monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

@georgeob1,

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Our democracy is based on a union of sovereign states with a presumption of state sovereignty in local matters and Federal supremacy in constitutionally defined areas.

You don't say. Golly, had no idea.

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Polling ( the reality of it, not your conceptual imaginings) involves unverifiable statistical sampling to provide apprximate estimates of public attitudes on various topics.

That (unverifiable) a misrepresentation. They are necessarily generalized accounts but operate within predictable margins or error. There's nothing untoward about such metrics and they provide valuable approximations of "truth" (which is why marketing firms use them all the time and why all politicians use them all the time and its why probability estimations are a feature of the sciences as well)

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Individual people are not statistical averages, and they have rights as individuals to do what they want - even if you and other self-appointed seers don't think it wise. It's called freedom.

That's not actually very comprehensible as written. You could try again if you wish to.

As to your ownership of the one true definition of "freedom", I don't think I'll buy that.

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@old europe,

old europe wrote:

It's not the American way to look for working solutions outside of American borders. Only Americans will be able to come up with American solutions that work for American people. Americans will never accept non-American solutions for American problems. Americans will build a better America for Americans with American solutions to American problems, and non-Americans can **** right off!

About right?

I won't presume to speak for McGentrix, but it appears to me that you have pretty well captured his meaning.

It is also my string impression that if you substituted the phrase "European advoccate of the EU" for "American" in the above paragraph it would be equally accurate. ( I used that somewhat awkward phrase because there appears to be some discord on the matter, particularly in the UK, Humgary and aother member nations.)

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Quote:

AfD politician says Germany should stop atoning for Nazi crimes

(The Guardian)

Right on. It's like that whole slavery/racism thing. Forget about it already.

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It just occurred to me... I wonder if when Trump visits Russia if he'll room with Edward Snowden.

Because for both of them, when they left/leave the US, the first place they hightail it to is Russia.

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

Individual people are not statistical averages, and they have rights as individuals to do what they want - even if you and other self-appointed seers don't think it wise. It's called freedom.

Well, George, that's just your opinion. One that is not generally shared by cheese-eating, collectivist commies like Blathy. For them it is only the collective herd, not the individual, that has any value, or rights. And, of course, a necessary corollary of that is that "freedom" has no value.

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@blatham,

blatham wrote:

Quote:
Polling ( the reality of it, not your conceptual imaginings) involves unverifiable statistical sampling to provide apprximate estimates of public attitudes on various topics.
That (unverifiable) a misrepresentation. They are necessarily generalized accounts but operate within predictable margins or error. There's nothing untoward about such metrics and they provide valuable approximations of "truth" (which is why marketing firms use them all the time and why all politicians use them all the time and its why probability estimations are a feature of the sciences as well)

You missed what I thought was the obcious meaning. Most polls are anonymous, and those responding are not held accountable for their "votes". The responders are in no way accountable to those whom they are used by the pollsters to represent. THere is an element of Aesop's "Belling the cat" in your deluded musings in this area.

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@georgeob1,

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Most polls are anonymous, and those responding are not held accountable for their "votes".

Then you carefully and coherently explain to me george why every politician (and political entity) uses polling all the time? There aren't exceptions here other than in small venues where cost is prohibitive. Are all these thousands of Republican candidates and their teams "deluded" as you suggest I am? Are you really prepared to extend your claim where it must logically go?

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@blatham,

blatham wrote:

Quote:
AfD politician says Germany should stop atoning for Nazi crimes
(The Guardian)
Right on. It's like that whole slavery/racism thing. Forget about it already.

How do you feel about the historical grievances of the people of Quebec?

On a trip to western Ireland a few years ago I came upon a famine museum which had displays recounting the mass starvation that occurred in the late 1840s. The victims were Irish Catholics who had for over a century been dispossesed of their lands and political rights by British law. The famine occurred during a period in which Ireland was continuously an net exoporter of food to England - food from farms owned largely by absentee British landlords. (one a Colonel Boycott, whose name became a word) .

The museum was little visited, a bit dusty and unkempt, and I later discussed it with a cousin in nearby Ennis over a few drinks. . He told me that was a long ago and fading memory; the vistims and landlords are all gone and Ireland has its independence; better to live our lives in the present.

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"Do not attend to Donald Trump's words. Attend to his (generous? dignified? loving? respectful? gracious?) heart", says spokesperson Kellyanne Conway.

She also said this yesterday regarding questioning of Trump nominees:

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“This idea of humiliating and trying to embarrass qualified men and women who just wish to serve this nation is reprehensible,”

Please notice how these two statements fit together perfectly like...um...human **** and an asteroid.

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

How do you feel about the historical grievances of the people of Quebec?

Many are valid. But the more egregious Canadian moral failing involves first nations people, the Anglican Church, the Catholic Church, and the Canadian government. It's a truly despicable history. It's a history for which we Canadian citizens - even if not personally present or involved - bear a moral responsibility.

You can't just live in the present. It's not possible. The present is made from the past.

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@blatham,

How long do you believe it is required that Germany atone for Nazi crimes?

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@blatham,

blatham wrote:

Quote:
Most polls are anonymous, and those responding are not held accountable for their "votes".

Then you carefully and coherently explain to me george why every politician (and political entity) uses polling all the time? There aren't exceptions here other than in small venues where cost is prohibitive. Are all these thousands of Republican candidates and their teams "deluded" as you suggest I am? Are you really prepared to extend your claim where it must logically go?

They are used, as you well know, to predict average attitudes on various subjects and sometines with even less accuracy to associate public responses to specific acts or proposals by politicians. They are accurate enough to sustain an industry of pollsters, many of whom work on behalf of speccific political parties and advocacy groups. Thus polling is in fact used both to measure (or more accurately, estimate) average public attitudes, and to influence them. The point you are rather persistently missing is that such polls are not democracy at all, and certainly not "the essence of it" as you assert. . Direct democracy involves polls of ALL the individuals involved, or in its representative form by NAMED, ACCOUNTABLE individuals elected to represent the others.

Your formulation would empower unavccountable "pollsters" to in effect impose autocratic rule through manipulation of inherently approximate polls. Hence the reference to Aesop. I believe all this is sufficiently coherent, and I am rather surprised that you hadn't already considered it yourself.

This is yet another example of the complexity of the real world in comparison to the rather feeble concepts you would use (from your perch in BC) to govern us. Have you proposed these ideas to Justin?

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

How long do you believe it is required that Germany atone for Nazi crimes?

I think a good baseline would be until as much damage that was done could be corrected. If a treasure trove of art or wealth is found in 300 years that that Nazi's stole, I think Germany should be required to return as much of it to the rightful ancestors as is possible; the rest should be used to promote or improve the lives of Jewish citizens who's ancestors were harmed by the Nazi's.

Am I not up to date on some new issue around this Germany/Nazi atonement stuff?

1 Reply

@maporsche,

That's reasonable in terms of very specific circumstances: Like your example of uncovering stolen artwork.

The issue is that so-called "Far Right" political parties (or maybe just one) in Germany don't believe that the nation is required to "atone" for Nazi crimes in perpetuity.

Unless one is a firm believer in the Biblical tenet that the sins of the father pass on to the son, at some point "atonement" by future generations should end.

For instance, there is no one alive today who owned slaves. As horrible an institution as it was (and arguably it is right up there with murder), for how long are the ancestors of slaveholders required to "atone" for the sin?

This doesn't even address the fact that the vast majority of Americans had absolutely nothing to do with slavery and a great many of them have ancestors who fought against it, and died or were maimed in the process.

Blatham and some of his fellow progressives don't ever want to surrender the clubs they have so happily used against their opponents, and therefore believe the answer is "For All Time!"

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

The point you are rather persistently missing is that such polls are not democracy at all, and certainly not "the essence of it" as you assert. Direct democracy involves polls of ALL the individuals involved, or in its representative form by NAMED, ACCOUNTABLE individuals elected to represent the others.

Yeah, and who would want "direct democracy" to begin with, eh?

Quote:

“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.” (Thomas Jefferson)

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

Blatham and some of his fellow progressives don't ever want to surrender the clubs they have so happily used against their opponents, and therefore believe the answer is "For All Time!"

If the desired end of eliminating "racism" would be the establishment of an atmosphere and culture where skin color is irrelevant and never even mentioned or thought of in terms of social interactions, and such, then that goal will NEVER be attained with the Blathys of the world running around.

These race-baiters try to reduce every conversation to racial differences. They EMPHASIZE such differences as they may imagine to exist 24/7.

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@blatham,

blatham wrote:

Quote:
How do you feel about the historical grievances of the people of Quebec?
Many are valid. But the more egregious Canadian moral failing involves first nations people, the Anglican Church, the Catholic Church, and the Canadian government. It's a truly despicable history. It's a history for which we Canadian citizens - even if not personally present or involved - bear a moral responsibility.

You can't just live in the present. It's not possible. The present is made from the past.

If that is your view, then perhaps you have some unfinished business closer to home that should occupy your energies.

I don't find Canada's history to be despicable at all - at least in comparison to other contemporaneous realities.. The history of humanity duplicates its worst features at every turn. Consider the "British" Isles : they were settled by Celts in the Bronze age displacing earlier settlements (Picts in Scotland and others). They in turn were, in Britain, displaced by Angles and Saxon invaders who treated them rather badly. Eight hundred years later the Normans ( themselves a residue of Viking and Frank competition) invaded Britan and returned the favor. (Now the EU is doing it with all the attendent turmoil.)

This process has been replecated on every continent since the beginning of recorded history. There is no extant alternative to it in the reat world. You may imagine another, better world, but you don't inhabit it.

A great deal of real harm has been inflicted on humanity by people in search of the fulfillment of their imaginings about the failed morality of their predecessors, and their pursuit of their variously imagined perfect worlds. What have you done that gives you the stature to pass such sweeping judgment of your forebears?

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

How long do you believe it is required that Germany atone for Nazi crimes?

Let me send off a letter to Bibi Netanyahu and I'll let you know his answer.

But rather more seriously, it isn't so much a matter of atonement (the way I think of this dilemma). It is a matter of correcting injustice where that remains in play (as with racism, emotional/conceptual or structural as is the case in Canada and the US). And it is a matter of remembering that our societies can too easily fall into such things.

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@georgeob1,

What I find contradictory is the GOPs attempts to repeal ACA without a replacement. They have tried over 50 times. Did they do their due deligence to learn whether Americans wanted ACA or not? That's over 20 million people who now have health insurance.

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@georgeob1,

If blatham and his fellow progressives wish to be flagellants for the many sins of European White Christians, I applaud their religious zeal.

In reality, they want to wield the lash against those who disagree with them, sanctimoniously confident that by doing so they have "atoned."

1 Reply

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