Max Boot: Support Dems

[Segnosaur]

No, because a yard with fencing is not designed to prevent people from, you know, actually leaving. Nor are there generally guards watching people inside the yard.

I see a cage as a small confined area keeping an animal or a bird held captive.

Given the fact that the children are unable to, you know, head down to the mall, go outside and play whenever they want, etc. then I'd say they're held captive.

These children need to be kept safe and it seems to me they are doing that the best way they can. Would you rather the children run off and get hurt?

Here's an idea... why don't they either:
1) stop arresting people for what is essentially considered a petty crime and do what is typically done for minor crimes, which is not jail them

2) in cases where a person MUST be confined, keep families together as a unit.

You want to say the children are being abused...

Actually the head of the American Academy of Pediatrics (you know, actual doctors who know something about children) has said:
"Children separated from their parents at the border are experiencing something so traumatic... that it affects their brain chemistry in a way that amounts to child abuse."

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry...ation-child-abuse_us_5b27f437e4b0783ae12bfe6d

Could you call it a cell and not cage?

Ummm... do you really think "cell" is a better term? The use of 'cell' is generally associated with prison... yet these kids are not themselves charged with a crime.

Yes it is, and furthermore it's part of a much broader and well documented pattern of behaviour over decades which clearly demonstrates that he is.

Please give me examples of the behavior you're speaking about.

Lets see:

- Getting charged (multiple times!) for racial discrimination practices when renting out apartments
- Making a statement about how black people are 'lazy', and he didn't want them counting his money.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...-common-thread-throughout-his-career-and-life

I don't agree, saying the protesters had some fine people in their group is not being racist.

If the group of protesters is composed of nothing but neo-nazis, KKK members, and the like, then calling any of them "fine people" is racist.

Also can't a racist be a fine person and have a flaw by being racist? All people have flaws. Does a fine person not have flaws?

There is a difference between a flaw (like farting in the bed) and being a neo-Nazi. Being a neo-Nazi is something that definitely crosses the line from merely "flaw" to being something to be condemned.

It should also be pointed out that those who participated in the neo-Nazi rally can't claim "I didn't know any better". This isn't some casual racist attitude that someone's 90 year old grandmother might have because of the era she grew up in... these are people who actively perpetrate hate, to the point where they actually go out in public waving Nazi flags.

Re: Push for Gun control laws...

That doesn't mean you have to quit fighting for what you believe in.

Ummm... who said they quit? In fact, I posted an article about a gun control rally that just occurred this past week.

Trump has had some strikes on ISIS that killed numerous Isis leaders.

And so did Obama.

Re: Economic success of Trump...
You'll need to show me facts and statistics for what you're claiming. I could post a chart for statistics showing job growth during Trumps Presidency but I'll wait for you to show me what you've got from the Obama years.

Lets see:

Jobs added in 2017 (In which Trump was president for most of the year): 2.188 million

Jobs added in 2016 (The last full year Obama was president): 2.24 million

Jobs added in 2015 (Obama was president at that time too): 2.7 million

Looks like Trump hasn't been as great a job creator as you think.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckj...president-obamas-last-six-years/#10c2af6125ab

Or how about the stock market? In the first year that Trump was in office, the Dow went up 26%. Sounds good. But in the first year that Obama was president, the stock market went up 33%.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2018/jan/08/how-trump-obama-compare-stock-market/

As a side note (and in an attempt to get this thread back on track)... we really must thank you. The opening post of this thread referred to a former republican who had become disillusioned with the GOP. Now, here you are, defending Trump, but you do so by saying a "cage isn't a cage", and relying on all sorts of incorrect data. You are a perfect embodiment of the current GOP mind set, and if the current mind set is "a cage isn't a cage", then its evidence that the republican party has gone too far off the deep end to be redeemed.

 

[Fudbucker]

Please explain why that would be. Do you mean this thread or the entire forum?

Nevermind, I shouldn't have prejudged. I'll wait and see.

 

[ThoughtIsFree]

Nevermind, I shouldn't have prejudged. I'll wait and see.

I can't forget what you said, I need to think about it, it tells me a lot about this forum and maybe I don't want to be here.

I know I'm replying way to fast and need to think through my replies but I'm taking on many of you and it's difficult being new. I don't know you and haven't followed what all you've shared on the forum.

Let me do some research, think about all said to me and I'll reply tomorrow.

 

[Fudbucker]

I can't forget what you said, I need to think about it, it tells me a lot about this forum and maybe I don't want to be here.

I know I'm replying way to fast and need to think through my replies but I'm taking on many of you and it's difficult being new. I don't know you and haven't followed what all you've shared on the forum.

Let me do some research, think about all said to me and I'll reply tomorrow.

Do you believe Obama was born in the U.S.?

 

[WilliamSeger]

I take what Trump said as wanting people that want to become citizens of the United States having something positive to offer. Other countries expect that too from people who want to become citizens of their country.

Abject BS. No, he asked why we're letting people in from ****hole countries. I take it that you also automatically assume that people from ****hole countries have nothing positive to offer? I think I see the problem.

 

[Cain]

Beck is like Rush and Dershowitz. They are whores and devoid of any real principles.

Nonsense. Dershowitz defends the guilty as a matter of principle. His oldest client is Israel.

 

[The_Animus]

Unfortunately the loony wing is the mainstream at this point. Most conservatives support the loons as can be seen by voting results. Until that changes, decent rational conservatives are rightly considered the fringe of the party as mentioned in the OP.

A good example of the above would be the California 11th congressional district where the voters chose John Fitzgerald as their GOP candidate. He is a holocaust denier and recently there have been robocalls for his campaign saying that Jews are taking over the world and must be stopped.

 

[Lurch]

That doofus Trump running about on the world stage, smashing up alliances and cozying up to dictators and instituting ruinous trade wars, while the lawmakers in his Party sit idly by and watch their country become a pariah is just one good reason for any half-aware conservative to NOT vote GOP.

In certain respects the US has effectively become a dictatorship. Your one-man wrecking crew is holding over 300 million hostage to his ignorance and petulance. Aided and abetted by goddamned cowards who value their 'jobs' (as if they're doing them!) over their country.

 

[Travis]

I take what Trump said as wanting people that want to become citizens of the United States having something positive to offer. Other countries expect that too from people who want to become citizens of their country.

If other countries do it then they are wrong too. America is supposed to be a place the downtrodden can go to. Immigration policies that rank people are by definition exclusionary and therefore the opposite of allowing in the downtrodden. That makes it more like some sort of country club where people who all think and look alike can delude themselves into thinking they are superior.



I believe in a fully open border Schengen type system where all inhabitants of North America can migrate at will. But what I want is a pipe dream. Do you think I'm evil, naive or something else?

 

[crescent]

This might not be the right place for you.

Please explain why that would be. Do you mean this thread or the entire forum?

Nevermind, I shouldn't have prejudged. I'll wait and see.

I can't forget what you said, I need to think about it, it tells me a lot about this forum and maybe I don't want to be here.

I know I'm replying way to fast and need to think through my replies but I'm taking on many of you and it's difficult being new. I don't know you and haven't followed what all you've shared on the forum.

Let me do some research, think about all said to me and I'll reply tomorrow.

Fud, you scared him (or her) off!

We didn't even get TIF to the secret ISF initiation ritual with the the surprisingly sexy but doomed goat. That's the best part!

 

[Joecool]

Do you believe Obama was born in the U.S.?

Do you believe that everything bad that happened in the Obama administration's 8 years was "Bush's fault"?

Or maybe a better question might be if you think nothing bad ever happened when Obama was president?

Trump has his faults and sometimes I think he should be banned from Twitter, but he's done some good, especially with the economy and the jury is out on the "trade war" and NATO.

FYI, I'm from Hawaii and when our (at the time) republican governor confirmed that Obama's birth certificate was legit, that was good enough for me.

 

[The Don]

It depends on how you define a cage. Is a yard at a home with fencing described as a cage? I see a cage as a small confined area keeping an animal or a bird held captive. These children need to be kept safe and it seems to me they are doing that the best way they can. Would you rather the children run off and get hurt? Is a play ground at a school considered a cage, the play grounds are fenced in so the children are kept safe. You want to say the children are being abused so you think of the place they're being kept as a cage like a dog would be kept in a pound. It's a secured area so the children are safe. Could you call it a cell and not cage? Could you call the space a secured area? No you want it to sound abusive so you call it a cage.

If the children are being held against their will and are unable to leave the enclosure that is surrounded by caged material then it's a cage.

I'll give the same reply as above. I call it a secured safe area and not a cage.

Then you'd be wrong

Please give me examples of the behavior you're speaking about.

They are well documented in other threads.

I don't agree, saying the protesters had some fine people in their group is not being racist.
Also can't a racist be a fine person and have a flaw by being racist? All people have flaws. Does a fine person not have flaws?

For me being a white supremacist is a deal-breaker. No matter what other virtues they may have, they're not a fine person.

Yes we have racists in all races, plenty to go around.

Except you just provided a hypothetical.

Still don't agree that would make Trump a racist. By saying fine people does not say you feel being a racist is something you condone. Can't a racist have good traits?

They may, but being a racist means that they cannot be a "fine person" IMO.

 

[Segnosaur]

Do you believe that everything bad that happened in the Obama administration's 8 years was "Bush's fault"?

Or maybe a better question might be if you think nothing bad ever happened when Obama was president?

I wasn't the poster that was asked, but I'll take a crack at it...

No, not everything that was bad during Obama's tenure was "bush's fault". And not everything good that happened was due to Obama.

I cannot blame Obama for the recession and huge deficit, since those were related to economic problems that had its origins from before he was elected. But he did make mistakes. For example, the 'fast and furious' gun scandal should have been handled better. And Obama himself has said that his biggest mistake was not handling the aftermath of the Libyan war properly.

Trump has his faults and sometimes I think he should be banned from Twitter, but he's done some good, especially with the economy...

Uhhh.... no he hasn't.

As has been pointed out, the economy was already growing solidly by the time Trump got into power. It takes time to enact policies and have them become effective, so you can't really say Trump has done some good with the economy because most of what's happened has been a byproduct of the previous administration's policies.

What happens in 2018 and later is more of an indication of what Trump has done for the economy. And so far, we do have some new jobs added, but at the cost of a skyrocketing deficit and a stock market which is foundering. So at best, mixed results.

 

[ThoughtIsFree]

Before I joined this forum I was told it was mostly liberal but that didn't stop me from joining. I have not had the time to read through the threads here in the Political forum. Having discussion and debate can end up very time consuming and something I didn't consider is when it's mostly liberal the conservative is going to have a lot of talking to do. The regrettable thing is nobody is going to change their minds. A lot of back and forth and you end up exhausted and especially if you're all alone in trying to get your opinion across to many who don't agree.

Telling me this may not be the forum for me may be correct. I'm brand new with only a few posts and can't post sources. Found a lot of good information to support my claims but it will be impossible to share without posting the source.

Seems to me if you disapprove of the illegals coming across our borders being detained, just say so and quit using the word cage to try and make your point. I assume you use the word cage because you're wanting it to sound like the people are being treated like lowly animals. If these children were in rooms with walls you would be emphasizing that as something horrible too. I stand by my opinion the pictures I've seen of children being detained at the border do not look like they are in cages but in large rooms with fencing for the walls. I'm sure it all has to do with the number of staff they have to watch these people and the number of facilities they have available to house them or I should say detain them The average time the children stay in the fenced in areas is three days, depends on the circumstances. Hopefully our immigration bills will get passed and we can start solving all of our problems to do with immigration

The Southern Rally and Trump saying some are fine people. From what I could find from reading different sources, not all of the people protesting were members of the extremists groups that were protesting at the rally. You had people protesting against the extremists groups. Trump denounced hated and bigotry. If you don't care for Trump of course you're going to hear what he said as an endorsement for racism. Trump explained not all of the people at the rally were bigoted and full of hate, that some were fine people. I don't see interpret that statement as showing Trump is a racist.

It was said I've used all kinds of incorrect date, what data?

Yes I think Obama is a citizen of the US and was born in Hawaii.

As of now Trump is doing a good job with our economy. I haven't compared this to any other Presidents but if you want to compare job growth between Trump and Obama, Obama did a good job with creating jobs but job wages suffered. Thing is right now our economy is good. I'm waiting to see how the tariffs turn out and I am expecting some ups and downs over the coming months. Hopefully the tariffs will turn out a good thing.

I'm a woman and I was not a supporter of Donald Trump but he got elected and I am going to support him because his success is our countries success.

 

[Segnosaur]

This might not be the right place for you.

Please explain why that would be. Do you mean this thread or the entire forum?

I can't forget what you said, I need to think about it, it tells me a lot about this forum and maybe I don't want to be here.

Keep in mind that this forum is dedicated to skeptical thought, which means people generally like to follow evidence and logic. Unresearched opinions, or opinions based on bad evidence are generally not given much respect.

I suspect a majority of posters here foster left-of-center political views, but there are some that are right of center. I myself am Canadian (so obviously I couldn't vote in U.S. elections) but I voted for our federal Conservative (right of center) political party in the last few elections. Were I American back in the 80s I might have voted for Bush Sr.

However, being "conservative" shouldn't automatically mean someone is a Trump supporter, and if I were in the U.S. I would probably would have voted for Hillary in the last election and Obama in the previous ones. The reason? While the far-right likes to portray them as some sort of radical socialist/communists, they seem to have a fairly pragmatic approach to business and the economy. And, as this thread has suggested, a number of conservatives have migrated from the republican party not because their own views have changed, but because they feel the republican party has basically gone off the deep end. They didn't leave the Republican party, the republican party left them.

Your first posting here made several things that many people might consider blunders... you seem to be unaware of some basic facts, and some of your claims seem to be taken right out of a Trump Tweet/Fox news broadcast. (Given how toxic Trump is, I doubt anyone could really defend him using actual real facts anyways.) Hopefully you'll stick around (we can always use some variety of opinions here), learn the difference between being a principled conservative and being a Trump supporter, and how to defend your opinions using solid logic and evidence.

 

[crescent]

Having discussion and debate can end up very time consuming and something I didn't consider is when it's mostly liberal the conservative is going to have a lot of talking to do.

Your first post in this thread made five points - five different subjects.

If I can make a suggestion, prioritize and only respond to comments on the high priority subjects. As threads move on, you can always go back and revisit the other subjects, but this way you are not stuck feeling like you need to reply to every comment on every subject.

I am liberal, but I am happy to discuss things politely and civilly with most conservatives. Although the board is mostly liberal, the conservatives here certainly make their presence known and defended.

 

[Fudbucker]

Before I joined this forum I was told it was mostly liberal but that didn't stop me from joining. I have not had the time to read through the threads here in the Political forum. Having discussion and debate can end up very time consuming and something I didn't consider is when it's mostly liberal the conservative is going to have a lot of talking to do. The regrettable thing is nobody is going to change their minds. A lot of back and forth and you end up exhausted and especially if you're all alone in trying to get your opinion across to many who don't agree.

Telling me this may not be the forum for me may be correct. I'm brand new with only a few posts and can't post sources. Found a lot of good information to support my claims but it will be impossible to share without posting the source.

Seems to me if you disapprove of the illegals coming across our borders being detained, just say so and quit using the word cage to try and make your point. I assume you use the word cage because you're wanting it to sound like the people are being treated like lowly animals. If these children were in rooms with walls you would be emphasizing that as something horrible too. I stand by my opinion the pictures I've seen of children being detained at the border do not look like they are in cages but in large rooms with fencing for the walls. I'm sure it all has to do with the number of staff they have to watch these people and the number of facilities they have available to house them or I should say detain them The average time the children stay in the fenced in areas is three days, depends on the circumstances. Hopefully our immigration bills will get passed and we can start solving all of our problems to do with immigration

The Southern Rally and Trump saying some are fine people. From what I could find from reading different sources, not all of the people protesting were members of the extremists groups that were protesting at the rally. You had people protesting against the extremists groups. Trump denounced hated and bigotry. If you don't care for Trump of course you're going to hear what he said as an endorsement for racism. Trump explained not all of the people at the rally were bigoted and full of hate, that some were fine people. I don't see interpret that statement as showing Trump is a racist.

It was said I've used all kinds of incorrect date, what data?

Yes I think Obama is a citizen of the US and was born in Hawaii.

As of now Trump is doing a good job with our economy. I haven't compared this to any other Presidents but if you want to compare job growth between Trump and Obama, Obama did a good job with creating jobs but job wages suffered. Thing is right now our economy is good. I'm waiting to see how the tariffs turn out and I am expecting some ups and downs over the coming months. Hopefully the tariffs will turn out a good thing.

I'm a woman and I was not a supporter of Donald Trump but he got elected and I am going to support him because his success is our countries success.

Stick around, you'll learn a lot.

 

[ThoughtIsFree]

Keep in mind that this forum is dedicated to skeptical thought, which means people generally like to follow evidence and logic. Unresearched opinions, or opinions based on bad evidence are generally not given much respect.

I suspect a majority of posters here foster left-of-center political views, but there are some that are right of center. I myself am Canadian (so obviously I couldn't vote in U.S. elections) but I voted for our federal Conservative (right of center) political party in the last few elections. Were I American back in the 80s I might have voted for Bush Sr.

However, being "conservative" shouldn't automatically mean someone is a Trump supporter, and if I were in the U.S. I would probably would have voted for Hillary in the last election and Obama in the previous ones. The reason? While the far-right likes to portray them as some sort of radical socialist/communists, they seem to have a fairly pragmatic approach to business and the economy. And, as this thread has suggested, a number of conservatives have migrated from the republican party not because their own views have changed, but because they feel the republican party has basically gone off the deep end. They didn't leave the Republican party, the republican party left them.

Your first posting here made several things that many people might consider blunders... you seem to be unaware of some basic facts, and some of your claims seem to be taken right out of a Trump Tweet/Fox news broadcast. (Given how toxic Trump is, I doubt anyone could really defend him using actual real facts anyways.) Hopefully you'll stick around (we can always use some variety of opinions here), learn the difference between being a principled conservative and being a Trump supporter, and how to defend your opinions using solid logic and evidence.

You say the members of International Skeptics like to follow evidence and logic. So do I. I research and explore many different sources to try and understand the issue I'm giving an opinion on.

When giving evidence on why I have a certain opinion I would need to post my sources, I'm unable to do that at this time because of a required number of 50 posts.

I will admit I was overwhelmed at the response I received yesterday and posted replies way to quickly. Could have done a much better job. Many times a new member is ignored on forums like this and I appreciate that you read what I had to say and gave me a chance to have a discussion.

I'm sticking around and hopefully I can do a better job. Thanks for the advise.

 

[ThoughtIsFree]

Your first post in this thread made five points - five different subjects.

If I can make a suggestion, prioritize and only respond to comments on the high priority subjects. As threads move on, you can always go back and revisit the other subjects, but this way you are not stuck feeling like you need to reply to every comment on every subject.

I am liberal, but I am happy to discuss things politely and civilly with most conservatives. Although the board is mostly liberal, the conservatives here certainly make their presence known and defended.

Yes I realized my mistake after I logged off of the forum and gave this all more thought.

Thanks for this reply.

 

[kookbreaker]

You say the members of International Skeptics like to follow evidence and logic. So do I. I research and explore many different sources to try and understand the issue I'm giving an opinion on.

When giving evidence on why I have a certain opinion I would need to post my sources, I'm unable to do that at this time because of a required number of 50 posts.

I will admit I was overwhelmed at the response I received yesterday and posted replies way to quickly. Could have done a much better job. Many times a new member is ignored on forums like this and I appreciate that you read what I had to say and gave me a chance to have a discussion.

I'm sticking around and hopefully I can do a better job. Thanks for the advise.

Links can be put in your post if they are broken up. Other posters will be happy to fix them when they quote you. That’s how we roll around here.