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

[abelard]

This isn't a thorough treatise, but I've said a few times recently that competence is probably better than ideology in a government, and it seems likely that you get more competent governments when those voting you in know what they're voting for.

Alas, when voter knowledge has been tested, the vast majority fail to grasp simple things that are taught to school kids in civics classes (and migrants would have to know to become citizens!). So, my proposal would be to have a simple politics test that people take before voting. The result would either give you the right to vote, or give your vote greater weight.

That would hopefully help keep politicians honest as it removes the blithely uninformed from the voter pool, so they would have to be better behaved during campaigns. I know people will say that we fought wars to have the right to vote and all that, and it's not taking away anyones right to vote, but rather requiring them to put in a bit of effort before doing so (with great power comes great responsibility and all that).

Be careful what you wish for Bruce. It's not the informed and educated who are sustaining Economist neoliberalism

 

[peteblue]

Being able to name your local MP would remove about half of the electorate.

Hahahaha........

 

[DanEFC92]

 

[DanEFC92]

Shame we have a PM who refuses to condemn his rhetoric. Notice she's said sweet FA on the matter, unless I'm mistaken.

Oh, I 'member.

 

[SteveSC]

Amazon has customers over 'tax paying retailers' because they offer the consumer a better deal - convenience and often price. Amazon wouldn't have that power if people didn't want to use the service.

He must know this.

He also seems to forget that Amazon is also a great space for the small retailers to sell there stuff thus creating profit and hopefully creating jobs.

I would imagine there are plenty of American companies delighted with Amazon because it helps them sell their goods and have less overheads for online costs.

 

[LinekersLegs]

Oh I know the consequences of the melee at that particular statue Links, what I am wondering is why this particular statue became the focus of attention in the first place.

If Lee's statue is deemed offensive in Charlottesville Va. then surely it is also offensive, nay more offensive to the memory of the many sons and daughters of former slaves interred there after giving their lives for their country, to have a memorial honouring him in Arlington.

Are statues of Lee are to be removed from some sites but left in situ elsewhere?

I have always admired the way America had moved on from the Civil War and it was not an issue which weighed heavily on life a century and a half later.

This incident, though, reminds me of how in Northern Ireland trouble can suddenly start over events which happened way before the lifetimes of even the grandparents of the people protesting about this or celebrating that.

No, because Arlington is where we honour our military dead, whatever war they died in and whatever side they were on. Similarly Gettysburg where the origins and details of the battle and the Civil war can be explained in full and its complexities explored.

However a statue in a park, what value is that to explaining history? Sure you aren't personally offended by it but you don't live in the town - did you even know of its existence before the weekend? Shouldn't it be up to the residents of the town as to what statues they want and what they feel best represents them and how they want to spend their tax money and what they want to see whenever they take their kids to the park?

You claim that America has moved on but having lived in the US for many years now I really don't think that is true particularly as Jim Crow era is still in living memory. To many these statues as they go about their daily lives represent a flagrant disregard and disrespect for their very existence and rights - why should a statue honouring a man who killed thousands of his fellow countrymen, that was built over 50 years after his death and who never even agree with monuments to the war anyway take precedence over that?

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Be careful what you wish for Bruce. It's not the informed and educated who are sustaining Economist neoliberalism

Economist readers are well known to be very handsome.

 

[SteveSC]

You clearly did, because a democratic vote decided it... if not, then that election wasn't democracy, as the mechanisms weren't agreed by democratic principles.

You are effectively calling the election undemocratic if you don't believe the USA as a whole voted in a system that respects the outcome.

It's not proportional representation - you voted for a presidential candidate. An individual who presides. It's an outright winner.

But see that's a complex thing here because not all votes are taken equally, due to the electoral college. This is literally the one country were you can claim your vote doesn't count depending which state you live in.

I guess that's the point of many. If you put aside the fact he won, the system here pretty much allowed him to without him being the popular and actual winner vote wise.

Trump himself complained about the electoral college saying it wasn't fair... until he won of course... then its the best thing ever...

Anyway more over Clinton lost the undecided people and the stupid leftist Sanders supporters trying to be clever by claiming "if it wasn't Sander then no one for them".

Also there were some conservative righties who voted for Obama the last time that probably switched back.

That and the Dems thought they had 95% of the Latin vote sewn up and they lost a few more of those.

 

[Huyton Layne]

That the Amazon that recently hired 50,000 people in a single day?

And also near me pays very good wages for low level jobs compared to the other 'tax paying' businesses.

 

[LinekersLegs]

US Air Force chief of staff.

Seen a few of these, basically the military brass subtweeting the President. It isn't healthy but when the President is praising white supremacists we're in a pretty messed up situation.

 

[LinekersLegs]

 

[LinekersLegs]

In one sense Trump is a uniter - in the past 48 hours I have unconditionally agreed with McConnell, Romney and McCain.
Edit add the Bushes as well

 

[RAFUH]

Of course not. But who is right ? Going right back, my original post was about intolerance, on both sides of the political divide. I've seen nothing on here to even suggest that people are willing to accept a differing view and at such a dangerous time it is, well, dangerous. America is at its best when it pulls together, or at least pretends to. America is now divided and seen to be divided at the precise moment it should not. We can all argue on here with almost no comeback, but others in the world might actually die because of division, and you know this. My point was that it's about time that the left and right in America stopped its battles, and perhaps even reminds itself of who the real enemy might be....

Sake Pete...

I'm going to say those in the right are the folks opposing Nazis, white supremacists, and others with similar beliefs.
Maybe that makes me intolerant, but there are times when the act is so heinous it is right to be intolerant of it.

 

[mezzrow]

From the great Harvey Mansfield:

...it was left to Donald Trump alone to attack political correctness and come to the defense of vulgar manliness. He does this not with argument but with outrageous behavior meant to be offensive. As a demagogue, he seeks direct contact with the people. He wants to bypass the media, the parties, and the Constitution that try to control and limit his contact and claim the right, whether formal or informal, to stand between him and the people. As methods of direct contact, Trump used old-fashioned rallies in his campaign rather than informal meetings; he sends tweets to all indiscriminately rather than addressing people through the media; and he features shocking talk and behavior rather than conventional politeness and respect. His desire is to transgress normal boundaries, especially those of political correctness, and thus to capture attention.

His boastfulness seems stupid, and it is, but it makes people think that because he is bold, he is more honest and more truthful than those who hesitate and formulate. His offhand lies are not meant to be accurate but rather to display the lack of restraint that seems to be more truthful than the uptight rectitude of the fact-checker. His vulgar insults betray the absence of wit and the rejection of humor and irony in his flat soul; he is always serious and yet always exaggerates.

In sum, Donald Trump reflects and connects to the vulgar manliness in the American (or any) people. He is demotic rather than democratic, intuitive himself in finding what is instinctive in us. The American Founders made a Constitution for a popular republic that would resist the ills of all previous republics, which had exposed government to the vagaries and impulses of the vulgar. Instead, our republic would “refine and enlarge” the popular will through representative institutions that contain and employ the ambition of the few, and that supply the whole with the “cool and deliberate sense of the community.”

The Founders made a constitutional democracy with, among other things, an electoral college, of which Trump took full advantage, that was meant to keep people like him from ever winning office. Well, every human institution for good can be abused for ill. And not only Trump supporters but all of us must hope that even a demagogue can bring good. Perhaps what is demotic can refresh, rather than degrade, what is democratic. It is one good thing at least to be reminded of the difference between the vulgar and the refined.

Or have I not just said that this difference too is very much in question?

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/vulgar-manliness-donald-trump/

 

[LinekersLegs]

Perhpas the first infrastructure agenda item for the week would be shoring up the manufacturing council becuase it is crumbling to pieces.