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Trump bans EPA employees from giving social media updates

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Re: Trump bans EPA employees from giving social media updates

#271

Post by _delirium »

talmand wrote: post #262
learc83 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He said "conservative". You think Lincoln was a conservative? The Democrat's decision to support civil rights and the Republican southern strategy shift to appeal to voters who opposed civil rights radically altered both parties. The Republican party shares a name with the Party of Lincoln, but that's about it.

If you look at the vote totals you'll see that far more Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than Democrats and that far more Democrats voted against it than Republicans. The Democrats did not suddenly decide to support civil rights since the majority of the opponents of such policies were Democrats. Much of the violence against blacks you see from that era were committed by Democrats. I seriously doubt…

At the time, region predicted support more than party: northern Democrats and Republicans voted for the civil rights act, while southern Democrats and Republicans voted against it. With a handful of exceptions on both sides.

Re: Trump bans EPA employees from giving social media updates

#272

Post by justinlaster »

ColanR wrote: post #79
kafkaesq wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is different than every Presidential transition of power, how? It's the aims of the control, and the utter brazenness with which the new administration attempts to manipulate facts and reality in general that are different. There's never been an administration (well, maybe in the 19th century; but I mean, not since the dawn of modern journalistic reporting) that blatantly and transparently lied about such public…

Don't forget that he's press secretary for the one guy who actually made accurate polling assessments prior to the election. If your source on disproving the "millions of illegal votes" is one of the same sources that thought Hillary was going to win in a landslide, then you have nothing to say. I'm not going to say I agree there were illegal votes, but I am holding out for better evidence.

Flip a coin 4 times, all 4 times the coin lands on heads.

You: "Statistics is bullshit."

Re: Trump bans EPA employees from giving social media updates

#273

Post by eli_gottlieb »

marklgr wrote: post #255
lucajona wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those "anti-intellectual slogans" I think you mean can also be seen as arguments for a return to enlightenment values instead of an entrenched, elitist dogmatism. Behind those slogans is the idea that intellectual life doesn't belong to a chosen few, but to everyone who's interested and willing to engage their capacity for independent thought and critical thinking, and those who are willing and eager to engage with o…

A lot of arguments can be seen as sensible until one realizes they were pushed by people with a hidden agenda. It's often just the motte part of motte-and-bailey arguments. That's why there are people (eg. in Europe) who aggressively promote secularism, and many agree with that, until you find out they belong to some hateful anti-islam organization. And that's why some people put science into question, like, how can…

>And that's why some people put science into question, like, how can we be sure of anything, which is defensible from an epistemological standpoint, until you discover they are creationists.

Honestly, if skeptical arguments in epistemology can be used to strengthen Creationism, I think that's a major point against taking them seriously in epistemology. Good epistemology ought to have a low enough false-positive rate (disbelieving things when they're true) to throw out "all the evidence is wrong, because I got this book someone wrote a while ago".

Re: Trump bans EPA employees from giving social media updates

#275

Post by [deleted] »

ColanR wrote: post #79
kafkaesq wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is different than every Presidential transition of power, how? It's the aims of the control, and the utter brazenness with which the new administration attempts to manipulate facts and reality in general that are different. There's never been an administration (well, maybe in the 19th century; but I mean, not since the dawn of modern journalistic reporting) that blatantly and transparently lied about such public…

Don't forget that he's press secretary for the one guy who actually made accurate polling assessments prior to the election. If your source on disproving the "millions of illegal votes" is one of the same sources that thought Hillary was going to win in a landslide, then you have nothing to say. I'm not going to say I agree there were illegal votes, but I am holding out for better evidence.

[deleted]

Re: Trump bans EPA employees from giving social media updates

#276

Post by ColanR »

ColanR wrote: post #79
kafkaesq wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is different than every Presidential transition of power, how? It's the aims of the control, and the utter brazenness with which the new administration attempts to manipulate facts and reality in general that are different. There's never been an administration (well, maybe in the 19th century; but I mean, not since the dawn of modern journalistic reporting) that blatantly and transparently lied about such public…

Don't forget that he's press secretary for the one guy who actually made accurate polling assessments prior to the election. If your source on disproving the "millions of illegal votes" is one of the same sources that thought Hillary was going to win in a landslide, then you have nothing to say. I'm not going to say I agree there were illegal votes, but I am holding out for better evidence.

Ok, wow. That blew up. Let me see if I can respond to the main points. Seems like I went for shock value more than clarity in how I said things.

The point with the election polling wasn't statistics. I don't have a source, but I read on HN and Hillary's emails that much of the mistake was a misassessment of the voter base due to bias. I'm questioning the likelihood that the news sources that were biased then will be unbiased now.

> So are you suggesting that the "millions" claim stands until disproven? Is that really how you see things? Check my last statement...I'm agnostic until better information shows itself.

Re: Trump bans EPA employees from giving social media updates

#277

Post by John23832 »

Vivtek wrote: post #134
cyberferret wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Point taken, but I believe when Obama did it, there was already someone appointed to take the outgoing ambassadors place immediately (at least, here, it was the case). A changing of the guard in these roles is (as the article I posted pointed out) the norm. However, In the current case, no one knows who the replacement is, or when he/she will be taking on the role, thus leaving us officially without an ambassador for…

It's pro forma for the ambassadors from the outgoing administration to proffer their resignation effective noon on Inauguration Day. The incoming president then says, no, no, please stay on until we have your replacement set up. A transition team who knows these things would have done that - the Trump team, though, since he was not actually expecting a transition, had no idea how to run one. And accepted all the resi…

"Which is more culpable: stupidity or malice?"

Re: Trump bans EPA employees from giving social media updates

#278

Post by eli_gottlieb »

true_religion wrote: post #260
bobwaycott wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a rather huge expanse of land where that "sea of red" is very, very few people compared to the rest of the country. The color maps are silly and deceptive.

Perhaps, but if a geographical area of your country produces most of your food, and contains nearly all of your natural resources, you can't look at the citizens who choose to live there and say "sorry guys, there's too few of you so we're going to ignore your wants and desires". Such is the path to resentment, secession and violent revolution.

>Perhaps, but if a geographical area of your country produces most of your food,

As a matter of fact, much to most of our food comes from California.

>Such is the path to resentment, secession and violent revolution.

Why is ignoring the majority of the people, who produce 2/3 of the GDP, not considered a path to resentment, secession, and violent revolution?

That is, why should we in the sane, tolerant, productive, non-fascist majority not just declare independence from a government which plainly has no intention of listening to our voices or interests, which rigs elections against us year after year, and which considers itself the only legitimate Americans?

Why should only the loser minority get to revolt?

Re: Trump bans EPA employees from giving social media updates

#279

Post by eli_gottlieb »

true_religion wrote: post #261
vhost- wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does trump get to use twitter, but the EPA can't?

Because Trump is the boss. It's the same way that most companies don't allow random department heads to speak directly to investors, but force everything to be filtered through the board meeting notes, and SEC filings. What the EPA reports may be factual, but the presentation of facts, when they are spoken of, and how often, are all political practices. Is it important for the EPA to tweet daily "hey guys, you know c…

>Because Trump is the boss.

Democratic countries have representatives, not bosses. This includes for the civil service.

Re: Trump bans EPA employees from giving social media updates

#280

Post by eli_gottlieb »

ams6110 wrote: post #41
serge2k wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really see evil. I see a combination of incompetence and hard right-wing policy. I really don't like the latter, but at least you can argue it (e.g. pulling out of TPP is a perfectly reasonable position to take). The former is just... ugh. Huge numbers of unfilled positions, firing all the ambassadors with no replacements, completely unqualified cabinet nominees (DeVos, Carson, Perry).

Trump is not hard right-wing. I'm not sure what he is, time will tell, but he's not that.

The problem here is that there are two different typical definitions of "far-right", possibly even three.

* Minarcho-capitalist, "Snow Crash"-style. Absolutely minimal government, only contracts and property titles being enforced. On everything else, you're free-to-starve.

* Religious dominionism, Mike Pence style. "Electrocute the gay away". Scary and weird. Kinda like a Middle Eastern country.

* So-called "right-wing populism", aka fascism. Trump's typical style. Very nationalistic, often claiming to adopt left-wing economic policies like industrial management and regional equalization while actually installing policies more similar to the minarcho-capitalists, but with more corruption. Dog-whistles to religion but no real religiosity. Military parades in the streets, Orwellian blatant lies, etc. Cult of leadership.

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