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The smug style in American liberalism

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Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#331

Post by zigzigzag »

foldr wrote: post #216
Nursie wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A last minute, failed attempt to do something a few months before a referendum that they comfortably and smugly assumed they would win easily. No plan was made because the people in a position to make one didn't want to and assumed victory. All this after AFAICT two decades of ignoring or belittling people for their deeply held views. That doesn't really cut it and so we get the result we got. Personally I neither th…

>No plan was made because the people in a position to make one didn't want to and assumed victory. No plan was made by long-term Brexit supporters either. Where is Nigel Farage's plan? What useful suggestions has Boris Johnson made? >And even if I did I would try to recognise that I share a country with such folk and have a duty to take their views into account. We did take their views into account, as I said. The Co…

They did actually make suggestions, despite not campaigning to form a government. For example, an Australian style immigration system, striking a trade deal with the EU, continued cooperation in defense issues and so on. You just ignored them.

Unfortunately it's rather hard to make plans about leaving the EU because the EU itself is in a catatonic state of denial. Their glorious leader banned even writing things down about the possibility of exit before the referendum, and afterwards announced they would still refuse to discuss it until Article 50 is invoked.

This total denial of reality and absolute refusal to discuss it, is then used by people like Martin Schulz and yourself to claim Leave had no plan!

Yes, Leave has a plan! It's called "get the hell out of this madhouse as quickly as possible". That's it!

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#332

Post by xupybd »

kofejnik wrote: post #298
noobiemcfoob wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other hand, I'm not sure how you come to a political compromise with people that disagree with it (how do they reach out?). I've often found myself with the same question. What's a satisfactory answer for "THIS IS MURDER!?" vs. "Eh, I don't think so, more like a nasty wart...". I understand both, but I just don't see place for a bridge other than telling one side to get over it.

http://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.ht... You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and…

I've never understood this argument. Why doesn't that apply to feeding and clothing a new born? If you give birth to a child and let them die in the cold that is seen as murder. Why does a parent have to provide for a child before they were born and not after.

Also many societies have concepts where people are required to care for others, parents and close relatives.

I just don't agree, I think if the violinist has only one chance at life and that one chance has been wasted because he was tethered to you without concent then he should have the right to life. But the people who did it should also go to jail for a very long time.

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#333

Post by adt2bt »

lintiness wrote: post #133
CalChris wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, if you look up in the dictionary you'll find that deficit and debt are distinct words: debit: something that is owed or that one is bound to pay to or perform for another deficit: the amount by which expenditures or liabilities exceed income or assets http://www.dictionary.com/browse/deficit http://www.dictionary.com/browse/debt The Federal deficit was about $1.4T when Obama started and its about $600B now…

you are out of your mind. the only reason the deficit is south of a trillion is interest rates are HALF what they were in 08. 2008 fed debt: ~10T 2016 fed debt: ~19T 2008 int exp: ~450M 2016 int exp: ~450M he's spent like a lunatic, and his aca has just gotten started.

What could he have feasibly done otherwise?

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#335

Post by foldr »

zigzigzag wrote: post #331
foldr wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No plan was made because the people in a position to make one didn't want to and assumed victory. No plan was made by long-term Brexit supporters either. Where is Nigel Farage's plan? What useful suggestions has Boris Johnson made? >And even if I did I would try to recognise that I share a country with such folk and have a duty to take their views into account. We did take their views into account, as I said. The Co…

They did actually make suggestions, despite not campaigning to form a government. For example, an Australian style immigration system, striking a trade deal with the EU, continued cooperation in defense issues and so on. You just ignored them. Unfortunately it's rather hard to make plans about leaving the EU because the EU itself is in a catatonic state of denial. Their glorious leader banned even writing things down…

You can blame it all on the EU if you like. We're still fucked. There's no way the EU will give us a good deal, and it turns out that no-one had any kind of realistic negotiating strategy. (Remember all that delusional nonsense from the Leavers about how Germany would have to give us a good deal because the country is run by its car industry? Oops...)

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#336

Post by foldr »

aninhumer wrote: post #243
foldr wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No plan was made because the people in a position to make one didn't want to and assumed victory. No plan was made by long-term Brexit supporters either. Where is Nigel Farage's plan? What useful suggestions has Boris Johnson made? >And even if I did I would try to recognise that I share a country with such folk and have a duty to take their views into account. We did take their views into account, as I said. The Co…

>The strategy you're proposing (engagement) was tried and has failed. What was tried wasn't engagement, it was an attempt to suppress the issue by holding what they expected to be a doomed referendum, so they could use the result as an excuse to ignore the issue. True engagement would mean acknowledging people's concerns, and explaining their true causes and how you're going to address them.

How are you going to address the concerns of people who are opposed to all immigration from non-white and/or non-English-speaking countries? The Conservatives had already restricted immigration to a greater degree than is sensible.

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#337

Post by yummyfajitas »

pron wrote: post #317
yummyfajitas wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But, for the sake of argument (although it makes me sick to my stomach)... Given this strong emotional motivation, do you really think you can objectively evaluate the truth of these claims without bias? I certainly don't. So to answer your question: scientific racism often has motivations that are completely different from those behind most science. Juxtaposing this with your term "hate group", I assume you mean the…

> do you really think you can objectively evaluate the truth of these claims without bias? Yes, more or less, just as many kinds of professionals are required to do the same. But regardless, my entire point is that the truth of these claims is the least important thing about them, just as the interesting question about a wager between two college students of whether a vagrant would shit his pants or not when they set…

But regardless, my entire point is that the truth of these claims is the least important thing about them...

That much is clear, and the source of our differences. I do care about reality and I don't mind if bad people have learned true facts.

Yes, the motivation is to justify and perpetuate a distribution of power that's favorable to the groups where those ideas are found.

And the motivation for studying evolution is to reduce people's faith in the one true god, and prevent them from getting to heaven. Therefore I can refer to an individual evolutionist as a satanist.

When discussing the history of ideas we do not attempt to track every single person's motivations

You aren't discussing the history of ideas. You are discussing specifically whether I am a "scientific racist" and "white supremacist". And you've defined these terms as people having specific motivations which I don't share.

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#338

Post by zigzigzag »

foldr wrote: post #335
zigzigzag wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did actually make suggestions, despite not campaigning to form a government. For example, an Australian style immigration system, striking a trade deal with the EU, continued cooperation in defense issues and so on. You just ignored them. Unfortunately it's rather hard to make plans about leaving the EU because the EU itself is in a catatonic state of denial. Their glorious leader banned even writing things down…

You can blame it all on the EU if you like. We're still fucked. There's no way the EU will give us a good deal, and it turns out that no-one had any kind of realistic negotiating strategy. (Remember all that delusional nonsense from the Leavers about how Germany would have to give us a good deal because the country is run by its car industry? Oops...)

No?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the US is now run by a guy who thinks the EU sucks, that Brexit was great, and whose best buddy in Europe is Nigel Farage.

And is it not the case that the most popular politicians in other core countries are all anti-EU?

Let's see how this plays out.

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#339

Post by foldr »

zigzigzag wrote: post #338
foldr wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can blame it all on the EU if you like. We're still fucked. There's no way the EU will give us a good deal, and it turns out that no-one had any kind of realistic negotiating strategy. (Remember all that delusional nonsense from the Leavers about how Germany would have to give us a good deal because the country is run by its car industry? Oops...)

No? Correct me if I'm wrong, but the US is now run by a guy who thinks the EU sucks, that Brexit was great, and whose best buddy in Europe is Nigel Farage. And is it not the case that the most popular politicians in other core countries are all anti-EU? Let's see how this plays out.

Ah I see, so their plan was for Trump to win the presidency and for the entire EU to collapse before we make a deal. Sure, let's see how that plays out. Third time lucky?

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#340

Post by foldr »

Nursie wrote: post #260
foldr wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Yet net migration figures stayed around 350k, which showed that either the politicians were not really engaging or were ineffective. Which, consulting Wikipedia’s list of countries by net migration, puts us below (amongst many others) Norway, Spain, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, Ireland and Portugal. So it’s not exactly an unreasonably large number of immigrants we’re talking about here. (Especially…

The British people considered it unreasonably large, for whatever reasons. They considered it important enough that after years of being ignored millions voted for UKIP or the Tories. Again I'm not here to argue merits. What you have there is more justifications for ignoring the views of large sections of the electorate. The rest of your argument is purely economic, as if that is or should be everything to everyone.…

>The British people considered it unreasonably large, for whatever reasons.

For no good reason. That's why I said that it's mad.

The economic argument is the only respectable argument against immigration, which is why I focused on it. The only other arguments against immigration that people put forward are racist and/or xenophobic.

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