Trump on undocumented immigrants: 'These aren't people. These are animals.'

[*bfine32*]

(05-25-2018, 01:34 AM)Dill Wrote: I am "suggesting" that when "asked directly" I have pointed to linguistic and contextual facts which establish he is a clumsy speaker who leaves his statements open to misconstruction. You simply cannot find a post in which I claim trump really was calling all immigrants animals.  But since I am resisting your claim Trump "obviously" was refering to MS 13 you have decided that can only mean I mean he meant all immigrants.

Letting others speak for me on an issue hardly implies "blindness." We do it when we elect political leaders. And your mention of a light-hearted statement as proof of "blindness" is just a desire to have something, anything, to throw at me.  Adding "hate" to blind on this evidence is, well, pretty wild. 

You are saying that your "undecideds" will embrace a cheating horn dog of a president who disses prisoners of war and destroys the credibility of the FBI with spy-lies while they are investigating an attack on the integrity of US elections--because these undecideds are turned off by the occasional journalist who actually manages to exaggerate the negative import of something Trump said? 

The real undecideds will be those party-blind conservatives who see that keeping Trump in office because he is a "conservative" is neither good for the country nor for conservatism.

This is great, Roll with it.

[Dill]

(05-25-2018, 01:37 AM)bfine32 Wrote: This is great, Roll with it.

It is great. And I did roll with it.


There is no conservative defense of Trump.
And people who are going to support him no matter what have no business musing on others' supposed "blindness."

Let's roll with that too.

[Griever]

(05-25-2018, 01:56 AM)Dill Wrote: It is great. And I did roll with it.


There is no conservative defense of Trump.
And people who are going to support him no matter what have no business musing on others' supposed "blindness."

Let's roll with that too.

when it comes to defending trump, they dont bother moving the goalposts, they just destroy them and ignore everything else

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(05-25-2018, 01:34 AM)Dill Wrote:

I am "suggesting" that when "asked directly" I have pointed to linguistic and contextual facts which establish he is a clumsy speaker who leaves his statements open to misconstruction. You simply cannot find a single post in which I claim trump really was calling all immigrants animals, much less "throughout the thread."  But since I am resisting your claim Trump "obviously" was refering to MS 13 you have decided that can only mean I mean he meant all immigrants.

That is an argument that has been advanced by many on your side of this issue. 

Quote:Letting others speak for me on an issue hardly implies "blindness." We do it when we elect political leaders. And your mention of a light-hearted statement as proof of "blindness" is just a desire to have something, anything, to throw at me.  Adding "hate" to blind on this evidence is more of the same. Way more. 

You know who speaks for me?  Me.

Quote:You are saying that your "undecideds" will embrace a cheating horn dog of a president who disses prisoners of war and destroys the credibility of the FBI with spy-lies while they are investigating an attack on the integrity of US elections--because these undecideds are turned off by the occasional journalist who actually manages to exaggerate the negative import of something Trump said?  Those journalists are such meanies, but the guy who mimics a handicapped reporter and tweets a picture a senator's wife alongside Melania to call the other woman ugly belongs in the most exhalted office in the land, the face of the USA and role model to youth??

Here is where you go into full blinders mode.  This is not a binary choice.  We don't have to be team Trump or team anti-Trump.  You both have highly unpleasant characteristics that make identifying with you unpalatable.  In your rabid opposition you and others like you have essentially turned into a Trump clone, except your opinions come from the other side of the spectrum.  When a clear thinking, rational person watches you and Trump roll around in the mud we think two things; both of those people are idiots and they both got really dirty.

 

Quote:  Hmm. I don't WANT to go with Trump--but there was that article which claimed he called ALL immigrants animals . . . . .

Again, implying that this is a binary choice.  I get the appeal of a black and white world view.  Nuance requires a subtlety and ability that many lack.  Like being able to admit that islam is currently responsible for horrible misogyny in numerous countries without interpreting that factual statement as an attack on every practicing muslim.

Quote:The real undecideds will be those party-blind conservatives who see that keeping Trump in office because he is a "conservative" is neither good for the country nor for conservatism.

No, the real undecideds are the people who aren't blindly bound to an ideology and let the circumstances of each incident dictate their opinion of said incident.

[hollodero]

(05-25-2018, 09:02 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Here is where you go into full blinders mode.  This is not a binary choice.  We don't have to be team Trump or team anti-Trump.  You both have highly unpleasant characteristics that make identifying with you unpalatable.  In your rabid opposition you and others like you have essentially turned into a Trump clone, except your opinions come from the other side of the spectrum.  When a clear thinking, rational person watches you and Trump roll around in the mud we think two things; both of those people are idiots and they both got really dirty.

I don't think that's entirely fair to say. I feel you're making it binary as well here by exaggerating the anti Trump's conduct onto Trump levels.
Trump is Trump after all, he does the things he does and tweets the things he tweets, and almost all (ok, you might say at least quite some) critizism of Trump is validated to some extent - a few examples where it's not don't drag every critic in the mud for good.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(05-25-2018, 09:22 AM)hollodero Wrote: I don't think that's entirely fair to say. I feel you're making it binary as well here by exaggerating the anti Trump's conduct onto Trump levels.
Trump is Trump after all, he does the things he does and tweets the things he tweets, and almost all (ok, you might say at least quite some) critizism of Trump is validated to some extent - a few examples where it's not don't drag every critic in the mud for good.

To be sure, and I'm not making that argument.  Every Trump statement is not reprehensible and every Trump criticism is not on the worst Trump level.  But take the thread topic as an example.  Trump clearly calls MS13 members animals.  As a person who has dealt, in person, with these guys for years I can tell you that is a kind word to use to describe them.  But the Dems and anti-Trump types immediately latch on to the idea that Trump is talking about all illegal immigrants and actively defend members of a violent street gang.  Look at some of the responses in this thread, one of our posters actually compared US soldiers to ISIS fighters!

If Schumer, Pelosi and like minded people simply stated the obvious, that Trump was talking about MS13 but that his previous comments on illegal immigrants mean he needs to be more clear when making that type of statement in order to avoid being perceived as lumping all illegal immigrants into a group with gang and cartel members.  That I could actually respect.  That would reflect a nuanced view and a willingness to speak the truth instead of using an offhand remark to whip up faux outrage.  If you're outraged at everything then the really important gets lumped in with the inane and this does no one any favors.  It's like the word "racist".  It used to be a word with tremendous power.  It's now been used so much it's lost all meaning.  People laugh when they hear it used.

[Dill]

(05-25-2018, 09:22 AM)hollodero Wrote: I don't think that's entirely fair to say. I feel you're making it binary as well here by exaggerating the anti Trump's conduct onto Trump levels.
Trump is Trump after all, he does the things he does and tweets the things he tweets, and almost all (ok, you might say at least quite some) critizism of Trump is validated to some extent - a few examples where it's not don't drag every critic in the mud for good.

The bolded point seems to me to centrally shape all public discourse about Trump. "Both sides"--but in different ways.

Trump not only "does the things he does," he does them every day. And in the past, as now, it was customary for the press to report such things. And the public then judged. In the country I grew up in, a politician who tweeted a picture of an opponent's wife to publicly call her ugly, or who dissed a POW who refused to leave confinement before his comrades, was toast.

But not in the country I live in now. The press daily reports behavior that would have destroyed politicians in the past, and even though some outraged Republicans condemn it, there is no effect on Trump and supporters. Trump supporters, especially those who call themselves conservatives, cannot really defend his behavior. That leaves them with basically three options:

1. False equivalence, often taking the form of whataboutism.  Trump has 19 accusers of sexual misconduct and at least one paid off porn star he lied about. But no one is talking about Bill Clinton or his enabler Hillary--why do THEY get a pass?  This is also why ANY exaggeration on the anti-Trump side will take up so much Oxygen. It is fodder for equivalence. Bias on "both sides."

2. Alternative facts, The FBI says it used an informant to monitor members of the Trump campaign who were contacted by Russians. Trump says the Obama deep state placed a spy in his campaign. "Tapped" his wires!   Consistently refer to alternative facts as if they were plain, obvious. That sets up the next point.

3. Character assassination. Fake News, Lying New York Times! Former heads of the CIA and FBI are "proven liars" and untrustworthy now, for speaking up for rule of law.  Trump criticism supposedly proceeds from base motives and psychological deficiencies of Trump's critics.  Flawed personalities explain the reaction to a president who fired the head of the FBI for refusing to call off an investigation into that president's own campaign. They don't really criticize Trump because he profits from office and put US foreign policy in the hands of a family member with no experience, and undermines the credibility of the FBI and CIA. They just "hate" him." And because we see Trump criticism in the news from morning till night, that is only a sign of how much the liberal establishment is trying to tear him down because he is so effective. With this comes the effort to present Trump critics as OVER THE TOP, making wild inferences from unsubstantiated evidence. They are so horribly biased they cannot make out the obvious--Obama planted a spy! Clapper admitted as much!  If Trump simply drinks a diet coke they are all over him. So the same if he tweets that Mika Brezinski had a face lift or 3-5 million illegally voted? Haters are going to say what they are going to say!

Throw into the mix people who claim not to like or support Trump, but still see Democrats as the party of Benghazi, Fast and Furious, and the IRS scandal, as framed by Fox. They cannot bring themselves to confirm the rightness of criticism of Trump and must continue to attack Democrats and "leftists" (as Fox commentators call virtually all non-Trump supporters) when they criticize Trump. What Trump does is not worse, does not pose a greater threat to national security and public norms, than anything the Fox-image of Hillary did or would do. And at least with him the rich get a tax cut and the base gets a wall. In short, what Trump does, is not really that bad, not really unprecedented.  JFK had mistresses too, you know! Hillary lied about that sniper once!

The destructive, gaslighting effect of all this is to normalize the abnormal, and abnormalize the normal--to the detriment of traditional standards of discursive and journalistic truth, not to mention ethical norms the younger generations are supposed to be learning.  "Bias hunters" generally do not appeal to those standards or norms, and so simply contribute to the fog. Calling out both sides shows "independence", regardless of what any given side is actually doing. By a kind of magical thinking, asymmetry is forced into symmetry for "balance."

In short, we are talking about a struggle over public discourse--control of the narrative, as they say--in which one side is continually trying to ground judgment in the obvious facts of Trump's behavior and their implications for traditional standards and norms, "Trump doing what he does" as you say, and the other treats everything at the level of rhetoric untethered to either the facts of Trump's behavior or the aforementioned standards/norms. In that milieu, critique of Trump for blowing up the Iran Deal can register simply as butthurt for Hillary's loss. One can acknowledge bias on the Trump side but also on the anti-Trump side since they keep criticizing Trump.  But coming out wholly against Trump as damaging to the nation would merely reveal blinkered, one-sided bias. The unstated assumption grounding that position is that Trump is "normal." Sure he is DIFFERENT from previous presidents--colorful, shaking things up, not a politician--but he is not crossing lines of propriety or undermining norms and expectations of competence to a greater degree than any other president.  Democrats are sweating the small stuff. 

So in forums like this, you see people who never explicitly defend or criticize Trump, but do consistently criticize his critics, as we see in this thread and others. As if a rather minor and understandable exaggeration or misrecognition of Trump's hate-speech record is what we should all have our backs up about--not the Trump behavior which is leading us into a consitutional crisis. It's the Trump-critics fault if we are not concentrating on the other bad stuff Trump is doing. 

I've gone on too long for a forum post, but I cannot resist one last point--at least as interesting as the actuality of Trump's normalization is the question of how we arrived at this conjuncture. How did the US public come to a point where such unethical and incompetent behavior is either not recognized as such or, if recognized, is supposed not to have serious consequences.  LOL look, Trump was elected and we don't have a nuclear war yet!  All those important democratic  norms and standards of evidence had to be broken BEFORE Trump declared for office. Fox, fundamentalist Sunday schools, magical thinking, the internet, conflict-free public education, Capitalism, Nixon, Clinton, the Vietnam war, Exxon's PR war on the Global Warming thesis--the Trump effect is overdetermined sure, but sorting out the immediate causes for this decline would be worth the effort.

[*PhilHos*]

(05-25-2018, 01:34 AM)Dill Wrote: You simply cannot find a single post in which I claim trump really was calling all immigrants animals, much less "throughout the thread." 

I didn't go through the whole thread but on the second page of this thread I found the following posts which are NOT of you making the claim; however, they do seem to imply or you seemingly want us to infer that Trump was really calling all immigrants animals.

(05-21-2018, 04:15 PM)Dill Wrote: Given the demonstrative pronoun, I would say Person B is referring to MS13. 

Now lets remove the pronoun. Person B says.

"We have people coming into the country, or trying to come in — and we’re stopping a lot of them — but we’re taking people out of the country. You wouldn’t believe how bad these people are. These aren’t people. These are animals."


Now I am not sure whether Person B is referring to MS 13 alone or to MS 13 as part of a larger group of "animals" or most or all immigrants.

Why can't Person B just continue referring to MS13? "This gang is composed of some very bad people . . . These aren't people. These are animals."   

Back to my question, which you didn't answer, Why do you suppose Trump shifts from MS 13 to "people"?   

(05-21-2018, 03:51 PM)Dill Wrote: A sheriff expresses frustration to Trump about specific laws which limit reporting to ICE.  Trump responds with a vague, wandering discourse about the "people" coming into the US whom "you wouldn't believe how bad these people are. These aren't people. These are animals. We are taking them out of the country at a level and at a rate that's never happened before." 

(05-21-2018, 03:30 PM)Dill Wrote: Why do you suppose Trump shifts to describing "people"--"thousands" of them?  

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(05-25-2018, 02:08 PM)PhilHos Wrote: I didn't go through the whole thread but on the second page of this thread I found the following posts which are NOT of you making the claim; however, they do seem to imply or you seemingly want us to infer that Trump was really calling all immigrants animals.

Uh oh.  I'm sure you'll get a labyrinthine response using a lot of academic terms designed to put us proles in our place.  I look forward to reading it.

[Dill]

(05-25-2018, 02:08 PM)PhilHos Wrote: I didn't go through the whole thread but on the second page of this thread I found the following posts which are NOT of you making the claim; however, they do seem to imply or you seemingly want us to infer that Trump was really calling all immigrants animals.

Let me offer a hypothesis which should explain every statement I have made about Trump's "animals" comment.

Bels was right to see Trump as off in a revery and suddenly jolted back to reality by the mention of "MS 13". 

Trump then begins to ramble, slipping quickly from MS 14 to talking about the kind of "people" who cross the border--"animals."  But I don't agree with Bels that Trump was "plainly" talking about MS 13 then. People just decide that he was or decide that he was not, or like me, say that his wording lends itself to misconstruction and don't feel a strong need to come down on one side or the other.

Bfine inadvertently drew attention to the problem when he rephrased Trump's words to add the demonstrative pronoun, which suddenly dispelled all fog. Had Trump actually done that, there would be no kerfuffle over his intentions.
,
But there is a kerfuffle because 1) Trump didn't use a demonstrative, limiting pronoun, and 2) because of his past negative statements about immigrants, his penchant for characterizing them as rapists and killers long before the focus on MS 13. Thus some wonder if he was really referring to all immigrants. The battle then is over context clues and Trump's history of negative stereotyping of immigrants.

So I see a linguistic "bump" on the road between "MS 13" and "people"  which lends itself to misconstruction of this particular speaker's words, as it would not, say, to the words of Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush, had they spoken that carelessly.

Thus I kept asking Bfine "why the shift from MS 13 to people" because it is a sloppy transition from a specific to a general category which invites misreading; it does not support a dogmatic claim that the president who wants to deport millions who are "not Mexico's best" and punitively separate children from parents just couldn't have meant anything else.

I refused a binary choice (not to imply that all binary choices should be refused, or that all choices are binary) and that's why you don't see me agreeing that Trump is "plainly" speaking of MS 13, and why you can't find any statements claiming that he is not. But you do find me challenging claims of plain meaning. That's all.

[Millhouse]

To clarify, is anyone defending the MS13 illegal immigrants right to be here? Because they are human beings too, and should be afforded the rights of murder, theft, rape, and more murder here in America just as our own homegrown criminals do. And if they get caught, they should not be deported because that is racist.

[*bfine32*]

(05-25-2018, 02:08 PM)PhilHos Wrote: I didn't go through the whole thread but on the second page of this thread I found the following posts which are NOT of you making the claim; however, they do seem to imply or you seemingly want us to infer that Trump was really calling all immigrants animals.

Oh he has most certainly inferred that through the entire thread; yet has failed to provide a direct answer when asked. That is why I disengaged in the subject. That type of intellectual dishonesty does not to facilitate rational discussion. 

[*PhilHos*]

(05-25-2018, 03:17 PM)Dill Wrote: Let me offer a hypothesis which should explain every statement I have made about Trump's "animals" comment.

Bels was right to see Trump as off in a revery and suddenly jolted back to reality by the mention of "MS 13". 

Trump then begins to ramble, slipping quickly from MS 14 to talking about the kind of "people" who cross the border--"animals."  But I don't agree with Bels that Trump was "plainly" talking about MS 13 then. People just decide that he was or decide that he was not, or like me, say that his wording lends itself to misconstruction and don't feel a strong need to come down on one side or the other.

Bfine inadvertently drew attention to the problem when he rephrased Trump's words to add the demonstrative pronoun, which suddenly dispelled all fog. Had Trump actually done that, there would be no kerfuffle over his intentions.
,
But there is a kerfuffle because 1) Trump didn't use a demonstrative, limiting pronoun, and 2) because of his past negative statements about immigrants, his penchant for characterizing them as rapists and killers long before the focus on MS 13. Thus some wonder if he was really referring to all immigrants. The battle then is over context clues and Trump's history of negative stereotyping of immigrants.

So I see a linguistic "bump" on the road between "MS 13" and "people"  which lends itself to misconstruction of this particular speaker's words, as it would not, say, to the words of Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush, had they spoken that carelessly.

Thus I kept asking Bfine "why the shift from MS 13 to people" because it is a sloppy transition from a specific to a general category which invites misreading; it does not support a dogmatic claim that the president who wants to deport millions who are "not Mexico's best" and punitively separate children from parents just couldn't have meant anything else.

I refused a binary choice (not to imply that all binary choices should be refused, or that all choices are binary) and that's why you don't see me agreeing that Trump is "plainly" speaking of MS 13, and why you can't find any statements claiming that he is not. But you do find me challenging claims of plain meaning. That's all.

382 words (I copied and pasted into Word for the word count). That's what you typed here. 382 words heavily implying Trump meant all immigrants from someone who wants people to know he did not CLAIM Trump meant all immigrants. 

Either he did or he didn't mean it. If you think he did, just say so. Stop this pussyfooting around implying he did with your lengthy posts that most people don't even read. For all his many, many, MANY faults, at least Lucie isnt' afraid to say what he believes nor is he afraid to stand behind what he says. 

[Dill]

(05-25-2018, 04:30 PM)PhilHos Wrote: 382 words (I copied and pasted into Word for the word count). That's what you typed here. 382 words heavily implying Trump meant all immigrants from someone who wants people to know he did not CLAIM Trump meant all immigrants. 

Either he did or he didn't mean it. If you think he did, just say so. Stop this pussyfooting around implying he did with your lengthy posts that most people don't even read. For all his many, many, MANY faults, at least Lucie isnt' afraid to say what he believes nor is he afraid to stand behind what he says. 

I don't see a special virtue in posting sound bites and "standing behind" unsupported claims, which is mostly what Lucy did. In fact, I would say standing behind unsupported claims is at the root of his "many faults."

People who want that unsupported sound bite will not likely find any of my posts interesting. They should not read them.
I don't mind if "most people" don't.

So sure--382 words explaining what I refused to do.  And anticipating objections; making confirmation bias just a little bit harder to nurture.

I'll repeat this once more, without supporting explanation.

I refused a binary choice . . . and that's why you don't see me agreeing that Trump is "plainly" speaking of MS 13, and why you can't find any statements claiming that he is not. But you do find me challenging claims of plain meaning. That's all.

If I want to point out an ambiguity, then I think I have a right to do so and to call it such--this being a free country and all; I don't think I have to guess what Trump meant and then "just say so."
That wouldn't suddenly make me "honest" or "rational."

[Dill]

(05-25-2018, 04:20 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Oh he has most certainly inferred that through the entire thread; yet has failed to provide a direct answer when asked. That is why I disengaged in the subject. That type of intellectual dishonesty does not to facilitate rational discussion. 

He has refused a binary (black and white) resolution--a "direct answer" with only two options.

Then compounded the sin by giving his reasons--articulating three possible resolutions.

And you haven't really "disengaged."  You cannot respond to my points directly, and you cannot just ignore them,
so now you respond indirectly, making my character the issue, not Trump's.

Something more than "rationality" and "intellectual dishonesty" is in play when Trump defenders desperately need closure on this one incident--and a Trump critic refuses it.

[Bengalzona]

So, my tax dollars are being spent on child care for illegal aliens in detention... merely for the perverse enjoyment of some in this administration to show how inhumanely they can treat other humans?

[*bfine32*]

(06-11-2018, 05:36 PM)Bengalzona Wrote: So, my tax dollars are being spent on child care for illegal aliens in detention... merely for the perverse enjoyment of some in this administration to show how inhumanely they can treat other humans?

Either that or because people are bringing their families over here illegally. 

[Bengalzona]

(06-11-2018, 06:10 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Either that or because people are bringing their families over here illegally. 

And those families are being split up, which creates a need for our government to take care of their kids, which is coming out of our pocketbooks. That expense wouldn't be necessary if they weren't being split up.

Tax waste! Tax waste!

[*bfine32*]

(06-11-2018, 06:14 PM)Bengalzona Wrote: And those families are being split up, which creates a need for our government to take care of their kids, which is coming out of our pocketbooks. That expense wouldn't be necessary if they weren't being split up.

Tax waste! Tax waste!

……..or if folks didn't bring their families across the border illegally. 


But I'm with you, just send the hole family back. 

[Bengalzona]

(06-11-2018, 06:22 PM)bfine32 Wrote: ……..or if folks didn't bring their families across the border illegally. 


But I'm with you, just send the hole family back. 

Exactly. I have no problem shipping illegals back. Just keep them together. :andy: