockdown was "for nothing"? Of course not - but the history books certainly would, because it was ineffectual and ultimately achieved nothing. Yet the logic of doing it is undeniable.

Because again, hindsight is a wonderful thing. It sucks for those people but just imagine for one second that the Japanese DID invade the US and there WAS a fifth column - how many people would then be screaming "why the hell didn't we stop that fifth column when we had the chance?"

This entire post is built on things that aren't real. The pandemic isn't going away in a week so that scenario isn't real. The fifth column didn't exist.

But in reality, we did lock up Japanese people who did nothing wrong because they were Japanese. There's no logic that makes that right, I'm sorry.

 

[Tubey]

This entire post is built on things that aren't real. The pandemic isn't going away in a week so that scenario isn't real. The fifth column didn't exist.

But in reality, we did lock up Japanese people who did nothing wrong because they were Japanese. There's no logic that makes that right, I'm sorry.

And again you show your complete lack of ability to do anything but deal with hindsight.

The point is the people at the time had no way of knowing and they acted to cut off the greatest perceived threat. Similar to how now we have absolutely no way of knowing if the next killer virus will originate from China in the exact same way, but we can pretty well guess that there's a very big chance that it might.

That's the logic, and why putting pressure and blame on China is absolutely crucial.

 

[RaleighBlue]

You're disagreeing with me from a point of view that stems from political correctness. Here's my question to you though - if we do what you suggest (e.g. nothing) and the next pandemic comes from a Chinese wet market and is even worse and kills 20% of the worlds population, how would you feel about that? Knowing you had the chance to do something but chose not to because a handful of peoples' feelings might have been hurt.

You deal with political correctness, I deal with the greater good - it's two ways of approaching an issue.

Ok.

I disagree with your methodology. I didn't say do nothing. In fact, I've not said a damn thing about that at all. I've said that defending Japanese internment during WWII as logical is absurd. And it is.

What would I do? Face the pandemic as it exists. Exert political pressure on China to close the wet markets, with a carrot-stick mentality. I don't care about punishing, I care about getting the economy back running and the world functioning again. And with the wet markets closed.

Saying "China-Virus" is just political posturing intended to distract from the flaws of our response. It doesn't actuall exert any presure at all. What does Xi Jinping care what Tubey or RaleighBlue thinks about him on the internet? It needs to be handled with trade policy, not name-calling.

 

[Tubey]

Ok.

I disagree with your methodology. I didn't say do nothing. In fact, I've not said a damn thing about that at all. I've said that defending Japanese internment during WWII as logical is absurd. And it is.

What would I do? Face the pandemic as it exists. Exert political pressure on China to close the wet markets, with a carrot-stick mentality. I don't care about punishing, I care about getting the economy back running and the world functioning again. And with the wet markets closed.

Saying "China-Virus" is just political posturing intended to distract from the flaws of our response. It doesn't actuall exert any presure at all. What does Xi Jinping care what Tubey or RaleighBlue thinks about him on the internet? It needs to be handled with trade policy, not name-calling.

Governments are populist by nature - they act to gain popular support for measures. The "Chinese Virus" slogan Trump is running with is designed to get domestic support and laser focus blame on China. He gets a personal benefit from doing so but there's also an international one because it enables him to exert pressure on China with public support. A threatened trade embargo that threatens jobs in the US is a lot more palatable if he goes into the threat with 80% public support for it.

So the blue highlighted sentence I completely agree with - of course it is. The red bit I don't.

China care a lot about public perception of this - why do you think they've tried to shift the blame to Italy and blame a US black ops mission for it? The thing they fear most is a loss of control and being seen as vulnerable - it's why they are an authoritarian regime; the population is so massive and economically disparate that they pretty much have to be due to their history.

Then to the green bit - exactly this. But for the threats of sanctions and the carrot and stick to work, the blame has to be pinned very firmly on their shoulders. "Close the wet markets, that'll be seen as lessons learned, and then we won't have to do anything else." But if they aren't blamed and there is no pressure, then there's no base for the other superpowers to push from and no reason for China to close them.

 

[TheBigIguana]

And again you show your complete lack of ability to do anything but deal with hindsight.

The point is the people at the time had no way of knowing and they acted to cut off the greatest perceived threat. Similar to how now we have absolutely no way of knowing if the next killer virus will originate from China in the exact same way, but we can pretty well guess that there's a very big chance that it might.

That's the logic, and why putting pressure and blame on China is absolutely crucial.

I don't care about China or any of that. You're sitting here and defending internment camps and that is wrong. Period. Locking people away in camps because of their country of origin, race, ethnicity or anything similar is wrong and cannot under any circumstances be defended.

 

[LinekersLegs]

I'm arguing that the internment of the American Japanese population on the west coast at a time when it was perceived an invasion was imminent was a justifiable course of action.

And many of us vehemently disagree not just from the benefit of logical hindsight (that overwhelmingly Japanese Americans were loyal citizens) but that irrespective of any perceived benefit it was morally wrong to lock up thosands of people including children based soley on their ancestry.