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The Importance of Donald Trump

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Re: The Importance of Donald Trump

#111

Post by Frondo »

dennisnedry wrote: post #58
Frondo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know, the political correctness police don't actually send anyone to forced labor camps, because, of course, no such thing exists. As for being harassed or chased, again, it seems like, if there's any merit to that accusation of harassment or "chasing," the beleaguered not-politically-correct victims of that could, you know, call the cops or file a restraining order or whatever. Those are actual real-worl…

Here's an example of the "political correct police" - Twitter shaming. Somebody says something satirical and they are assigned a "label". This was the case with Justine Sacco. Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock refuse to perform at universities, citing that the students there "can't take a joke due to political correctness". There isn't a regulating force in the USA for being PC; however, there are social ramifications th…

If twitter shaming is the punishment that the PC police can dole out, I would deem them the least consequential force for justice in the history of the world.

It's actually kind of difficult to believe that you're really saying that--the PC police can't lock you up, can't send you to the gulag, but they can shame you on twitter!

That's no consequence. That's nothing.

As for Seinfeld not getting much of a laugh out of college kids anymore, I'd say he made the critical error of having dated, boring material. Humor's always changing, comics (unless they want to move into the corporate retreat humor circuit) got to keep up with the times.

Telling the audience they're in the wrong for not finding the old material funny? Now that's a good joke.

Re: The Importance of Donald Trump

#112

Post by Frondo »

A_COMPUTER wrote: post #53
Frondo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Political correctness, as far as I've been able to tell, boils down in most cases to: be respectful in how you treat people, because the ubiquitous disrespect shown to women/minorities/gays/whoever is no longer considered appropriate or praiseworthy. I don't think I've ever heard someone complain about political correctness run amok, and had it turn out that they weren't just complaining--in careful language, mind--a…

Euphemism treadmill, ridiculous proliferation of personal pronouns, victim veto, persistent assault on works like The Mikado or Dante's Inferno. Anchor babies are a thing, Chinese pay 80K for exactly what the term implies, feds shut down places being used for birth tourism, but being true's not a defense when the goal's not offending. Careful language, what could be wrong with that? Well what's the opportunity cost,…

I saw a performance of the Mikado a few years ago. It's definitely still being performed. It's also not one of Gilbert & Sullivan's finest, so if it falls out of the rotation, shrug.

As for the euphemism treadmill, or the ridiculous proliferation of personal pronouns, hey, if you don't care about or respect the people who are asking you to use those labels, don't use them.

That's what it comes down to--respect. Do you want to show others the respect of using their preferred words? Fine, go for it. There really isn't any law you're breaking if you don't show them that respect. It just means you don't want to show them that respect, for whatever reason you choose.

Re: The Importance of Donald Trump

#113

Post by lsc »

venomsnake wrote: post #87
lsc wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>While republicans are pretty much cancer, the left seems growing incapable of dealing with reality,because it might offend someone I'm the sort of person who thinks Nixon was a better president than JFK. The Republicans could field a decent president if they 1. recognized what a spectacular embarrassment and failure GWB was, and that we're not going to elect anyone who is remotely connected to him, and 2. quit letti…

>But that aside, yeah, I just don't see how asking you to use one word instead of another to describe a person or a group makes you gagged or incapable of dealing with reality. Take PR 101. Never leave the other side in control of the narrative. If you play by left branding rules, you will lose.

>Take PR 101. Never leave the other side in control of the narrative. If you play by left branding rules, you will lose.

You realize, of course, that this idea that the connotation matters more than denotation is a "science" that, historically speaking, has generally been associated with the left: a association which, if I considered myself a leftist, I would find quite insulting. Those sorts of attitudes are a big part of what drove me away from the left in my late teens, in fact. (the rest was, well, mostly that I was making a lot of money; it's hard not to be a libertarian at 19; way more so when you are making lots of money.)

Barthes was an interesting writer, sure, and he brought up some interesting points, but like most leftists of his era, (ok, to be fair, just about everyone of his era.) he vastly underestimated the complexity of the human brain.

The problem with relying too heavily on semiotics is that it's pretty obvious; and it's really easy to sound like you are trying too hard to manipulate your audience; something most of us find pretty offensive. The other problem is that the connotation of a particular word varies quite a lot on the cultural background of the speaker; so while semiotics can work to whip up people who are like you and agree with you, it's unlikely to work well when speaking to a group of people from diverse backgrounds.

Re: The Importance of Donald Trump

#114

Post by dragonwriter »

ars wrote: post #17
bra-ket wrote: post #10

God forbid America will be ruled by Trump and Russia by Zhirinovsky, this is a recipe for a nuclear extinction event

Nah. A good president really only needs just one skill: Knowing how to hire good people. Other than that the president himself can be just a figurehead for entertainment. Trump clearly knows how to hire good people, so while I would not vote for him, I'm also not really worried about what will happen if he does win. If you think about it, the skillset needed to win an election, is not the same skillset you need for m…

> A good president really only needs just one skill: Knowing how to hire good people.

No, that's not true.

A minimally competent president, at a bare minimum, needs to be able to hire good people -- who are experts in fields where he is not an expert, in many cases -- and to effectively manage those people, including resolving disputes between them (including in areas where he is less of a domain experts than they are.)

While some of this can be delegated (e.g., to the White House Chief of Staff), ultimately, anyone to whom this is delegated is going to still need to be managed and be involved in disagreements that need to be resolved.

Re: The Importance of Donald Trump

#115

Post by Nadya »

Frondo wrote: post #111
dennisnedry wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's an example of the "political correct police" - Twitter shaming. Somebody says something satirical and they are assigned a "label". This was the case with Justine Sacco. Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock refuse to perform at universities, citing that the students there "can't take a joke due to political correctness". There isn't a regulating force in the USA for being PC; however, there are social ramifications th…

If twitter shaming is the punishment that the PC police can dole out, I would deem them the least consequential force for justice in the history of the world. It's actually kind of difficult to believe that you're really saying that--the PC police can't lock you up, can't send you to the gulag, but they can shame you on twitter! That's no consequence. That's nothing. As for Seinfeld not getting much of a laugh out of…

>It's actually kind of difficult to believe that you're really saying that--the PC police can't lock you up, can't send you to the gulag, but they can shame you on twitter! That's no consequence. That's nothing.

Which leads to job loss and career damage because you have a mob of 10,000 twats with nothing better to do than complain on Twitter to anyone who even so much as thinks of hiring your "racist ass" because you shared an article about the military armor having chinks in it [0]. Or do you think the Army was being racist? That's what people are terming as "PC" and "overly PC".

>Telling the audience they're in the wrong for not finding the old material funny? Now that's a good joke.

Comedy and tragedy go hand in hand. When someone is unable to make humor out of tragedy - you lose comedy. There is a reason that, outside of wordplay, most jokes play on disasters, stereotypes or outrageous scenarios. If you think you know a joke that isn't a play on words or isn't based on a stereotype, feel free to share it. I can't even think of one.

While I do have some respect for rakugo performances [1], it's not something a lot of people can get into. An entire comedy based on nothing but wordplay and puns only fits a niche audience. Maybe more people who do nothing but puns and dry humor should tell jokes at college campuses?

Joke: "I spilled some spot remover on my dog. Now he's gone."

Expected College Campus Reaction: "Animal abuse!!!"

Nevermind. Dry humor off limits too.

The college niche dislikes politically incorrect jokes. While colleges have always leaned pretty liberal, in recent years academia has gone absolutely crazy over gender/identity politics. Anyone who so much as laughs at a potentially-racist-joke gets shunned by their peers as a racist. So yes, it's fair to say "college kids are just too PC for the jokes" when they're still successful everywhere else and even among the same age range but with different, and less PC-extreme, political leanings.

[0] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-army-del...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rakugo

Re: The Importance of Donald Trump

#116

Post by lsc »

aeris wrote: post #75
lsc wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Despite what media wants people to believe, may are sick and tired of political correctness and bending down to everyone's demands for anything. If you are an average straight white man, yeah, it sure looks like things aren't getting better. Your wages haven't increased much at all (adjusted for inflation) since the '70s. And yeah, women and the gays and men who aren't white (though, I think it's mostly women; there…

You PC too, bro?

maybe. sometimes. I can kind of be a dick, other times.

Mostly, though, I think the idea that "we are sick and tired of political correctness" should be ridiculed in the same ways and for the same reasons that I'll make fun of co-workers who complain about a variance in the (usually excellent) free food and booze that we're given on an all but daily basis.

Re: The Importance of Donald Trump

#117

Post by hga »

dragonwriter wrote: post #109
hga wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I apologize for not including this in my original posting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurisdiction_stripping It is a well established practice, and note the contemporary uses in the '90s and '00s.

> It is a well established practice, and note the contemporary uses in the '90s and '00s. The only use listed in the '00s in the linked article was an attempted use which was (as identified in the article) unsuccessful, as it was itself struck down as a violation of habeas corpus .

And as I note in a sub-comment, that decision could have been ignored.

I mean, if the Supreme Court ruled tomorrow that the person behind the Hacker News login name "dragonwriter" could be killed without legal consequence by anyone, would it be constitutional?

Are you absolutely, positively, 100% sure you want no checks on the Federal courts besides impeachment? Perhaps read Livy's history on the period of the Decemvir's tyranny if you still say no.

Re: The Importance of Donald Trump

#118

Post by lsc »

flipcoder wrote: post #73
lsc wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Despite what media wants people to believe, may are sick and tired of political correctness and bending down to everyone's demands for anything. If you are an average straight white man, yeah, it sure looks like things aren't getting better. Your wages haven't increased much at all (adjusted for inflation) since the '70s. And yeah, women and the gays and men who aren't white (though, I think it's mostly women; there…

"Please consider that women are humans too, you know, if it's not too much trouble" No one is arguing against this in particular. Conservatives believe women are human. They're also not all white males. I really hope I do not have to cite sources on this.

You're taking this out of context. Let me put it back into context by quoting myself:

>I mean, sure, I laugh at those who have this 'white rage' for complaining that we, as white men, are now expected to treat other people with a base level of respect (as that, at root, is the intent of political correctness.) At least where I live, this expectation is phrased more like "Please consider that women are humans too, you know, if it's not too much trouble"

In other words, my experience of 'political correctness' is being paid, every now and again, to watch amateurish videos that boil down to the message "Please consider that women are humans too, you know, if it's not too much trouble"

You can see how this would color my opinion of the people who complain that "political correctness has gone overboard"

It's possible that there are times and places where political correctness really is oppressive; Considering my life experience, though, I find that to be pretty unlikely, but who knows.

Re: The Importance of Donald Trump

#119

Post by dropit_sphere »

Camillo wrote: post #6

There seems to be a sizable number of people who do not feel represented by the narrow range of options that the political establishment has deigned to offer them, and who are tired of having to accept what the powers that be have declared inevitable. Because of the way the American political system works, this dissatisfaction seldom finds expression ("what, are you going to waste your vote?"), but when an outsider w…

It seems a natural consequence that people would be less satisfied by any single candidate. We've certainly grown more diverse in our opinions over the last century. Why should it be a surprise that people can't come to an agreement that satisfies everyone? It seems more and more that we ought to let people agree to disagree and give individual states a freer hand.

Re: The Importance of Donald Trump

#120

Post by dragonwriter »

hga wrote: post #117
dragonwriter wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is a well established practice, and note the contemporary uses in the '90s and '00s. The only use listed in the '00s in the linked article was an attempted use which was (as identified in the article) unsuccessful, as it was itself struck down as a violation of habeas corpus .

And as I note in a sub-comment, that decision could have been ignored. I mean, if the Supreme Court ruled tomorrow that the person behind the Hacker News login name "dragonwriter" could be killed without legal consequence by anyone, would it be constitutional? Are you absolutely, positively, 100% sure you want no checks on the Federal courts besides impeachment? Perhaps read Livy's history on the period of the Decemv…

> And as I note in a sub-comment, that decision could have been ignored.

Sure, any decision can be ignored. But then why even bother with jurisdiction stripping at all?

> I mean, if the Supreme Court ruled tomorrow that the person behind the Hacker News login name "dragonwriter" could be killed without legal consequence by anyone, would it be constitutional?

How is that relevant?

> Are you absolutely, positively, 100% sure you want no checks on the Federal courts besides impeachment?

How is that relevant? Specifically, where have I argued in support of such a proposition? Its like you have a canned rant that you are posting without any relation to the post it is in response to.

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