Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I know we see a regular stream of false equivalencies about the left and right being equally crazy.

But, Sebby, you'll be happy to know I'm not fighting you on this.

There's offering a contrarian view. Then there's just saying crazy shit. This is crazy shit.

BTW, after last night, it's clear (if it wasn't before) this is Trump v. Hillary. I'm excited for what will be excellent, thoughtful debates:

"Show us the Goldman transcripts."

"Release your taxes first."

"No, you release the Goldman transcripts."

"No, you release your taxes."

"'Crooked Hillary'-- why won't let us see the transcripts?"

"'Dodging Donald'-- Why won't you let us see your taxes?"

It's going to be such a wonderfully enlightening campaign.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

Maybe, but one someone says they believe terrible things, I'm going to take them at their word.

Your instinct to explain it away - for both Trump and Cruz - is weird.

Trump's a salesman. He has no real position on anything. Everybody I know who's played golf with him (that's all he seems to do socially) has described a gregarious, friendly guy who readily admits everything he does in public is just show. He's a bullshitter of the first order. It's terrible and sleazy to pander to bigots, but if you think he himself is actually a bigot, you're reading too much HuffPo. (Of course, if you define bigotry to include not giving a shit about minorities, yeah, he's probably guilty of that. But that's a ludicrous definition.)

I'm not defending Cruz in the least. I detest the man. I was just looking for something on which to compliment him. That he's not a true fundamentalist was all I could find. On the list of the truly loathsome, fundamentalists are near the top. Nihilist self-absorbed sociopaths are a couple rungs below. (Call me crazy, but I'd rather hang out with a full on sociopath than a person who blindly believes, literally, in 2000 year old fairy tales. The former's first language is logic. How do you even attempt to converse with the latter?)

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Trump's a salesman. He has no real position on anything. Everybody I know who's played golf with him (that's all he seems to do socially) has described a gregarious, friendly guy who readily admits everything he does in public is just show. He's a bullshitter of the first order. It's terrible and sleazy to pander to bigots, but if you think he himself is actually a bigot, you're reading too much HuffPo. (Of course, if you define bigotry to include not giving a shit about minorities, yeah, he's probably guilty of that. But that's a ludicrous definition.)

Say Hitler only dogged the Jews to get people to have a common enemy that he could promise to defeat so he could get power. But he really didn't dislike them, they were just collateral damage for him to get power.

What difference would that make. Once you own the beast you have to feed it, don't you?

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

There's offering a contrarian view. Then there's just saying crazy shit. This is crazy shit.

BTW, after last night, it's clear (if it wasn't before) this is Trump v. Hillary. I'm excited for what will be excellent, thoughtful debates:

"Show us the Goldman transcripts."

"Release your taxes first."

"No, you release the Goldman transcripts."

"No, you release your taxes."

"'Crooked Hillary'-- why won't let us see the transcripts?"

"'Dodging Donald'-- Why won't you let us see your taxes?"

It's going to be such a wonderfully enlightening campaign.

This is the conversation that Trump wants to have.

Hillary is a hardcore wonk, she wants to talk policy. So the disconnect is going to be the Trump shit show versus Professor Clinton.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Other than Gay Marriage and the Iraq War, which virtually every Democratic Senator has evolved on, and where I like the evolution, what has she flipped on that has you concerned?

My usual snarkiness aside.

I am not concerned that she is probably our next President. And no one should be concerned specifically about her fitness or character. She'll do a fine job and run the place like a sensible moderate.

Like most people on this board, I'm old enough and established enough that Clinton's policies, which are all aimed merely at maintaining the status quo, actually work in my household's favor.

What's concerning about her, and any other candidate offering more of the same (including probably Trump, after the political system gelds him, should he win), is how that's going to impact the rest of the country. Seventy to eighty percent of this country is not doing well. What ails them cannot be redressed with redistribution, or merely shackling Wall Street. There needs to be some form of a New New Deal to turn this ship around (I hate to say that as a Near-Libertarian, but the math is the math). "More of the same" I think will push this country further toward a society of indefensible class divisions -- something not unlike Brazil (in its better days). And the one divergence between Obama and Hillary, the sole place where we'll see "less of the same," at least in comparison to Obama's and her admins, will be foreign policy. Hillary will give us "more of the same" circa-2000-2008. She'll be interventionist. We'll dive into the Middle East with gusto, and there will be a lot of neocons in her ear offering that old "more of the same" wisdom: "Wars act like global resets... They prime the economy and deliver decades of prosperity to the victors. Look at the post-WWII boom we had. War is good economically, and of course, it's all for a good cause -- peace and democracy in the Middle East."

The easy closing point here would be to cite that shopworn definition of insanity. That's what we're getting with Hillary. I think it's also what we'd get with Trump. The only guy who didn't advocate doing the same thing over again - trying the same basket of outdated policies which have not and will not deliver what we seek - was Bernie. He was crazy, but he was right. We don't need to "burn it all down," but we need to throw out all the tired, conventional wisdom and consider some truly radical policies (like massive private debt forgiveness, an infrastructure bank, free public college, and a radical overhaul of health care which removes insurers as much as possible).

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Say Hitler only dogged the Jews to get people to have a common enemy that he could promise to defeat so he could get power. But he really didn't dislike them, they were just collateral damage for him to get power.

What difference would that make. Once you own the beast you have to feed it, don't you?

Bingo.

Hank wins this one. According to my counter, that is 1:9999.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Say Hitler only dogged the Jews to get people to have a common enemy that he could promise to defeat so he could get power. But he really didn't dislike them, they were just collateral damage for him to get power.

What difference would that make. Once you own the beast you have to feed it, don't you?

My defense there is admittedly very weak. I have really shitty cards with which to work, as you've demonstrated. All I can offer is, I don't think he'll follow through much on his attacks on the Mexican community, and I don't think he ever really intended to do so. He made a deal with the devil to get press early in the race, and to galvanize the angry white vote. And now he's stuck with a truly loathsome platform on immigration.

If he were tried for doing anti-immigrant things, I'd have to concede his guilt and ask for lenient sentencing on the basis that he himself is not actually anti-immigrant. He's just an opportunist who took the really low road of scapegoating people.

(This is why I long ago stopped doing any criminal work.)

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

but if you think he himself is actually a bigot, you're reading too much HuffPo.

I don't know when last I read anything on HuffPo, but I don't know what Trump really believes nor do I really care when he says things that are unacceptable.

(Of course, if you define bigotry to include not giving a shit about minorities, yeah, he's probably guilty of that. But that's a ludicrous definition.)

That's not at all a ludicrous definition.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

This is the conversation that Trump wants to have.

Hillary is a hardcore wonk, she wants to talk policy. So the disconnect is going to be the Trump shit show versus Professor Clinton.

Also, if the transcripts exist (do we know? I ignore this type of faux controversy), she will release them. What's Trump going to do with them? Criticize her for praising finance?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

This is the conversation that Trump wants to have.

Hillary is a hardcore wonk, she wants to talk policy. So the disconnect is going to be the Trump shit show versus Professor Clinton.

She's got so much dirt in her past, he knows no boundaries, and 90% of voters have the attention span of gnats. He's already negatively branding her, and say what you will of the guy -- he can brand. She'll have no choice but to get in the mud and use all of Trump's dirt on him, and speak in nasty soundbites aimed at branding him.

Most sordid campaign imaginable. A spectacle that will rip open some of the nastiest divisions. And whoever wins will be seen by half the country as illegitimate. And not in the same way crackpot racists saw Obama as illegitimate. This will be even uglier.

...But it will be wildly amusing.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

Also, if the transcripts exist (do we know? I ignore this type of faux controversy), she will release them. What's Trump going to do with them? Criticize her for praising finance?

Yes. That's exactly what he'll do.

"I build stuff. She's in the pocket of hedge funds and Goldman parasites."

He's already gotten traction with that line.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

She'll have no choice but to get in the mud and use all of Trump's dirt on him, and speak in nasty soundbites aimed at branding him.

Maybe, but he's got a long ways to go before he's threatening enough for her to feel the need dignify him with that much firepower.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

I don't know when last I read anything on HuffPo, but I don't know what Trump really believes nor do I really care when he says things that are unacceptable.

That's not at all a ludicrous definition.

I don't care much about you. Am I anti-you?

The list of people and groups Trump doesn't care about is probably almost everybody but his family and friends. You can call him selfish, self-centered, but not caring about someone doesn't make you a bigot, or we're all bigots to some extent. I do not have a duty to care about everybody. Nor does Donald Trump. Even if he's elected, he has no duty to care about any specific groups. He has a duty only to ensure all groups are treated equally.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I don't care much about you. Am I anti-you?

Am I being systemically disadvantaged and victimized? If so, yes.

we're all bigots to some extent.

Now you're getting it.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

Am I being systemically disadvantaged and victimized? If so, yes.

Now you're getting it.

You're telling me I have affirmative duties to care about certain people? Where do you get that?

I am pro-affirmative action and pro-crim justice reform because these things redress societal wrongs. They intend to even a playing field which is not even. I don't care who benefits from them, nor do I have a duty to care who benefits from them. The sole calculation is that where some group is being treated unfairly, the unfair actions be stopped. There's no duty deriving exclusively from the ethnic or racial background of the group.

If a person said to you, "You must treat me uniquely because I am [insert minority]," you'd rightly think him nuts. Thankfully, no one does that. Our laws instead direct that "You must not treat a person differently because he is [insert]," and "You must give certain opportunities to minorities because they were discriminated against in the past, and we have to even the field."