[W:775]Trump: ‘I think I’d take’ damaging info on 2020 rival from foreign operatives

[Ouroboros]

And if you want to continue to think that a rational person would actually expect to receive a response to a "Have you stopped beating your wife yet? Answer 'Yes.' or 'No.'" type question in exactly the form demanded, feel free to do so.



No it isn't. The original question was so semantically loaded that it was unanswerable (especially since it was a "Have you stopped beating your wife yet? Answer 'Yes.' or 'No.'" type question).




Thank you for pointing out the finger fumbles.

Just so that you can actually understand what I meant to say (rather than having to infer it from the context), I will rewrite it with the corrections indicated.

As neither the alleged "wrongdoing" on "The Left" (whatever that term means to you) nor the alleged "wrongdoing" on "The Right" (whatever that term means to you) have been proven, it is impossible to say which "trumps" which.
​

Happy now?

There's absolutely no meaningful comparison between the two questions "have you stopped beating your wife" and "is an actual crime worse than an imagined one," except insofar as you just didn't want to answer the second question.

A question is not loaded just because you feel it undermines your position in some way. I have no ambition of trying to convince you that Donald Trump is not capable of breaking the law. Even if he has not done so as yet, he certainly remains capable of misdeeds (however one chooses to define them) now and in the future, and most of his predecessors in the office of American President have been no less capable. But since you posted again and again that disagreeing with a law was no excuse for breaking it, I extended that principle to the misdeeds of Trump's intelligence enemies, which are not in the realm of the imagination like Trump's hypothetical acceptance of a "foreign gift."

The fact that you objected to the question was all the context I needed.

 

[Ouroboros]

Quite right.

Everyone knows that anyone whose family immigrated to the United States of America has absolutely no business criticizing any aspect of the United States of America and anyone whose family immigrated to the United States of America AND who DOES criticize any aspect of the United States of America should "go back to where you(r family) came from".

Just because someone was born in the United States of America to a family that immigrated to the United States of America (before 1885) that doesn't mean that they have any right whatsoever to criticize any aspect of the United States of America.

PS - Thank you for your faithful adherence to the currently operative, latest version, of the officially approved and White House endorsed playbook instruction to:

Keep denying that the comments were racist in any way shape or manner at the same time as you totally refuse to be drawn into any discussion as to whether the comments were actually appropriate (especially since they were being made by someone whose family immigrated to the United States of America in 1885, whose family has lied about the places of birth of its members, and who has a lengthy history of making complaints about all aspects of the United States of America.
​

Quite right, everyone knows that the 1[sup]st[/sup] Amendment grants absolute freedom of speech UNLESS the speaker is saying something that even remotely implies something that could potentially be confused with words that theoretically could be interpreted as being even slightly less than fulsome adoration of Donald John Trump.

See my commentary to Paimak re: the hypocrisy interpretation.

 

[pamak]

No, it can also be directed at the speaker's perception of hypocrisy. Here's the original three-part tweet, irrelevant though it is to the original thread-topic:



Most people telling others to "go back where they came from" do not leave open the possibility of those persons ever "coming back."

I drew the comparison with McCain because it shows that Trump will say pretty much anything to undermine adversaries of any color, even maligning a white veteran who had suffered enemy torture. Most of the other comments that have been flagged as racist by the media are no worse than things he's said about white people, like suggesting that Maxine Waters ought to take an IQ test. Waters immediately played the race card on that one, and the media's distortion here is no different.

I am not sure what you want to argue when you say

Most people telling others to "go back where they came from" do not leave open the possibility of those persons ever "coming back."

I understand the argument that if Trump tells a Black person to go have an IQ test, it does not necessarily mean that he is a racist who believes that Blacks have inferior intelligence since he said the same thing about whites too. Recall his remark about Tillerson

Inside Donald Trump’s Head

He counterpunches, in this case firing a shot at Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who reportedly called his boss a moron: "I think it's fake news, but if he did that, I guess we'll have to compare IQ tests. And I can tell you who is going to win."


That's the point I made originally about the racist remark of "go home where you came from" which is racist because it is only directed against people of color (the "where you came from" part). If it is about a regular insult like "x is a moron," then this does not necessarily mean that the person who said it is racist. Although racists may use such insults towards people of other races, non-racists may also use such insults against people (including people of the same race) who, for example, have pissed them off.

I think your train of thought is about something else: I think you try to differentiate between saying "x remark is racist" from saying that the person who delivered such racist remark is racist. I said something like that recently in another thread. The comment "go where you came from" is racist because it is a comment directed only to non-whites. But Trump may very well be non-racist. He is just pissed off with somebody and uses the other person's race to deliver a racist remark. Assuming this is the case, one may say that Trump is not racist but he speaks like a racist. Of course, such difference does not affect the consequences of such speech.

 

[TU Curmudgeon]

There's absolutely no meaningful comparison between the two questions "have you stopped beating your wife" and "is an actual crime worse than an imagined one," except insofar as you just didn't want to answer the second question.

Had you asked "Is an actual crime worse than an imagined crime?", we wouldn't be having this discussion.

You didn't.

You asked (paraphrased to show semantic structure) "Is an actual (although not proven but it's "actual" as far as I am concerned) SPECIFIED crime worse than an imagined (although not proven but it's "imagined" as far as I am concerned) SPECIFIED crime?".

A question is not loaded just because you feel it undermines your position in some way.

Indeed, it isn't. A question is loaded whenever it is loaded regardless of whether it supports or opposes any position.

I have no ambition of trying to convince you that Donald Trump is not capable of breaking the law.

Everyone is CAPABLE of breaking the law.

Even if he has not done so as yet, he certainly remains capable of misdeeds (however one chooses to define them) now and in the future, and most of his predecessors in the office of American President have been no less capable.

And your point would be - what?

But since you posted again and again that disagreeing with a law was no excuse for breaking it,...

Do you disagree with that position?

I extended that principle to the misdeeds of Trump's intelligence enemies, which are not in the realm of the imagination like Trump's hypothetical acceptance of a "foreign gift."

To phrase that in a neutral tone, it would have had to be "I extended that principle to the ALLEGED misdeeds of other Americans and American agencies which, like the alleged misdeeds of Mr. Trump have not been substantiated, although some of them have been investigated repeatedly.".

The fact that you objected to the question was all the context I needed.

Oh hell, you didn't need any "context" at all, other than an indication of a lack of 100% absolute true unquestioning faith in the divinely inspired ultimate leader, Donald John Trump.

PS - If you want to turn your question around so that it then reads "Which is worse the real perversion of the American electoral system done by Donald Trump or the imaginary so-called crimes of Hillary Clinton?" I would also object to that question as NEITHER the "perversion of the American electoral system" nor the "so-called crimes" have been established with sufficiency.

PPS - I would not, however, object to you asking me who, in my opinion, would have been worse for the United States of America - Mr. Trump or Ms. Clinton because I have already made that opinion abundantly clear. However, just to reinforce:

The election of Mr. Trump to the office of President of the United States of America in 2016 was worse for the United States of America than the election of Ms. Clinton would have been BUT NOT BY MUCH.​

 

[Ouroboros]

I am not sure what you want to argue when you say

Most people telling others to "go back where they came from" do not leave open the possibility of those persons ever "coming back."

I understand the argument that if Trump tells a Black person to go have an IQ test, it does not necessarily mean that he is a racist who believes that Blacks have inferior intelligence since he said the same thing about whites too. Recall his remark about Tillerson

Inside Donald Trump’s Head

He counterpunches, in this case firing a shot at Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who reportedly called his boss a moron: "I think it's fake news, but if he did that, I guess we'll have to compare IQ tests. And I can tell you who is going to win."


That's the point I made originally about the racist remark of "go home where you came from" which is racist because it is only directed against people of color (the "where you came from" part). If it is about a regular insult like "x is a moron," then this does not necessarily mean that the person who said it is racist. Although racists may use such insults towards people of other races, non-racists may also use such insults against people (including people of the same race) who, for example, have pissed them off.

I think your train of thought is about something else: I think you try to differentiate between saying "x remark is racist" from saying that the person who delivered such racist remark is racist. I said something like that recently in another thread. The comment "go where you came from" is racist because it is a comment directed only to non-whites. But Trump may very well be non-racist. He is just pissed off with somebody and uses the other person's race to deliver a racist remark. Assuming this is the case, one may say that Trump is not racist but he speaks like a racist. Of course, such difference does not affect the consequences of such speech.

Thanks for the reasoned tone of your post.

I cited the McCain example just to indicate that I think Trump will say anything about anyone, and that therefore even things he says that sound racist may just be him "going off," rather than revealing his deeper self. I don't know of any time that he personally said to a white person, "love it or leave it," but I certainly can imagine him doing so to anyone he deemed a threat.

 

[pamak]

Thanks for the reasoned tone of your post.

I cited the McCain example just to indicate that I think Trump will say anything about anyone, and that therefore even things he says that sound racist may just be him "going off," rather than revealing his deeper self. I don't know of any time that he personally said to a white person, "love it or leave it," but I certainly can imagine him doing so to anyone he deemed a threat.

This is why I said that your argument is more about claiming that Trump himself is not a racist which is different from saying that Trump's statement is not racist. Anyway, I talked about this issue parenthetically since obviously it is completely irrelevant to the topic. I can agree with you that Trump most probably is not motivated by an ideology. His only ideology is that he should win in any way possible using any possible message.

 

[Ouroboros]

Had you asked "Is an actual crime worse than an imagined crime?", we wouldn't be having this discussion.

You didn't.

You asked (paraphrased to show semantic structure) "Is an actual (although not proven but it's "actual" as far as I am concerned) SPECIFIED crime worse than an imagined (although not proven but it's "imagined" as far as I am concerned) SPECIFIED crime?".



Indeed, it isn't. A question is loaded whenever it is loaded regardless of whether it supports or opposes any position.



Everyone is CAPABLE of breaking the law.



And your point would be - what?



Do you disagree with that position?



To phrase that in a neutral tone, it would have had to be "I extended that principle to the ALLEGED misdeeds of other Americans and American agencies which, like the alleged misdeeds of Mr. Trump have not been substantiated, although some of them have been investigated repeatedly.".



Oh hell, you didn't need any "context" at all, other than an indication of a lack of 100% absolute true unquestioning faith in the divinely inspired ultimate leader, Donald John Trump.

PS - If you want to turn your question around so that it then reads "Which is worse the real perversion of the American electoral system done by Donald Trump or the imaginary so-called crimes of Hillary Clinton?" I would also object to that question as NEITHER the "perversion of the American electoral system" nor the "so-called crimes" have been established with sufficiency.

PPS - I would not, however, object to you asking me who, in my opinion, would have been worse for the United States of America - Mr. Trump or Ms. Clinton because I have already made that opinion abundantly clear. However, just to reinforce:

The election of Mr. Trump to the office of President of the United States of America in 2016 was worse for the United States of America than the election of Ms. Clinton would have been BUT NOT BY MUCH.​

My original question was posed thus:

Given your boundless respect for established law, does "a serious breach of FISA regulations," one that actually took place in the real world, carry more weight than a purely imaginary breach of campaign law, yes or no?

You averred that this was some sort of "beating your wife" question, which is pure deflection. When in an ensuing post I stressed the difference between imaginary and real, you more or less agreed that this was a valid distinction, but claimed that it was not what i'd written. Apparently your difficulty with the first version of the question was that you didn't like my presumption that the crime attributed to one or more intelligence agents was "real" while Trump's was imaginary, hence the "beating your wife" schtick.

On the contrary: I used the alleged abuse of FISA regulations as a hypothetical example. I did not state definitively that it had been proven beyond all doubt, though the coming weeks may provide us with decisive evidence. In the absence of decisive evidence, I asked you if a real criminal deed, SUCH AS that of FISA regulation abuse (but not that particular alleged deed), weighed more in the balance than some politician saying that he "might" do something illegal. Eventually you answered, but only after a lot of hair-splitting. The only one who "loaded" the question is you, with all your manifold split hairs, as we see, for instance, when you try to broaden the scope of what Trump Would Do in One Imagined Situation to Things Trump Already Did That We Don't Know About. If you're going to expand the scope of the argument that way, then my hypothesis would have to expand to take in everything flaky that US intelligence ever did.

Sigh. Capable of breaking the law with no great compunctions, then-- which most probably stems, to repeat an earlier point, from his knowledge of how much the legal system can be blocked or swayed.

Re: breaking the law includes events like the Boston Tea Party, whose effect was salutary upon the cause of American independence despite breaking particular laws protecting property. So, yes, there can be excuses.

I'd like to see you prove that I or anyone on the thread has called Trump "divinely inspired." I don't even think he's made that claim, and HE'LL SAY ALMOST ANYTHING.

 

[Ouroboros]

This is why I said that your argument is more about claiming that Trump himself is not a racist which is different from saying that Trump's statement is not racist. Anyway, I talked about this issue parenthetically since obviously it is completely irrelevant to the topic. I can agree with you that Trump most probably is not motivated by an ideology. His only ideology is that he should win in any way possible using any possible message.

To repeat my earlier point, my problem with stating that the statement is racist is that said statement ignores context, which includes the strong possibility that Trump was in part responding to rhetoric in which one or more members of the Squad trashed America by talking about other countries. Trump, being a terrible speechmaker, never knows how to quote his adversaries in such a way as to make them look bad by their own words, but most often chooses to go off on them, sometimes in nearly incoherent fashion. Since he's been incoherent on topics other than race, I think the same incoherence extends to his comments that either directly or indirectly bear upon racial matters. (An NPR comedian suggested that Trump might not so much "racist" as "racist-curious," which I found funny even though I disagree.)

 

[pamak]

To repeat my earlier point, my problem with stating that the statement is racist is that said statement ignores context, which includes the strong possibility that Trump was in part responding to rhetoric in which one or more members of the Squad trashed America by talking about other countries. Trump, being a terrible speechmaker, never knows how to quote his adversaries in such a way as to make them look bad by their own words, but most often chooses to go off on them, sometimes in nearly incoherent fashion. Since he's been incoherent on topics other than race, I think the same incoherence extends to his comments that either directly or indirectly bear upon racial matters. (An NPR comedian suggested that Trump might not so much "racist" as "racist-curious," which I found funny even though I disagree.)

Well, I am not going to repeat my counterpoints. I think I was clear in the previous posts and unless I see new claims instead of repetitions of old ones that I have already addressed, there is no point in engaging in copying and pasting what I have already stated.

 

[TU Curmudgeon]

My original question was posed thus:

Indeed it was.

You averred that this was some sort of "beating your wife" question, which is pure deflection. When in an ensuing post I stressed the difference between imaginary and real, you more or less agreed that this was a valid distinction, but claimed that it was not what i'd written. Apparently your difficulty with the first version of the question was that you didn't like my presumption that the crime attributed to one or more intelligence agents was "real" while Trump's was imaginary, hence the "beating your wife" schtick.

On the contrary: I used the alleged abuse of FISA regulations as a hypothetical example.

Unfortunately your question was NOT "In theory, does 'a serious breach of FISA regulations,' one that theoretically actually took place in the real world, carry more weight than a theoretically 'imaginary breach of campaign law', yes or no?".

I did not state definitively that it had been proven beyond all doubt, though the coming weeks may provide us with decisive evidence.

True, you did not state "definitively that it had been proven beyond all doubt", all you did was state that it was "one that actually took place in the real world".

In the absence of decisive evidence, I asked you if a real criminal deed, SUCH AS that of FISA regulation abuse (but not that particular alleged deed), weighed more in the balance than some politician saying that he "might" do something illegal.

That may well have been what you intended to ask, unfortunately it isn't what you did ask.

Eventually you answered, but only after a lot of hair-splitting. The only one who "loaded" the question is you, with all your manifold split hairs, as we see, for instance, when you try to broaden the scope of what Trump Would Do in One Imagined Situation to Things Trump Already Did That We Don't Know About. If you're going to expand the scope of the argument that way, then my hypothesis would have to expand to take in everything flaky that US intelligence ever did.

I can quite understand how exasperated you could get when I refuse to provide one of the two canned answers that you want to receive.

Sigh. Capable of breaking the law with no great compunctions, then-- which most probably stems, to repeat an earlier point, from his knowledge of how much the legal system can be blocked or swayed.

Again, most criminals have no compunctions about breaking the law (at least those which they break as part of their job description) for several reasons, the two primary ones being [a] that's what they do for a living, and they actually believe that they will never get caught.

Re: breaking the law includes events like the Boston Tea Party, whose effect was salutary upon the cause of American independence despite breaking particular laws protecting property. So, yes, there can be excuses.

The "Boston Tea Party" was organized and backed by people who "opposed the tax on tea". The organizers and backers also just happened to be those who were attempting to avoid paying that tax on tea by smuggling and had found that the people who were actually paying the tax on tea could actually land tea that was actually legally imported into the colonies and were thus able to actually sell it at a lower cost than the people who were smuggling the tea could afford to sell their tea for (mainly because the smugglers has a horrendous overhead item as a result of the legal government's efficient anti-smuggling operations which resulted in many of the smuggler's ships being either sunk or seized).

I'd like to see you prove that I or anyone on the thread has called Trump "divinely inspired." I don't even think he's made that claim, and HE'LL SAY ALMOST ANYTHING.

For some reason you appear to believe that 100% of the entire known universe has signed up with DP (which, were it true, would REALLY please the mods).

"‘Only God could deliver such a savior to our nation,’ campaign manager Brad Parscale says, echoing recent comments from other top aides."

 

[Ouroboros]

Well, I am not going to repeat my counterpoints. I think I was clear in the previous posts and unless I see new claims instead of repetitions of old ones that I have already addressed, there is no point in engaging in copying and pasting what I have already stated.

In the same spirit, I won't trouble to repeat the points I've made to the Curmudgeon, and if that means that he can tell himself that he's 'won" the argument (despite having lost it long ago), that will be a small price to pay for bringing this tedious thread to a close.

 

[TU Curmudgeon]

...and if that means that he can tell himself that he's 'won" the argument (despite having lost it long ago), that will be a small price to pay for bringing this tedious thread to a close.

Have a nice millennium.