Nov 8, 2016 - The lesser of two evils?
- Thread starter TX Redman
- Start date
- Status
If you take Comey at his word he had 9 conversations with Trump and Flynn only came up once the day after he was fired when Trump allegedly said "I HOPE blah blah blah" Flynn never came up again in their conversations. That's the extent of this obstruction. Good luck with that
1.) John McCain was either drunk or may have had a medical issue during the hearing.
2.) Following Fun's casting, I have never been so attracted to Loretta Lynch
3.) Today was an embarrassing day for the Justice Department all the way around (Lynch and Sessions both jokes)
4.) Dems and Repubs can finally agree on something.....Comey botched the Clinton email investigation.
5.) Many Trump supporters on this site are paralyzed by 8 years of hate for liberals. Now, completely incapable of evaluating anything with balanced objectivity.
2.) Following Fun's casting, I have never been so attracted to Loretta Lynch
3.) Today was an embarrassing day for the Justice Department all the way around (Lynch and Sessions both jokes)
4.) Dems and Repubs can finally agree on something.....Comey botched the Clinton email investigation.
5.) Many Trump supporters on this site are paralyzed by 8 years of hate for liberals. Now, completely incapable of evaluating anything with balanced objectivity.
For me after watching it I dont really have a good feeling for anyone involved.
The one thing is that to me it looks like now after hearing the testimony so much of this Russia stuff is BS and it gives me more hate for the media.
Trump clearly brings some of this shit on himself and opens his mouth way to much. I had the same feeling about the Injustice dept as you did
I totally understand Trumps anger when Comey told him he wasn't being investigated personally and Trump being pissed off that Comey wouldn't comment on it publicly but I thought this firing would come back to bite him in the ass and he created more trouble than it was worth
When you use this phrase does it refer to the way you see the world? Through your own eyes relative to your own experience and prejudices? If so, do you see a problem describing that view as objective? Because I do. If not, do you see how it renders your statement about the motives of others meaningless? Because I do. But then I'm not objective about my own subjectivity, as you are.
Agreed, undoubtedly, anyone's objectivity will be influenced by life experiences and prejudices. That said, if you are never able to rationalize that "your side" messed up, that (imo) represents a deficit in objectivity.
Naturally, I will wait for an articulate response outlining why your brilliance should not be subjected to such nonsense. Which, ironically, further exemplifies a lack of objectivity.
Good day and thank you for exposing me to your omniscience.
beast of the east
Active member
Johnny, I really respect how you have strong partisan views, but maintain civil dialogue in this thread, as do most of the people here.
As far as I see it, what you, as a rank and file Democrat, don't understand is the following: This is NOT about impeaching Donald Trump, and every politician knows that impeachment proceedings will not even remotely happen. It's not about Trump collaborating with Russia to win the election. No Democratic politician believes that actually happened. It's not about Trump constructing a relationship with Russia or any other foreign government for personal gain, or whether diplomats staying in Trump hotels are violating US law or adulterating trust, or currying favor.
It's all about throwing hubris in Trump's path to make him and his team defend, defend, defend, and to obstruct his Presidency to render it impotent. More importantly, it is completely and thoroughly designed to undermine public trust in Trump's administration. The liberal media is more than totally complicit, and whatever scandalous however ridiculous the claims might be, liberal news outlets will report it as serious news.
So when you anxiously await Trump's removal from office amid scandal, you've swallowed everything hook line and sinker. The Democratic Party could care less about people like you though - you are already in the bag for the next election be it midterms or 2020. The complete intention is to get to just enough independents and uncommitted voters who will be swayed by sound bites and buy into sensationalized news about nothing to gain control of both houses and unseat Republicans in 2020.
For everything liberals are saying about Comey's testimony yesterday, one thing they aren't saying is what Comey didn't come close to - that there is reasonable evidence (or any evidence at all) to believe that Russia somehow conspired with Trump to derail Clinton. What no one can answer is why on earth would the Russians want to deal with a Trump, whose America first policies will only reassure the world that America is firmly asserting its might and authority, and will no longer cower to Russian's expanding influence in the middle east or eastern Europe. I would also think they would have greatly favored Obama's third term in the form of Hillary, since on the international stage, he was about as fearsome as Barney Fife, with about as much courage.
If anything, Comey indicted himself as a weasel. His copious note taking and leaks to the press revealed that much more than serving the public or the President, he was serving himself. His testimony was designed by him to restore his career, which in public service is by all means over (unless of course his weaselly ways would suit a Hillary, much like Debbie Wasserman Schultz) the most damning testimony of all was that Loretta Lynch instructed him to change the narrative of his investigation into the Clinton email scandal, at the request of Obama. That's how Obama rolls. Testimony likes that actually affirms all the disgusting truth about Benghazi, where Obama's team sought to change the narrative as a spontaneous riot, and did not engage troops lest it escalate into a major conflict just weeks before the 2012 election. (We quickly forget Obama's rallying cry - I saved GM and have ISIL on the run).
Sometimes the truth is hardest to believe in a sea of falsehoods. But if you believe that you are anything but a sheep as a receptor of a campaign solely designed to wrest control away from Republicans, you are mistaken.
Yeah no, we don't agree. You miss the point. Objective means "not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased." So if your "objectivity [is] ... influenced by life experiences" it's not objectivity. It's opinion and everyone's opinion - even yours - is subjective. That's the point. I understand that you like to think of yourself as objective and project yourself as an "independent" because you think that gives your opinion more weight because it means that you're fair and everyone else isn't. But that's akin to an appeal to authority, where you make yourself the authority. Whereas what's really happening is that in your subjective opinion you find yourself objective and everyone else not objective. That's the rub. Which is why you can state objectively that anyone who disagrees with your assessment of Trump must have had their rationality "paralyzed by ... hate." Personally I'm not paralyzed by hate. In fact, some days it's the only thing that animates me. And in this thread I don't recall any of the people you claim are "paralyzed by ... hate" calling for the murder of people with whom they have political disagreement. I see manifestations of hate, but not from "Trump supporters."
Blind loyalty to an idea is certainly one thing that indicates a deficit of objectivity. Another thing that represents a deficit of objectivity is claiming that your own ideas - having been, as you admit, "influenced by life experiences and prejudices" - represent "balanced objectivity." That's why the (imo) up there ^^^^ is redundant: because in most cases nearly everything everyone says is their opinion.
You've made clear in the past that you find my vocabulary and rhetoric intimidating. It wasn't much of a point the first time and it doesn't wear well with age. I am what I am and I write how I write. I could dumb it down but I wouldn't want to insult you.
Well Alanis, that's all well and good, but I don't claim to be objective. On the contrary, I'm highly opinionated and realize that many most or all of my opinions - based as they are on the peculiar circumstances that engendered them - are what could charitably be termed eccentric. Let me update what I wrote above: I am what I am and I write how I write and most especially I believe what I believe, with the proviso that my brilliance allows me to realize that if I believed that what I believe was objective truth that would be nonsense.
I detect a whiff of sarcasm. Sarcasm being a sign of scorn and scorn being (imo) subjective, the only conclusion is that you're paralyzed by hate. Res ipsa loquitur.
Certainly not intimidated by your vocabulary and rhetoric (quick.....start reviewing old posts and look. Good luck!). However, I do find you to be insecure, petulant and addicted to having the last word. My guess is, when removed from the armor of your keyboard and screen, you're a quiet unassertive mouse (imo).
There is however a more intellectual question implicitly skirted around here: Whether there is such thing as an objective reality? For example, if you observe gravity and I observe gravity are our individual "experiences" leading to a collective objective reality or a scientific truth, and can this objective reality or scientific truth be universal? While subjectivity is obviously a truism, it also falls into the postmodern trap of everything being subjective and hence relative, and so an objective way of finding a way if objective truth exists becomes meaningless ... if everything is subjective.
I think it is perhaps possible to empirically and objectively test whether the policies of Trump are better, the same, or worse in comparison to Obama or Clinton based on the objectives of the policy interventions. Here my findings are that it is more possible to do so, and Trump is "objectively" better if one seeks greater growth, reduced inequality and even improved environs.
Spocky Ramone
Well-known member
Is this Esperanto?
beast of the east
Active member
Burned into my catalog of sports memory is the image of Willie Mays, the epitome of style, grace, and flair, and perhaps the enormous baseball talent of his generation, stumbling in the outfield in the 1973 Series. He was a grim shadow of the incredible Willie Mays, and as glee filled as I was that the Mets brought him home to NY for his final two seasons, wished he had retired when he was a semblance of the great Mays. Politicians should have a mandatory retirement age. I loved McCain for his bi-partisanship, but there is a time for everyone to retire. On that note, he is hardly alone. Charles Rangel, Nancy Pelosi, and a bunch of others, if they ever were talented great Americans, should gracefully exit as they are long past their expiration date.
Spocky Ramone
Well-known member
Not everyone is Joltin' Joe
All opinion - which can perhaps be defined as a synthesis of various facts - is subjective. That doesn't mean the facts didn't happen or that there's no truth or reality. Howard Zinn's People's History and and Lynne Cheney's America are based upon the same events, things that actually happened; one portrays America as - in Jim Comey's words - a great shining city on the hill and the other as a racist anti-egalitarian abomination. Unless you deny consciousness - and what's the point of that - the things they write about actually occurred and have their own truth, separate and apart from their representation in literature. That Stalin airbrushed Nikolai Yezhov out of a photograph doesn't mean that Yezhov wasn't there when the picture was taken.
Postmodernism as a political movement is merely leftist mumbo jumbo designed to deconstruct society, in the same way that Derrida and Baudrillard meant to deconstruct art and literature. If nothing means anything no thing is better than any other thing and therefore there's no danger in overthrowing the erstwhile venerated collection of wisdoms - religion, science, government, philosophy - that man has accumulated over the course if his history. And so we can all march forward to a leftist utopia of rice fields and group think. That's not what I'm talking about at all.
I agree that it's possible to test whether one policy is more effective than another in producing a particular outcome, because it's possible to observe reality, to know things, to discover facts. Whether that outcome is "better" or "worse" is subjective. If Trump cuts taxes and that results in an increase in GDP that's not necessarily "better" to a leftist like Obama who thinks that the US has too much already and that slowing the rise of the oceans is more important than providing the comforts of the first world - like running water and electricity - to impoverished denizens of the third. Because and speaking of irony, to progressives progress is worse, not better.
beast of the east
Active member
Read the book "A Hero's life" which is incredibly well done. It chronicles not only the Yankee Clipper's sports career, but his impact on Italian Americans and their status in America.
- Status